Quinn
Shifting felt like taking a breath of fresh air. My mind relaxed and my hangover headache vanished as I ran through the forest, dodging trees and clearing rocks. I pushed myself hard, harder than I had since I’d tried to go back to gymnastics after my injury.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins, along with something else that I didn’t have a name for. It was something raw and good and real, more real than anything in my life besides Beth.
It was almost the feeling I’d associate with truth or freedom, but not quite that.
Whatever it was, it was incredible.
The longer I ran the better I felt, and the more I understood what I needed to do.
I’d spent my whole life trying to win my father’s love. I’d never been good enough for him, and I could live the rest of my life trying but I would still never be good enough.
If that was true, which I was certain it was, what was I doing? Why was I trying to get rid of Cody and distance myself from his family? Why was I sacrificing the only person who had ever loved me unconditionally and wanted me for the ones who never had?
When I was a wolf, things were simple. Answers were clear.
My father was the one I should be getting rid of, not my soulmate.
Even though I knew that, it wasn’t an easy thing to accept. Family had always been important to me. My parents had always been there, at every competition and surgery and doctor’s appointment. They’d never let me face anything difficult on my own.
My mom wasn’t the mom that would spend four days cleaning and painting a dump of a home with me, nor was she the mom that you took shopping with you for your prom dress, but she was the only mom I’d ever had and she was important to me.
We’d bonded in our own way, and though our relationship was filled with unhealthy amounts of guilt on my end, I couldn’t just walk away from her.
And my dad—he was a hard man to understand. He had standards so high that I’d never measure up, but that wasn’t always a bad thing. Because of those standards, I’d been an incredible gymnast. I’d never done anything halfway because my dad had taught me that it was pointless. Because of him, I knew that I could be whatever I wanted to be and do it well.
The problem that had arisen was that after my failed gymnastics career and attempt at college, I didn’t know what I wanted to be. I’d built my parents’ law firm the best social media pages they could have, but they didn’t need that to succeed. They already had the biggest clients with the most money.
I was a social media figure of my own, thanks to my effort at keeping up with the pages throughout my injury and recovery, but what did that matter? Social media didn’t mean anything, and it wasn’t exactly difficult for someone who had almost made it to the Olympics to have a lot of followers.
As I ran, I started to think that maybe the solution to my problems was the chocolate-brown wolf running beside me. Maybe what I wanted to be was his soulmate.
Maybe what I wanted to be was a shifter.
I’d had the thought before, after I shifted for the first time. Everything about my world felt right when I was in wolf form. I hadn’t ever thought about wanting to be a shifter, because people were either born one or they weren’t.
Shifters having human soulmates was still new, so hardly any humans would turn into shifters. I’d never even considered that maybe I would be one of those few.
But since I was, did I want it? Did I want the wolf that had become a part of me?
The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that I did want the wolf. I wanted her, and I wanted everything that came with her. The peace, the purpose. The family, and the pack.
The soulmate.
I wanted to be a wolf, to embrace the missing pieces of me that the animal had started to fill.
When I decided that, when I was sure of it, I ran harder and faster. My lungs filled and emptied as I sprinted through the forest, my heart pounded in my chest, and my feet—my paws—connected with the ground again and again.
I was so alive. Breathing in fresh air, kicking up dirt, pushing myself to the limit, it was so real compared to the life I’d been living.
I understood then why most shifters didn’t drink alcohol—why would they? Alcohol was numbing, and being a wolf was the opposite. It both calmed me and woke me up to the reality of who I was and what I wanted.
We’d been gone for hours when I caught the scent of other wolves and changed course, heading straight for them. I didn’t know why I did, but I wanted to be near them.
As I got closer, I heard teenage boys laughing and the sound of a football rushing through the air. If I’d been human, I would’ve smiled. Somehow I knew that they were my pack, my family.
I noticed the loose articles of clothing on the dirt floor of the forest as we approached the house and the boys running around outside it. There were basketball shorts and t-shirts and boxers strewn throughout the half-mile just outside the house.
Cody slowed and then stopped running, and as soon as I realized that he had, I did the same. He’d put on a pair of shorts but hadn’t bothered with a t-shirt.
Looking at him in human form for the first time since I’d made up my mind that I didn’t want to get rid of him was almost overwhelming. He was massive, his face was scruffy in a not-artistic way, and he was pretty much coated in dirt. He wasn’t clean or clean-cut, the way I’d always thought I liked my men.
Cody was rough around the edges, he was growly and strong and a little possessive, and I absolutely loved it.
He wasn’t perfect, and maybe that meant I didn’t have to be either.
He smiled and held out a massive t-shirt, and I shifted back into human form. My entire body pounded with longing to feel him close, to be in the arms of the man that I loved and knew loved me even after everything I’d done to him.
I yanked the shirt on and then threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. The action surprised him, but he seemed more than willing to kiss me back.
The feelings of being alive and whole that I’d had the first time we kissed were nothing compared to what I was feeling then. The knowledge that Cody was mine and that he would always be mine was so incredibly intense that I couldn’t have described it if I tried.
But he pulled away after a few minutes, his hands gripping my waist tightly. I was about to pull his mouth back to mine when Cody shook his head a little.
“They can all hear us.” He murmured, glancing in the direction of the teenage boys before meeting my gaze again.
“So what?” I challenged.
A slow smile curled his lips upward.
“So come on.” He took my hand and tugged me toward the noise. His fingers laced with mine as we walked, and some kind of unidentifiable warmth filled me. Holding hands was so small and sweet, so innocent and intimate.
I never wanted to let go.