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With a happy bark, sheraced away. He was thankful he was part wolf, because it meant hewas fast enough to stay close to her. She dodged trees and skiddedto a halt a few times, stopping to sniff the air before changingdirection. She scared some rabbits and chased after them, missingtheir furry butts by mere inches.
He loved hearing her wolfy laugh asshe darted among the trees, peeking at him around the trunks, hertongue lolling from her mouth.
She didn’t run the wholetime, thank freaking goodness, slowing to a walk and bumpingagainst him as they moved together, as if she couldn’t stoptouching him. He genuinely hadn’t minded not being able to shiftbefore, but now he wished he could so they could run together. Itwas pretty dang sweet anyway, though, because he got to share herfirst shift with her.
Whatever had happened when they met,whether it was being with her truemate that unlocked that part ofher, or her wolf finally feeling safe that allowed her to shift, hedidn’t care, he was just damn glad he’d been there forit.
The moon had slipped fromhigh in the sky by the time they made it back to the alphas’ houseafter stopping by the fallen tree for her clothes. It took her alittle while to shift back to human, but when she did, she leapedinto his arms and cried. He held her close, pulling his wingsaround her to shield her nakedness just in case anyone happenedby.
“It’s you,” she whisperedhoarsely, her throat raw from crying.
“It’s me, what?” he asked,brushing tears from her cheeks.
“My safe place. You’re mysafe place, Kash.”
When he lifted his browsin question, she explained, “My Grandpa Jake always said that mywolf would come out when she’d found her safe place, that the fearthat kept her locked away just needed a place to feel protected. Ican’t explain why it happened so fast with you, except that you’remy truemate and my wolf wanted to be with you.”
“I’m glad I could be herefor you.”
She stared up at him, her facestreaked with tears and her eyes shining brightly withemotion.
“Cheril?”
“Yes?”
“I want you to come staywith me. I don’t want the night to end.” He ran his thumb gentlyover her bottom lip. “If all we do is talk or sleep, I just want tobe with you. But if you want me to take you to Kinley’s, I’ll dothat too.”
She leaned back a little, her bareback rubbing against his feathers. “I want to come home with you. Idon’t want the night to end either.”
He kissed her forehead, breathing inher scent that was a mixture of the woods and sweet female. Hepulled his wings away and she shivered in the chilly night air.While she dressed, he pulled his wings into his back and put hisshirt on, then returned the sword to the other realm where he’dmanifested it from.
“Is that sword thing partof your power?” she asked, taking his hand as they walked in thedirection of the alphas’ house.
“Yeah, it’s calledmanifesting. The sword is in the Fae Realm, and I basically call itto myself.”
“Can you manifest anythingelse?”
“Pretty much, I mean not aperson or an animal, but any object that I know where it is, Icould make it appear. I was trained as a kid with a sword, so eventhough I can fight hand-to-hand, I like the sword.”
“It’s prettyimpressive.”
He stopped and she turnedto face him. “You’re pretty impressive.”
She smiled so wide that her cheeks hadto hurt. “I can’t believe I actually shifted. My parents are…ohhell.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t tell them I wascoming here.”
He frowned. “Why not?”
“My dad doesn’t like thistown. My pack used to live here and share the town, but there was abattle between alpha Jason and my uncle who was killed. Our packmoved away.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “I haven’t joined mypack on the full moon in a while and I knew my parents wouldn’twant me to come here, so I figured I’d just come up anyway, and ifanything exciting happened, then I’d apologize later.”
He chuckled. “The old apologize laterinstead of asking permission first?”
“Yep.” She rocked on herheels. “I never would have guessed that I’d find my truemate andshift for the first time too.”
He mused on what she’dsaid. Something poked at the back of his mind about the pack whoused to share Allen. That was well before his time, of course, butit had been put into the pack history records that right afterJason and Cades mated, there was a battle and Jason killed the wolfwho tried to take Cades.
