Page 111 of Moon Tamed

I would be patient, behave myself, and cause trouble the instant I had two hands and feet instead of paws.

TWENTY-SEVEN

How do you feel about kittens?

Rather than follow Calden’s meticulous schedule for my entry into the world of shapeshifters, I transformed in my sleep, claimed the man as my personal bed, and snuggled him into submission. Had I been conscious for my conquest, I would have been proud of myself. As all I managed to do was use him as a bed, I decided my technique needed work.

A rather unamused Calden regarded me through narrow eyes. As I’d made a mess of his precious training schedule, I yawned at him, made good use of his shoulder, and refused to be at all sorry for the situation.

He started to sigh, but the sound transitioned to a low chuckle. “You seem quite pleased with yourself this morning.”

“I am,” I replied, stretching and making myself comfortable. “What concession do you need me to pay for you to not tell my family I enjoy eating fish heads while a wolf?”

“I’m thinking I’m going to have to demand weekly sessions, where I’m the one warmed by a wolf at an absolute minimum to keep your fish head secret a secret.”

I giggled at his absolute lack of hesitation. “Like having a wolf to keep you warm, do you?”

“I do. Although I was, admittedly, quite startled when the wolf became a snuggle bug of a woman. You apparently require a great deal of affection to function. While I might miss the sleep a little later today, I find my new duties to be pleasant.”

There were worse ways to go. “We should screw around with our family and pretend we’re not dating. In reality, I’m pretty sure we skipped right past dating to the living together portion of our relationship.”

“We should sprinkle in some dating, but it should involve books, fireplaces, and good company.”

I could agree to that without even thinking about it. “This seems acceptable.”

“Unconsciously shifting was not part of our training for today, but since you shifted on your own, it isn’t a problem. Some people are like that. But since you shift with your clothes, it doesn’t really matter if you have a habit of shifting in your sleep. There isn’t a whole lot we can do to prevent it. Be glad you shift with your clothes. There are a few in the Hunters who don’t, and they have amusing incidents of shifting during a nap while at work. We try not to embarrass anyone over it, but general laughter is had. And everyone knows we laugh about it.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“Exactly. Are you hungry?”

I thought about it, and I realized I could probably eat an entire cow without assistance. “Starving.”

“That’s my cue to get up and make you breakfast, then. Shifting for the first time tends to be the world’s best weight loss program, and since you aren’t packing on any extra pounds, we need to counter that by feeding you early and often. I hope you like rabbit, as Kirkland has provided a lot of rabbit.”

I drooled at the thought of my favorite food. “As a matter of fact, I love rabbit.”

“Then rabbit you shall have. How much work do you think you need to do on the report?”

“No more than a few hours to get the preliminary one ready. There’s really not much to do beyond piecing together everything and making transitional sections so people can follow along easily.” As Calden needed to escape bed to feed me rabbit, I rolled off the bed and bounced to my feet, discovering my shoes had been tossed off the bed. I gathered them and put them on my feet where they belonged. “I’d like to get that out of the way so I can spend the rest of my time off enjoying myself.”

And him, but he’d figure that out soon enough.

“I think I can arrange for that easily enough. Breakfast, some quiet time to finish that nasty report, and then the enjoyment time you deserve.”

I had no idea what I’d done to deserve rest and relaxation and enjoyment time, but I’d roll with it. “We should look into defenseless baby animals my parents can care for in our downtime. I’m sure they would love having some more babies under foot.”

“You realize that has a lot of potential to backfire on us, right?”

I looked into his eyes. “As a matter of fact, yes. How do you feel about kittens?”

“Of the small cat variety?”

I nodded. “We can’t be trusted with the big ones, Calden. We will try to sleep with them. And pet them.”

“It’s true. I’ve always thought I’d love to have two little girl kittens.”

“You know what? Forget my parents. Let’s go look around for some defenseless kittens to adopt, preferably ones that can be taught to get along well with our bunny supervisors.”

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