Page 10 of Mated

There’s a humming sound around me, coming through the walls. It takes me a moment to realize that it’s electricity. Like the buzz of a fridge that isn’t working quite right, or a malfunctioning fluorescent light, except it is all around me.

What the hell happened?

Was I drugged?

My tongue feels weird in my mouth. Larger and unwieldier than usual. Lolling out the side of my lips like there’s something wrong with me. I taste floor.

When I try to get up, I find myself on my hands and knees. But they’re not my hands and knees. They’re my feet and my feet. And they’re furry.

Some part of my mind is panicking. But another part of my mind is finding this all very natural, like I knew this was what I was all along, but I just sort of forgot. I’m given to worrying normally, but there’s no space for worry right now.

Instead, there’s a hunger.

I’m hungry.

Very, very hungry.

I get up and pace around the bathroom once or twice before heading for the door. The handle is round. I can’t get a grip on it with my teeth or paws. They all just slide off the material. Frustrated, I back up a few steps and look at the barrier. I am starting to panic, and there is nothing in my mind right now about respecting property. All I care about is getting out. In that regard, the door in front of me isn’t really an obstacle. My animal brain has always known that about doors, really. They’re more of a suggestion than a real barrier.

I back up as far as I can, I bunch my limbs up very tightly, and I make a run for it, breaking through the relatively flimsy barrier with impressive ease. It’s like tearing through paper as the door bursts off its hinges and splinters all around me.

I come flying through, landing on four agile feet. I am strong. And I am hungry.

Cain

I wasn’t ready for this.

When a female shifter is mated for the first time, she undergoes her first transformation. I should never have had sex with Kira in my office. When she passed out and shifted, my private elevator was the only way to get her out of the building without drawing attention.

New shifters are notoriously messy and troublesome. Not their fault, it’s just how it is when you go from thinking you’re a normal person to discovering that you’re actually a predator with all of the instincts of a wild beast and very little human control over any of them anymore.

I took her back to a place I have near the park. It’s quiet, and it’s pretty secure. Then I ran out for the meat she’s going to crave when she wakes up. I have an armful of meat in my hands as I look for my keys to unlock the door of…

Blam!

A loud, destructive noise comes from inside the apartment. That’s not good. That’s not good at all.

I should have put a thumb sensor on this door, though they’re not really as secure as people like to think. The lock on this thing is state of the art, but I need the right damn key. Okay. There it is.

I unlock the door, push it open, and a wall of fur and fear comes rushing past me in a blind panic. There’s no stopping her as she dashes down the hall, takes a left, and heads to the emergency exit. I give chase just in time to see her leap at it, her paws contacting the horizontal bar. The door opens, the building’s alarms sound, and the chaos is complete.

This is worst case scenario.

Most of the time, a newly shifted wolf won’t even know it has happened. They’ll exhaust themselves in the first shift and sleep until they’ve taken their human forms again. Apparently, my mate has more energy than most.

I drop the meat and give chase, but she’s already gone. I’ve lost my mate.

I should never have given into instinct in my office. I should have taken her to Denholm and mated with her there. If I could have just controlled myself, this would not be happening.

She’s loose in the fucking city.

She could be hit by a car. She could be attacking somebody, driven mad by prey lust.

I sprint after her as fast as I can, hating how restrained I am by human flesh. If I could take my wolf form, I’d be able to track her down in an instant. In my human form, I can still smell her trail, but not as strongly as I’d be able to.

More likely than not, in very short order I will be able to find her by following the screams.

The hunger of a new shifter is legendary. If one gets loose in a human population, casualties are pretty much guaranteed. More than one freshly shifted has been shot because she approached a human population with nothing but meat on her mind.

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