Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
“I do not need to get laid. Sex is not a need. Food, water, shelter, those are needs.”
“Maybe not for humans, but for you, I think you need to get laid.”
“Why?”
She extends a hand at the chaos around me. “This, mostly.”
Okay. So I have thrown a rack of clothing on the floor. I didn’t notice that.
“Sorry, I knocked the rack over,” I mumble.
“And the rest of it?”
I turn around and look at my office. It is a little messy.
“It looks like someone ransacked it. You’re not shifting, but you’re starting to act wild anyway. You have to go to him, Nicky. You have to get him to take you through the shift.”
“I don’t need him. None of us do. He’s still the same person he was before I fucked him. Sex doesn’t change anything.”
“Maybe for some humans that’s true, but it’s not true for us,” she argues. “Sex changes everything, boss. It’s changing you.”
“Because I got a little messy?”
I’m tired of being questioned. There is something restless in me, but it’s just my need to go and do something. I’ve been in this office for too long. The walls are starting to close in.
“I’m going out for ice cream.”
“Okay,” she says. “I’ll send the…”
“Alone,” I say.
I go out by myself, half-striding, half-stomping through the streets with a scowl on my face that feels like it’s never going to leave. What the hell is wrong with everyone right now? They will not shut up about Rex and sex and shifting. Don’t they understand all the work we have to do?
I know it’s really my mood they’re complaining about, but they’re wrong about that too. I’m not monstrous. I’m whimsical. I’m nice. I’m fun.
I’m waiting at an intersection. The little red walking man turns to a green walking man. I step out into the intersection, just as a vehicle that apparently considers itself above the light system entirely comes screeching to a halt.
“I’m driving here!” a big man shouts at me out his driver’s window.
My temper spikes. I remind myself to be calm. I’m not monstrous. I’m whimsical. I’m calm.
I turn around and smile at him.
“Get the fuck outta my way!”
Still smiling, I very calmly punch his hood hard enough to leave a dent. Pain bursts through my hand. I feel my knuckles crack. I feel some small, tender bones break.
“Fuck!” I curse as I grab at my hand.
The guy comes half out of his car. He’s red in the face, so pissed off he’s forgotten to remove his seatbelt. Lucky for him, because the way I feel right now I could fight him and this whole street.
“What the hell are you doing, lady?”
Before I can reply, I hear my name shouted behind me.
“Nicky!”
I turn around and the boys rush past me, picking me up between them like the female lead in a musical being swept up and out of the way. Cal and Simon hook their big arms underneath my armpits and hoist me up so my feet can no longer touch the ground.
“Put me down!” I kick and squirm as they clear the street with me. They do put me down, but two of them keep hands on me while the third inspects my already swollen hand.
“You broke your hand,” Cal says. “Like, you fucking broke it.”
“Doesn’t matter. I have two.”
It doesn’t really hurt. Not compared to the charging energies inside me. Not compared to what I want to do. I want to fuck someone. Not someone. Rex. I want to fuck him so hard I come apart entirely. But he’s not here, and I am being tussled with on the streets.
The creature I have been fighting is rising within me. My body wants to undergo transformation. Wants to become fully female, entirely wolf. But I can’t do that. If I do that, I’ll lose everything. I know it. I have to stay as I was. I can’t let having met my fated mate change me.
* * *
Rex
My phone rings. I ordinarily would not answer during a meeting, but since mating Nicky, I have taken it off do not disturb. Nobody will ever understand what a significant change that is for me, and I will never tell them.
I don’t recognize the number, but I answer because the call could be about Nicky, and nothing on this planet is more important than her.
“Hello?”
“Uh, yeah, hi. It’s Laura.” I hear her draw on her vape, and immediately have the visual image of the largely disinterested secretary posted outside Nicky’s office.
“To what do I owe the honor of this call?”
“You gotta come get your girl, big man. She’s fighting the shift. It’s not good for her. We’re worried she’s gonna go feral in the middle of the street.”
I hear a commotion in the background. I can hear my mate making very un-ladylike sounds and then male voices calling out excitedly.