Page 25

Sam

It was possible I was entering a chocolate coma. I’d eaten seven of Megan’s cookies before I forced myself to stop. They were so good. I was going to get fat with her around if she continued to be this stressed. That sobered me some.

I heard her gasp and glanced over to where she stood at the sink. Her back was arching in the familiar pattern of a shift.

“Gah!” She gasped again as she dashed to the bathroom.

“You okay?” I called, still not sure how she’d prefer me to react to her sporadic shifting.

She grunted.

“Talk inside my head if you need to.” She didn’t respond, so I moseyed over to the sink and started washing up some bowls and the wiry thing she’d stirred stuff with. This was a completely foreign world to me. I didn’t bake. I could grill like a boss. But baking? I could barely tell the right end of a spatula.

She came out a few minutes later, human, and completely beat. Her eyes were shadowed, and her whole face sagged. She was on the edge of exhaustion. She blinked slowly a few times, looking right through me. I wiped my hands on the towel by the sink.

“Come on. Time for you to try and get some rest.” I wasn’t going to be far behind her. The past few days hadn’t been as shocking to me as they had to Megan, but they’d still been taxing and emotionally straining. I needed sleep.

She mumbled something incoherent and dropped like a rock as soon as I led her to the edge of the queen bed off the kitchen. Her eyes were shut even before her head found the pillow. I smiled, watching her for a second as she slept. I moved a wisp of hair and let myself indulge in a soft kiss on her forehead before I sighed. It was all the action I was going to get on my wedding night. The comforter was lax and moved up easily with a quick tug.

Moving quietly with the grace of the wolf, I finished up the dishes and fell into my own bed, needing rest. It wasn’t the wedding night I’d dreamed of, or hoped for, but at least the woman of my dreams was sleeping under the same roof, if not in my bed.