Chapter 11
Millie
“You want me to shift with you all?” I was both touched and scared shitless by this benevolent offer.
I didn’t have the first clue about how this change thing worked, but I wanted it more than anything. I’d been fighting my true nature for so long, the chance to actually embrace it now made me want to weep with joy.
That realization practically slapped me across the face with its intensity, but it was the truth. I needed to belong to my mate’s family in more than just name. I needed to belong in spirit and body, as well.
I looked around the table at all the nodding, smiling faces and nearly lost it.
Tears filled my eyes and threatened to spill over at their collective sincerity.
It had been so long since I’d had a family, since I’d truly belonged somewhere.
I was touched deep down into my very soul by their magnanimous offer.
“Well, if you guys are willing to help me, I’m willing to give it a try,” I offered as Ethan smiled wide and placed another scoop of rich, saucy pasta onto my plate.
“Just relax,” Ethan encouraged, as he began to pull off his shirt, dropping it carelessly onto the frosted grass at our feet.
The sight of his beautiful, striated muscles gleaming in the moonlight wasn’t helping to relax me any.
It was only working me up. When Ethan reached for his belt buckle, and fed the stiff leather quickly through the loop before dropping his jeans, the tattoo of my treacherous heart picked up to dangerous levels.
Smiling knowingly, my mate said, “There’s nothing to fear, Millie.
I’m here with you. Just breathe and clear your mind of all thoughts and worries.
I like to feel the earth at my feet. To ground myself with my toes in the dirt.
To let the peace and tranquility of the woods organically guide me through my change step by step. ”
I let Ethan remove my jacket and help me strip down to my bare skin after he did the same. Ignoring my body’s obvious reaction to his, I closed my eyes and drew in the clean air all around us.
“Let it just happen. For me, it starts as a tingle at the base of my spine. Then it moves up my back and spreads out to my limbs from there,” Ethan explained, as he pulled me into the circle of his arms and pressed me against his warm chest. “The experience is different for everyone, but not so different that you won’t recognize the symptoms of the onset for what they are once they begin. ”
I’m not going to lie. Ware or not, I was freezing my ass off. But Ethan, despite the cold, was warm. More than warm. Within his comforting embrace, I tuned into that steady heartbeat and allowed mine to sync with his as I reveled in all that delicious body heat.
After some time, I could feel something starting to happen in my toes. But after a few more frustrating seconds, I wondered if it was frostbite setting in and not my change like I’d hoped.
“I can’t do it, Ethan!” I whined after another couple of frustrating minutes where nothing manifested.
“You can,” he promised, gently placing his chin on the top of my head. “You just have to give it time. Don’t concentrate on changing. Concentrate on the world around you. On the sights, sounds, and smells.”
I was grateful none of the guys were here to witness my shameful lack of shifting.
Not to mention my nudity. That would have been hella awkward.
That thought alone was giving me all kinds of anxiety, as I knew sooner or later, we’d all have to see each other in the buff if we were going to go on pack runs together.
Driving that paralyzing thought from my head, I did what Ethan had suggested and cleared my mind of all worldly concerns, instead focusing on the natural world around me.
My shivering and shaking calmed down a bit and I was able to hear things I’d never heard before.
Like the hoot of an owl speaking to her mate.
The creeping of a small animal through the brush.
The munching of another as it grazed on something tasty.
Again, that feeling in my toes began to happen. Like the tickling of a butterfly’s wings, it fluttered up my calves and then spread up my thighs. Trying not to panic, I let it happen. When it reached my knees, I could feel my skin start to stretch and burn a bit.
Just when my spine began to tingle like Ethan had mentioned, a loud horn sounded in the background and my whole shift ground to a halt.
Gasping, I broke out of my trance and looked up at Ethan. “What was that?”
Whatever it was, it had destroyed my concentration and knocked me out of whatever shift I was about to experience. Strangely enough, I felt deflated, disappointed, and completely exhausted, though nothing had actually happened.
Again, the sound of someone laying on a car’s horn rent the quiet of the night. It lasted for a full ten seconds before it paused, then it bleated obnoxiously again.
Visibly angry, Ethan stepped back and handed me my clothes. “I don’t know what that nonsense is, but we’re about to find out.”
Once we were haphazardly dressed, my mate took my hand and walked me briskly back to the cabin. As soon as we cleared the wood line, I spotted an oversized red Ford F-350 parked outside, steam belching from the exhaust.
Afraid that my stalker might have found us, I nuzzled against Ethan’s side and said, “Do you know who that is?”
Silent for a few moments, my mate finally answered, “Yes. It’s Logan. My older brother.”
Ethan
Millie didn’t press me for details. Because she was my mate and could read me, my face and the tenseness of my body already said it all.
Squeezing my fingers, she smiled hopefully up to me and asked, “That’s a good thing, right? You called him and he came. Come on, introduce me. I’m dying to meet him.”
I wish I had her enthusiasm. There was just something so unsettling about my brother Logan.
I’m not sure if it was my resentment over his abandonment, or our long-term estrangement, but there wasn’t any natural bond between us like there was with the rest of the guys I’d been raised with.
Shit, my blood was less kin to me than any of them.
Including Gavin, who I’d only known for a short time.
Deciding I couldn’t act like that child Logan always made me revert back to, I squeezed my mate’s hand in response and relented. “Okay, I’ll introduce you to my brother.”
I approached the truck carefully, though I could easily smell who was driving it. I’d never mistake the unique scent for anyone else. You never forgot the smell or the pain of family, it would seem.
When Logan noticed our approach, he cut the engine and popped the cab door.
Stepping out, he gave me a hard, long look before his attention traveled over to Millie.
His gaze landed on her form with obvious appreciation and I had to do everything in my power not to growl a warning to stay the fuck away from my mate.
“Logan,” I called out in greeting, trying to force some affection into my tone, though you would have been hard pressed to find any.
“Ethan,” my brother’s gravelly voice responded in equal measure.
We awkwardly stood there in a trio before Millie held out her hand and replied, “Millie Summers. It’s so good to meet you, Logan.”
Logan’s rigid stance somewhat relaxed at my mate’s attempt at softening this otherwise stressful moment. “Nice to meet you, too, Millie.”
The man shook her tiny hand in his massive paw, his eyes running up and down her curvy frame.
Fighting the urge to rip her hand free of my kin’s, I said with a touch of bitterness, “I’m surprised to see you, Logan. You never returned my call. I thought you weren’t coming.”
The face that reminded me so much of my father’s—swarthy, angular, handsome—quickly tensed back up. “I didn’t think I could make it. Then things changed, and I could.”
Well, that cleared everything up, right?
“How long will you be staying?” Millie cheerfully posed, trying not to shiver in the cold night air.
I don’t know what I was more aggravated about.
Logan’s sudden, unannounced arrival, or the fact that he’d interrupted Millie’s change.
She’d been only seconds from it before he’d honked his fucking horn and caused her to break her concentration.
As her mate, I could feel it just about to bloom to the surface, and I know how hard she’d worked for that shift after suppressing it for so long.
Unfortunately for my girl, Logan had fucked that all to hell.
Not surprising though. The man wasn’t known for his timing or his tact.
“Not sure how long I can stay,” Logan answered cryptically as he reached into his pocket and drew out a packet of cigarettes.
As a shifter of any kind, I don’t know how the hell he smoked those disgusting things.
Wares had incredibly sensitive noses, and the acrid stink of burning cigarettes always irritated my delicate olfactory system.
I could only imagine how bad it was if you were inhaling the chemically ladened things.
“Well, however long it is, we’re glad to have you here,” Millie responded, saying all the things I knew I should, but couldn’t force out of my angry mouth.
I don’t know why I was behaving like this.
I’d asked him to come. Called him three times even.
While I hadn’t expected him to follow through with the request, even before the silence after my reaching out, he was here now.
That should make me happy. But it didn’t.
Like a petulant child, I was angrier than ever.
Logan cupped his Marlboro with one hand, sheltering it against the breeze as he simultaneously lit it with the other.
After taking a quick puff, he said, “When you didn’t answer your phone or the front door, I thought I’d missed you or something.”
“We were just coming from the woods,” Millie provided conversationally.
“Figured as much. That’s why I laid on the horn,” Logan replied through a mouthful of smoke. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important.”