“Maybe I’m mad at myself.” He looked away and muttered savagely, “I should have found a way to break free before they got a chance to make us do those things. This is my fault—I’m too damn weak with this silver on me.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” I told him. “And what difference does silver make?”
“It weakens a Were—especially one of the Royal Line. Weakens us and stops us from Shifting.” He shook his head and glared balefully. “If I could just get these damn silver handcuffs off, I’d be a thousand times stronger and I could access my fur form. And once a Royal Shifts, no other Were has a chance.”
“Oh, okay,” I said flatly. Why did everything have to come back to the Werewolf myth?
“You don’t believe me—you still don’t believe. Well, look! I didn’t want to have to do this before, but damn it, you have to know the truth!”
Jake held out his free hand—his right one—and stared at it fixedly.
“Jake,” I began. “Whatever you think you’re doing, I—”
But then I stopped abruptly.
Because his hand had begun to change.
NINETEEN
First it sprouted black fur—as black as the hair on his head. Then the fingers began to shrink and his fingernails turned into claws—actual claws. In the space of half a minute, Jake’s right hand had turned into a huge, black paw that looked like it belonged on a dog, or maybe an enormous wolf.
“Jake?” I whispered, looking up at him in awe. His face was damp with sweat and he was breathing hard, in gasping pants.
“You know…how hard…this is?” he gasped. “Go on—touch it.” He went on, because my fingers were hovering close to the enormous black paw. “Can’t…hold it for long.”
I stroked the paw, covered in silky fur, and looked from it to him and back again. Could it be that the whole werewolf thing was true? Could Jake actually turn into a wolf during the full moon? Well, to judge from this one paw, he could.
“I don’t understand—why didn’t you show me this earlier?” I whispered.
He shook his head.
“Couldn’t…” He dropped his head, panting and the wolf’s paw turned back into a large, well shaped hand I was cupping in my own much smaller ones. “You have any idea how difficult even a partial Shift is with silver on?” he asked. “Couldn’t have done it all if we weren’t so close to the full moon.”
He nodded up at the skylight, where the sun was now completely gone and the silvery moon was beginning to rise.
I felt stunned.
“So it’s true,” I whispered. “All of it’s true.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Jake was getting his wind back now and he sounded mildly annoyed. “You thought my dad and I were crazy, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did,” I admitted. “And my mom, too.” I put a hand to my cheek. “Oh my God—all that stuff she tried to tell me, all the crazy stuff Sorenson and Ophelia have been spouting about my ‘Heat Cycle’—that’s all true too, isn’t it?”
Jake nodded and gave me a sympathetic look.
“You okay? I know it’s a lot to take in all at once.”
I shook my head.
“I was just so sure all of you were all crazy.” I blinked and was surprised to find my eyes filled with tears. “I thought my mom had gone crazy—I’ve been so worried about her.”
“She’s not crazy,” Jake said grimly. “She took to being a Were right away—took to her roll as the First Royal Omega, Bride to the Royal Alpha like she’d been born to it.”
There it was again—that hint of bitterness in his voice when he talked about my mom. I really didn’t understand that—but I didn’t have time to worry about it right now.
“Okay,” I said. “I believe you can turn into…something.”
“A Wolf,” Jake said, giving me a level glance. “I turn into a big black Wolf—about as big as a small horse.”
“That big?” I widened my eyes at him.
He shrugged, his broad, bare shoulders rolling with the motion.
“I’ve got the blood of the First Wolf in my veins—we both do. Anyway, in my fur form, I have immense power. If I could turn, I could rip Sorenson and the other two to shreds.” He raised an eyebrow at me when I was silent at this. “What—no protests? You seemed pretty unwilling to let me kill anyone last night but you don’t seem to be putting up a fight today.”
“That was before Tainer held a gun to my head and made me hurt you,” I said in a low voice, hanging my head. “Made me bring back the trauma you went through last time you were kidnapped by these assholes.”
“Hey, look at me, little Ani.” Jake reached for me and tilted my chin up so that he was looking into my eyes. “You didn’t hurt me or force me, okay?” he said softly. “I was upset because I thought you would feel like I was forcing you.”