Page 86 of Shaped to Be Yours

“Yep, all of us,” Miles said, sitting at the kitchen island with Warner and Ursino. I was on the sofa next to Ricky. And Cael was standing right in front of us.

Tall and willowy like a normal man who’d been abnormally stretched, Cael was almost entirely black from his skin to his hair to the suit he manifested as his clothes. He didn't wear a tie, but he did have a red flower pinned to his lapel. His face was the really spooky part, because while he had a fairly normal nose, hissmile filled the entire bottom half of his face and showed way too many teeth with points that looked like razors, and he had two sets of eyes—meaning four total—that were white irises on red everywhere else.

Super freaky, but really cool, especially when his tentacles came out.

“Don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt,” I told Ricky. “It’s just a little jarring. And we’ll be right here the whole time until you wake up.”

“I’m a scientist,” Ricky said with a chuckle, and only a slight waver in his voice. “Nothing quite like rewiring your brain chemistry to meet new people. Ha! Okay.” He took a breath, settling one hand on his stomach, and the other he reached over to take hold of mine. “I think I’m ready. Cael? Are you there?”

“Hello, Ricky,” Cael said.

Ricky was out in two seconds flat.

Epilogue

JASON

ONE YEAR LATER

“Good morning, Officer Breckt.”

“Boscos,” the ogre guard greeted us.

It was routine now for me or Dad—sometimes both, like today—to do a comprehensive sweep of the woods. We didn’t worry about protesters or people trying to sneak to and from the portal anymore, but there was a lot to take stock of and to report on when running what was now a state park.

Normally, a year would have been the shortest possible time frame to get the land declared such, but given Dad haddone the research previously and had started the process over twenty years ago, and because the portal was considered federal property now that it was stable and had been made public, the process had been fast-tracked. We had been official park rangers for over three months.

It was awesome.

“Anything to report?” Breckt asked from her post beside the portal.

There was a bit of a structure around it now, like the official one, so it looked like a freestanding doorway. There was also a more permanent canopy over the area, but because the portal resided in a state park, we had lobbied for it to remain as open to nature as possible.

Ricky’s team had needed to bury a few stabilizers in the ground—something he understood, since it was the same as what was in the walls and floor of the portal room in the facility—but that was it. It made what structure was there seem in complete contrast to the trees, but seeing the flux of shimmering colors like oil on water, stable instead of sparking, was a true comfort.

Of course, keeping things mostly open to nature meant the bathroom for the guards was still a porta potty. There was only ever one guard on duty now at any given time, even at night, because humans wanting to travel to the monster realm tended to not use this one, unless they really wanted to meet the leshy. And they could if they planned their visit ahead of time, but since only a few of the leshy had expressed interest in immigrating or even visiting, an occasional ambassador passing through was usually it.

And it was usually only me and my folks, going over to visit my dad’s side of the family.

“You?” I asked Breckt.

“Boring as it should be,” she answered. “Keep staying out of trouble, okay?”

“No promises,” my dad joked.

Sometimes we turned into one of our other forms for patrol, either to commune with the woods, to calm a frightened animal, or just to frolic as one of the other parts of ourselves, but usually we were human. I think Dad had missed it, honestly, because it made him feel closer to me and Mom.

We were just about done for the day, and it was beautiful out, warm and sunny. I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of being able to spend so much time just out in the elements, and it was my job, that I got paid for, by the state. Even better was having Dad part of it with me.

“Oh, shoot, son, look at the time,” he said, checking his watch. “We should get back.”

“One more stop, remember? See you around, Breckt!” I called, and then shifted into the werewolf I’d once thought was all I was so Dad would remember our final visit.

He turned into a werewolf with me, and we bounded toward a particular spot in the woods not far away. One with an easy to miss cave on the side of a hill covered by trees.

Confessing about the wolves had been a little dicey, but several people had encountered them during the chaos of protesters in the woods. We couldn’t hide it. However, once it was proven that Dad and I could communicate with them and vouch that they wouldn’t venture outside the woods or attack any wayward humans—or monsters—they’d been given sanctuary.

The males of their first and second litters had gone off in search of their own mates, and the newest litter was about a month old. We had an understanding, a kinship, me and the alpha, who’d bitten me what was almost two years ago now and had started me on this journey. The pack didn’t mind usdropping in on them in any form, able to smell that it was us regardless, but they definitely preferred the werewolf version.

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