The Hollow Gods (The Chaos Cycle #1)

Chapter 32

Chapter

Thirty-Two

Kai

The only thing worse than a bad hangover was a follow-up visit from hell’s most deranged spirit.

Fuck this shit.

Kai stomped through the woods, kicking dead branches as he went.

Fuck everything.

He looked up to see a squirrel in a tree, ignoring his presence as it nibbled contently on an acorn.

And fuck that squirrel in particular.

Kai was annoyed the rodent didn’t seem to notice him—or at least didn’t care that he was nearby. He felt out of control—disoriented not just by the haunting, but by the presence of others around him when it happened. Her presence, specifically.

She saved you .

He could barely admit it to himself, barely register that he was angry about it. And he was angry that he was angry about it. What’s so bad about being saved , he kept asking himself, trying to beat away the shame he felt for needing help.

The wolf saved by the lamb. What a joke.

Kai never needed saving. After Alice, he took the only thing she’d left him—her surname—and ran away to Black Hollow. He was only sixteen, but that was old enough to get by without help. He didn’t have to hide who he truly was any longer. Not that Alice would have ever found out; his ability to change had been repressed since he was ten years old—since that night in the woods when Alice first found him, starving and covered in blood that wasn’t his. But the trauma of losing her—well, that seemed to kick things in reverse. All the anger and pain he’d shoved down after she died erupted in one bone-shattering transition that hurt worse than a rusty pole up the ass. It brought him back, forcing him to reconnect with the animal. And since then, he’d been bursting like Old Faithful.

Kai clenched his teeth and growled menacingly at the unsuspecting squirrel. He felt a tingle in his fingertips, moving up his arms and into his back. By the time it reached his neck, it had deepened into a slow burn that crawled over his scalp. He knew it was coming; it always started like this.

He slackened his jaw, aware that it would involuntarily tense a moment later. His canines elongated as his joints locked, throwing him off balance. Every vertebra in his spine broke, muscles seizing and tendons stretching beyond their natural range. His body fought to maintain its human shape—but that didn’t last long. Kai clamped his mouth shut so he wouldn’t scream and bit into his gums, the iron-taste of blood washing over his tongue. His lower back bulged outward then snapped, forcing him to the ground where his knees broke. They were trying to become ankles for his hind legs.

Every inch of him burned and itched as coarse, black fur sprouted from his flesh. He tried digging his fingers into the dirt to grab hold of something—anything—but his body wouldn’t permit even small mercies. His fingers curled in on themselves and fused into stubs. His nails narrowed, thickened, and curved into blunt claws. When the pain became too much, he finally gave in—the wretched cry of a man twisting into a helpless whine.

Sometimes his jaw didn’t morph as quickly as his tongue, leaving him choking as it expanded into the back of his throat. His tailbone was always the last to go. It grew pointy, prodding him from the inside before the bones pushed their way out of his body. Several agonizing minutes passed before the flesh grew back and the fur colonized his skin.

Kai lay on the forest floor until breathing grew easier. When he felt steady, he rolled onto his stomach and sat up on his haunches. Whenever he turned into a wolf, the first thing he felt after the vertigo subsided was a deep, ravenous hunger. He wanted to hunt, and he wanted to eat. His every fibre twitched with predatory instinct as sounds and smells invaded him. The squirrel on the tree was no longer of interest, nor was the hare hiding in the bushes several yards to his left. No, he wanted something bigger. He wanted a challenge.

For that, he’d have to go deeper into the woods. Standing on all fours and shaking out his tail, Kai began to stalk, his lips pulling back and his tongue flopping lazily against his jaw. He heard the hare scurry away when he got close but ignored the urge to chase it.

He could smell something far more enticing over the slope ahead.