“Kind of…” They ran laps in gym at the high school, and she kept up okay.
“What about endurance? Can you lift?”
She gave him what she hoped passed for a non-verbal answer by lifting her flabby arms, swallowed by the fabric of his clothes.
“These are skills you would have mastered, had you grown up in the pack,” he explained. “Women and men are subjected to the same training. To master the change, one must hone both their body and mind.”
Loren thought of Micha and Kyle, who all seemed to share his lean, muscular build. Even Sonia didn’t have an ounce of fat on her.
“You don’t seemoutof shape,” he said, eyeing her critically, but the words didn’t seem like much of a compliment. “Unlike the myths surrounding ‘werewolves’—” His voice held so much disdain that Loren half-expected him to put sarcastic air quotes around the word. “Our strength may be enhanced by our natural forms, but it doesn’t come like magic. It is honed. Your body is a tool you must become accustomed to wielding.”
Loren felt like she should nod, a student in the middle of an impromptu lecture.
“What about the full moon?” She found herself asking. “Does it—”
“We don’t need it to shift if that’s what you mean,” he said, his tone mildly amused. “Think of it like this. You see better in the daylight, but that doesn’t mean you have no vision at night. The full moon enhances our abilities, but we can shift without it.”
Like right now.
He didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. Primal energy practically radiated from every inch of him. His eyes told it all. He could shift at a moment’s notice. Just rip off that dark shirt, sprout jet black fur all over and—
“But not on a whim.”
“Oh.” Loren looked away, fixating on the horses over in the muddy field. Her heart was still pounding, but not exactly because of the thought of him turning into a four-legged beast.
“The need to shift is instinctive,” he said in a quieter tone that she barely heard over the wind. “Primal. Sacred. It’s not something undertaken on a whim. It requires preparation. Respect. We embrace our other form with only the purest of intentions. Otherwise, it can be painful. You can cause injury to yourself or anyone who happens to get in the way.”
He sounded uneasy about that, and she wondered just how much it had taken out of him to attack those men in the clearing. Though, he’d made it seem pretty easy in the moment.
“Why can’t I?” She faced him, brushing the hair from her face, and sucked in a breath.
He had never looked more serious. His eyes practically glowed, his lips pursed in a hard line. “It’s not that simple. It’s like a muscle—the urge needs to be honed. Controlled. Exercised.” He seemed to hesitate before adding, “Most learn those basics as children. You’re older. You’ve grown up without learning the ways. You need—”
He broke off, jaw clenching shut.
Oh, no, you don’t.He had taken her in and, so far, called all the shots with little explanation. It was about damn time she demanded some answers. “I need what? If I am what you say I am, why can’t I shift?”
“It’s not that simple,” he grumbled.
“How?”
Too late did she realize her tone sounded challenging. Abruptly, he closed the distance between them and gently tapped the center of her chest with an outstretched finger.
“The instinct needs to be called forth,” he murmured. “By an Alpha.”
30
Alpha.The word sounded different when uttered by him. Powerful.
But Loren couldn’t understand how that factored into what he claimed was instinct. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been on your own for too long,” he went on.“The urge has remained dormant within you. It’s not like in the movies. We aren’t born with a mastery of the change. Our skill must be nurtured by the needs of the pack, the same way you learned your native language as a child. That constant interaction. Thatpull.”
Suddenly, he towered over her, his heat battering her in waves, easily cutting through the fabric of her borrowed windbreaker. The nearness conjured the strange sensation she’d felt earlier—that creeping, tingling warmth that pooled inexplicably in certain areas of her body. She was painfully aware of the fabric of his shirt, grazing her chest—her breasts. Her lips felt dry, and she desperately dragged her tongue along them, fighting to stay focused. It took twice the normal effort to breathe. Think.
His voice, however, was an anchor, too stern to overlook. “Proximity to an Alpha provides guidance. An example. Since Lukka isn’t—”He broke off and seemed to try a different tactic. “You need apack, Loren. I can help you, but I need you to trust me.”
His earnest tone dislodged something at the back of her mind. A memory? Had he said something similar to her before? She couldn’t remember. In fact, it was getting hard to remember a lot of things. Like the color of the grass or sky…