Not anymore.
“Hey,” I ask as we’re walking, pausing only for a second to pick my way over a particularly large log fallen across our path. “Do some of your wolf-shifter abilities carry over to your human side as well? I mean, I know sometimes the eyes do, but what about the rest?”
“Is there something in particular you want to know?” Marlowe asks as he turns around to look over his shoulder at me.
“Well, yeah kind of. You guys are always so much faster than me and I’m wondering if it has something to do with—”
“It does,” Rory interrupts to answer me. “As much as we’d all like to claim we’re just naturally superior in all ways …”
That comment gets him a jab in the ribs from Kaleb before he continues on.
“When you experience your first shift, it will all become so much more clear to you. You will become a wolf shifter; not just merely change back and forth between human and wolf. It’s not just the ability to transform that makes you a shifter, it’s who you are,” he says, once he’s regained his breath. “Things that your wolf form can sense and feel will bleed through into your human form. Things like increased senses, speed, strength … primal arousal.”
“The same holds true for things that your human self can feel which will bleed over into your wolf form. That is why, even as a wolf, I could watch over you and feel the sense of longing and protectiveness, the sense of conscience and self-restraint. Your two forms are not two separate identities; they are one. You will become one, enhanced version of yourself.”
The way that Rory describes it puts every book I’ve ever read and every movie I’ve ever watched to shame. Maybe what Lydia once said makes sense. Maybe there’s a reason so much of their culture isn’t written down.
“I can’t wait to experience that,” I say, suddenly feeling small among the trees. “There’s only one more day to go, I know, but I feel like it is taking forever.”
All three guys laugh, their footsteps faltering as I realize we’ve finally
reached our destination. It must have been at least a two-hour hike, maybe longer. The sun has risen high in the sky, high enough to filter down in sunlit patches between the crisscrossing branches overhead.
“Wow,” I say, looking out over the grassy enclave nestled between thickets of trees. The trees thin overhead, allowing more of that sunshine to pass through, illuminating the rocky banks of a stream leading up to a cascading waterfall at the far end. The enclave is bordered with brilliant wildflowers and encircled by protective trees that seem to be holding on to each other with their branches, interwoven around us into a kind of barrier.
It is by far the most magical place that I’ve ever seen.
“Why didn’t you ever take me here before?” I ask, prying my hand from Rory’s to stumble a few footsteps forward.
“The timing just never was right before,” Marlowe says. “But now …”
“Now it is?” I say, glancing back at him and the others once.
I turn back and walk to the edge of the small sanctuary to look over the side of the precipice at the mouth of the waterfall. It’s brilliant, the water glittering like dark jewels and the sound of the rushing water like the thrum of the Earth’s very own energy. Or, at least, how I’d imagine it would sound if it had a sound.
“Careful,” Kaleb says to me as I stand precariously close to the edge. “That moss is slippery.”
I pretend to lose my balance and fall, but quickly realize my mistake as all three sets of eyes begin to glow and the boys’ bodies suddenly look as though they’re going to leap over the side of the cliff in an effort to save me.
“Easy,” I say. “I’m sorry, I was just kidding.”
The three of them calm down, the color fading from their eyes as I take note of the fact that it’s probably not a good idea for me to tease being in danger with any of them around. Not when they’re still primed to react like that.
“Okay,” I say as I walk back over to where the guys stand. “What is it that Lydia wanted you to show me?”
“She seems to think that since your transformation has already begun and since your first shift will be tomorrow night, that your senses are already becoming heightened,” Rory says.
“Is she right?”
“I don’t know, but I guess we’ll see.” He grins. “Which sense do you want to start with?”
“Umm, smell,” I say, blurting out the first thing that comes to mind.
“Okay,” he says. “This ought to be fun.”
Rory gently pulls me toward the ground until I am sitting on the soft pile of moss.
“Close your eyes,” he says.