didn’t happen. And it definitely didn’t happen to Elodie Matthews! There was no way this could be real.
“It’s not a dream,” Alex said sadly as he shook his head. “I know this is very difficult for you to understand or to comprehend, but you need to make a decision soon. The virus is waging a war inside you…”
I need to make a decision soon? A decision about what?
“Whether you want to live the remainder of your life as a shifter, or whether you…” his voice trailed as he averted his gaze.
Or whether I what? I demanded.
“Or whether you’d rather not live at all.”
Will the virus kill me?
Alex shook his head. “No, the virus will ensure you become one of us.”
So… I started.
“It would rest on me,” he interrupted. I could see the pain in his features as clearly as I could hear the frantic beating of my heart as it echoed through my ears. So if I chose not to become like Alex, not to allow the virus to turn me into a shifter, and to instead choose death, Alex would have to be the one to kill me…
I suddenly became angry. Angry that I hadn’t been given all of the facts. If I’d known there was a chance I could turn into a werewolf if one bit me, would I still have come here? Would I still have continued to even investigate this case? Or would I have given up?
“You would never have given up,” Alex responded as he shook his head.
He was right. There was no way I would have betrayed this case, even if I’d known the ins and outs of becoming hairy. That just wasn’t who I was. I lived and breathed my work. It consumed me. It described me. It was me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the rules regarding shifters, but I didn’t think it was pertinent at the time. I never thought you would have gotten bitten.” He dropped his gaze. “And for that, I’m incredibly sorry.”
There wasn’t anything more to say on the subject. It was what it was and the time for regretting things was over. Now I had a decision to make. Truthfully, I didn’t even understand how this was really a decision. How could I choose between becoming a werewolf or death? Even though the idea of becoming a shifter left me nothing but cold, there was no way I would choose death. Not when I was a fighter, in general, not when life was so important to me.
I glanced up at Alex and studied his handsome face for a few seconds as I thought about what my life would look like moving forward, what this decision would mean. Everything I knew was going to change. Life as I’d known it would never be the same again and that thought terrified me.
But there was something in Alex’s eyes that suddenly consoled me, something that said everything was going to be fine. That I was going to be fine.
“You have to trust me, Elodie,” Alex whispered.
Suddenly, there was no doubt in my mind. Alex was right. I did have to trust him. I had to trust him with my life because that was the decision I was going to make. It was the only decision as far as I was concerned.
I want to live.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Three Weeks Later
It was the beginning of spring.
The deadly cold of winter was finally passing its throne to the budding starflowers, the heather and the elderberry, just to name a few of my favorite wildflowers of Alaska. Birds, too, had joined the spring reverie by singing from tree branch to tree branch as bees busily gathered pollen from the newly sprung flowers.
“Yep, it’s good to be alive.” I smiled up at Alex as we walked down the main street of Hope.
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” he said with a quick nod as he held open the door to Frank’s Kitchen for me. Frank’s was my favorite lunch spot. “I was worried you regretted your decision.”
“I don’t regret it. It’s just been a weird adjustment.”
We took a seat beside the only window in the very small establishment.
“But you’re dealing with it?”
“I’m dealing with it.”
These last three weeks had certainly been the strangest and hardest I’d ever experienced. After I’d made the decision to become a shifter, I’d been in agony for another four hours or so while the wolf virus fully polluted my body. After four hours, the pain had subsided, only to be replaced