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“Bingo, bango,” Travis said. “We ought to meet up with Houston and call Vic to get some help. We don’t wanna fuck it up.”
I nodded, adding that to the quickly growing mountain of tasks already set before me. “Sounds good,” I said. “We probably ought to head back into town. It’s getting late, and I don’t want Marley suspecting anything about why we were here so long.”
“Come on, man. You think I can’t spin a lie?” Travis said as he walked past me, bumping his shoulder against mine.
I was taken aback by how much stronger he’d become. I put my hand on my shoulder as Travis exited the room. It was strange to watch him vanish and realize he was becoming ever more a true peer.
It wasn’t as if I hadn’t thought of him as an equal before this moment. He’d always been my best friend, a true brother to me. But I realized that some part of me had always thought of him as someone to protect. It was something I’d never thought about explicitly, more like a subconscious drive. The same drive I had with Marley.
And then—possibly for the first time—I really understood what Marley had been trying to drill into my thick skull.
Even though I didn’t think any less of Travis or Marley for being non-shifters, I would always see them as something fragile, something that needed protecting. That wasn’t a failure on their part, though; it was a failure on my part. A subconscious fear, maybe mixed with a bit of a prejudice, too.
And now that I saw it, I could finally work on bettering myself in that regard. When I finally proposed to Marley, I could be sure that whatever she decided—whether that was to stay human or become a shifter—I knew I would do everything in my power to support her and truly see her as an equal. Not this bullshit standing in the middle—thinking of her as my equal but fundamentally breakable. I would do everything I could to see her as she really was.
My beautiful, powerful, amazing, irreplaceable mate.
A few weeks later, I stood next to Travis, watching the tide go out near my home. He’d found some excuse to be close to me the whole day, even separating from Lana when she left to get ready for the event. I knew he was nervous, and I began to wonder if he was picking up on some of the biological comforts of being near other shifters.
He lifted his thumb to his mouth to chew on his nail for the umpteenth time.
I clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Keep chewing on that finger of yours, and it’ll be gone by the end of the day.”
He huffed and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m fucking scared shitless for tonight. I know it’s going to suck, and I don’t want it to suck. But I also don’t want to put it off any longer. I don’t know how the fuck to feel.”
“Just let it roll through you. Whatever it is, man,” I advised. “Let it run its course. The more you fight it, the worse it’s going to feel.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” he grumbled. “It’s hard to fucking relax.”
I nodded. “Do you want to postpone? We could.”
“Fuck, no,” he said. “And have everyone know I chickened out? Absolutely not.”
I laughed and shook my head. “You have nothing to prove, Travis.”
“I know,” he said. “Still, though, putting it off isn’t going to make it any easier. It would just be more of this feeling later on.”
“Well, if that’s how you feel, it’s time to head up the mountain and get shit started,” I said. “Marley and Syl are already up there getting stuff ready. I’m sure people will be starting to show up any moment now.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You’re driving, though. If I do it, I might crash the damn car.”
“Yeah, I’ll drive. You’re back on driving duty after this is all over, though, so you better not get used to it,” I joked. “Come on, man.”
We hadn’t bought the property yet, but we were making moves toward it. Instead, we’d talked to one of the locals with a big swath of land. They were shifters, too, and they were happy to offer up their place for the event in exchange for a modest fee. Their property was set up right on the edge of the forest, which was all government land.
Houston had done his due diligence, making sure that we’d be okay to do a full moon run in the forest and wouldn’t wind up getting our asses handed to us by some weirdo with a shotgun, or by state troopers coming out to stop us and hand us a fine. Marley and I had had enough bad publicity to last us a lifetime, and I didn’t want anything ruining this day. Not for me, not for Travis, and not for Marley.
I felt the weight of Marley’s engagement ring in my pocket and on my heart. I knew Travis was scared of tonight, but I was pretty sure I was tied for first place in the “Who’s Most Scared” awards.
After a few more moments, I clapped Travis on the back and nodded back toward the house. “Come on,” I said.
We packed into the car and rolled out. Noah was staying with my mother for the night, much to his dismay, but I’d watched some videos of the first shifts of freshly transitioned shifters and knew it wasn’t something Noah would want to see. It was a frightening, bloody affair that even I wasn’t looking forward to seeing. Least of all when it was my best friend who’d be doing the shifting.
It didn’t take us long to get there, even with the property being on the other side of the lake. Marley and Lana were standing near the entrance for the cars, with more than half a dozen cars already parked on the huge gravel drive behind them. I recognized the vehicles belonging to Houston, Farrah, Sylvia, and Lana.
I rolled down the window as I pulled up to Marley. She hurried over, her long golden hair in a bouncy ponytail, her nose crinkling with her smile. “You’re here!” she said cheerfully.
“We are,” I said.
