Moon Dancer

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Unlike the always-prepared Dr. Sanora, I didn’t have a stain stick stashed away in my office. But I did possess a spare t-shirt that smelled like the man who had gifted it to me—Claw.

Shaking out the soft fabric, I couldn’t resist raising it to my face and swallowing a lung-deep inhale. Butterscotch with hints of sandalwood, the affiliated damp-moss scent lost to the twelve days since a wolf transformation had taken me by surprise and left me begging for help from the werewolf I had previously avoided at all costs. The shirt was far too small to fit across Claw’s broad shoulders, but he must have held it close to his skin for some time to imbue it so thoroughly with his scent.

In my belly, the remnant of a pack bond quivered. Ours, my wolf murmured. I swallowed against the lump in my throat.

“Are you going to put that on or just smell it all day?” Val bounced into the room, as effervescent as champagne and twice as lively. “Not that you should be dressing. Go on, girl. Strip.”

Her excitement sizzled in my nostrils, overwhelming her brother’s older aroma and knocking me out of my melancholy. The moment of truth had finally arrived.

“You have it?” I asked as Val closed the office door then yanked down the small shade in the built-in window to block the view of random passersby. I mirrored her actions, closing the blinds on the larger windows behind me before beginning to unbutton my blouse. “And are you sure we should do this here?”

“We shouldn’t use the pack house. Claw disapproves. Your house has too many exits. Look.”

As she spoke, Val reached into her jacket pocket and removed the small, gray bauble I’d asked her to pick up on her way over. Scanning my wolf then printing a miniature 3D replica had taken some doing. Good thing I had twenty-four-hour access to the innovation lab.

That’s me. My wolf was uninterested in the logistics. Reaching out to snatch the plastic statue with human fingers, she turned it around to view herself from every angle. I’m pretty.

“What’s she saying?”

I started to hedge, then realized I was being unfair to both of them. If this worked out, my wolf and Val would become intimately acquainted. Val needed to understand the choice she was about to make.

“She thinks the statue is pretty.”

No, I’m pretty. Ask again if we can hunt every day.

“And she wants to know if you’re really willing to be four-legged every single day if the transfer is successful.”

I placed the statue on my desk so I could cup Val’s hand in both of mine. Since Changing into a werewolf, I’d become much more touchy-feely.

“Val, you need to seriously consider what this would mean to your life. It’s not easy juggling wolf and human natures. It’s...”

“I really, really want this. You’re doing me a huge favor.” Val’s smile was so wide it distorted her speech.

I shook my head, refusing to let her off the hook so easily. “Changes aren’t guaranteed, Val. Look at me.” I gestured at the b****y blouse, the dirty wolf tracks in one corner of the room where my inner beast had shifted yesterday. The sensation of mouse fur in my mouth still made me wince. “I’m considered a success story. Do you want this to be you?”

Against my will, hairs rose up and down my arms as my wolf tensed inside me. She didn’t entirely follow the verbal banter, but she knew I was being disrespectful. Val’s expression, when she shook her head, was almost sad.

“You’re the one who’s missing out. Not just on your wolf, but on Claw. On being part of something profound.” Now it was her turn to squeeze my fingers. “You do realize that you can’t have it all, right? Maybe a werewolf can’t be an archaeology professor, but a human also can’t be a full member of a pack.”

My chest tightened as I evaded her eyes and pondered my answer. I thought Val was wrong...and she thought I was wrong. Just talking about it drove a wedge between us.

In the end, I decided not to argue further. Val had spent over a decade around shifters and knew what she was getting into. We’d used blood tests to confirm her latent werewolfism and I knew the steps required to rip the animal spirit out of a Changed werewolf.

Plus, I desperately needed to ditch my beast so I could return to my normal life. Archaeology. Teaching. Neither were compatible with furry runs through the forest.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that selfishness was a big part of my decision.

“Let’s do it,” I decided. “Give me a little space. I need to shift.”

***

THE LAST TIME I’D PERFORMED this ceremony, I was stuck within the skin of a prehistoric shaman. I’d been unable to do anything other than watch.

Still, the steps were as deeply ingrained as the act of sifting back-dirt at an archaeological work site. I could have run through both procedures in my sleep.

“Ready?” I was speaking to my wolf, but Val was the one who nodded. Taking internal silence for agreement I wriggled out of my underwear then let the wolf have her head.

The beast ripped out of me in a breathless burst of animal vigor. Hit the ground with our descending forepaws so hard a three-thousand-year-old pot rattled on my desk.

So much for animal grace. I would have rolled my eyes if I’d still had command over them. As it was, all I could do was kibitz.

The wolf snorted her annoyance at my internal chatter. Together, we padded three steps forward so we could pick up the wolf statue between sharp front teeth. It tasted like chemicals and scorched plastic. Nothing like the stone animal the shaman had used to work literal magic three months—or many millennia—before.

Still, we kept our jaw muscles clenched as the wolf turned the reins over to me willingly. I gathered my breath and my focus. Then—

“Woman not wolf,” I gasped as human legs lengthened and broadened beneath me. The statue tumbled out of my mouth into Val’s waiting hands.

“Did it work?” she asked, running her fingers across the plastic wolf statue. The surface was visibly wet from my saliva, but she didn’t flinch at making contact with my bodily fluids.

“I don’t know.” I lacked the twist in my stomach that I’d felt within the shaman’s body. Cold air flowed across my nakedness as I roused my wolf out of her panting respite. “No way to find out other than to move on to step two.”

My wolf was willing but tired. Slower this time, we shivered down onto four legs, our balance tricky until our body finally disgorged a tail and lengthened our neck on the other end.

The fangs in our mouth took thirty seconds to regrow, but our mind buzzed as if we’d overdosed on sugar. Now for the real test. The first wolf-to-woman transformation had been meant to imbue the plastic with power. This second shift would draw the magic back out.

Val knelt and pressed the statue into our open mouth, ignoring the sharp lupine teeth that grazed her unprotected flesh in the process. “I’m ready whenever you are,” she promised, gazing directly into our eyes but speaking only to the animal half of our partnership. “I can’t wait to run with you. We’re going to have so much fun.”

Yes, now, my wolf agreed around and within me. Shift, she ordered.

And...I tried. But my feet were wobbly, our shared lupine body tremulous with exhaustion. Pack bonds weighed me down and I swayed beneath their restrictions. Thread-thin connections to Claw, Harry, and Theta wound me up like a fly within a web.

“Olivia?” Val asked, her voice squeaky with uncertainty. I whined in answer. This wasn’t going as planned, but at least we had no audience....

Behind us, a gust of warm air blew through a door that had been shut one moment earlier. Barely audible footsteps approached. The click of a latch blocked wolf-friendly retreat.