Finding His Passion: A Shifter Mpreg Romance (Greycoast Pack Book 4)

by Jena Wade

  I picked up my final cracker to nibble on when I could no longer ignore the conversation, Lissy’s voice echoing in my head, “Dark healer.”

  I’d sensed she had been willing to dabble the first day, then she’d mentioned light healing. The two were so close together they were sort of twins, and now? Now she was all out saying she was doing it. Third time meant it was happening. My mom used to—whoa, the memory rushed back into me.

  “I promise not to wander again.” I was looking at her face, but it wasn’t there, not really, the image fuzzy.

  “You already wandered twice without my permission.” Her voice was stern, yet held so much love. “You know my fear. I saw it. You will wander and then you will be gone.” Her voice choked up. She’d always been superstitious.

  “I’m not going to be gone. I promise,” I spoke, my voice lighter, as if I was not much more than a child. Had I waited that long to wander again or… no. I had to stop thinking, I was already fading.

  “That’s a great idea,” I spat out about nothing in particular, trying to bring myself back to the present before I was completely gone. Gio turned quickly in my direction and my plate almost fell from my lap.

  “What is? Lissy training to be a light healer?” His eyes narrowed.

  “What? No. She should not do that. I thought someone asked if we should get more pears. Pears. Pears.” Now they were all looking at me like I’d lost my mind, and they weren’t too far off.

  “That’s what I said too, minus the pears.” Mia side-eyed Lissy. “But too much is on the line.”

  The others started to pipe in their agreement and Gio mouthed pears to me and I nodded. It was time to go home.

  We said our goodbyes, or rather he did. I was too frozen in fear, barely giving a pat on the head to the toddler who hugged my leg before running off to what I only half remembered was his father. We walked in silence with a bag full of pears, me trying to grab onto anything that could keep me here and now, clenching his hand, petrified to let go.

  As we reached his porch, he turned to me and asked, “You were saying pears to leave, right?” His voice held onto me, things getting clearer. He wasn’t even saying anything too serious. He might have even been joking, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was his voice wrapped around me, tethering me back here… with him.

  “Yeah, but I’m not sad we brought some home.” I took the steps two at a time. “I like that, you know.”

  “Pears?”

  “Those too, but I meant home. Calling this home.” There was something about the word that said everything at once. It had nothing to do with the building and everything to do with Gio, my mate.

  “It’s your home and they’re your pack and when you’re ready for them to be a bigger part of your life, they’re ready.” He brushed a hair off my brow. “Do you want to talk about what happened in there?”

  I did, but I couldn’t. Not yet.

  I flung open the door. “Nope.” I popped the P as I said the word. “I was promised dessert.” I grabbed the bag of pears from him and put them on the table as he stood there looking at me like he wasn’t quite sure what was going on.

  “Incoming.” I winked and jogged over to him, jumping into his arms, needing to feel the warmth of his embrace, to be covered in his kisses, to be filled completely.

  Home.

  Mate.

  Ours.

  My wombat started to speak to me, really speak to me and not merely in my presence for the first time since we’d arrived, and just when I was about to be happy about that—the fucker stole my skin.

  Chapter Nine

  Gio

  My erection flagged as the man in my arms swiftly transformed from his soft human skin to coarse wombat fur.

  By the time I looked down at my feet, Thorne was scurrying off and around the corner of the kitchen and into the living room. His soft whimpers reached my ears and my heart broke for the frustration he must’ve felt.

  I leaned against the wall and took deep breaths, trying to calm my body. It wouldn’t help the situation if I went to him with a hard cock and smelling like sex and arousal. He may not be a wolf, but he still had an increased sense of smell.

  Thorne’s body had given me hints on our way home that he wasn’t fully here. Little things like missing a step and his hand going from a vice grip to barely there. The gathering had been too much for him. I was so proud he told me he needed out—that he said pear far more times than I probably had this decade. But when we got home? I thought things were better, that he was going to stay.

  And then he didn’t.

  I hit my head against the wall a few times. The dull pain brought my arousal to a screeching halt, plus my mate was no longer in the flesh, and that put a damper on any and all sexy thoughts, the ones my guilt hadn’t already smothered.

  Getting upset about the situation wouldn’t help. I was thankful for the time we had. We’d had an entire day together. I had learned so much about my mate, and it had stoked the fire of hope that burned in my chest. And we had a direction now, a plan for finding the dark healer or at least learning more about her. It wasn’t a perfect plan, nor was it overly promising, but it was something.

  I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and some food. I had the fridge stocked full of fresh vegetables. Thorne, as a wombat, liked his leafy greens, something I had never bothered to keep in stock before him. Look at that, my mate was making me healthier.

  When I walked into the living room, I expected to find Thorne curled up on the little bed that was there by the fireplace, but instead he sat on the couch with the television remote in his hand. He pointed at the television. He wasn’t gone. Not fully. Just his skin.

  The sight itself was humorous. A little wombat sitting on his butt, pointing a remote at the television. Only his paws couldn’t click the buttons the way he wanted.

  “Thorne?” I said quietly.

  He turned and looked at me. His eyes had a depth to them that I wasn’t used to seeing in his wombat form. He was more human now than animal. Similar to how I was in my wolf form when I had complete control. Sometimes in my wolf form, I would let my human side rest and let the wolf instincts take over. Other times I remained completely alert, myself only in wolf form. It was like that now watching Thorne on the couch.

  “You’re yourself right now?”

  He nodded at me. Another odd gesture coming from an animal, but I was used to human-like gestures from my fellow wolves. Seeing it in my wombat was an adjustment.

  “But you can’t shift on demand?”

  He huffed out a breath, the whiskers on his cheeks flaring.

  “Okay. That’s progress,” I said. Hope filled my chest. That was so much closer than we had been the last time he was in animal form. He had little recollection of when I’d first brought him home. He’d said the memories were fuzzy, like they were old, and he could only recall the emotions, but not actual events. He had forgotten his first bath, thankfully.

  He growled, and I snapped back to the present.

  “I know it’s not a lot of progress, and you still can’t shift on your own, but it’s something, baby.”

  I sat down next to him. He curled into my side, laying his head on my thigh. I ran my hand down his back, threading my fingers into his fur. “It really is progress,” I said again. “We’re getting somewhere. And even if we’re not, I am thankful for whatever I have with you. I love you, Prickles.”

  He nipped at my thigh, pinching the skin just a little.

  I laughed. “Hey,” I said. “No biting.”

  He kneaded at my thighs like a cat, his claws biting in just a little before they’d let go again. This was a shifter completely in control of himself. He just couldn’t shift.

  “I’m sure that we’ll figure out something,” I said. “I promise I will never stop fighting for you. Okay?”

  He rolled onto his back and I rubbed his belly. He chittered happily.

  “Lissy will speak with her light healer friend. Lissy herself i
s hella powerful, more than we realize, and I think she is more capable of being a light healer than she realizes. If she could do that, that will put our pack in a strong spot. And I’ll speak with Sanford about your family. He might know something, or know someone who does. I told you about him, right? The porpoise shifter that used to travel to different packs and shifter groups documenting their history? He’s in the council’s good graces. And we can trust him to be discreet.”

  Thorne nodded his head and let out a sigh. I knew that it wasn’t exactly what he wanted right then, but it was something.

  “Now what were you trying to watch?”

  He moved an arm like perhaps he was shrugging a shoulder.

  “Did you have a TV growing up?”

  Thorne shook his head, but then made a circle with his hands.

  “You had DVDs?” I said slowly, trying to decipher what he was indicating.

  He nodded.

  I grinned. See, progress. “Well, let me introduce you to the world of streaming television. Anything you want to watch, anytime you want to watch it. And for some reason, humans are in love with cat videos.”

  I pulled up the streaming app and scrolled through selection.

  Thorne perked up and stared intently at the TV. Suddenly, he grabbed my hand and chittered at me.

  “Did you see something?”

  He hopped off the couch and pointed at the TV, a look of impatience on his face.

  “Um, okay.” I went back up the line of movies. Apparently I hit the one he wanted because he stood on his hind legs and pointed.

  “Oh, no, baby. This… is not a good movie. There’s a wolf, a vampire, and a girl, and it’s a whole lot of drama. I mean, the shifter part is kind of cool, but really, it’s not that great.”

  He sat back down and seemed to pout.

  “Okay, okay.” I started to scroll back to it when Thorne chittered again, this time pointing at a baking show. That I could get into. “I’m not much of a TV guy myself, but some of those cooking shows are pretty good, especially these baking ones.”

  He sat up and faced the TV. I took that to mean that perhaps he agreed.

  “All right. Mia goes on and on about this baking cook-off show. You want to try it?”

  He nodded his head.

  I pointed the remote at the television and navigated to it. Once it was on, Thorne snuggled up against me. “Tomorrow I have to finish up the roofing job. Do you think maybe you’d like to explore the area, while I’m working?”

  He seemed to contemplate for a minute and then he nodded his head.

  “Great. For now, let’s just chill.”

  He leaned against me and let out a long breath. I held him.

  Even if this was all I had with my mate—sometimes human form, sometimes wombat—I would be happy. I loved him. So very, very much. I wished the first time I told him I’d been able to look into his human eyes, but what was important was that he heard me and he knew.

  I vowed that the next time he was in my arms in the flesh, I would tell him a thousand more times.

  Chapter Ten

  Thorne

  I put the sandwiches in a plastic grocery bag. It was hardly the romantic picnic basket I’d have preferred to use, but it was what I had and would have to do. I added in a few pears; Byrom had assumed my little pear outburst meant I adored them and brought us an entire half bushel. It was sweet. Also—I was so over pears.

  The lunch needed something else, and after digging through the cupboards, I found a bag of pretzels that were just this side of their best by date. It was time to go shopping or close to it. Half of me wondering if I could handle a trip to town—just a small one.

  The other side of me was too scared. The last thing I wanted to do was to draw attention to shifter kind because I lost control, and given I still didn’t know the triggers for my unplanned shifts it was best to stay home or at least within pack territory.

  Grabbing a pen out of the drawer, I wrote on the calendar under our initials, pretzels, bananas, colby jack. I might not be able to pick things up, but I could record what we ran out of and what I thought might be good to have in the house.

  I could also bring my mate his lunch.

  It was his first day back Beta-ing full time. I still didn’t quite understand all of what his job entailed, but today his responsibilities included helping with a roof only a few houses down. I could handle that much on my own. In fact, I was beginning to think I could handle more than that. I’d been human for a few days, my longest stint so far. I’d feel more confident in it if I could sense my wombat more, but it was a start. We seemed to be operating as two sides of a coin, my wombat and I.

  I grabbed the bag and headed out the door and onto the porch, my eyes falling to the bench that Ozzy had made for me, for us. I didn’t know him at the time and I was not fully there when it was given to us, but I loved sitting there with Gio, and more than that, it helped me feel wanted and accepted by the others. My packmates.

  Hopping down the steps like a little rabbit I headed down the dirt road, following the sounds of the hammering until I caught a glimpse of my sexy mate on the roof with another man, one I didn’t recognize at all, handing him nails.

  “Gio,” I called up, and he set down his hammer and turned his head in my direction, his smile wide. “I brought lunch.”

  He said something to the man beside him and made his way to the ladder and down to me. “I was going to come home for lunch.” He kissed my cheek. “I hear the dessert is there.” He spoke low in my ear, punctuating his words with a nibble on my earlobe.

  “Pears,” I replied awkwardly, holding the bag up between us.

  “Pears or pears?” I found myself pushing him playfully. When I got a hold of my shifting abilities I had a feeling his wolf and I were going to have fun running together.

  “Pears.” I kept my face as expressionless as I could. “I brought enough for…”

  “Trevor. This is his house we’re working on.” Gio turned and called him down.

  We sat on the porch eating our sandwiches, Trevor telling me all about the tree branch that landed on his roof and the good times that entailed, including a squirrel deciding that it was their own private entrance. What kind of a squirrel would think it wise to squat in a wolf’s home?

  “It was nice meeting you.” It had been too. Not once did Trevor look at me as the freaky, weird shifter who was carried in on a dark night and kept his fur for extended periods of time. He just treated me like Gio’s mate… as one of the pack.

  “Thanks for the lunch,” said Trevor. “I was down to one slice of bread and was looking at cracker sandwiches, which are not horrible but also…”

  “Not sandwiches,” I finished for him, agreeing with the sentiment a thousand percent.

  “Your mate gets me, Gio. You should keep him.” Trevor winked and stood up. “Let me tap the snake and we can get back to work.”

  “I didn’t need to hear that,” Gio groaned.

  “And I don’t need to see your smoochie faces so see ya.”

  A giggle erupted in me from his banter. “I was going to take a walk, but if smoochie faces are an option...” I met his lips with mine, sinking into a slow and deep kiss. I could do that all day. Trevor returning with kissing sounds, which forced us apart.

  “I’m going to go.” I stood up, angling myself so Trevor didn’t see how into the kiss I was. “I’ll see you around sundown?”

  “Maybe earlier. We’re making good progress.”

  I waved goodbye and started down the path. I walked aimlessly, scenting everything, listening to the sounds, feeling the cool air on my skin. There was something special about this place. Maybe it was the people who inhabited it or the leadership, or possibly something more. I couldn’t quite place it, but there it was.

  All of a sudden, I felt the need to shift. It wasn’t like the other times. No, this time I wasn’t walking away or disconnecting. This time I just wanted to wander around free and on all four feet.

>   I took off my clothing, or really Gio’s clothes, trying not to get too excited. Maybe I would just end up being the naked man in the woods. Worse things had happened. Far worse.

  I folded them small enough to balance on my shoes and kept walking, not wanting to push it, the scent of fiddleheads causing my nose to twitch. Fiddleheads. It wasn’t even the right time of year for them, but they were calling to me—calling to my wombat.

  Shift. I gave him permission, my ability to force him stripped from me. But maybe, just maybe, the permission would be enough.

  My bones started to crack, my body reforming. Unlike any of my shifts in recent memory, this one felt normal—intentional. Once my shift was complete, I felt equal to my wombat—whole, or almost whole anyway.

  We searched out those fiddleheads and put them in our belly. So good. There weren’t many, the time of year not ideal for them. From there, we went on the hunt to find more. We found a few here and there and reached the river, taking a long drink. I wandered up the bank sniffing out a root or two, and suddenly found myself staring eye to eye with an alligator. No. Not an alligator… a crocodile.

  I turned to run, bumping into another creature.

  I snarled, ready to fight my way out of this mess. How I’d walked into it, I’d never know.

  Then their scent hit my nostrils. This was familiar. Ozzy. And the crocodile was Emmett… Gio had told me about him. The crocodile in the wolf pack. Everything started to make sense.

  “I see why Gio calls you Prickles. Want to come sit with me?” Ozzy walked off, and Emmett shifted in the water and climbed out onto the bank in his human form. Way less intimidating than his crocodile.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. Join us? We have pizza.”

  Pizza? My wombat pushed me back down at that and I was back to being an observer in my own body as he followed Emmett to a clearing where Ozzy sat next to… Cord. That was his name. Why was everything becoming fuzzy again?