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Chapter Twenty-Two

The coals in the brazier bathed Isobella in a gentle warmth, but the cold from the floor beneath her bare feet seeped into her all the same. Naked, her muscles aching, she faced the hulking, brooding, fully clothed man standing with his back to her. Aubert. She shivered. The training room with its simple furniture and solid door bolted from the inside seemed far more austere this morning. Without Edmond’s smile, his encouragement, more forbidding. Like this was a punishment, not necessary training.

Aubert had returned late yesterday evening. He’d barely acknowledged her existence at the supper table, a silent presence beside her, his familiar scowl firmly in place. The same one he’d shot at his brother when Edmond, with a smirk and a parting comment for Aubert to enjoy, had left them here alone. If she’d known how hard training with Aubert would be, she might have begged off or pleaded with Edmond to stay. She would’ve run…somewhere. To be anywhere but here right now.

She tensed, waiting for Aubert’s next command. She’d obeyed his barked instructions without question, determined to prove to him she could be a good wolf. That they wouldn’t regret their decision to turn her. Isobella glared at his broad, immovable back. She was no closer to her goal than she’d been when they started.

She gritted her teeth so hard her jaw ached, fighting the instinct to cover her body. Being nude with Edmond had set her body on fire. But there was something about standing there naked while a man who’d made no effort to hide his dislike of her wasn’t. While he critiqued her performance and had found her wanting. Every. Damn. Time.

It shouldn’t matter. He hadn’t looked at her once. Not a glance over his shoulder, a peek beneath those lowered eyebrows. His back ramrod straight, Aubert had faced away from her the moment he had ordered her to strip, as though he couldn’t bear to look at her.

Yet, there was a small part of her that wanted him to turn around. To see admiration in his eyes, desire. Because he looked like Edmond? Physically, he was Edmond. The face, the broad chest, the long hair she wanted to run her fingers through. But Aubert was not Edmond. Not in personality, and most definitely not in the way he trained her. Maybe it was something inherently faulty in her. Hadn’t she done exactly this with Douglas? Sought his approval with increasing desperation.

Isobella focused on her bare toes. She could do this. She had to do this. Having control of her wolf was imperative, and if she couldn’t prove to Aubert she was capable of it, the least she could do was prove it to herself.

“Again. Slower this time. Try to shift one limb at a time.”

From his tone, Aubert had no expectation of her succeeding.

She shut her eyes and sucked her frustration deep down inside her.

You can do this, Isobella. Keep trying.

“Isobella. Again.”

Isobella squared her shoulders. She’d show him. She called her wolf forth, slowing its surge forward as best she could, wincing at the sharp pain in her spine as she dropped to all fours. Too fast. Damn it. She wanted to sob her frustration. One limb at a time had eluded her. Again. But she’d kept her transformation gradual. Not glacial, but slower than her previous attempts. He would have to notice, wouldn’t he? Though how could he judge her progress when he refused to face her?

Aubert turned around and raked his gaze over her wolf. Was he pleased this time? Would she get a smile? A nod? Anything? She wagged her tail at him. He frowned and she dropped her tail. Her wolf whimpered in her mind. It was a foolish hope to think Aubert would be satisfied with her efforts.

He turned his back on her. “Shift back and do it again.”

Said with a growl. As if Aubert said anything any other way.

She huffed and shifted back. Aubert might not say much, but with a single scowl, a frown or a well-placed snort, he conveyed a thousand words. None of them encouraging. All morning he’d hurled them at her like insults. Couldn’t he see she was doing her best?

A grunt from Aubert. She’d kept him waiting. Isobella glowered at his back. It was upsetting she still wanted his approval, but she sucked in a breath and again found her center. It was harder each time to find that place of calm when fatigue, disappointment, hurt, all of her insecurities tugged at her.

She tried again. It took everything she had physically and mentally to hold her wolf in check, releasing it slow and steady. Her hands shifted into paws. Dark fur crawled up her arms at a snail’s pace. Her body shook with the effort, her muscles, her bones complaining. Her ankles cracked. Would it matter if she did succeed in shifting one limb at a time? Would he even notice?

Her jaw popped with a sharp burst of pain as it contorted into a muzzle, making way for her larger teeth. Her ears stretched. This slow, every pull of her skin, every shift of her muscles hurt. Instead of the agony of her body contorting gone in a flash, she hovered there suspended in it. She wanted to scream, wanted to let go and complete her shift, but she hung on, determined. All she wanted was an acknowledgment from him. Anything. Her tailbone extended in preparation for her tail to form.

“Stop.”

What?

“Hold your form as it is.”

He wanted her to…? Could he not see she was in pain? Was it not written all over her body? Her shoulder popped. Isobella couldn’t hold it no matter how hard she tried.

“I said stop!”

His shouted command echoed off the walls, and the last thread of Isobella’s control snapped. Her wolf surged forward. She could no sooner stop a freight train. Isobella slunk down on all fours, exhausted.

Aubert spun around, his sigh audible. “No.”

She dropped her head.

He turned his back on her. “You will try again.”