Page 4 of Make Me

The first time was normal, but the second time indicated that a sneeze was imminent. She mentally willed her lioness form to keep it in as her prey crept closer. She had been tracking him for the last half hour now, watching his gray pelt slink through the woods, unaware he was being stalked.

Almost there…

Silently, she sprung from the branch and jumped onto the unsuspecting wolf below. He yelped and crumpled to the ground under her. She grabbed the back of his neck between her teeth and gave it a playful shake before springing off of him.

The wolf growled and shifted back to a gangly twelve-year-old boy. “Bethany,” Cody complained, a pair of pants slung on his hips from his shifting charm. “That’s not fair.”

She shifted back as well, her own charm falling against her chest above her tank top. “It is too fair,” she said, hands on her hips. “Just because you can’t climb, doesn’t mean it’s not fair.”

“It is too not fair,” Cody stepped up to her. His recent growth spurt had him towering over her. “You cheated.”

“I did no such thing,” Bethany gasped, clenching her hands into fists. Her lioness growled in her chest. “If you didn’t want me climbing trees, you should have said it in the rules before we started the game.”

“That’s exactly what a cheater…”

Bethany tackled him, and they fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs. “You take that back!” She rubbed his cheek in the dirt. “I am not a cheater!”

He grappled with her, flipping her over and pinning her to the ground with both his hands on her shoulders. “Fine, fine, you little hellcat. You’re not a cheater. But next time, no fucking trees.”

“Oooo! You said a bad word!” Bethany teased him.

Cody had just turned twelve to her eleven, a fact he had teased her about for months. But she turned twelve next week, and they would be back to the same age again.

He rolled his eyes as he got off her, sprawling next to her on the ground. “So what? Are you going to tattle?”

“Hmmm.” Bethany pretended to think about it. “What’s it worth it to you if I don’t?”

Cody groaned. Her gaze caught on the healing cut on his eyebrow, and she decided to take it easy on him. She shoved him playfully on the shoulder. “You owe me a favor later.”

“I’m sure you’ll collect.” He grinned at her, then looked back up at the sky.

The land they were lying on had just been designated neutral ground for the pack and pride that bordered it. Even though both their grandparents had arranged an alliance decades earlier, the peace was still uneasy; shifters’ hot tempers often got the best of them. Bethany bet that she and Cody were the only ones who used the land since cats were snobby and wolves were brutish. Neither group saw any reason to use it when they had their own lands already.

Despite all of that, her and Cody’s parents still encouraged their friendship. At first, they had grumbled about being forced together but soon realized that it was actually kind of nice. As heirs to their respective shifter groups, there was a pressure on their shoulders that the other kids didn’t understand. Unlike the other shifter kids, these hours they got to play were few and far between. Starting at ten, their parents had started training them to take over the pack and pride one day. There were extra lessons at school and extra training sessions by the Deltas. The rare free afternoons they got, they usually spent playing together instead of with the other shifter kids.

The other cat shifters wouldn’t play with her the way Cody did. Especially not the males, as they wanted to ‘impress’ her instead. She wrinkled her nose. Alonzo was one of the worst. He was a tiger shifter who was related to one of the council members and thought his scat didn’t stink, as her mother would say.

Cody had different problems. The wolf shifters his age were constantly challenging his dominance, even in simple games like tag. Recently, he had been showing up to their hangout with more and more cuts and bruises, like the one adorning his eyebrow.

He caught her staring at it again. “Stop worrying, you worrywort.”

“I was just staring at how ugly your face was,” she said primly.

“Yours is uglier!”

“You take that back!”

She tackled him again. He threw her off and shifted into his wolf. He barked at her playfully. She shifted into her lioness and leaped at him. He batted her away and dipped into a play bow. He barked at her again, and she hissed at him before leaping.

They tussled under the trees for the next hour before collapsing in a pile for a nap. One day, when they turned eighteen, they would both find mates, then, when they turned twenty-two, they’d take over as Alphas. It was a destiny that was written in the stars, whether they wanted the responsibilities or not. But today, they were just two best friends asleep under the trees.

CHAPTER THREE

CODY

Age 18

Shifter lands

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