Grace of a Wolf by Lenaleia

Chapter 85: Grace: Wild Child

I reach for the fluttering brown sparrow darting through the room, but my fingers close on empty air as Bun zips toward the ceiling.

"Damn. You were so close," Ron says.

"Yeah, damn," Jer echoes.

Sara sighs. "You’re not supposed to use bad words."

Meanwhile, I’m waving my hands frantically as I shout, "Bun, please come down!"

The tiny bird chirps manically, wings beating frantically in hunger-induced chaos. She’s been shifting nonstop for twenty minutes—from bunny to kitten to fish (a terrifying thirty seconds of flopping), and now this. My heart hammers against my ribs even as I wonder how a toddler who can barely walk a straight line has already figured out flying.

"She’s losing it," Ron says beside me, craning his neck upward. "The pizza’s taking too long."

Jer nods grimly. "Sugar crash. Plus she’s still growing."

He sounds so wise, but I don’t think her growth has anything to do with her current state of mania.

I watch helplessly as the little brown bird dives toward a particularly threatening-looking piece of wall. "Can’t you guys do something?"

Sara crosses her arms, shaking her head. "She’s too fast. Last time she went bird, Owen had to use a net."

"And Sara can’t figure out how to fly, so she’s useless," Jer adds.

"Shut up, Jer!"

The sparrow swoops directly over our heads, chirping what sounds suspiciously like swear words. Except she’s a toddler, and I’m pretty sure she only knows about fifteen actual words.

Ron sighs, sounding so resigned, you’d think he was asked to work overtime. "I’ll get her."

His transformation happens in a blink—one second he’s a gangly preteen boy with messy hair and eyes too old for his face, the next he’s a young gorilla, his fur glossy black.

My jaw drops.

shrug. "Ron can turn into anything. Well,

finding invisible holds in the rock. Sparrow

out uselessly,

ledge, her beak open as she trembles. Do birds pant? Because it looks like

the tiny bird. She pecks at his fingers, but

Ron reaches the ground, carefully extending his palm toward me. The sparrow glares at me

Bird Bun! Food! Want the yummy apple?

arms. Ron barely has time to set her down before

before you transform into a freaking pterodactyl!" Her voice is cajoling and upbeat, but

apple, juice dribbling down her chin, her eyes wide with momentary satisfaction—before her face scrunches up in disgust. She hurls the apple to

amplified by

Her back arches in my arms like something possessed, her spine bending at angles which can’t be natural. Her

twists, doing her baby damnedest to

hands to her mouth and eyes wide with horror. "Oh my Goddess, Bun, stop!

Bun still writhing in my arms like a banshee baby.

forearm, and I bite back

fluttering to the ceiling. "We’re doomed. Ron, can you turn

the pizza—" Jer

mode. He and Bun are both dressed, not

Queen," Sara hisses,

rolls his eyes. "Don’t be so dramatic, Sara.

she is!" Sara insists, backing further away from me and

attention? The King wiped out an entire pack just because her ex-boyfriend was in it. They said the

on my hair. I try my best to intervene in the escalating, inaccurate facts being

say he killed like a hundred wolves because one of

over Bun’s continued screaming. "Caine didn’t—I mean, he did kill some of my pack, but

with varying

to Ron. "See?