The Crow watched her. Vina. Pretty name. Pretty girl. He could see why Ramsey’s heart beat fast around her. But he’d already picked…right? He was only supposed to pick one time. It was ingrained in him. One chance. One choice, and he’d picked The Origin. The first squirrel shifter. Tenlee. Tenleeeeeeee. She’d been special, but she didn’t look at him like Vina did.

This was confusing.

Vina Fiona Marsh. Ramsey had read her folder. The Crow had read it with him. Ram didn’t realize how present The Crow was all the time. He was the real king. The real Alpha. Ram didn’t exist right now because The Crow didn’t want him to.

This moment, he wanted to himself. He’d been there when Ramsey had slept with this woman, this shifter, earlier tonight. And he’d felt something strange happening to his human half. It was light. It was an easy moment and one that didn’t belong to creatures of the dark like him.

Ramsey, for a second, had been happy. Content. At peace.

This girl was the reason.

So The Crow had taken Ram’s body, determined to fly to Tenlee and remind Ram of who they’d chosen. To remind him about loyalty, but on the flight, The Crow thought of something that changed everything.

He and Ram hadn’t chosen Ten.

Only he had. Ram was just along for the ride. Oh, he had felt every ounce of rejection right along with Ram. Every dodged kiss. Every time she pulled away. Every time she avoided holding his hand, or even looking at him. She’d stayed a squirrel just so she didn’t have to talk to him. And Ram…Ram had been demolished slowly because of The Crow’s choice.

The one moment of happiness that Ram had in bed with this girl? It had changed everything.

Maybe a creature of darkness could have both. Shadow and light. Ram would be the shadow and maybe this Vina-girl…maybe she could be the light.

He watched her fold her long legs as she sat in the plastic chair in the middle of the yard. She was wearing one of Ram’s Harley Davidson T-shirts. He smiled to himself as he remembered Ram ripping her fancy shirt off her. Their bodies did good together. They liked each other.

He was supposed to remind Ram about being loyal to Tenlee, but he was curious again. He’d watched her before, but he couldn’t figure her out. Dominant and submissive, soft yet tough.  He wanted to know everything about her. Sometimes he let Ram be present just a little when he came to see Vina, but not tonight. Tonight, this date with her belonged to him.

He sat on the ground beside her, head cocked, and looked up at her, waiting.

“When I was a kid, I didn’t like being different. It took me a long time to get used to being a shifter. I was mad at my dad for making me one. Only boys are supposed to be born shifters, and there I was, a girl. A moose. So rare, we couldn’t even find a Clan. It was just us. I didn’t have much control over my temper when I was a kid, so I was homeschooled through elementary. I was lonely, and that only made me angrier. My parents could see me getting more and more closed off, so one night, when I was ten, my dad took me out into the woods. My mom was human, and she came along, but she stopped at the edge of the trees, set out a blanket, and started reading a book. She had a picnic basket packed, but she wouldn’t let me eat anything.

“Before that, Changes were a private thing. Me and my dad Changed at different times in the woods right behind our house. I hardly saw his moose. But that night, he told me to Change behind some brush, and when I got up, all shaky on my long legs, body aching from Turning, he was waiting there. And Ram…he was massive. You’ll see my animal someday, and it will change the way you look at me, but my dad? He’s a titan. Massive antlers that two kids could sit on easily. Ten feet tall at the shoulders. Hooves the size of my face.” She put her flattened palm in front of her face to show him how big. “He stood so proudly there in the woods, his thick neck holding those antlers high. I remember thinking he looked like some prehistoric mammal, just huge. He was three times my size. And that night, he took me all around the woods. Didn’t get frustrated when I was jumping and running around his legs, tripping him up. His moose is the patient type. Slow-moving. Easy-going. Until…” Vina licked her lips and swallowed hard. “I could smell the bear, and it scared me. Dad’s nostrils were twitching so I could tell he could smell him too, but he kept walking down the trail, right toward the scent. I kept hanging back. I wanted to go to my mom where it was safe. It wasn’t fun being in the woods anymore. We were being hunted. I was small. I was the target. Dad was moving so slow, his head swaying from side to side like his enormous body was sore just walking. He wouldn’t be able to outrun a brown bear.”

Vina stretched her legs out and wrapped her arms around her middle. Her eyes had this faraway look, and The Crow had a strange urge to scoot closer to her. So he did.

“When the attack came, it hurt. I could hear that animal crashing through the brush, and it was so loud. I ran, but he was on me in seconds. His claws raked right down my back, and the weight of the grizzle buckled my legs. I went down like a sack of rocks. I thought I was dying, it hurt so bad, and then I saw him. My dad. He wasn’t slow anymore. He was as fast as a snake bite. He charged and pushed that bear right off me with his massive antlers. I laid there shocked as I watched him stomp the life out of that predator. I realized in that moment that the bear hadn’t been hunting us at all. My dad had been hunting it. He was showing me what I would be capable of. He was giving me pride in my animal. He was showing me I could protect myself. No fear in his eyes as he killed the thing that had raked its claws against my back. And then he came back over to me, cleaned the blood off my ribs, and then we walked back to my mom.

“She was crying, but smiling, and I didn’t understand. Later she told me how hard it was for my dad growing up with no moose to show him how to be. He was adopted by boar shifters and had always felt out of place and alone. And she was happy he was figuring out how to be there for me while I learned how to control my animal. We told her about the bear, and then she let us eat from the picnic basket, all breakfast food because we’d been out in the woods all night. And from then on, it was tradition. My mom would pull an all-nighter, waiting for me and my dad to come back from the woods. Always waiting with breakfast. That chip on my shoulder disappeared little by little until I was proud of the animal, proud of being different. And someday, when I have sons, it doesn’t matter what animal they are born with. I’ll be there for them like my parents were for me. I’m going to teach them to be proud of their animals.”

The Crow stared at the beautiful girl. She wasn’t just pretty anymore; she was a beauty. Moonlight hitting her high cheekbones, hair wild from sex, Harley T-shirt resting on her full breasts, eyes rimmed with the gold of her animal’s.

She reached over and brushed her fingertips down his back. Voluntarily, she touched him, and it felt so good. Vina’s smile was easy. It was just for him. She’d shared a part of herself and then looked at him like nothing else mattered.

And her willing touch…

Okay, Ram.

Okay.