The man nods, then hands over his phone.
Across the lot, Ghost turns to look at me while he nods along to whatever the person on the other line is saying. I could listen if I wanted to.
I don’t.
He walks back over to us and, without a word, slips into the woods. Silas waits for me, so I follow. We aren’t too far in before they strip down, stuffing their clothes into the backpack.
“Umm…”
“Take off your clothes,” Silas says gruffly. He stands close, towering over me. It reminds me of that party, how we met. When he leaned in close, hovered with all his masculine prowess in my personal space.
I swallow, and his voice turns husky. “Now, pet. Don’t worry, I won’t peek.”
“You’re already peeking.”
He smirks, then turns away. They’ve both seen me naked. Worse, they’ve seen me masturbate about a million times in a row, but this somehow feels more intimate. I strip off my clothes, and as I do, both men shift. Silas, much like his brother, shifts into a sleek, overgrown black wolf. He’s huge, and the scars marring his human body are present in wolf form. I try not to stare, and only when Ghost shifts am I able to look away.
Because it is asight.
Ghost holds his arms out, which sprout long feathers shimmering along his dark skin, and then he tucks his head, and when he snaps back up, his whole body transforms. Feet sharpen into talons, his chest thickening into a thick, sleek, feathered torso.
A falcon. Or, like an ancient, prehistoric, gigantic falcon with an extra set of talons where his fingers would be, some amalgam of shifter and witch.
His beak is sharp, claws deadly. And he’s massive, far bigger than a normal bird. His wings flap once, twice, and I can feel the magic in the air—it pours out of him. He’s incredible.
Then he looks at me pointedly. Waiting.
Well, shit.
Beep?I ask.
I’m already working on it. Don’t be embarrassed. It won’t take that long, she assures me.
It’s a lie. It takes us almost five minutes, but it’s better than it used to be. Both shifters look at me with worry in their eyes. I can feel Silas’s concern along our bond, which he’s gone back to leaving partially muted, since he either can’t make up his mind or has no clue what he’s doing, but I ignore him. Ghost cocks his head, curious.
Eventually, I fall to my knees, and while I try not to resist the change, I do my best to just let Beep do her thing. It’s a relief when she fully takes over. Ghost kicks off, then rises high, up through the trees, into the sky.
Our backpack with our things gets draped around Silas’s wolf’s neck.
See how easy that is?I say to Beep.He just picked up the bag and carried it. Isn’t that nice of his wolf?
Beep ignores me. Her ass left all our shit in the woods so many times when we were on the road, and she always acted like it was a huge inconvenience to carry it.
Big inconvenience. The material chafes, she complains.
I laugh to myself as we trot through the woods. It doesn’t take long, and I don’t know how they can tell once we’re past the border. Maybe Ghost knows. Maybe he flies miles away from us, I don’t know. I lost track of him the moment he flew up and tried to quell the rising panic in my chest that my mate isn’t close. That the parking lot off the side of the highway might be the last time I ever see him.
I breathe in the scents around us, trying to appreciate the pines and minerals, and Silas’s petrichor, citrusy scent.
Silas runs faster, and Beep keeps up while I panic, trapped in a wolf’s body, unable to do anything but go along with all this. His wolf keeps pausing to look back, to make sure we’re still here.
We race through the forest for what feels like forever, the day slipping by as time passes. When we finally hit a stretch of road and I spot signs for Jackman, my heart leaps.
Home. So close now. I don’t care if we have to run every last step; I just need to get there. We keep the same pace until we see signs for the mountain range.
On the edge of an empty stretch of road, Silas pauses. He looks up to the sky, then shifts back. I can’t help but appreciate his nakedness. He isn’t hard, but he isn’t exactly soft, either. He’s too big, too broad. He’s less bulky than Grayson, but they have the same frame. His abs flex as he bends at the waist and opens the backpack.
The shifting sensation tingles along my arms and legs. Silas gets dressed and waits patiently. I try not to be too embarrassed. Eventually I have my body back, a smoother and quicker transformation this time. Silas holds out my clothes, and there’s no mistaking the heat in his eyes as I get dressed. He doesn’t turn away this time, like he did before. I let him look.
