Page 47 of Fifty & Feral

I rolled my eyes. “For your information, I wasn’t the one who was naked, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

“You’re going to do just fine,” Madison said.

Maya still had her hands over her ears. “Can we talk about something else? Anything else? Like, the games we’re playing tonight.”

“All right, let’s do that. It’s a big day and there is a lot to do,” I said, happy for the distraction. The harder I worked, the less I would think about that fact that tonight I would shift for the first time.

By the time the sun went down and it was time for everyone to take their shift, I was somehow feeling less nervous. There was too much to do on the night of a full moon for me to worry much about my first shift. I helped get the meal around, helped get everything set up, talked with more pack members who I maybe didn’t get to see quite as often. So when Jack called for everyone to go run, I had not had a moment to think about the fact that I too would be running with the pack.

Jack took to his fur and led the pack on their run. It was only my second time seeing the whole pack together like this, and it was still awe-inspiring.

After a few moments, Jack circled back and came to my side. He shifted to his human form. Then the two of us were standing there. Others were around, but they were pointedly ignoring us. Maybe too pointedly… some of them were definitely trying to eavesdrop while looking inconspicuous. They were failing.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

I nodded. He laced his fingers into mine and walked me toward the edge of the woods.

“It’s okay if you don’t shift tonight,” he said. “Even Mason said this is rather soon.”

“I know,” I said, “but I can feel it. I’m ready.”

Fur erupted on my arms. “Oh boy, not that ready,” I said, and it immediately went away after I took several deep breaths. “Holy shit!” It was one thing to see it on someone else, but seeing it on my own body was insane.

“You’re doing great,” Jack said. “You’re going to be amazing. I’ll bet your wolf is beautiful. Can you picture him?”

I nodded. “I’m smaller than you, with brown fur, not gray.”

“Yeah, I get it, you’re younger than me.”

I laughed. I kissed his lips.

Then suddenly, the change overtook me. Bones snapped, shrinking, throwing me down to the ground until I was on all fours. I let out a yelp, but it became a howl. Then suddenly I was blinking my too-keen eyes into the sharp night. The sounds of the forest buzzed in my ears, almost deafening. The moon shone brightly above us, and there I was, on all fours, looking up at my mate, my very naked mate.

“Shift,” I told him, but it came out as a bark.

He laughed. “You’re beautiful, mate. You really are.”

He shifted back to his wolf form, and then we were eye to eye again. He nudged me with a snout, and the two of us took off on a run.

Chapter 25

Jack

One Year Later

“Why is there an alarm going off?” My mate, my perfect partner, asked, and I knew without looking at him that he hadn’t even opened his eyes yet.

I blinked my eyes rapidly, trying to focus on the clock on the nightstand. “It’s not an alarm.” We had never used one before. I wasn’t even sure if the clock had one. Both of us tended to wake up early enough to get our day started at a decent hour without the help of an alarm.

“Then what is that incessant noise?”

“Your phone is ringing,” I said.

He groaned. “Make it stop.” This time he did roll and pull the blankets over his head, which was resting on my chest. So now the blankets were piled on top of me. Given that it was a spring morning, the oversized comforter wasn’t even necessary, especially after the way we had heated up the sheets the night before.

“Connor, we really have to get up.”

“No, we don’t,” he said. “Nothing good comes of a middle-of-the-night phone call.”