Page 23 of Claimed By the Bookstore Alpha
“But Alpha and the council didn’t punish me. They taught me how to control my beast.” He tapped his chest. “But some years ago I left the pack. Too much drama and too many rules. I thought I was better off on my own. And then you walked into my store."
“You have a pack?” My poor brain couldn’t cope with any more information.
“Technically yes.” He told me to forget about that for the moment and said he was worried I would reject him if I discovered the truth. “It’s not something you put on a dating profile. 'Enjoys long walks on the beach and occasionally turns into a wolf.'"
Despite everything, my lips twitched. "You'd be surprised what people are into these days."
Flynn stared at me. "Are you... are you joking right now?"
"This is how I process. With inappropriate humor and a level of shock."
Flynn’s rigid body suggested he was braced for me to take off. But all I could see was the man who'd been so careful with my dragon book, the same who held me at night.
"Show me.” There was nothing else to say. "I need to see your… wolf so I know I’m not having a breakdown.”
He was quiet for a long moment. "Okay. But not here. It's not safe to shift in the city. There's a place about twenty minutes out of town. Private land."
"Shifter land?"
“You catch on quick.”
The drive was quiet and I was lost in thought. The pregnancy tests were at his place and though I was almost certain I was pregnant, I didn’t know for sure.
Flynn navigated winding back roads that led deeper into the forest and turned onto a dirt path which led to a small clearing surrounded by tall pines.
"This is it.” He turned off the engine.
It was beautiful in a wild, untamed way. The kind of place where fairy tales happened. Perhaps I should have been scared because I was alone with this man, one I adored, but who said he wasn’t human. But I trusted him and had to go through with whatever this was.
"Are you sure about this?" he asked. "Once you see... there's no going back."
My mind flitted back to the past month of confusion and heartbreak and how he’d looked at me in the pharmacy like I was his whole world.
"I'm sure."
He got out and I followed him to the center of the clearing, my heart pounding with anticipation and a snippet of fear.
He undressed. No one told me he had to get naked first. As he stripped off and revealed the scars I’d run my hands over when we were in bed, I wondered if he’d been injured when he was a wolf.
“I’ll still be me. Just... different."
I was mesmerized as his body changed. It wasn’t violent as in the movies but dark fur rippled over him and he sprouted a tail. Within moments, where Flynn had been standing, there was now a massive wolf.
My legs gave out, and I sat down hard on the forest floor.
The wolf or Flynn or maybe the wolf had fur the same dark color as Flynn’s hair, and his eyes were the same storm-gray color I'd fallen in love with. He was bigger than any wolf I'd seen on TV.
He approached me slowly but though my heart was pounding loudly in my ears, I refused to run and lock myself in the car. I reached out with a trembling hand and touched his fur. It was so soft and the beating of his heart beneath my palm matched my own.
"You're really a wolf.”
The wolf pressed his head against my hand and what I saw in his eyes, or who, was Flynn. Then he shifted back.
"I'm dating a man who has a wolf inside him. Wow!”
“I’ll understand if you need time to process, or if you can't?—"
"Oh my gods. I write children's books about dragons and magical creatures, I dress up as Peter Pan for research and I spend my weekends at comic conventions... and I'm dating a shifter.”
