The smile that crossed his handsome face was so genuine and unfettered my heart skipped a beat. Thankfully, I had brought my beta blockers just in case, so he could give me all the arrhythmia he wanted.
I introduced him, and he was as charming as ever. Pretty much as soon as we were done with that, an older man stepped into the middle of the gathering and shifted.
My God!
I’d never seen someone shift slowly, gradually, but it was such a strange mix of body-horror and art. Fur rippled out from his skin in smooth, rolling waves, the flesh expanding in a layerof muscle. His face began to lengthen, the shape of his features following a long-practiced choreography.
It was beautiful. It was scary. It was over far too soon. A few moments later, a massive, majestic brown bear stood at full height in the center, gray around his muzzle and ears.
“Wow…” I breathed, and Ben squeezed my hand again. I liked this form of communication we’d unlocked.
“Don’t make me jealous now,” he teased.
I batted my eyes at him. “Are you saying that you get jealous?”
“Maybe. When it’s someone really important to me.”
I knew that I was blushing from my feet all the way up to my scalp, but it was a nice sort of fluster. “You sayin’ I’m important to you?”
“I am, and if I haven’t said it before, I’m sorry about that.”
Fuck. I knew Ben wasn’t the most verbose person, but sometimes he was a bit like a sniper with it, cutting through all the bullshit to get me right in the squishy heart. And the crazy thing was I could totally tell that he meant it.
God, I really was in love.
The thought nearly knocked me, and I was sure my heart rate spiked, but the universe looked out for me again because the bear let out a bellow. It wasn’t malicious, but itwaspowerful, and it rattled me down to my bones.
Several shifters stepped forward, slipping into their animal forms before crying out as well. Some preteens joined, although they took no animal form.
The first bear took one step, and then another, then raised its front legs into the air before slamming all four onto the ground. The rest followed his example as best they could in their different forms, then the giant bear was onto the next phase of movement.
It really was a dance. Primal and rough around the edges, perhaps even raw with power, but still a dance. It spoke to an innate part of me, the same one that motivated ancientHomo sapiensto move their bodies rhythmically around fires while others sang and clapped their hands.
Completely enraptured, I watched as the whole thing played out, eventually ending in a final, lingering cry to the sky. Another woman around my age, walked forward and shifted.
Time didn’t matter as she went through her celebration, then another went through theirs. But on the fourth go-around, it was a human who stepped forward. Cherry, who I’d met earlier.
“Thank you all for being so kind to me here,” she said, her cheeks a vibrant pink even in the deep yellow of the lamplight. “I’ll never forget when I was seventeen and soaking wet, showing up at the end of Rick’s driveway during a tornado watch and scaring him half to death.”
There was a shared chuckle from several spots around the circle that told me many people knew the story.
My eyes locked on the woman as she stepped to one side, then the other, then dipped her upper body close to the ground, then swayed back upright like a snake.
I was not a coordinated person, but even that couldn’t put a damper on the streak of inspiration that rose through me. Squeezing our still joined hands, I looked up at Ben with bright eyes.
“Do you wanna join?” I asked, already breathless. Something about watching the woman beckoned me more than the “Macarena” or “Cotton Eye Joe”. I couldn’t really explainwhy,it justwas.
“You sure?” Ben asked. Maybe I was just projecting, but I felt there was something eager in his tone beside the surprise.
I nodded emphatically. “Yeah, I am.”
“Then let’s join.”
Hands still clasped, we hurried into the circle. Cherry’s eyes locked with mine, and the way her face brightened made my heart swell. Despite all my anxieties about not belonging, I’d never found a place where I was accepted so quickly.
Somehow, in just one afternoon, I found a community, and Ben was rediscovering the one that had been stolen from him. For me, I could see a future of new friends and companionship knitting together into a web of support that I would always be welcome in, regardless of what happened with Ben and me. And as for him, I could envision reforged connections, bonds made with other shifters. It wouldn’t be close to having a pack again, but a close approximation to it.
And maybe that would lead to him actually joining another pack or starting his own again.
