Page 33 of Virtually Guarded

Our group went back to the spot where we’d shifted earlier. Xavier lay down, and I followed his lead.

Wait, he said. I’ll shift back first. Then help you.

I didn’t answer, just settled myself with my head on my outstretched forelegs and watched as his body shimmered. My head hurt as I tried to see him shifting, just like when the Anax had shifted back to human form the day I arrived. My brain couldn’t register the changing form. My eyes took it in, and my brain rejected it as impossible.

A groan from the side told me that the others were also shifting back. I didn’t want to be the only wolf in the group, but I waited. Xavier would help me. I sort of knew how to go back to the human form I didn’t entirely want, but it would be easier with Xavier’s support, just like shifting into wolf had been.

He only took a short time to resume his human form. His completely naked human form, because of course we didn’t magically have clothes when we shifted back. As a wolf, I wasn’t bothered by it, but my human mind had thoughts.

“I’m getting our clothes, and then I’ll help you.” He walked over to a bush and pulled our clothes out from underneath it.

Felicia knelt beside me, with Jamie and Garrett behind her. None of them were wearing anything. Like pretty much all of the other werewolves here, they’d been naked before the hunt. Most people had taken off their clothes inside, probably in their rooms, so things wouldn’t get lost or destroyed.

“You’re okay, Ren,” Felicia said quietly, stretching out her hand toward me in a way that felt similar to earlier, when she’d almost touched me with her snout while I struggled to shift to wolf. “You’ll shift back, and we’ll go inside.”

Inside. Yeah. To my room, where my mate would lie down with me. Maybe hold me.

Maybe claim me. That was what I wanted. To belong completely and forever to Xavier.

Dressed, Xavier sat on the ground next to Felicia. He didn’t speak aloud, but his voice in my mind said, It’s time to shift back. Your body knows how, even if you don’t think it does. Let your human side come back, and the form will change with it.

His words didn’t entirely make sense, but that didn’t matter. My human side was right there, ready to take back the body. The body which, unfortunately, would go back to factory specs, but right now, that wasn’t important. It was time to be human again. Time to stop running on four legs, and stand and walk on two.

Shifting wasn’t quite as bad this time as earlier, but it was far from pleasant. My body contracting, compressing. Bones moving, changing. Like before, I wanted to stop partway through, but Xavier’s steady voice in my mind, even though at this point I couldn’t comprehend any words, and Felicia’s soothing, silent presence got me past that point.

Finally, in so much pain I didn’t know if I could sit up, never mind walk into the house, I lay on the ground in my human shape. Xavier held out my clothes. “You don’t have to put these on, but they’re here if you want them.”

“Thanks.” I reached up and took them, and dropped the shirt over my chest and the shorts over my crotch. Hiding. Like usual.

“Your first hunt was a doozy.” With a chuckle, Jamie sat on the other side of me from Xavier and Felicia. “I don’t know of anyone whose first ever hunt happened at one of the gatherings. How do you feel?”

“I don’t even know.” Cautiously, I stretched my arms, then my legs. Okay, so human brain was back in full effect. I was a little sad about that, especially lying here with the four of them, because Garrett had joined Jamie, paying attention to me. But they weren’t looking at me like any kind of freak. They were there because they knew I’d had trouble shifting, and they wanted to make sure I was okay. Where that knowledge came from, I couldn’t have said, but I knew I was right.

Panting from the exertion of shifting, I looked up into Xavier’s gorgeous eyes, and my entire body felt like flames were running through it. Not pain. Need. Craving.

Yeah, shifting back from wolf to human hadn’t killed off the desire to let my mate claim me. But behind the desire was fear. We would go inside. To my room, probably, since Xavier shared a room with one of the other guards. We would lie down together on my bed.

Anything might happen, and the fact that I didn’t know what “anything” I wanted only increased the fear.

“Can you get inside?” Xavier asked. “I can help if you need.”

He could carry me. Like he’d done the day I showed up. Carry me into the house and all the way up to my room. Holding me against his body on the way to my bed.

Shit. That wasn’t going to happen. My wolf wanted it. Wanted to be claimed so bad it hurt, or maybe that was just the pain of not accepting my mate. I didn’t care. I couldn’t. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.

I wanted him, don’t get me wrong. Having sex with Xavier wasn’t the issue. It was the claiming. The knowledge that I wouldn’t be able to leave even if I wanted to.

“Ren.” He sighed and stood. “Let’s give him space to get dressed. Thank you all for hunting with us.”

“Yeah, of course.” Jamie sounded like he was smiling. I couldn’t see him past Xavier. “We’ll see you later.”

“Take care.” Felicia got to her feet. “I’m around if you ever want to talk.”

“Thank you.” I didn’t think I would take her up on that. There was some heavy sadness around her. I didn’t know what it was about, but she clearly had her own stuff to deal with.

Once the three Boston wolves were gone, I yanked my shirt over my head and finally relaxed. For whatever reason, my chest bothered me way more than what was between my legs, and I was always relieved to hide it.

I shimmied into the shorts without getting up. Like I’d done the day I arrived. I was finding way too many similarities between that day and tonight, and I didn’t like it. At all.