Chapter 23
CHAPTER 23
E mery
“Will it hurt?” I ask Chance as I peer up at him with my chin planted on his chest. Half of my body remains splayed across his as we lay on the surprisingly comfortable carpet of his living room floor.
I’m dressed in nothing but his T-shirt while he wears a pair of white boxer briefs.
His eyebrows dip into the shape of a V.
“If I shift,” I clarify. “You said there’s a chance I won’t survive.” I swallow the lump of fear that forms in my throat at that prospect. “Even if I do survive?—”
“You will,” his voice cracks through the air, sharp and thunderous. As if he’s demanding that the wolf goddess his pack refers to as ‘Mother Moon’ knows there’s no other option.
“Right,” I say not because I necessarily even believe I’m a wolf, but I do trust Chance’s instincts. Which means there’s a high likelihood I will shift soon.
“Still, will it hurt? You said for a wolf’s first shift, the whole pack is usually present for support because it can be painful.”
Chance’s movements are so fluid as he quickly sits up, his arm still holding me to him. He positions himself so that I’m still tucked into his body while he presses his back against the couch.
His free hand wraps around my chin, forcing me to look up at him. It’s as if he doesn’t want there to be any little bit of space between our two bodies.
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” he tells me with a promise in his deep voice.
Yet, I can’t help but think otherwise.
“What if?—”
“There’s no if,” he immediately counters. “You’re a wolf. One of us and you were meant to be mine,” he insists. “Becoming a shifter is your birthright. There’s nothing to fear. Especially with me there. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
His eyes scan mine, burying into my gaze as if he insists I believe his words.
I sit up on my knees between his legs, doing my best to ignore his half-erect cock. Despite having been intimate multiple times in one day, the last time being not more than thirty minutes ago, it’s like he’s ready to go again.
The thought alone makes me squirm a bit as I sit on my heels.
I push my wayward thoughts aside.
“But yesterday, over breakfast, I overheard one of the women saying that they’ve never heard of a wolf shifting at my age and surviving.”
“Who said that?” he insists.
I shake my head. “That’s not important. What I’m trying to ask is how much is known about someone my age undergoing their first shift? Isn’t it dangerous?”
Since being here in the commune, I’ve learned many facts about the lives of wolf shifters. Most, typically, have their first shift between the ages of nine and thirteen. A few late bloomers may shift as late as fourteen or fifteen.
But I’m a woman in my midtwenties. More than ten years passed when I should’ve had my first shift. What if something goes wrong?
“Nothing will happen to you,” Chance answers, making me realize I’ve stated my doubts out loud.
I look deep into his eyes and see the promise there.
Still, I break our eye contact.
The truth is, I could be making a big deal out of nothing. There’s no guarantee that I’m truly what he believes I am. The changes in my behavior over the past few weeks could all be attributed to the reality that I’m presently living in a community of wolf shifters.
It happens all of the time.
I’ve researched and studied a few civilizations of the past in which an outsider found their way into the new civilization or community and quickly adapted. Altering their behaviors to fall more in line with the people or society they were now living with.
Or when multiple women live together and their periods begin to coincide with one another. That could be all that’s happening with me.
The strange sensations and changes I’ve felt inside my body could be nothing more than my mind playing tricks on me.
As soon as that thought passes through my head, though, a large growl rips through my stomach. I cover my belly with my hands, suddenly embarrassed by the incessant hunger that’s suddenly gripped me.
When my eyes meet Chance’s again, he’s frowning.
“I knew you should’ve had more for dinner.” He’s on his feet before he even finishes his sentence.
After that very intense sex session on his couch, Chance got up and prepared a delicious dinner of chicken and beef fajitas. I’d insisted he’d put too much food on my plate. Yet, I ended up finishing it all.
Now, some thirty minutes later, my stomach is growling as if I hadn’t eaten in hours. I go to tell Chance that it’s not a big deal. But I know he’ll insist I eat anyway. He’ll fix me a plate of the remaining food from our dinner, while telling me that I need to eat to keep up my strength.
The supermoon is in a few days.
I bite my bottom lip as my thoughts sink into the conversation we were just having before my appetite interrupted it.
Am I really a wolf?
If I am, then could just about everything I know about myself be a lie?
As the questions start to swirl in my head, Chance places another plate full of his delicious fajitas in front of me.
“I prepared extra because I knew we would need it,” he says.
The scent from the spices and seasonings he used to flavor the meat float up to my nose. I inhale, and I swear I can name each individual spice.
Cumin
Pepper
Salt
Little bit of ginger
Chili powder
Roasted garlic
A part of me—the part that knows my mother would admonish me for having a second dinner—wants to tell him this isn’t necessary. That I’m truly not hungry.
But the deeper, hungrier part of me takes over. With little thought, I fill one of the corn tortillas with strips of beef, red and green peppers and onions before taking a considerable bite.
My shoulders fall in relief as I chew.
“How are they? Not too salty? I added a little more seasoning to the meat before reheating it this time.”
My eyes pop open, which makes me realize that I closed them in the first place. Chance stares at me with a pinch between his eyebrows.
“I’m not usually the one who does the cooking for our pack. I rarely cook at all. My mom taught me, but that was years ago …” He clears his throat. “I can go see what Ms. Elsie and the others have made for dinner if you want?”
I scrunch my face and stare at him, mid-chew. Is he actually nervous?
In a million years, I would’ve never associated such an emotion with this powerful man. Yet, he’s peering at me as if his breathing hangs on my assessment of his cooking.
A smile touches my lips.
I swallow the bite of food in my mouth before answering, “Considering this is my second plate, I think we can assume you did an excellent job. Thank you.”
He actually pushes out a breath, looking relieved.
“There’s more in the kitchen, so eat up.”
“I think this will be enough,” I reply, almost embarrassed at how greedily I bite into my second fajita.
“You need your strength,” he reemphasizes. “The supermoon is in two days. Your wolf is growing stronger.”
I swallow before parting my lips to, once again, tell him about my doubts that this is even my reality.
But I’m cut off by the vibration of my phone on the wooden coffee table.
An automatic groan releases from my mouth when I see the name pop up on my phone screen.
“Mom,” I say with mock enthusiasm.
“Is that the way you were taught to answer a telephone?”
I snap my eyes shut. “I’m sorry. Hello, Mother. How are you?” I don’t miss the way my voice takes on a monotone sound.
I sense Chance’s powerful gaze on me. For some reason, I don’t turn to look at him.
“That’s better,” she says. “How many more weeks can I expect you to continue playing with those rocks in Colorado before you return home and to your fiancé? Hello? Emery, are you alright?” she asks, while I choke on the food I’d been eating. I cough a few more times while Chance pats my back, peering down at me with concerned eyes.
I blink away the tears brought on by the coughing and wave at him to let him know I’m okay.
“D-did you say my fiancé?” I ask my mother. “I don’t have?—”
“Of course you do. Billy is anxious to marry you and start a family as soon as possible.”
“Mother, we’ve been through this. He and I broke up months ago. He said he wanted to focus on completing medical school.”
“Nonsense,” she insists. “Temporary time apart while he focuses on his career is not the same as a break up. It is especially not enough reason for you to run off to Colorado to play in dirt like a child.”
Her voice grows more strained and tense with each word.
“My internship is more than playing with rocks,” I defend.
I press a hand to my chest to stave off the suddenly piercing pain at the center. An image of my mother’s disgusted face when she found me stuffing my mouth in the middle of the night, returns to me.
That look is imprinted on my memory forever. It’s the look I saw in my mind’s eye every time I thought about doing something I knew she wouldn’t approve of.
She just wants the best for me.
The same words I used to tell my sister over and over again, are the same words I always used to settle my own resentful or sad emotions.
“Nonsense,” she repeats. “When is it over?”
I remember that I hadn’t even told her I resigned from my internship. I knew she would demand that I return home if I had, but I couldn’t do that. Not knowing what I could potentially be. And that Ashley was home safe.
Speaking of which…
“Um, how is Ashley doing? Is she home now? Can I speak with her?” My sister hadn’t contacted me aside from a few text messages in response to my texts.
Her responses were mostly short, and I yearned to hear her voice.
“Your sister?” My mother sounds taken aback for a beat. Her voice normalizes, however, when she says, “I told you she was resting.”
“That was days ago,” I interrupt, knowing my mother considers interruptions rude. “You said she would give me a call, but she hasn’t. Is she ill? Still resting? Why does she need so much rest?”
Could Ashley be going through the same thing I might be? Does she know about this world that I’ve stumbled into?
When I’ve tried to ask as much via text, I was only given vague answers about her time in Florida.
“Can I speak with her?” I finally ask my mother. “She’s not answering my calls.”
She pushes out a long sigh, sounding aggrieved. “Hold on.”
I ignore the terseness in her voice. All I want right now is the assurance that Ashley is okay.
I know she is.
My mother told me she was home, and Ashley all but assured me she was fine via text, but I still want to hear her voice. For my own peace of mind.
“Emery?” a soft, female voice says through the phone.
A tentative smile breaks out on my face. “Ashley. Where have you been?”
I start to ask more questions about how she’s doing, why she hasn’t returned my calls, and more but I bite my tongue.
“I’m fine,” she answers.
My eyebrows dip.
“Fine?”
“Yes, of course. Mother told you I was here, didn’t she?”
I hesitate before replying. “Yes. I wanted to talk to you myself, though.”
“Oh, well, as you can hear, I’m fine.”
There was that word again.
“Were you injured or ill? Why did you need to rest and why didn’t you call me after you left?—”
“It was no big deal. I got into a little fender bender in Florida, but I’m okay. Sis, I have to go. Father just arrived home, and he needs my help with something.”
I pull the phone away from my ear.
“O-okay,” I say when Ashley tells me goodbye.
“There.” My mother’s voice reaches me once again. “Your sister is helping your father. The Kings are having their annual gala soon and you should be on Billy’s arm. Now, tell me, when are you coming home from that silly internship so that you can get on with your normal life?”
It’s as if she doesn’t even hear me.
The urge to tell my mother, yet again, that there’s nothing silly about my internship, wells up in me. I knew she never wanted me to pursue my interest in anthropology. Especially not to take an internship in the mountains in Colorado, but when Billy all but told me I wasn’t his priority, I saw my chance.
My mother, on the other hand, expected me to sit around and pine away for him. Even though I’d completed my master’s degree in my chosen field and saw this internship as a stepping stone to launch my career.
I shake my head and peer right up into golden-brown eyes. I never forgot Chance’s presence in the room, but staring into his eyes, grounds me in a way I didn’t know I needed.
That moment is when my present reality comes rushing back to me. All of the changes I may or may not go through within the next forty-eight hours. I need answers to those questions first, before I can respond to my mother.
“I-I’ll call you soon,” I tell her before hanging up.
I know I can expect an angry rant on our next call or maybe even a text about how rude it is to disconnect a call so abruptly. But that doesn’t stop me from tossing my phone onto the couch.
I glance down at the half-eaten plate of food on the coffee table in front of me. How I’d hungrily relished in its deliciousness just minutes before.
Now, my appetite has spoiled.
A large, warm hand cups the side of my face, tilting my head upward. Chance’s concerned expression fills my line of sight.
“What is it?”
“That was my mother.”
He nods, indicating he got that part.
“I spoke with Ashley too.”
“But?”
How can he read me so well? It’s been a few weeks since I’ve met him, but it feels like so much longer. The way it feels as if he can read my very thoughts.
“She sounded strange,” I admit.
“How so?”
“She told me she was ‘fine.’” I put up air quotes as I say the last word.
Chance gives me an expectant look.
“Ashley doesn’t say ‘fine.’ She once told me the word is boring and the world is too full of color and life to ever describe a mood as ‘fine.’ My sister doesn’t do ‘fine.’”
I turn my head to look at my phone. “Maybe she’s sick and is trying to hide it from me.”
Chance turns my head to face him again. That’s when I realize he wasn’t able to read my lips.
I repeat what I just said so that he can see my mouth.
“Why would your sister do that?”
I shake my head. “Probably because she knows I worry about her.” Even as I say that, though, it doesn’t make sense. Ashley always confides in me.
In fact, I’m the only person she confides in.
“Maybe I should go back to New York sooner than I planned.”
“No.” Chance’s tone brokers no argument. “The supermoon is in two days,” he continues. “And your wolf, while stronger, is too weak to understand the changes it’s about to go through. You need to be here. With our pack. With me.”
His eyes glitter with certainty. I’m torn between worrying for my sister and the part of me that has somehow started to think of this place as home.
It’s incredible that in such a short amount of time, I’ve managed to find a home here. There are too many questions in my mind as to whether it’s true or I’m just living in a fantasy.
But it’s the assuredness in Chance’s eyes that makes me rethink my plan of leaving.
He wants to keep me safe.
Mine!
The word pushes through my mind without warning. My heart squeezes upon hearing it, as if indicating that yes, he is ours.
Ours?
As in mine and my wolf’s.
The voice isn’t loud or jarring, but it is distinct from my own internal voice. As if there are two minds inside of me. They’re not at war with one another but coexisting inside of one body.
It’s moments like this that I’ve experienced over the past few weeks that make me believe what Chance thinks of me is true. That there is a wolf inside of me, waiting until the supermoon to finally make its appearance.
With that thought, I know that I have to stay. At least, until after the Supermoon Ceremony. Ashley is safe at home in New York, for now. She hasn’t given me any indication that she’s in danger and she’s with our parents.
After the supermoon, I’ll return to New York. If what Chance suspects to happen to me, occurs, I’ll have to talk with my sister to find out what she knows of this new world.
I look up at Chance, his hand still palming my face.
“I’ll stay,” I promise. I told him I would remain here until after the supermoon and I plan to keep my word.
He leans down and places a kiss on my forehead. Any doubts or objections I continue to have melt away. He has the power to do that with one touch.
I don’t know what’s in store for me over the next few days, but even if I’m not a wolf shifter, I’m grateful for whatever it was that brought me to this amazing man.