Dirty Lying Wolves

6. A Different Kind of Pain

Dom

The middle of the woods

I couldn't get into the woods fast enough. Carson and Aaron were doing better than Jack and I, the lunaria's dream wasn't giving them any trouble yet. So they carried Amelia and Jerod with us. I had scooped up several power drinks, the electrolytes would help us get through this mess somewhat better than without them. I drained one of them, then began ditching my clothes.

The others followed suit soon after. Any sickness was better handled in wolf form than outside of it, and in the ten years Apollo had us hooked on the drug I knew for a fact that withdrawal was no exception.

The shift came a little slower than usual. It always did when this started to happen, but it had been a while since I had to go through it. Still, it wasn't a feeling I was going to forget anytime soon.

"Dom," Aaron said. "What do you want to do with Amelia and Jerod out here?"

"Let me take care of Amelia," I said. "You three keep an eye on the warlock, but otherwise he'll be the same as he's been the last two days." I jerked my head in the direction of Carson who was setting Jerod down. "We're not going to be very capable of turning away prying human eyes, so we need to keep their noises well away from the rest of the campsite."

"Got it," Aaron said, then he looked down at Amelia. "Take care of her."

He didn't wait for my reply. Not that he even needed to say that. Any of us would do everything we could for Amelia, even if she wasn't really herself these last few years. And whether she would admit it or not, she was still our Alpha.

I sat down with a grunt, wiping the hair out of Amelia's eyes. She was grunting, holding her rib cage tight. She opened her eyes and looked up at me, sweat on her brow, and her eyes dull with distraction. Her breath was a little heavy, but otherwise, she was faring better right now then she had been.

"What?" she snapped.

"We're starting to come down off the lunaria's dream," I said softly. "Jack's already started."

She grunted and closed her eyes again. I brushed a leaf off her bronze arm, and she growled lightly at me.

"You can't shift, can you." It wasn't really a question since she would have taken a wolf form to take on this painful curse if she could. "I'll stay here with you tonight."

That opened her eyes again. "Don't... need to."

"I know." I shifted over a foot or so to lean against a fallen tree. The harsh bark of the evergreen scratching my bare back.

Honestly, my head was pounding and I felt the abdominal pain setting in, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it usually was. I forced myself to eat something after the gas station but the appetite drop had already begun even then. This was definitely the easiest I'd ever had it, and if I had it my way I wouldn't take that shit again.

"Guess Lady Thea wasn't full of crap after all," I said. "This is a cakewalk."

And of course, that was the moment Jack threw up, particularly audibly, several yards away. I laughed low, as much as I could manage through my own discomfort.

Amelia just growled, still holding her ribs. I leaned my head back against the tree, trying to ignore the afternoon sunlight that was threatening to pierce right through my splitting skull.

I smelled the others shift. Aaron and Carson were first. Jack took a bit, probably because he was already going through his own symptoms.

"When this is over, if we're better and you still aren't, I'm going to kick that warlock's ass," I said.