by Haley Weir
Theo took off toward the hidden entrance that led from the castle to the forest. Cassandra, Aeron, and Holly looked at each other in shock for a moment, and then went with him. No one knew why it was so important for Marquette that she be in the forest to birth the child, and considering her rapidly evolving condition, they didn’t have time to discuss it further.
As soon as Theo had reached the tunnel that led to the forest, his eyes burned yellow and his muscles bulged. He was shifting without shifting entirely, something that not many shifters were able to do, but that Theo had been doing since he was a child. None of the others could keep up with him in their human forms as he ran, so Aeron, Cassandra, and Holly shifted into wolves and ran alongside Theo. When they reached the edge of the forest, Theo’s human body was being pushed past its limits as he ran faster than any two legs had ever carried anyone, clutching Marquette to his chest.
The center of the forest appeared within sight, and sensing the presence of the others in the woods, Rubius emerged with his pack. There, under the moonlight of the nighttime forest and surrounded by the dozens of glowing eyes of shifted wolves, Marquette birthed the first human/shifter child that most of the shifters had seen or heard about in their lifetimes. Even though there were dozens of pack members around them in a protective and reverent circle in the clearing, it felt as if it was the most intimate moment that Theo and Marquette had ever had. Together, in human form, they brought their child into the world. And as soon as the first cries of the baby were heard, the wolves all around them erupted into howls that carried up into the air and swept through the forest in honor of the new addition to their pack.
Theo placed the baby boy in Marquette’s arms, and then he held his wife and child in his protective grasp as he, in his still half-shifted form, joined in their howls of joy and celebration.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was difficult to believe that a few months had already passed since Theo’s baby son had been born. He was so completely enthralled by his new little family that he hadn’t even thought about his struggle with his princely or pack duties. The only thing he ever thought about was Marquette and his son, and it made everything else fade away in pale comparison to his joy.
All of the royal family had gathered around them to welcome and embrace the first shifter child of the next generation, and the boy was by far the most doted upon and cherished child in the kingdom and forest combined.
On a morning that seemed as magnificent as all the others had been, Marquette came to Theo with an important and unusual request. She looked nervous as she held their son in one arm and reached for a cup of coffee with her free hand. The baby gurgled and cooed as she held it up against her chest, and Theo leaned forward to plant a soft kiss first on her lips, and then on the top of his son’s tiny head.
“I want to ask you about something,” she said cautiously.
“What is it?” he asked. “You look timid about something this morning. Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” she said with a reassuring smile. “But I need to ask you about something important, something that has been weighing on my mind since the birth of our child.”
“Tell me,” Theo said as he gently wrapped his arm around her waist. “Nothing should be weighing on your mind now, not with all of the happiness that we have to share.”
“There was a reason I wanted to give birth in the forest,” she said.
After the birth of the baby, everyone had been so happy that they had all forgotten to ask Marquette what the urgency was for her request.
“I knew that he would be a shifter, and that like his father, the forest would call to him as his home. I wanted his first entry into the world to be surrounded by a place that felt like home, and by the people that would be around him for countless years.”
“I love that you wanted that for our son,” Theo smiled.
Marquette smiled back at him in return.
“And I love that you knew it was important enough to me to make it happen,” she said. “Now there is something else that is important to me. And I would like you to make this request happen as well.”
“You know that I would do anything in the world for you,” Theo said to her. “What is it that you want?”
“I want you to turn me into a shifter,” Marquette said.
“What?” Theo was stunned.
The thought of Marquette being a shifter had never crossed his mind.
“Why are you asking me to do this?” he asked.
“Surely it is possible to be done, isn’t it?” she said. “I’ve heard rumor of it, and I read a book once that your mother had given me about shifter lore. In the book, it said it was possible to turn humans into shifters.”
“I mean, yes, I think so,” Theo said, bewildered. “But to my knowledge, it hasn’t been done for centuries. The process is painful and dangerous, and frowned upon.”
“We were frowned upon once too, remember?” she said as she gave Theo a gentle and wise smile. “And I don’t care about it being dangerous or painful. I have been through dangerous and painful things before.”
“Why do you want this?” Theo asked.
“My son is a wolf shifter,” Marquette said calmly. “My love and the match to my soul is a wolf shifter. You and our child will live countless years beyond when my time as a human is up. I don’t want to be without you. I don’t want to give up any of the moments that I might be able to have with you and our child. If there is a chance that I could spend more time with you both, then I want to have that chance. I want to live for as long as possible.”
Theo thought carefully about what Marquette had said and what she was requesting of him. She had already spoken to Holly and Cassandra, and both had said that they supported her desire to become a shifter. All that was left was to convince Theo and Aeron that it was the right thing to do.
“At least think about it,” Marquette said as she saw the hesitation on Theo’s face. “Please.”
He agreed to give it thought, and after they had coffee together, he went to speak to his father. It was unusual for Theo to talk to his father about intimate and emotional matters. Usually, he spoke to his mother about such things. But this time, he felt as though he needed Aeron’s reserved and unemotional perspective. He needed to make sure that he didn’t do anything reckless that would hurt Marquette.
“Has it ever been done before?” Theo asked his father.
“Yes, but not in ages.”
“Is it doable?”
“Yes, to my knowledge. But it is not without risk,” Aeron said.
Theo sighed. “All of life is not without risk, it seems.”
“That is true,” Aeron nodded.
“What would you do if you were in this position?” Theo asked him. “If it were mom, and you had to choose to either live with the thought of knowing that you would lose her to mortality one day, or chance risking her life for the possibility of turning her successfully?”
Aeron thought quietly for several moments.
“That is a very, very difficult decision to make,” he said finally. “Especially now with a child in the picture as well. I guess that I would follow my heart.”
Theo did a double-take to make sure that it was actually his father who had said those words.
“You would?” he asked.
His father nodded.
“I have learned something,” he said thoughtfully. “Something that you and your mother and sister have taught me. I have learned that although rules are good and commitments are good, there are times when none of it matters if you betray your heart. I believe that this is one of those times. If Marquette wants to be turned, and if you want to turn her, then I would go ahead with it. That being said, if your heart tells you not to, then you should decline her request even if it upsets her. What is your heart telling you to do?”
“It’s telling me that I cannot stand to think of living without her,” Theo answered. “My heart tells me that if there is even the slightest possibility of making
sure that I can be with Marquette for as close to forever as possible, then I need to take it. And it’s telling me that Marquette is the strongest woman and the strongest human that I have ever known, so if there is anyone who could survive being turned into a wolf shifter—it is her.”
“Then there is your answer,” Aeron said as he smiled proudly at his son.
Theo stood up and hugged his father. Then he went to return to Marquette with his decision. Although he was at first hesitant about the risks, he knew that he wanted to be with her forever.
***
“Mom, come on!” the boy shouted as Theo watched his son race around the edge of the forest in a game of chase with Marquette.
“You need to give your mother a rest,” Theo said.
It didn’t seem like that long ago that the small boy was merely a tiny baby that Marquette carried around in her arms. Now he chased his mother around in circles in a game of tag that Marquette always made sure to let him win, as Theo sat and laughed from his place seated against a nearby tree. The boy hadn’t quite yet figured out that four paws were faster than two feet, and so he continued to run clumsily around the woods on his two legs as he tried to find where Marquette was hiding so that he could tag her again.
“Aha!” the boy shouted when he saw his mother move between the trees. “Come out! I’ve spotted you!”
Marquette stepped out from between the trees and laughed.
“You’re so clever,” she said. “How will I ever beat you if you are always so clever in discovering my hiding places?”
The boy beamed with satisfaction.
“You can’t beat me,” he laughed. “I’ve already found you, and so now I will catch you and tag you. There’s no way that you can get away now.”
Theo laughed from his place near the tree.
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Theo said. “Your mother is the cleverest, strongest, and fastest woman that I have ever know,”
“She’s not faster than me!” the boy said as he started to run toward his mother.
As the boy ran forward toward her on his lanky and awkward legs, Marquette glanced over at Theo for a moment.
“You know,” she said with a playful smile to her husband, “one of these days, you might tire of watching me play tag with our son.”
Theo smiled as if his happiness was too great to keep inside.
“I will never tire of watching you play with our son,” he said. “And I will never tire of watching you win at the end of the game either.”
Marquette laughed in a clear and brilliant sound that echoed throughout the forest and prompted gleeful howls from some of the nearby shifters that were around them in the woods.
“Is that why you decided to heed my request?” she teased. “So that you could watch me win at tag?”
“One of the many, many reasons,” Theo smiled.
Marquette turned back to look at her son, who had almost by now closed in on her, and was stretching out his hand to tag his mother and win the game. With a quick flash, Marquette’s eyes suddenly lit up and glowed a brilliant, golden yellow. The boy tried to run harder, knowing that his mother was about to beat him at the game, and he reached out his fingers to touch her before she could get away. But Marquette pushed up off her feet into the air, and just as she did, she shifted into a beautifully swift wolf with silver fur that darted away between the trees before the boy had a chance to tag his mother. Theo laughed, and the boy pouted for a brief moment as he walked toward his father in defeat.
“See?” Theo said to his son. “What did I tell you? Your mother is fast.”
“How come you don’t ever play?” the boy said as he plopped down in his father’s lap.
“Because I know better than to try to catch your mother; she has outrun me more times than I can count.”
Marquette softly padded back to where they were sitting and lowered her head for the boy to scratch her soft fur beneath his fingers. He nuzzled her snout with his cheek and wasn’t mad anymore that she had won the game.
“Please play with us?” the boy pleaded with Theo. “Just one game?”
Marquette tipped her head toward Theo, and he couldn’t resist her beautiful eyes.
“Oh okay,” Theo said as he got up. “Just one game.”
Theo waited for his son to shift into a little wolf and then counted down from three to start the game. As soon as he got to zero, he shifted, and the three wolves ran off into the woods in another playful round of tag.
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About the Author
Haley Weir is an author from South New Jersey. Obsessed with all things romance, you can catch her over at FictionObsessed.com, where she one of the head writers.
Growing up near Philadelphia, she always loved taking trips into the city and felt magnetized by its culture and art. She recalls her first trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art as a young girl. The vast displays of skills and beauty left her in awe and she slowly developed an interest towards the creative side of life.
She began drawing and writing at 13 years old and graduated from Drexel University with as an English major in 2011.
You can find her outside reading at her local park in South Jersey, strolling through the streets of Philly, or awkwardly sipping a glass of wine at a nearby bar.
