Read Walking Wolf Road (Wolf Road Chronicles Book 1) for Free Online Page B

of his ears. His eyes hooded and he made a happy rumbling sound as he stepped forward and touched his forehead to mine. Warmth filled me at the familiarity of the sensation.
    I knew I had to get him out of there. I led him into the water and clutched him to my chest as we swam out of the cave. As we rose through the water, his fur waved against my arm and I felt his heartbeat against my chest, racing in sync with my own. The snakes rushed toward us as the wolf and I started to merge, like they were trying to stop us. I saw through his eyes, felt his fur over my skin and our heartbeats became one. We defied the suffocating terror as we raced to the sunlight and the snakes closed in.
    I kicked one last time and broke the surface, drawing in a deep breath. Before the snakes reached me, I felt everything shift around us as the light dimmed past my closed eyelids.
    I opened them and found the moon in place of the sun. The sky was depthless obsidian, without a single star to break the curtain. Only the moon hung there, eternally full.
    “My son; I’d feared you lost again…” I recognized that voice instantly and it sent a chill down my back.
    I tore my eyes from the moon and saw Lupa standing there. Her white fur gleamed in the moonlight, perched on rocks almost as black as the sky. She climbed down like a pool of platinum liquid spilling from ledge to rock. Everything was black as onyx despite the full lunar light, even the towering trees that surrounded us. The only thing that reflected light was her coat.
    “You rejected us. You forced me out and tried to hide from me again, just when we’d finally recovered you.” I felt her pain and her rejection inside me as though it was my own, “Why, my son?”
    As she approached I felt fear and uncertainty; but also a strange giddiness, almost… joy…
    “Because… because I was afraid…” What was I saying? I meant to say ‘because this isn’t real’, but as soon as I said it, everything clicked into place. This was the answer; the weight loss, the bizarre dreams, my eyesight; all of it. Fen wasn’t completely deranged; I was changing…
    It was all real, this place, Fen, Lupa; all of it, and I felt… right. Acceptance seeped into my bones, and I felt it inside me; a restless energy behind my breastbone with yellow eyes. I took a deep breath and set my jaw.
    “But… I’m sick of being afraid.”
    Lupa smiled again and joy lit her face, and then she turned and looked over her shoulder at me. “Then run with me…”
    I moved after her and my body spilled from one form to another like water; my hands were paws by the time they touched the rocks. I didn’t even pause, that would have given her a bigger head start, but I was surprised that I didn’t feel any different.
    I was still me, my soul, just a different shell.
    The world flushed to life like never before, and we left the riverbed and charged into the trees. The woods lost their ominous darkness and stars emerged from the velvet sky overhead, netted in the faint glow of the Milky Way. Trees and shrubs flew past, every detail clear in vivid sepia, dead pine needles the color of rust crunched underfoot as I flew after the spirit with my tail trailing like a banner.
    We played and raced around tree trunks and massive boulders. I doubled back under a fallen log, and thought I’d lost her until she barreled out of the underbrush and broadsided me; we rolled a couple times then jumped back onto our feet and took off again. We panted and laughed, grinning with our cheeks pulled back and our ears down.
    For the first time that I could remember, I felt whole.
    We broke free of the forest and raced along the shore of a huge lake. The moon reflected in the perfect mirror of the water was as crisp and clear as the original, along with the green ribbons of light that danced over the trees on the northern shore. We kicked up sand and pebbles behind us as we flew and the soft silt squished between my toes. We reached a tall