“I can't believe this,” she breathed out loud.
Then it struck her that she could do the same.
She was the same.
The fear of the pain of changing outweighed her curiosity, however.
So instead, she kept stroking his fur in awe and distraction.
“Okay, come back to me, Carter,” she murmured, she needed to talk to him properly. Within a heartbeat, the wolf in front of her was absorbing its fur, stretching into tan muscle and sinew. Carter's face was smooth of expression, she couldn't tell what he was thinking or feeling, but she felt like he'd just shown her something he usually kept to himself.
“Did you do this to me?” she asked, putting the question out there.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Well, not completely, I just pushed it forward,” he added.
“What do you mean?”
“One of your parents must have been a shifter. When they had a child with a human, someone who can't shift, your shifting genes became dormant. When I gave you that hickey, I broke some of your capillaries and got my saliva into your bloodstream, and I must have activated them,” he sounded apologetic.
“So, it is your fault,” she said simply. She wasn't angry, just disturbed.
This was a part of her for her whole life and she didn't know?
One of her parents was a shifter, lived a life split between being a human and an animal, and she'd never know them.
She'd always imagined what her family must be like, those parents who were so desperate to get rid of her that they dropped her off and ran, and this was never an option.
Not even close.
“I'm sorry,” he said gently, pulling on his clothes. She was disappointed to see his beautiful body covered, but knew it needed to happen.
“Are there others like you here?” she asked. “Like us,” she amended.
“Yes, over a hundred in West Valley,” he grinned, sitting on the bed with her.
“Wow,” she breathed. She couldn't imagine how many of them she passed and didn't know.
“The missing family was ours.” He studied her face as he said this, like he was looking for a reaction.
“Wait, so you know about them and you lied to me?” she said, frustrated. She was doing her best to take this all as openly as she could. Hell, part of her still thought she was having a fever dream, but she was betrayed by him lying to her.
“I couldn't exactly tell you 'they're basically part of a royal line of people who can also be wolves, and humans aren't allowed to seek information on that or be too nosy about it,' now could I?” he laughed.
“Mm, no, but you said you didn't know them at all,” she frowned.
“If I said I'd known them you wouldn't have let it slide,” he replied, his eyes warm on her face.
“No, but still…” she replied, knowing it wasn't much of an argument. “So, why are they missing?” she added.
“Nobody's entirely sure. We think someone's killing off the Alpha line and hiding their tracks,” Carter offered.
“Alpha line?” she asked.
“Yeah, basically, the oldest family line of shifters. There are dozens of other family lines, and we all follow the lead of that one,” he explained.
“So, werewolves follow a monarchy,” she mused, almost laughing.
“Basically,” he agreed, smiling along with her.
“This is insane. I'm just sick of bad fish, and I need to sleep it off,” she said, shaking her head. “It's an interesting fever dream, I gotta say,” she added, clawing her way back toward her pillow.
“You're not dreaming. This is real,” he said, following her to the top of the bed. He rested his forehead against hers, and she felt her heart racing. “Let me introduce you to the pack, show you what we have to offer,” he said gently. “Shifters who never shift, who spend their whole lives in cities, end up suffering from dementia. At least give us a chance,” he added.
This was too much for her.
She suddenly longed for the simplicity that her job usually offered her. A spoiled life of being paid to enjoy retreats and getting to complain about how boring that privilege was.
Whatever this was, whatever she and he were – this wasn't easy.
That scared her.
She'd been wanting so much more than her current life, and now that newness was thrust upon her and she didn't know what to do with it.
“Please, Willow,” he said, taking her hand gently in his. Looking up at his face, most of her worries smoothed out.
He was like an iron to her anxiety, a balm to her nerves.
This was new and different, and if she was losing her mind, at least she'd get a good story out of it.
Chapter 13
They were in his car again.
It was different from the last time she sat in there with him, heading home from the restaurant with the excitement of sex in the air.
No, this time, she had her hands folded in her lap and could feel her nerves starting up again.
It would have been funny to her if she wasn't so scared.
Werewolves…or shifters, apparently texted, and the idea was almost ludicrous. The second she gave him the go-ahead, Carter shot off a group text to all of them, letting them know he needed a meeting as soon as possible.
Two hours later, they were headed out to his home.
She felt lucky his shift had ended on time for it, but as they were leaving, she couldn't help but notice at least a couple dozen other employees leaving as well.
It struck her suddenly and hard.
No wonder everyone was treating her so strangely. No wonder she'd thought they were all weird. They were shifters, and she had been loudly digging around in their business.
“Why not just tell humans about yourselves?” she asked, still not entirely considering herself one of them.
“People have known before,” he answered, glancing over to her from the road. “They have one of two reactions every time. Either they try to hunt us all down and kill us, or they try to capture us and use us for war, which ends in us dying anyways,” he explained.
“I didn't try to kill you or turn you in,” she said, flustered that he'd group all people together like that.
“Well, you're one of us, first of all,” he smiled over at her briefly. “And secondly, a human being is smart. Can be kind, can be thoughtful. Once you group them all together, though, they become stupid and panicked at anything,” he explained. “A person can hear a loud bang and figure out it's a door swinging closed hard. A group will end up thinking it's gunfire and trampling each other for an exit,” he added.
He wasn't wrong, she knew that, but it still felt like an insult.
“Shifters are no different,” Carter said, as the town had given way to lush forest. Trees blocked out any view of the mountains around them, surprising her with the density of the woods. “That's why we have Alphas, to guide us in the right direction so that we don't end up in chaos and lose our way.”
“Okay,” she said softly, no longer offended.
The rest of the ride was quiet, but she noticed that the traffic was heavy, all heading in the same direction. She wondered how many people she'd spoken to that were shifters. How many heard her questions and thought she was stupid for asking, but didn't give her any answers.
This would be the story of a lifetime if she ever told anybody.
If she did a report on this and sold it somewhere, citing as much evidence as she could, it would be the big break that would help her make it into actual journalism. Some people may think she lost her mind, but those who she convinced would know, and their minds would be opened to so much.
If shifters were real, people who could slip from one form to another like changing clothes, what else was out there?
The woods suddenly seemed darker and deeper.
They turned off the main road, gravel and dust rising up around them as they headed up a long, winding
side road No, not a side road, she realized. A driveway.
The house at the end of it was huge – two stories tall and sprawling in the clearing. Cars were parked all around it like it was the hottest attraction in the area. As soon as they parked, more and more cars followed behind them, seeking places to park. Everyone getting out was headed to the back of the house, vanishing out of sight.
“Where are we?” Willow asked, looking over the scene as she unbuckled her seat belt
“My home,” he answered simply, grabbing a robe from the back seat and then stepping out.
He owned this place?
They walked along with the crowd, circling the house around to the back. The mass of people there watched them, their eyes boring holes into Willow that she could feel as Carter helped her step up onto the porch and away from the crowd.
They stood there a moment, not talking, as the last twenty or thirty people filled in.
Carter didn't touch her, didn't look at her, and Willow tried not to read into it.
He was trying to be official, trying to make an announcement about her, so it would make sense if he didn't want to seem too attached to her. It would be unprofessional if he was hugging her while he mentioned that she was new.
Was she going to be part of the pack?
Did she want to be part of the pack?
When the crowd finally settled, Carter stepped forward.
“I'm sure you've all seen this one wondering around town,” he said, motioning to her as though she were a stranger. “I had an encounter last night and have realized she's a shifter and she didn't know,” he explained.
An encounter, she thought to herself, almost laughing. If that's what he wanted to call sex, that's fine.
The crowd burst into murmuring.
“Have you seen her shift? How do you know she's not lying?” one man shouted.
“I smelled her when she was in wolf form, but I haven't seen her myself,” he admitted.
“She should shift!” a familiar voice shouted. Willow looked and realized it was the man from the newspaper. More people joined in, cheering and agreeing with the first one.
“I thought this might happen,” he said, turning to her. “Go ahead and go in. Put this robe on and come back out. Don't worry. If you shift properly, nobody will see you naked until you've shifted,” he murmured, handing her the robe.
He wanted her to be in nothing but a robe in front of a hundred plus people?
Her heart was hammering out of her chest.
“Can't I just shift inside and come back out?” she whispered, terrified and self-aware.
“They won't be one-hundred percent sure it's you if you do,” he shook his head. “If you don't want to do this, if you want to go back to the resort, you can, but you won't have another chance to do this,” he said softly. His eyes and voice were kind and gentle, and she wanted to follow what he said.
“All right,” she murmured.
“Good girl,” he teased gently, letting her into his home.
The house was beautiful, and she was sad she couldn't currently appreciate it. Stripping, knowing the crowd was waiting for her on the other side of the door, was heart wrenching. Even as she wrapped the robe around herself, she felt too exposed.
She reminded herself that she could do this, though.
That she had to do this.
She didn't care about the pack or about what anyone else thought of her: she just wanted to be a part of this side of Carter's life.
Willow had only known him a couple days, and he was already taking over so much of her life. He was in all of her thoughts, and his voice lingered in her mind like a song.
Steeling herself into calmness, Willow stepped out onto the porch.
The crowd was silent, all eyes on her. Nobody was leering or whistling, no catcalling. Everyone was waiting and seeming more than interested in what was about to happen.
“I'm not entirely sure how to,” she murmured to Carter.
“Deep breath, and think of running. Think of your feet rushing away under you as you hunt. Thoughts like that will draw out the wolf, will let it take over. From there, just relax and try not to fight it taking the lead,” he explained.
It sounded absurd. She was the only one doing this. The only one in a group of at least a hundred. What if she'd imagined all of this? What if she was about to make a fool of herself in front of this many people? In front of Carter?
She shook her head and followed his directions, though.
She imagined running through the woods, dodging between trees and over brush. Her mind supplied a white rabbit, like in the sculptures, and she let her imagination chase it. Soon, her body began to ache, and although her first instinct was to stop, Carter rested his hand on her back, and she pushed through it.
It was the most excruciating pain she'd ever experienced.
Her body felt like a Rubik’s cube, reordering itself into a new design. It was still her, still her brain and her bones and her eyes, but it was so foreign all the same. As the last of the crackling finished and she collapse down, she saw the paws beneath her again.
She'd done it!
Excited, amazed that she wasn't just imagining it, Willow bound out of the robe and shook her body off like a dog out of water. She wobbled around, getting used to her four legs. She looked over to Carter, expecting him to be proudly looking at her, expecting him to be happy, but his face wore an expression of pure shock.
What the hell?
She turned from him, facing back to the crowd, and they were all silent as well.
There was a kind of shock on them that set her senses on fire. Something was wrong. Something was damned wrong, and she needed to get out of there.
Were they all making it up?
Was she the only one who could actually shift?
What were they expecting? They had told her to shift into a wolf, and she had, and yet they all looked at her like she'd turned into a unicorn instead.
The surprise and discomfort forced her into a quick change back, her body slamming against itself as she became the Willow she'd been her whole life. She pulled the robe around her shoulders, covering herself, and stayed seated on the porch.
“What is it?”
Chapter 14
The star was on her back.
The star that marked her as a descendant of Lycaon, an Alpha.
He should have known.
Carter knew he smelled Alpha when he went to her room. Knew that smell like the back of his hand. Still, he'd pushed the idea aside, not letting it stick, because he didn't want to believe she was one. He wanted her to be his, and now she couldn't be. He'd been too greedy and ended up just endangering her.
He was an idiot, he was sure of it. He'd spent more time with Alphas than any other shifter had, and then one falls, almost literally, into his lap and he forgets everything he knows because she's beautiful.
Willow stared up at him, her confusion blatant on that beautiful face. The crowd began to murmur loudly, somewhere between questioning and celebrating. He didn't know what to tell them, didn't know what to tell her. All he knew was this was going to change everything for and with her. The pack had found a new Alpha, and she didn't even know she was a shifter until yesterday.
She wouldn't survive a week if he didn't talk to her, if he didn't protect her. Not that he had done a great job of that before. Carter grimaced at the thought, embarrassment and shame filled him at the idea. How was he going to protect this amazing woman when he couldn't protect anyone before? Not even his own brother had survived.
“What is it?” she asked, her bright green, tell-tale eyes full of worry.
How hadn't he seen it before?
She was a textbook descendant of Lycaon.
Fiery, curious, she even physically matched the look all of the Alphas had for thousands of years. Guilt wrecked his stomach at the thought. No wonder he'd been so attracted to her. It wasn't that she was his
Fated Mate. It was that she was an Alpha, and his body knew to protect her before his mind even knew what she was.
Before she even knew what she was.
He needed to set aside any feelings he'd had for her now. As painful as it was, as much as he was sure it would hurt her as well, he couldn't risk his emotions endangering her. His only duty was to ensure her safety, nothing more.
“You're a marked descendant of Lycaon,” he murmured gently, helping her to her feet. Willow pulled the robe tighter around her. She still looked confused, and Carter realized he hadn't explained it in any way she could understand. The crowd behind her started cheering, shouting, and filling the forest with their excitement of finding a leader. They'd been starving for someone to fill the role, even though it had only just emptied. She was unique for other reasons, though – the first female leader this pack had seen in over sixty years.
“What?” she asked, her confusion still etched across her face.
“You're like the missing family,” he tried to explain. “You've got a mark that means you're part of the oldest line,” he added.
“I can't be. I'm only half,” she said, shaking her head.
“It's more than anyone else here. You're the only of your kind within a couple hundred miles,” Carter tried to make it clear to her.
“I can't lead. I don't know anything about being a shifter,” she said, horrified. Carter looked around to make sure nobody else heard her or saw her hesitation. The rest of the pack was too busy celebrating and cheering for the new Alpha. He took a deep breath and decided to try to be kind.
“I'm sorry,” Carter replied. It was all he could think of. There was no way to tell her that the pack hadn't tried any other options. No way to explain the depth of their need for her. Even just as a figurehead, Alphas were important. The Lycaon family, if available, was always the Alpha. In modern times, some packs had started allowing for members to vote on who should be Alpha outside of the family, but tradition still held strong for his pack.
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