Shiftless: A Fantastical Werewolf Adventure (Wolf Rampant Book 1)

by Aimee Easterling

  But apparently I wasn't out of the woods yet. "Wolfie will never go for it," Chase rebutted, and I could feel frustration pushing my wolf up to the surface. I'd thought Chase understood the whole point of this clandestine conversation, but apparently I'd have to spell it out for him.

  "That's why I'm talking to you," I said slowly, then watched as understanding dawned in the beta's eyes. He opened his mouth angrily, then closed it and resumed his pacing. A full minute passed before Chase spoke to me, and then his words were cold as ice.

  "You'll break him," Chase told me, pausing in his path to stare directly into my eyes. I'd thought that Chase and I were becoming friends, but his expression made it clear I was now burning any bridge I'd thought had been built between us. Chase's loyalty to his alpha was far greater than any friendship he and I could have forged in the last week. As much as the realization hurt, though, it was a moot point—I wouldn't be part of this pack much longer.

  "He's a bloodling wolf," I countered, as if that explained everything. And to me, it did. Yes, Wolfie would feel betrayed, but he'd get over it. No loss of attachment could break a wolf's spirit.

  "You still don't know him at all," Chase muttered, almost to himself, and resumed pacing. But he hadn't refused outright, so I pulled out my next verbal sally.

  "Think for a minute about what Wolfie will do when my father refuses to take the money," I said to the beta, and I could tell I had his attention by the way his steps slowed. "You're thinking that the worst-case scenario is that Keith will have to stay with my father, and I agree that's not the end of the world. It would be a real shame for a sweet kid like my nephew to be turned into an alpha asshole by my father, but Keith is old enough that he'd find a way to hold his own, at least somewhat." I paused and then painted the picture I could see so vividly in my own mind. "But you and I both know that Wolfie wouldn't let that happen," I continued, my voice even lower. "If my father refuses to strike the deal, Wolfie will challenge him. And my father plays dirty. Wolfie wouldn't leave Haven alive."

  "And this pack would fall apart," Chase fleshed out the end of the scenario softly. At least I wasn't the only one that understood how this pack of outcasts depended on Wolfie for survival. Chase was a nice guy and an efficient administrator, but the pack would disintegrate without Wolfie's strong leadership, and that would leave a lot of werewolves out in the cold. The yahoos might be able to wiggle their way into another pack, but a wolf like Berndt with a human wife and a halfie daughter would have nowhere to go. No hide-bound pack would take in a pair of lesbian wolves, and Fen wouldn't fare much better as a young-adult halfie. Of course, that didn't even begin to address the way Tia and Chase would implode without their son and brother.

  "Now do you understand why this is so important?" I pleaded with Chase. When he didn't respond immediately, I played my trump card. "It's only a last resort," I lied. True, I'd gladly let go of my plan if Dale's monetary bribe proved sufficient, but I knew it wouldn't be. My father would want to watch us squirm, and if someone had to fall on her sword, it should be me.

  "Okay," Chase said at last, his shoulders hunching and his voice beaten. "It's a plan."

  Chapter 14

  We cooled our heels for four whole days, which felt like an eternity. Dale needed a chance to liquefy his assets and Chase didn't want us to appear too eager, figuring that every day Chief Wilder had to work around my nephew's teenage orneriness, the more likely the alpha would be to agree to our trade-off. Despite the fact that the delay made perfect sense, though, time seemed to flow like molasses in January.

  We all coped in our own individualized ways. Oscar decided the pack needed a span of new fences, so he dragged the yahoos and Fen out into the pasture with dozens of posts and a wire stretcher. By the end of each day, all five were so exhausted, they gobbled down huge amounts of food, then fell into their beds in silence.

  Tia took advantage of the pasture crew's hunger, filling her time with bread-baking and stew-cooking. After walking in on the pack mother kneading bread that first morning, dough slamming violently into the wooden countertop and tears streaming down her face, I decided she'd be better off without my help.

  Meanwhile, Berndt's little family retreated into their suite to sooth their fears in private, and Quetzalli, Galena, and Wolfie turned wolf. Only Chase seemed calm and in control, but his usually warm eyes were so cold when they looked at me, I felt like I'd already betrayed Wolfie's trust. After the first day of waiting, I decided to take a cue from Berndt and spend the rest of my time hidden away in Dale's basement.

  ***

  We'd arranged to meet at the pack compound the next morning, so I wasn't expecting anyone to interrupt my pity party that final night. After giving up on reading, I ended up simply lying on top of the covers in my room, watching darkness settle over the trees outside as I tried not to think about tomorrow. This is how I'd spent far too much of my time as a teenager, mostly because my father had strict standards for what a young woman could and could not do—few fun things made the cut. I'd thought it was painful then just waiting for time to pass, but the inactivity felt even worse now that I had so much more to lose.

  A tap on the windowpane drew me back into the present, and I was surprised to see Wolfie's human face peering in from the outdoors. Although I missed our time together, I had considered it a blessing over the last few days that Wolfie stuck to his canine form. His wolf helped me firm up my resolve, and I'd slowly worked myself around to believing that Wolfie really was more wolf than man, and that I wouldn't hurt him unduly with my betrayal. Now, his change back to human form came as a shock, even though my heart jolted with welcome.

  The alpha pointed toward the door, and after wrestling with my inner guilt, I padded across the cold floor on bare feet to let him in. Wolfie immediately moved to take me into his arms, but I stepped back skittishly, only sinking into a chair once the alpha had chosen a spot on the couch five feet away.

  "The pack thought you might want to run with us tonight," Wolfie said after a minute, his voice scratchy from disuse, and I shivered, imagining what it would be like to run in wolf form with other werewolves around me. I could almost see the rough-housing yahoos, the sleek beauty of Wolfie and Chase trying to out-pace each other, and my own exuberance as the pack activity swirled around me. I hadn't run with a pack in a decade and now the ache in my stomach hit me so hard I almost doubled over. This was what I'd be losing by going back to Haven.

  I had to shut down the vision before I begged Wolfie to keep me from going to Haven tomorrow. "I'm shiftless, remember," I bit out, the words harsher than I'd meant for them to be. But I could breathe again, at least, so the astringency was worth it.

  Rather than taking offense, Wolfie tilted his head to one side and considered me for a moment. "You'd change in a group shift," he said confidently. The alpha was suggesting that I be treated like an uninitiated teenager, pulling out my wolf form using proximity to other werewolves changing their skins, and the idea was just as enticing as it was embarrassing. I would have swallowed my pride and gone for the group shift in a heartbeat if I'd planned to stick around, but Wolfie's pack wasn't mine, and it would be better for me to get used to that fact now rather than later. The last thing I needed to do was to bond more with Wolfie's pack and then not to have the guts to go through with my plan tomorrow.

  I simply shook my head, and Wolfie scooted closer toward me along the couch, ending up with his knees almost touching mine. "Or we could practice your shift right now," he suggested. The wolfishness in his voice had disappeared and the words were suddenly silky smooth. I shivered again, but this time because I could almost feel the alpha's hands running over my body, my wolf reveling in the caress. I noticed her waking up inside me, and even felt the first hint of hairs pushing their way through the skin of my arms. Tonight we can run, the wolf panted, and maybe more.... My breathing came faster and I was a hair's breadth away from welcoming my furred sister to join me right then and there.

  No, I barked ba
ck, and before my weaker half could betray us, I jumped to my feet. "No," I repeated, this time aloud. Despite my abruptness, Wolfie rose to stand toe to toe with my human body. He didn't reach out to touch me, but I could feel the heat of his body warming the air between us and his breath seemed to whisper across my skin.

  "I know I've made you wait," the alpha started, feeling his way around the human words a bit awkwardly. "I hope you know it's not because I don't find you entrancing." He pulled in a long draft of air through his nose and I trembled, knowing he was smelling both me and my wolf. "I didn't want to rush you," he rumbled softly. "My wolf and I are patient and we want our first time to feel as good for you as it will for us. We will soar," he promised. Then, counterintuitively, the man took a solid step backwards, leaving only cold air between us. My body swayed to follow Wolfie's, but the alpha just kept his gaze fixed on mine and his hands in his pockets. "Your wolf is ready, and so are we, but we can wait if you need time," he finished.

  The words felt like a challenge, and I ached to give in to Wolfie, to drag him down the hall, lock the door, and see what a joining of four souls would feel like. Yes, now, my wolf agreed. But that was the worst idea I'd heard all night, assuming I planned to betray the alpha tomorrow.

  "I'm not ready," I coughed out, the words hanging up in my throat so I could barely force them through my lips. I turned away, and my wolf-enhanced senses told me that Wolfie had walked forward, that he had his hand an inch from my shoulder. If he touched me, I knew I'd give in, forget Keith tomorrow and save my own happiness instead.

  We stood, suspended, forever. Then Wolfie breathed out through his nose and retreated to the door.

  "I'll see you tomorrow," he promised. By the time I turned around, there was only a pile of clothes in the doorway, and Wolfie was gone.

  ***

  I knew that running with the pack was a bad idea, but I was itching to change forms. The days I'd spent in Wolfie's presence had reminded me that being a wolf didn't have to mean any danger to those around me. In fact, being a canine could offer a freedom and simplicity that was difficult to achieve in my current two-footed form, with the potential to silence the racing thoughts that flowed frantically through my mind. I felt constipated by humanity.

  I wouldn't run up the mountain, I told myself, just around the yard. Simply rolling on my back in the grass would feel good in fur form, the itch that seemed to perpetually coat my human skin disappearing for a few minutes at least. My wolf had been so ready to take over when Wolfie was present, I knew I'd be able to make the shift, and afterwards I could go into the challenge of tomorrow confident in myself, no longer a shiftless wolf.

  So after the alpha left, I padded outside onto the concrete patio beyond the back door and watched the full moon bathe the lawn in its glow. Looking up at the house, I noticed that Dale's light was off—my brother-in-law had gone to bed, if not to sleep, on the night before his son's fate would be decided. I was safely alone, the nearest neighbor half a mile distant down a long winding driveway and across the highway.

  I climbed to the top of the picnic table, the rough wood feeling good beneath my hands and feet, then I slipped off my pajamas and stood naked under the moon. Despite stories to the contrary, the full moon has nothing to do with a werewolf's shift, but the light did seem to caress my bare skin. I could imagine how much better it would feel to leap four-footed off the picnic table, the height giving my jump added momentum. We will soar, Wolfie had said, and I could imagine a more simple, but equally fulfilling, soaring as my wolf took flight from this aerie.

  Over the last week, Wolfie and I had been playing as much as learning during my "lessons," but the alpha had still managed to transform the way I perceived the werewolf's shift. Unlike the shifts I was familiar with from my youth, neither the man nor the wolf dominated when Wolfie changed form. Instead, both aspects of his personality were present together, the alpha merging the two to take on the shape that best suited the situation. In fact, much of the time I wasn't entirely sure Wolfie could have told you which form he was wearing that day, just like I might have failed the test if asked to report on my sock color without looking down. To the bloodling, his physical form had as little significance as my clothing choice.

  Although I understood the notion intellectually, I knew I needed to feel it in my bones if I hoped to replicate Wolfie's simple shifts. So I crouched on my hands and knees on the picnic table, moving my body through simple yoga poses to fully anchor myself in place. Cat then cow, my back arched up and then my belly sank down. I breathed in deeply, smelling the night air, and then I opened my eyes wide to simulate the wolf's keener vision.

  The time had come to move on to the mental side of my shift, and I closed my eyes to turn my focus inwards. The stairs that led down to my wolf's cell had changed over the past week as my wolf and I together re-envisioned our internal landscape. Now, I was walking downhill through an ancient forest, deep moss indenting beneath my bare feet and regal fir trees soaring up on either side. Traveling toward my wolf's lair had turned into a refreshing stroll instead of a terrifying journey through the dark.

  At the bottom of the hill, the iron bars had disappeared from the wolf's door and the cage had morphed into an open cave, warmed by a roaring fire. I'd given my wolf a deep-pile carpet to rest upon in front of the fireplace, and this is where she had usually been waiting for me in the past. If the wolf wasn't napping by the fire, ready for me to nudge her awake, she would be pacing at the bottom of the slope, her tail wagging eagerly as I approached.

  But not tonight. Instead, I entered the clearing to find that my wolf's den was empty, the fire burned out. With increasing worry, I rushed into the trees, calling her name—my name—but no one answered. Soon, I was running frantically, branches slapping into my face and tearing against my skin. The forest seemed to extend in front of me infinitely without a sign of my other half. By the time I circled back around, even the wolf's cave had disappeared, although the path up to the light of the outside world remained.

  A month ago, I would have been thrilled to lose my lupine half, but now I was heart-broken. With a jolt, I returned to the real world, and the splintery wood of the picnic table cut into my knees, painful rather than enticing. Up on the mountaintop, I could hear the howls of Wolfie's pack, but I was just a shiftless human, my own wolf gone. I dropped my head into my hands and cried.

  Chapter 15

  Wolves love to pile together, but I could barely stand being crammed between two youngsters in the backseat of the pack's car. Now I regretted the pure cowardice that had made me choose to ride with the yahoos instead of with the adults. Not that I would have been any better off struggling to avoid Chase's eyes and trying to keep my distance from our alpha, but at least the young werewolves' high spirits wouldn't be clawing down my spine and assaulting my eyes and nose.

  "I call shotgun on the way back," Blaze hooted as we approached the end of our trip. The yahoos were so confident of our success that they were bickering over who would have to ride on someone's lap once Keith joined their ranks. I didn't bother telling the young werewolves that there would be one fewer person in the car on the return trip—if we were lucky, Keith could have my seat. Instead, I just tuned the young wolves out, a relatively easy task since they'd given up on dragging me into their conversation hours ago.

  I hadn't been back to Haven in ten years, but the turnoff from the highway looked just the same. No sign, just "Private Drive" discretely labeled on a county road marker. I could remember walking out to the highway with Brooke, cranking our arms at passing truck drivers and laughing uproariously as their air horns belted out a deep bellow that became lower-pitched as it receded into the distance. The memory gave me a bit more sympathy for the innocent banter of the yahoos, although it didn't make their antics any easier to bear.

  As we turned down the private drive and slowed to a crawl, more memories rushed in, almost overwhelming me. I'd forgotten how much I loved following the creek below the main village, spla
shing through the water with bare feet and baiting crawdads with bits of their siblings' flesh. It was too cold now for creek-walking, but I expected to see more people out and about, until I realized that my old neighbors would all be under lockdown, anticipating our arrival. Sure enough, we didn't see a single person as we passed rustic farmhouses. Until we reached the village green, that is, where every male over the age of fifteen waited to greet us.

  The car in front of us ground to a halt and Chase, Wolfie, Oscar, Quetzalli, and Galena emerged, their doors banging loudly behind them. We'd left Berndt and his family, plus Tia, back at the compound to hold down the fort, and I was glad that they, at least, would be spared the sordid show about to be put on for my father's benefit. Even though I knew I'd never be able to return to Wolfie's pack after today, I cringed at the idea of the nine pack mates now present watching my betrayal.

  Wade was the oldest and quietest of the yahoos, and he waited beside my door after the others bounded up to encircle their alpha. "Are you okay?" he asked me, offering a hand to help me out of the car. I wanted to tell him that I wasn't ancient enough to need assistance just yet, but I felt as old as the hills, and I ended up stumbling over my own feet, grabbing the young man's arm after all.

  Wolfie should have had all of his attention riveted on my father's pack, but he glanced back the instant my skin touched Wade's, then he cocked his head to one side. The packless ache in my stomach nearly tore me in half as I realized that Wolfie wouldn't be enfolding me in his alpha protection after today. I shot him a shaky smile, meant to reassure him, but probably just making the alpha think I was carsick.

  My father never made anything easy, so I wasn't surprised to look out over the Haven males lounging around the green and to notice that both the Chief and my nephew were absent. Rather than becoming impatient, as I'm sure my father had planned, Wolfie simply pulled a trio of juggling balls out of his pocket and began showing off a skill I hadn't even realized he possessed. The colored orbs whirred through the air, bouncing off Wolfie's knee and dipping behind his back, and I soon noticed a couple of werewolf children peering out the windows of a nearby house, attracted by the spectacle.