Chapter 39

Neve

Mercy has a plan for the full moon, and she explains every piece of it to me twice.

I’ll spend the night in the clinic. Not in the bed with the rails, which she’s pushed into the corner, but on a thick mat on the floor, piled with quilts, where nothing can make me feel trapped. The lights will stay low. There will be no needles. She’ll have a tea ready, a real one this time, willow and valerian and something she won’t name, to take the edge off the pain. If I want it.

“Your wolf is going to push,” she says. “Like it did at Christmas. Maybe harder. I won’t lie to you about that. But this time you’re not starving, and you’re not alone, and you’re not fighting it in the middle of a party with half the pack watching.” She looks at me over her glasses. “This time, we’ll be ready.”

“We?”

“Me. And whoever you want in that room with you.” She pauses. “Only who you want. Nobody else comes through that door.”

I think about it for a long time.