Chapter 24 #3
With a snort, I glanced over my shoulder at him. “I hate to tell you this, but I don’t think it’s worth but so much.”
He acted like he wanted to punch me. “So what do we do now?”
Ford cocked his head, his eyes shimmering. “I have an idea.”
“Oh, God. Look out, world,” I muttered.
“We shift. Together. When was the last time we enjoyed running through the woods?”
Beck and I looked at each other while Ford was already in the process of stripping off his clothes. We normally waited until it was dusk, but what the hell?
“Why not?” I threw out, already ripping off my shirt. All the hype about humans transforming into wolves with their clothes on was crap.
As kids, shifting had always felt freeing mainly because our parents had encouraged us to embrace our wolves. While we’d been cautioned as to when doing so was appropriate versus other times that could be dangerous for our existence, their patience and support had made all the difference.
Somewhere along the way it had become bad or wrong. Or inconvenient. Couple that with feeling guilty about shifting so I could heal from an injury that would have been career ending for a full human and shifting had no longer interested me.
Maybe that’s why I’d been going about the motions in life as well as in playing hockey. Something had been missing.
The three of us looked at each other again before I took a deep breath, holding the air in my lungs. My wolf was forever present, which meant I didn’t need to call him or invoke some ritual. I only needed to make shifting okay for both of us. Safe and something I wanted.
You bet I did at this moment and there was no safer place.
At least for now.
The transformation always started the same with scents becoming stronger, my eyesight even keener. Within seconds, there were new scents, stronger ones including the coppery odor of blood from other animals in the forest. I could sense their fear, but this wasn’t about hunting for food.
Allowing my wolf to run free was merely about embracing a missing part of myself.
After taking another deep breath, the physical transformation began. Skin stretching, the slight snapping of bones. Ribs cracking and muscles tearing, rebuilding into hyper-dense wolf sinews.
The trauma of the change was no longer frightening as it had once been, the agony experienced little more than a blip in time. In a way shifting could be described as a twisted pleasure or a euphoric adrenaline-fueled shedding of human weakness.
With my jaw breaking, another flash of anguish tore through me and I dropped onto all fours. There was such an emotional moment of knowing my brothers were shifting in unison. Their breaths had already fallen into the same rhythmic huff, their bodies dropping beside mine.
Within seconds, claws replaced fingers, the sense of being human tossed aside as more primal needs took hold. There was nothing like the full freedom of having my wolf exposed.
As the last moments of transformation took place, I threw my head back, gulping air as if it was my first time breathing in a decade. In a way, it was. There was nothing like the feeling.
I pawed the ground, digging up entirely different scents, smells that had furrowed into the earth for months, even years. Every sound was amplified, every color more vivid.
Beck issued a stark howl, a warning to all the creatures within the forest to run and hide. Although if we wanted, we would find them. No one could escape the wolves. We were our own pack, determined to protect the other if necessary.
And we were free.
As we took off running, my stride was effortless, easily bounding over fallen logs and low-hanging branches. The light breeze carried scents to my snout, creating a different level of hunger.
Ford excelled at racing through the forest, always the frontrunner. My claws dug into the earth for traction, allowing me sharp turns and sudden bursts of speed. The heavy, rhythmic thud of paws contrasted with the silent, ghost-like weaving through tight trees.
The moment was sheer joy, a well-deserved release of rage and frustration, but at the same time I remained in agony missing my mate. Dear God, the pain was entirely different than anything else I’d ever experienced.
The constant chatter of animals warning of our approach and the rustle of leaves couldn’t dull the echo of hearing her voice in my mind.
And nothing would help dull the ache of knowing she was no longer mine. I ran mile after mile, feeling my brothers’ presence, yet I’d never felt so alone in my life.
Even the celebration of pack unity couldn’t mask the need. For her. For the one person I couldn’t have. My heart was ready to explode, pain unlike any transformation settling inside knowing that in shunning my mate, I’d never find happiness.
As we raced back to where we’d started, a sense of humanity returned at the most unwelcome time.
Instead of remaining in the forest, the thought of forever feeling the same pain was too much to bear.
I veered to the side, lunging toward the waterfall and when I reached the edge leading straight down to the lagoon below, I allowed my wolf to fly.