Page 13

Grey

“Look how wrinkled my toes are,” she muses, showing me the bottoms of her feet. I flip down that way and grab her foot, then kiss the pad of her big toe before tickling the sole.

She squeals and rolls over to escape me but nearly falls off the bed, so I move fast and catch her.

“You saved me,” she whispers, smiling.

She’s got an adorable dimple on her left cheek. And seeing it feels like a gift. Her eyes are alight, and her smile is beautiful.

I roll us back to the middle, then move up so my head is beside hers. “Are your fingers wrinkled, too?” She lifts my hand and examines it.

We were in the shower for so long, the water turned cold. It didn’t matter; we kept at one another. She’s still a little shy, timid with me, astonished at how much she’s enjoying what I’m doing to her and though she seems uncertain, I think she’s anxious to give me pleasure, too. She wasn’t untouched but she is inexperienced.

I’ll teach her.

As much as I hate that anyone else has had their hands on her, I like that she didn’t like it before.

I can’t get enough of her. Can’t get enough of how good it feels to knot while I’m buried to the hilt in my mate. How incredible it feels to watch her come apart with my touch. She’s shy, hesitant, but showing she’s into all of it. Quite the turnaround from just last night when she dreaded it.

“Your shower is huge. And so much water pressure. And your water smells so good.” She’s still holding my hand in both of hers, examining it like it’s fascinating to her.

“Smells good?”

“Very good.”

“Water doesn’t have much of a scent,” I point out.

“It does if it’s polluted like ours. Our water smells terrible.” She wrinkles her nose. “We boil it before we use it and there’s always a lingering aroma after running the tap. And you’ve got no choice but to use it as-is to shower.”

“That doesn’t sound good. Get a water quality test?”

She shakes her head. “No way. Outsiders knowing absolutely anything? He wouldn’t allow that.”

And as soon as she says that, her face changes. It’s obvious she doesn’t want me to ask more questions. But whether she realizes it or not, she’s already begun painting a picture for me.

I’ve decided to wait to push on the subject until tomorrow. Today, she’ll learn more about what it’s like to be with me. To feel safe. Cared for.

“Your hands aren’t very rough,” she says, “Yet I can tell you must work with them often with how strong you are.”

“Buy soap with moisturizer in it,” I say. “Not ashamed to admit that. Don’t like feeling like a reptile.”

She smiles and runs the top of her foot under the sole of my foot. “Bottoms of your feet are a little rough, though.”

“Not a shocker since I’m often barefoot out in the wild. Yours are baby soft, though.”

“They might be even softer if I dig into that basket that was left on your doorstep. There are a lot of nice smelling products in there.”

“That’s from Skye Quinn. She’s good friends with Mom. Mase’s mother. He’s second in birth order. Just mated recently to Amelia. Human. Bit of a spitfire, that one.”

“Humans in your pack. Kind of...”

“Crazy? Naw. When an alpha identifies his mate it doesn’t matter if she’s human or shifter. She’s his.” I shrug. “Though Cat, Ty’s mother, she’s now in a relationship with a human that joined our pack. Not fated. She’s a council alpha’s widow. She brought it to us for a vote. He’s a good guy. Pharmacist. Cat’s a healer. They got along great. She’s widowed, for over three decades, and they started seeing one another after being friends for a time. She wanted him to know all of her. Where she comes from.”

“That’s lovely, especially if she’s a widow. Most widows wind up dying alone.”

“He was widowed too. Guess they bonded over common ground. Interest in medicine.”

“So your council votes on all matters?”

“Sometimes the council, sometimes all the alphas. Sometimes the whole pack, depending on the issue.”

Her eyes travel my face. She looks deep in thought for a moment and there’s trouble in her eyes and inside her, too.

“Something on your mind?” I ask.

She clears her expression and asks, “Do you think Mason is disappointed his mate doesn’t shift? That their offspring might not shift? Your sister doesn’t shift, I gather because her mother is human. Did that upset your father even though she’s just a girl?”

“Just a girl? Don’t let my sister hear you say this.”

Stacy’s face reddens. “I didn’t mean it like that from my perspective but it’s the way a lot of males think.”

“Not many around here think that way or they’d be out on their asses. But to answer your question, no, that Bailey doesn’t shift doesn’t bother anyone but Bailey. As for Mase? He’s crazy about his mate. Doesn’t give a shit that she’s human. Their offspring might shift. Never know. There’s a pack in Alaska we’re friendly with and they’ve got a half-human alpha. He shifts.”

“Whoa. A half-human alpha? That’s got to be rare.”

“Well, technically I’m only half shifter, babe.”

“Oh,” Stacy breathes. “Right. I guess I didn’t think of that.”

“Mixed supernatural is looked at differently in a lot of places outside Arcana Falls too, I suppose. As for the half-human alpha, not everyone in his pack wanted him in that role, but he earned it. We helped untangle that mess. Anyway, it might become the norm around here to have more and more humans. Tyson’s mated to Mases’s mate’s sister, Ivy. Who knows who Jase, Linc, and Joel will mate with? Shifters, humans, or witches – no telling. Gotta say, love that I get to sit back and watch it happen. Don’t have to keep wondering who I’ll wind up identifying as mine.”

She’s quiet a moment, still holding my hand in both of hers, still examining it.

I wait a few minutes, and finally, she says, “I wish I were better at wolf stuff.”

“Why aren’t you good at wolf stuff? And why do you need to be better?”

“I’m not real good at it from lack of practice. We’re not allowed to shift very often. I’d like to be able to run fast. I hid in the woods and watched you and the other men go for runs together several times and it really made me wish I could do stuff like that.”

“First, I’m glad you weren’t a fast runner. Might’ve been harder to catch you.”

She smiles. “I’m glad you caught me.”

Her expression immediately darkens but instead of asking questions, I kiss her and run my hand up and down her naked hip, then say, “The women in our pack go for group runs, some of them.”

“Oh?” she asks, perking up.

“Sure. Not every day like the council alphas, but I’ve seen groups in the pack do it, including female groups. Some of them like to go late morning and then go for lunch afterwards. Cicely likes running at dusk after she closes the store. She shifts probably every day. Some of the other women don’t do it as often but it’s in our nature, most of us, to shift regularly. You wanna go for a run with me now?”

She blinks in surprise. “Now?”

“You’re in Arcana Falls now, Blossom. You can shift whenever the fuck you want.”

“We can do it now?” Her eyes are lit up. The dimple is back.

I smile. “Sure. Let’s go.”

She bursts from the bed, so I follow my naked mate straight to my front door where she’s bouncing excitedly on the balls of her small feet. I peer outside, see there’s nobody around, but I corral her toward the back door anyway. I don’t want to run into people, don’t care to share her attention with anyone this soon, so I suggest, “How about I show you the Arcana Falls?”

“I heard it’s a big part of why the region is so magical.”

“Don’t know a whole lot of the lore about the magic.” Though I guess I should know, given my Young genetics. Maybe now that I’m getting acquainted with the Young coven, I’ll ask about that. “But it’s a sight to see.”

“Let’s go!”

I open the door, and she shifts as soon as she clears the entrance, sprinting from my back patio toward the woods.

Her wolf is small, like most females, but also a little underweight. Her eyes look a little too large what with the lack of weight. She trots ahead, so I shift, thinking about the fact that even if she hadn’t made it crystal clear that her former pack was dysfunctional, even just the knowledge they didn’t allow her to shift whenever she wants would be a cue the alpha is problematic. Not letting a shifter shift? Unless it’s for safety reasons, this makes no fucking sense for the wellbeing of your pack. A wolf shifter, male or female, alpha, beta, or omega needs to be connected intimately with their wolf and that comes from shifting to and from both forms. If you’re in one form too long, you become disconnected from the other.

Being alpha, if I don’t shift every day, I feel the nudging from my wolf. This is why I shift most days as soon as I’m up. Running. Exercising my wolf is good for my human mind as well as my animal form.

She excitedly drops to her belly at the sight of my wolf and sticks her butt up in the air, pinning ears back and barking excitedly, then jumping, uncoordinated, her tail wagging. She butts my chest with her forehead. We circle, smelling one another, nuzzling each other, and then she jumps on me, pretending to bite just above my right shoulder but licking instead before taking off, running a few feet away, skidding to a halt as she turns and barks again. She wants me to chase her.

Gladly.

I can see she’s trying to pick up speed, but she’s not fast. Since she’s putting effort in, I give her the lead for a while. She makes the mistake of looking back to see how far away I am and stumbles, but quickly recovers and tries to pick up pace again as I pass her. I slow so she can catch up. She’s winded by the time we get near the river, so I trot slowly.

Finally, I stop at the riverbank and wait until she skids to a halt beside me. I lick her face. She leans against me, panting before she moves forward, drops her head and sniffs the water and tentatively licks once, sniffs again, then drinks ravenously.

I jump straight in and swim ahead about twenty or thirty feet, then wait, treading water while she looks at me, water dripping from her chin.

After a moment, I let out a low bark. I want her to come in.

She hesitantly moves in, water coming to her neck. I’m about to swim toward her when I feel something hit me in the chest from the inside out. Panic. Her head disappears underwater.

Dark hair bobs up and she gasps, pulling in a mouthful of air and water before her arms flail and she goes under again. She’s shifted to human and she’s in distress.

I shift to human form and quickly swim a few strokes before diving under and grabbing her, hauling her up to the surface.

She coughs and sputters, gasping for breath.

“You’re okay,” I assure, “I’ve got you.”

I swim us back to the riverbank and gather her onto my lap as I clap her back with my palm a couple times while she coughs out more river water.

“You can’t swim?” I ask.

She shakes her head, grasping my back and clinging to me.

“Why didn’t you say something?” I ask gently.

She shrugs, coughing some more.

I continue to stroke her back while she catches her breath. She’s embarrassed.

“You don’t jump into a deep river when you can’t swim, sweetheart. What were you thinkin’?” I ask, thinking about how Riley must have felt, thinking he lost his mate to drowning.

How has her wolf never gone swimming?

“My wolf can be a little dumb,” she admits. “You made it look so easy, and I didn’t know there was that big drop, so I was just… I guess I can be a little dumb. I shouldn’t blame it on my wolf.”

I stroke her cheek. “I’ll show you the waterfall another day. How about more of a run? Or do you wanna go back home?”

“I want to shift again and run. I…I want to build strength and endurance and just… enjoy letting my wolf play. It feels so good to do it knowing I can. Knowing I won’t get in trouble for stretching her legs. Because I spend so little time in the wolf shape, I don’t generally feel in synch brain wise when I shift.”

“Shift often until you synch up, babe. It’s important for your mind, body, and soul in both forms.”

She nods.

I’m steaming mad at her pack’s alpha for making her vulnerable this way by not allowing damn wolf shifters to shift. Can’t fuckin’ find any sense in that. I have a hundred questions, but I’ll save them. Today, she gets what she wants. Tomorrow, she does too, but tomorrow I’ll also get some answers.

“You want to rest for a couple minutes or go now?”

“Go now,” she replies, getting to her feet. She shifts to wolf.

“If you get into trouble, shift back and talk to me. Don’t just try to do what my wolf does, okay?” I put my hand to the top of her head and sift my fingers through her soft fur. She barks once in reply and then runs ahead of me, back toward Roxy’s, so I shift and follow.

***

It’s already dusk when we get to the banks of Tyson’s place. The house is dark, but I see her nose twitching as she looks at it. She knows it’s his house. She looks nervous. Her expression clears when she catches me watching her.

Time flew. I’ve shown her a good portion of the woods nearby and I can see she’s tired. I shift back and she follows, immediately yawning. Her eyes point at the waterfall.

“That’s a really beautiful waterfall,” she says, taking a deep whiff of the air. “So much clean water around here.”

“I’ll teach you to swim another day, then we’ll go under it to the cave that’s on the other side.”

“I’d love that,” she says. “Or you can get me some water wings or a pool noodle and I’ll just stay in this shape and kick my feet until we get there.”

Grinning at the big smile on her face, I wrap my arm around her and we sit on the grass. I gaze at her as she stares at the waterfall with a happy expression I like. But it doesn’t take long for me to sense her thoughts shifting to fear, to worry.

I bump her shoulder with mine. “How’s some roasted chicken sound to you?”

Her stomach rumbles in reply and she looks embarrassed.

I laugh. “Walk back as human or run back as wolves? Faster as wolves and we don’t have clothes nearby.”

“We need clothes?” she asks.

“Tend to stay clothed out on the village streets, especially when there’s been drama, which there’s been a lot of lately. Our village is accessible by outsiders so unless we’re in the forest, we’re careful in both forms.”

“Ah,” she says. “Makes sense.”

“Size of our pack, it’s practical. That’s why we keep the areas around us undeveloped. Lots of room to roam without worrying too much. We have a code system, too, to keep people aware of how safe things feel. If there are threats. Things went amped recently with Mase and Amelia’s mating and some drama with her ex, so we haven’t come down to code green yet. Yellow is caution, orange is extreme caution and red… well, we generally lock down or evacuate when it’s code red. Thankfully we don’t have those too often.”

Her expression drops, but she tries to hide it. And I sense she fears things will go extreme.

She offers no feedback, and I’m grateful I can sense who she is otherwise I might be suspicious based on her silence. She’s come from a pack determined to harm us, a pack where she was ordered to bring that harm. She needs to feel comfortable enough to talk to me and I need to summon patience. Because I sense down to my bones that she doesn’t have a deceitful bone in her body. She’s afraid. And it’s my job to ease her fears, make her trust me so she’ll open up.