Birdie wouldn’t be surprised if she looked in the mirror and was surrounded by a golden aura. Her eyes had probably been too bright all day, but that was okay. She didn’t care about stuff like that here. Not with Lance.
She put the leftover pizza into the fridge and grinned at the leftover charcuterie board in there too. Okay, new plan, after Lance’s soccer game, and hanging out with his team, they could come back here and watch a movie and have a picnic on the floor in front of the fireplace with all of their leftovers.
This was shaping up to be her favorite Valentine’s Day ever, which was wild, because she hadn’t come here for romance. She’d come here for some kind of connection with another rare, submissive shifter, and now that had been pushed voluntarily to the backburner. She wasn’t even nervous about meeting Ava tonight anymore. Lance would be with her. He would make everything smooth. She had faith in him.
Birdie frowned and closed the refrigerator. This was all very fast. Was this a bond? She hadn’t realized that could happen between a shifter and a human. She’d been told all her life that only shifters could make a mating bond with another shifter, but now she was doubting that. Whatever she and Lance were building, it felt consuming.
For a few moments, she got scared.
He was going to stay here, and in two days, she would be going back home to her real life, and this would just be a good memory she reached for on hard days. He would be the man she thought about and missed. Eventually, he would forget her.
If she was one of the cool predator shifters, she would’ve growled. As it stood, she squeaked in anger at herself. Squeaked. That sound was so ridiculously unsatisfying at this moment.
She puffed air out of her cheeks and made her way to the door. She wasn’t due to meet Lance for another hour, thanks to Brock asking him to fix a broken staircase railing in Lodge 2. The fact that Lance was a handyman and could fix things was so hot. She’d been fine with it, because she’d wanted a little time to put her things away, shower, get ready and think about everything that had happened over the last couple of days.
Yesterday, Birdie had signed up for the snowy No-Smooches-Allowed ATV tour that would be leaving soon, and she needed to cancel so the group wouldn’t wait on her. A soccer game cheering on Lance sounded much more fun right now.
The whip of the wind against her cheeks was a shock as she pulled the door closed behind her. Maybe she would catch a glimpse of Lance as she made her way to the main lodge. Excitement trilled through her, and her skin began to tingle. Birdie halted and rubbed her arms, taking stock of her body. Why was her skin crawling right now?
She looked around but didn’t see anything around her. The animal’s senses were all jacked up, and her ears prickled with the sounds around her. A car engine humming on the main road, getting farther from the Woodpecker Inn. A snow drift that fell from the trees behind her in the stiff wind. The murmur of voices from the nearby cabin. The wind. Her own heartbeat that was a little too rapid. She looked around again, but there was nothing around her. No danger.
“Freaking scaredy cat,” she muttered to her animal. Sometimes she just needed a moment to freak out.
Another wave of tingling washed over her skin, and she slowed down her pace again and looked down at her forearms. Her skin was warming up, like she had a heating pad on it,and she recognized this now. How long had it been since she’d Changed last?
She scratched at her itchy neck and pulled at the sweater that was making the tingling worse.
She usually Changed on Thursdays, but now that she was thinking about it, she’d skipped last week. She’d been too tired to go out into the woods and find a spot. She couldn’t do Changes inside because her animal didn’t act right. Frown deepening, she rubbed her arms hard to rid her skin of the strange sensation. She was in control She would Change when she was ready and had time.
The snow crunched under her boots as she pushed forward to the main lodge.
The tingling turned to burning.
Uh oh.
“Shoot,” she whispered, veering off to the right.
There was a trail between Lodge 4 and 5 that led to the woods behind the Woodpecker Inn.
Her vision blurred and came in clear again. Blurred. Cleared.
Birdie kicked up to a jog as her skin felt like needles were pricking her.
Panic took her as she noticed how far back the woods were. “I don’t have time for this,” she pleaded with the animal. “The timing is awful. Just give me a few hours.”
Negotiating with the stubborn little critter was pointless. Her brain was roughly the size of a peanut and she didn’t understand English. Their language barrier had always been a problem.
Her body was burning from the inside out now, and there would be no stopping this. She could just put it off as best as she could while she bolted for the woods.
This was bad. This was really bad!
She wished she had time to tell Lance. All shifter animals were different, and for her? She stayed Changed for hours. There was no control. Once the animal took over, she didn’t give Birdie’s skin back until she was good and ready.
She bolted through the tree line and scrambled to kick out of her boots and socks. She’d been trapped in clothing after a Change before, and it had traumatized her. Now she only wanted to Change when she was butt naked.
Please don’t let anyone witness my butt cheeks, she prayed.
She stripped out of her pants and pitched forward as the pain flashed through her like a lightning strike. The snow burned against her sensitive skin. She cried out at the blinding ache and struggled to focus long enough to get her sweater and bra off.
