Page 42

Cameron

N ate dug into the saddlebags strapped to the back of his bikes and pulled out a beat-up pair of sneakers and black athletic shorts.

He tucked his leather jacket under an elastic strap on one side, then kicked off his boots and tucked them into the other bag.

Then, to my horror, he yanked his jeans down.

“What the hell are you doing?” I gasped, glancing around to see who might be watching.

Nate grinned at me. “Calm down. Don’t be a prude.”

His boxer briefs left very little to the imagination, and I turned my head as he pulled the shorts up and began to tie his shoes.

“You’re not a big fan of modesty, are you?” I asked.

He raised an eyebrow as he tied the strings of his shorts. “Do you want me to be modest?”

I tried to swallow, but it felt like a wad of cotton was stuck in my throat. Rather than answer that, I changed the subject.

“Let’s head over there. There’s a park that way where Lesley and I run together.”

“Lead the way,” he said.

We walked side by side in silence. Heat radiated from his body like he was on fire. My headache and nausea had vanished again. Was that because I was close to another person like me? But that didn’t make sense. I clearly remembered it being bad around Rick, and he was a shifter, too.

“Ready?” Nate said.

“Sure,” I replied.

We started out at an easy pace, jogging beside each other and enjoying the morning weather. It wasn’t until we hit the first four hundred meters that I asked my first question.

“So I should call myself a shifter now, right? That’s what you and Rick called yourselves last night.”

“Mostly,” he said. “Shifters, or just wolves. Either one works. Sort of interchangeable, to be honest.”

“Okay,” I said hesitantly.

Other questions popped into my mind. Questions I would have found crazy even a day ago that I now needed answers to.

“Do we live longer than people? I mean, uh, humans ?”

“Same life span. We aren’t immortal like vampires or anything.”

I skidded to a stop and gaped at him. “Are you saying?—”

“No,” he said with a laugh as he stopped. “Vampires aren’t real. I was making a comparison.”

“Thank God,” I said as we resumed the jog. “There’s only so much shit I can handle at once.”

“What other questions do you have?”

“Do we have any superpowers or anything?”

“You mean beyond transforming into wolves on command?”

“Don’t be a smartass,” I said, shoving him playfully. “You know what I mean.”

“We’re just like regular humans, but with enhanced senses and the ability to shift. We aren’t invulnerable or anything. If I get hit by a bus, I’m dead as a doornail.”

“Interesting.”

“Actually,” Nate said, tilting his head a bit as he ran. “There is a little more you can do.”

“What’s that?” I asked, a thread of excitement winding its way through my chest.

“Do you run a lot?”

“Pretty often. Why?”

He gave me a sideways glance. “Is this your normal pace?”

“Yeah. Typically.”

“Open it up, see what you can do. I bet your body is already adapting.”

“What?”

“We don’t just keep the senses of a wolf, but we get their stamina and strength. Some additional speed, too.”

I remembered how fast Nate had been the first time I’d met him. His hand snapping out and catching me before I fell down the stairs.

I smiled. “For real?”

“Do it. Find out.”

I picked up my pace, arms pumping at my sides.

Nate matched my speed. By the time the wooded trail reached the river, I was going at a speed that would have been an all-out sprint for me before.

I was getting a little tired and out of breath, but by now, I normally would have been doubled over and gasping for breath.

I wasn’t. In fact, it was invigorating. I’d never moved this fast without getting tired in my life. It was amazing. As strange and traumatic as the last twenty-four hours had been, I was loving it.

“See if you can catch me,” Nate said, sprinting into the woods.

A laugh burst from my lips before I could stop it. The trees and branches flew past me as I chased him. He led me deeper into the woods, farther from prying eyes. Eventually, he called back to me.

“If you wanted to check out my ass, all you had to do was ask. You didn’t need to run so slow. I’d have gladly shown it to you.”

“You think I want to see that boney thing?” I called out. “You’ve got a high opinion of yourself.”

He ducked behind a tree, and I lost sight of him. I slowed to a stop, glancing around, searching for him. A moment later, I felt a tap on my shoulder and spun to find him behind me.

“Too slow.” He bolted again, back the way we’d come.

“Get back here, jackass,” I hissed as I sprinted toward him.

This time, I didn’t hold back, instead trying to see how fast I could really go. It was pretty freaking fast. I could have probably given an Olympic sprinter a run for their money.

I managed to catch him as he tried to round a corner back to the jogging path. I cut through a thick stand of trees, leaping over a huge tangle of shrubs, and slapped a hand on his shoulder.

“Gotcha,” I said with a grin.

“Damn,” Nate grunted as I slammed into him.

We fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs, laughing like mad. Sweat coated our bodies.

“That was awesome,” I panted.

“You sort of get used to it,” Nate said and glanced at me, that mischievous look in his eye again. “But it’s always awesome. Like other things.”

As we stared into each other’s eyes, the dirty thoughts I’d had about Nate flooded into my mind. I pushed them aside. The sexual tension was so thick, I was sure I would suffocate on it.

“Anyway,” I said, shifting the conversation away from the flirty, sexy path it was trying to go down. “How much longer will it be before I can, you know, change?”

“Shift. It’s called shifting. It’ll be soon,” Nate said. “I can smell it on you. The smell wasn’t there yesterday, but this morning, it’s potent. Unmistakable.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Uh, what do I smell like? Is it like B.O?”

“Not really,” Nate said. “It’s more a musk, I guess.

You smell like a shifter. Neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

Hard to explain. Your senses will increase once you actually shift.

That will be in the next few days, if I had to guess.

” He rose up, resting on his elbow. “Your symptoms will get worse until it finally happens.”

“I don’t have any symptoms right now. I feel great,” I said, then glanced away, embarrassed. “I do whenever I’m around you,” I added more quietly.

“Really?” He looked pleased with himself.

“Well, usually, whatever your wolf likes, you’ll like.

And vice versa—to a certain extent. You and the wolf within you are symbiotic.

If it doesn’t like something, it’ll let you know.

Real fast. And one thing wolves like is being around others of their kind.

They are pack animals. Creatures that thrive in a group. Shifters work the same way.”

“How big are the packs?” I asked.

“Depends,” Nate considered. “Some are kinda small, maybe five or six families. That’s fairly rare, though. The Toronto-Ottawa pack is probably the biggest in Canada. They’ve got several hundred members.”

“Is that your pack?” It was all so fascinating. Secret societies of magical shapeshifters? I’d fallen into a fantasy movie.

Nate’s face changed. The flirty smile vanished, and he glanced away.

“I’m an anomaly.”

“In what way?”

He sat all the way up and plucked a leaf from the ground, slowly peeling pieces away from the center vein.

“I’m a lone wolf. I don’t have a pack,” he said, and I saw a hint of defiance in his eyes as he spoke.

“I thought you said shifters like being around others?”

“I did,” he said. “In fact, most feral shifters become feral because they were removed from their pack. Exiled or cast out for some kind of crime, or mental health stuff caused them to leave on their own. Or sometimes the smaller packs collapse or splinter, leaving one or two shifters with nothing. Either way, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a lone wolf either goes mad or finds a new pack to take them in.”

“What about the one percent?” I asked.

He glanced over at me, tossing the leaf away. “That’s me.”

“Is it difficult to live in a pack?” I asked, trying to figure out why he hadn’t joined one.

“Not really, honestly. There’s a lot of camaraderie and support in packs.

It’s like a family. Each member is dedicated to the other.

” He stared at me intently. “And that dedication is to the death. You fuck with one, you fuck with them all. But they also provide certain amounts of financial support—scholarships and stuff. They’ve got enforcers that act like security or a police force.

Everything is handled internally. Judiciary, punishments, everything. ”

Something he’d said earlier came back to me, tickling the back of my mind.

“Back before we started jogging, you said one of the two greatest fears a shifter had was becoming feral, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you never said what the second greatest fear was.”

“That, if you can believe it, is an even bigger fear than going feral. The thing we’re scared of, more than anything else, is the human race finding out about us. If any shifter does anything to expose us, they are dealt with.” He picked up a stick and snapped it in half. “Severely.”

“Why, though?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it be easier to live your lives if the whole world knew about you?”

“The Salem witch trials,” Nate replied.

“What?” I asked, blinking in confusion. Was he jumping to another story? Was he gonna tell me witches were real even though vampires weren’t?

“The witch trials happened because a few powerful people took the word of some misguided townsfolk. Their lies about other humans who possessed no magical ability incited fear and led them to look past reason. Can you imagine the terror if people realized there were magical shapeshifters on earth? Living right beside them? Indistinguishable from a human? Could you imagine the backlash? The panic? There’d be dead shifters on every continent. ”