When it was finally empty, Lou grimacing at the taste, Mama Ami thunked the bottle on the bathroom tile. “What happened?”

Lou told her about the woods, the trap, the hunters. Her words slurred a little. At the end of her story, Mama Ami turned her gaze on me.

She looked worried. And what do you have to say?

I showed her some quick images—I didn’t have to words to articulate what I—what the wolf—had done to get us out of the trap.

I see. But she didn’t look relieved. If anything, her concern had deepened. “Oh, Loulou.” She shook her head. “You are in so much trouble.”

When I whined, Mama Ami took a second to go over what I’d showed her. Lou’s magic. My magic. The wolf had done something when Lou was working, adding our magic to hers. When she’d been struggling, we’d handed her a tether. She took it and—I wasn’t entirely sure I understood what had actually happened, but Mama Ami made sure I understood the outcome as gently as she could.

Bound. We were bound.

Fear shot through me only to hit something and dissolve. Just like that, the fear was gone. Wait, it didn’t hit something—it hit someone. Lou was in my head. I could feel her there, just at the edges.

It wasn’t a terrible feeling, but weird and uncomfortable, not unlike stepping into new boots, the leather at first too tight and stiff. Would our bond loosen and grow comfortable? Would we be bound long enough for that to happen? Would she try to keep me like this, like Eva had? I started to pant again.

Lou clambered to the tub, resting her chin on it not far from me. “Hey. We’ll fix this. I promise, Declan. Just calm down. I won’t hurt you.”

Her words were soothing and I could tell she believed them, but she couldn’t see Mama Ami’s face. She tried to hide it, but wolves were a heck of a lot better at reading body language than humans. Dr. Larsen was worried, and I didn’t think any of this would be half as easy as Lou thought.

“First things first, we need to get you out of that tub.” Lou grimaced. “And we’re going to need your help, because you’re too big to drag out of there.”

She was right. An average male gray wolf in the wild can be anywhere from sixty-five to one hundred and eighty pounds. I’m a little bigger than that, hitting around the two hundred mark. I’m not a small wolf.

Eventually, Lou convinced me that it was okay for Van and Trick to hoist me out of the tub. Dr. Larsen didn’t want me jumping out on my injured leg. Shifters healed faster than natural wolves, but I was tired, freaked out, and couldn’t shift, so the gash in my leg was still a problem, albeit a much smaller one.

Van and Trick grunted and cursed, but got me out in one piece. Trick looking forlornly at his black pajamas, now totally covered in white and gray hair. The blood wasn’t as visible.