This probably wasn’t the right time to ask that kind of question, though. For right now, he would settle for being grateful that the alertness in Ruth’s snappish black eyes meant that he and Lydia might have a little bit of time to figure things out together before Reeve came back to make more trouble.
“From all the hubbub outside, I’m guessing that your plan worked after all,” Ruth said. She lifted her hand an inch or so off the bed, twitching her fingers in Case’s direction. “Show me. You could use the practice.”
Case’s first transformation had been pure instinct, with his wolf leaping to the fore so they could come to Lydia’s aid as fast and effectively as possible. This was the first time he’d actually had to think about how to do it.
Doyouknow how this works?he thought, mentally prodding at his wolf.
It gave him a kind of wolfish shrug. So it had done it without thinking, too.
Lydia apparently guessed what his problem was, and she gave him a small, beautiful smile.
“I know right now it feels like trying to make yourself sneeze when you don’t have to, but it’ll get easier the more you do it. For right now, just try to relax as much as you can and reach out to your wolf. Give it permission to come forward, and visualize it.”
“Okay,” Case said under his breath, “but for the record, I was always terrible at meditating, and this feels a little too close to that.”
He closed his eyes. His muscles were still stiff and cramped from the brief, awful sickness that had taken over him when it’d seemed like he was going to reject Lydia’s bite, so it took some time to get his body to feel loose and easy. The sneezing comparison had felt painfully apt overall, but this part was more like trying to doze off when he wasn’t actually sleepy.
He did the best he could, and then he followed the rest of Lydia’s advice and pictured his wolf. Its image came through even more clearly with his eyes shut.
Come on,Case said, stretching out his hand to it in his mind.We can do this.
I don’t know how to make your body change.
I don’t think you need to. Just come forward, like Lydia said. Take control.
It nosed at him and then crept closer, wary but intrigued. It felt like the wolf was getting bigger, swelling to take up more and more space inside his head, and as scary a sensation as that was, Case rolled with it. He trusted his wolf not to squash him in the process, and he trusted Lydia not to give him bad advice. Besides, a lifetime of working with his hands had taught him the value of going with the flow and not stopping to think too much about things. Care was important, but so was instinct and muscle memory. Sometimes your body was smarter than your mind.
This time he felt the change happening in real time. It didn’t exactly hurt, but on the other hand, saying that it felt weird would’ve been a huge, huge understatement.
Thick fur pushed its way up through his skin. His skin pulled in a dozen different directions as his bones changed shape inside him. His balance tilted, and he toppled forward only to feelpawsstopping him from slamming face-first into the floor.
Oh, I’m not on my knees, even, he realized, as his stomach gave a sickening lurch, like he’d taken it on the worst carnival ride of his life.I’m on my feet, it’s just that my legs are shorter. And I don’t have hands anymore.
For some reason he fixated on the lack of opposable thumbs, like the biggest difference between humans and wolves was that wolves would have a problem with doorknobs.
When the cascading weirdness finally stopped, Case opened his eyes.
Okay, he could deal with the colorblindness. He remembered that much from before. This was the first time he’d gotten to look at the human Lydia with these eyes, though, and the first time he’d gotten to smell her with this nose.
... That sounded creepier than it probably was. He couldn’t help smelling her! It wasn’t like he was burying his nose in her hair! His wolf’s sense of smell was just very sharp!
There was no way around breathing in the scent of laundry soap and coconut shampoo and outdoors. And beneath all that, there was a kind of warm feminine musk. It was so enticing that it almost left him dizzy, and he had to do his best to tune it out so he could focus on what was actually happening.
“Well, you look tough enough,” Ruth said approvingly. “And you’re a big one, like Reeve. He’s bulkier, maybe, but that gives you an advantage when it comes to agility. Show us your teeth.”
“He’s not a horse up for auction,” Lydia muttered.
“No, he’s a potential fighter, and we need to know how he’ll bite.”
Case let his lips wrinkle back, exposing his teeth. He didn’t know what they looked like, but theyfeltstrong and healthy. Hopefully his human flossing habits had carried over.
“Good. Reeve won’t want those sinking into him.”
“Case will be fine,” Lydia said, folding her arms. “He’s a great guy, and he’s a great wolf. You can change back now, Case.”
Changing back, as he’d already discovered out on the porch, was easier. He tried to concentrate on how it felt to ease back into his human body, in the hope that that would help him figure out how to get better at shifting the other way too.
“I’m glad I don’t lose my clothes,” he said, when he was back to being himself. “Before I really saw all of this is in action, I waskind of worried about that. I mean, all I had to go off wasAn American Werewolf in London.”
