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.

you," Sara says with a shrug. "Ron

the rock. Sparrow Bun flutters

uselessly, my

finally perches on a ledge, her beak open as she trembles. Do birds pant? Because it looks like she’s

the tiny bird. She pecks at his fingers, but he doesn’t flinch,

toward me. The sparrow glares at me out of the side

apple in her hand. "Look, Bird Bun!

has time to set her down before she’s fully Toddler

into Bun’s tiny palms. "Here, eat this before you transform into a freaking pterodactyl!" Her voice is cajoling and upbeat, but the words

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

surface, amplified by the cave’s acoustics into

before she can shift again, lifting her squirming body against my chest. Her back arches in my arms like something possessed, her spine bending at angles which can’t be natural.

doing her baby damnedest to

and eyes wide with horror. "Oh my Goddess,

Bun still writhing in my arms like a banshee

attack my forearm, and I bite back a

fluttering to the ceiling. "We’re doomed.

the pizza—" Jer

from gorilla mode. He and Bun are both dressed, not naked; their shifts don’t seem to

hisses, like I’m not right

eyes. "Don’t be so dramatic, Sara. She’s not

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

on Ron. "Dude, don’t you pay any attention? The King wiped out an entire pack just because her ex-boyfriend was in it.

up curled around my head, chewing on my hair. I try my best to intervene in the escalating, inaccurate facts being thrown about, but every time I open my mouth, another kid’s shouting even

like a hundred wolves because one of them looked at her

be heard over Bun’s continued screaming. "Caine didn’t—I mean, he did kill some of my pack, but not because of my ex. That’s

me with varying degrees

to Ron. "See?