Page 26 of Shifters Awakening

Olivia took a step toward me with her hands held up as if in surrender. “I didn't see it, so I don't know how much I believe, but Logan said you shifted. Twice.”

“Shifted?” They kept using that term as though I didn’t know what it meant. “What? From side to side?”

Olivia snickered. “Yeah, that’s what all this is about.”

“No, it means you changed from you into something else,” Logan interjected. “Do you remember?”

I gasped again and dropped to my knees as it all came crashing in. It hadn’t been a drugged-up dream. The mountain lion came first, and then I…

“A bear?”

Logan didn't move. He let me rest there on my knees for a long moment. “And something else.”

I climbed to my feet and eased down on the edge of the queen-sized mattress. “Fox? Did I turn into a fox? I remember running away and then… and then… falling down. Like I tripped on my own legs.”

Olivia gave me a half-smile. “You've never run on four legs before. That's why you didn't know how. Once the danger had passed, you realized how absurd everything that had just happened to you was, and you became you again.”

“What?” None of it made sense.

“You started overthinking your instinct, and you tripped yourself,” Logan added. “Then you changed back into a human.”

Wait…

I groaned as I recalled the clothes all over the ground under my paws, and I wanted to hear him say what I suspected was true. “So, did you see me naked?”

Logan shrugged, but his eyes snapped with a lusty twinkle. “After you shifted. Maybe a little.”

For a long time, I studied the walls, my feet, everything else but the two people in my room.

“It’s unreal. Metamorphosis doesn’t happen,” I said, finally.

“Well, it’s why we brought you here. We’re all shifters. Even the guard at the door. That links us and makes us responsible for one another,” Olivia said, her tone kinder than it had been since she’d stomped into the room.

Logan took a deep breath. “There's something important I have to tell you. It’s about a prophecy…”

“I don’t think I can handle any more big news today, Logan.” My stomach clenched in on itself and growled. “Food needs to happen.”

“This is the last big thing.”

I’d lost my damn mind, entertaining these fools. That was the only answer.

“No, I can’t handle any more big news today,” I repeated, refusing what they were telling me. My voice rose an octave with each syllable. Panic clenched my heart, and my stomach rolled. I was upset, but I was famished, starving, hungrier than I’d ever been in my life. “I need to get out here.”

Logan gave me a knowing smile when my stomach growled again. “You're hungry. It always happens that way after the first shift. You shift, you pass out, and then when you wake up, you could eat a whole buffet by yourself.”

Olivia jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Take a sniff. There's food downstairs. Loads of it on the dining room table. All for you.”

“So, I can leave?” I asked.

Logan shook his head. “Not yet. You're not safe to drive yet, but when you’re ready, your keys are on my desk in my study.” He pulled a phone from his pocket and held it out to me. “But you can let your mom know you're okay. She's called a few times.”

For the third time, I gasped.Mom!She had to be so worried. I hadn’t checked in when the sun came up or when I should have gotten home. I didn't think I'd sent her a picture of the stars.

No, that wasn’t true. She’d noticed the eyes in the photo of the tree shadows.

I opened the text message app, relieved to see it wasonly eight in the morning on Sunday. I’d only been out for several hours.

Me: Mom, I'm fine. Slept a little late.

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