Ryan
Aviva doesn’t scream. She stares up at me with her normal, slightly bored, yet skeptical, expression she naturally wears. I’m relieved, but a little unsure, as she goes perfectly still.
The mist fades until there’s nothing between us, nothing blocking her view of the power, the gift, that makes me incredibly unique and horribly deadly.
This is only the third time I’ve ever done it.
It feels… great. Needed, especially after everything that happened over the last few days.
I hold her gaze. She scans my eyes, relieved to find them the familiar blue I see in the mirror every morning. But nothing else about me is familiar.
‘I can’t shift back for a few minutes. I needed this,’ I say into her mind.
‘What is this?’
‘My… I’m not sure what to call it. My father and my uncle call it a beast form.’ I do my best to stay perfectly still so I don’t leave talon marks on the wood floor. My fur–now black as night and thick–trembles with each breath I take.
“Are you a hellhound?” She asks this out loud as she takes a cautious step forward, her hands curled into fists at her sides.
I shake my head.
Her eyes flick to mine, a curious glimmer passing behind them. ‘Can I touch you?’
‘Be… be careful. The fur is–
‘Sharp,’ she muses, her voice a soft flutter in my head. Her hands are small in normal circumstances, but now they’re impossibly so. My back brushes the ceiling as she runs the palm of her hand over my front leg, the hard, thick fur flicking across her skin. ‘Like a knife tip.’
She carefully reaches deeper into the fur, meeting the hard, scale-like armor covering my skin. Out of the corner of my vision, I notice her looking up into my eyes, perplexed but ravenously curious. Then she reaches up, standing on her tiptoes, and tries to pull up my upper lip but can’t quite reach. I lower my head, allowing her to lift my jowl to inspect my teeth.
‘Goddess. Your teeth are as long as my forearm.’
‘Longer.’
She continues her inspection in silence, moving behind me so I can’t see her anymore, which makes me nervous. I feel her tugging on my tail, then moving on, walking around my other side. Her fingers moving through my fur sends ripples of pleasure dancing through me but not in a sexual way. It’s… it’s not what I expected to feel. It feels good. It feels good that she’s not afraid of me, that she’s curious.
I feel the power start to simmer as she rounds to face me again, her hands on her hips as she looks me up and down, her eyes lingering on the impossible sharp, elongated talons on my massive paws. Black and shimmering, they’re sharper than any blade, made from something stronger than bone.
‘Did you need to shift into this because of me?’
This is hard to explain, but I try. ‘This is only the third time I’ve been able to do this. I felt the… shift, I guess, when Freya grabbed your arm earlier. I had to stay away from you until it passed but seeing you again… I just needed to.’
She looks smug. ‘I didn’t realize I had this kind of effect on you.’
‘You’re not scared of me?’
She tilts her head from side to side. ‘You shifted into this when you fought that hellhound, didn’t you? I couldn’t see you fully in the dark, but I thought you were bigger than usual.’
“I did.” Memories of barreling through the woods in my usual wolf form ripple through my mind. The shift hadn’t been voluntary. One second I was a wolf, the next I was… Still wolf, but changed. Bigger. Dark as a shadow. All sharp lines and hard edges. Full of deadly rage. The only thing on my mind that night had been protecting her.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘It doesn’t feel good,’ I admit. ‘I feel heavy if I stand still like this.’
‘I want to go hunting with you like this.’
‘I don’t know if I’m ready for you to see that.’
‘You think I’d be scared?’
‘I think you’d think of me differently. I’m not in my right mind in this form.’
‘You seem pretty normal to me. Nicer, actually.’
I smile internally, and maybe it’s because she’s not blubbering in fear and trying to get as far away from me as possible, but my powers start to simmer, and I feel the yoke of the magic loosen enough to snap out of it. Shifting back hurts. It hurts like hell. Another burst of black mist coats the room and fades as I fold back into my human form, panting, bent at the waist with my hands on my knees as my spine snaps back into place.
Aviva drapes a blanket over my back. “Thanks.”
“Who knows about this?”
“You, my dad, and my uncle. I’m sure my mom knows, but she’s never brought it up to me.”
“Why haven’t you told anyone else?” She gathers my shredded clothing, torn beyond repair based on the look on her face.
I find it hard to find the words to explain. I chalk it up to the fact my brain is still stuck in that form. She notices my inability to continue and dumps my shredded clothes near the front door. “Bed?”
“Bed,” I manage to say, nodding tiredly. A few minutes later, I’m curled up beside her listening to the warm wind rustling through the trees outside our window. She’s facing the wall, her back to my chest, her fingers drawing lazy circles on my forearm. I know she must be waiting for an explanation, so I finally say, “I was sixteen when it happened for the first time.”
“That’s early to shift.”
“Not for my family. Sydney and I both came into our wolves at sixteen, just before our birthday. Our dad did, as well, young like that. He wasn’t surprised, but I was a little different. That summer, he took me to Eastonia, alone, to visit my uncle. I thought it was weird going alone, just the two of us. Being a twin, I was used to doing everything with Sydney, but I’d noticed how big my wolf was, how differently I had to train compared to Sydney and our friends, our fellow warriors. I was… a headstrong, surly teenager.”
“Me too.”
I gather her a little closer, resting my chin on the crook of her shoulder. She smells amazing. Like soap and toothpaste, but the undertone of her natural scent is still there, laced through her hair. Warm and sweet, calming, honestly.
“I can imagine.” I close my eyes as my tired, aching body starts to grow heavy with impending sleep. “I overheard them talking about me one night. I’d come down to Uncle Ryatt’s office hoping to sneak back to my room with a bottle of whiskey to share with my friend Evander the next day, but they were in there, talking about me, my wolf, my dad’s concerns. I was so angry they’d been talking about me, behind my back, like I was a problem.” I know she has no idea who Evander is, or has ever met my family, but I continue, “The next morning before sunrise, Dad woke me up, told me to get dressed. We were going to go shift. I got in a fight with him, telling him I’d overheard him talking with Ryatt. Ryatt ended up coming into the room and diffusing things and promised a large breakfast if I went with them. I was a sixteen year old boy, so food was the answer to everything, and I eventually agreed, but I was still pissed off. They took me into the forest surrounding Moonrise, and I got more and more angry. Looking back, I realized Dad was egging me on, and I know he hated it, but he wanted me to stay mad, to get more mad. He did everything he could to rile me up, and it… worked. I couldn’t keep up with them, and they knew it. I was a large, lumbering fool still getting used to shifting and was a wolf twice their size, so I fell behind several times, and they were dicks about it. Ryatt laughed at me, and that was it. I snapped and… confirmed what they took me out there for, what my dad brought me to Eastonia for.”
Aviva continues drawing circles on my arm, slow and lazy. “You must have been terrified.”
“I was,” I admit, and it’s hard to do. “I didn’t know what was happening. I panicked, started attacking myself, and Ryatt had to use his powers on me to subdue me. He’s a powerful bastard, I don’t even understand how he can do what he can do, but even his powers could barely keep me down. Dad talked me through it, telling me it was okay, that I was safe, that he was sorry. He sounded so broken. I’ve never heard him like that, and I haven’t since. Afterward, when I’d calmed down enough to shift back, they took me back to the castle and gave me the breakfast they promised. I took a nap, and when I woke up, Ryatt summoned me to his office.”
Aviva curls her hand around my arm, nestling it to her chest. Her breathing is rhythmic and steady. She says nothing, just listens.
“Dad never told me about his ability to shift into something similar until that day. Ryatt knew, of course, and we spent the rest of the night talking about what this meant for me. Dad offered to let me stay in Eastonia to train my new powers with Ryatt and my aunt Ella, but I refused. I wanted to be back in Crescent Falls with my friends. I wanted to go to Wellington University. I didn’t want the power I possessed, and they allowed me to make the final decision.”
“You can’t just summon it, can you?”
“I never learned. It’s fully based on emotion, currently. You falling to your death, then sensing that hellhound hunting you in the aftermath… that did the trick. I didn’t even feel it happen. Today was the first time I felt it and had to keep it under control.”
“Because we had sex?”
“Because we’re mates, and I…. Yeah, that.”
“Andrew said if you marked me, this would pass quicker.”
I sigh against her shoulder, my teeth grazing her skin on instinct. I want to. Everything in my body is screaming to just bite down, to draw blood. “Not yet.”
She doesn’t protest, which I’m thankful for. I don’t think I’d be able to control myself if she begged for it. I’d do it roughly. I’d make it hurt just to see the look of pleasure and pain mingling behind her eyes.
But not tonight. Not while I’m like this.
“I have to go to Moonrise in a few days,” I tell her, closing my eyes. “For a week, at least. I’d like you to come with me, to meet my family.”
She doesn’t reply. She sighs into sleep, her heartbeat slowing to a gentle thump. I curl into her, nestled against her touch, her warmth, and feel… whole.
It’s the best and also the worst feeling.
Having something to lose.