“Get a room next time, why don’t you?” I teased as I shot to my feet.
He released a little groan of embarrassment for getting caught in a passionate embrace. If not for the shadows in the hallway, I might even have seen him blushing. He’d always been the most private guy I’d known. I’d had no idea that he was interested in Kayla until they were a bonded couple.
I was acutely aware of him studying me intently. He could perform a third-degree interrogation without words. I wasn’t in the mood for it. “Good night,” I said.
Before I’d taken my first step, though, he grabbed my arm. “Are you okay? You seem…distracted.”
How would he react if I confessed that I doubted my feelings for Connor? Since he was friends with both Rafe and Connor, would it put him in an awkward position? I figured the fewer people who knew, the better.
“I just stumbled across an R-rated encounter. I was trying not to visualize it. And now I’m going to bed.”
To my immense relief, he let me go. As our pack leader, he felt like he had to watch out for all of us, but I didn’t think he could help me with my problem.
I went into the room I shared with Kayla and Brittany. Kayla was sitting on her bed. Stretched out on a mat, Brittany was doing sit-ups. Judging by the sweat on her brow, I figured she was nearing her nightly one hundred. Me? I preferred to curl up with a good book.
“Where have you been?” Brittany asked, her breaths coming in short little puffs as she kept up her tempo.
“Where do you think? With Connor.”
“So what were you, the invisible sherpa? Because he was looking for you.”
I dropped down onto my bed and toed off my sneakers. “I just wanted to be alone.”
She stopped exercising and began stretching. “So why not just say that?”
Guilt. “Maybe I don’t like getting the third degree.”
“It was only one question.”
Trying to work out the tension, I rolled my shoulders. “Sorry. This Bio-Chrome mess just has me on edge.” I glanced over at Kayla, who was now dragging her brush through her long, red hair. “Usually the summer solstice celebration is a little more festive.”
“I actually had a great time,” she said brightly. “I got to talk to all these people who knew my parents. My adoptive parents are awesome and all, but before this summer, I never felt as though I truly belonged anywhere, you know? But here, I just feel like I’ve come home.”
Kayla’s parents had been killed when she was younger, and she’d been adopted by a non-Shifter family. Until this summer, she hadn’t even realized that our kind existed. Talk about blowing apart your concept of reality. I couldn’t even imagine the shock of it.
Grabbing my backpack from the foot of the bed, I scrounged around until I found cotton shorts and a tank top to sleep in. Once I’d changed clothes, I sat cross-legged on my bed. Brittany had finished her exercises and was getting ready for bed. I figured it was time for a little intimate girl talk. “Listen, Kayla…the guys will never talk about what it’s like when they shift. They’re all secretive about it. What was it really like? The first time?”
“Oh, gosh, it’s hard to explain.” With her back pressed against the headboard, she closed her eyes and intertwined her fingers together. “It’s so intense. It’s as if pleasure and pain are all mixed up, and you don’t know what you should really be feeling, and then all of a sudden—bam! It’s maximum overload and suddenly you’re body is shaped differently and your mind is more…aware.” Smiling softly, she opened her eyes. “It’s awesome.”
“I’ve heard it’s excruciatingly painful,” Brittany said.
Kayla nodded. “It is—if you go through it alone. Like the guys have to, but when Lucas was with me, he kept me distracted, so the pain was just an irritant.”
“Do you think it would have been more painful if you didn’t love him?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t want to go through it with someone I didn’t love. It’s really kinda personal and private.”
Not exactly what I wanted to hear. I did love Connor, but was it enough? I mean desperately, my-life-would-be-over-if-he-didn’t-love-me-back love him?
“Sounds like I’m screwed,” Brittany said. “I either go through it alone—and maybe die in the process—or I go through something intimate with someone I don’t love, which sounds icky and worse than going through it alone.”
“Someone will claim you, Brittany,” I insisted.
“I only have two weeks! My time is running out. Besides, I don’t want just anyone. I want someone who looks at me the way Lucas looks at Kayla, like she’s the moon and the stars.”
Kayla laughed lightly. “Does Lucas really look at me like that?”
“Oh, God, does he ever,” I said. It had been strange to see strong, silent Lucas fall so hard. But like all girls, I craved a guy who thought I was his destiny. It was both terrifying and romantic. In most societies, girls our age aren’t supposed to fall in love so young, but we aren’t most societies. Ours is ruled by destiny.
“Of course, you look at him the same way,” I told her.
She grinned brightly. “I probably do. I’m so nuts about him.”
“So maybe your true mate just hasn’t noticed you yet, Brittany,” I said, trying to be positive. In truth, it was really rare for a girl to be approaching her time for change without a guy speaking up for her.
“Yeah, right. And he’s just going to stumble into me sometime during the next two weeks? Get real. I’m going to sleep,” Brittany said, just before she reached out and turned off the lamp by her bed, immersing us in the darkness.
I felt so bad for her, but I also realized that she didn’t want my pity. She was always trying to prove how strong she was.
I was too restless to slip beneath the covers and try to go to sleep. I was afraid that another dream like the one I’d had the night before was waiting for me. I walked over to the window and peered between the curtains. For some reason, all that talk about finding one’s true mate, about going through the first transformation with someone you truly loved…it had left me feeling hollow and confused. I would go through it with Connor. Why wasn’t I comforted by that realization?
I heard the light padding of bare feet.