CHAPTERTWELVE
“Please tell me that you’re joking!” Sara squealed. It wasn’t some weird dream. She had actually turned into a real live wolf. What was she even supposed to do with that?
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Barbara tried to soothe her.
It wasn’t going to work. Not at all. Not even a tiny bit. Sara’s anxiety continued to climb through the roof.
“That’s easy for you to say,” Sara gasped. “There’s nothing okay about any of this! I can’t turn into a wolf. I’m a witch! This can’t be right!”
Sara rambled on, feeling like she was going to freaking hyperventilate. “How could this happen? Is it because Rhett bit me?”
“Rhett bit you?” Tristan asked, looking to his wife to see if she was just as surprised.
She wasn’t since Sara had already revealed this to her. Barbara answered for Sara. “Yes, Rhett claimed her at the scenting ceremony.”
“So is that it, then?” Sara asked. “He turned me into a wolf?”
“No, that’s not it,” Barbara said quickly, turning back to face Sara. “That’s not how this works. Mating bites don’t turn people … or witches … into shifters. You must have already had it in you.”
“What happened?” Tristan asked. “Right before you changed?”
“I heard something outside, so I went to find out what it was,” Sara answered. “There was a lynx, I think it was going to attack me, but then I guess I fell. I mean, I was dizzy and weak from casting a spell already, and anyway, the next thing I knew, I fell, and the lynx was running away and turning into a human before they got in their car and left.”
“Would you have sensed it if this lynx had hexed you? Cast some spell to turn you into a wolf?”
“Oh yes,” Sara nodded her head quickly. “I can sense any magic being used around me, and especially on me. There’s no way it had anything to do with the lynx. I think it was just coincidental timing.”
“That doesn’t sound coincidental at all,” Tristan said, pacing the room. “It sounds to me like your wolf came out to protect you when you needed it.”
“And you said you were dizzy and weak from casting a spell?” Barbara asked. “So you really were in a state where a latent shifter side might feel compelled forward. Especially …”
“Especially what?” Sara asked.
“Well, especially since you’d just received a mating bite and then denied your mate. The bite probably spoke to your shifter side, and then you turning from Rhett would have vexed your wolf.”
“My wolf?” Sara blinked in shock, still trying to absorb everything that was happening.
“I’m calling Rhett,” Tristan suddenly announced.
“No!” Sara shouted. “Don’t call him. I do not want to see him. Not right now. Maybe not ever.”
“You’re his mate. He deserves to know what’s happening to you,” Barbara said gently. “I know you don’t want to see him, but our shifter way means we respect mates. It means we have to tell him what’s happening.”
Sara was on the verge of tears. “Please. I don’t know what’s going on with me, and I just want to go home and think about this. If you have to tell him, could you at least wait until tomorrow?”
Barbara and Tristan exchanged a look, and finally, Tristan nodded. “I’ll wait until tomorrow.”
She finally breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Barbara said, giving her a hug. “We take care of our own, and you’re one of us now.”
“Do you think my wolf knew that?” Sara asked. “Because I don’t remember running away from my house, but somehow I ended up here.”
“I think that’s a good assumption,” Tristan said, finally sitting down on the arm of the couch and looking carefully at Sara. “Now, about the lynx shifter on your property. You felt like he was there to attack you, and it makes sense that your wolf would want to defend you.”
“Right,” Sara agreed. “But maybe I’m wrong …”
“We’re going to assume you’re right because we want to be better safe than sorry,” Tristan said. “I’m going to call up my tech guy right now and get him out there to install some motion detector cameras and security alarms. I’m also going to go out there with him to see if I can pick up the lynx’s scent, see if I can identify them.”