Page 61 of Silver Claw

Though I maintained my calm, their excitement was contagious. As we headed out the kitchen door and into the backyard, I realized that I already believed he could do it. And I did not want another crushing disappointment.

With my wolf and my shapeshifter, I’d still be powerful enough to take on anyone—especially Gavin Voss. My wolf could handle him, but my shapeshifter could decimate him. And I really, really wanted to decimate him.

“You’re getting angry,” Sam murmured when we stood in the yard. “Good. That’s good.”

I nodded. “Let’s do this, Sam.”

I didn’t know what to expect, but I wasn’t really afraid of pain. Only of failing. When we were in the back yard and stood facing each other, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I could feel Sam’s anxiety, the quiet watchfulness of my woods, and the patrolling wolves. Before I’d closed my eyes to gather my focus, I’d caught sight of Remy slipping through the trees, watching for Voss.

But I closed my eyes and shut everything else out. What mattered now was relearning how to shift into my shapeshifter, if my shapeshifter was still with me.

I opened my eyes and looked at Sam. “What do you need me to do?”

“It’s not a matter of me pulling her out of you, exactly,” he told me. “But helping you feel her so you can remember her.”

“Have you done anything like this before, Sam?”

He laughed. “I haven’t. There’ve been a lot of firsts for me since I met you, Kait. Are you ready?”

I smiled. “I’m ready.”

His hand hovered over my chest. “I need to touch you.”

I nodded, then closed my eyes again, shutting out everything but what was inside me. My wolf stirred, then got up and began to pace, but I put her back to sleep. I didn’t want to inadvertently shift into my wolf. Not yet.

Sam placed his palm against my chest and cupped my face with his other hand. His fingers lay over my temple, his palm against my cheek, and immediately, my skin began to tingle. It wasn’t unpleasant, just…strange.

The warmth of his hand against my chest seeped through the fabric of my shirt and past the skin beneath it. The warmth was like a path leading to the secrets deep inside me, and I walked that path, silent, vigilant, expectant.

I saw only darkness, but I felt everything. My wolf, my heart, lingering memories of my stolen magic. And finally, rising through the darkness, I saw a light. Dim, white, and alive. But it was not my shapeshifter. It was my affinity for the life that lay beyond death. It was my ability to communicate with spirits. To see them, speak with them, and help them cross over. It was there, just something inside me, and with that light came an epiphany.

My shapeshifter was me. Born into the world, my blood, bones, tissues, organs, brain…everything. It was that. Just as the wolf was me, just as the medium was me, and the psycho, and the woman.

The ability to shapeshift had always been there. It had been restrained along with my ability to shift into my wolf when Adam Thorne had hobbled me, but it was like a baby learning to speak. It was something inside me that I learned how to do, and then I’d been struck by trauma and had buried it once again. I’d forgotten it.

But I remembered now.

Golden light in the shape of a lion appeared before me, morphing immediately into a butterfly, then a cat, then into the black light of a crow. I heard the echoes of a cawing crow, and I was overcome with sadness. Then the light burst into a tiger’s form, and there was no more despair.

Only fierceness.

All me.

My eyes flew open and I burst into my shift, both gleeful and savage, and despite a shifter’s inborn need to be silent in a human’s world, I lifted my face to the sky and roared. Sam, pale and wide-eyed, stumbled backward and away from me, but there was only a little fear in his eyes. The rest was respect, exhilaration, and devotion.

He loved my shapeshifter more than he’d ever loved anything. Even killing. Even Lucy. Because more than his man, he was his shapeshifter.

Every wolf guarding the place shifted when I roared. As an alpha, my roar called them, and they came. They were Jared’s and not technically mine, but because I was Jared’s mate, his wolves were my wolves, as well. Even though I’d chosen to separate myself and my pack and live in Silverwood, they were mine.

They milled around the yard, around me, and Remy and Zach stood beside Sam, unsure. I pranced, thrilled with myself, and sent another roar into the sunny sky. I ran to the woods andthe wolves ran with me, leaving Zach and Remy behind to guard the house.

Sam couldn’t shift into an animal, but it didn’t matter. He ran with us, because he didn’t need to shift into an animal to be his shifter. He was fast, strong, and mean, and he did not fall behind.

The woods were not vast, but they were enough. We wore ourselves out running, frolicking, forgetting the responsibilities of people as we got drunk on freedom. And because I’d seen the shape inside myself, I shifted into a butterfly and flitted through the air, landing finally on Sam’s outstretched hand.

His arm dipped slightly because I was heavier than a regular butterfly. Bigger, too.

“Beautiful,” he whispered. “Unbelievable, Kait.There’syour magic.”