Crystal slowed as she considered Gwen’s words. Her, athletic? She’d never been athletic! Not since she quit playing volleyball and basketball in junior high because she’d been teased about being so big and strong because she developed before the other girls on the team did. That was when she started putting on weight, too. The food never teased her; it just tasted good and made her feel like she was in control.
Crystal pushed herself when she saw Gwen glance over her shoulder at her. She was amazed that her boobs weren’t flying all over the place and hurting like they did in gym class. The platinum-haired wild woman was grinning. “Keep up with me!” she called to her.
Crystal nodded and then nearly stumbled again when Gwen leapt forward and shifted in mid-air to a silver-streaked wolf. She landed on all fours and kept running. Crystal slowed to regain her balance and then pushed herself forward. Her lungs were aching and her legs were starting to feel numb. The numbness turned into a tingling that felt like tiny sparks were striking her thighs.
She forced her thoughts on the wolf jogging ahead of her and looking back every few steps. Gwen had challenged her to keep up and she was going to do it, no matter how much it hurt! Gwen acted like she knew something Crystal didn’t. A lot of things, probably. Was one of them how to turn into a wolf?
Crystal bit her lip and thought about what it would feel like to have fur and run on four legs. She imagined herself, a dark brown wolf with gold-speckled brown eyes, and felt herself wanting it so badly she believed it could happen. She threw herself forward, jumping and reaching with her arms to catch herself and keep running.
Crystal slammed into the ground and rolled with her legs and arms flopping until her body made a sickening crack when it was stopped by the base of a thick tree.
Chapter 8
Crystal walked back into the miniature trailer park with Gwen at her side. Her feet dragged and she felt like she should be limping even though her injuries had all healed. Guntar was tinkering with his bike and looked up as the women cleared the edge of the trees.
“Have a good talk?” he asked.
Gwen glanced at Crystal and smiled. “Very good, I think.”
“Sure,” Crystal added. “Then I learned how to feel nature.”
“Feel nature?” he asked.
“Yes, with my face, knees, elbows, butt, and just about everything else.”
Gwen giggled at the baffled expression on her mate’s face. “We went for a run and she fell down.”
“Twice.”
Gwen nodded. “Tripped. But she’s going to keep trying.”
Guntar looked her over. “Clothes don’t look dirty.”
“She wasn’t wearing them,” Gwen said, much to Crystal’s embarrassment.
“Oh,” he grunted. “Best not try that with anyone other than Gwen or Ember.”
“Oh my God.” Crystal groaned. “Don’t worry, I won’t!”
He nodded. “Got to learn to not be so clumsy.”
“She’s working on it,” Gwen assured him.
“I only tripped once,” Crystal muttered.
“What?” he asked.
Crystal saw Gwen looking at her with her head cocked. “You fell twice?”
Her cheeks heated as she admitted, “I, um, I thought maybe I could do what you did the second time.”
“What I did? You mean change?”
Crystal nodded.
“Oh no, not yet,” she said while shaking her head. Guntar laughed. “The blood hasn’t transformed you yet.”
“You said if I wanted it enough and got in touch with nature, I could make it happen.”
Guntar groaned and stood up from where he’d been kneeling beside his bike. He dusted his hands off on his pants before saying, “Sounds pretty, but the truth is nobody knows if that makes a difference. Nobody’s ever been able to change before their time’s up.”
“My time’s up?” Crystal asked.
“The four weeks or so.”
“Or so? Does that mean it might be sooner?”
“Or longer,” he said. He glanced around and focused for a long second on the spot where Adrian’s bike would be if he were there. “Adrian knows the lore better than any of us do. He’s our unofficial historian.”
“So what’s this change like?”
“Turning into a wolf?” Gwen asked.
“No, this four-week thing. You know, where I might die?”
“Oh.” Gwen turned to look at Guntar.
“You’re going to get sick. Real sick.”
“Sick? Like swine flu sick?”
Guntar scowled. “What’s that?”
“It’s a nasty version of the flu,” Gwen explained. She turned back to Crystal and smiled. “The good news is, after your change, you may never get sick again.”
“If I live.”
Gwen smiled. “There is that.”
Crystal rolled her eyes and looked back at Guntar. “Okay, but you said my face changed when you fed me the, uh, meat from the Beast.” She couldn’t bring herself to admit out loud that she’d eaten his heart. Even thinking about it made her squirm.
Guntar’s eyes narrowed and he nodded. “True. And that was real early on.” He shrugged. “Like I said, we got no way of knowing if it makes a difference or not. Never heard of that before, though.”
“I hope it doesn’t mean I’m going to turn into something like him.”
Guntar chuckled and Gwen reached over to squeeze her arm. Both women looked down at it and then back into each other’s eyes. “Guntar, her second fall was a bad one. Scraped herself up from head to toe and knocked herself silly for a few minutes.”
“Looks fine enough now,” he said while openly appraising her body.
Crystal blushed and was thankful that she’d dressed before leaving the woods behind her, no matter what Gwen said about how none of them cared about modesty.
“That’s just it! She broke her arm against a tree too, but now she’s fine.”
“My pride’s still hurt,” Crystal admitted.
Guntar and Gwen both laughed.
“It wasn’t broken bad enough to need setting,” Gwen said, “but I watched it straighten a little and knit back together. I’ve never seen anyone heal that fast, especially before their first change.”
“Wait, is it change or first change? I’m getting confused. I feel like I’m going through puberty all over again!” Crystal glanced down at herself and then looked at Gwen. Gwen wasn’t busty by any means but she had an average figure that was maybe a touch on the lean side. Smaller than Crystal, at least. “Oh God, please don’t tell me my boobs are going to get any bigger!”
Guntar snorted and stomped his foot. Gwen smiled and shook her head, and then glanced at her mate and sighed for Crystal’s benefit. “No, you should lean out and harden up some more, I think. Even more if you keep running with me.
“We’re talking about the same thing when we talk about your change. That’s part of you getting sick and feeling like sleeping with a half dozen of those beasts would have been a better idea. When you’re done, if you survive, you’ll have shifted for the first time. Hopefully not the only time.”
Crystal nodded. One shift meant she’d become like the Beast. Then they’d kill her. Or she’d kill them. Either way, it wasn’t something she wanted. She pushed the unpleasant thoughts away and looked around at the trailers. Ember’s bike was gone too. “Where’s Hank?”
“Probably writing something about a beautiful young girl in trouble who needs rescuing from dark forces,” Gwen said.
“What?” Crystal asked.
Guntar chuckled and shook his head. “He’s in his trailer. You’re not allowed in there anymore. Not without a chaperone.”
Crystal stopped after taking her first step and blushed. The thought of getting Hank alone in his trailer had pushed everything else out of her mind. “Oh my God,” she groaned. “When is this going to stop?”
“Come on, I’ll take you back to school,” Gwen offered.
The
thought of facing Beth and Stephanie and all of the other students washed over her like an avalanche. She sighed. “Do I have to?”
“Yes,” both of them said.
“You’re worse than my mother,” she griped.
“Then she’s not strict enough,” Guntar said.
Crystal looked at him and chuckled. “Sounds like something she might say. Fine. I’ll go. But if anybody gives me any trouble, I might end up getting kicked out of school for fighting.”
“Don’t do that,” Gwen said.
Guntar let his eyes burn into hers as he said, “You can do things they can’t. If you get in a fight, you’ll lose control and they’ll know.”
“They’ll know what? That something’s wrong with me?” Crystal challenged.
“Not wrong—different,” Gwen said.
“Better,” Guntar added.
Crystal bit her lip and nodded. “Okay, no fighting. But can I at least defend myself? Just in case?”
“No,” they said in unison. Guntar was quick to explain, “Any other time I would say yes. But not until you come into your own. Just remember, whatever they do to you, you will heal. Probably before they walk away. They’d need something special to truly hurt you.”
Crystal wrinkled her nose and nodded. “All right, I’ll be good,” she said. She started to turn towards Gwen and then stopped. “Hey, wait—you said they’d need something special. Like what? Silver bullets or something?”
The thought of silver made Crystal turn and look at the necklace Gwen wore. “Wait, you’re wearing silver! Is that another Hollywood myth?”
“White gold,” Gwen said. “It’s hard to tell the difference.”
“She wears it to mess with people,” Guntar said.
“Mess with people? What people? I thought nobody knew about you?”
Gwen and Guntar shared a look that told Crystal she wasn’t being told everything. She opened her mouth but Gwen turned back and shook her head. “Not now, sweetie. Later, after your change, if not before, we’ll explain.”
Crystal frowned. “But—”
“No buts,” Guntar said. “And quit stalling. Get to school. You’re feisty enough to be alpha material someday. That means you’ll need as much education as you can get to keep yourself and your pack safe.”
Crystal’s eyes widened. Her, an alpha? She bit her lip and nodded. She turned to Gwen and then glanced back at Guntar’s bike.
“Not the bike. One of the trucks.”
“Trucks?”
“How do you think we move the trailers?” Gwen asked.
Crystal clamped her lips shut and followed Gwen behind the trailers and down a two-lane path to a dirt parking lot with five full-sized trucks parked in it. She saw one Ford, two Dodges, and two Chevys. All of them had at least a few years and a little rust on them, but they looked to be in good enough shape.
Crystal turned around and saw the trailers through the trees. She shook her head and realized she must have been blind to not see them until now. Blind or preoccupied with thoughts of spending quality time with Hank. Maybe one of the trucks had a bench seat that would make a good place to hide with him?
“Come on,” Gwen said, breaking Crystal out of her fantasy. “Hop in.”
Chapter 9
Crystal made it through the afternoon at school without any mishaps. Stephanie was missing and Beth, when she saw her, ignored her. Crystal let her friend go after her first failed attempt at catching her attention.
The flip side to not forcing a confrontation was that Crystal found herself without a ride home. She stood staring at the parking lot and wondered what she was going to do. Two walks in one day? Or maybe she should strip her clothes off and run home. She grinned at the thought and then shrugged. “Walk it is,” she mumbled.
Crystal turned and started walking. She was halfway around the school when she heard the crunch of gravel under tires slow. She turned and saw a green Ford Mustang pull up beside her. It was Chad Dixon, the same guy who threw the party Crystal had run from before being attacked by the Beast.
“Hey Crystal, what are you doing?” he asked through his open window.
Crystal’s eyes narrowed. “Walking.”
“Where you going?”
She turned and considered a few smart ass responses before discarding them. What was he up to? He’d barely said two words to her since junior high, and that had been to tease her. She was surprised he even remembered her name. “I’m going home,” she said.
“Want a ride?”
Crystal stopped and turned to face him. “Why?”
He laughed and glanced in his rearview mirror. Crystal knew no one was behind him. A few cars were coming, but there was room to go around him. “Just trying to be nice. I’ve never seen you walk before. I figure it’s far enough to be a pain in the ass.”
Crystal frowned. It was a couple of miles.
Chad didn’t give her a chance to think long. “I gotta go. You coming or not?”
“Sure, why not,” Crystal said. She walked around the front of his car and reached for the doorknob. She looked up, expecting him to jam the pedal to the floor and take off on her. She was almost surprised when the latch gave and the door clicked open. She smoothed her skirt and sat down before picking her legs up and swinging them in. She held her purse in her lap and pulled the door shut.
“Where we going?” he asked as he pulled away from the curb.
“Twinoak, past Gage Street.”
“No shit? I partied over that way over Christmas break. A junior named Ed or Ted, I think.”
Crystal blinked and turned to look at him. “Jed, actually. Jed Brooks.”
“Jed? Huh, somebody really has the name Jed?”
Crystal blinked and turned to see the streets passing by. After he missed the first turn, she turned to question him about it.
Before she could say anything, he asked, “So I heard you knocked Steph’s crown off her head this morning.”
“Uh, what?”
He nodded. “Yeah, surprised her and left her talking about you all morning before she went home.”
“Oh yeah?” Crystal asked, surprised. She wanted to know more; nobody had said anything to her at school. Probably because she’d been afraid to ask. “So, uh, what’d she say?”
He smirked. “She wouldn’t shut up. Started out with talking about how you couldn’t stay away from her.”
“Oh my God,” Crystal groaned.
He laughed. “Before she left, she wouldn’t stop talking about how strong and crazy you were. She kept saying you overpowered her and she didn’t have a choice.”
Crystal groaned.
He grinned and said, “I think you rocked her world. Why else would she go home?”
“I was just trying to mess with her,” Crystal said. “I’m not like that. Really.”
“Not like what?”
“Into girls.”
He shrugged. “That’s cool. Kinda hot if you were, but hey, whatever.”
Crystal groaned and turned to look out the window.
“You guys must go a ways back, right?”
“No.”
“You got a lot of the same friends then?”
His question made her miss her chance to ask about the next street he passed. “What are you getting at?”
“She left on the back of a motorcycle. Same red-haired chick you were with the other day.”
“Ember?”
“Amber? Who’s she?”
“Ember, with an E,” Crystal said. She remembered Gwen asking Ember to take care of Stephanie. Take care of her how, she wondered? “She’s a friend. I didn’t know she knew Stephanie, though.”
“Oh, cool name.”
“Better than Jed?”
He laughed. “Yeah.”
“Chad?”
“Huh?”
“Where are you taking me?”
“What? Oh, shit! I forgot. Sorry, I was headed to my place. We’re almost there now—want to stop? My folks won’t be h
ome for a while. I can get you a beer or something.”
Crystal stiffened. “No, take me home, please.”
“Damn, relax. I just thought you might like something to take the edge off.”
“No edge here. I’m good, thanks.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, whatever. Look, you’ve done some great stuff lately. You’re looking hot as hell. I’m just saying, with the right friends, you could come out looking good. Don’t you want to finish school on top?”
Crystal stared at him. “Really? You’re really going to do that?”
“What? I’m offering to help. I think Steph’s falling hard and you did that. You don’t want that to go to waste.”
“Stop the car.”
“What? Here? Are you crazy?”
“I guess so. Stop the car, please.”
He stared at her and saw her unflinching gaze. He scowled and jammed on the brakes, jerking her forward in her seat and barely giving her time to get her hand between her face and the dashboard. Her fingers were caught in a molded crevice and popped when her head hit her arm. Her head bounced back and blood gushed from her nose onto her lap and shirt.
“Holy shit! Don’t get that on my car!”
Crystal grabbed her nose with her good arm and pinched it, wincing at the pain. Tears blurred her vision from the pain in her fingers and face but Chad’s attitude made her forget about that as a heat spread from her chest throughout her body and left her panting and sweaty. She turned to face him.
“Jesus, Crystal, be careful!”
“Be careful?” Crystal asked. She grimaced at how nasal she sounded with her nose pinched. She looked down at her ruined clothes and back up at him. “I’m not the dick who slammed on the brakes!”
“You told me to stop the car,” he said. His eyes widened as he glanced down. “Shit! You’re getting blood on my seat.”
She clenched her fist, the same one that had been jammed into the dashboard, and felt her fingers grind and pop. The fresh heat flared up her arm and made her snarl at him. She’d show him blood!
“Just remember, whatever they do to you, you will heal.” Crystal forced herself to release the tension in her hand when she remembered Guntar's words. That didn’t mean Chad didn’t deserve to be punished, though. Crystal spun away from him and opened her door. She climbed out of it and let go of her nose. It had already stopped bleeding. She grabbed the door with her injured hand and slammed it shut as hard as she could. She saw the shock on Chad’s face and had to fight a vicious smile.
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