In the desert, we’re running, bounding across rocks, leaping in front of each other and jumping up, paws flailing at each other playfully.
Play fighting with your mate as a lycan is a weird and childlike form of joy.
I bow down in front of him and spring up, jumping at him and biting him affectionately on the ear.
He twists his big bronze head around, mouth open, and licks my head as he rolls me over; we tussle and wriggle on the dusty ground.
He mock-snarls over me as he pins me down. It’s still playful, but he’s asserting his dominance, claiming me as his territory.
He’s huge, so much bigger than I am, and so powerful. His amber eyes glint in the moonlight, his ears pricked as he sniffs the air.
“What?” I say to him via mind-link. He’s been a bit on edge recently, and I’m not completely sure why. Maybe it’s still everything that happened with Helen.
“Nothing, I thought I smelled something.”
“Let’s run, maybe we’ll find something to chase!” I say, changing the subject.
We’re out running in the California desert. Gideon is teaching me to be a lycan. I wish we did more of this.
More being, less thinking. The human in me can’t quite believe how good it feels to be in lycan form, freed from the tediousness of day-to-day life.
I can’t control my shift so well right now; it comes and goes as it pleases. Gideon says lycans live to be hundreds of years old. “You have plenty of time to learn,” he’d said.
Sometimes I snarl involuntarily, feeling my gums burn and my chin compress as my teeth grow and the lycan emerges from my face.
That mostly only happens if I think about Gideon talking to another woman.
I have started practicing, allowing my fingers to grow claws and shrink into paws, and then retracting the shift. Apparently, that’s the way to do it—slowly, in small steps—so you can control each stage of it.
Otherwise, it’s really jarring—different parts shift at different rates, and sometimes you end up as a wolf with a human foot or human ears. Or worse, a human with hairy palms. Not a good look.
I went to a Pilates class one time, and controlling my shift feels a bit like that. Really small movements, over and over again, until it hurts.
When your lycan wants to show itself, it kind of happens automatically, but when it’s not in the mood, you really have to force it. And lycans don’t like being forced.
The small stages shift is way harder than it looks. Gideon can spend ten minutes slowly morphing into his lycan form. He can even decide to do just one arm if he wants.
If he’s feeling extremely lighthearted, he’ll walk around as a human with a tail for a minute—just to make me laugh.
Physically, it’s difficult to do this. The sensations of shifting are super weird.
Growing a full, luxurious wolf coat is very itchy. The first time I tried doing that slowly, I rolled around the house scratching myself like a dog with fleas.
Feeling your ears and your arms stretching is really weird. I feel like my body is being pulled in different directions, like an invisible force is remolding it.
The sensation of being stretched, pulled tight, and then sprung is not for the weak. It’s pain, aching, discomfort, itching, and burning at the same time.
And then, when it’s over, it’s like being born again—full of hope, promise, and boundless energy.
My shift is beautiful, and I can’t help but feel proud of it. With a plush, silvery coat and hazel eyes, I feel like I can do anything. Like I want to do everything.
Growing up around werewolves, I had some idea of how people related to their wolves, even though I never thought I’d have one.
It always sounded like a handful anyway—all that primal instinct.
Now I’m finding out exactly how much of a handful it really is. My emotions are so strong, it’s like being a teenager all over again.
Just my luck—to meet my mate and get a second adolescence.
Quincy says it gets easier, and she would know. She grew up around werewolves, just like me.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m always going to be the girl who narrowly avoids turning into a giant wolf in the grocery store.
I worry that I’ll shift and then not be able to shift back to human form, and I’ll be chased down by cops with tranquilizer guns.
I imagine Gideon having to leave the summit to come and get me, explaining to the police that his girlfriend didn’t mean to scare anybody.
He’s so busy right now, but I want him with me all the time.
At night, when we run together as wolves in the endless expanse, I feel more alive than I ever have before.
We’re in the desert again tonight to run in peace. Running here, with the rocks stretching out endlessly in front of us, is like being on another planet.
As if the city and the summit and packs and palaces weren’t real, all that’s real is us as lycans, alone among the cacti, with an occasional snake passing us.
We sprint along, the breeze ruffling our coats as we jump over rocks like the whole place is an obstacle course.
We’re still running when Gideon stops suddenly, sniffing the air again.
There’s a rustling sound.
A snake slides into view, hissing at us.
It’s like no snake I ever saw; its skin seems to glow.
I can feel Gideon’s excitement as he bounds to it, lusting for the chase.
But he stops before he reaches it, sniffing again.
As a former peace-loving human without a violent bone in her body, this is a weird thought.
I’ve never wanted to kill anything before becoming a lycan. Helen was the first person I’ve ever wanted to kill, and my lycan is still angry about not getting to kill her.
We start running again, leaping over rocks and sending clouds of dust flying behind us.
The feeling of freedom as I run is intoxicating. There’s no chance of us finding a snake running like this, but it feels so good, I could run here forever.
We stop, stalking along and looking for prey.
Soon, I can smell something; there’s a snake around, I’m sure.
Then I see it, pale brown, sneakily sliding along the ground as if we weren’t even there.
Gideon pauses, waiting for the moment to strike. They move fast; you have to be patient if you want to catch them.
His predator instincts are finely tuned, more skillful than mine.
Finally, he strikes, so fast I barely see him move. The snake curls from the sides of his mouth, flipping around, trying to bite him.
He flings it toward me, a streak of its blood across his muzzle. I catch it, tossing my head as I see its body whip through the air. Blood splatters in the dust below us.
I throw it back to him.
Gideon is in killing mode. He stands over the snake as it coils on the ground and delivers the death blow, tearing it in half.
Dawn is just beginning to break; the desert sky has a streak of red in it, too.
We walk back toward the car as lycans, shifting before we get too near the road. I sit on the car hood while Gideon gets water out of the back, handing me one.
We’re silent as we watch the sun rise over the rocky hills.
Back in the hotel and human again, I’m dirty and blissfully tired from our night’s running. Gideon still seems on edge.
He collapses on the floor sideways as if he were still a lycan.
He’s doing his best to hide it, but something has been on his mind for a while.
I had thought it was his work.
But I suspect it has something to do with his terrible ex and jealousy and that shitty triton and all that stuff I just don’t want to think about right now.
I can feel his feelings; he can’t outright lie to me, but that doesn’t mean I can read his mind. Not yet, anyway.
“Shower?” he says.
“Yes!” A shower never sounded so good to me in my life.
In the shower, we wash each other clean, gazing into each other’s eyes and marking each other’s necks, our animal natures still not sated.
His hard body is slippery under my hands as I run them across every inch of him. He shines with beauty; he’s always at his most beautiful when we’ve been out running.
The way he touches me is primal, forceful, demanding. He lifts me off my feet, and I wrap my legs around his waist. He kisses me over and over.
On the bathroom mat, we writhe and roll around, his amber eyes watching me intensely as the electricity flows through my body—so hard I can almost hear it.
I feel like there isn’t a single cell in my body that isn’t vibrating with it.
I feel the pang-like static wherever our bodies touch, and even where they don’t, the smell of him spreading heat down my spine and between my legs. His muscles bulge against my newly enlarged curves.
I can tell he likes how I’ve grown, bigger and stronger, my own muscles melding to his as he pins me down on the floor, biting my neck again.
I can feel his desire, and he can feel mine, desire reflected back infinitely between the two of us like opposite mirrors. We are one and the same, united in an eternal attraction that knows no limits.
I run my fingers over the mark I gave him as our legs intertwine, sliding against each other. I’m wet and breathing hard, and I’m going to need another shower.
He’s crackling with lust as he finally thrusts into me, unable to hold back.
He’s wild and uncontrollable, and we bite and thrash on the floor. I roll on top, my body displayed for him in all its muscular glory as I claw his chiseled chest, my lycan still raging for him.
My hair is wild, sticking to my back. His golden eyes flash. We’re both roaring with wild abandon.
He pins me down again, and I rub up against him, trying to give as much skin contact as possible, like I want to merge with him, fuse our skin with searing love.
Both of us are gasping and moaning, and the current flows through us, ripples of pleasure, then waves crashing over us.
The sun is blazing in the sky by the time we’re in bed. I’m exhausted.
But I can feel Gideon watching me as I start to fall asleep.
I watch Layla as her breathing slows. I can’t sleep; there’s too much on my mind right now.
I thought killing that snake would help, that it would be an outlet for my lycan, but my lycan is not having any of it right now.
It still rages with jealousy over that scumbag triton Marcus, burning with anger at Helen, as if killing her hadn’t been enough. It still berates me for failing to protect my mate.
I’m watching her power grow by the day. Soon, she will be a very powerful lycan.
For the moment I can still keep my mind to myself, at least for the most part. I can feel her every feeling.
I’d been searching for my mate for so long that I never stopped to think about what it would be like to actually have one.
She’s there, always, and my attention is always on her.
My emotions, so long buried, now rise so easily to the surface, like bubbles in boiling water.
For the first time ever, I feel completely out of control.
A solitary creature for so many years, in my way, I’m experiencing as much of a transition as she is.
My business is no longer just mine.
My life is no longer just mine.
In the best possible way, she has invaded my mind.
I’m watching her sleep, and my mind is filled with nothing but her. Her smell, flashes of her dreams appearing in my mind as I think about how to protect her—how to give her everything she wants.
And how I once failed to protect her because of my own questionable past. How do I keep it from surfacing? Only time will tell whether I can.
