Chapter 27

“You can’t shapeshift yet, and I recommend that you don’t try it on your own either. You’ll only hurt yourself more,” she warned me, smugly. After a short pause, Hilda stood at attention again and looked at her hands clasped on her own thigh. I anticipated she was going to say something unpleasant. “Nika told me about your wife. I’m so sorry, I know how much you loved Anya. What has happened to her is horrible. She was a wonderful girl.”

I didn’t respond to that, but just stared at her, waiting for her to understand that I couldn’t talk about Anya at that moment, when the pain was still so intense. Hilda understood; you could see it by the way her jaw clenched. Any other being with wolf blood would have understood it perfectly, too.

You don’t mess with the partner of a fellow human being.

“I see everything clearly now, Lai,” she told me calmly, in conclusion. “I see it. And I’m not going to ask questions or judge. It’s enough for me to know that you’re not dead, yo