Chapter 12
It's Carter.
Thank god, it's Carter.
He's there, and warm, and human, and she collapses into his arms.
Whatever's going on doesn't matter. He's there with her, and she was safe for now. She was human for now. God…how was she going to tell him? Could she tell him? He'd think she was insane for being convinced she'd just been a dog. He'd leave her, or worse, he'd call the police and say she was a danger and needed to be taken away.
She'd just met this wonderful man, just made a fantastic connection with him, and now was the time her brain decided to give up.
“Carter, I…” she started, letting him lead her back to the bed.
“What just happened in here?” he asked. His eyes were honest seeming, warm, concerned.
She didn't want to lie to him.
“I think I have food sickness,” she admitted. It wasn't entirely a lie. “I'm super nauseous, and I just had this weird dream where I was a dog,” she explained, trying to shrug it off like it was nothing.
“There's fur in the bed,” he said, turning from her and looking at the sheets. He was right. There was a heather-gray fur that coated the sheets.
“Oh, god,” she murmured, feeling herself pale out in fear.
“Be honest with me,” he said, soothingly. “I can only help you if you're honest,” he explained.
“I woke up, and I was a dog,” she explained. “I don't know how it happened, but it did. I'm losing my mind, Carter,” she sobbed, leaning forward and staring at the ground. She wanted to puke again, even though the nausea had passed.
“Shh, shh, you're fine,” Carter reassured her, rubbing her back. “You're not losing your mind,” he said gently.
“I'm not a dog, though,” she shook her head, not understanding why he was being so nice.
“No, you're a wolf,” he murmured. His voice sounded just as surprised by it as she was. She looked over at him, shocked that he'd be making a joke like that at this time, but he seemed serious.
“What do you mean?” she asked, and her skin began to crawl in discomfort again.
“I need to see your neck, where I gave you the hickey last night,” he said, smoothing his hand over her back.
“I don't really think it's the time for tha–”
“It'll explain a couple things,” he offered. His voice was sincere and gentle.
Fine, she'd go with it for now.
Willow relaxed her grip on the robe and let the neck of it fall loose around her shoulders. Carter leaned close, and Willow bent her neck to allow him a better view of the mark.
“Did you ever do research on who your birth parents were?” he asked, prodding against her neck a little.
“Yeah, but there's nothing to be found. I was left outside a police station when I was just a couple weeks old,” she admitted.
“I think we've solved a little bit of your bloodline,” he said, leaning back to look her in the eyes. She leaned her head back forward comfortably. He was handsome even when concern covered his features like a clinging moss. “You're a shifter,” he started slowly. Something in his tone made Willow want to get out her pen and start scribbling down what he was saying. His eyes were on hers, though, and so she just listened and focused on him.
“What's that?” she asked, wanting him to go on, terrified at the implications.
“A few bloodlines of people, from all around the world, are able to turn into wolves. It's easier to show than tell,” he said, his voice drifting off like he was looking for permission.
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Prove it,” she demanded of him, not sure how much of this was real. She half-expected to wake up from this fever dream and not have any of it be real.
“All right, but don't scream, don't freak out, or more security will be sent and I may lose my job,” he said gently, one of his hands holding hers.
“Okay,” she agreed. She couldn't make any promises on what she would actually do, but her curiosity was too much to bear.
Carter squeezed her hand softly, then stood and stepped in front of her, taking slow and steady breaths. He slowly shed his clothing. It wasn't as fun and sexual as the night before, but now it was intimate. She was seeing him bare himself physically and emotionally to her.
His expression changed, and he looked in pain for just a second, and then smoothed out into calmness.
It was horrifying to watch.
His body was compressing in on itself, crackling and snapping and grinding, growing fur so thick that his skin vanished away behind it. Willow watched, her heart and stomach twisting with both horror and wonder as the man she'd grown close to turned into a wolf before her eyes.
“Oh, my god,” she said under her breath. Only twelve hours ago, she'd uttered those same words to the same man, but the circumstances couldn't have been more different.
The wolf ahead of her, Carter, slowly padded toward her, and then sat expectantly at her feet.
She'd never been around an animal so large or so imposing. Willow had always pictured wolves as the size of a dog, but the one in front of her was huge and filled the whole room with its breadth. Carter ducked his head down, exposing the top of his head and his soft-looking ears.
How could she resist?
Willow, shaking and cautious, reached out and tentatively touched the top of the wolf's head.
The fur was slick on the surface, but as her fingertips dug into it, she could feel the soft undercoat. The ears had even softer fur, and she ran her fingers over it adoringly, amazed at what was happening. The wolf's – Carter's – intelligent blue eyes watched her every movement.
“I can't believe this,” she breathed out loud.
Then it struck her that she could do the same.
She was the same.
The fear of the pain of changing outweighed her curiosity, however.
So instead, she kept stroking his fur in awe and distraction.
“Okay, come back to me, Carter,” she murmured, she needed to talk to him properly. Within a heartbeat, the wolf in front of her was absorbing its fur, stretching into tan muscle and sinew. Carter's face was smooth of expression, she couldn't tell what he was thinking or feeling, but she felt like he'd just shown her something he usually kept to himself.
“Did you do this to me?” she asked, putting the question out there.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Well, not completely, I just pushed it forward,” he added.
“What do you mean?”
“One of your parents must have been a shifter. When they had a child with a human, someone who can't shift, your shifting genes became dormant. When I gave you that hickey, I broke some of your capillaries and got my saliva into your bloodstream, and I must have activated them,” he sounded apologetic.
“So, it is your fault,” she said simply. She wasn't angry, just disturbed.
This was a part of her for her whole life and she didn't know?
One of her parents was a shifter, lived a life split between being a human and an animal, and she'd never know them.
She'd always imagined what her family must be like, those parents who were so desperate to get rid of her that they dropped her off and ran, and this was never an option.
Not even close.
“I'm sorry,” he said gently, pulling on his clothes. She was disappointed to see his beautiful body covered, but knew it needed to happen.
“Are there others like you here?” she asked. “Like us,” she amended.
“Yes, over a hundred in West Valley,” he grinned, sitting on the bed with her.
“Wow,” she breathed. She couldn't imagine how many of them she passed and didn't know.
“The missing family was ours.” He studied her face as he said this, like he was looking for a reaction.
“Wait, so you know about them and you lied to me?” she said, frustrated. She was doing her best to take this all as openly as she could. Hell, part of her still thought she was having a fever dream, but she was betrayed by him lying to her.
“I couldn't exactly tell you 'they're basically part of a royal line of people who can also be wolves, and humans aren't allowed to seek information on that or be too nosy about it,' now could I?” he laughed.
“Mm, no, but you said you didn't know them at all,” she frowned.
“If I said I'd known them you wouldn't have let it slide,” he replied, his eyes warm on her face.
“No, but still…” she replied, knowing it wasn't much of an argument. “So, why are they missing?” she added.
“Nobody's entirely sure. We think someone's killing off the Alpha line and hiding their tracks,” Carter offered.
“Alpha line?” she asked.
“Yeah, basically, the oldest family line of shifters. There are dozens of other family lines, and we all follow the lead of that one,” he explained.
“So, werewolves follow a monarchy,” she mused, almost laughing.
“Basically,” he agreed, smiling along with her.
“This is insane. I'm just sick of bad fish, and I need to sleep it off,” she said, shaking her head. “It's an interesting fever dream, I gotta say,” she added, clawing her way back toward her pillow.
“You're not dreaming. This is real,” he said, following her to the top of the bed. He rested his forehead against hers, and she felt her heart racing. “Let me introduce you to the pack, show you what we have to offer,” he said gently. “Shifters who never shift, who spend their whole lives in cities, end up suffering from dementia. At least give us a chance,” he added.
This was too much for her.
She suddenly longed for the simplicity that her job usually offered her. A spoiled life of being paid to enjoy retreats and getting to complain about how boring that privilege was.
Whatever this was, whatever she and he were – this wasn't easy.
That scared her.
She'd been wanting so much more than her current life, and now that newness was thrust upon her and she didn't know what to do with it.
“Please, Willow,” he said, taking her hand gently in his. Looking up at his face, most of her worries smoothed out.
He was like an iron to her anxiety, a balm to her nerves.
This was new and different, and if she was losing her mind, at least she'd get a good story out of it.