Wolf Girl (Wolf Girl #1) - Leia Stone Page 0,8

roll down my cheeks, but I sucked those little weak droplets back.

No way was I crying in front of this giant dude and the witch. I’d wait until I was alone in my room and cry under my covers like a respectable woman, dammit.

I’d worn these cuffs since as long as I could remember. They kept a very natural part of me from being free. To remove them … it was all I’d ever wanted.

The witch strode forward. “Does the room have soundproofing? This might hurt.”

I immediately backed up four paces until my back hit the wall.

Hurt. No one said anything about hurting.

The man just nodded, walking over to a wall panel, and suddenly a menu popped up on the glass. He tapped a few buttons and then nodded at the witch.

She looked at me, eyes narrowed. “You want them off or not? I have another appointment in fifteen minutes.”

Geeze, was this like a notary? She just penciled me in her little timeslot? My tongue felt like sandpaper and I swallowed hard, nodding. I did want them off, so badly.

She waved me forward and I stepped slowly toward her.

“You were born outside Werewolf City?” she asked, looking down at a paper on the glass desk beside her.

I nodded.

“When were you first cuffed?” she asked.

I swallowed hard. “My first birthday was my first set. Then a second set at age five, and this set I got when I was twelve.” I held them up.

They never hurt to take off before, when the witches changed me out for a bigger set, so I was wondering why they would now.

“They never hurt to remove before…”

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s because they weren’t removing the magic in them, just changing out the metal to grow with your form. I’ll be stripping the spell that’s been attached to your body for the last…” She paused, looking at the sheet of paper, “Nineteen years. This will most definitely hurt.”

Fuck. My wolf rose to the surface then, and I knew my eyes had gone yellow. Silverish white pelts of fur rippled down my arms and the witch stepped back a pace, looking at the gorilla man, Eugene.

“She … shouldn’t be able to do that…” she said with a frown.

The pelts of fur hit the cuffs at my wrists and electricity shot up my arms, causing me to cry out.

They both looked uncomfortably at each other, unsure what to do.

Eugene tapped something on his tablet. “She’s been reported to the principal’s office…” He paused and then looked at me. Was that pride in his gaze? “Three hundred and ninety times for showing signs of near shifting.”

I tried to keep the grin off my face. My parents never near shifted. Other than some occasional yellow eyes, their wolves were kept pretty much in control by the cuffs, unlike mine.

The witch scoffed. “Well, whomever did her original spell was an idiot. Who was it?”

He looked at his tablet again. “Belladonna Mongrave. Your high priestess.”

Her cheeks pinked and she waved him off. “No matter. It’s coming off anyway.”

A black satchel sat on the edge of the table and she reached inside, pulling out a copper knife.

I flinched, my wolf rising to the surface again with my fear, but I shoved her down.

If I did this, went through with the pain, I could be free. I could finally, for the first time in my life … shift.

Eugene placed his tablet on the table and came up behind me. “I’m just going to hold you in place so that you don’t move and get a main artery cut,” he told me.

What?

“Main artery cut” were three words I never wanted to hear again.

I nodded, tears filling my eyes as the fear became too much.

When his strong hands gripped my forearms and offered the cuffs up to the witch with my wrists facing the ceiling, it took every ounce of control I had to not bite him and fight him off.

I felt the anxiety and panic fill my body as this situation brought me into a dark memory, a memory I didn’t even think about anymore, something so horrific I’d locked it away, only glimpsing it when I was put into situations where I felt cornered, trapped.

Eugene’s hands, pinning down my arms, took me back to that awful night five years ago. My breath became shaky as I fought the flashback assaulting my mind. The black silk bedsheets, the four vampire males, the blood…

I shook my head, trying to clear the thoughts as a whimper