Logan Chapter 133

-Emory-

I have no idea what Logan has been trying to tell me. I’ve noticed the partial shifts happening when I get angry- and my temper has been touchier than ever before- but he says that shifting shouldn’t be attached to any one emotion. Apparently, for people who are born with a wolf, an excess of almost any emotion will do. All I know is that anxiety isn’t working.

“You just have to reach for it, little rose. It should be there in the back of your mind. It’s like pushing a button.” None of that makes sense to me. Nothing in my mind feels like a button, except every last nerve Logan is tap dancing on right now. I can feel my skin start to prickle with my anger. “That’s it, you can be mad at me. I know how to fix it later.” He flashes a few images from earlier at me through our mind link and suddenly I’m mostly horny instead of mad.

“Damn it, Logan! I almost had it!” If only he could just tell me to shift, like James did him. It would be so much simpler. At least I could figure out what it feels like and revisit that. Wait… why can’t he?

Logan catches the drift of my thoughts and shakes his head. “It’s painful to have someone else force a shift on you like that, and we’re not even sure you’re going to fully shift. On top of that, who knows if your wolf would even recognize my authority. That would be an entirely different issue we’d then have to deal with because my wolf wouldn’t be able to stand for it. It’s actually strange to try and articulate these kinds of things to you. When you grow up with it, you just kind of know. Who knows if it’s instinct from our wolves or social conditioning.”

So I have to do this the hard way because Logan’s wolf is a big baby, got it. He gives me a short growl and a smack on the ass to tell me to watch it before he motions to me to try again. Okay. Button in my brain. Not just anger, but emotion. Smells and sounds and tingles in my skin. I hate this. Am I even actually more shifter than we thought? Maybe I have a brain tumor and it’s giving me synesthesia. Maybe I have a rare disease. Maybe I’m having a psychotic break due to extraordinary amounts of stress.

I try to think over when my mind would have snapped without me noticing, and it’s definitely when I actually met Logan. Of course he’s too good to be true. I must’ve passed out and hit my head on the stairwell and everything since then has been a dream. “Haven’t you fallen into the “it’s a dream” trap once already today? I guess it went well for you, so it makes sense to try it again. I could bend you over right here if you’re adamant about it.” Logan starts circling me as he speaks, letting himself look long and hard at my body, like he might actually bend me over in the front lawn of the pack house.

I spin to keep him in my sight. “On the off chance that this isn’t some kind of hallucination, I’d rather not be caught banging by the gate guards. One of them already stole my vibrator out of my stuff from the apartment.” There. I wasn’t going to say anything- because what the hell could I say?- but that’ll kick him out of stalking me like…. Well, like a wolf.

Logan doesn’t stop, doesn’t even get mad. He just laughs. “I threw that vibrator away, baby. A couple of them smelled it in there and went fishing. I didn’t think I could stand you using it after they’d touched it.” I shudder at the image, though Logan makes sure not to think of who exactly had been looking at it where I might “hear” in his mind. “I’ll get you a new one, and we can break it in together. How does that sound?” It sounds delicious, actually.

Logan continues stalking me even as I start to back away from him. I can tell he’s steering me toward the wall of the house, but I’m not sure what to do about it. I feel a sensual kind of fear tiptoe up my spine, setting my skin to tingling. Maybe this excess kind of emotion would work, too? I let myself spiral into the feeling- wondering what he’ll do when he catches me, if he’ll take me out here, where we could be caught. Will I like what he does, or will he only be after his own pleasure? Actually, that sounds kind of hot, too. I can feel the blush burning in my cheeks, my chest heaving with my panting breaths, though I haven’t started running yet. I know I will, but I give the both of us just a little extra time to savor this moment.

When I start to see the siding of the pack house in my peripheral vision, I know I’m out of time. I turn to run, but as soon as I push off my back foot, I explode out of my skin. I feel my bones shifting, joints folding in different directions, my teeth almost… switching out? It all sounds gross and like it should be excruciatingly painful in my head as I try to describe it to myself, but it’s only painful in the way that popping your back or neck after a particularly long day would be. It’s only a split second of time, and afterwards there’s such a sense of warmth and freedom that even the discomfort becomes part of the actual good feeling.

The entire shift happens before I can even land in the suddenly color-shifted grass, which explains why I immediately eat dirt when a jump designed for two longer legs now includes four shorter ones.