“I have to get back to work,” Brandy said. “But I’ll swing by and check on things. I’ll be sure to ride the lab to get results as fast as possible.”
“Thank you!” Marian said.
Crystal grabbed Hank’s hand and pulled him away. He followed while her mom and Mrs. Stenger started doing the mom-talk thing. They’d met through Crystal and Beth and had become friends, even when Beth and Crystal got in fights and weren’t attached at the hip. There was no better person to keep her mom distracted so she could get away.
“Okay, make sure we head out the back,” Crystal whispered as they walked. “If she sees me on the back of your bike without a helmet, she won’t let me anywhere near you ever again!”
“Aren’t you eighteen?”
“Trust me, that doesn’t matter.”
Hank chuckled and led her to where he’d parked his bike. He climbed on and backed it out before leaning forward so Crystal could climb on the back. She wrapped her arms around him and rested her cheek against his broad back. “This is so crazy,” she whispered.
“Welcome to the pack,” Hank said.
Crystal picked her head up. “Is it always like this?”
“No,” he said and thumbed the starter to make his motorcycle rumble to life beneath them. He raised his voice to be heard over the sputtering exhaust. “Once we get through all of this, we’ll probably move on again. We stick around until things get crazy.”
“Things get crazy a lot?”
Hank chuckled. “They seem to. I’m not sure why, other than maybe some law of nature that draws like to like.”
“What?”
“You know, we’re different. Not like norms, I mean,” he tried to explain. “Somewhere we always end up finding other people like us. Shifters, witches, and other stuff.”
“Oh my God, how many are there?”
“A lot. It’s amazing the world doesn’t know more about us. I mean, it’s not like, common or anything. But there’s more than you’d think.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, wow. So, um, am I taking you home?”
“My mom works nights,” Crystal said.
Hank raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“As much as I want to hunt Chad down and deal with him, I really want to just forget about everything too.”
“Um, okay. What’s that mean?”
Crystal grinned and picked herself up so she could gently bite his neck. One of the things she was enjoying about not being a norm anymore was how quick she recovered. The soreness in her legs and groin was barely even a memory anymore. “It means I want to go back to your place and do what we did earlier again.”
Hank’s chuckle was more of a purr that matched the vibrations from the engine of the bike.
“And again, and again.”
Rather than waste time on words, Hank shifted the bike into gear and twisted the throttle.
Chapter 10
When Crystal and Hank rode back into the miniature trailer park, the fire pit was glowing red with coals and the rest of the pack was gathered around it. Crystal groaned and hugged her legs and arms tighter around Hank until they stopped and she had to climb off the bike.
“Rain check?” he asked her with a smile.
“Definitely!” She nodded. “I’m starting to feel tired again. I need another one of your deep-tissue massages and a quick nap.”
Laughter burst from Hank’s mouth. “Deep-tissue massages?”
“Very deep!” Crystal said and winked.
Hank glanced at the others. “Maybe they can wait?”
His hopes were shattered when Ember called over, “Get over here!”
“Damn,” Hank muttered.
Crystal nodded and slipped her hand in his. They walked over to the fire and stepped into the room made when Ember and Adrian moved farther away from each other. “Beth’s going to be okay, physically,” Crystal announced. “Or at least they think she is. She’s on the Pill and they’re giving her more medicine to make sure she doesn’t risk getting pregnant. Checking for other stuff too.”
“Other stuff?” Guntar asked.
Adrian frowned and stared hard at her.
“Yeah, uh, like STDs? You know, sexually transmit—”
“We know what they are,” Adrian interrupted.
Guntar barked out a laugh but said nothing.
“Sounds like a story?” Crystal prompted the grumpy man.
Adrian huffed and shook his head.
“Interesting,” Crystal said. She saw Ember’s lips twitch into a smile that vanished just as quickly out of the corner of her eye. “Well, they’re keeping her overnight. She’s sleeping now. Her mom is staying with her but she’s going to call me. Beth told them she didn’t know who did it to her.”
Hank grunted and blurted out, “The cops never talked to us.”
Crystal gasped. “You’re right! They showed up but they never stopped to talk to us. I wonder why? Did they talk to Beth or her folks?”
“Not surprising,” Guntar said. “These sorts of people are like cancer. They find a way to get into everything.”
“Kind of like the Beast,” Crystal muttered.
Adrian tilted his head and Guntar let out another chuckle. “Yes, it is. Barnaby Dixon, that boy’s father, is more than what he appears to be.”
Crystal gasped. “What? You mean—is he like us?”
“No,” Adrian was quick to answer. “The three of them are part of an organization that goes back to the earliest days of Christianity. Even earlier, truth be told, but with the advent of Catholicism, it became organized and a true threat instead of farmers with torches and pitchforks. They call themselves Paladins, the enforcers of God’s Will.”
Crystal snorted. “Paladins? That’s used in like every movie and book—not very creative.”
“Hiding in plain sight,” Gwen said.
Crystal tilted her head and then nodded after a moment of thought. “Good point. Okay, things are making sense.”
“They are?” Guntar asked.
“Yeah. I mean, I was wondering why you let them get away with him. We went there intending to deal with him, right? So it didn’t make sense to back off and let him get away. Especially with what he did to Beth.”
Guntar nodded and asked, “But now it does?”
“As long as we’re still planning on keeping her safe, yes.”
“You saw him,” Adrian said. “He still is focused on you.”
Ember snorted. “No idea why. You’re nothing but trouble.”
Crystal spun and stared at the grinning redhead. She turned to see Hank’s lips twisted up in a smile that vanished as soon as she looked at him. Crystal’s eyes narrowed and she slapped him in the shoulder. “Not funny!”
“But true,” Adrian said with a chuckle.
Hank glanced away but couldn’t hide the twitch in his cheek.
Crystal huffed. “Fine, then I’m going to show these paladins just how much trouble I can be!”
“How?” Gwen asked.
Everyone turned to stare at Crystal. “What do you mean?”
“Have you even shifted yet? Do you know what you can do? Do any of us know what you can do?”
Crystal gawked for a moment and then dropped her gaze to the glowing coals. “No, I don’t.”
“Then maybe it’s time we found out.”
Crystal jerked her eyes back up to Gwen and saw her smiling at her. “Care to go for another run in the woods?”
Crystal stood taller and grinned. “That sounds like a great idea,” she said. She reached down and grabbed the bottom of her sundress and yanked it up and over her shoulders. She heard Hank’s breath hiss between his teeth. She turned, giving him a better view of her backside and reveling in his attention even though she felt her skin warming with a blush. She pushed her underwear down and dropped her dress on top of them.
“Now I see why,” Adrian mumbled.
Crystal snapped her head around to stare at him. “You’re a dirty old man!”
Guntar barked out a laugh and shook his head. Gwen grinned and stripped off her clothes beside the hairy alpha. She used her hand to beckon Crystal to walk with her towards the woods. Crystal nodded and walked towards her, stretching her long legs to catch up quickly. She heard footsteps behind her that kept pace and turned to see Ember tossing her skirt aside and then fell forward to shift into her four-legged form.
“Show off,” Crystal snapped.
Ember licked her lips and gave her a toothy grin.
“We saw you shift your hand and shiver as your entire body rebuilt itself,” Gwen said, ignoring the friendly rivalry between the two. “Were those intentional?”
Crystal held up her hands and looked at them. “No,” she admitted. “I don’t know how I did that. I’ve done it a few times, but never on purpose.”
Gwen frowned. “Explain.”
“Well, like when I took Steph to see Clover. She almost fell in the water when she jumped away from this giant snake she saw. I caught her, but my feet started to change. The same thing happened when I was running and hiding from Chad at school. Oh! And earlier, when we found Beth under the bridge and I fell in that stupid stream again. My foot got stuck and I thought I hurt it but it turned out that it just changed and that let me pull it out. Then it changed back. It hurts when that happens.”
Ember tilted her furry head and flicked her ears. Gwen’s expression was similar, if less furry. “That’s interesting.”
“It is?”
The platinum-haired woman nodded. “When a person goes through the change, they fight against the wolf to prove who is dominant. In many cases, the person isn’t strong enough and neither is their body. Those who are, gain mastery over it and can shift at will. In rare cases, the wolf is stronger and the body lives, but the person is lost. Those who go that route don’t become beasts—they become animals.”
Crystal shuddered. “It wasn’t like that for me. The wolf and I worked together. To beat the Beast, I mean.”
“I don’t understand,” Gwen admitted. “How could you work together? You mentioned you heard them talking to you? How? It’s just blood, like a virus, right?”
Crystal held up her hands and shrugged her shoulders. “Virus sounds right, except I heard the Beast talking to me. Teasing me. Telling me to give up and how I couldn’t beat him. The wolf never said anything. Not words, anyhow. I felt it growling and fighting back, but the Beast was stronger. Until I started fighting too.”
Ember sat down and watched her. Crystal paused, surprised to see she’d caught the woman’s attention. She bit her lip to keep from laughing at herself. She’d just called Ember a woman, even though she was shifted into a wolf. She supposed Ember was still a woman, just…hairy.
“How did you fight? You were tied down,” Gwen asked. “Well, until you broke free.”
“Inside,” Crystal answered. “I can’t really explain it, other than I just willed myself to fight back. To distract the Beast. It doesn’t make sense and it’s not possible. Maybe I’m still in high school, but I know a person can’t tell their immune system what to fight and what not to. I have no idea how it happened, but I felt it. It did. Except the Beast was too strong for us apart. We had to work together.”
“Like we did when we found you and killed the Beast. You helped us by distracting him,” Gwen prompted.
Crystal nodded. “Yes, sort of. Except I knew we couldn’t beat him. Not forever. He’d come back, stronger each time. So I asked the wolf to help. I told her that—”
“Her?”
Crystal blinked. “What?”
“You said you told, ‘her.’ Who is that?”
“Oh, the wolf,” Crystal said. “I mean, I guess it just made sense. I’m a girl, shouldn’t she be too?”
Gwen frowned. “I never thought about it that way.”
Crystal shrugged her shoulders. “Oh. Well, I am. At least until somebody tells me I shouldn’t.”
“All right, so you asked the wolf to help,” Gwen prompted.
“Right, and just like that, she did. I can’t describe it really. I mean, before I could feel three different things in me. Spirits or people or something. Me, the wolf, and the Beast. But I asked her to help and she agreed. Next thing I knew, I felt like whatever wall was keeping us apart was gone. It was just me—the new me—and the Beast.”
Gwen stared and shook her head slowly.
“You don’t believe me?”
“I do,” Gwen said. “It just sounds so strange. Nothing like what I went through.”
Ember shook her head, siding with Gwen.
Crystal shrugged again. “Well, it was. We teamed up and it’s been that way ever since. We forced the Beast back and with the wolf’s help, I did what I did to get rid of him.”
“Interesting,” Gwen said again. “No, not interesting, amazing.”
Crystal blushed. “Thanks. But, um, I don’t know how to do anything. I mean, I can smell things and I understand things really good. It’s like I just know some things naturally now, which is weird.”
“Instincts,” Gwen said. “It’s your instincts. Most of us had to learn them.”
“Really? It was just like they happened for me. One day nothing and the next day I had them.”
“So shift. It should be easy for you.”
Crystal bit her lip. She turned a little and stared at the ground. “I don’t know how,” she muttered after focusing on the weeds along the tree line.
“Call on your wolf,” Gwen said. “Demand that she come to your aid. Make her help you.”
Crystal nodded and closed her eyes. She tried to send her senses inside herself. She searched for her wolf but couldn’t find anything. She just felt like herself. Alive, strong, and vibrant, but all her. She shook her head. “There’s nothing,” she said. “I can’t find her.”
Gwen frowned. “Perhaps because she’s a part of you? Maybe you don’t need to force her, maybe you just need to do it. Like smelling a deer in season or knowing how to walk. Fall forward and let your instincts take over.”
Crystal nodded. She’d tried that before, but that was before she’d gotten rid of the Beast. Before she’d merged with her wolf. She took a breath to settle herself and then leaned forward until her balance shifted and she was falling.
She raised her arms to catch herself but misjudged how powerful gravity was. The ground smashed into her cheek and left her breasts aching where they cushioned her fall. Air and spit burst out of her mouth. She lay still for a moment before managing to groan, “That hurt!”
Chapter 11
A wet nose poked Crystal in the back. She grunted and rolled, forcing Ember to spring away from her. Crystal picked herself up, pausing only to rub her bruised cheek and then cup her squashed breasts. “Ow!”
Gwen forced the smile off her face and said, “Sorry, I thought that might do it. Maybe you’re not ready? Usually it takes a few weeks before someone can shift. Your body might need to change more first.”
Crystal looked down at herself. “What more change can I do? I’m skinny now where I used to be fat. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been and I feel awesome.”
Gwen nodded and looked at Ember. The woman-turned-wolf pawed the ground and turned towards the forest. Without another sound, she ran into the tree line and disappeared. Gwen nodded and looked back at Crystal. “Run with us,” she said. “Let’s see just how much stronger you are.”
Crystal licked her lips and watched as Gwen turned away from her and melted into the shadows. She landed in the shape of a wolf with silver streaks of fur. Gwen glanced back over her shoulder at her and then was off into the forest chasing the red-haired wolf.
Crystal let out a huff and jumped forward, running through the underbrush and then following behind Gwen on a game trail through the woods. In a dozen strides, her chest opened up and the air flowed through her lungs and over her skin, cooling her and making her skin tingle. Her feet danced across the ground, touching it long enough to propel herself forward and ch
ange her heading to dodge around a tree or bush.
Crystal reveled in the freedom of movement. Her hair flowed behind her, dancing across her shoulders and back as the wind sifted through it. She felt the solid strength in her legs and longed to feel the same strength in her arms and shoulders. She wanted to run on all fours, like the two wolves darting ahead of her. She knew better than to try after her last two painful failures.
On she ran, leaping over logs and splashing through a tiny brook with a cry of delight. The stick and rocks passed by without fazing her and even the thorny bushes beginning to flower glanced off her legs without leaving a lasting mark. It wasn’t until she saw her two pack-sisters stopped ahead of her that she slowed and came to a stop beside them. Her chest rose and fell with each breath, but she didn’t feel winded. She looked around, admiring the play of moon and starlight across the trees and leaves. Ahead of them lay an old wire fence and beyond it a small pond and a pasture.
Crystal glanced down at herself and saw the sheen of starlight reflecting off her sweaty skin. She glistened in the near darkness, something that didn’t seem possible. Yet she looked like she’d been covered in a luminescent powder and put under black lights. Both of her friends were staring at her and panting softly.
“What’s on me?” Crystal whispered. She reached up and brushed her hand across her chest. She felt how smooth her sweat-slick skin was. Smoother than it should have been. She lifted her arm closer to her face and stared. Her skin was covered in tiny hairs. Similar to the faint hair she normally had on her arms, but much more dense and short. And so white it looked silver.
Crystal jerked her head up to the farmer’s pond. She could make out the tracks of deer, horses, and other wild animals around it. In three strides, she leapt over the fence and moved through the tall grass until it grew shorter and turned muddy near the pond’s edge. Crystal kept going, stepping into the cool water, and gasping. It sent a shiver up her leg and made her shake. She grinned and stepped her other foot in as well.
“What are you doing?”
Crystal turned around, the water just past her knees. Gwen and Ember were standing and stared at her from a few steps away from the edge. “I’m hot,” she said and turned her back on them. Crystal jumped forward and fell into the water with a splash.
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