PAIN AND SURPRISE IMMEDIATELY prompted Lia to initiate a shift into her more familiar form. But I knew such a transformation would be a mistake. Sure, the girl would feel more comfortable as a human, but hopping half a mile on one leg is much harder than limping out of the woods on three paws. Plus, if Lia shifted to two feet, another transformation into fur form was unlikely to happen today.
Time to stop this change before it really begins. More harshly than I would have liked, I grabbed the young wolf’s ruff between my lupine teeth then shook firmly enough to garner her full attention.
As I did so, I saw human rationality slowly seeping back into Lia’s eyes, overcoming the wolf’s instinctive response to pain. Meanwhile, the electricity of impending transformation began ebbing out of th
