I have to know.
With a trembling hand, she reached out to take hold of the part of herself she’d never known, praying it wouldn’t ruin everything.
* * * *
Two weeks after Mardi Gras ended, the full moon came.
Cael and Aiyanna lay on the couch they’d purchased together, which was situated in the house they bought the previous week in the Irish Channel. They were home—their home. It didn’t matter if they were mated. As far as Cael was concerned, Aiyanna was his wife.
When he’d asked her what the Choctaw marriage ceremonies were, she cried before immediately finding a notebook and proceeding to plan a wedding using her culture’s customs.
Now was the time for them to see whether or not they were mated by the standards Cael was used to. Aiyanna watched the Netflix show she’d become addicted to, a ridiculous program Cael tolerated only because watching television gave him an excuse to hold her. He checked his watch, tightening his grip around her middle when she grumbled about him jostling her. It was past time. He looked down at himself to check for paws, claws, anything. He was completely human. “I haven’t changed.”
Now Aiyanna shot up and ran to the window, where the moon was high, its silvery light shining.
It took Cael a second to realize what he was looking at. With human eyes. He wasn’t a werewolf any longer.
“You aren’t mortal. You can’t be mortal.” Tears welled in Aiyanna’s eyes, and Cael pulled her into an embrace while he watched the moon, unable to tear his gaze away. He wasn’t mortal, was he?
No. He would have felt it and the accompanying weakness mortality brought. If he wasn’t a mortal, then what was he? “How do you change into your panther form?”
Aiyanna rubbed her face against his chest in a very feline gesture. “I just concentrate on what I want. There’s more, but I don’t know how to describe it.”
Her words were muffled against the fabric on his chest.
“I’m going to try and change into a wolf.” If it worked, it meant he was a shapeshifter. It didn’t make sense for their mating to make him into an entirely different creature, but it made more sense than him becoming mortal as a result of it.
The woman he loved moved to lean against the far wall, her wide eyes grave. Cael thought about her words, and how she said there was more to changing forms than merely concentrating.
She was right. Thinking about a wolf did almost nothing, except the concept seemed to catch something inside his mind. Suddenly it was instinct, this stretching sensation that progressed from his head and down to his body, shifting him into a wolf more quickly, and less painfully than the moon ever had.
Aiyanna beamed before she joined him in her cat form. Overwhelmed by the calm that washed over him, rather than the savagely animalistic thoughts the moon usually brought, he leaned against the woman who was his mate, his black fur rubbing against her equally dark coat.
Then he changed back into his human form, his clothes still intact. A giant cat preened in his lap, making him laugh as she tucked her head under his hand. The hair under his fingers grew long, and Aiyanna rubbed her nose against his.
“If you want to cancel the wedding since we’re officially mated, you’re going to be disappointed.” Her voice was light, but there was a threat of disappointment there too.
Cael kissed her, wondering for the hundredth time how he got so lucky that this beautiful, giving spirit chose him out of everyone. “Why would we cancel it?”
Squealing, Aiyanna pushed him to the floor to kiss him hard, making both of them overlook the show she liked so much playing in the background. Cael even forgot that all of his packmates were currently covered in fur and claws.
All that mattered was the woman on top of him, the one person who’d believed in him, who’d waited half a decade to be with him.
The next day, he watched the sun rise. He was too curious to sleep until the sky was filled with light. So he waited until the sun diluted the darkness, when he shouldn’t be able to take his wolf form.
Yet the catch in his mind was still there, and he effortlessly changed into a black wolf.
He was so stunned that he didn’t notice Aiyanna creeping up on him. In her panther form, she knocked him off his feet, purring loudly when he fell to his side on the carpet with a loud, dull thud.
It took him a moment to change back into a man, and even less time to appear by her side to throw her furry body onto the bed using only air. Before she hit the mattress she was a human again, her hair thrown back behind her head, her nude limbs splayed lazily across the sheets.
“You wanna play, wolfie?” she teased.
Naked himself, Cael smiled. “You’re damn straight I do.”
Cael pulled his mate into his arms and rolled her onto his chest, placing a light bite on the side of her neck. Her touch turned his body into fire, but underneath that it healed him, every time she kissed him, with each moment her breath tickled his skin.
She’d put him together, a man broken by false accusations and the heavy weight of his own guilt.
Aiyanna had saved him.
The End
Publisher’s Note
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About Samantha Stone
Samantha Stone is a twenty-something graduate student studying speech-language pathology in Alabama. She’s proficient in French and Signing Exact English, and considers New Orleans the home of her heart. Most days you can find her doing speech-related research, chasing her creatures around New Orleans (in her head), or curled up with a good book. She’s convinced her dog is a coyote and that her boyfriend might have more than a little werewolf in him.
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Other Titles by Samantha Stone
The Crescent City Creatures
Punished
Hunted
Enspelled
Healed Page 25