And There Were Wolves

(d) eight

Dmitry rarely called my name, but when he'd done it, there hadn't been any emotion there, almost as if an AI was told to pronounce my name. Yet this time, he did it so softly, and with his hand touching my face; I had to admit that I was shitting my pants right now. My mind kept telling me that this was Dmitry and Dmitry Vashkov was more like a walking robot than a human being.

I recovered from the shock quicker than if it was Ryker who was in such close proximity to me and I had to assume that it was because Dmitry wasn't my mate. Or the fact that I didn't have the same feelings toward him that I had for Ryker.

"As in a prince of a wolf nation or something?" I pulled back a little and frowned. My mind speedily caught up on the issue that I'd been wanting to ask about for days now. This time, it wasn't about Dmitry. It was about me. "Then would you be able to explain why my wolf showed up one time and then disappeared to god knows where?"

"Not exactly," he said after a short while. "When was the last time you shifted?"

"Since my first transformation?" I asked, and Dmitry bobbed his head. "Zilch." I heaved a sigh.

He dropped his hand and put it on his thigh. "I thought you've been practicing with your dad and Eros."

"Not physically." I stabbed a strawberry and put it in my mouth. Once I chewed and swallowed, I continued, "My dad told me about everything about being a werewolf, including embracing nature, but I've never shifted into a wolf. He did, though. Once. And it was weird. I closed my eyes and waited until he was fully shifted." If anything, my dad spent more time with Eros than me, which wasn't really a surprise for me considering he always treated Eros like his son.

"Have you tried communicating with your wolf?" Dmitry started eating his pancakes, and I followed suit. We continued to chat and only talked when we had our mouths empty.

"I tried." I took a sip of the English breakfast tea and placed the cup back on its saucer. Only Dmitry would use the proper set of china. Ryker and I often just used mugs. "I tried speaking in my own mind, which is odd and new for me, yet I heard nothing in return. I don't even know her name, but I—" I stopped myself before blurting out something I didn't fully understand.

"But, what?"

I turned to face Dmitry and, looking into his eyes and knowing that he'd just revealed a secret to me that he'd probably never shared with any other living soul, gave me some sort of assurance that he wouldn't judge me. I simply knew, so I decided to come clean about it.

"But I heard other voices." When his expression remained the same and he didn't force me to put everything out in the open, I felt more and more comfortable talking about this. "A lot of voices, Dmitry. Some were men, some were women."

Dmitry put down his fork and shifted in his seat so that his whole body was facing me right now. "Do you recognize these voices?"

"No." I shook my head. "Although they want the same thing." I swallowed hard and all of a sudden felt extremely nervous. If Dmitry took this the wrong way, I would be in deep trouble. "They want me to consume Adelina's power."

A frown formed in between his dark eyebrows. "Did they continuously tell you to seek Adelina and consume her power, or did it only occur at a specific time?"

I bit my bottom lip and looked down at the plate in front of me. "It only happened whenever I was using my power on Adelina."

His question contained only one word. "When?"

"When Ryker and I first confronted Adelina about three or so months ago." I glanced at him and saw him giving a small nod of acknowledgment. Ryker must have told him about that day. It was no secret, after all. "And yesterday," I added in a voice that was barely above whispering level. I was half hoping his ears wouldn't pick that up.