The Savage Grace: A Dark Divine Novel(96)

“Then you’d better stay as close as you can.” I pulled him against me, embracing him as tightly as I could, even though he radiated enough heat to make me sweat.

“I’m not going to go wolf at the Challenging Ceremony,” he said. “I’m afraid the draw of the white wolf will be so powerful under the eclipse that I might not be able to fight my way back again.”

I nodded against his chest, knowing that not going wolf when the other challengers did might put him at a disadvantage. “My money is still on you,” I said. “Even human you.”

He let out a short laugh. “All my life I wanted to be normal. Now I’ll just settle for having only two legs, two arms, and a human face.”

“I like your face,” I said, trying to lighten my heart.

“I like yours, too.” He shifted his head close to mine and kissed me with lips that felt like fire. Our lips melted together until his body convulsed with a great shudder, and I knew he was still fighting the wolf. “Will you stay with me again tonight?”

“Yes,” I answered, holding him tight.

“The white wolf is wrong,” he said, and kissed my shoulder. “This right here—you and me together, under this old walnut tree—this is my true natural state.”

“We always do seem to end up back here,” I said. “It’s comforting.”

“It’s home,” he said.

I sighed into his arms, realizing that in a day’s time, I had no idea what home was going to look like anymore. If we failed at the Challenging Ceremony, this family that I’d been fighting so hard and so long to restore—to make whole again—could possibly be torn apart completely. I could lose everyone I loved.

But if we succeeded … If we got James back … If Daniel and I were to become the alphas of a whole new pack, I still had no idea what home would look like then. Would we be forced to leave Rose Crest to lead the Etlus? Leave my finally reunited family behind?

SATURDAY MORNING, FIFTEEN AND A HALF HOURS UNTIL THE CEREMONY

I awoke to rays of sunlight streaming through the seams of the boarded-up front room window. Daniel and I had moved inside when it had gotten too cold for me out under the tree. We’d sat on the front room sofa, tangled in each other’s arms. Daniel asked me to give him a word-for-word retelling of our engagement. “I want to be able to at least pretend I remember it,” he said, but I knew he was looking for something to distract him from his inner battle against the white wolf’s pull.

I told him stories until the heat of his body cooled, and he fell asleep with his head tucked against my shoulder.

He stirred next to me now, looking like an angel the way rays of sunlight danced off his golden hair.

I could hear my family in the kitchen, and the sounds of car doors opening and closing outside. The lost boys’ voices drifted in through the broken window. It sounded like they were loading something large onto the back of Talbot’s truck.

Daniel yawned and stretched next to me. “What’s going on?” he asked, sounding slightly disoriented by sleep.

It was Saturday morning. The start of what would probably be the longest day of our lives.

“It’s beginning,” I said.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON, EIGHT HOURS TO GO

Daniel and Jude both chose to forgo Talbot’s battle-training lessons, instead spending the day meditating with Gabriel in the grassy fields on the back acres of the farm. As much as I wanted them ready to fight, I knew it was a smart choice. With every hour that got closer to the sunset, even I could feel the pull of the full moon.

Lisa must have noticed, as she removed her teardrop moonstone earrings and offered them to me.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I owe you. I mean, I’m totally hot enough to pull off the one-eared look. But still, I’m grateful I don’t have to.” She gave me a devious smile. “I’ll just have to make sure I don’t go wolf tonight, though. Wouldn’t want to accidentally kill you instead of a Shadow King.”

“Thanks,” I said. I closed my fingers over the two small stones and kept them locked in my fist all afternoon.

ONLY TWO HOURS LEFT

Mom served up a late dinner for everyone, and we spread out in the front yard of the farmhouse, filling our stomachs with as much as we could force ourselves to eat—for energy stores and all that. The way we all sat in small clusters, sharing plates of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, any passerby might assume we were at a family reunion. Only we were preparing for battle, not three-legged races or a water-balloon toss.

I sat on the front porch with Daniel, my parents, Jude, April, and Charity.

“Have any interesting plans for tonight?” April asked the group.

Daniel gave a slight laugh.

Charity picked up the fried chicken leg from her plate. “James loves these,” she said. “He thinks they’re little microphones. Remember how he’d pick a drumstick and hold it like this and sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’?” Her voice caught, and she put the drumstick back on her plate. She wiped tears from the corners of her eyes.

I put my hand on her back. “Except he always gets the words wrong,” I said. “And he sings ‘Tinkle, Tinkle, Little Star’ instead.”

Charity gave a sad smile, but then she started crying harder. “What if they don’t bring him tonight? What if he’s already … ?”