I stared at her. “I . . . I don’t know. Werewolves are one of the only things we’ve never tried to make peace with. They’re a disease. Diseases have to be wiped out, for the sake of everyone they might infect.”

“I suppose so. Still, it’s a very Covenant way of looking at the world—we show our roots in our own ways, don’t we?” Her eyes dipped to the wound in my shoulder before moving to Shelby, who was standing red-cheeked and anxious between us. “How likely is it that you’ve been infected, Alex?”

Just like that, everything about her—her stance, her pointed questions, even her seeming lack of concern over Cooper’s death—fell into place. “I have as much of a chance of being infected as anyone else who’s been exposed,” I said. “I have a fresh batch of antiserum. Now that you’re here, we can move Cooper out of the chair and I can sit down long enough for the first stage of treatment. After that, we’ll have twenty-eight days before we know one way or another. If I have been infected, and can’t stop that infection before it fully takes hold, you’ll have to put me down.”

“No,” said Shelby. “Shan’t. Find another solution.”

“Yes, shall,” I said firmly. “Shelby, if I start to change, I won’t be on your side anymore. I’ll be a danger. To everyone, and to everything.”

“Unless you manage somehow to prove that werewolves can think,” said Charlotte. “Wouldn’t that be a scientific achievement?”

“You know, a few seconds ago I was sure you were trying to convince me to kill myself,” I said. “Can you please pick a line of argument and stick with it? Lots of good people have been bitten by werewolves over the years. Doctors and wildlife conservationists and yes, members of the Covenant who would’ve died before they’d allow themselves to become monsters. Not one of those people ever stood up and said ‘hey, I’m a werewolf that thinks, let’s not eat people.’ They all became killers. I would be a killer. If I go werewolf, we have to stop me from hurting people.”

“Good,” said Charlotte, with a decisive nod. “You may continue to breathe for now, Mr. Price. Shelby, do whatever you have to in order to get him ready to travel. I brought the rescue truck, so we’ll be able to lock him in the back where he can’t hurt anyone. Your sisters are helping your father look for signs of the werewolf. I’m going to stay here and hold a gun on you both, to make sure your boyfriend doesn’t try anything funny. Understood?”

“Yes, Mum,” said Shelby.

“Yes,” I said.

“Good. And Alex?”

“Yes?”

Charlotte smiled sadly, her eyes reflecting an infinity of regret. “I’m really sorry it had to be like this.”

“Yeah, well.” I shrugged, trying not to wince when it pulled on the wound in my shoulder. “I always knew that it was dangerous to come to Australia.”

Eight

“Transformation doesn’t always happen in an instant. Sometimes it comes slowly, infecting the body and the brain until you wake up and realize that you’ve been completely remade in something else’s image. Only pray that whatever infects you will leave you better than you were.”

—Thomas Price

Sitting in an animal rescue van, driving down the back roads of Queensland, Australia

THE VAN THE SOCIETY used for transporting injured wildlife around Queensland was big enough to have been a perfect base for a roving serial killer: much like the SUV, and like Riley himself, it seemed to have been designed to take up as much space as humanly possible while still being considered a “normal” example of the breed. A wire screen separated the front seat from the back. Charlotte and Gabby rode up front. Shelby and I rode in the back, seated on foldout benches on either side of the van.

“Thanks for leaving the cages home, Mum,” Shelby said, her hands resting on her knees and her eyes remaining fixed on me. “It would have been awkward back here if we’d been crammed between enclosures.”

“We could have just put your boyfriend into one,” said Gabby. “Solve a bunch of problems in one go.”

“I’d rather avoid cages as long as possible, if it’s all right by you,” I said. I could envision far too many of them in my future. We’d be putting me in one—or at least in a small locked room—as soon as we made it back to the house. After some brief discussion, we had mutually agreed to wait to deliver the antiserum until I was secure, since there was a chance it would cause convulsions. Better that we do something like that in a setting we could control.

“Alex,” said Shelby softly.

I mustered a wan smile. “It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not. None of this is all right. How have you even lived this long?” She looked suddenly angry, her sorrow transmuting into rage. “There’s a cockatrice, you look at it. There’s a werewolf, you get bitten by it. Did you ever meet a monster you didn’t want to turn into? It’s hard on the heart, Alex. It’s just . . . it’s so damn hard on the heart.”

“Not just yours.” I leaned my head back against the van wall, staring up at the ceiling. Riley and Raina were back at the medical station, disinfecting everything and wiping away all the signs of what had happened there. Including Cooper. “Did Cooper . . . did he have family?”

“No, thankfully,” said Charlotte. “We’ll have a private service, but we’re not going to be explaining his body to anyone who would ask unfortunate questions. People disappear in Australia every day.”

“People disappear all over the world every day,” Shelby corrected. “It’s not just here. It’s sad, though. He was always sweet to me, in his own way.”

“Every death is sad.” I was so tired. My arm still ached, despite its swaddling layers of gauze and cuckoo blood. I closed my eyes.

“Alex, try to stay awake, all right? We’ll be able to set you up a blood transfusion once we get back to the house.” Shelby sounded concerned.

I frowned, not opening my eyes. “I haven’t lost that much blood. And if you have the equipment to perform a blood transfusion at the house, why did we have to go to the middle of nowhere for me to break out the chemistry set? There was nothing at that medical station that I didn’t have with me or couldn’t have scavenged from a working kitchen.”