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There was a note stuck to the wall behind the clothes, too, with some kind of sap securing it. It was clearly written in a woman’s handwriting, and said:
Welcome to the pack!
The women’s den is stocked ridiculously well. Bring whatever you don’t like or want back to the den and swap it out!
<3 Ezra
I bit my lip to stop myself from smiling. When I realized there was no reason to do so, I released my lip from between my teeth.
My smile widened as I slipped out of the closet and into the bathroom. After I was clean, I’d try everything on so I could decide what I wanted and didn’t want. The next day, I would go to the den and swap it out for more of what I liked.
In the bathroom, I found everything I needed, and it was all labeled.
There was another note attached to something that mostly resembled a razor on the countertop. The note explained that shifter men and women didn’t give a damn about natural body hair, but it was there in case I wanted it.
My smile widened, and I left it there.
Allen had been disgusted by body hair. It was a constant battle to keep myself smooth; a battle I no longer had to fight.
I’d embrace the hell out of my hairy legs and arms.
I glanced back at the razor as I stepped in the shower, and remembered the prickliness in my armpits…
Maybe I would shavethem.
But nothing else.
I found myself humming a tune to a song whose name I couldn’t even remember as I scrubbed myself clean. The clothes I’d worn for our journey were so dirty, I would take joy in throwing them away. None of the men or women in the pack seemed to wear shoes, so my high-tops could go too.
It was a fresh start, in a way I’d never thought I would get one, but had needed for so damn long.
As my fingers scrubbed my scalp and worked through my hair, I couldn’t help the annoyance that bubbled up as my mind went back to my Earth life.
Allen had told me I needed long hair to cover my many imperfections. It distracted from my unattractive qualities, he’d said.
Screw Allen.
No…
FuckAllen.
He could go straight to hell for all I cared.
I didn’t need long hair, or anything else to hide my body. I was good enough, flaws and all.
That determination and certainty followed me all the way to bed, and stuck with me while I slept alone, in the bed and home that were now mine, and no one else’s.
When the nextmorning came around, I went through the clothes in the closet, then unlocked the den and hauled the ones that didn’t work for me back up the ladder.
The other women had made up their own sizes for clothing, which made me grin. Rather than having small, medium, large, and so forth, they labeled them with colors. Turquoise, magenta, lavender, hot pink, bright red, and a few others. I was a hot pink, which only made my grin wider.
As he’d promised he would be, Amarok was waiting at the top. He had opened the wooden cover as soon as I unlocked the den, so I had no problem getting through.
He shifted to his man form and took the stack of clothing from my hand before I cleared the ledge, then closed the wood slab with his foot for me.
I didn’t let my eyes move to his erection, or catch on the glow around him whose reason I still didn’t know. He was gorgeous, but I couldn’t let myself care about that.
Being pretty didn’t erase the possessiveness, or the potential damage that possessiveness could do to me.
