He fell forward and knocked the wolf to the floor with a sweep of his hand. He would think about it later. For now, he wanted to concentrate on Ella. He propped himself up on his hands and watched the muscles in her back move as she pressed against him, her little sex noises like the sweetest music in the world to his ears.
His eyes fell upon her left shoulder, exactly at the spot where a
renqua
would be if she were a
wolfen
, and he felt his fangs lengthen until they scraped against his lower lip. Thick desire to mark her, claim her, swept through him and he didn’t know if he could fight it. He battled against the desire even as his elbows bent and his mouth opened. She wasn’t his to claim, she hadn’t given him permission.
A female
wolfen
would tear a male’s throat out for claiming without her permission, and he had no doubt that an ordinary woman had the capacity to do something similar. His desire and his will warred with one another, even as he thrust into her, slamming his stomach against her ass and his cock deep inside her.
He dropped one more inch, knowing he couldn’t, he shouldn’t, when she tossed her head and raised up suddenly, the back of her head colliding with his nose with a loud and disgusting crunching sound.
Trevor groaned and pulled out of her, grabbing for his nose as she held onto the back of her head and rolled over. Blood spurted between his fingers and pain blinded him.
“Oh my God, you’re bleeding. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she said, still holding onto the back of her head.
“You didn’t mead it,” he told her, his voice thick with congestion, blood dripping down the back of his throat. His cock waved in front of him like a flag, refusing to soften even in the face of his pain.
She let go of her head and covered her mouth with both hands, trying unsuccessfully to hold back a flood of giggles. “It’s not funny, I’m sorry.”
Trevor smiled at her, his vision returning even as he could feel his nose swelling to twice its size. It was broken, he knew it. “Is it fuddy?”
“No, I swear! I’m sorry!” she cried between giggles. “I’ll get you ice. The bathroom is right there.”
She ran for the stairs and Trevor got up quickly, ran to the bathroom and locked the door behind him. He flipped the switch in his mind, hoping she was far enough away that he could shift. She was. His snout lengthened, bone and cartilage popping into its proper place, the bleeding stopping immediately, as he fell onto all fours, stretching his neck forward while his legs popped out of their joints.
Too late, he saw the lock on the door was little more than a decoration, there was no corresponding piece of metal pushed into the frame that would ensure the door stay closed if someone turned the knob and pushed on it from the outside.
Trevor could hear Ella’s feet on the stairs over the sound of his body reforming, reshaping itself and he stared hard at the door, unable to do anything but continue to his destination.
The door swung open, admitting Ella, naked, with a bag of ice in her hand. Trevor almost stopped mid-shift, but he forced himself to continue. Stopping mid-shift when he’d gotten so far was never a good idea.
Even as his body continued its alterations, he steeled himself for Ella’s scream. He would have to shift back before he chased her. Chasing her as a wolf would only scare her more.
But she didn’t run. Instead, she dropped to her knees and watched until he was done. Then she held out one trembling hand to him, touching him lightly on the muzzle.
“I knew it,” she whispered.
Ella stared at the gorgeous and insanely huge wolf in her bathroom and everything clicked into place. A giddiness swept over her, making her realize she’d been waiting for something like this her whole life. Something strange and life-altering, but beautiful and amazing at the same time. Something that would tell her who she was and why she was here, something beyond a dying mom and sick aunt and hateful sister and a life she never felt she belonged in. Something awesome.
She ran her hand over the wolf’s ears and fur, not scared of it for a second. It was Trevor, and Trevor would never hurt her. Even as a wolf. She felt that in her bones.
“Can I talk to you?” she whispered. “Can you talk back?”
The black wolf with the beautiful sprays of silver and gray across its front whined and shook its head. Ella laughed and clapped her hands together. It was like Christmas morning, and she got the best present she never knew she wanted.
“Oh!” She stood quickly. “I have to show you something!”
She ran into the bedroom looking for Baron. He was on the floor. She snatched him up and held him in front of her, facing outward as she turned. The wolf had come out of the bathroom and was stalking toward her. “This is Baron,” she breathed. “Look at him. He’s just like you.”
The wolf whined again and sat, cocking its head in a very human way.
“Remember, I told you about him. I got him when I was a very little girl. He was the reason my sister started calling me Queen Ella. I had done something else, before that─” She shook her head and pulled Baron to her chest with one hand as she chopped the air with the other one. “Sorry, that isn’t important. But we were at a store, a wildlife store, and I saw this wolf and I wanted it but my mother wouldn’t buy it for me. I cried for three days and when that didn’t work, I stopped eating. I wouldn’t eat or drink anything until my mother took me back to the store and bought me the wolf. I never asked for anything before or since but I had to have him.” She looked down at the wolf and kissed it on the nose. “I loved him. I still do.”
She walked slowly around Trevor. “I can’t believe how much you look like him.” She reached out and touched his left shoulder where a white marking on his fur stood out. It looked like a boomerang. “Except here. He doesn’t have this marking.”
The wolf whined again and Ella heard footsteps on the stairs.
Ella winced at the booming voice that cut through her thoughts. Trevor’s voice.
ABSOLUTELY NOT. SHE’S NAKED.
We already saw her, old hoss, when she ran to the refrigerator. Why are you shifted?
Trevor growled deep in his throat and faced the door.
Long story, if you see her again, I’ll kill you both.
Nice. Nice. Kill your own brothers.
Listen to him.
The footsteps faded away and Ella stared out the door, then dropped to her knees again, amazed. “They’re your brothers?”
Trevor swung around to face her, then stretched his neck out and whimpered. She saw his fur ripple, then pull back into his body as his snout shortened and his legs lengthened.
She fell backwards onto her bottom, unable to believe what she was seeing. Here was the transformation from the very beginning, all the way until a naked Trevor knelt on his hands and knees before her.
She touched his skin lightly, tracing the boomerang mark on his left shoulder. He still had it, even as a human. He arched his back when she touched it, looking into her eyes. “You make it burn when you touch it.”
She snatched her hand away. “Sorry.”
He sat next to her on the bare floor, taking her hand in his. “Don’t be sorry. Not ever. Not with me. It’s a good burn. It reminds me who I am and why I am here, and it makes me think you are someone special.”
“What is it?” she whispered, watching as he rubbed her hand along the mark on his shoulder and arched his neck, stretching his chin up to the ceiling like it felt good.
“It’s called a
renqua
. It’s a piece of the deity who created us. All true
shiften
have it.”
Ella forgot everything and everyone else in the world. It was as if she had been swallowed into a different dimension, or the pages of a book, but here she was, still in her own world.
“Is that what you are? A
shiften
?”
“I am a w
olfen
, which is the subset of
shiften
who can turn into wolves. We are the protectors of humans.”
“Protectors from…?”
He nodded at the sudden fear in her eyes. “Yes. He is called Khain, among other things, and he is a demon. He wants to kill all humans, and the only thing between him and that goal is the
shiften
.”
She shrunk back against the bed, a sudden chill making her shiver.
“Come,” he said, pulling her onto the bed, stripping the covers and laying her underneath them, then crossing the room to close the door and return to her.
He lay next to her and stared into her eyes. “You don’t have to be scared. I’m here. My brothers are here. We would tear him apart. He operates mostly through sickness and subterfuge and scorched earth tactics. He is powerful, but so are we. He is sneaky, but we are united.”
Ella’s shaking intensified. The
wolven
seemed like a great secret, one that warmed her from the inside out, but the fact that they were fighting a demon no one even knew about scared her more than she could put into words. “No one knows?”
Trevor put his arms around her and pulled her close to him under the blankets. “No humans know. We work very hard to keep it that way, so they can feel safe.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“Let me ask you a question first.”
She nodded slightly.
“How did you know Trent and Troy were my brothers?”
“I could hear you.” She touched her forehead. “Talking inside my head. You said absolutely not, she’s naked and then someone else said we’ve seen her, why are you shifted? And you said you would kill them if they saw me again and that same voice said kill your brothers, nice, but very sarcastically and almost like he thought it was funny. And then a different voice said listen to him.”
Trevor grinned so wide she almost swooned at how handsome he was. “That was Trent who said listen to him, and Troy the other times.”
“Why are you smiling?”
Trevor sat up in bed, energy coming off of him in waves. “Don’t you see? You can’t possibly be a human. You have to be at least part-shifter, or maybe more, or else you wouldn’t be able to hear our messages to each other. Have you heard us from the very beginning?”
Ella held a hand to her head and tried to remember. “I-I’m not sure. I think I could, but it was fainter then, like I’ve gotten better at it, or stopped fighting it.”
Trevor flipped around and knelt over her, kissing her lightly, making her feel lightheaded. “Don’t fight it. I think it means something.”
“Means something? You really think I could be part shifter?”
He nodded. “
Shiften
. I do. You would be
wolfen
.”
“What other kinds of
shiften
are there?”
His eyes shone. “
Bearen
, they are the firefighters. And
felen
. They work by themselves usually. Mercenaries, or doctors sometimes. They also track Khain and do a few other things.”
“Felons?”
“No, felen. F-e-l-e-n.” Big cats, like pumas or mountain lions.”
Ella felt her toes go cold again. “How do you know I’m not one of them?”
Trevor laughed, throwing his head back, then he came forward again and kissed her on the end of her nose. “You can’t be, I wouldn’t be attracted to you if you were.”
“So you can tell I’m part wolf? Smell it or something?”
He frowned. “No, I can’t. But if that part of you is less than half, it’s possible it’s so little I wouldn’t be able to smell it. If it was your grandpa, or your great-grandpa who was the
shiften
.”
Ella tried to think about her family, but her thoughts were scrambled. Too much information, too fast. She wouldn’t believe any of it if she couldn’t still see Trevor shifting in her mind.
Trevor stared at the wall and bit his lip as if he were trying hard to make a decision. He looked at her. “There’s something else you might be.”
“What?”
He dropped his head onto the pillow next to her and stared hard at her. “I hesitate to even tell you this, but I’m going to need to have someone touch you tomorrow, tell me for sure, and I want you to be ready for it.”
“Touch me?”
Trevor sat up again, like the energy in his body was just too much for him to handle. “I’m not sure if him touching you will tell us anything, but we have to try.” He knelt and stared intensely at her. “This is all new to us. We are operating without a map, without a guidebook, and all we have to go on is a twenty-five-year-old prophecy.”
A prophecy. Again, that sensation of being swallowed into a book rocked her, making her close her eyes. “Prophecy?”
“I have it memorized. We can double check it later, but this is it.”
He sat up straight and his eyes went blank, almost scaring her. His voice fell flat, so just the words were conveyed.
In twenty-five years, half-angel, half-human mates will be discovered living among you.
This is how you will rebuild.
Warriors, all, with names like flora.
Save them from themselves, for they will not know their foreordination.
They will not be bound by shiften law, but their destinies entwine so strongly with their fated mates, that any not mated by their 30th year will be moonstruck. Those who are lost may be dangerous.
A pledged female will have free will that shiften know not. Never forget this or it will cause grave trouble.
Her body may respond to any, until she is mated in a ceremony of her choosing, then she will acknowledge only one male, as he becomes her one true mate, and she, his one true mate. He shall be sworn to her in her life’s purpose, to rebuild the shiften race, so that they may fight the evil Matchitehew and protect the humans from him, until the day he draws his last breath.
Ella held her breath, the words washing over her with meaning she barely understood, pushing away every time she’d ever been teased, ever been rejected by her mother, ever felt like she did not belong in this world.
Home.
She was home.
Trevor was her home.
Boe cowered, breathing shallowly. The air in the
Pravus
was poison, and although his Father had done something to him to make him be able to live on it, it still hurt him to draw it into his lungs.