She froze, turning on the spot and managing to meet my eyes. “What?”
The misery in her voice tugged at my heart and made me feel like shit.
“Uh…you did agreatjob today. We’re only getting started. I didn’t think it would happen the first day,” I said.
June wasn’t buying it. She sighed heavily and nodded once. “Yeah. Sure.”
With that, she stomped away. As I watched her go, I couldn’t help but notice the defeated slump of her shoulders.
Fuck.That could have gone better.
13
JUNIPER
After my disastrous training session with Levi, I spent the whole night trying to talk myself out of simply trudging back to Idlewild. Perhaps it was hopeless, and my time would be better spent saying goodbye to my grandparents and waiting for Anders to exile me.
Thankfully, I didn’t jump off that mental cliff, and the next morning, I woke ready to face the day. After breakfast, I headed straight to Levi’s cabin to try again. My newfound fervor faded quickly, though. That day was no better than the first, and neither was the next. Nothing was working. To his credit, Levi was pulling out every tactic he had: meditation, yoga, and even something he called adrenal fatigue, which had me jumping into the nearly frozen lake to send a surge of endorphins through my body. All that led to was me shivering and covered in a blanket beside a fire he’d built.
It was during those minutes of freezing cold that he broached the topic that was eating at both of us.
“Maybe we need to take a break from trying to get you to shift,” he said.
As much as I wanted to disagree, I found myself nodding. “Y-yeah,” I said, my teeth chattering as I pulled the blanket tighter around me. “M-m-maybe.”
Levi tossed more wood on the fire, and the heat radiated through me. It reminded me of that morning in the cave. At least this time I wasn’t on the brink of dying, even though I was still cold. Thankfully, the temperature was in the low forties rather than below freezing.
“You said there were other things you wanted to learn,” Levi said, settling on a rock. “What else can we do? If we work on that stuff, it may help your mind to relax, which could then lead to us making some headway with your shifting.”
The first thing that sprang to my mind sent a flush of heat across my cheeks that had nothing to do with the fire.
“Uhm, confidence,” I said hesitantly, “but in a, uh, moreintimateway. You know?”
If Levididknow what I meant, his face didn’t show it. He looked at me with a perfectly blank expression.
Swallowing hard, I went on. “I’ve never been, what you’d call,goodwith men. The whole flirting, seduction, and sexy stuff. Most guys looked past me since I couldn’t shift and I’m half human. It didn’t give me a lot of opportunity to learn.”
Once the words were out, I had to fight the urge to bury my face in the blanket. Thankfully, Levi didn’t laugh. All he did was sit back, tilting his face to the sky.
“Seduction?” he said. “You want to know how toseducethis Anders guy?”
It sounded so stupid when he said it like that, but it was true. Simply being able to shift might not be enough for Anders to take me as his mate. The man had always dated sexy, flirtatious girls. Hell, he’d had a relationship with a shifter model from Minneapolis. The only reason they’d broken up was because she’d gotten a job offer in New York. From what I knew ofAnders, I’d have to seduce him to get him to see me as both a full shifteranda sexual being.
“Basically? Yeah. I’m positive our relationship can grow. We can both learn to want each other, but I have to get him to open up to that idea first, and this is the best way I know how. It won’t matter if I can shift when I’m still awkward around a guy like Anders.”
Levi nodded slowly. There was a flash of understanding in his eyes, then he gave me a knowing smile. The intensity of it nearly took my breath away.
“If we do this, you should know that it might get intimate. Are you okay with that? This isn’t really something you can learn in a half-assed way. I’m not a piece of shit, and I won’t do anything without your consent.”
I realized what I’d asked for, and what he was saying. He was right. How did you learn to seduce someone, tobea sexual being without intimacy? I hadn’t truly thought this over. The implications, the actualactof learning this stuff. All I’d thought about was becoming better.
My eyes slipped from Levi’s down his body, then back up, stopping at his powerful hands and forearms, the muscular bulge of his biceps. I wondered what he would look like naked, and a surprising sense of warmth flashed between my legs.
Startled, I nodded quickly, my mouth going dry. “I get that,” I said, my voice betraying my anxiety. “It’s okay. I…uh…understand. It’s something I’m prepared for.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Levi said, leaning forward. “I said I need consent. You want to learn, and I’m willing to teach, but I need to know what you’re prepared for.”
My breath hitched, and suddenly, I didn’t feel the cold anymore. No, heat was coursing through my entire body. All thoughts of Anders and keeping my place in the pack vanished. All I could do was think of the times Levi had touched me whiletraining, and how it would feel to be touched inother,more intimate ways. How much would he teach me? How much would he show me?
