Page 47 of Shaped to Be Yours

I took a breath to steady my pulse and willed my monster sharpness away. Maybe it was too dangerous to sleep with Ricky, with anyone or any pet, when I could change unexpectedly, and I didn’t even know what form I might take.

The dream had never been like that before. Some of it had been the same, but it was different than remembering being bitten. The light was like what I remembered from the other day, finding the clearing with the unstable portal and that torn piece of flannel. I hadn’t seen any sign of the portal when I was attacked last summer. Had I? In tonight’s dream, the glowing eyes had seemed like they were inside of it.

And the voice…

The voice had sounded like Dad.

The only recording we had of him was on an old voicemail on a flip phone my mom kept charged. Silly and sad maybe, but people hadn’t constantly recorded every moment of their lives twenty years ago the way we did now. She was allowed to keep what she could. I wanted to listen to that voicemail now, but I had a date with needles and test tubes.

And a snake.

I think Ricky knew I’d had a nightmare, but he didn’t ask. All signs of it had been gone by the time he woke.

If having Whitmore over for dinner two nights in a row had been bad, then having him there in time for breakfast was worse. Just because we’d made peace didn’t mean I was a fan of his presence. He hadn’t even brought coffee as a peace offering! He’d be escorting us like some twisted motorcade, leading my truck with hisMen in Blackcar and its tinted windows.

“I’m sorry about all this, Mom,” I said before we parted for the day.

“I can handle the workload, honey.”

“I don’t only mean that.”

“I know. I can handle any new face you wear too. It has changed quite a bit over the years.” She said it with a smile, but I hadn’t shown her my new faces yet. She didn’t even know there was more than one. It helped that she never asked to see anything.

Showing Ricky had been different.

Showing Ricky had been… nice.

I let him drive the truck. He offered, since I was apparently very obviously in my own head this morning. The research facility was as intimidating as he’d warned me, and I couldn’t help feeling like I was being led to the gallows. He said it wasn’t as daunting once you got inside and spent time with the scientists, but I was skeptical.

They’re laid back! They’re quirky! They’re Kai’s parents!

Yeah. I still went in expecting the worst.

The size of the facility was discouraging enough. And how white it was. And how bright. I hadn’t had a physical since before my attack, and the first thing the scientists had me do was take off all my clothes and put on one of those paper gowns.

At least I’d managed to sneak a new note into Ricky’s jeans while he was taking a shower that morning. I got to witness the moment he found it too, just as I was coming out from behind the changing partition. Today it said twenty-five times:

I WILL DO BETTER

I figured that should still count toward my total.

Ricky gave me such an adoring smile, I almost felt like I could do this.

Whitmore was present but he had the courtesy to look the other way when I strolled over to the exam table. The gown didn’t tie enough in the back to keep my ass from hanging out.

Once the team got started on my tests, I told him, “Dude, it’s not like my dick is visible. You can look now. My ass is seated, and when I change, it’s covered in fur anyway.” I wasn’t worried about him. I was worried about the poking and prodding.

And there was plenty of that. Blood to draw. Scans to take. Yeah, I peed in a cup. All in all, not too different from a normal physical. Until they asked me to transform in front of them. The people at the base in Edgewind had made me transform too. Only once, for their records, which Whitmore had witnessed, so he knew what the wolf looked like.

The scientists didn’t ask me to remove the gown once I’d transformed, but they did have me go through the whole routine.More blood drawn. Scans taken. Yeah, I peed in a cupagain. Then we did it all a third time after I changed into the cat.

“When you are next here, please bring the cat that bit you as well,” Beck said.

“No way. I’m the guinea pig, not him.”

“Jason.” Ricky drew me in with his pleading tone. “We wouldn’t do anything a vet wouldn’t. The cat needs blood drawn anyway, tests taken, shots. He needs to be neutered.”

“They’regoing to neuter the cat?”

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