Human Shifter (Book Three: A Werewolf BBW Shifter Romance) Read online

  Jordan said nothing as they returned through the woods, but when they shifted back at the edge of the meadow Damien finally spoke.

  "You saw Mara?" he said, pulling on his clothes. "How she acted?"

  "I told you, the girl has some things to work through," Jordan said. "She's not a danger yet, but she could be. You ought to put some sense into her before anything happens."

  "We'll see," Damien said. Jordan was right about one thing: Mara would be dangerous if she decided to leave. Trax hadn't told anyone else in his pack except the scouts that Julia was a purebred shifter. The rest of the scouts were dead, but Mara could easily get the attention of her former pack. And after finally being relieved that he could settle down, attention was the last thing Damien wanted.

  Jordan went off to work on his shelter, and Damien strode back through the meadow. Julia was sitting on the steps of the back porch, and as Damien came nearer he could sense a sadness in her that he didn't recognize from their previous encounters. He'd been sensing her emotions more strongly, lately, and with more nuance. Or perhaps it was that her emotions themselves were changing, becoming subtler, more pockmarked in her age. The thoughts that the feelings evoked became clearer. Enunciated, almost. Sometimes he swore that he could see the words exploding behind his eyelids in red and orange, like the way it used to look when you lay on the ground, eyes closed, the bright sunlight waving its way through the mottled and blowsy tree. The tree bending and shifting, gridding shadows on the backs of his eyes.

  The words came then in a flash—

  ... abandoned me. He abandoned ...

  "Hello, beautiful," Damien said. The words dissipated into dull embers under his eyelids. Julia's shields were up now that her attention was on him. Once she knew that he was feeling her thoughts, she immediately tamped them down. It saddened Damien to know that she could not trust him with her thoughts. He wanted to touch her shoulders with his hands, run them down her arms and over the inside softness of her elbow, over the curve of her waist, her hips. He wanted to whisper that he would never abandon her, that he was sorry for anything she felt.

  "Hello," Julia said. The cheerfulness in her voice sounded forced.

  ... abandoned ...

  Damien bent, kissing Julia on the forehead before sitting down beside her, his hands clasped between his legs. When he was with Julia, he felt almost as though he could see; that was how well he knew her body, could sense her movements, the whispers of her body's angles as she changed poses. The very air around her seemed to him to vibrate and pulse toward him.

  He had not told her how deeply he had begun to sense her emotions. He did not tell her that sometimes he could hear the thoughts that she was thinking before she opened her mouth to say them. There had been moments—not many, but they worried him—when he had sensed things too sunken for even Julia to know.

  A week after the bonding ceremony, Julia had been raving about Granny Dee's pies to Damien, whose stomach was growling just at the description of the crust. She'd been talking about a certain fruit pie.

  "And there was one more ingredient. I know this," Julia said, her hands clasped in loose fists against her temples, knocking against them slightly, the pensive thump of skin on skin. "We had a tree in the backyard—"

  ... loquat ...

  The word arose in his mind, the letters in red, the voice in her voice. He spoke without thinking.

  "Loquat."

  "Yes, that's it!" Julia said. "Loquats! And it was tart and sweet at the same time, but not too sweet, not, you know, cloying ... "

  She went on, but Damien's mind paused at what had just happened. He had heard her thoughts. The word loquat meant nothing to him—he'd never heard of the fruit—and it shocked him to have in front of him the proof that he could, to put it plainly, read her mind.

  He didn't tell her. From then on, whenever he heard her thoughts, he half-blocked them out. Not entirely, just turning down the stereo a bit so that he couldn't hear the lyrics exactly right. But sometimes, as when they argued over some small point, Damien found it useful to listen in on the half-formed phrases which floated into his senses. At times the words jumbled together and the sentences mixed themselves up, and he knew to take her hands and kiss her on the cheek, and let her rest against his chest for a while, until the whipping waves of her thoughts settled into an easy flow. Other times her thoughts would come out clearly, and at those times it was all he could do not to respond.

  ... it isn't fair ...

  The first time he had met Julia, he had heard her thoughts, but thinking back on it, he might have just sensed her emotions by nose—stress put out a powerful scent, and so did attraction. But the words, he swore he had heard actual words. He could not trust his memory until he began to hear the words again and not just hear them, but see them.

  Now he sat in silence, the tension between them twisting the air, making it hard for him to breathe.

  "Where did you go?" Julia asked.

  "To the edge of the territory," Damien said. Now that he was talking, the words of her thoughts were muffled. It helped a bit. "We might want to push out a bit farther to see where we can go. There aren't shifters for miles and miles around here. But it's probably good to keep close all the same. We don't have a large pack. Not yet, anyway."

  He was rambling, trying to figure out how to ask her what was wrong without making her angry that he could read her. Fortunately, she didn't go long without saying something.

  "It's lonely here," Julia said.

  "Lonely?"

  "When you go off. When you're all wolves, running out there." Julia shifted, the wood boards of the porch creaking slightly underneath her.

  "I wish you could come," Damien said, knowing that his words were not enough. He put his arms around her. Julia rested her head against his shoulder, her lips kissing his arm lightly.

  "It just seems like everything is changing so fast," Julia said, nestling into the crook of his arm. "And at the same time, I can't wait for some things to happen."

  A flash of longing then, so intense that it shocked Damien's body and he felt it too, the deep ache that Julia held inside of her.

  ... a family. Our family ...

  "We'll figure it out," Damien said.

  "Figure what out?"

  "How to help you."

  "Mara says the werewitch still lives there. In Trax's territory."

  Damien didn't speak. The tangle of emotions running through him was impossible to separate. There was fear, too, and Julia's fear, but also the undercurrent of longing, and he could not tell what his instinct told him to do.

  "If she can help me ... " Julia said, "If she could reverse it—"

  "We can go back there," Damien said, the decision coming to him as quickly as a rabbit jumping down a hole. As he said the words, a surge of hopefulness sprung up from within him—Julia?—and he knew that it was the right choice.

  "Are you sure?" Julia asked. "It would be dangerous."

  "We'll bring Dee," Damien said. "She'll be able to sense whether or not there are any purebred shifters."

  "And Jordan?"

  "Probably better to keep the group small," Damien said. "We'll move faster, attract less attention. And I'd like someone here to keep an eye on Mara."

  "Thank you," Julia said. She hugged Damien around the neck, and he squeezed her tightly.

  "Now if I'm not mistaken, I believe you have some classes to pick out," Damien said.

  "I was just waiting for Katherine to get back," Julia said, pressing another quick kiss onto his lips before leaping up.

  "Katherine?"

  "She's decided to start school too."

  "Really? She's so young," Damien said.

  Julia laughed.

  "She's the right age for a college freshman," she said. "It's me who's old."

  "Oh, right. I forgot how ancient twenty-two year olds are."

  "Absolutely ancient," Julia said. "I'm almost a fossil."

  "I hate to think what that makes me," Damie
n said, grinning. Julia's mood had lifted, and he was happy. The pack was whole, and if the journey to the werewitch went well, Julia would be able to shift. And maybe—it hurt him to hope for so much—maybe they would be able to have a child.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Julia

  Julia walked up the stairs, her heart swollen in her chest. He would go with her to Trax's territory—or what used to be Trax's territory. She would learn how to shift, and it would be wonderful! They might even be able to conceive ...

  As Julia reached the open doorway of her room, she reeled a bit and caught her hand on the door. The room had dizzied itself into pieces around her for a moment. So much had changed, so quickly. Would she be able to handle everything coming her way? A feeling of regret and disappointment struck then, crept its way up into her mind and wriggled into her nervous system with a low-pitched whisper of skin sliding across skin. The feeling was somehow alien, not her own perception. She'd never felt anything like it before. And then the door slammed shut beneath her, and Damien's presence was gone, along with the regret. It was then that she realized what had happened.

  She'd heard it, heard him. And not just heard him, but felt a strand of what he felt, the connection between them somehow sharing his emotion. It felt like a dark creeping vine branching its roots into her body. It felt itchy, itchy all over, the kind that goes away when you scratch and then comes back, itching harder. It felt at once like love and censure, woven into a complex web and growing, taking its hold into her heart if she would only let it. The more she listened, the more echoes she could hear. It felt like standing in the entryway of a large cavern with a light that does not reach the end: darkness you can't see the edges of. The kind of darkness that makes a primal shiver run down your spine, hissing through your nerves.

  It felt, she thought, like listening to God.

  "Are you okay?"

  Julia's attention swept back toward the voice, toward her room. Katherine was sprawled out on Julia's bed, her shoes still on, and staring at Julia.. Julia realized that her fingers were glued to the door frame. She probably looked to Katherine, and to the rest of the world, to be drunk.

  "Yeah," she said. "I'm fine." She shook her head and plastered a grin onto her face. "Whew! Just haven't had my tea yet today."

  "I've been looking through this," Katherine said, waving a folded-back course catalog in the air. "I already have a good idea of what I'm going to take. Well, a couple of classes, at least."

  "Really?" Julia asked. "Which ones?"

  "Botany, maybe. And math."

  "Math?"

  "I'm going to start with the most basic algebra, I think. I never studied it in my old pack, so I'm not sure how I'll do." Katherine ran her finger down the course description. "Linear and quadratic functions, systems of equations, graphing equations ... "

  "Sounds fun," Julia said, plopping herself onto the bed next to Katherine. When she'd first met Katherine, she'd thought that the slim blond beauty had been standoffish. It was a happy surprise to Julia to realize that Katherine's chilly exterior was merely a product of her shyness. She didn't talk much because she didn't have much to say, and because she hated to be nuisance. Julia got the sense that she'd been told to be quiet enough as a child that she'd absorbed herself into silence that came out as indifference. After a few conversations, though,Katherine became more open with Julia, sharing her thoughts and worries.

  "I don't want to do too much, just in case ... you know." Katherine nodded her head toward Julia.

  "Know what?"

  "You're trying to have a child too, aren't you?" Katherine asked, looking up from under her brows uncertainly.

  "I—well, I suppose so. Yes." Julia felt strange talking about it. The students at the college she'd met had been Katherine's age, but they all seemed so much younger, more immature. Here was Katherine, at age eighteen, talking about starting a family.

  "It will be so nice when we're done building our cabin, to have a home here. Not that your house isn't nice," she said to Julia, quickly, not wanting to offend. "But it would be nice to have a bit more privacy."

  "I understand," Julia said, laughing softly. She'd walked in on Katherine and Kyle kissing on the living room couch too many times to count.

  "But then we'll have some pups in the pack. I can't wait."

  "You're not nervous?”

  “Nervous about what?” Katherine looked up expectantly.

  "About having a kid. I mean, we're pretty young, aren't we?"

  “My mom had me at sixteen.”

  “To have a kid while we're in school, though. Won't that be hard?” Julia asked.

  “Why? Is college hard?”

  “I don't know,” Julia said, amused at Katherine’s innocent question. “I guess I always thought it would be. And having a kid is hard.”

  “Now that's something I don't understand about humans.”

  “What?”

  “Why you don't have packs. It makes things so much easier. Like kids. You just let them run around together, and the whole pack keeps an eye on them. I was talking with Dee, and she said that most humans leave their families behind before they start having babies.” Katherine shook her head. “Crazy, if you ask me.”

  “So you've always known you wanted kids?”

  “No! I never did, not before Kyle. I mean, if I didn't have a mate, it would be fine to wait on it, but now that I've found him ... ” Katherine shrugged. “It was different with Damien.”

  “You didn't want to have a child with him?” Julia said, swallowing. It still made her uneasy to think about Katherine and Damien as mates.

  “No, no, it wasn't like that. It was—he saved my life, and I would have done anything for him.” Katherine looked up quickly. “But we didn't share the connection. You understand. It was loyalty, not love.”

  “I guess I do. Now I do. I've never been in love with anyone else, though, not really. I never dated anyone before Damien. I don't know what that kind of relationship would be like.”

  “Not being connected? Not being able to share emotions?”

  “See, I can't sense him the way he senses me. The way you and Kyle sense each other.” Julia flushed, since the admission wasn't entirely true, not anymore. She'd sensed ... something from Damien today. She didn't know exactly what it was.

  “That would be hard, I guess,” Katherine said.

  "What do you mean, she left?"

  Damien's voice resounded up to Julia's room from downstairs. Julia and Katherine looked at each other with alarm. Moving in synchrony, they got up and looked down to where Damien and Kyle were standing in the living room.

  "It was a race. She won. I thought she would come back here." Kyle looked up at Julia and Katherine, an expression of guilt on his face.

  "She's not back here," Damien said.

  "Well, then where is she?"

  "I thought you would know," Damien said dryly. "You're supposed to be keeping an eye on her, after all."

  "I'm sorry—"

  "Let's search out, see if we can track her scent," Damien said.

  "Her scent's everywhere in this territory," Katherine interjected. "We've been running around scouting."

  "Well, we're not going to find her standing here," Damien said. "You take the western route, I'll take the east. Where's Jordan? And Dee?"

  "Out," Julia said. "They were going—"

  "If they get back here, tell them what happened. Tell Dee to take the north, Jordan the south. We'll be circling, they'll know the routes." Damien's voice was commanding, a leader's voice, and it was the first time since they'd bonded that he'd cut Julia off when she talked. She was taken aback.

  "Should I come?" Katherine asked, taking a step down the stairs.

  "No," Damien said. "You stay with Julia."

  "Is all of this really necessary?" Julia asked. "She might have just gone wandering in the woods."

  "She's the only one who knows that you're here," Damien said, his words heavy with meaning. "I'm alright with he
r leaving, but not unless she tells us why. And where."

  It was then that Julia felt the connection again, felt a twisting of emotion through her body that was not hers. It was Damien, and the emotion shocked her. For although intellectually Julia had known that there was danger that Trax's pack would find her again, the weeks that had passed since her kidnapping had been so calm that she'd grown complacent. Trax was dead, wasn't he? And none of the other wolves knew that Julia, a purebred female, was here. None of the wolves, except for Mara.

  But the emotion that now arced through her nerves made her shiver, and she knew for certain what Katherine had meant by being connected. She was connected to Damien now, and she knew what he felt, and what he felt made the hairs on her arms stand on end.

  Damien was afraid.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Damien

  Damien wanted to fly out of the door and run as fast as he could as soon as he heard that Mara was gone. He forced himself to keep calm while he was talking with Kyle. If they had a plan, it would be more likely that they would find her. In his mind, he saw Mara racing through the forest. She was fast—she had outrun Kyle. How would they catch up with her? Quickly he set Kyle off on one trail. He would take the other one. He would—

  "Damien, wait!" Julia's voice tore his attention back. She hurried to him, took his hand.

  "I need to go now," he said. "She's faster than we are."

  "You should wait for Dee," Julia said. Her fear came like a current through his body.

  "There's no time," he said.

  "Then take me with you. I don't want you going alone."

  "Julia," Damien said, pressing her hand with urgency. "I'll be fine. We need to find her."

  "Why can't I—"

  "You're a human!" Damien said, too forcefully. The shock of anger radiating from Julia struck him back. "Julia, I'm sorry. I just want to move as quickly as possible."

  "And I can't keep up."

  "Julia—"

  "I'm not part of your pack," Julia said. Her frustration pulsed outward, mixed with sorrow.

  ... alone ...