For a second, I tensed up again, but then I remembered how easily Wolfie had subdued my darker half up on the mountaintop. Even if I accidentally let her all the way out, the alpha would have no trouble taking control of the situation. And there was no one present at the moment but us, so even in the very unlikely scenario where I shifted to wolf form and escaped the alpha, I wouldn’t do any damage.
When I was first learning to control my wolf, it helped to visualize locking her away in her cage when things got difficult, so now I used the same visualization in reverse. My human self walked down the imaginary stairs in my mind, turned a key in her iron-barred door, and stood back to let her walk out.
As the canine stepped out of her dark cell, I mused that I hadn’t remembered my wolf being so beautiful. Could Wolfie somehow be making me see her through his eyes? Her fur gleamed and her eyes were bright with anticipation. She didn’t try to push past me the way I thought she would, either, but instead nudged her head up under my hand, and we walked together back up toward the surface.
“I can see her in your eyes,” Wolfie hummed happily, running one finger over my lips. If I’d thought his caresses felt good before, they were sublime now with my wolf’s emotions strengthening my own. It felt like the difference between hot chocolate from a cut-rate powder and the homemade version concocted from whole milk, cocoa, and dark honey. When Wolfie kissed me the second time, my wolf and I seemed to merge into one breathless, happy whole.
After what seemed like an eternity, but was also far too soon, Wolfie leaned back. “And that was lesson two,” he concluded, once again tweaking my nose.
Chapter 12
“I still don’t get why I can’t just hurry up and shift,” Keith complained a week later when we were once again hanging out at the werewolf compound. Despite his words, my nephew was ecstatic, surrounded by the pack’s nurturing acceptance. He and the yahoos (as Wolfie liked to call them) were playing poker in the living area while the alpha and I cooked lunch in the kitchen annex off to one side. From the amount of hooting and hollering going on out there, I had a feeling the card game used clothing removal for scoring.
Fen—the young woman who had first spoken to Keith a week ago and who was a bit of an honorary yahoo—was right in the middle of the action, and I know a human parental figure would have been shocked. Even as a werewolf, and despite knowing that Fen could take care of herself, I couldn’t resist drifting into the open archway between our two rooms as I heard her voice chime in to respond to Keith’s complaint.
“Because, kid, you’re still learning control,” the young woman said snottily, poking my nephew in his bare chest.
I had a feeling Keith had lost more games than he really needed to in order to display his physique in front of Fen … even though the gawky youngster didn’t have much to show off. The only clothing the teenager had left was his pants, presumably his underwear, and a lone sock, but Fen seemed entirely uninterested in the view. When you live among werewolves, strip poker just doesn’t have the same explosive impact.
“Once you can pull up your wolf partway and send him back down every time,” she continued, “Then you can go full-on wolf.”
“And once your Aunt Terra is ready, then you can shift,” Wolfie called over my head. The alpha didn’t even need to put any command into his voice to make the statement stick—despite their rowdiness, the yahoos were some of the most obedient young werewolves I’d ever met. I smiled up at the man who had made the last seven days a whirlwind of excitement. In human parlance, we still hadn’t made it past second base—Wolfie refused to go further until I felt 100% comfortable about the partnership with my wolf. But boy did second base feel good … .
“I think I need the kind of personal lessons Aunt Terra is getting,” Keith said, leering at Fen, who rolled her eyes and responded: “In your dreams, kid.”
***
“Why the big smile?” Wolfie asked as we left the younger set to their cards and retreated back to the stove to finish prepping a pot of chili.