Shifting this far from my territory in my wolf’s exhausted state was going to hurt. It already hurt. Every extra hour I spent in human form out here was an hour I’d have to claw back later, and forcing a shift without the slow build of proximity to my land meant doing it on sheer will, which felt like being slowly turned inside out through my own spine.
I did it anyway.
The change rolled through me in a wave of searing joint pressure and restructuring bone. My vision washed white, then came back sharp and precise, the world narrowing from the wolf’s superior peripheral awareness to the forward-focused field of a man. Straightening up from all fours, I braced a hand against the juniper trunk until my legs remembered how to be man legs.
The cabin door was still barred from the inside, of course, but I’d picked this place as a hideout specifically because it had an old storm cellar accessible from both inside and via a small trapdoor outside. Shoving aside the pile of old firewood which concealed the hidden entry, I let myself down into the musty cellar, then made my way up a stone staircase, through a small storage and utility room where the water heater was located, and finally into the main part of the cabin.
Katie was standing in the middle of the bedroom with the towel wrapped around her and her wet hair loose around her face. She turned at the sound and went completely still. Her eyes were clear and dark and fixed on me with the exact expression I’d seen when she saw me in the alley. Not fear, exactly. This was a mix of curiosity and annoyance and barely concealed arousal.
Her gaze dropped for a half-second, then came back up fast. My state of dress had not improved since the alley. I’d have to put on the clothes I kept here in case I arrived in wolf form as I had today, but I had other priorities right now. With her wet hair and bare shoulders, the instinct that had been manageable looking through the window was considerably less manageable up close.
“You’re back,” she said.
“I’m back.”
“And you’re?—”
“I generally don’t shift with clothes on. They don’t survive it.”
She processed that. “That’s very inconvenient.”
“It is.”
A beat passed. Her chin lifted slightly.
“You said you’d explain everything when you got back.”
“I did.”
“So.” She waited.
I crossed the room in three strides and stopped close enough that she had to tip her head back to hold my eyes. Her breath caught in her throat, then returned fast and almost desperate. I could smell her raw need in the air between us.
I leaned down until my mouth was close to her ear.
“And I will.” My voice came out rougher than I’d intended, scraped raw from the shift. “But is that what you really want right now?”
Her cheeks blazed, and I could see the pulse at her throat quicken.
She pulled back just enough to look at my face, searching it the way she’d searched the mirror.
“You’re not a hallucination, are you?”. It wasn’t quite a question, but it was full of wonder.
“No.”
Relief along with an unmistakable anticipation moved through her face so quickly they were almost one thing, and her scent told me she was ready for what my instincts were demanding.
I reached out and pulled the towel from her.
* * *
Katie
The towel pooled at my feet and I stood there naked in the dim light coming through the gaps in the boarded windows. I froze in place as butterflies fluttered in my stomach.
His eyes moved over me with unhurried possessiveness. My breasts, the dip of my waist, the flare of my hips. Then lower. When his gaze settled between my legs, my pussy responded with a clench so sudden my breath hitched.
“Beautiful.” He said it matter-of-factly, without inflection.
