This was my favorite of all the lairs. Food and essentials were stacked in crates. Connor turned on a battery-powered light. Shrugging out of my backpack, I walked around finding comfort here. It seemed there were a thousand things that Connor and I should say to each other, but we’d barely talked at all as we traveled.
I thought about Brittany and wondered where she’d gone to experience her first transformation. I wondered if she was afraid to be alone. I didn’t think I’d be scared, exactly, but I’d definitely be nervous.
“What are you thinking?” Connor asked.
“About Brittany. She’s going to go through this alone.” I glanced around. “Do you think she’ll be okay? Should she have come with us? Could you have helped her, too?”
“I don’t think we can bond with two people.”
My stomach knotted up. I knew I was supposed to be concentrating on my own transformation, my own needs, but something about Brittany was bothering me. I was really worried about her. I wondered if Rafe might be with her, then selfishly wished he wouldn’t. If he can’t be mine, I thought, I don’t want him to bond with anyone. And that made me a cold bitch. What if I’d made a mistake choosing Connor? I didn’t believe I had, but suddenly there was this niggling concern…probably just nerves as the moon’s arrival approached.
“Here’s everything that we’ll need,” Connor said, removing a large crate from the stack. He opened it.
As I walked over, he removed a black robe and then handed me a beautiful silvery-white robe. It looked like something fairy queens always wore in the movies.
“Makes it easier for us to shift. We’re not encumbered with clothes,” he said.
“I’d heard about that,” I said, taking the robe. It was soft and silky; how nice it would feel against my skin.
“We have a few hours yet. What do you want to do?” he asked.
“I’m really tired. Could I take a nap?”
“We probably both should. Tonight will be…draining.”
I watched as he arranged sleeping bags and quilts to create a soft place for us to sleep. We were only going to sleep, and yet I felt nervous about it. My skin suddenly felt incredibly sensitive, as though I could actually feel dust motes landing on it. I knew it was probably my body preparing for the upcoming transformation, but it was a strange sensation, and I imagined Connor holding me, his hands skimming over my back or along my face. I thought I’d be able to feel every groove of his fingertips.
“What do you like best about being in your wolf form?” I blurted, wondering why I was suddenly so skittish. This was Connor. My mate. My destiny. Hadn’t we been together forever?
He stopped what he was doing. Still crouching, he rested his forearms on his knees and looked up at me. “I like the way everything seems more alive. Sounds are sharper; colors are brighter. I can hear my own heart thundering. It’s a trip—probably like tripping, in a way. Not that I’d know.”
“You’ve never done drugs?”
“No. Why would I? Why would any of us when we can shift? That’s an indescribable rush of its own.”
“Do you ever lose sight of who you are?”
“No. You still think human thoughts; they just tend to have a slightly savage edge to them. In human form, if I were attacked, I’d think about beating the guy up. In wolf form, I’d probably think about killing him. It’s all about survival when we’re in animal form.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling self-conscious about the thought of sleeping in Connor’s arms, which was silly because I’d slept in his arms before. “I never talked about this with my parents.”
“Me, either.” He patted the quilts. “Come on. You look like you’re about to drop dead.”
I stretched out on the padding and he lay down beside me, letting me use his shoulder as a pillow.
“I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin,” I told him.
“It’s just your body preparing for the transformation.”
“Does it feel this…sensitive all the time?”
“Yeah, but you get used to it.”
I couldn’t imagine, but I trusted Connor.
“Will you wake me at sunset?” I asked. “I want some time to prepare.”
“Yeah.”
My eyelids grew heavy and my muscles began to relax into that never-want-to-move-again phase that comes just before sleep. Drowsily, I asked, “Connor, should I be afraid?”
His arms tightened around me. “No, Lindsey.”
I drifted off to sleep and dreamed that when I awoke, I was a beautiful wolf.
Connor kept his promise and woke me shortly after the sun had set. The next time it rose, I would be changed. Anticipation thrummed through me as I ate the simple meal of rations that were supposedly also served on space shuttles. We packed our lairs as though we were survivalists, including food items with far-off expiration dates. Who knew when we’d need them or how long we’d have to hide out?
Connor had set a flashlight between us, its light pointing upward, and draped a gauzy blue scarf over it. I didn’t know where he got the scarf but it muted the light, giving it a little bit of a romantic glow.
“I know blue is your favorite color,” he said.
It was. He knew everything about me.
“Maybe we’ll go out to a fancy restaurant later this week, to finally celebrate your birthday,” he said.
I thought back to Rafe offering to take me out to dinner, but then I pushed the memory back down where it belonged.
“Remember when our moms made us take those etiquette lessons?”
He grinned. “Yeah.”
I’d been twelve at the time; he’d been fourteen. They’d thought we needed to know which forks to eat with if we went to a fancy dinner at someone’s house.
“And you kept burping,” I reminded him.
“Hey! It wasn’t just me. You were the one who suggested we burp ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’”
I laughed, remembering how we’d both gotten into trouble for not taking the lesson seriously.
“I mean, really, why does a formal dinner need so much silverware?” I asked.
“Beats me. I’m pretty much living on pizza at college, so what does it matter?”
“I miss you when you’re at school,” I said.