Without realising, Cole found himself admiring the light layer of stubble coating Logan’s jaw. He had a thing for stubble. The way it scraped lightly over skin always made him shiver. He looked up to find Logan watching him, eyes alight with amusement, and Cole almost choked on the piece of biscuit he’d swallowed.
Looking away quickly, Cole flushed with embarrassment at being caught. His heart raced, and he wondered if Logan could hear it.
Shifter anatomy classes had been vague on the extent to which shifter senses were enhanced. Obviously some had more acute hearing and eyesight than others, but there was no recorded baseline. Cole had the sudden urge to ask Logan all the questions.
He bit his tongue and looked away. “What happens now?” he asked when Amy walked over to him.
She pointed to his rucksack, then at a screen over by the wall. “Go over there and get changed; then we’ll carry out the physical tests.”
Cole sighed but sat up and hopped off the bed and headed behind the screen. He’d known what he was in store for, but it still felt weird. Like he and the others were rats in a cage being examined to find the best specimens. Born shifters didn’t go through any of this crap. They had an open invitation to their parents’ pack or negotiations were entered into with other packs if they wanted to move.
No one checked them to see if they were at peak physical fitness or not.
As he stripped out of his jeans and T-shirt and into his workout gear, Cole’s mind wandered back to Logan, unsurprisingly. The ladies in the room were attractive, although a good few years older than Cole, but that wasn’t where his interests lay. Logan on the other hand... he was just what the doctor ordered.
If he wasn’t a shifter and part of the McKillan pack.
But that didn’t mean Cole couldn’t indulge in a little fantasy as he whiled the next hour away.
No one had to know.
According to Shifter Anatomy 101, both born wolves and bitten wolves were inherently stronger than their human counterparts, but they still had to work to develop their muscles. They didn’t spring up of their own accord.
Logan looked like he worked out.
A lot.
Was he bitten or born that way?
The question lingered in his head as he shoved his clothes into his rucksack and rejoined the others. The bed had been pushed to the far side of the room and some other equipment brought it.
Logan had moved to a different wall to watch the proceedings.
Cole felt his eyes on him as he walked over to Amy. “Where do you want me?”
She smiled and pointed to a set of scales. “Hop on there for me. We’ll do weight and height, then take your blood pressure.”
Doctor Meena took the opportunity to slip out of the room as Amy carried out her checks, making a note of everything on her clipboard. He didn’t like to think of all the others going through this. That everyone in that waiting room would probably be doing exactly this in their own little rooms. Then those whose tests came back positive would have their results examined like they were prized heifers.
I wonder what happens to those that test negative? Do their results get binned, or are they used to suggest career paths for those set to remain human?
“Mr Moreton?”
Cole looked up to find Amy staring at him expectantly. “Sorry?”
“Can you sit on the bed for me while I take your blood pressure, please?”
He sat, arm outstretched, and waited for Amy to wrap the cuff around it. His heart rate kicked up a little, like it seemed to always do when he got his blood pressure taken. Closing his eyes as the cuff pinched his upper arm, Cole ran through the list of packs in his head. Those who’d possibly be interested in his particular skillset.
If you’re compatible.
He still clung to the hope that this was all for nothing, but it didn’t hurt to prepare for the worst either.
At the top of the list had to be Logan’s pack, the McKillan pack. Based in Westminster, they had pack members holding positions of authority in the new police force and cybersecurity. Then there was the Wellington pack, the Black’s, the Forester’s, and the Halston’s. Those were the ones Cole could think of off the top of his head. He could be wrong, of course; he was no expert on what packs looked for in a human candidate.
None of those packs were near his home.
He sighed as Amy slipped off the cuff and patted his shoulder.
