Desperately Seeking Shapeshifter (4 page)

Oh, God. Not here. Not now.
My back arched and my body undulated with pain. I cried out and dropped to my haunches, my panicked body beginning the painful transformation to wolf.

In humiliation I endured the endless rounds of pain as my jaw cracked and shifted, my nose elongating, every muscle twisting and stretching like a rubber band pulled taut. My skin shivered the entire time as the wolf worked her way through me. I tried not to cry out, but this change was so hard and sudden that I nearly blacked out with the pain of it.

The clearing had gone deathly silent except for the sounds of my labored breathing and whimpers, the roaring of blood in my ears as I became the hated half of me. I struggled to remain human, and that made things harder. As my hands turned to paws, I felt each excruciating twist of tendon and bone acutely. After long minutes passed, my shredded clothes fell to the ground. I gave a long, humiliated
body shiver, then rose shakily to my feet. My wolf feet.

Both sides stared at me—the Russells in something like chagrin, the Andersons in surprise. Ramsey’s expression was one of disappointment. For some reason, that made me feel worse, and my wolf stomach lurched. I gagged and threw up blood in the grass, unable to keep it down. On some of the more painful changes, I vomited blood. Today, it seemed, was one of those days.

The Anderson leader pointed at me, and the stink of wolf rolled off him, my nose attuned to the scent. “That,” he said, his voice an echoing boom in my sensitive wolf ears, “was a fucking disgusting show.”

A small whine crept out of my wolf throat.

“You’re letting her kill herself,” the alpha continued. “She keeps transforming like that and she’s going to destroy herself from the inside out. And you assholes ain’t helping her?” The Anderson leader spat at Ramsey’s feet. “I thought you said you wanted to be her mate?”

I heard the crack of Ramsey’s knuckles as he clenched his fists, and I looked up at him. He wouldn’t look over at me.

The Anderson leader moved toward me. I shied back but he held a hand out, fingers extended, and the wolf in me felt compelled to sniff them. I did so, and he touched my ears, then ran a hand down the ruff of my collar. I endured it, feeling the wolf’s need to please the alpha.

“She’s killing herself if that’s how she’s changing,” the Anderson leader said again, his voice softer. “Ain’t supposed to be slow and painful like that. Ain’t supposed to make her puke blood. If that’s what she’s doing, she’s gonna be dead before a year is out.”

My sister’s breath caught in a soft sob. “No.”

The wolf in me couldn’t process. My body was still radiating pain, though it was slowly ebbing. I paced, whining. Humiliation tore through my thoughts, along with fear. Was he right and I was going to die? What could I do? I didn’t want to go with the wolves. I wanted to go back with my sister. I wanted to run away. My tail flicked.

As if sensing my thoughts, the Anderson leader tried to put a hand on my ruff again, but I flinched away, skittering back a few feet, human fear overriding wolf instinct.

“We can help her learn how to change,” he said in a calm, low voice meant to soothe. “Send her with us and we can save her. Even wolf babies know how to shift better than she does. Not only is she putting herself at risk, she’s putting others at risk. What if she changes in public?”

Ramsey stepped forward and looked down at me, into my wolf eyes, and must have seen the fear there. He looked back at the Anderson leader and took two more steps forward, getting in the man’s face. To the wolf leader’s credit, he did not back down.

“She is my mate,” Ramsey said in a low, dangerous voice. “She stays with me. The laws make it so.”

“Still singing the same tune, eh?” The Anderson leader looked at me, then back at Ramsey. “If you aren’t gonna let her go with us, then one of us is going to go with you. I’m not gonna let you kill her. She’s one of us.”

“Actually,” Beau said, stepping forward, “this is an arrangement we’d be interested in. We’ve been thinking that it’s long past the time for the wolf pack to join the Alliance.”

A half hour later my flesh began to ache and crawl again, and I hurried off to the edge of the woods, my sister trailing behind me with my clothes as I began to change back. Several long, agonizing minutes later I lay in the grass, naked and panting, waiting for the pain and nausea to pass.

My sister crouched next to me and handed me my clothes. “Oh, Sara,” she said softly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I shrugged, slipping the shirt over my head and then dragging on my jeans. My bra and panties had been destroyed in the change, and the shirt was in tatters. “I didn’t know it
wasn’t
supposed to hurt. How could I?”

The man who had turned me had been abusive and a bully. I’d thought his “gift” of being a werewolf had been just another way to remind me that I was weak. Another way to force me under his thumb.

“When Beau changes, he’s not in pain. It’s not
like your shifting. The noises you made . . . does it always hurt so much?”

I squeezed my eyes shut. God. I wanted to die of embarrassment. I’d had an ugly, messy transformation in front of everyone. Everyone assumed that you just knew how to shift. No one talked about the mechanics, any more than you’d describe how it felt the last time you’d taken a leak. “Let’s just go, Bath,” I said irritably. “I want to hear what they’re saying.”

But when we arrived back at the rendezvous, all the deciding had already been done. Beau was smiling through clenched teeth and the Anderson leader looked mollified, if not overly pleased. Only Ramsey continued to scowl. I approached slowly, holding my tattered shirt together.

“Levi and I have come to a solution that is satisfying for both parties,” Beau said and beckoned me forward. Reluctantly, I went.

“Levi wants to help you,” Beau said. “He says they can teach you how to shift better. And they want to make sure your mating to Ramsey is of your own choosing.” He put a brotherly hand on my shoulder. “Since the wolves want to make sure you have a choice in your mate, Connor Anderson is going to come with us. He’s going to stay with you for the next month to teach you how to be a wolf. Among other things.”

Oh, great. A chaperone, a tutor, and a suitor all in one. Just what I needed.

Levi nodded, then gestured for one of his wolves
to move forward. Connor turned out to be the young, attractive werewolf that had brought out Savannah, and I wondered what the story was there. Though he stood next to me, his gaze remained locked on Savannah, who stared at the ground.

“We get a wolf chaperone. What does Levi’s pack get out of this?” my sister asked. “My sister doesn’t want to live with them. She wants to live with her mate.”

“Don’t want nothing but the well-being of my wolves,” Levi said in a soft voice, though I could hear a dangerous undercurrent in it. His arms crossed over his chest and he stood strong, legs apart, as if challenging Beau. “She had a bad experience and needs to know most wolves ain’t like that. We don’t turn people to control them. It’s my job to make sure my wolves are safe. If you’re pack, you’re mine. And she’s one of mine.”

No, I’m not!
The words wouldn’t come out of my mouth.

As if sensing my distress, Levi looked over at me. The alpha’s eyes locked with mine, and I felt the overwhelming urge to obey. It frightened me. How could he have such control over who I was?

“And in the meantime,” Beau said, “we’re going to discuss the possibility of the Anderson wolves joining the Alliance. A few have expressed interest in the Midnight Liaisons service, as their pack is looking for a few mates to add to their family.”

“Oh,” my sister said in pleased surprise. “That would be very good.”

Midnight Liaisons was the dating agency my sister and I owned, and it catered exclusively to paranormal clientele. The wolf packs traditionally shunned the use of the service, and the thought of adding them clearly excited my sister.

Seemed like everyone was getting something out of this deal but me. I looked over at Ramsey, whose mouth was still pressed into a tight line of disapproval.

“All right,” I said meekly.

Levi clapped me on the shoulder, nearly startling me out of my skin and making me flinch away from him. “Good girl. Looks like you get to have your Huggy Bear after all. Unless you decide otherwise.” The small comment had an entire volume of menace. His tone implied that I should definitely consider “deciding otherwise.” But then he smiled, showing all his teeth. “Why don’t you go give your man a big kiss and wipe that scowl off his face?”

It looked like the last thing Ramsey wanted right now was to kiss me, but I was terrified of losing the fragile peace, so I moved toward Ramsey.

When he swept me up in his arms, I just gave him a light kiss on the mouth. His lips didn’t part under mine this time.

Chapter Four

T
he ride back to the Russell compound was extremely awkward. Connor insisted on riding with me, and since he was there, Ramsey refused to leave my side. As a result, I spent the long drive back into the city squished between Ramsey’s big frame and Connor’s rangy one. I desperately wanted to talk to my sister about what was going to happen next, but I couldn’t exactly do it in a crowded car.

When we arrived back at the Russell compound, Connor frowned, his nostrils flaring as we stepped out of the car. “I smell lots of cats here,” he said uneasily, glancing back to the other van as the Russells—Savannah included—poured out. “This is where you’re staying? As a mated couple?”

“We’re staying at my house,” Ramsey declared. He turned to my sister. “Get Sara’s things.”

Bath glanced over at me, then nodded. “Be right back.”

Guess that was settled. “I’m going to go help her—”

Ramsey grabbed my arm. “No.”

I flinched and instinctively recoiled.

Roy’s hand grasping mine, his claws digging into my skin. “No, Roy. Please. I’ll be good. Please don’t hit me.”

Ramsey immediately released my arm, his gaze meeting mine. “Please,” he said in a low voice, so low that even with my shifter hearing, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d heard it.

I glanced over at Connor. “Can you give us a few minutes?”

“Whatever,” he said in a sullen voice. Then, as if remembering that he needed to woo me, he gave me a forced smile. His gaze immediately went to Savannah, surrounded by her brothers, and he leaned back against the truck, content to watch his prey from afar.

Ramsey turned and began to walk to the barn in the distance.

I moved after him and trotted behind, uneasy. What did he want?

When he got to the barn door, he opened it, stepped inside, and then waited for me. I wished he didn’t have such an unreadable face. He looked like he was scowling all the time.

When I got inside, he shut the door behind me, and we were enveloped in darkness. Though my wolf-vision was pretty good, my eyes took a few minutes to adjust to the low light.

One of Ramsey’s gigantor hands landed on my shoulder. Another hand slid around my waist, catching me before I could fall backward into the woodpile that the Russells stored here.

Ramsey’s voice was a low growl in the darkness. “You jump every time I touch you. If this is going to be believable, you need to quit acting so frightened of me. I won’t hurt you.”

I blinked up at him in surprise, the hard angles of his face coming into shape in the low light. “Oh. I’m not scared of you.”

Well, I kind of was. But mostly in the way I was scared of all men, all shifters, and pretty much everything else.

Ramsey’s eyes reflected green in the lowlight. “Then why do you jump when I touch you?”

“Well, first of all,” I began, reaching for a chipper tone, “I don’t know if you noticed, but you’re kinda big and I’m kinda small. Your hands are seriously the size of baseball mitts.”

He was silent.

“And second of all,” I rushed ahead, “I had an abusive boyfriend in the past. He was the one who bit me.” The words hurried out of me at trainwreck speed. “So when someone grabs me by surprise, I’m not thinking there’s a problem with them, I’m just mentally used to it being him. So don’t take it personally. Any guy that touches me would make me react like that, so I really don’t like to be grabbed because it sets off my wolf in addition to the bad memories, which are kind of tied to the ex-boyfriend. So, um. Don’t take it personally.”

He said nothing.

“I don’t even realize I’m doing it, so you’re just going to have to be patient with me. If you grab me,
I’m going to jump. That’s just the way it is. I still jump when my sister grabs me, too.”

Still silent. Jeez, I wished he would say something.

“Hands,” Ramsey said suddenly, breaking the one-sided silence.

“Beg pardon?”

He held a hand out in front of me in the near darkness. “Give me your hand.”

Tingles of panic shot through me, but I forced myself to quell them. After a moment, I put my hand in his and tried not to look at how small it was in comparison to his. My whole hand was practically the size of his palm. If he hit me, it would hurt a lot more than when Roy . . .

“We’re going to hold hands,” Ramsey told me. “All the time. If I’m already touching you, you won’t jump. It will make us look like a couple.”