Page 176 of Secret Shifters Next Door

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Nervous? Excited?”

“I’d say so,” he said with a grin.

“How do I do this? It’s been close to happening, but it’s always right at the edge. It’s like I can’t quite make the jump.”

“Okay. The easiest way is to visualize what you want to become. You can feel your bear inside you. I’m sure you have a thought in your mind about what it must look like. Visualize that. Really focus on it being real.”

That actually made a lot of sense. Whenever I felt my bear’s emotions, I always had a mental picture of it. What it would look like. I closed my eyes and brought that picture up and focused on it.

“Good,” Steff whispered. “Now, keep that picture in your mind, and just relax. Become more relaxed than you’ve ever been.”

My hand shifted into a paw, it was surprising and mind-blowing, but it took me out of focus. My hand changed back, and I had to restart. Then I noticed my teeth elongating, fangs beginning to grow, but those slipped away before they could finish. I was becoming frustrated when a massive fluffy head nudged me. I opened my eyes and saw Steff, in his bear form, nuzzling my leg. It was like he was asking my bear to come out and play.

When I looked into Steff’s massive bear eyes, it finally happened. I shifted. It was startling and one of the greatest things that had ever happened in my life. My body morphed and changed. Once I was done, it was like everything in the world had been turned up to maximum. Colors were brighter and sounds were more acute. And the scents? My God, I didn’t know you could possibly smellso many things.Steff rubbed against me and chuffed happily. He rose up on his hind legs and pawed at the air. I took the signal, and we ran together.

I followed him, letting him guide me through his domain. We galloped along a creek, splashing in the water until we came to a large, natural pool. We spent an hour with Steff teaching me how to fish with my new, gigantic paws. Steff was the only one to catch any fish, though. I’d always liked sushi, but when I bit into one of the trout he caught, I literally almost passed out from how good it tasted. It was crazy. It was amazing. I freaking loved every minute of it.

We finally got home hours later. It was deep into the night, and I was exhausted beyond belief. Steff shifted back to human at the edge of the forest. Then he turned back and took my bear face in his hand and looked into my eyes. “Okay, now do the same thing you did before, but in reverse. Relax. Allow your human form to take back over.”

I nodded and did exactly that. Shifting back to my original form was much easier, and I could already tell becoming a bearagain would be a simpler task than the first time. Steff pulled me into his arms and we held each other for several long seconds. I was so content in his arms that I could have stood there like that until the sun came up.

He buried his face in my neck. “I’m happy, April. I never thought I could have this with you. I spent so many years wishing this could be. I’d have traded anything I had to be with you.” He lifted his face and looked into my eyes. “I love you. So much. That never changed, and it neverwillchange.”

I kissed him. My mind, body, and soul were so overcome with emotion that I could only express it with a kiss. We’d been lost to each other for so many years. To be like this with him again was the greatest gift I’d ever been given. We’d been broken. Alone out in the world, desperately looking for the thing we’d lost. Now, we’d found it. We’d found one another again, and we would never let go again.

THIRTY-EIGHT

MILES

The clock read noon. I sighed and leaned back in the seat of my car. Thankfully, my parking spot had still been open. It was assigned to my apartment, but I was gone so often people sometimes used it without asking. The drive from Oklahoma had taken six hours, then I’d spent almost an hour at the office catching the guys up, and I hadn’t felt like walking three blocks.

My research trip had started two weeks ago at the start of November. The guys knew I would be gone a while, running down leads on the hunter cult. Ryland had never given us the leader’s name, but he’d given us enough clues about the bastard to give us an avenue to start looking. They were vague, but as the PI of the company, it was my job to try to figure these things out.

The search had begun with me looking into famous billionaires or multi-millionaires who’d gotten divorced or had wives who’d died. The results of that search had proven to be depressingly long. It seemed like one of the prerequisites to being filthy rich was to get divorced. I’d still managed to narrow it down to the last decade or so. That list had been a lot shorter.

The new hunter organization had only been around for four or five years. We knew this was true because the dragon clan slaughter Ryland talked about was well known in shifter circles.It had happened four years ago. It also looked like most of the group’s activity had been in the West, close to Colorado for the most part. Looking for local rich guys had seemed to narrow it down even further. There were five guys within a ten-hour drive that matched what I was looking for, so I left for half a month on a recon mission.

After watching each guy and digging into their finances and travel history, it was obvious none of them were who I was looking for. I drove back home this morning more than pissed off, knowing I was back to square one. I needed some rest to clear my head. The only way I could possibly do what I needed to was by being fresh and rested.

I got out of my car and walked up to the apartment. Unlike Tate and Steff, I’d never bought a house. I was always in the office or on the road too much. It seemed silly to me to pay for a home that would sit empty almost all the time. Plus, the landlord mowed the grass and took care of maintenance. It was a pretty perfect situation. I’d tried to explain it to them before they bought their houses, but they didn’t seem to understand how efficient it was.

Lilly Valley was a small town—there were only three apartment complexes in the whole town and they weren’t big. This one only had a dozen units. Mine was at the top floor, and since I’d just been sitting for hours in my car, I took the stairs instead of the elevator. When I got to my floor and turned the corner, I saw a very petite woman at the door opposite mine, struggling to open her door while carrying a half-dozen grocery bags.

I frowned. When I’d left, the apartment across from me had been vacant. It looked like I’d gotten a new neighbor while I was out chasing down billionaires. One of the woman’s bags was about to slip out of her grip and hit the floor. I jogged over quickly and snatched the bag out of the air right as it fell.

“Whoa, that was close,” I said, straightening up. “I’m Miles, from across the hall.”

The woman set her bags down, and my wolf suddenly perked up. When she stood and looked at me, every word in my mind flew out. It was like I’d forgotten how to speak. The entire world froze and there was a tug unlike anything I’d ever felt in my life.Oh, shit.I grinned like an idiot. She must have thought I was a moron.

She looked back at me with the most beautiful blue eyes I’d ever seen in my life. My stomach did a happy little flip, and I cursed the world for making my life so difficult. My wolf was more intense than he’d ever been. He was on his haunches in my mind, eyes blazing, breath panting. In my head, it growled a single word.Mate.

Continue readingfor Miles and Celine’s story inDetective Wolf Next Door

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