Chapter 10 #2
She’s smiling at me now, and I can feel my own face mirroring the action. It’s funny how when she’s out of my sight, all I do is worry about interacting with her, and yet when I’m actually doing so, it’s strangely easy. I don’t know what to make of that.
“An hour good?” I ask.
She nods. “Sounds great.”
“All right,” I answer. “I’ll see you then.”
She gives me another nod and a small smile before going back to what she was doing—and I turn to escape the vicinity of her potent scent so I don’t drown in it. It doesn’t occur to me for several more minutes that she’s going to have to be naked for this little lesson.
Fuck.
I’m trying very hard not to be distracted from what I’m trying to teach her, but it’s more than a little difficult, given that my hand is currently curled around her calf.
Sure, I’m only teaching her the best way to bend when she’s getting ready to shift, and her clothes are still most definitely on, but tell that to my fucking hormones.
It’s like my body can’t seem to reconcile the innocent gesture. Not with her smelling like she does.
We’re in a small clearing just out of view from the lodge; Tess was afraid her brothers might stumble upon us while we were going over things, and apparently she’s not ready to tell them anything. Not that I blame her. I don’t know that I would have an easy time explaining this either.
“You’re going to want to lean into a crouch,” I tell her. “That makes it easier when you go from two legs to four.”
“This is so fucking weird,” she mutters.
“Just wait till you eat your first rabbit.”
She audibly gasps. “I will not be eating a rabbit.”
“You get caught out in the snow one good time? You’ll eat a rabbit.”
She makes a disgruntled sound, and I chuckle under my breath. She’s kind of easy to rile up.
“But how do I…you know?” she says. “Is there some sort of magic word to change?”
I bark out a laugh. “No, there’s no magic word. Your body is meant to do this, and once it realizes that, it will be as easy as breathing.”
“Breathing doesn’t require me to eat poor innocent rabbits,” she grumbles.
“That restlessness you’re feeling in your skin? That’s because your body wants you to change forms. The wolf is a part of us, you know? You have to let it out sometimes, or else it will get…cooped up.”
“You talk about it like it’s a separate person.”
“I suppose in a way…it is? There’s the human part of my brain, and then there’s the wolf. After so long…I can recognize who has hold of the reins.”
“This is…so fucking weird.”
“It’ll get easier,” I tell her. “I promise.”
“So how does it work?”
“You have to imagine your wolf like an actual entity,” I tell her. “It’s a part of you, but it’s also its own being.”
“Because that isn’t cryptic.”
“Hey, it’s not like I’ve ever had to explain this to someone.”
“You’re right,” she sighs. “I’m sorry. Go on.”
“You need to focus on that restlessness you’re feeling. Tap into it. You need to imagine it like a string you can pull. Don’t fight it, but instead seek it out, yeah?”
“That still seems cryptic as hell.”
“You’ll just have to try, and we’ll go from there, okay?”
“Maybe you should go first,” she says. “So I can see it happening.”
My jaw works, dreading the next part that still hasn’t occurred to her. “Well…I’ll need to get naked.”
“Naked?”
“Yeah. This isn’t news. You remember when you came across me when I’d shifted the other day? It’s just something you have to do. Unless you want to tear through your clothes. I’ve done it before, and it’s a bitch.”
Her mouth hangs agape, her eyes narrowing like she’s suspicious of me.
I roll my eyes. “I’m not trying to get you naked, but you will have to be to do this. Even if you want to try it by yourself.”
“Ugh, fine,” she concedes. “Take your damn clothes off. Can you at least hide your…you know?”
“I’ll do my best not to flash you.”
She angles her body, no doubt watching from her peripherals while I start to shed my clothes.
It’s fucking freezing out, but thankfully, I run just a little hotter than a beta.
I save my boots for last so I don’t accidentally freeze my toes, shoving it all into the nylon bag I brought for us before I stand up straight.
I turn to the side with one hand covering my dick, doing my best to maintain some modesty.
“Okay,” I tell her. “Ready when you are.”
She peeks over at me, and I can tell by the slight widening of her eyes and the more than slight bloom of her scent that she likes what she sees. A part of me wants to preen under her attention, but I shove it down. That’s not what we’re doing here.
I close my eyes and draw on that feeling inside that’s a bit more animal than I am—almost like calling out to an actual wolf and bidding it to come closer.
It’s like breathing now, the change, but as my limbs shift and my fur sprouts, I can only imagine how shocking it must be for Tess, who has no prior experience.
When I’m down on all fours, I settle on my haunches, staring back at a now wide-eyed Tess, who is looking at me like I’m some sort of alien. She waves at me like she’s testing to see if it’s actually me, and I yip at her while throwing my head back in answer.
“Fucking freaky,” she mutters.
I trot over to her side, tugging at her coat sleeve with my teeth to try to pull it from her shoulder. I know that without some sort of nudge, she’ll put this off for as long as she can until she spontaneously shifts in the middle of a grocery store or something.
“I get it, I get it,” she huffs. “Get naked.” She points down at me. “But you turn around.”
I dutifully do as she says, circling in place and settling again to face the opposite direction.
I can hear the rustling of her clothes as she slowly sheds them behind me, and even as a wolf, I shudder at the thought of her without them.
It’s something I didn’t get to see before, and I can’t pretend that this isn’t a little disappointing. I’m only human, after all.
Well, mostly.
“All I’m doing is freezing to death,” I hear her grousing behind me, the chatter of her teeth clicking in the stillness. “How the hell am I supposed to pull at some invisible string?”
I yip again, pawing at the snow and bending the front half of my body as if readying to pounce. Thankfully, she gets my meaning.
“Yeah, yeah, lean into it, I got it.”
If I could, I would smile. She might be pricklier than I am sometimes.
I hear her feet shuffling in the snow, her muttered curses and deep breaths, and I don’t know if it’s her own body’s need to do so or just a stroke of luck, but after a few minutes, I hear something plop down into the snow, followed by the soft whimpering of another wolf.
And when I finally turn…I find the most stunning creature on four legs I’ve ever seen.