AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Deal.” He inhaled deeply. “Shit, you smell good.”
I laughed. “Now that I smell like you?”
“Hell, yeah. I’ll wash you off later, but for now, this is everything.” He squeezed me tight with the arm that was wrapped around me. “Tell me how you met Iris.”
“It’s a long story,” I said with a sigh.
“I’ve got nothing but time, Mo.”
So I launched into the long—and humorous—story about meeting Iris at our high school’s massive graduation, of all places, and how we’d ended up wandering Mist Valley’s streets all damn night long, talking.
And then how we’d moved in together, and struggled, but had the time of our lives.
As I talked, Axel interacted. He asked questions. Made jokes. Teased me. It made me feel like he was really paying attention to me, and by the time I fell asleep in his arms, early in the morning, I felt more loved than I ever had before in my entire damn life.
I had hated fighting with Axel… but shit, I loved the way it forced us to have difficult conversations and start opening up to each other more.
TWENTY-ONE
We startedthe next morning by shifting together, and then heading out on a run. Though I call it a run, we started out by just walking together. I was trying to adjust to the forest while in my wolf form, and it was kind of slow-going. Everything was new, and sort of surprising for me. Axel’s wolf had no problem watching me take everything in at my own speed, and made it fun for both of us.
He was a big sweetheart, brushing up against me too fast for my fire to kick in multiple times every hour, jumping in creeks and ponds just so he could shake off next to me, and sending dirt flying all over me every chance he got.
It made me laugh, and made him grin too.
When I’d established my bearings, we started to jog.
Quickly, I realized how much fun it was to move fast through the forest—and that I wasn’t getting tired, the way I would if I tried to run in my human form—and we started to run.
Hours had passed when we finally made it back to the townhouse. No way in hell was I going to eat an animal for lunch, regardless of how furry I was, so that bit wasn’t optional.
We shifted back to our human forms—my shift, fast and painless, while Axel’s was slightly slower. I waited for him, though, leaning up against the wall of the townhouse and watching in fascination as his body remade itself.
“So when you and your wolf are at odds, the shifting hurts more?” I asked him, eyeing that delectable ass as he stepped into the house. His fists were clenched to prevent him from wrapping his arms around me, since we were both bare-assed.
“Yes. It also takes a lot longer. That’s a large part of the reason we have so many packs offering money to be trained in building trust with their wolf,” Axel explained. “The waitlist is really damn long right now.”
“So you jackasses are revolutionaries?” I teased him.
He flashed me a grin. “Nah. We just discovered the perks to beingferal, and figured out a way to use them in our favor.”
I supposed I could understand that. It was basically the same reason I’d gone to the only bar in town when I was looking for a job, wasn’t it?
Figuring out your strengths and then using them to create a life you didn’t want to run away from sounded like the only real way to live, if you asked me.
Then again, I’d spent so much of my life feeling trapped and wanting to run away that my perspective was probably skewed.
Axel made me spaghetti—even though he warned me that it wasn’t going to be a regular thing, because I wasnotstruggling to put food on the table anymore—and I sat on the counter, questioning him about how their wolfy trust training went. The more I learned, the more it fascinated me.
None of the concepts were all that complex, but the men were putting things into words that other people could only just basically feel. Their ideas revolved around giving the wolf enough control and considering the beast’s opinions and emotions long enough to establish a sort of partnership and trust.
Without that trust Axel had with his wolf, he assured me that the furry bastard would’ve taken over the first time he walked away from me—and he would’ve refused to leave, or give the human back control.
It was actually pretty damn cool.
I could see the passion in Axel’s eyes as he explained their program to me, and shit, it made me warm all over.
So, of course, we showered together—and got steamy in said shower—before getting dressed for my shift at the bar.
