“It’s cheddar,” Jasper says. “You grate it in before you whisk the eggs, makes them extra flavorful. My mom taught me that.”
“Delicious.”
After breakfast, we wash our dishes and I’m about to grab my sketchbook when Jasper moves to the back door. “Ready to explore?” he asks, a devilish glint in his eye.
Why do I somehow think he’s got more than exploring on his mind?
“Do we need to plan a little before we go hiking?”
“We’re not going hiking,” he says, raising a brow like he’s challenging me
“Then what are we—”
Before I finish he’s slipped out the door. What is he up to?
“Jasper?” I ask, following him outside.
He steps from the tiled patio onto the dusty ground. The sun hits his tanned shoulders, making them shimmer like gold. He glances over a shoulder and eyes me eyeing him.
“Time to run,” he says.
I step forward, unsure and completely confused. “It’s kind of hot for running, isn’t it? And you’re not wearing shoes.”
“We don’t need shoes.”
He’s sort of scaring me, the way he’s talking in riddles, his voice eerily calm, like he’s in some sort of trance. I move to the edge of the patio area and Jasper walks farther toward the open expanse of desert.
“Come on,” he says, then to my complete dismay he drops his boxers.
I try not to but can’t help staring at his pert ass, enjoying the way the sun hits the curve of his hip, the muscles as they move. Surely he’s not about to go running naked into the desert. Maybe that scorpion did sting him and he’s having some sort of poison-induced psychosis. Maybe the heat is melting his brain.
“What are you doing?”
He turns back one last time, grinning from ear to ear.
“Time to let the animals out.”
With that his whole body convulses, his shoulder blades poke agonizingly toward the sky, nearly tearing through his skin. Fur sprouts at his feet and rises up his legs until it’s growing all over his body. His hands crunch and curl in on themselves as razor-sharp claws push from his nail beds. Jasper drops to all fours as his wolf emerges. Onyx-black fur covers his body, his limbs crack and twist as they reconfigure within his muscles. His face is the last to change, his nose lengthening into a muzzle, his teeth dropping and sharpening into dangerous fangs. His eyes remain as emerald green and piercing as ever. Finally, when the transformation is complete, Jasper—or Jasper’s wolf self—stands before me, majestic and so at home in the wild countryside.
He snaps his jaws at me, twisting his head as if encouraging me to do the same, to shift into my wolf form and join him.
But I haven’t let my wolf out since the blood moon, since I shifted involuntarily and almost maimed a bunch of my friends and Rocky Pack wolves. I’ve been worried about what would happen—that like the last time, I wouldn’t be able to control myself, that my new wolf powers might be amplified to the point I can no longer stand it.
And yet my skin is tingling, my fingers twitching. Clearly, my wolf wants to burst out, to be free, to run wild and carelessly with his mate.
Jasper growls and lifts his muzzle toward the desert.
I pull my T-shirt over my head and step forward into the sand.
RUNNING WITH THE WOLVES
I let the beast inside me rise to the surface, my animal instincts kick in, and before I’ve even dropped my underwear on the ground, I’m shifting, morphing from teenage boy to wolf. In an instant my muscles have rearranged, my bones cracked and forged back into place, and I’ve bent forward to all fours. Letting my wolf out feels like breathing in after months of holding my breath. It feels like the release of a deep tissue massage. My body feels powerful, relaxed, lithe, and ready.
I shake my muzzle, letting go of the last shreds of human tension, and eye Jasper ahead of me. In wolf form the world takes on a multicolored hue, scents rise like clouds of phosphorescent light—and the strongest, most blindingly beautiful belongs to Jasper. He’s watching me carefully, eyeing me with a mix of pride and sly enjoyment, his citrusy, mint-fresh scent emanating off him in waves, drawing me in. I scratch at the dirt a little, testing the ground for grip and temperature, then make my way to Jasper.
Instinctively, I press my head against his flank, nestling into his neck to let him know I’m here, and he leans into my touch. We circle each other, snapping our jaws playfully, huffing barks of acknowledgment. Luckily, it seems being in my wolf form hasn’t sent me into a blood-wolf manic state. In fact, the world seems quieter—the presence of other wolves is still there, but it’s less cloudy, like a sound that had been distorted but is now clear, piercing with clarity, but not painful. It’s as if I could reach into the ether and pick out a single wolf as easily as picking a ripe cherry from a tree. It’s sort of wild, actually, how much calmer it is in my wolf form, as if I’m closer to the source, maybe. Or does that sound too intense, too woo-woo? Maybe the desert air is playing tricks on my mind.
But it’s easier to ignore the press of noise and, as Jasper lifts his muzzle toward the horizon, I do just that. He leaps into motion and in a second is off, running away from me. My feet know what they’re doing before I do, and without thinking I take off as well.
