AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She looked up at me, her little nose twitching.
Usually, I could hear any animal in the forest. My keen hearing, thanks to being a shifter, meant that I could pick up on all kinds of sounds human ears couldn’t, but I hadn’t heard her. Not while she’d been running, and not when she’d come back.
I raised my eyebrows. Kinley hopped around, sniffing the mulch.
It was time for me to let my animal loose, too. I focused my attention inward and found my magic. I pulled the lion to the surface, and I felt the shift start at my core. My body changed, and I dropped to the ground on all fours, fur sprouting on the surface of my skin.
Kinley backed away, and I could taste her fear.
My lion roared when it came to the surface, and the forest trembled all around us. I stretched out and yawned and lay down in the mulch. I rolled onto my back and stretched out my paws to Kinley. I needed her to know I wasn’t going to hurt her.
She hopped closer, and I rolled over and stood. I shook myself out and headed into the trees. When I glanced over my shoulder, Kinley was following me.
She was faster than I was, but I was moving at a more casual pace. Every step I took, she covered two times the ground, hopping around, getting spurts of energy and running ahead, coming back a short while later. She stuck by my side, though.
I moved through the trees, and she explored the forest. I could almost feel the glee in her freedom as she ran between the trees.
This had been a good idea.
I didn’t like running in lion form a lot. My human side was a fitness freak. I was fighting fit and ready to take on anything, but my lion, powerful as he was, liked lying in the sun. Sometimes, I hunted, but most of the time, I just rested until my need to let my magic loose was over.
We walked in a wide circle around my small clearing and finally ended up back where we started. The last part of the way, Kinley stayed next to me.
We shifted back and got dressed. I gave her my back so she could have the privacy she needed. The more time I spent with her, the more I felt like she needed to be protected. Not because she was weak, but because she deserved to be looked after.
“Thank you,” she said when I turned to face her. She wore her clothes as before and tucked her dark hair behind her ear. “I needed that.”
I nodded. “It’s good to get out.”
She glanced in the direction of the cabin. “Do we have to go back?”
“We can stay out here a while,” I said.
She nodded and walked to the pond. She looked at her reflection before she sat down on a rock and looked around.
“It’s peaceful out here.”
“That’s what I like about it.”
“You’re a loner,” she said. “Don’t lions usually have a pride?”
“There aren’t a lot of us around,” I said.
“I know what that’s like.”
I watched her as she picked up a twig and started breaking off small pieces of it. She was self-conscious, trying to keep herself occupied.
“How did you do it?” I asked.
She looked up at me. “What?”
“The panther.”
She swallowed hard, and her skin paled. “I didn’t mean to do it. They were going to hurt me, maybe even kill me.”
Something in me lurched, my skin suddenly boiling with fury at the idea that they wanted to hurt her.
“I wasn’t planning to kill him—just make sure they couldn’t get to me first. The rest was an accident. I snuck up on him in rabbit form and shifted.”
