Chapter 377

My heart broke as I watched Abby comfort her wolf. “Nala?” I leaned over the three so I could see her face.

Abby nodded. “I don’t know how, but as soon as I touched her, I knew her name.” She rubbed her face against the patchy, dull fur. “She is sick, like me, isn’t she?”

I just nodded. “Yeah, baby girl, she is.” She snuggled in closer.

“Why is she so small?” She cracked open an eye and hugged her wolf pup closer. “Shouldn’t she be bigger? I should have met her sooner, right?”

I looked at Nix and remembered that I started talking to her when I was about five or six. She had always been there, strong, steady, and my best friend. My heart ached for the pair in front of us. “Yeah, she should be bigger, but so should you. The sickness ate away at your strength, at your power, and it stunted you.”

She looked at me with sad eyes. “It’s okay, you know.”

“What is?”

“That I have to die.” She closed her eye as her puppy whined and rolled over into her arms. The tiny wolf cracked an eye and used a bit of its strength to slowly lick Abby’s face. Even in her weakened form, Nala was doing her best to be there for her human. Abby’s lip quivered as she kissed her wolf’s nose. “I’ve spent the last year getting used to the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to grow up. That I would leave my mom and dad.” She turned to face me fully. “On the days where I couldn’t leave my bed, I wrote letters to them. They weren’t much, mostly pictures at first, but when I learned more words, I started to write down how much I loved them.”

“Abby…” I reached out and stroked her hair. My magic zipped through her and she felt stronger, like the magic I sent through her to heal did more good than I thought possible.

Nix looked at me as she felt it, too. “Pick up the pup, Amy.” I looked at the wolf pup, and she cracked her eye again.

She couldn’t speak, but the pain there, the fear, the loneliness spoke volumes. “Come here, Nala.” I picked her up and instantly my magic flowed through me and into the wolf in my arms. “Oh, goddess.” This small thing was skin and bones. But instantly I knew exactly what happened.

“What’s wrong?” Abby pulled herself up, leaning against Nix for support.

“What do you know of the relationship between a wolf and their human?” Nix wrapped around her and settled again, watching me cuddle Nala.

“Your wolf is your best friend, someone that shares your body and your soul.” Abby turned to her. “That’s what they tell you in school.”

Nix nodded. “They are right, but it goes much deeper. We become your closest ally, your first confidant, and… your first line of defense.”

Abby’s face scrunched up. “What does that mean?”

“It means…” I cut in. “That your wolf woke up to you being already under attack, and to keep you alive, without a second thought, Nala stepped in to save you.”

Abby snapped her head to look at the wolf in my arms. She pushed herself up and shuffled over to me. “But she didn’t know me yet. We had never even talked before.” Her lips trembled. “She’s dying because of me?”

I pushed more power into the pup, guiding it to the organs first. There was no reason to worry about her fur when her lungs were failing. “Not because of you. For you.”

Abby slapped her hands over her eyes and started crying. “Why would she do that for me?”

Nix huddled closer. “When we first wake up, we sit in the silence of your minds and watch through your eyes. We see what kind of person you are, and that influences how we develop. If you are kind, giving, and sweet, your wolf will become the same.” Nix licked a tear from her face. “But it is much simpler than that. She was born to be your first protector. She woke up and her first thought was you. She felt you were dying. She felt your pain, and she took it into herself to give you more time.”

She dropped her hands and looked at me. “More time for what?” She sobbed as she reached out and stroked Nala’s fur. “I won’t live without her.”

“There is a small chance you could live without your wolf, but…” I stroked the fur on Nala’s muzzle. “She probably didn’t know that. She probably took some of it from you so that you had enough time to say goodbye.”

Abby shook her head. “I was always going to die.”

I nodded. “Yeah, but I think your wolf gave you enough time to get used to it and to write your letters, to tell your mom and dad how much you love them, and to hopefully get a chance.”

“A chance at what?” She stood on shaky legs. “A chance to see my wolf die?”

“No, baby. A chance to find a cure. A chance to meet me.”