by Selena Scott
Diana straightened up and so did Ida. Diana took a quick sip of coffee and Ida did the same. Only, somehow, Diana’s coffee must not have been as hot as Ida’s because Ida squeaked as half her tongue was burned off and she was forced to swallow the hell-liquid in one blistering gulp.
Ida’s impossibly good looking co-worker, Quill Chabon, raised an eyebrow at her from across the table and looked like he was trying not to laugh at her. Ida lifted one hand to the side of her face so that Diana wouldn’t see and stuck her poor, injured tongue out at Quill. He rolled his eyes and focused back on Diana.
Ida did the same.
“All right.” Diana, with her sultrily beautiful face and severely high bun, surveyed the papers in front of her and then lifted those striking green eyes to each of her fifteen employees seated around the table. “It’s looking like October is going to be quite a full month for our roster. If any of you are feeling like you have too many clients as it is, please let me know. Otherwise, everyone will be gaining at least one mentee.”
Ida already had four mentees in her lineup, the most of every employee except Quill, but she didn’t say anything. She could handle five mentees no problem. She’d never done it before, but if there was one thing she kicked ass at, it was this job. She could handle it.
“Now, we have two ferret shifters who have been transferred from a shelter in Eugene and are looking for job placement.”
“Dibs!”
“I’ll take one!” Two employees whipped their hands into the air. Shifters who had not only graduated from a more basic center but had also been deemed ready to hold down a job? That was cake. Ida understood why they’d been snatched up so fast.
“Great. Next we have a mother and daughter, both badger shifters, who were reunited after the internment camps were shut down. They’re just looking for housing right now.”
“I’ll take both,” volunteered Kelly, a seasoned employee. “My schedule has been looking light and there’s no reason to split them up.”
“Excellent. Now, there’s a bit of a miscellaneous bunch in the middle here.” Diana went on to assign all the new shifter clients to the remaining employees, dismissing them when they had their assignments. Eventually, all that remained were Ida, Quill, and Rose. Quill, again, raised his eyebrows at Ida, communicating a great deal in that simple move. Ida wasn’t bragging when she said that she, Quill, and Rose were the most experienced and most talented mentors at New Day Shifter Acclimation Center. But that also meant they were often relegated the most difficult clients as well.
Rose looked a little chagrined, Quill looked slightly bored, but Ida could barely contain her excitement. She loved new clients, she loved the trust that Diana bestowed up on her, and more than anything, she loved hard cases. The hardest nuts to crack had the sweetest fruit when the chickens came to roost. Or something like that. Ida wasn’t sure how the saying went, but either way, she was stoked when Diana’s attention turned to the three remaining employees.
“Well, for you three, I have something a bit more special.”
Diana rose and her employees did the same, following her from the conference room and through the center. The center was a converted police headquarters and though Diana had done her best to make it a homey and comfortable place to work and be, there were still a few throwbacks to the old purpose of the building. Namely the one visitor’s room that used to be the interrogation room. It still had a two way mirror along one wall. Even though it was furnished with couches, a TV, and mini fridge filled with drinks and snacks.
Ida had never before stood on the other side of the two-way mirror, though she’d known it existed, because why would she ever need to spy on any of the clients? Either way, that’s where Diana took the group now.
On the other side of the glass were three people sitting on the couches, obviously siblings, though each had a unique look.
“So, meet the Wolf siblings.”
Wolf shifters, they must have been then, as was often the tradition for shifters who had no surnames to speak of before they joined the human world.
“They’ve lived exclusively in the wild their entire lives, though they all obviously know how to shift into their human forms.”
“Wow.” Ida leaned forward to survey the three people in the room. She’d never met a true shifter before. That is to say, a shifter who’d lived their life in their animal form as opposed to their human form. Now that she was really noticing, they all wore the baggy lost and found clothing they offered at shelters. The Wolf siblings were undeniably good looking people -especially the scowly one with the dark eyes- and this was made even more clear by the ridiculous clothing they wore. Not everyone could look that good in jeans torn at the knees and a cookie monster T shirt that strained to accommodate his shoulders. The other two looked just as attractive in their hodge podge clothing.
Ida leaned forward just a bit to get a better look and her forehead accidentally bumped against the glass of the two-way mirror. In unison, all three Wolf siblings turned and looked. She knew they’d just be seeing their own reflections in the mirror, but she couldn’t help but feel as if all of them had simultaneously looked directly into her soul. She shivered. There was something … not quite human about them. Of course, that was because they weren’t exclusively human. They were shifters. But still, no other shifter she’d ever met had looked quite as animalistic as these three. The one with the dark eyes in particular. His gaze sent a shiver down her back. And not in an entirely good way.
“Can they speak English?” Quill asked, leaning against one wall and casually surveying their new charges.
“Yes,” Diana said. “Though none of them are what I’d call chatty.” She flipped open her notebook. “They were raised as a pack, with both their mother and father until about fifteen years ago when both parents succumbed to an unknown disease.”
Ida made a small sound of distress but Diana didn’t even pause as she continued to give a rundown of the Wolfs’ lives.
“According to their entrance interviews, they split their time between their human and wolf forms when they were children, though they lived exclusively in the wild. They had no part in society. After their parents died, they stayed exclusively in their wolf forms with the exception of once or twice a month when they wanted to communicate with one another. And, ah, apparently the two brothers would occasionally wander into town in their human forms to, um, have relations with local women.”
Ida glanced at Diana to see that she was staring at her file folder as if she were trying to burn a hole into it with her eyes, but her ears and cheeks were an unexpected shade of pink.
Ida turned back to the Wolf siblings. She didn’t suppose that with faces like those either brother had had to try very hard to find someone to sleep with.
Ida looked back and forth between the three siblings, trying to piece together their lives in her head. It sounded like a nice existence, actually, the one they’d been leading. And if they’d spent so much time in their animal forms then she knew that being in their human forms was bound to be uncomfortable for them. As if to illustrate her point, the brother with the dark eyes shifted and winced, recrossing his arms as if he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the appendages.
Yes. Now that she looked, she saw signs of discomfort from all three of them. The other brother bounced his foot and scrubbed at his beard as if he weren’t used to its presence. The sister was curled into almost nothing on the couch, as if she were trying to make herself a permanent part of the scenery.
She imagined that they were far more comfortable as wolves. So, why would they be attempting to integrate themselves into society? Something major would have had to have been the catalyst for such a change.
“Why now?” Ida asked. “I mean, I know that it’s no longer a crime to be an unregistered shifter and the internment camps are gone, so plenty of folks are revealing themselves.” In fact the estimated shifter population had nearly tripled in the five years since Shifter Liberation Day. Mo
re shifters had been living in hiding than anyone had possibly dreamed of. “But that doesn’t strike me as the likely reason for these three. They don’t look like they’ve been dreaming of being human.”
“Astute,” Diana said with a nod in Ida’s direction. “In fact, they came in from the wilderness to seek medical care for the middle brother, Phoenix.”
Diana nodded toward the brother with the dark eyes and Ida felt something spooky trip its way up and down her spine. Phoenix. It fit him somehow.
“He was caught in that late spring forest fire in Gifford Pinchot. Almost killed in the blaze. His siblings dragged him out, took him straight to the hospital where he underwent major medical treatment for the burns. He’s been recovering ever since and he’s finally started on some rehab to get the muscles on his left side back in working order.”
Risen from the ashes. Phoenix. That spooky feeling started performing a double time dance step up and down Ida’s back. She couldn’t take her eyes off of the man. There was something feral, menacing, wild about him. She hoped she wouldn’t be assigned to him. It only took a glance at him to know that she’d be utterly outgunned in every arena.
“They blew their secret in order to seek care for him.” Quill leaned forward and squinted, trying as hard as Ida was to put their story in order in his mind. “So, why are they sticking around? Why not just blow dodge and leave their medical bills behind them?”
“I asked Orion that myself during his entrance interview,” Diana said, studiously looking at her paper and not at the other brother behind the glass, the one with shoulders like bowling balls, five mile legs and a blunt, handsome face. “It seems that Phoenix hasn’t been able to shift due to his injuries.”
Ida lifted a hand to cover her mouth. “Even during the full moon?”
Diana nodded.
That spoke to the seriousness of Phoenix’s injuries. It was the rarest of cases that a shifter wasn’t compelled to shift on the full moon. Only when the shifter’s body knew it might kill them to make the shift.
Diana shook her head. She couldn’t imagine how much pain the man must have endured since the fire in April. Not only recovering from what must have been horrible burns, but also being compelled to stay in his less-desired form? Being forced into one form or another could be very uncomfortable for a shifter.
“So all three siblings are sticking together?” Rose asked, speaking up for the first time. “They’re all choosing to stay in their human forms?”
“At least for now,” Diana said, snapping the file closed. “And they’ve decided to try to assimilate into human culture in order to make sure that Phoenix is getting the highest level of care while he recovers. They aren’t interested in living on the outskirts of humanity. They went straight from the hospital to Multnomah County Shifter Services.”
Ida winced on the inside. MCSS was state funded and about as rudimentary and overworked as it could possibly get. She was certain they hadn’t been treated with much care there.
“They were set up with housing through MCSS, but that’s about it. They’ll need everything from job placement to etiquette lessons. They’re all a bit … rough around the edges.” Diana cleared her throat. “Any preferences on who you’re assigned?”
“I’ll take the girl,” Quill spoke up immediately. “She looks a little easier to deal with than the brothers and to be honest, I’ve already got a pretty full schedule.”
Ida bit back her disappointment. She’d already let herself imagine taking the dark haired woman to the hair salon. Showing her the wonders of a new haircut, a manicure, a day at the mall. But, she couldn’t fault Quill for wanting to take the easiest of the bunch. He already had five other clients to mentor after all.
“Her name’s Dawn. I think you’ll like her,” Diana said, making a note in her file. “Though I can’t say for sure considering I’ve barely gotten her to say more than three words to me.”
“I’ll take the big one,” Rose said quickly, her eyes bouncing back and forth between the brothers, obviously weighing her options.
And what intimidating options they were. One brother was gigantic, frowning, a mountain of muscle. And the other brother was scowling, death-stared, and seemed to be twitching with pain and discomfort.
“Great. Like I said, his name is Orion. So. Ida, that leaves you with Phoenix. Thoughts?”
Off the top of her head? Run fast, Ida. Away from the evil-eyed wolf. Save yourself! Duck out of this particular job! But Diana was looking at her with such confidence, such surety, that Ida couldn’t bring herself to say that she was freaking out too much to take Phoenix on as her client. “Um. Sure. Sounds good.”
Quill smirked at her, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, but Ida ignored him and pasted on a wide smile for Diana.
“Fabulous,” Diana said with a brisk nod of her head. “Well, there’s nothing left to do but to meet them.”
***
These people should know better than to jam shifters into a windowless room. Phoenix scowled at the four walls that seemed, with every breath he took, to tighten in an inch or two. Call him paranoid, but he was almost positive there was something screwy about that mirror too.
According to the physical therapist that Phoenix had started seeing three times a week, the New Day Center was the best shifter assimilation center in Portland, Oregon and he and his siblings had lucked out with their placement here.
It did not make Phoenix think highly of shifter assimilation centers if the best one there was didn’t know better than to put him in a cage. Well, a cage with couches and a bowl of fruit but still. A cage was a cage.
The door juddered as it was pulled open and all three Wolf siblings swung their heads to see who was coming in.
It was that Diana woman again. The one who wore her hair tight enough to make Phoenix’s scalp ache just looking at her. Apparently she was in charge around here and Phoenix could understand why. She had a real bird-of-prey thing going on, eyeing everyone with barely masked suspicion, ready to strike with speed and accuracy the moment she scented danger.
Orion rose up as Diana stepped into the room. Dawn shrank back against the couch. Phoenix didn’t move a muscle. He badly wanted to rise to his feet and stand alongside his brother. He wanted to show that he was not caught unawares. That he would protect his siblings at all costs. That he was fit and ready for whatever came next.
But the frustrating truth of the matter was that he was not fit. And not only could he not protect his siblings right now, he was a total liability to them. Not to mention the fact that in order to rise up and stand alongside Orion, he’d have to grab the most-hated crutches that leaned against the side of the couch and drag his aching ass up. Only to then limp across the floor.
No. He’d rather look like he didn’t care than appear wounded. He lifted his hands and folded them behind his head, letting his eyes go dead as he stared at Diana. He kept his expression blank as three people filed in after her.
One of them was a male. Large, though nowhere near as large as Orion. From the scent coming off of him, he was a shifter as well. Black bear maybe.
Phoenix desperately wanted to rise to his full height in the presence of this unknown male. He gritted his teeth and bit back a growl. Dawn shrank back even further.
The other two people were females. One had dark, almost black hair and was pretty. The kind of woman that Phoenix would go for if he were trying to mate for the evening. The other had short red hair and leopard print glasses that looked like they weighed a half pound. He sneered and looked away, not in the least understanding why humans chose to adorn themselves in such ugly, useless fashions. Did that woman honestly think that she could adequately flee from danger with those things sliding down her nose?
“Orion, Dawn, and Phoenix, I’d like you to meet your mentors.” Diana stepped aside and swept a hand toward the three new people. “As I explained before, your mentor will be on call and at your disposal for whatever you might need over the next few months
. They are trained to help you assimilate into human culture and to help you cultivate and stick to goals for your future.” Diana cleared her throat. “Dawn, we’ve matched you with Quill. Phoenix, we’ve matched you with—” please not the goofy redhead, please not the goofy redhead, please not the goofy redhead. “Ida.”
Damn. They’d matched him with the goofy redhead. Who was smiling nervously at him while she wiggled her fingers around in what he supposed was some rendition of a wave. Waving in general was a human tradition he was familiar with. Whatever the hell this woman was doing with her hand was not something he’d seen before. He glanced at her hand and then back at her face. Whatever expression he was making, it made the redhead drop her hand and shift on her feet.
“And Orion, you’ll have Rose.”
Lucky bastard. His brother got the attractive one—
“I thought you were going to mentor me,” Orion cut in, his blunt-featured face pulled into a slight frown.
“Me?” Diana asked in surprise, her professional demeanor slipping for the first time since she’d stepped into the room. “No, no, no. I don’t mentor shifters anymore. I run the center. No, no. Rose here will be a great match for you.”
Orion looked wholly unconvinced.
“I’ll trade you,” Phoenix said, looking at his brother lazily. “Yours is more attractive than mine.”
There was a sudden tremor that rocked over the humans in the room and Phoenix became immediately aware of the fact that he must have committed some kind of faux pas. Humans had a very different way of communicating with one another than wolves did. Their rules of etiquette had more layers than a tree had rings and Phoenix didn’t understand a fraction of them.
He generally didn’t care when he broke some arbitrary human rule, but this time, because of what he’d said, the redhead had ducked her head and let her hair fall in her face. Her shoulders were tucked in a bit.
A strange instinct whipped through Phoenix. A protective one. He’d hurt the woman, inadvertent as it may have been, and now he found himself angry at himself for his ignorance and his carelessness. Maybe it was because the woman was small and fragile looking, like his sister, but Phoenix felt an unexplainable need to make up for the pain he’d caused her.