Dire Desires: A Novel of the Eternal Wolf Clan by Stephanie Tyler Page B

money behind me, so my idea of partying was probably more extensive. I felt indelible, like I couldn’t get hurt or in trouble. My behavior was wild—and it was escalating. Staying out all night, taking lots of dangerous risks. I had the means to get out of any kind of trouble.”
    But whatever happened made her face grow dark with the memory. He wanted to wipe that pain away, stop her from thinking about it, but this was important shit. He had to know it.
    She sighed, grabbed a second beer but held it instead of drinking it. “I’d had a lot of shots that night. I was spinning. I was high as well, but the weird thing was, I don’t think the drugs were actually making me feel the way I did.”
    “How’s that?”
    “Indestructible. I got behind the wheel of a car and I ended up crashing into a telephone pole. I was so lucky because I could’ve killed someone. As it was, I broke my legs and spent time in the hospital recovering. My parents told me they were placing me under psychiatric care because of the drugs and drinking, and I agreed. I felt so guilty. I was dangerous. They’d been warning me to get myself under control for months and months and I just kept ignoring them. I thought the hospital could fix me, but things got worse. I knew that I’d never be released. No one could figure out what was wrong with me. I didn’t respond to meds. I couldn’t just behave, no matter how much I wanted to. After a while, they placed me in a long-term facility and I figured I’d be there forever.”
    “Plenty of kids are wild, Gilly, but not all of them get sent to psych wards.”
    “I was clawing at the walls. One night, I woke up howling. I jumped through windows. I would get bursts of anger and adrenaline and throw tables at the staff. I was uncontrollable at times,” she told him in a burst of angry confession. “None of that’s normal.”
    It was. His heart broke for just how damned normal it was, but she continued. “I feel like I’m two people. Gillian—the girl who just wants to find a boyfriend and have fun and this other person who likes to run naked and lately, it’s like they’re blending and it’s getting harder and harder to separate them and I hear this voice—it tells me things. It calms me. The doctors said I’m the right age for schizophrenia to manifest.”
    He put his hand over hers, his palm searing heat onto her skin. “I can promise you that you’re not schizophrenic. That you don’t have any mental illness.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “Because you can’t. Genetically. Physically. You do not get mentally ill or get any other diseases.”
    Maybe Gillian had been right the first time—Jinx did belong back in that mental ward. She could go back with him and they could grow old together there. Because that was all she wanted—to be together with him.
    At least he appeared to want the same thing.
    “What I’m going to tell you—well, you might laugh. Think I’m joking. And then you’ll probably get scared. But a part of you, the part you told me about, will understand.”
    “Okay, tell me.”
    “There’s no good way to do this,” he muttered. “Gilly, you’re feeling this way—the urge to be naked, to run under the moon—because you’re a wolf.”
    She blinked. Once. Twice. Held back a laugh as she waited for his.
    None came, from either of them. “So all of this is happening to me because I’m a wolf?”
    Still, no laughter. The man was serious. Dead serious when he said, “Yes. Part of you knows instinctively. And part of you has been taught it’s too crazy to believe. But still you do.” Jinx handed her the book with her moon drawings that he must’ve grabbed before they left the hospital.
    She took it from him but refused to look inside. It represented so many years of pain. “I’m not a very good artist.”
    “It’s the way you interpret her. Raw. Primal. Basic, like your needs.”
    Jinx’s voice whispered to something she’d already known as it