Page 4 of Change the Plan
I pretend to hiss at him, and he laughs.
“You already know the answer, baby.”
“It’smagic,” I whine.
“It’s magic,” he agrees. “And we’ve already established that magic makes no logical sense. You know this, missfive-foot-four-but-somehow-takes-a-fourteen-inch-werewolf-dick-with-no-issues.” I snort as he continues, his voice filled with amusement. “Please, tell me in scientific termshow you manage to rearrange your guts every month to fit me. You can’t, can you?”
“It’s just the vibe,” I say, referring to the strangest of my fae abilities.
“Portal magic pussy.”
I laugh, my face pressed to his chest. “So there really isnochange expected tonight?” There hasn’t been a full lunar eclipse since we got back together, not in this part of the world, and while I did look this up online, I couldn’t find any conclusive answers to the questionWhat happens to a werewolf during a full lunar eclipse?
“Nothing changes. The way I see it, the transformation is connected to the monthly cycle of the moon, not the physical appearance of it in the sky.”
“So what you’re saying is that werewolf magic is something akin to a menstrual cycle.”
Van kisses the top of my head. “Well, werewolves are matriarchal, after all.”
Van doesn’tneedto see the full moon for him to transform, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like looking at it. When we met again after nine years apart and I discovered that he was a wolf, and that unlike me, he’d known exactly who and what he was in all those years pre-Unravelling, I began a slow process of getting to know the sides of him that he’d masked around humans. Suddenly, his propensity to always sleep with the curtains open and the way I’d always find him staring up at the moon whenever it was in the sky made sense.Iliked the moon too — Koro and I always used the phases to garden by — so I hadn’t viewed it as something too far out of the ordinary.
When he told me he wanted to purchase this property, I hadn’t realised that he’d taken into account the fact that the eastern horizon where the moon rises is the one area here where maungaaren’t blocking the view. It was another reminder of the way in which my husband’s mindset is rooted deeply in who he is — both a werewolf and a shifter, and an alpha — in the same way my mindset is so heavily influenced, and always has been, by my Maoritanga.
“How long now?” I ask, staring at the flames as they lick their way up the pile of kindling and wood here in the backyard’s fire pit. Soon it’ll be a raging bonfire, but for now I still feel the chill in the air and pull my cardigan around myself.
In nothing but his grey sweatpants and a pair of jandals, Van tosses the last few sticks on the fire, giving the horizon only the most cursory of glances. “Ten minutes.” Like all wolves, he has an innate ability to know exactly when the moon will rise, an internal clock that no human possesses.
“I’m glad we’re doing this,” I say, waving away the smoke with a cough as the breeze changes direction. “Even if I reek of smoke right now. Koro and I used to lie out on the beach under the stars with a bonfire every time there was some sort of astronomy-related event.”
“I remember. There was that time we all watched the meteor shower. I think you were five of six at the time.”
“Five, I think. If I’m being honest, all I remember of that time is that Lacey and I wandered off too far in the dark and your dad told us off and carried us both back, one under each arm,” I admit, miming the way Weston had scooped me up around the stomach, carrying me like a rugby ball back to the picnic blanket Koro had laid out in the sand.
“You don’t remember what happened next?”
“I was between you and Lacey… did I fall asleep?”
“Yeah, and you missed the whole thing. Your koro tried to wake you, but you were out cold,” Van laughs. “And then your mom had arranged for you to stay the night at ours, so Dad ended up carrying you all the way back. You were drooling on his shoulder.”
“I bet he loved that,” I say sarcastically.
“There may have been the odd snarky comment about humans.”
“That sounds about right.”
Weston, Van’s father, has always been adifficultcharacter, at least when it comes to me. Now that I know the full extent of what Van and Weston were battling through during Van’s teenage years, I can understand much more clearly why Weston had the response to me that he did when I was around in the later years. Even before Van and I got together we were friends, and neither Van nor Weston’s wolves were exactly rational when it came to each other at the time. I’ve witnessed the level of responsibility that alphas take on and the emotional toll that it has on them first-hand, and I feel like I can excuse Van’s dad a little more for being such a grump all the time.
Van tosses a final log on the fire. “I think that should do it for now; even when it dies down a bit it’ll hold heat, and by then you’ll be running anyway.”
I blush at the casual reference to our plans for later this evening. It’s easier to indulge in some of our kinks down here on this property, which is far more remote and therefore feels more private than our home on Motuwai. At least down here, Van doesn’t have to tune out the howls from his pack members during the full moon.
The next few minutes pass in companionable silence, the crackle of the fire and the evening calls of birds settling in to roost for the night the only noise around us. Van strips off his pants, tossing them on an empty chair. “It must be time,” I sayquietly, eyeing his hands. They’re always the first to change, and I can see the start of it now, his nails beginning to elongate into pointed black claws.
He nods quickly, looking out to the horizon. Our view is not quite at sea level, and as the edge of the moon — already partially obscured by the start of the eclipse — begins to appear, Van changes.
I’ve watched it take place over two dozen times now, but it never ceases to amaze me how Van can go from looking like a man one minute, to a towering werewolf in the next, his hands doubling in size, skin turning a dark charcoal grey, fur sprouting, his entire body stretching and changing, face morphing, all sharp teeth and shining eyes. A growl rumbles from deep within his chest, one that most would find menacing, but I simply tip my head back to look him in the eye.
“There’s my cuddly teddy bear,” I say, grinning as his growl grows louder, dark lips pulling back in a snarl that I know is all bark and no bite.
