Page 39 of The Reveal (Bloodlore #1)

I don’t see Maddox change this time because I’m too busy gaping in awe and wonder—and what feels like an appropriate level of sheer terror—at what can only be the werewolf alpha in his natural form. When I thought his human form was over the top.

But when Maddox moves to put herself between him and me, she’s human.

And wearing clothes. The same clothes she was wearing before, which strikes me as fascinating even with the headache from hell.

How do they change in and out of clothes while shifting from one form to the other?

Where do they put the clothes while gallivanting about as wolves? I assume this is all part of the magic.

It’s also pretty clear to me that I’m deliberately thinking of anything but the giant wolf prowling toward me with what looks like a lot of sharp-toothed, furry murder on his face.

“Calm down.” Maddox talks to him like he’s a cute little dachshund puppy instead of a monster straight out of a nightmare. “I need your help.”

There’s a flash, and something I feel like a thunderclap deep in my bones, as if the marrow is on fire. Then he’s standing there before us in his slightly less terrifying human form.

I would hide, like any sane person would when faced with anything his size—much less a werewolf —but I can’t move. All I can do is sit propped up against the tree while death in numerous forms swirls all around me.

“What fucking games do you think you’re playing?” Ty Ceridwen, the fierce and formidable werewolf alpha, demands.

Happily, not of me.

“I keep telling you that I’m not playing games.” Maddox still sounds like she’s talking to a sweet, domesticated pet, and I wonder if Ty can see that she’s pissed, because I can. Though I sense that probably, he doesn’t care. “Maybe you didn’t notice that it’s a full moon.”

“I notice every fucking full moon, asshole, and guess why? Because every time the full moon rises and there’s no ritual, the more you look like a problem I’m going to have to deal with. And the more I look like a little bitch for not handling you.”

“Nobody thinks you’re a bitch, Ty,” she replies. So sweetly that I wince in anticipation. “They don’t know you as well as I do.”

I expect him to blow up at that, but he laughs.

He swaggers closer. Like Maddox, he’s not remotely dressed for running around mountainsides.

He’s wearing something very similar to what he was wearing last time I saw him.

Jeans. Motorcycle boots. And a black T-shirt because obviously, the cold does not dare mess with Ty Ceridwen.

Apparently, only Maddox dares.

He reaches over and hooks a finger in the collar of the shirt Maddox is wearing and yanks her to him. “I’m sick of this,” he growls at her. “How many times do I have to say that? When are you going to listen?”

“I always listen. Maybe you could try it for a change.” She throws out an arm and points at me. “Winter,” she says, though she doesn’t look in my direction. Because I guess even she isn’t foolish enough to take her eyes off the danger that is Ty. “Where are those cards of yours?”

I would very much like to know how she knows anything about those cards, but I don’t have the strength to ask. I obediently tap the front of my chest, where the cards lodged themselves a few hours back, tucked in tight to my sports bra.

Ty’s laugh this time is lower. Meaner. “Bullshit.”

Maddox keeps holding his gaze, even after he belts that word out. “Show him, Winter.”

I feel profoundly lucid, which is odd, because I also feel weak as fuck.

I’m still seriously contemplating taking the nearest rock to the side of my skull.

Yet what occurs to me then is that my insistence on trying to understand everything that is happening around me is a hindrance more than anything else. Why would I understand?

I’m surrounded by dynamics, rules, and agreements that have nothing to do with me.

All I can do is follow my own gut, and I know that’s not an entirely foolish endeavor, because I’m still alive.

Still alive, if not currently kicking, despite my numerous skirmishes with the king of the vampires.

Not to mention my current predicament, which involves what feels like a near-death experience some eight thousand feet above sea level, in the company of werewolves.

While the full moon beams down on all of us and Vin?a’s disgusting ritual is about to begin.

So obviously, I reach into my shirt and pull out my deck.

I realize as I hold it that it’s the first time I’ve thought of it that way. My deck. Not my grandmother’s. Mine.

In my hand, the cards warm. I interpret that as approval.

Like they really did choose me.

Shit.

Ty stares down at me, huddled there against a tree. I try to imagine what I could possibly look like to a creature like him. Small. Chewable.

But something about the fact I have the cards in my hands changes him. He shoves a hand through his hair, throwing Maddox a look that I would describe as vicious.

However, it only seems to relax her.

“Tell me,” he growls.

There’s something different about him when he says that. Or maybe the way he looks at Maddox shifts. As soon as I think that, it hits me. It’s that authority of his that’s always obvious but has always been filtered through their relationship when I’ve seen them together.

He is speaking now as a leader, not as her lover.

“I already told you. The cards have chosen. She’s the oracle,” Maddox says, sounding exactly the same. “And in case you think I’m bullshitting you, everybody knows that only the chosen oracle can carry those cards. Meanwhile, this full moon is bringing with it the gift of a nasty little ritual.”

Ty doesn’t like that. “Another lock.”

She nods. “Unless you stop it.”

Ty looks at her, and something passes between them, wordlessly. Then he cuts his gaze to me. “You look like shit, oracle.”

“That’s good news,” I manage to say, “because I also feel like shit, and I really hate when I don’t match.”

“Cute.” I think we’re both thinking about how easily he could eat me, a quick little snack.

“Doesn’t look like you can stand. What’s your plan?

You going to make it up this mountain and do what, exactly?

I’m guessing that whoever’s throwing a full moon ritual that has Maddox worried enough to go hiking isn’t going to welcome you with open arms. You plan to fight them? ”

“Hadn’t really thought that far ahead.” I try to smile, and my head feels like it might explode. I have to breathe out, hard, to keep it at a roaring ache instead. “But now that we’re discussing it, I’m kind of hoping that the presence of werewolves might work in my favor.”

“Have you pinpointed the location?” Ty asks Maddox. She shakes her head. “So ... what? We wander around playing grab ass all night while we hope that your weak-ass friend can stand on her own two feet and make it happen somehow?”

I want to be offended, except I agree with him.

“Do you have a better option in mind?” Maddox demands.

But I’ve had enough. It takes an enormous effort on my part, but I manage to climb to my feet.

I mean that literally. I have to use the tree behind me to launch myself painfully upright, and none of what’s happening inside me is good.

I stagger forward, not unaware of the way Ty stares at me. In what I’m pretty sure is disbelief.

“Let’s go,” I manage to get out past that clamping-iron agony pressing into my skull, worse with every breath, every step, every beat of my heart. “I’ve had a rest. I’m great. Let’s do it.”

And then I somehow force one foot in front of the other and start up the trail again.

I hear Ty swear under his breath. I hear Maddox say something to him in a low voice.

The next thing I know, there’s that thunderclap, and then that huge, massive wolf is beside me. He’s looking at me with what I can only describe as a deeply challenging expression.

“Go on,” Maddox says.

I turn back and stare at her in confusion. The wolf beside me growls.

Maddox’s gaze is locked on mine. “Ty is going to carry you.”

I know several things simultaneously then. One, that no human should be touching a werewolf. Two, that this particular werewolf does not want me touching him. And three, that to refuse this offer would be an insult.

A biteable offense, I’m pretty sure.

I stare at him. He stares back. I feel frozen until he makes a huffing sort of sound and lowers himself closer to the ground.

Only then, gingerly, carefully, perfectly prepared for him to turn and bite my head off—literally—do I climb onto Ty Ceridwen’s back.

And then ... I’m riding the werewolf alpha.

Like a goddamn horse.

Maybe it’s lucky that the pain in my head is so intense that I can’t really concentrate on that. Not for long.

I grip his thick fur in my fists as he begins to move.

I wonder if a headache can actually make a whole head implode from the inside out or if I only wish it would so the pain would stop.

I try to ignore the complaints from my stomach, a parade of queasy uncertainties that movement certainly doesn’t help.

But riding a werewolf is a whole lot better than trudging up this mountainside by myself. Step by brutal step, each one a new stabbing pain that only builds on the one before.

I hold on and hope that not forcing myself to keep climbing will soothe the pain even a little.

I’m not sure it does. It just shifts. Or time flattens out.

Maybe it’s me that’s gone flat. I notice things and file them away, but I can’t seem to lace them together to make any kind of sense. It’s like a drawn-out fever dream, though I don’t think there’s anything going on inside me tonight but this killer headache.