Summary: Unlikely. Impossible. Yet, there he was. Not the man of my dreams, but – suddenly, irrationally – the one in my heart.

Chapter 1

Leah

How much was one person supposed to take?

The fever overtook me a week ago. Because I was a girl, no one considered the possibility that it was anything other than a normal virus. The boys around the res were flipping like pancakes, all with the same symptoms as me. But when I got a fever, I got sent to bed with some medication instead of into the woods where the others could help me. I stayed there for a few days, getting hotter and hotter, until I couldn't take it any longer.

"Mom," I called, staggering out of my room, down the hall and into the living room, my comfy pj's and t-shirt soaked through with sweat. "Mom!"

"She's gone to the store. Do you need something?" Dad asked.

"Dad, I . . ." I swayed a little. It was so damned hot in the house. I was shaking, trembling all over. Wasn't that what people did when they got fevers? But I thought I was supposed to feel cold, not so damned hot. "I really don't feel well. I think I need to go to the hospital."

I barely got the words out before the bone-rattling vibrations began. The urge to stretch out as far as I could pushed at my skin from the inside. Flesh prickling itchiness burst out all over my body. I squeezed my eyes shut against the sensations. When I opened them again my dad was on the floor, fallen backwards over the ottoman. His head lay against the leg of the coffee table; his eyes were closed.

"Dad! DAD!" I tried to scream but all I could hear was a deafening, yelping noise. When I tried to lift my hands to cover my ears, I realized I couldn't, not without falling down. I was standing on four legs now, instead of two.

Voices rushed into my skull.

"Someone's turned."

"Who is it?"

"That's Harry's house."

"Is it Seth?"

"Seth! Is that you buddy? God, they're getting younger all the time."

"Stay calm, Seth. We're coming!"

I flipped my head back and forth, looking for Sam. I knew his voice anywhere. It used to fill my dreams, but now it haunted my nightmares. Whatever was going on, I didn't want him near me. Whimpering against the pain in my chest, I heard him again.

"Leah? Oh my God. Leah, is that you?"

"Leah flipped?"

"A girl?"

"No way!"

"Oh shit."

Six half-naked boys burst through my door. I was paralyzed with fear, with confusion, with worry. I tried to tell them, "My dad! My dad!" but it came out as a howling, whining bark.

Jacob and Quil went over to my dad while Sam knelt down in front of me. It wasn't until that moment that I realized I was lying flat on my belly. I tried to stand up, but my center of gravity was all wonky. I couldn't get up on my legs; it was easier to stay on my hands and knees.

I looked down at my hands. At my paws . . .

Oh my fucking God! "I HAVE PAWS!" I tried to scream. My yelp rang loud throughout the house and shook the pictures on the walls.

Sam stepped back away from everyone, shook, and then a giant black wolf, twice as tall as me, stood where Sam had been.

"LeeLee, it's okay."

"The FUCK, Sam? It's NOT okay. I'm . . . I'm a fucking wolf!" I looked over at my dad who was still unconscious. I could hear someone talking on the phone to 911. "My dad, Sam. My dad" I whimpered, wanting him to hold me and comfort me like he used to. Through whatever fucked up link that allowed me to hear my ex's voice in my head, I also felt him pull away.

"Leah, I . . ."

"Fuck you, Sam! What the hell do I do?" I could hear sirens in the distance. They were getting closer. I needed to not be this thing anymore. I needed to be human again, to go with my dad to the hospital. "Help me! Undo this!"

"I can't. Only you can. You've got to calm down."

"Calm down? Calm down? I'm a fucking wolf and my father is dying! Don't fucking tell me to calm the fuck down!"

I didn't know what he did, but somehow he looked bigger, puffed up. His voice became growling and demanding in my head. I wanted to punch him in the nuts for using that tone with me, but I couldn't.

"Calm down," he said, and I literally could not disobey. I sank back down to my belly with another whimper. I rested my head between my hands . . . legs . . . paws—whatever the hell they were now—and closed my eyes.

"Deep breaths," Sam said, and then again with human vocal chords. "Deep breaths. Concentrate on bringing your heart rate down. Breathe with me." He took several deep breaths near my ear and I matched the rhythm as well as I could. "Throw me that blanket, Paul."

My mother's old afghan, which normally lay over the back of the couch, now covered my skin and felt itchy. I looked down and realized I had hands again and that I was very naked. With a screech, I grasped the blanket tight around me and ran to my room to throw on some clothes. The EMTs were loading my father onto a gurney when I rushed back out again.

"Can you tell us what happened?" one of them asked me.

Yeah, I thought, I just killed my dad.

~O~

The clock in the kitchen was chiming midnight when a knock sounded at our front door. I sat in Dad's chair fingering the fly he'd been tying when I'd interrupted him that morning. It was the last thing he'd done in this world. Because of me he'd never finish it.

My mom let in whoever it was but I couldn't look up, couldn't even raise my head, or be bothered to care. My father was dead. I'd killed him when I'd turned into a giant wolf. A giant wolf, for God's sake, and the only female in a pack of guys, and led by the man who broke my heart.

What was there to care about in this world beyond those things? Nothing would ever be right again. My life was as bad as it could possibly get.

Mom and Seth sat across the room crying because of me, because of what I'd done. No one was talking. The awkward silence was heavy and oppressive. I couldn't stand up under the weight of it.

I glanced at my mom to tell her I was sorry, that it was all my fault, but one of Dad's best friends, Charlie Swan, stood between us. My gaze rose as I leaned over to see around him. He chose that moment to turn and face me. Our eyes met, and the world that I'd thought couldn't get any worse, did exactly that.

Without any idea of what was happening, I stood and walked as calmly out of the house—and away from the situation—as I could. The porch was as far as I made it. Steel cables attached to my gut wouldn't let me walk that far away from him.

The screen door opened and closed behind me and I knew who it was without even looking.

"Leah?" My name on his lips was oil and grit in my wounds.

"I'm . . . uh . . . I'm sorry." He moved even closer. The heat from him warmed me and I wanted to wrap myself in it. I concentrated on breathing, on just surviving. I was afraid that if I moved, my mind would unravel completely. Surely a day such as this fucked with people's sanity.

But then his hand was on my shoulder and I could feel him. Insane as it sounded, I knew what he needed. I could feel it deep inside me, and whatever was happening wouldn't let me do anything but respond to the call of his soul. I had to answer it, to relieve it, to be it: the thing he needed. But before I could even figure out how to do that, I just was, without any effort at all.

I turned, my face in his chest, his arms around me, and—as I'd known would happen—the string was pulled and the fabric of my rational mind fell away until there was only emotion. The sobs came out harder than I even knew was possible.

I wept big, ugly tears for my father, for my fucked up transformation, for whatever this thing was between me and the man who held me. I cried for this trifecta of chaos and my inability to wrap my mind around any of it. I cried because there was nothing else to do, nothing at all. I was a wolf. My dad was dead. And the man who held me was now, inexplicably, the center of my universe.

No one person could be expected to take in all of that and not go bat-shit crazy.

"Oh, Leah."

And there it was. Abruptly, I saw. His need to comfort me slotted into place, as if it was always meant to be. What he was met my need to mourn. His need to protect paralleled my need to be sheltered from this shit-storm. I felt drawn to meet his need, but as he whispered to me, "I'm so sorry," I realized he was exactly what I needed, too.

Was God giving me a beacon of hope in the midst of such an awful collision of events? Unlikely. Impossible. Yet, there he was. Not the man of my dreams, but—suddenly, irrationally—the one in my heart.

With that thought I let myself go completely, cradled against Charlie Swan's chest.