The Captain's Forbidden Mate

Episode 21: FIRST RUN

LENA

The sensation of the shift wasn't painful, not exactly, flowing too quickly through my body to be grasped, all my bones twisting and reforming in a rapid, riotous pace that should've left me screaming and gasping and begging for it to stop, but instead I simply gasped and gasped and gasped, over and over again, air that couldn't come fast enough to sate the sudden, writhing panic inside me

I heard Cole's voice next, steady and grounding like he'd promised he would be, anchoring me even as the very ground seemed to twist beneath me. "Easy, Lena. Easy, I've got you. Just let it happen, don't fight it, fighting it is what makes it hurt."

"I'm not fighting it," I told him.

I felt the world swell and tilt and spin and lurch, colors bleeding together into shapes and shades that weren't right, sounds sharpening into a crystalline clarity that made my stomach twist in unfamiliar apprehension, all the things around me - smells, feels, sights, sounds - no longer blending the way they were supposed to, the way they always had, but separated, each sense isolated from the next as if I'd somehow developed an entirely new sense. My hands, if they were even my hands, were definitely no longer human, my legs definitely no longer human, I was lower to the ground, skinnier, I had paws for hands and feet and for a heartbeat, just one heartbeat, it wasn't horrifying at all, it was home

But then the fear caught up with me and I ran. My body surged forward, the ground sliding beneath my belly and I heard Cole's voice again, heard him curse my name, heard him scramble up after me, shifting and twisting behind me through the underbrush and I ran faster, my limbs moving with a feral grace and speed, the trees whipping past in a green blur, every sense sharpening with every stride until I burst out into an open clearing lit up by the pale glow of the moon, skidding to a halt at the edge of a ravine I only just now realized was there, my new heart pounding in my new ears, racing against the unfamiliar tightness of my new ribs.

Cole caught up to me a minute later, shifting back to his human form at the tree line, his bare chest heaving with the effort as he dropped to his knees, his fingers twitching at his sides. "Lena. Can you hear me in there?"

I could. I understood him perfectly, only I had no idea how to respond, some primal, panicked part of me realizing too late that there was no chance in hell I could respond in any way he'd understand, that I might always feel like this, this strange, feral thing in my body, that I may never be able to talk to anyone about what had just happened to me because only animals could speak in this tongue.

"Hey. Hey, look at me." He knelt in front of me, his palms open, inviting in an almost animal gesture, the kind of body language I supposed I'd been using myself not five minutes ago. "You're not stuck, don't worry. It's just that, first shifts are disorienting. The wolf takes over pretty firmly the first time, you know? It's waiting it's whole life to break out and play, so it does. You'll have the human side of your brain back before long, I promise. Just breathe. Focus on my voice, like you did before."

I focused on his voice, breathing in whatever way it was a wolf breathed, slow and steady, and somewhere in that focus I felt the shift start, the strange, wrenching sensation of something folding in on itself, the bones in my spine snapping and reshaping until I was no longer crouched on the forest floor in the most terrifying moment of my life and instead sitting cross-legged on the same spot in a human body, my own human body, cold and damp and sweaty and naked, Cole's jacket already slipping off his shoulders to wrap around my shivering frame before I'd even realized it was there.

"That was..." I stared at him, my pulse still hammering too quickly in my ears, searching for some way to convey to him the sheer enormity of that experience, the sheer wonder of running on four limbs and the sheer terror of being unable to stop.

"I know," he said quietly, kneeling in front of me again, close enough to touch if I wanted him to, but not close enough that I had to. "First one's always the worst. It gets easier, see? You'll still feel it all, just less, less consuming maybe?" He smiled a little, rubbing the back of his neck. "Not less powerful, just less all-encompassing."

Astra found us a few minutes later, following our trail back through the woods, her first aid bag still in her hand despite the fact that neither of us needed anything in it. Her lips twitched when she saw me, all damp hair and shredded jeans, wrapped in Cole's jacket, and both of us breathing like we'd just run a damn marathon, seeing something in the sight of us that made her smile turn fond before she caught herself and smoothed the expression away.

"Well," She drawled, her gaze flicking between us with that particular expression only she had, the one that said she knew exactly what had happened in that forest while she was gone. "That went about as well as unguided first shifts tend to, which is to say, miraculously well. You boys are very lucky no one was here to hurt you."

"Luck has nothing to do with it," Cole muttered, not looking at her. "She's stronger than she knows."

I wanted to believe that. Some small part of me, this strange, lupine part deep in my marrow, wanted to believe it with every fiber of my being.

We walked back to the cars in silence, Astra a few paces behind us and I kept stealing sideways glances at Cole, trying to reconcile the boy who'd stood in that restaurant and spat in my face with the boy who was watching me now, steady and silent and patient, this strange new thing that I somehow couldn't deny anymore because it was right there, in front of me, the proof of it in the way he held himself, the way his breathing had steadied when he knelt in front of me. I was learning something new about him, something that made me feel warm and strange in the pit of my stomach, that made me realize that people could be more than the sum of their parts, if you let them be.

We were maybe halfway back to the tree line, the cars still a ways off, when something prickled at the hairs on the back of my neck, when the scent of pine needles and the distant, rich smell of damp earth hit me in a new way, sharper, keener, and a second later, Cole went rigid beside me, his head snapping up and to the left, his nostrils flaring.

"Someone's out there," he murmured, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Watching us. Has been for a while."