Page 92 of The Cuddle Clause

There was only one more day until the ceremony, and I still didn’t have a damn clue what I was doing.

I headed toward the woods. Toward silence. Space.

And a decision I wasn’t ready to make.

The air outside was sharp,cold, bracing, and it fit my mood perfectly.

My boots crunched over frost-laced leaves. The farther I moved behind the building, the quieter the city became. SanFrancisco blurred behind me, all sirens and light pollution and deadlines I couldn’t keep. Out here, the world shrank to trees and darkness and cold.

I liked it better this way.

Every inhale burned a little, but the sting helped. It reminded me I still had a body even if everything inside it was caving in. The pain was clean. Simple. Honest.

By the time I reached the clearing, my pulse had started to slow. Cypress and eucalyptus lined the woods, and moonlight caught on a fallen log.

I exhaled through my nose and pulled off my hoodie, then my shirt. Each movement was methodical and intentional. My jeans were next, then socks, then boxers.

One piece at a time. Folded. Stacked. Neat little corners. A ritual I’d repeated more nights than I could count.

The order and control helped when my thoughts were chaos.

I pressed my palm flat to a log, then closed my eyes and called the shift forward.

My bones stretched, cracking and reshaping with dull pressure. My jaw pulled forward. Limbs twisted. Fingers disappeared into paws, claws slicing free with a whisper of pain. My skin rippled, then thickened into fur, black and sleek and familiar.

My mind quieted.

I opened my eyes. Everything was clearer now. Not less complicated, but less loud.

I bolted forward. Wind sliced past my muzzle as I weaved between trees, legs pounding out a rhythm I didn’t have to think about. Each stride was a release of guilt and shame. Of the twisting, nauseating ache that lived in my stomach every time I looked at Maggie and remembered what I wasn’t telling her.

I didn’t have to explain myself to the woods. I didn’t have to be smart or sexy or fine. Here, I could just run.

Leaves scattered behind me. Roots snagged at my claws. My lungs burned, and my muscles protested.

I welcomed every second of it.

The clearing opened again. Moonlight touched the frost-covered grass like it was trying to be gentle.

I came to a stop and threw my head back and howled. Long. Loud. Raw. The sound scraped up my throat like it had claws of its own. That howl carried everything I hadn’t said out loud: The fear of losing her. The pressure from Lucien. The guilt of secrets I hadn’t figured out how to untangle. The shame of being thirty and still having no idea how to hold onto good things without breaking them.

My body trembled, but my mind was quieter. It wasn’t fixed or really okay, but it was quieter. I padded to the edge of the clearing and slunk down beside a wide tree trunk. My sides heaved as I curled my tail tight around my legs like armor.

This body, this form, couldn’t cry, but if I were in my human form right now, I would’ve been sobbing.

Maybe that was why I liked being a wolf better sometimes.

There was no hyperverbal panic spiral here. No pacing. No looping. No overanalyzing every look Maggie gave me, wondering if she felt what I felt or if I was just projecting what I wanted onto someone who’d been kind to me.

As a wolf, everything slowed down. One stream of input at a time. The scent of the eucalyptus bark. The brittle frost against my nose. The faint scurry of something small underground.

That was enough. That wasallthere was. Not Lucien. Not bonding ceremonies I hadn’t agreed to and couldn’t escape.

Just this. Just me.

I closed my eyes, pressed my nose into the dirt, and let the world go quiet. I could’ve stayed like that forever. Still. Unmoving. Tucked into the silence like a secret no one would ever find. But I couldn’t live as a wolf. Not when Maggie wassleeping in my bed, trusting me with pieces of herself I hadn’t earned.

I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to look her in the eye and admit everything—the feelings I’d been hiding, what Lucien had required, what bonding really meant. How I’d run out of time to come up with an exit plan.