Page 117 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
“Pardon?” I queried, clearing my throat. But then I felt it, these strange pricks on either side of my skull, this incessant itch right above my ass crack. “Caine Spells …” I warned, but he was already laughing.
“I dunno if this is a Christmas present for me or if it’s for you. Shit, maybe it’s for both of us? Either way, it’s a gift.” He stepped back as the realization took over me, and my eyes widened. “You keep wondering if this might change things between us, but you’ll see. It don’t matter if you’re witch or wolf; it’s all the same. You and me, Grace, we’re written in the stars.”
He danced back, melting into wolf form as easily as I might toss a wide-brimmed hat on my head. It was natural for him, as simple as listening to the song of the wild in his blood and allowing it to sing.
I very quickly stripped down to my birthday suit, shivering and trembling, teeth chattering, toes cold despite the outdoor rug that was thrown across the wood planks of the deck.
When that song came—and I wasn’t sure that it would, seeing as I’d eaten a charm and wasn’t actually a werewolf—I didn’t fight it. The pricks in my skull became ears, the itch was a tail, and before I was fully aware of the shift, I was there.
I stood on all fours on the deck of the cabin and stared down at Caine, his wolf ass in the air, tail wagging in puppyish glee.
Look at you, darlin’, he said, his voice in my head the way Bastet’s was sometimes. Telepathy, you could call it, a sharing of thoughts and feeling that wasn’t possible to put into words. It just was. Communication, like body language, but something even more intuitive. You make one sexy wolf woman.
I tried to look down at myself but found a very limited view of reddish paws and little else.
My perspective had changed entirely which was, of course, a wonderful thing.
There’s nothing worse than stale perspective, now is there?
Caine’s body language clearly invited me to play, so play I did. I hopped down the steps, reveling in the sudden feeling of freedom. My body moved as if it were made of liquid, flowing from one place to another. Every jump, every step, every leap felt effortless.
I was flying.
When Caine took off into the trees, I followed him. The snow was cool beneath my paw pads, but it wasn’t cold, the fat snowflakes collecting on my pelt easy to ignore. I didn’t need a charm to keep warm like this; I was built for it.
How did you come up with this spell? I queried, but Caine threw a look over his shoulder, his amber eyes no different in this form than they were when he looked human.
No. Don’t question it. Just relax. And then he turned and sprinted off so quickly that I had to push my body to keep up with him, muscles burning, breath frosting the air. We leapt over fallen logs and landed in thick snowdrifts, tore through ice-cold creeks with frozen surfaces, and found ourselves at the edge of Wolf Lake.
It was such a large body of water that the ice sheet atop it was covered with cracks and fissures, pockets of unfrozen water here and there. We had a good view from up top, and I could sense we were near Raeanne’s cabin.
How Pack Citrine Sunrise resisted the urge to shift and why they fought it, I would never understand, especially not after experiencing this.
I knew a transmogrification spell was a big one; it might’ve taken Caine years to set it up. And he must’ve done so before we cast the spell to cure my mother’s curse or else it wouldn’t have happened. We were all still in the recovery process.
But when he’d asked who this was a gift for? Me. It was clearly for me.
You’ve got the ability to shift back and forth for a couple of hours, he told me, glancing over in my direction. On top of that, now that we have a full soul-circle, I can make a spell like this a few times a year and not just once every decade.
You’re saying you like Hex then? I offered, and he let out a wolfy snort, putting his nose to the snow and letting the fluffy drift swirl beneath his panting breaths.
Bullshit, he murmured, and I swear, I could hear his Southern accent even in wolf form.
Caine moved over to me, rubbing his face against mine and gently licking at the edges of my mouth, a sweet, submissive gesture that had my tail wagging and my ears folding back. It felt natural, despite the fact that this was the first time I had ever attempted anything like this.
When he trotted off, I followed him back to the cabin and onto the porch.
