dropped the clothes. Your turn, she said, utterly exhausted.
Never had she been so willing to shift back to human form. I was both
shocked and saddened. That fight had taken a little of the fire out of her.
Let's do this. Quickly, this time, I told her, worried that it might not work
without Jaxson here. But what choice did we have?
My wolf lowered herself to the ground, and then our body strained as the
shift took hold. I gritted my teeth as I jerked and bent, and the horrors of the
shift began. I had to stifle a scream as I felt the ligaments and muscles in my
legs and arms tearing, and the wounds in my skin reopened.
Pain blotted out my thoughts. Why wasn’t it over? The shift to wolf form
had been fast.
But the agony only increased. We were stuck between forms. Dread
coiled in my chest.
We need Jaxson, my wolf snarled in pain.
Like hell we do! Jaxson wasn't in control of our body.
I tried to calm my mind so I could let the shift take me. My wolf seemed
to sense my cue and settled, and we both embraced the pain that worked
through our body.
This time, when our joints popped and sinews stretched, the agony eased
until it was gone.
Panting, I finally opened my eyes and stared up at the tre
es. The pine
branches swayed in the ocean wind.
“We did it,” I whispered and rolled onto my hands and knees.
I was exhausted and achy, and pangs of hunger knotted my stomach. I
glanced down at the wound on my bare thigh where Kahanov had sliced me
with the Soul Knife. The skin was red and inflamed, but the bleeding had
stopped. Maybe my wolf's healing power was kicking in.
“Well, we could have gotten off worse,” I muttered as I inspected my
naked body.