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She wasn’t cohost, spirit, earthbound—she’d taxed herself to the li back And he eating again, his heart thudding in his ears The palms of his hands and the soles of his feet burned He could feel the wolf hair under his skin like myriad needles It was torture to hold it back

Without resolving to do it, he got up and hurried down the stairs and out the back door

The cold darkness was descending, theinto shadow all around The invisible rain sighed like a living thing in the trees

He got in his Porsche and he drove He didn’t knohere he was headed, only that he had to be away frorief Grief is like a fist against your throat, he thought Grief strangles you Grief washe’d ever known

He kept to the back roads, vaguely aware that he wasinland and the forest was on either side of hi, stifling the powerful transforrowth of the hair all over hi for the voices, voices fro for the inevitable sound of so out frantically, someone who could speak, soh he or she couldn’t know it, someone he could reach

Pain so, kicking, sobbing

He pulled off the road and into a grove of trees and, folding his arms defensively over his chest, he listened as the voices caain the wolf hair pushed at hiling and his hands were shuddering as he struggled to hold it back

“And where would you be without me?” the man snarled “You think they wouldn’t put you in jail? Sure, they’d put you in jail”

“I hate you,” sobbed the child “You’re hurting o home”

And the uttural curses and threats—ah, the grireed of utter selfishness! Give me the scent!

He felt hih his clothes, every inch of his scalp and face burning as the hair broke out, his claws extended, his thick hairy feet pushing out of the shoes He tore off his jacket, shredding the shirt and pants with his claws The mane came down to his shoulders Who I truly am, what I truly am How quickly the fur covered all of him, and hoerful he felt to be alone with it, alone and hunting as he had hunted on those first thrilling nights before the elder Morphenkinder had coe of all that he could co for this luscious power

He took to the forest in full wolf coat, running on all fours towards the child, his ed and broken ways through the forest without a singleto this, I am this

They were in an old decrepit trailer hoiant firs Sleamed before him in a cramped wet yard of butane tanks, trash cans, and old tires, with a rusted and dented truck parked to one side