Anger and humiliation throbbed against my spine, against my heart, against my skull.
“Ness!” I heard him call out to me.
I didn’t stop, didn’t turn around. I had no idea where I was, but I ran anyway. Any place was better than here. And as I ran, my muscles thrummed, my bones hummed, and my skin prickled. The claws came out first, and then the fur. My body changed so fast it tore my dress, and I fell hard against asphalt.
Headlights blinked into existence up ahead, and I seized up.
The car rolled closer, the light glinting like honey off the ends of my white fur, the beams burning into my retina. I blinked just as an enormous black shape rammed into me.
For a second, I flew and then I landed so hard on my rump I whimpered. The world spun like the car’s tires, and everywhere I looked was drenched in the blackest darkness and the shiniest starlight.
Fear shot up my spine at the same time as tiny aches exploded around it. And my lungs… They could barely expand underneath the weight of the body crushing mine. I squirmed and the black wolf rose off me and dragged himself a couple feet away.
I waited with bated breath in the shadows of the ditch, half expecting car doors to click open and footsteps to pound the road. But the car didn’t even slow, zipping past where I lay hidden, spraying gravel over my dirt-flecked white fur. Slowly, I stirred, pressing up onto my limbs that were once again shaking, and blinked the darkness away. When my sight cleared and sharpened, I made out the gleam of Liam’s eyes.
He let out a low-pitched whine. I backed away, but my bruised rump hit the slope of the ditch.
Liam didn’t advance on me. He also didn’t back away.
In that instant, I realized I owed him my life, but saving me didn’t erase what he’d done. I bared my teeth and growled.
He still didn’t move.
I barked, Get away from me. He didn’t, so I shot out around him and into the forest, my sense of smell going haywire as it picked up a myriad of aromas. Dank moss tangled with Liam’s musk, and the cold sweetness of wood smoke blended with the crisp scent of insect bodies.
I stepped over rocks and splashed through a creek. At some point, I caught a whiff of white jasmine and something else. Something chemical-Windex. I was approaching a house.
You’re going the wrong way.
I froze. I wanted to ask which way was the right way, but I’d chew off my paw before I would admit I was lost.
The Flatirons are to your left. Liam’s low drone carried over to me like the buzzing fireflies flitting around my ears.
I’d been relying on my sense of smell but had forgotten to look. I tipped my head up and located the Flatirons. And then I raced over earth and downed logs, muscles smacking against my hide like elastics. When the inn materialized, I slowed my pace. Bodies moved on the spacious terrace, glasses clinked, and fire snapped in a wide copper pit set between the Adirondacks.
I scurried along the lip of the forest, hoping the centennial trees would keep my wraith-colored form hidden from the guests having dinner. The scent of chargrilled meat and tangy barbecue sauce wafted toward me. My stomach gave a violent growl.
I loped around the side of the inn toward the parking lot but froze before turning the corner.
I couldn’t enter the inn in wolf form.
I would need to shift back, but I’d be naked. And my bag? Where was my bag? It must’ve fallen outside Liam’s house. I squeezed my eyes closed, my tail whacking the wall in frustration.
Jeb would have a second key.
Craning my neck, I looked around for Liam-I’d lost his scent at about the same moment the inn had come into view.
He was gone.
Finally.
Taking in a deep breath, I closed my eyes and let my human form bleed over my animal form. In seconds, I was a girl again. A bare-assed girl covered in dirt, with twigs tangled in her snarled hair. Thankfully, it was long enough to hide my breasts, revealing only their underside. I rose from my crouch, and shielding my privates, I crept toward the revolving door.
A mother with her child walked by, and I slammed my backside against the wall, praying they hadn’t spotted me. Once I heard their voices peter out, I peeked inside again. The coast was clear. I pressed my muddy palms into the glass and pushed the door, then sprang toward the bell desk and dove behind it. Feet-small with copper-polished toenails-appeared underneath my face.
I craned my neck and locked eyes with Lucy. A sigh of relief whooshed out of me.
Her irises were framed with so much white that I could tell the feeling wasn’t mutual. “Ness,” she hissed, but then she flinched at the sound of approaching voices and all but shoved me inside the back room that stank of potpourri from the shelves full of drying petals. “Are you insane?”
“I lost my bag. And my clothes.” Which was self-evident.
“What do you think we run here? A kennel?”
Ouch.”I didn’t do this on purpose, Lucy.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
“Can I please get a bathrobe? Or a towel? And another key?”
“Another key?” Her cheeks were so red they looked like candied apples. “You lost yours?”
“It was in my bag.”
“Which you lost.”
“Which I misplaced. But I’ll find it.” I stood back up, slowly, covering myself with my hands again.
My uncle’s voice floated from just outside. Lucy jumped to block the office entrance, her collection of metal bangles jangling wildly on her freckled wrist. “Jeb, can you grab an extra bathrobe from the linen closet?”
“A bathrobe. Why do you need a bathrobe?”
She shifted to hide the sight of me. “Ness needs one.”
A beat. Then. “Oh.”
Once he left, she walked to a wall with lots of tiny hooks and grabbed a key-I supposed it was a spare. The hooks weren’t numbered, but her system didn’t seem very secure. I sensed it wasn’t the right time to offer advice, but it increased my longing to have my own place, a place I could stroll into naked if I wanted to.
I thought of my apartment back in L. A., then of my childhood home here. I wondered if I would remember how to get there. Wondered if anyone lived in it.
A white bathrobe smacked me in the face. I hurriedly donned it, tightening the belt until it dug into my waist.
“You can come in,” Lucy said, I supposed to Jeb.
My uncle stepped into the room. After he took in my disheveled hair and mud-splattered face, he said, “I thought you were going to dinner with Everest.”
Right.”I did, but he had a date afterward. He asked me if I would be okay to walk home.” I dragged my hair off my face. “I got lost. And then I changed…and well…I managed to find my way back.”
Lucy was shaking her face in disbelief. “That’s incredibly irresponsible.”