Neebing was a small town that looked that looking very welcoming after such a long time spent in the wilderness. The houses mostly appeared neat and tidy, while the businesses mainly looked to be set up to provide for travelers going to or from the American border. Plenty of small restaurants, diners, and gas stations. It was a short drive from the highway to the motel, a Best Western in a lot next to what looked like a small bus terminal.

Arnold nodded to it as he pulled into the parking lot. “Buses head from there up to Thunder Bay proper. From there you’ll be able to catch one to most anywhere you could be going.”

The car stopped in front of the motel, but Arnold left the engine running. They piled out, pulling their packs from the back seat and trunk.

Arnold had stepped out as well to see them off, taking Rick’s hand in his once they were set. “Nice meetin’ the both of you,” he said, pumping Rick’s hand vigorously.

“You too Arnold, we really appreciate the drive,” he answered back. He stopped to think for a second, then spoke again. “My clan lives a bit north of Eastmain in Quebec. If you ever find yourself in the area feel free to stop by.”

Laura was surprised that Rick had come to trust Arnold so quickly, and from the look of it so was he. After a second he pulled his jaw shut and gave Rick a nod of thanks. It puzzled Laura a bit, but then again Rick had senses that she didn’t that might let him better determine if Arnold had been lying.

Once they finished, Laura stepped up to the man, giving him a warm hug. “Thanks for everything, Arnie!”

“Don’t mention it,” he replied, stepping back from her. “Take care of yourselves!”

With that he climbed back into his car and pulled out, giving them a little wave as he left. They grabbed their packs and headed into the lobby of the motel, Rick holding the door for Laura before he entered himself. The inside held very little other than a counter against the far wall, behind which sat an older man wearing thick glasses. He was bald on top in that horseshoe way that older men often dealt with. He looked up as they approached.

“We need a room for the night,” Rick said simply. Laura had let him step forward to do the talking.

“You sure do,” he said with a bit of distaste, his nose wrinkling at their smell. Laura really couldn’t blame him. “Can I see some identification?”

Rick handed over his beat up passport. The man opened it and copied down some of the information on a ledger in front of him. They had wanted to avoid using Rick’s passport so soon after crossing the border, but there wasn’t much that could be done about it. Motels always wanted ID.

“How will you be paying?” the man asked as he handed the passport back.

“Is cash alright?”

“That’s fine, but I’ll need a deposit of two hundred dollars that you’ll get back when you check out.”

Rick pulled his wallet out of his rucksack, thumbing through the stack of bills within and pulling some out. He had much more within the bag itself, having emptied all of his savings from the bank before they had left Wisconsin. They wanted to leave as little paper trail for Vascenti to follow as they could possibly manage. As it was, if Rick’s name stayed in that ledger and didn’t go any further they had done pretty well.

Rick finished paying and got their room key. They had to leave and walk around the side of the building to get to their room, as all the rooms were accessed from outside.

They walked into what seemed like massive luxury after such a long trek. There was one king size bed on their left with a small table and two chairs beside it. Across from the bed was a cheap looking desk with a flat screen television mounted on the wall above it. On the wall opposite the door they had just entered was the door to the bathroom, which was currently open.

Laura had to resist the urge to throw herself on the bed, not wanting to stain it with whatever she smelled like right now. They had given a deposit on the room, after all.

Instead, she walked over to the bathroom and set her pack inside. “Mind if I take the first shower?”

“Yeah go ahead,” he answered, settling himself in one of the chairs by the table. It took his weight without protest, apparently sturdier than it looked, though he still made it look small.

She flashed him a grin then closed the door. A couple short minutes later she was standing under sweet, blessedly hot water. She had almost forgotten how good it felt.

Laura took her time in the shower, soaking in the warmth. She hadn’t been freezing during the nights, far from it with Rick’s large body next to hers, but this was the first time in over a month that she felt… toasty? She wasn’t sure what the word was, but there was something beyond warm, something where the warm had fully seeped into every pore in your body and suffused you. This was a feeling you didn’t get in nature too often. At least at this time of year.

While she enjoyed the shower, her mind was still going over what Arnold had asked her about during the ride. Did she want to become a shifter? What would that even mean for her?

On one hand, Rick’s clan would be more likely to accept her if she made the decision to be turned. Rick had been constant in his reassurances that her acceptance was assured, but after repeated questioning he had relented and told her that when he left there were no humans living with the clan. Shifters usually found their mates from inside the clan, or maybe from a friendly group of shifters nearby. She got the impression that her and Rick’s situation was very unusual, and people didn’t always accept unusual. She assumed shifters were the same in that regard.

Beyond that, becoming a shifter would give her the ability to defend herself, a concern that was still strange for her to consider. The brutal murder of her brother and all the things that had happened to her since had served to puncture the thin veneer of civilization and reveal what laid underneath, and that revelation still unsettled her. It turned out that when you couldn’t call the police for help the world quickly reverted to a more primitive situation, one in which a regular human woman was at a pretty large disadvantage. As a shifter she would be stronger and more durable, able to better deal with dangerous situations, though she hoped there would be far fewer of those in her future.

But what would it really mean to be a shifter? When Rick described it to her he made it sound like he had two different beings within him, one a man and the other a beast. It was hard for her to fully wrap her head around, since he was tender and sweet to her even in his bear form. Was it more like having an animal’s instincts on top of his human ones?

Just thinking about this was making her more aware of how little she understood the man she loved. He had tried many times to tell her what it meant to be a shifter, but it was almost certainly something that couldn’t be explained in words, at least not well. Might as well try to explain a taste to someone when it was wildly unlike anything they had ever tasted before. It may be possible to get some information across, but without the actual experience itself the person trying to understand would get at best a shadow of the truth.

Putting aside all that, if she did decide to become a shifter there would be a burden. Arnold and Rick had spoken of it in the car as if it was a granted, which she supposed it was. The rest of her life would be lived in remote places where she could hide her true nature. Most people she met would have to be kept at arms length to keep them from getting close enough to suspect anything. It sounded exhausting.

She turned the shower off, letting the last of the water trickle over her before stepping out of the bathtub. She felt physically refreshed in a way she hadn’t in a long while, but her mind roiled with thoughts of her future. She toweled herself mostly dry and then wiped the fog off the bathroom mirror.

The image in it startled her. More than a month on the road had changed her more than she would have thought possible. She had always been one to exercise, but the body she currently occupied was leaner and stronger looking than it had any right to be. She had always had what she’d thought of as a runners body, thin but not strong. Now she was toned, light definition on her arms, stomach and legs testifying just how much work it had been to come so far.

She tore herself away from the mirror and dug through her pack, deciding on a pair of underwear that she hoped were cleaner than the rest. The only thing they needed now was to do some laundry and they would be ready for civilization again.

A knock on the door reminded her of the man still waiting for his shower. “Out in a second!” she called, feeling a little bad about how long she had spent in the bathroom. It had probably been at least a half an hour.

Rick was smiling when she opened the door, however. Patience was one of his many virtues. “Bet that felt good,” he said, reaching a hand up to her neck to pull her in for a kiss.

“Not ‘til after you shower too!” Laura replied, dancing under his grasp and around him. Now that she was clean she could smell Rick in his full glory, and it was pungent.

Rick grumbled something about ‘unappreciative women not respecting a man’s scent’ as he shut the door. Soon the shower came on again, followed shortly by a deep sigh of contentment.

Laura settled herself on the bed, back upright against the headboard. She flicked on the TV and scrolled through the channels. Canadian TV appeared to be about the same as what they had in America, unsurprisingly.

Rick took every bit as long in the shower as she had, if not more, but soon enough he was back out in the main room wearing only a ragged pair of underwear. It didn’t matter, he looked ravishing. He paused at the doorway, toweling the last bit of water from his hair.

“God that feels good,” he said through the towel over his head. His huge, chiseled body glistened with small patches of water he had missed.

“Rick, do you want me to become a shifter too?” Laura asked. There was no point in beating around the bush, they were going to need to have this conversation at some point. The toweling stopped immediately.

He tossed it back inside the bathroom and sat down on the bed by her feet, his deep blue eyes seeking hers. “To be honest, I hadn’t really thought about it before Arnie mentioned it,” he said. “How do you feel about it?”

“I don’t know, I still feel like I don’t know enough about it really, you know?” Laura replied. She shifted to sit beside him, feet dangling to the floor. “I mean you’ve tried to explain to me what it is, what it means, but it feels like somebody is trying to explain a color I’ve never seen. Does that make any sense?”

“Yeah, that makes perfect sense. How do you explain how something feels? It’s tough.” His big arm wound itself around her as he spoke, pulling her into him. It felt good to be pressed up against him here, in a warm room rather than a tent.

“Maybe I’ll understand better living with your clan,” she murmured.

“I bet you will,” he said with a chuckle. “They’re a lively bunch.”

Laura turned towards him, lifting her face to his. Their lips brushed softly at first, then more pressing, more urgent. She pushed back on his chest with her hand, urging him to lay back, which he did. She crawled on top of him, pressing herself against his firm body and kissed him again, deeper this time. Her tongue slid against his, and the warmth from both their bodies grew until it seemed like they were one rather than two.

They passed the night like they had many nights before, making love until both were exhausted, then curling up next to each other. It was clear to both that what Laura had mentioned before was weighing on the other.

It was such a strange situation, Laura reflected. She knew that she loved Rick, that she wanted to be with him, but that didn’t necessarily mean that she wanted to be just like him. Could there still be room for her in his life if she chose to stay human? It was probably difficult for him as well. She was sure that he would like her to turn, but he would never put that kind of pressure on her.

Laura fell asleep wondering about her future. It was promising and frightening at the same time, which is something she would just have to deal with.

 

They decided to spend the next day at the motel. Their clothes needed to be washed and dried, or else they would get to be the smelly people on a long cramped bus ride. Now that they had crossed the border they were in no real rush to get to Rick’s clan. They could take their time.

Neebing was the perfect place to stay for a day, since it was entirely built around people just passing through. Finding a laundromat was easy, and after that their only concern was finding places to eat, of which there were plenty.

They didn’t speak about what had come up last night. Laura was still mulling it over, but how did you make a decision like that? It had been hard enough to choose a university, but something like trading species? That was infinitely harder. Rick remained his patient self, refraining from bringing it up in the slightest. They talked instead about what they had missed while traveling, what their jobs had been like before, frivolous things.

The day passed quickly, and soon enough the next morning had arrived. They had stopped by the bus station to figure out the schedules the day before, so they knew that their bus would be leaving at eleven AM.

They packed up their rucksacks with their freshly cleaned laundry, and after Rick had gotten his deposit back, they walked over to the bus station. The clerk behind the counter sold them their tickets, which ended at Quebec City. From there they would have to take another bus farther north.

Laura squeezed into her seat on the bus with a sigh of contentment. It was a tight fit with Rick sitting beside her, but it definitely beat walking so she wouldn’t complain.

Rick’s size drew some stares and a few mutters from the other passengers, but since the seats were two by two nobody really had any reason to complain. Rick, with his greater hearing, broke into a grin as soon as he sat down.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, trying futilely to hear what he was hearing.

“Two women, four seats back on the opposite side whispering to each other?” he whispered, head tilted towards her. She glanced back, making sure not to look directly at the two women.

“Yeah?”

“They’re talking about all the nasty things they would do to me,” he said, grin threatening to split his face wide open.

Laura burst out in laughter. The two women had to be at least mid fifties and well dressed. She supposed that some women might have been jealous over something like this, but to Laura that just seemed silly.

“So what would they do to you?” she whispered, fighting to keep herself from giggling.

“Oh, they’re pretty creative,” he said back, his voice low.

“They’re just about the same age as you too!”

“Hah hah hah,” he muttered back. The ghost of the grin was still visible on his face, however.

The bus started off and Laura soon fell to thinking about the world she was walking into. They would be living in northern Canada, and arriving just in time for the winter. For some reason the thought didn’t bother her. It would be a completely new experience, living in a place like that.

Not to mention that she would probably be the only human in a community of shifters. That might be a little more difficult. The only two shifters she had ever known well, Rick and Gerald, had been some of the nicest people she had ever met. Her experience with Dillon’s pack had shown her that shifters could be just as awful as humans could, however.

Soon Laura fell into a light nap, lulled by the gentle swaying of the bus as it drove down the highway. Her dreams were filled with trees and campfires, animal shapes darting through the darkness between them. Still, they weren’t unpleasant exactly.