by Bru Baker
He dabbed the cloth over Adrian’s neck and chest, and Adrian looked down. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. That wasn’t right, was it? He’d been fully dressed when all this started.
“I undressed you while you were conked out,” Tate explained, shrugging slightly when Adrian narrowed his eyes. “You’re probably sore as hell already. I didn’t think you’d want to be awake for it. It’s going to feel like you were hit by a Mack truck for a few days. Lifting your arms above your head will make you want to weep. So I took advantage of your unconsciousness and got you ready for the shift.”
Right. The part of the night where Adrian’s Turn would finish and his body would reshape itself into a wolf’s. Well, not a wolf’s. His. But him as a wolf. It was too much to wrap his aching head around. He’d been young and excited last time around and not very prone to navel-gazing. But coming into this as an adult—it was big. He didn’t know how to describe the combination of excitement and fear warring inside him. His body was literally going to be changing shape. That was awesome. It was going to be doing it whether he wanted it to or not, completely outside his control. That was not awesome.
Maybe teenagers felt the loss of control less keenly because they’d never really had much control over their lives. But Adrian was an adult. He separated his whites and colors. He ate quinoa. He paid his taxes. He had an IRA. He didn’t relish the idea of not being in control of his body, even if it was just for the initial shift.
Tate stopped the impromptu sponge bath and sat back on his heels, watching Adrian with concern. Adrian was momentarily confused by it, but then realized Tate was probably expecting him to respond.
His mouth was like the Sahara, but he licked at his lips and spoke. “Thanks.”
Tate’s tense expression eased, and he nodded. “Let’s get some water in you. You weren’t interested in it before your nap, but you’ve been sweating like crazy, and I’m worried about your hydration level.”
Adrian groaned but took the hand Tate stretched out to him, unapologetically letting Tate exert all the energy necessary to pull him into a sitting position. He started to slump the minute Tate eased back, but Tate seemed to have planned for that. He slipped around behind Adrian and let Adrian lean against the solid, warm wall of his chest, one arm wrapped around Adrian’s shoulders to hold him in place.
Adrian’s arms trembled when he tried to take the bottle of water Tate offered him, and Tate changed course and held the bottle up to Adrian’s lips, bracing it while Adrian took a careful sip. His head wasn’t pounding anymore, but he’d traded the migraine for a roiling stomach. When the first sip didn’t immediately come back up, he guzzled at the bottle greedily, letting the cold liquid soothe his dry throat.
Tate only let him have about half the bottle before he pulled it back. Adrian made a small sound of disappointment and then winced—he sounded like a wounded cat.
“You can have as much water as you want after the next part, okay? Trust me, you don’t want to shift with a stomach full of liquid.”
That sounded ominous, but Adrian was too tired to ask Tate to expound on it. It sounded like a good story, and he hoped he’d remember to ask about it later. For now, he had all he could do to remain upright, even with Tate’s help.
Tate leaned in and spoke softly, his breath playing against the curve of Adrian’s ear. “The worst is past, I promise.”
“Unlikely,” Adrian said, pleased his voice was much stronger than it had been when he’d woken. Less like a dying cat; more like an angry toad.
Tate hummed noncommittally, and Adrian nestled closer to him, the warmth of Tate’s broad chest soothing the aching muscles in his back and neck. Sweat had broken out across Adrian’s upper lip and brow, itchy and annoying. His arms were so weak he couldn’t raise his hands to swipe it away, so he left it.
“It’s true,” Tate insisted. “Your first shift will hurt, but I guarantee it won’t be like the pain of the Turn. Your body is primed for this now. And once you’ve gotten it down, shifting won’t hurt. Honestly, I think a lot of the pain wolflings experience with their first dozen or so shifts is psychological. It should hurt. Your bones and muscles are breaking and knitting themselves back together in a new configuration. Everything we know about our bodies says that should be agonizing.”
Adrian huffed. “It should hurt, so it does?” He flexed his shoulders, trying to ease the crick in his neck. “Does a wolfling in a box exist as both a wolf and a human until you can open the box to prove otherwise?”
Tate brought his fingers to Adrian’s neck and honed in on the knot giving him grief. Adrian went boneless at the touch.
“Schrӧdinger’s Werewolf? I like it.”
Tate’s approval brought a pleased smile to Adrian’s lips, but it melted away when the first spasm of the shift hit.
“I think it’s happening,” he gasped as a spasm hard enough to break bone hit him.
His awareness sank inward until all he could hear was his own too-quick heartbeat and the sound of his body breaking and remaking itself. For the first time since the Turn started, he screamed.
Chapter Eight
TATE eased Adrian’s contorted body onto the rug and scooted across the floor until his back hit the wall. Adrian would be pissed at him for lying about the shift—or at least lying about how much it would hurt—when he was himself again, but he would deal with the fallout from that when it came. Going into the shift tensed up made it hurt worse, so his white lie served a purpose. Adrian had been relaxed when the shift began, and that would mean a quicker recovery and less soreness when it was over.
It did get better. Tate’s shift was seamless now, a blink-and-you’d-miss-it affair he could execute at will. It still hurt, but it wasn’t the drawn-out, agonizing torture Adrian and all the other wolflings who were shifting tonight were going through. Control came with practice and time, and a lot of that was governed by the werewolf’s psyche. That hadn’t been a lie either.
He chuckled to himself as he thought about Adrian’s Schrӧdinger joke. If Adrian could come up with something like that while he was strung out and pain drunk during the Turn, he must really be something when he was firing on all cylinders. Part of Tate hoped he’d get a chance to find out, but another part of him, the part he hid away and tried not to indulge, worried someone like Adrian would be too perceptive. There were things in Tate’s past that needed to remain buried, and Adrian was the kind of guy who could cause Tate’s carefully constructed life to unravel.
He wouldn’t let it get that far. No matter what Diann said, he was doing fine. Accepting that he had a Turn bond with Adrian was as far over the line as he was going to go. It meant they were compatible but it didn’t have to mean anything more. He’d get Adrian through tonight, and then he’d distance himself. Kenya would be Adrian’s counselor, and he could share a room with Harris.
Adrian let out an anguished groan and curled into a ball on the carpet, and the wall Tate had spent the evening trying to build crumbled. He could never bear to see anyone in pain, but it was worse with Adrian. He felt it. Deep in his gut, old wounds he’d blocked out years ago welled fresh metaphorical blood. Adrian’s shift was turning them both inside out.
Tate kept his distance even though he wanted to crouch on the carpet and take Adrian in his arms. It wouldn’t do any good—at this stage of the Turn, Adrian was past outside intervention. His body had prepared itself for the shift, and now it was happening. Either Adrian would fully shift into his wolf form or he’d die trying.
It didn’t happen often—fatalities were rare, and they were almost always brought on by external sources. Unsecured furniture crashing down. Hypothermia from shifting outside. Wolflings left on their own in the mindless throes of bloodlust.
Tate shivered and immediately cursed himself. That wasn’t going to happen with Adrian. He was in a safe place, and he had Tate. It was nothing like Tate’s own Turn, and the less he thought about it the better. It didn’t do any good to dwell on old memories, and it certainly
wasn’t going to help Adrian if Tate was wallowing in self-pity.
He watched Adrian writhe and twitch on the floor with an almost clinical eye. Probably another ten minutes. Twenty tops. And then it would be done. Adrian would have attained his wolf form, and he’d probably be exhausted and pass out for a few hours before the onset of dawn brought his shift to an end and he went through the process in reverse.
That’s how it almost always was for wolflings. Technically they could shift at will, but inexperience and fear usually prevented them from trying to shift back to human form before the moon set. Fear often led to aggression, which was another danger for shifted wolflings. It was why werewolves had developed the camp system years ago. Having wolflings in a place primed for their uncontrolled shifts with trained werewolves who could help them was best for everyone. They could do serious harm to themselves and others around them otherwise.
The trauma of the initial frenzy faded over time, just like any sense memory did. As the horror of the pain and terror from the initial Turn became less clear, exerting control over the shift became easier. Kenya called it leaning into the pain, treating it like an old friend rather than an enemy. Tate had never seen it that way, but rather as something that had to be borne. Both philosophies worked—whatever got a werewolf through the mental block.
Adrian’s Turn was one of the most extreme Tate had ever seen. It made sense. Teenagers were still pliant and unformed—an adult’s bones were done growing, their tendons and ligaments unaccustomed to the stretch of growth spurts that could add on inches in weeks. Adrian’s adult body was out of practice at the transformation game, and he’d suffered mightily for it. The only saving grace here was that Adrian had passed out.
Tate moved to the bathroom to grab a towel, then hesitated and doubled back to grab a stack of them. He needed one to clean up the bowl of water Adrian had sent flying when his legs had spasmed, and it would be good to have some on hand just in case Adrian came back to himself again tonight. Tate sopped up the mess on the floor and tossed the wet towel into the sink in the bathroom to deal with later. He didn’t like the idea of Adrian being out of his sight, which was ridiculous. He was four feet away—Tate would know instantly if something was wrong. But there was a tightening in his chest and a vibration in his bones that felt plain wrong whenever he wasn’t within touching distance of Adrian.
Probably the Turn bond’s way of making sure the bondee took good care of the wolfling, he figured. Though that didn’t account for the way Tate’s heart quickened every time the Turn eased and Adrian’s face slackened in relief. He was the most beautiful man Tate had ever seen, and that wasn’t just his dry spell talking. He was surrounded by teenagers here, and there hadn’t been a lot of fine specimens in his native rural Idaho. He’d been too raw in college to spend much energy looking at guys, and too self-conscious to pursue any who looked like Adrian.
No one likes a psychologist having a pity party, he reminded himself. And boy, could he throw a good one. It had balloons, party hats, and all the hallmarks of an abusive childhood. PTSD, attachment disorder, anxiety—he was a walking embodiment of the DSM, the holy grail of psychology texts.
Adrian sat up suddenly, his eyes flying open. Tate lunged forward to grab him as Adrian collapsed just as quickly. Tate managed to cushion his fall with his own body, then cursed himself when he realized the dangerous situation he’d put himself in. Adrian was on the cusp of shifting, and even with the benefit of the drugs, he would be wild with pain and confusion for the shift. Tate had just trapped himself beneath a one-hundred-and-eighty-pound man who was about to sprout lethal claws and teeth for the first time in his life.
Before Tate could wedge himself out from underneath Adrian’s dead weight, Adrian let out a guttural scream and started to change. Moving now would just increase the likelihood of getting hurt, so Tate wiggled an arm up to shield his face, closed his eyes, and hoped for the best.
He could feel Adrian’s form changing. Coarse fur bristled where smooth, hot skin had been a moment before. Limbs shortened and bent, and Tate struggled for breath when Adrian’s weight concentrated over his chest.
Tate fought to stay calm. Even if he wasn’t in control of himself, Adrian would subconsciously take cues from Tate through their Turn bond. If Tate’s heart rate was out of control, Adrian would sense that and go on the alert for danger, not realizing he was the danger. Tate drew a deep, slow breath in as best he could manage with Adrian’s weight over his lungs. He held it for a few beats and blew it out through his nose. His body started to respond, settling the fight-or-flight response that had been blaring through him.
Should he move Adrian? It had been a few minutes since Tate felt him so much as twitch, so it was possible he’d passed out again from shock or exhaustion. Tate blinked one eye open and looked down. Adrian had attained his wolf form, and just as Tate had thought, he was curled up on Tate’s chest, asleep.
It was best not to touch a recent Turn, but Tate couldn’t maintain this position. He moved the arm that had been protecting his face, inching it down his body to brace against the floor so he could attempt to dislodge Adrian’s sleeping form.
A growl split the air before Tate even straightened his elbow. Shit.
Tate looked down and came eye-to-eye with the wolf, eliciting another low warning growl.
Double shit.
He was trained for this kind of situation. He did this for a living. He knew exactly what to do when he came across a newly shifted wolfling while in human form himself.
And he’d already broken the first, most basic, most important rule. Don’t make eye contact.
They weren’t wolves, despite the resemblance when they were in shifted form. They looked like a wolf’s larger cousin. Identical except for size, because even the magic of the shift couldn’t erase body mass. If you were a one-hundred-and-eighty-pound man, you’d be a one-hundred-and-eighty-pound wolf.
And usually they retained their sense of self, their thoughts, their memories—everything that made a person himself—when they shifted. Unless they had succumbed to moon madness or were newly Turned. In those cases, werewolves acted on base instinct similar to a regular wolf’s. Anyone they encountered was either prey or an enemy. And by making eye contact, Tate had just labeled himself the latter.
He immediately averted his eyes, but the damage had been done. Adrian shot to his feet, standing clumsily and bringing his muzzle close to Tate’s face. Tate didn’t move a muscle, letting Adrian scent him and assert his dominance.
If Tate had been in wolf form himself, Adrian’s wolf would have recognized him as an elder and deferred to him. But it was too late for him to risk a shift, and it would only make Adrian even more aggressive.
Tate’s lungs burned, but he didn’t dare breathe. He didn’t want to give Adrian any reason to think he was a threat.
Finally, Adrian stepped back, and Tate took in a ragged breath that made him dizzy with relief. He could feel bruises forming where Adrian’s forelegs had been standing on his chest, but he didn’t try to rub away the sting. He simply lay there, his muscles tensed, limbs itching with the need to move, to run.
He couldn’t control his flinch when Adrian reared forward and stuck his nose against Tate’s throat. His horror quickly turned to shock at the movement when Adrian raised his muzzle, using it to lift Tate’s face. Tate complied, baffled, and then watched as Adrian carefully lifted his own head and exposed his neck to Tate.
All the air in Tate’s lungs left him in a rush, and he scrambled to sit up. Adrian was offering him a promise he wouldn’t hurt Tate.
He’d never seen an agitated new Turn act like this. Tate had been braced—rightly so, because he was the one who’d done the wrong thing—for an attack. That he was getting out of this with no more than Adrian’s hot breath on his cheek was amazing. A miracle.
The Turn bond, his mind supplied. This was the bond. Tate stood on shaky legs and backed away, not willing to risk showing his back despite Adrian’s actio
ns. He seemed lucid, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t turn on Tate in a heartbeat. Tate retreated until he felt a solid wall against his back. Only then did he let himself really look at Adrian.
He had coltish long legs, like Adrian did in human form, and a thick coat of fur that would start to shed on Adrian’s first shift outdoors, once his body realized there was no need for the insulation of the downy underfur in the ninety-degree heat of an Indiana summer. His top coat was so dark it was almost black, a shade different from Adrian’s rich brunet human hair. He didn’t have much variation in his coloring, which was abnormal. Tate wondered what Adrian’s family looked like when they shifted. Did they all have such lustrous, gorgeously hued fur, or was this yet another way Adrian was different?
Tate himself had tawny, dirty-looking fur that faded to off-white near his belly. He’d never cared about what he looked like shifted before, but a wave of shame passed over him as he took in Adrian’s form. As a human and a wolf, Adrian was way out of his league. This Turn bond was some sort of cosmic joke.
He shook away the ridiculous thoughts and tried to regain some semblance of control over the situation. “Are you thirsty?” he asked Adrian, who cocked his head in response but didn’t move.
“Do you want to take a nap? The bed is comfy,” Tate offered, but again there was no movement across the room. Adrian was taking everything in through solemn, dark eyes, but he gave Tate no clues about what he wanted.
“I don’t have any food you’d like right now,” Tate tried. “Just some power bars and trail mix. Eating will have to wait until you’ve shifted back, I’m afraid.”
Adrian’s head shot up and he bounded across the room, taking Tate by surprise. Tate pressed himself up against the wall, waiting for an attack that never came. Adrian stopped a hair’s breadth away and sat on his haunches, his gaze expectant.
“Food?” Tate asked breathlessly.
Nothing.
He chewed on his lip for a moment, unsure of what to do next, when it hit him. “You want to shift?”