He exhales, pain flickering across his expression.
“And since we’re apparently throwing honesty grenades now,” I say, my own frustration rising, “let me be extremely clear: I am attracted to you inbothforms. Your human one is hot, yes. I’m not blind. But the way you move, the way you smell, the way your eyes look in the dark, the way your shoulders fill a doorway—those are all you. And I don’t magically stop noticing them just because there’s fur involved.”
His gaze snaps to mine again, surprised.
“I’m a biologist,” I say. “And a man. I’ve spent my entire adult life noticing bodies. Of animals. Of people. Of ecosystems. I know when something tugs at my attention and refuses to let go. I’m very aware that being attracted to an eight-foot cryptid is, at minimum, unusual. Maybe even genuinely strange. There’s a little voice in the back of my head waving an ‘are you serious’ flag about it.”
“Good,” he mutters, like he needed proof I’ve not entirely lost my mind.
“But that voice is very small,” I go on, more fiercely than I intend. “Because there’s another part of me—deeper and louder—that looks at you and says ‘This feels right.’ And I’ve learned to trust that part. It’s kept me alive this long. It’s gotten me out of bad jobs, bad relationships, bad situations. And it’s telling me that you’re not just a curiosity. You’re not just a fascinating cryptid I want to catalog. You are… someone I’m falling for.”
The words hang there. My heart thunders. For a second, I genuinely think I might throw up from sheer vulnerability.
His face has gone very still.
I take a steadying breath.
“I can’t force you to believe me,” I say. “But if the problem is that you think I only respond to your human shape, then there’s a very simple way to test that.”
He frowns. “What do you mean?”
“Change back,” I say.
He blinks. “Now?”
“Yes. Now.”
“You’re ordering me to shift?” he says slowly.
“Yes, I am,” I say. “By the power vested in me as the idiot who fell for Bigfoot.”
His lips twitch, even as his eyes remain tense.
“I don’t know if that’s a recognized authority,” he murmurs.
“It is in this clearing,” I say firmly. “Boone. Please. Change back.”
We stare at each other for a breath. Then he exhales, a long, resigned sound, and pushes to his feet.
“All right,” he agrees.
He steps back into the open space, away from the chairs and the table, and the air around us seems to grow denser, humming with ancient magic.
I stand too, heart pounding, and step toward the little stool I keep by the door to help with my boots. My hands shake as I drag it into position a few feet from where he stands.
If I’m going to make my point, I want to be able to look him in the eyes.
The shift is still a miracle.
Even after seeing it once, knowing what to expect, my breath catches as his body begins to change. Bones lengthen, spine stretches, muscles swell; fur spills over his skin like a shadow pouring downward. His features reshape, broadening, settling back into that striking, powerful face that first looked at me from between the trees.
Where a moment ago stood a towel-wrapped man, there’s now Boone as I first truly knew him: tall and massive, furred and strong, shoulders reaching far above my head, head almost brushing the lower branches.
He doesn’t look monstrous to me.
He looks… right.
He ducks his head slightly as the transformation finishes, breath steady but eyes wary.
