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“No.” I shook my head. “This is still crazy. Something weird is going on. I’ll give you that. But people don’t just change into animals. My mom wasn’t some kind ofwitch.”
Kylie glanced from one guy to the next, kicking her legs against the base of the settee. “It’d be pretty easy for you to prove it if what you’re saying is true, wouldn’t it? You said you don’t need a full moon. Great! Let’s have a shifter demonstration, right here, right now. Your eager audience is waiting.” She smiled atthem.
Aaron hesitated. “We don’t generally reveal ourselves outside ourkind.”
I waved off his objection. “Oh, please. If you’re telling the truth, you’ve already ‘revealed’ it. At least if Kylie’s here, I can be sure I’m not hallucinating.” Except there was such a thing as a group hallucination, wasn’t there? Well, I could worry about that if these guys really did start morphing into animals in front ofus.
“I’ll do it,” Nate said, standing up. “How else is she going to believeus?”
He pulled off his cotton tee, revealing a chest even more densely muscled than I’d imagined. Then he reached for the fly of his jeans. My jaw just about dropped to thefloor.
“Oh. Um...” Heat flared across my face as Nate shucked off hispants.
Marco chuckled. “You’ll find shifters don’t have the same hang-ups about getting naked as your average human being. It comes with theterritory.”
The substantial bulge in Nate’s boxers gave me a clear preview of the territory to come. I averted my eyes. I’d never seen a guy naked, not right in front of me. Not some stranger I’d only justmet.
Kylie didn’t have the same qualms. “You’re missing the best part of the show, Ren!” she said, watching avidly. Then her expression froze. Her voice came out thin and tinny. “Holyshit.”
My head jerked back around. I wouldn’t have thought my jaw could go any more slack, but itdid.
Before our eyes, Nate’s body was... shifting. There really wasn’t a better word for it. The rich brown hair on his head was rippling down to cover all of him in a thick pelt. His torso expanded, his haunches and neck thickening. His face had already lengthened with a narrowsnout.
The entire transformation finished moving through his body in the time it took me to blink. I might have thought that kind of bodily change would have to be painful, but it had looked completely natural. Almost... beautiful. A twinge of longing shot through me from collarbone togut.
Longing and recognition. Yes, that was what people like them were meant todo.
People likeus.
And now a majestic grizzly bear loomed on its hind legs before me. Its head nearly brushed the light fixtureoverhead.
No, notit—him. Even as my pulse skittered, I knew it was Nate. He lowered himself onto his front legs so that we were at eye level. His deep brown gaze felt just the same as when it had looked at me from his rugged human face. Warm. Protective. The sense of recognition in my gut tugged me toward him. I raised my hand, my fingers curled and thenextending.
The bear took a careful step toward me, dipping his head so I could touch the fur between his rounded ears. It was coarse but pleasantly thick to the touch. I had the sudden urge to bury my face in his neck, to drink in the sensation and the musky, peppery smell of him. To feel his protective warmth all aroundme.
He was a massive predator, but he would never hurt me. He would never let anyone else hurt me either. I knew that, as surely as I’d known the asshole in the bar last night was sore about hisex.
“There,” West said. “You’ve gotten yourdemonstration.”
“This is—” Kylie giggled, a little hysterically. I’d never seen her at a loss for words before. She opened and closed her mouth a few times before she managed to keep going. “Oh my God. It’s real. You really—” She laughedagain.
Why wasn’t I just as shocked? That first glimpse had startled me, but now all I felt was awe and that deep sense offamiliarity.
Maybe I’d known, deep down, that it was true, even when my mind had balked to accept it. I swallowed hard and looked up from Nate to the otherguys.
“Nate’s a bear. What are the rest ofyou?”
“Jaguar,” Marco said. “Not quite as impressive as Nate in size, but I make up for it in other ways.” Hesmirked.
“I’m an eagle shifter,” Aaron said. He glanced at West. When the grouchy guy stayed silent, Aaron added, “And Westisactually a wolf. Most shifters belong to one of four kin-groups. Canine, feline, avian, and, well, everything else.” He gestured to West, Marco, himself, and Nate in turn, with a hint of a smile at the last. “We’re the leaders of each of those kin-groups. The alphas, by our usualterminology.”
“This is seriously the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me,” Kylie said. “So when do we get to see the rest of you ‘shift’?”
“I don’t perform on command,” West snapped. But seeing Nate had been enough. I was convinced. Of everything except the last, most important part. Nate nudged my arm with his muzzle, and I rubbed behind his ears automatically, searching for the courage to ask the question that I already knew would upend mylife.
Could it really get that much more upended than it already was? I had toknow.
I dragged in a breath. “All right. So we know all about you now. Maybe you can tell me—what amI?”
