Kurt was chasing her now. She could feel him gaining on her. At any moment, he would leap up into the tree and throw her to the ground and eat her.

And that wasn’t even the worst part of all this! He’d seen her. Seen. Her. In her ugly human skin, he’d looked right at her. Tenlee’s stomach turned in on itself as she went sailing into the next tree.

Kurt’s breath was loud behind her. Too loud. “Genie, stop!”

Stunned, she hesitated right as she leapt for the next tree, made a misstep, and missed the branch.

She fell. And when she hit the last branch on the tree, she squeaked in pain as she scrambled to grip onto it. Didn’t work. She hit the mud below with a little splash. Aw, fuck gravity! And fuck the cold wind, the mud, her hideous human form, and fuck this rock in particular! She picked up a pebble about the size of a pea and chucked it as hard as she could at Kurt.

It bounced off his bare foot. Hands on his hips, chest heaving, a very naked Kurt stood there glancing from her to the little pebble missile she’d launched at him then back to her.

She was crying. He couldn’t tell, but inside, she was crying.

He’d really seen her.

And right now, she could see every inch of him. Hellooooo, big dick. But as gloriously distracting as he was, his six-pack flexing with every breath, his perfect pecs and muscular arms, chiseled jaw, hot-boy dark scruff on his face, and bitable lips—focus, Tenlee—even more distracting was the angry red gashes across his torso. They were long and in groups of fours. Claw marks from his fight with the Darby Clan’s Alpha, Chase. He’d been favoring injuries for months, but he’d been careful to keep them hidden. Now Tenlee could see the extent of what he’d actually done for the Two Claws Clan. He’d betrayed his cougar people, and the consequences of that decision were etched into his skin in gruesome crisscross patterns. And they didn’t look months old, either. They looked brand new and smelled like blood. One gash near his collar bone was even seeping red in a slow trickle down that perfect pec, and then down, down his six-pack.

He winced, and she wished it was her in pain…not him.

And then, as he stood there in the blue moonlight, shuffling his feet and failing to meet her eyes, he admitted something that spoke to her crying soul. “I don’t like people seeing me like this.”

And this was the moment she was supposed to be brave. This was the moment she was supposed to Change into her human and tell him the same. I don’t like people seeing me like this. Because it would make him feel not-so-alone. And it would make her feel not-so-alone.

But Kurt had always been braver than her. It’s part of why she cared so deeply for him. She looked up to him. Wished she could be more like him.

“Genie, people make wishes on you, and I always thought you had some magic power. But now I think you’ve been making those wishes come true on purpose…haven’t you?”

Yes.

Tenlee twitched her nose, because the wind was tickling her little whiskers. Smelled like blood. Kurt smelled like blood, and she wished it was her.

“I wish,” Kurt murmured, taking a step forward, “that you would Change into your human self and tell me why you’ve kept this secret for so long.”

She needed to be brave, but she couldn’t. She was a runner. She was a hider. She was a secret wish-granter, but now he saw her for what she was. He was asking a monster to explain how she’d become a monster, and then he would start to treat her just like everyone else who knew. Just like everyone else.

And inside, she cried a little harder.

And then Tenlee-Genie-Tenlee-Genie did what every good little secret-keeper did. She ran away.

****

“You okay, man?” Trig asked from behind him.

Kurt startled and spun around, covering his dick with his hand on instinct. “Holy shit, Hairpin!”

“Didn’t mean to startle you. Just heard you yelling, so I wanted to check and make sure everything was okay.”

Kurt looked off toward the tree Genie had scrambled up. He should tell Trig, right? He was Alpha here and should know if he had an extra shifter in his territory. Especially one pretending to be just an animal. Trig had the right to know if he was being tricked.

But…

Genie hadn’t shown her human side for reasons Kurt didn’t understand. And he had a feeling from her tears and the heartache in her eyes, the way she’d run when he’d asked her to explain, that the reasons for her pretending to be just an animal were complicated and personal to her. And it didn’t feel right outing her to Trigger. Genie should be the one to tell the Clan that she was a shifter.

Kurt ducked his gaze as he lied, “Everything’s fine.”

“Bullshit. I could smell you bleeding from the house.” Trigger was studying Kurt’s ruined chest now with a deep furrow to his dark eyebrows. Kurt wanted to pull a Genie and throw something at him, then run away, but that’s not what dominants did. Giving a bear shifter his back when Kurt smelled blood was a horrible idea. So he straightened up to his full height, lifted his chin, crossed his arms over his burning, aching chest, and looked down his nose at Trig. “If I say everything’s fine, I mean everything’s fuckin’ fine. I need to get back to Gunner.”

Trig’s gold-flecked animal eyes ghosted from Kurt’s chest to his face and then to the tree Genie had used to run away. His face twisted into something fearsome for a moment before it relaxed again. “Suit yourself. Keep your secrets, Cougar.”

The use of his animal, flung at him like an insult, stung in ways he would never admit out loud. The bitter scent of anger hit Kurt’s nose just as Trig gave him his back and sauntered away.

He’d disappointed his friend. Kurt huffed a breath as the pain outside and inside his chest burned on.

Disappointing people was kind of his gig.