Page 23

Birdie

The second the bite sank in, everything changed.

Not just in my blood or in the wild little tremor that still clung to my spine days later, but in the way I saw the world, the way I saw him . Rocky. The biker who bit me. The wolf who saved me.

And maybe the man who’d just ruined everything.

I holed up in Eliza’s spare room for three days straight. She offered me her bed, sweet as always, but I didn’t want comfort. I wanted distance. I wanted silence. I wanted to rewind to that moment before everything went sideways.

But there ain’t no rewind button for the kind of shit I’d stepped into. Not when your best friend’s baby daddy was a fox shifter, and the brooding, tattooed biker who’s been toeing the line between protector and heartbreaker just up and bites you like a goddamn chew toy.

I’d been holding it together. Sorta. Until this morning when I tried brushing my teeth and gagged on the smell of mint. The same toothpaste I’d been using for ten years suddenly made me wanna puke. My gums itched like they were stretching over fangs I couldn’t see . When I told Eliza, she had no answers.

“Everyone handles it differently,” she explained, offered me oatmeal and a, “Don’t freak out, sweetie. ”

So yeah. I was freaking out.

I stared out her kitchen window, arms wrapped around myself, watching Emma chase bubbles in the yard. Knox stood nearby like a shadow in boots, arms folded, shades on, ever the protector.

Behind me, Eliza leaned on the counter. “You should talk to him.”

I didn’t look back. “I don’t want to talk to him. I want to un-bite myself. Reverse the spell. Hit control-alt-delete on this whole damn situation.”

She was quiet for a beat. “It’s not a spell, Birdie.”

“Oh, I know . It’s worse. It’s... it’s biology. Magic biology.”

“Shifter biology,” she corrected gently. “And Rocky didn’t have a choice. You were bleeding out.”

I rounded on her. “He bit me, Eliza.”

She didn’t flinch. “And I watched you pass out in his arms. You would’ve died.”

I blinked hard, the sting in my eyes not from tears but from frustration. “Now what? I’m just supposed to accept that in a year I’m gonna grow fur and howl at the moon like some damn... werepoodle?”

Eliza bit back a grin. “Werepoodle? Seriously?”

“I don’t know what kind of dog I’ll be! What if I get stuck as a chihuahua?”

“You’re not a chihuahua. ”

“You don’t know that.”

She stepped forward and took my hands. “I do know that Rocky’s been pacing like a caged animal outside my house every night since. He’s hurting, Birdie. He didn’t want this for you. But he couldn’t let you die.”

I pulled away, hugging myself. “And now what? I can’t go back to my normal life. I work with humans, Eliza. What happens if I start shifting during a meeting? Howling, on my tiktok?”

Eliza chuckled, and I glared at her. She sobered. “Look, I get it. I didn’t know about any of this either. Not until Knox threw it at me like a hot potato. I’m still learning. Still adjusting. But I’ve seen what they are. What they really are. And they’re not monsters. Not all of them.”

I sat down hard on one of her kitchen chairs. “I need to get out of here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Mom?” Emma called from outside, holding up a daisy chain. “Can you help me tie this?”

Eliza squeezed my shoulder. “Take a walk. Clear your head. I’ll be right out.”

I left through the front and climbed into my car, heart pounding. I didn’t have a plan. I just knew I couldn’t sit still anymore. I had to breathe.

And wouldn’t you know it, my feet, well, tires, carried me straight to the Wild Dog.

I didn’t plan on going in. Just wanted to sit there, and glare at the place that turned my life inside out. But Rocky was already on the front steps, cigarette burning between two tattooed fingers, arms braced wide, elbows on his knees like he’d been waiting.

Our eyes met. I froze.

He stood, slow, cautious. “Birdie.”

I stepped out, folding my arms tight. “You got a minute?”

He nodded. “Always.”

We stood awkward in the gravel lot, the growl of motorcycles in the distance, laughter spilling out from behind the doors. The scent of motor oil and pine needles hung in the air as always but were suddenly so strong, they made me gag.

I cut straight to it. “What did you do to me?”

He blinked, but didn’t shy away. “Saved your life.”

“No,” I said, voice rising. “You changed my life. Without asking.”

His jaw clenched. “You were dying. I didn’t have time to hold a goddamn town hall, Birdie.”

“And now what? I’m one of you ?”

He nodded once. “It’s slow. You might have a year before the change. Your body’s adjusting. You’ll feel it in waves. Nightmares, cravings, sharper senses. But it ain’t gonna hit all at once.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“I know.”

We stood there, a solid six feet of air and tension between us. My eyes burned again, but I wouldn’t let them fall.

“What else don’t I know?” I asked.

Rocky exhaled a long drag of smoke. “Be glad it was me and not that abomination in the woods.”

“So, I’ll be like you?”

“You’ll be a gray.”

“Alien?”

“Wolf.”

I looked away. “I thought I was finally putting my life together. Now I’ve gotta learn how to leash my inner werewolf.”

“You don’t gotta leash nothin’,” he said, voice rough. “You’ll learn to live with it. I’ll help you. But you can walk away, Birdie. I’ll understand.”

I met his eyes then. “Can I? Walk away? Where to?”

He looked like he’d swallowed glass. “Truth? No. The bite’s permanent. You’re one of us now. You can’t walk away. But I won’t force nothin’. Not your friendship, not your trust, not your… feelings.”

A silence stretched long. I could still feel his arms around me from the other night. The heat of his body. The panic in his voice when I’d gone limp. And yeah, the sharp, searing pain of his human teeth breaking skin.

But there was something else now. Something crawling under my skin like a slow storm brewing. A heat. A longing I couldn’t place.

“You’re mark going to make me want you?”

He laughed. “If only it worked like that. No.”

“I don’t know if I’m angry, scared, or… just plain confused.”

“Probably all three,” he said softly.

I laughed. It cracked halfway out of my throat, part sob, part dry humor. “Well, ain’t that a first for Birdie Mae. Speechless.”

He smiled, just a flicker, then nodded toward the side door. “Wanna come in?”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

His expression didn’t fall, but the hurt was there, raw in the lines of his face.

“I just need time.”

“I’ll give you all you need,” he said, backing away. “But Birdie? ”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not letting you outta my sight. But I’ll watch from a distance. If you ever need me, really need me, I’ll be there. No matter what.”

And I believed him. That was the worst part. I believed him. Regardless, I let him have it. “Leave me alone, Rocky. Haven’t you done enough?”

That night, back in Eliza’s house, she brought me a hot cup of chamomile and a fuzzy blanket.

“How’d it go?” she asked, curling up next to me.

I didn’t answer right away. Just stared at the flicker of the candle she lit on the coffee table.

“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I whispered. “But when he looks at me… it’s like he sees me. Even the parts I didn’t know existed.”

Eliza smiled gently. “Then maybe this is the beginning of something.”

I swallowed hard. “Or the end.”

She rested her head on my shoulder. “Only if you let it be.”

And for the first time since the bite, I didn’t feel entirely out of control .

Not human.

Not monster.

Just… something in between. Something that had a choice to make.