Chapter 6 Chapter 6

The sound of a twig snapping made me whirl around, instinctively covering myself. At the edge of the clearing stood Kyle, his expression unreadable in the shadows.

"Get out!" I screamed, humiliation burning through me. "Get OUT!"

He stepped forward instead, his hands raised placatingly. "Imogen, listen…”

“No, and this is why you shouldn’t be here. I knew I had no wolf.” I said bolting.

But Kyle was faster. His hand caught my wrist before I'd made it three steps, spinning me back toward him with surprising gentleness despite my panic.

"Let me go!" I struggled against his grip, trying to cover myself with my free arm. The humiliation was overwhelming, not just being seen naked, but being seen failing. Being proven right about my deepest fear.

"Imogen, stop." His voice was calm, steady. "Look at me."

"No! This is exactly what I didn't want. You seeing me like this, seeing that I'm nothing, that I'm..."

"Human?" He stepped closer, his amber eyes intense in the moonlight. "So what?"

I stopped struggling, stunned by his response. "So what? So I'm a freak. A Lancaster with no wolf. The first in generations to..."

"You're eighteen years and five minutes old," Kyle interrupted. "Some shifts take hours. Some take all night."

I stared at him, hardly daring to breathe. "What?"

"My brother Asher didn't shift until three in the morning. Caspian was close to dawn." His thumb traced over the pulse point on my wrist, and I realised he could probably feel my heart hammering. "The stories about midnight are mostly bullshit. Dramatic effect."

"But the journals said..."

"The journals were written by people who wanted to make it sound mystical and precise." Kyle's mouth curved into a small smile. "Reality is messier."

I felt something inside my chest loosen slightly. Not gone, but... manageable. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"Because most people shift within the first hour, and the ones who don't usually have family there to reassure them." His eyes searched my face. "You didn't give anyone the chance."

The truth of that hit harder than I expected. In my desperation to avoid humiliation, I'd guaranteed it. I'd isolated myself so completely that I had no one to tell me the most basic facts about my own transformation.

"I still don't want you here," I whispered, but the fight had gone out of me.

"I know." He released my wrist but didn't step back. "But I'm not leaving."

“Why?” I challenged, “Why do you care so much? All of a sudden?”

Kyle's face softened in a way I'd never seen before, vulnerability replacing his usual confidence.

"Because I've been watching you disappear for six years," he said quietly. "Because every time I tried to approach you, to make things right, you looked at me like I was something you'd scraped off your shoe."

"You deserved it," I said, but the words lacked their usual venom.

"Maybe. Probably." He shrugged. "But after a while, it wasn't about deserving anymore. It was about you being alone. Always alone."

The moonlight caught in his dark hair, turning the edges silver. I became acutely aware of my nakedness again and crossed my arms over my chest.

"Turn around," I muttered.

To my surprise, he did, immediately. I grabbed my t-shirt from the pile and pulled it on. It barely covered my thighs, but it was better than nothing.

"You can look now," I said.

When he turned back, his eyes stayed firmly on my face. "You don't have to be alone tonight, Imogen. Whether your wolf comes in five minutes or five hours."

I sank down onto a fallen log, suddenly exhausted. The adrenaline that had carried me this far was fading, leaving only uncertainty in its wake.

"What if it doesn't come at all?" I finally voiced my deepest fear.

Kyle sat beside me, careful to leave space between us. "Then you're still a Lancaster. Still pack."

"Your father wouldn't think so."

"My father..." Kyle hesitated. "He can be traditional to a fault. But even he wouldn't cast you out for being human."

I wasn't so sure about that. The Williams pack prided itself on its bloodlines, its strength. A human member would be an embarrassment at best, a liability at worst.

"What would you do?" I asked suddenly. "If you were me. If your wolf never came."

Kyle was quiet for so long, I thought he might not answer. When he did, his voice was thoughtful.

"I'd leave," he admitted. "Go to college somewhere far away. Start over where no one knew what I was supposed to be."

It was exactly what I'd been thinking earlier. The fact that he understood made something twist painfully in my chest.

"But," he continued, "I'd miss the forest. The pack, despite everything. The feeling of belonging to something ancient and powerful."

"I've never felt like I belonged," I confessed.

"I know." His eyes met mine, unexpectedly gentle. "That's on us. On me."

A sudden cramp seized my lower back, making me gasp. Kyle was on his feet instantly.

"Imogen?"

"I'm fine," I said automatically, but another wave of pain rolled through me, sharper this time. I doubled over, a strangled sound escaping my throat.

"It's starting," Kyle said, his voice calm despite the concern in his eyes. "The shift is beginning."

Another wave of pain crashed over me, this one so intense I couldn't breathe. My bones felt like they were trying to tear themselves apart from the inside. I fell to my hands and knees, my vision blurring.

"Oh god," I gasped, digging my fingers into the earth. "It hurts."

"I know," Kyle said, his voice closer now. "I'm right here."

The pain came in waves, each one stronger than the last. My spine felt like it was being pulled apart and reformed, vertebra by vertebra. I could hear myself making sounds I'd never made before, half-human whimpers that echoed strangely in the clearing.

"Is it supposed to hurt this much?" I managed between gasps.

"The first time is always the worst," Kyle said. I could sense him moving around me, staying close but not touching. "Your body doesn't know what it's doing yet."