He looked up at her. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Can they all come?”
“Yep. That was Wally. I already spoke to Doug and Oscar. They’re going to fly up tomorrow. Wally will drive up. You’ll like them. They’re good guys.”
“That’s what Lina said.” She clasped her hands together in her lap. “Can you take me out and teach me how to shift?” she quietly asked. “Just you and me.”
He opened his arms to her. She moved to sit on his lap, her head tucked against his shoulder. She loved all three of her men, but all three of them had different strengths despite their nearly identical appearance. Brodey was most in touch with his wolf side. Even Ain and Cail admitted that.
He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “You’re not worried about ruining your nails?” he gently teased.
She laughed. “No, they’re dry.” She nuzzled closer, her eyes closed, deeply inhaling his scent. “I need to learn this,” she quietly said. “This isn’t fun and games.”
“No, babe, it’s not, unfortunately.” He rested his chin on top of her head. “And I’ll be serious teaching you,” he added. “I won’t screw around.”
She knew from his tone he was absolutely serious. “Okay. Can we do it now?”
“Yeah. Go change into some running clothes in case we need to use a chase to get you to shift.” He ran his hand up and down the seam of her jeans along her thigh. “Do you want me to have Ain or Cail come with us?”
She shook her head. “No. I want to be able to focus. Will their feelings be hurt?”
“No, babe. I’ll tell them.” He patted her leg. “Meet you outside by the pool in five.”
Brodey was waiting for Elain by the time she’d changed clothes. He took her by the hand and stared leading her toward the woods behind the house.
“Were Ain and Cail upset?”
“No. Honey, they understand you’ve been through a lot. And they know I’m a good wolf.” He smiled. “I might be the bonehead, but I’m good for a few things.”
“Stop putting yourself down.”
He laughed and slung an arm around her shoulders as they walked. “It’s okay. I know they’re joking. It’s like Cail and me teasing Ain about the stick permanently wedged up his Prime ass. Let’s face it, I do have a tendency to find trouble when there’s nothing serious at stake. I get bored.” He kissed the top of her head. “But now I have you and I have the best reason of all to stay out of trouble.”
They walked for several minutes, until they reached the pond where Elain had thought she’d caught sight of the mysterious shape.
She shivered despite the warm afternoon.
He frowned. “What’s wrong, babe?”
She nervously glanced around. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “Honey, with everything that’s happened in the past couple of months, you’ve got to be one of the sanest people I know. Spill it.”
“It’s nothing, I’m sure of it. It was just a trick of the light. I thought I saw…something.”
“What kind of something?”
“That’s just it. Like maybe it was a ghost or something. I don’t know.” She kissed him. “I don’t want to talk about that. I want to learn how to shift.”
He studied her for a moment but finally shook his head. “Okay. First of all, do you remember how you felt the night I chased you?”
She thought about it. “Sort of. To be honest, that’s all really fuzzy.”
He held her hands in his. “Okay. I chased you. You started running. Do you have any recollection about what you felt while you ran?”
She closed her eyes and tried to recall the events of that night. “I don’t know. It’s like I fell into some sort of trance or something. I remembered it suddenly didn’t feel right to be running on only two feet.”
“Good. That’s good, babe.” He gave her hands a gentle squeeze before releasing her. Then he stripped. “The first time I shifted was while I was running, too. Everyone’s different. Some people can shift from when they’re young kids. Some don’t start to shift until after they hit puberty. You didn’t know you were a shifter, so that’s probably why you never shifted sooner.”
He shifted into his wolf form. Like that, he obviously couldn’t talk to her, so he used their mental connection. “When I shift, I really don’t consciously think about it. I just visualize changing into a wolf.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Try it.”
“I’m not sure how.”
“Take your clothes off, for starters.”
She blushed, but started undressing. “You just want to get me naked.”
He chuffed. “Duh. But this time, seriously, I’m not trying to get laid. Well, not yet, anyways.”
Once she was undressed, she closed her eyes again. “Any suggestions?”
“Try picture being a wolf.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“You did it before.”
“Did you actually see me as a wolf?”
“No, but I smelled it when you shifted. You smelled like a wolf. So I know you did it. Just try.”
Elain tried to recall the night of the chase. Everything was so fuzzy. She’d been running, fleeing. Then it turned…
Fun.
She’d always enjoyed running. That was one of the reasons she excelled in cross-country in high school and college. Running was fun and just came naturally to her. She didn’t go jogging on a regular basis, either.
The smell of the breeze she created as she settled into a rhythm, the feel of her feet hitting the trail, the way her blood pumped through her body, her pulse pounding in her ears…
She opened her eyes and looked at Brodey. “I’m stumped.”
He chuffed and barked at her, his tail wagging. “You did it!”
“What?” She looked down and realized the ground was a hell of a lot closer than it should have been. Looking more closely, she realized she had four legs and paws instead of arms and legs and feet and hands.
Startled, she looked up at him. “How did I do that?”
“You need to figure it out, babe.”
“How do I get back into human form?”
“Now, honey, don’t pan—”
“Shit! Brodey, how do I shift back? I don’t know how I shifted!”
He shifted back into human form. “Babe, please, calm down!”
She realized her voice came out sounding as a panicked whine. “Brodey! I don’t want to stay a wolf!”
“You won’t stay a wolf. Just think about shifting back.”
“But I don’t know how I did it! I—”
She was suddenly lying in the dirt. She looked at her hands and broke down crying, relieved.
He laughed as he gathered her to him, rocking her, trying to console her. “Honey, it’s okay,” he gently said. “This is new to you. You’ll get the hang of it.”
“But I need to know how to do this before we go to Maine.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I just get the feeling it’s really important I know how to do this.”
He brushed her hair out of her face. “Do you think it’s related to the Seer stuff?”
She nodded.
“Okay.” He hugged her to him again. “It’s okay. We’re going to keep you safe, I promise. You have to trust us. I’ll help you but you need to stay calm for me.”
They spent the next hour working on her shifting. She finally figured out what to do to reliably shift into a wolf. It was more a feeling than a conscious decision. Visualizing herself as a wolf seemed to help her. Shifting back into human form was easier than shifting from human to wolf. If nothing else, she could rise up on her hind legs and that seemed to help her pull back into human form.