Page 25 of Eternal Light (Fated in the Stars #5)

The phone is ringing when Rowan comes back to himself, but it cuts off immediately afterward and stays silent.

There isn’t the luxury of memory loss about how he ended up on his side in a dirty alley.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been out, either, but the pain has lessened, and that place in his heart where Jay has always existed is once again pulsing with his alpha’s energy.

Thank fuck.

He must have fallen hard because his body aches all over, although he’s sure he was already sitting before he passed out. Rowan tries to sit up and reach for the phone to finally call Finn. He has to know for sure if Jay is alive—or if he’s deluding himself out of grief.

But when he reaches out, it’s not his long-fingered hand—

It’s a paw.

A large, reddish-brown paw.

Rowan looks down at it, frozen, his brain in a weird sort of disconnect.

Is he dreaming?

Has the loss of his alpha caused a psychotic break?

The phone rings again, and Rowan uses his sensitive nose to turn it over in the folds of his ripped jeans—which are lying on the ground of the alley and very much not on his body.

It’s Finn again, and it soon cuts off while Rowan just looks at it down his long snout.

Holy shit, he’s a wolf.

Nimue had been right—he is a fucking wolf. He’d thought it was hyperbole. Or history. Or a magical fairy tale…

Wait a minute…

Rowan clambers to his feet, all four of them, and checks for himself. There, attached to his doggy butt, is a wagging tail.

Why are we wagging our tail? There is decidedly nothing to be happy about, Rowan grumbles, while the wolf just keeps wagging it.

No.

He’s not doing this right now. He needs to be a person, not a wolf in the middle of downtown Clearwater. He has to find his mates, and the longer he sits on his ass here, the farther away they get.

Change us back, right the fuck now, dumbass.

Of course, nothing happens.

Why he thought the Wolf would—or could—change them back is crazy.

Now that the dumbass is free, he’s not going back without getting what he wants—and he wants Nix and Luca.

He notices that his nose is even stronger in this form. On the heels of that thought, the scents hit him from all over the alley. They force him to his belly as waves of vertigo swirl in his head.

Shit. He’s not going to be able to navigate finding Nix and Luca like this, and it’s not like he can hail a cab or order an Uber this way, either.

Mates , the wolf growls. Hurt.

Yeah, I know, but we need our alphas.

Rowan climbs to his feet again and manages to press his nose to the screen. There’s a text there from Finn: Jay in surgery for GSW. Where the fuck are you? Answer the phone.

GSW? Gunshot wound.

He’s got the phone in his teeth, and he turns toward the opening of the alley in a second.

Change of plans , he tells the wolf, before they’re loping out of the alley and onto the sidewalk.

Like a divine message, there’s an ambulance sitting at the light, and it has the Were World Health Symbol embedded in its truck number on the side.

Someone was looking out for him, or he would have no idea where to find the Were Community Hospital in Clearwater—because it’s not exactly like he could ask for directions.

He moves to the light, sitting beside a woman whose tiny Chihuahua is peeking out of her shoulder bag. He stares it down, baring a single long fang, and the little dog turns tail back into the bag.

Tsuki would be proud.

The woman doesn’t notice him, though, and when the light changes, he follows her across the street to sit near where the EMT is just closing the back doors.

When the ambulance takes off, there are no lights or sirens, and it does so at a decently sedate pace. Rowan breaks into a jog.

A racing wolf would soon garner more notice than Rowan would be comfortable with, so he’s happy for the slower pace. It’s easy to keep up at first, but as the roads clear, the vehicle speeds up, and it’s not long before it disappears ahead of him.

As luck would have it, there are now blue hospital signs high on the posts, and if he can just keep under the radar of animal control or the stray Instagrammer interested in the hundred-and-seventy-five-pound wild animal on the streets of the city, he should be good until he gets to the hospital.

The closer he gets to his destination, Rowan seems to catch more and more attention—some children point, and more than a few car horns honk. He clenches the phone between his teeth, careful not to break it, and hopes any drool won’t fry the electronics.

He spares a thought for how he got here again—just a fleeting one—and it feels right in a way that nothing has for a long time.

As right as it had been when he’d spotted LRH backstage at that small Nashville concert and had known that these were his mates—known that these men were going to be his for as long as he had breath, and probably beyond.

Taking the circuitous route to his destination means the ambulance has long ago unloaded its cargo in the open garage bay by the time Rowan arrives.

He stops dead in front of the front doors, realizing suddenly that as perfect as being a wolf—being the wolf—feels, the hospital security is not going to just let a giant wolf waltz in the front doors and politely point the way to his injured alpha.

Come on, shift back; we have to get inside.

The wolf helpfully flashes him a vision of his naked ass and other dangling bits on display if he does change them back, and Rowan groans. That’s not good either.

WWGD—What would Gideon do?

He spots a young woman sitting on a bench inside the bus shelter; she’s pretending to read a book with a werewolf on the front under a full moon.

She’s staring distractedly into space, but her eyes catch on him, and her mouth drops open a bit while she blinks, blinks, and blinks, as if she can’t believe her eyes.

Maybe she would help him?

Moving toward her, she startles, and a look of fear crosses her face. That’s not what they want at all.

Rowan drops to his belly and crawls toward her, shucking his dignity for the chance that she would call Finn back and, hopefully, be his ticket to getting inside.

“Whoa, there. You are a big fucking dog. Thought for a moment I’d lost my grip on reality…okay, Winnie-girl…touch some grass,” she mutters to herself.

He cries pitifully and rolls over on his back to show her that he’s no threat, with his belly exposed. It rankles the wolf a little, but when she coos and puts her bag and book down on the bench to approach him, he gives another pitiful whimper to show her he needs help.

“Oh, you’re just a big baby. Where’s your person? Why are you out here all by yourself?”

She approaches slowly, and Rowan is so careful to stay perfectly still until she’s finally close enough to put her hand in front of his face.

He’s not sure what she wants until it kicks in that she’s waiting for him to smell her like dogs do…even though he can already smell her gentle lemon-fresh scent from ten feet away.

So he sniffs her and gives her hand a tiny lick for good measure, as a show of goodwill. Her giggle is high and light, her joy transforming her sad brown eyes and giving them a mischievous glint.

“You really are a big baby. Okay. What to do with you? You’re not wearing a collar?” she asks.

Not here–or at least, not right now.

That’s something he’s not going to think about with his doggy dick exposed and the situation urgent.

But maybe later—definitely later.

Instead, he rolls back onto his side and drops the slimy phone in her lap.

“Oh! A phone? You took this from home, boy?” She doesn’t hesitate to pick it up, much to her own disgust. “Ew, it’s soaking wet. Fuck. Gross, gross. Hang on,” she says to herself and grabs her bag, where she pulls out a wet wipe and a few tissues.

She wipes the phone off and then uses the tissues to clean the extra drool from Rowan’s chin. “Okay, let’s see. It’s not locked? You tell your person that is a personal security hazard. Let’s see if the last number knows who you are.”

Rowan barks—because they do! It’s louder than he’d expected, and it knocks her out of her crouch and onto her ass.

She just laughs and rubs between his ears. It feels really nice. Even her voice is calming.

“Dude! Your bark has rizz. Makes me wonder about your bite.”

The phone rings just once before Finn answers. “Where have you been?”

“Uh… hello? My name is Winnie, and I think I have your dog.”

“Who is this?” Finn’s voice is suspicious.

“Winnie Chappelle? I am in front of the WCH, and your dog had this phone in his mouth. Yours is the last number that called.”

“My dog?” he says again.

Come on, Finn, figure it out .

“You don’t have a dog? He’s gigantic, like huge. He’s reddish-brown, with green eyes, looks like a wolf, and is kinda smart.”

Kinda smart? Rowan’s wolf is offended and gives a small growl of protest, nudging her elbow.

She laughs. “Okay, he took offense at that. He’s very smart and also very handsome. Yes, you are…is that better, boy?” She coos and ruffles his ears again.

It’s still nice.

“My big, reddish-brown green-eyed wolf-dog who is handsome but not so smart,” he mutters, and then, “Holy shit. I’ll be right down. Thanks for calling.”

She disconnects on her end and drops the phone into her pocket so she can rub both of his ears this time.

“He seems nice, even if he wasn’t too quick on the draw. I guess maybe he’s distracted. I can empathize.”

Rowan rubs his nose on her shoulder at her scent of sadness, offering a bit of comfort.

“My brother is sick, you know? He’s been sick off and on for a while. They don’t know why he’s worse now, and…shit…” Winnie sniffles, and she rubs her nose on the top of his head.

He ignores her snotting on him because she’s obviously really sad. Rowan understands more than he’d like what it feels like to lose someone you love.

“It’s just the two of us, you know? So I gotta work—but I’d rather be here with him.”