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My pulse stuttered. I stopped as I reached them, running my fingers over the narrow crevices. A stronger sense of my mother’s presence rippled over me. I could almost smell her, like lilies andhoney.
“My mother was definitely here,” I said when I could manage to speak. “She must have shifted—she made these marks. I can feel her inthem.”
“That’s pretty dainty work for dragon talons,” Marcoremarked.
“She probably meant for you to see them,” Nate said. “To know that she’s with you here, one way oranother.”
Right. And there was a chance whatever lay ahead would lead me the rest of the way to her. I squared my shoulders under the straps of my pack and strodeon.
Aaron made a humming noise. “That doesn’t lookgood.”
My head jerked up. “What?”
The question had hardly fallen from my mouth when I saw it. Down the path, a jumble of boulders had tumbled down to fill the gap between the walls. There must have been a rockslide. Just what we needed—moreclimbing.
But as we hurried closer, I realized our situation was more complicated than that. The highest boulders had fallen at an angle, jutting out over the lower ones. There was no way to climb that heap unless we could turn off gravity. Which as far as I knew was not a skill any shifter was giftedwith.
We stopped at the edge of the landslide’s shadow and peered up at it. Aaron rubbed his square jaw. Marco stalked from one side of the path to the other, looking very much the jaguar in that moment. Nate moved to test one of the boulders within reach, as if he thought he could dig his way through, and West made a warningnoise.
“Don’t bring the whole damn pile down on ourheads.”
“We’ve got to get past it somehow,” Natesaid.
“I can fly,” Aaron said. “But I wouldn’t be able to carry more than my pack in eagleform.”
He wasn’t the only one who could fly. “I can carry a lot more than that,” I said. “Hell, in dragon form I could blast that pile right down so we don’t have to deal with it on the way back.” The sun was waning, and we hadn’t seen another person since we’d left the road. I didn’t think any humans would spot my dragon form all the way uphere.
Nate frowned. “You only shifted for the first time this morning. You might not have recovered enough energyyet.”
I shrugged off my pack and reached for the hem of my shirt. Shifting and clothes didn’t get along so well, especially when you shifted into as large a creature as I did. “Can’t hurt to try, canit?”
Marco leaned against the rock wall with an amused smile. “I, for one, am going to enjoy watchingthat.”
“Here,” Aaron said. He found the padded jacket I’d bought and brought it over as I tugged off my shirt and bra. “You won’t be able to concentrate on shifting if you’re freezing. Just keep it on your shoulders so it’ll fall off when you make thetransformation.”
“Thanks.” I tugged the jacket over me like a cape, thankful for both the warmth and the little bit of modesty. These guys had been stripping down whenever they needed to shift, regardless of who was around, all their lives. It was going to take a little while for me to get used to the casual nudity side of shifter-dom.
I kicked off my pants and undies and knelt down so the jacket hung around most of my body. I’d barely noticed the cooling mountain air on our hike up. It’d been warm when we’d started, and thenI’dbeen warm from the hiking. Now the chilly air seeped over my bareskin.
I wouldn’t mind it so much when I had scales. How could I bring them out? I’d shifted in the heat of battle before, desperate to protect my alphas before they died protectingme. We didn’t face a threat anywhere near that urgent right now. How much could I even control thatpower?
The doubts wriggled through my mind. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to will them away. I knew the dragon inside me now. I knew what it felt like to expand into that body, to spread those wings. All I had to do was get backthere.
I thought back to the sensation of stretching muscles, of scales forming over my softer skin. But the memory didn’t come alone. Thecrackof the gunshots echoed through my mind. Cries of pain. All the awful sounds of the rogue’s ambush. My back wentrigid.
No, that was no good. I had to let go of that stuff. Iwasa dragon. I had to justbeone.
“If you can’t manage it, we’ll find another way,” Nate said. “Don’t push yourself toohard.”
A spark of annoyance lit in my chest. Why shouldn’t I push myself? Weren’t all of them pushing themselves on my behalf all the time? I wasn’t some weakling who needed to be coddled. I was a fuckingdragon.
That flare of determination shot through my body. Yes, that was what I needed. I held onto it and dove headfirst into the searing sensation racing over my skin. Into it and through and out and up, limbs expanding, neck extending, every part of me stretching free. My head lengthened into jaws lined with sharp teeth, a smoky flavor trickling on my tongue. Fire danced in mylungs.
I launched myself up toward the sky, giddy. The shift pinched at my joints, but I didn’t mind that little bit of strain. I’d done it. This was who Iwas.
The wind buffeted me as I swooped around. I drank in the pleasure of flight for a moment, and then I dipped back down. I didn’t know how long I’d be able to hold this form. I couldn’t forget the whole reason I’d taken it on rightnow.
The heap of boulders looked like pebbles to my dragon self. I dropped down over the highest one and grasped it between my hind feet. My talons closed around it and wrenched it off the pile. With a few flaps of my wings, I deposited it away from the path on themountainside.
