Page 36 of Wolf Reborn

Ash pulled the scented card out of Sawyer’s hand, sniffing disgustedly in its direction, muttering to himself that he didn’t know how he’d missed it. “Was this the last one?”

“Yep,” Sawyer agreed. “Should we try again with different stuff?”

Gavin could almost smell Miles’s hesitation. Or feel it. Something. He was fidgeting, lifting up on the balls of his feet and dropping back down, like a child who needed to go to the bathroom. He decided to put him out of his misery. “What’s up, Em?”

“I, um, I just...” He looked around the room, flushed, and dropped his head to stare at his feet. “You guys are going to think I’m ridiculous.”

Dez laughed, and very deliberately, but not very subtly, turned it into a cough. “If you hadn’t noticed, we just finished playing a literal children’s game. A whole pack of grown adults searching the house for some cookies. I don’t think we’ve got a right to judge ridiculous.”

“Not even if you’re about to ask where the rest of the cookies went,” Graham agreed. Ash turned betrayed eyes on him, which cleared up any question as to where the cookies had gone.

Gavin was never sure how Ash continued to be bulky with muscle instead of a growing belly, with as many of his boyfriend’s cookies as he ate. He must be running fifteen miles a day to keep it off at this point.

“I was just wondering at what point we, you know”—Miles broke off and bit his lip before continuing—“turn into wolves.”

Ash gave a short, sharp bark of a laugh and buried his head in his hands.

“Ridiculous?” Miles asked, as though the laugh confirmed his negative self-image.

“No, Em,” Gavin said, shaking his head and holding out a hand in Miles’s direction. He wasn’t sure what he was asking for, but Miles came to him without hesitation, leaning in and squeezing his shoulder tight as Gavin wrapped an arm around his hips. He didn’t get up, and Miles didn’t sit down, but it worked. “It’s not a ridiculous question at all.”

“We can, of course,” Dez answered when no one else spoke up. “You’ve seen that for yourself.”

Miles nodded, staring at him, waiting for more information.

When no one else spoke up, Dez sighed and rolled his eyes. “Seriously? Nobody? Am I the only adult in this room?”

“Sure are, honey muffin,” Sawyer agreed, giving him a mischievous smile and a wink.

“We usually only shift on the full moon, unless there’s a reason for it,” Dez said, turning to Miles and ignoring everyone else. A snicker went around the room, and he ignored that too. “I mean, we can shift whenever we want. The full moon, the dark of the moon. Right now, if you want.”

Miles listened intently and then nodded. “That makes sense. Seems in line with what I’ve seen already. Also, you don’t have to? We, that is. We don’t have to shift. Ever?”

“That’s right,” Graham agreed, but his voice held some doubt. “I mean, technically, we don’t ever have to change. Technically, we also don’t ever have to speak or stand up or shower.”

A ball of ice started to form in Gavin’s gut. That was not a conversation he wanted to have. He understood that, especially for those in the pack who’d been born wolves, it seemed anathema to never shift. It was something so basic to their nature; it simply was. He loved them and understood that they weren’t saying it to be cruel.

They didn’t even know Gavin was struggling. It would have been hard for them to know, since he’d made a point of keeping his problems to himself.

It was how he always dealt with problems. Airing one’s issues aloud was unseemly at best; that was what his mother had taught him. He’d grown up, and learned, and gotten past that ridiculous notion.

Mostly.

But he really wished the members of his pack would think about how their words would affect new wolves before they opened their mouths. Implying changing was that important put such a premium on the ability. It might make Miles feel pressured to succeed, and make it harder for him to do so.

So he squeezed Miles’s hip lightly to get his attention. “Keep in mind they were born werewolves. They look at it a little different than you, and that’s fine for everyone. You don’t have to if you’re not ready.”

Finally, Miles sat down, half on top of Gavin, head on his shoulder. “But what if I just put it off and put it off, and I’m never ready?”

“Then that’s what you do,” Gavin told him, reaching up to run fingers through his silky hair. “You don’t shift into a wolf, and just stay plain old werewolf Miles forever.”

Miles looked up at him through lowered dark lashes, the flirtatious bastard. He knew how to push all of Gavin’s buttons just right.

“Yeah,” Sawyer agreed from across the room, breaking the spell before Gavin could do anything about it. “It’s not going to cause any backup or moon madness or whatever if you don’t shift.” He said “moon madness” like he was introducing a B-grade horror flick for a Friday night showing on a local TV channel, and Gavin suspected it was a term he’d heard before.

It seemed like a term that would show up in werewolf lore, so that wasn’t a shock.

Miles sat up and looked out at the wolves watching him. “Okay, so let’s say I want to give it a shot. Like, today. Right this minute. How would I do that?”

---