Logan Chapter 134

-Emory-

The smells are incredible. The difference in my vision is a little difficult to get used to, but I can deal with it. It’s almost like seeing everything in sepia. I smell the wolves that guard the gates, I smell my own sweat from earlier and Hammer’s scent. I even smell that Hammer isn’t a part of this pack. There’s a… shared vibe between the scents that silently communicates that they belong together. Hammer’s scent is like a flat note in a chord. I catch a whiff of Logan’s scent from behind me.

My mate. My mate! I smell Logan’s scent upwind of me. He smells of dominance and the outdoors and mine. He smells like he did on our first date, with the addition of… freesia? Roses? My scent. We both smell like both of us, now that I’m paying attention. I guess it would be pretty hard to miss who is mated to whom, with a wolf nose. There’s a difference in how I feel for Logan in my human body as opposed to how I feel for him in my wolf body. As a woman, I want Logan. I know he’s attractive, and I like being around him. I love him. As a wolf… It’s like we’re magnets. I can feel exactly where he is around me. I can pinpoint him by smell, by sound, and by the link between our minds. It’s like he’s wearing a flashing neon sign that says “Mate” and I’m practically blinded by it.

Most of my fears were unfounded. Once I get my feet under me, it’s easy to walk on my four paws. I can easily identify smells in the wind. I just instinctively know the smell of most of the things around me, and the ones I don’t know, Logan quietly supplies the words I’m looking for. Most of them are things I wouldn’t have been things I would recognize, anyway. Some of them are the individual scents of pack members, some of them are plants from the garden, some of them are smells from the buildings around us. I feel stronger, and I hear things I never thought about before.

All of these things are cataloged in my brain within a few seconds. I still remember that I started this with a game of chase. Logan stripped and shifted behind me, giving me the few seconds I needed to reorient myself. I suddenly find that I really want to play this game with him. I don’t feel like myself at all, but I realize that I’m waving my tail at him like a red flag to a bull. I yelp a bit and dig my claws into the dirt to build some speed so I can launch across the yard.

Logan yips a doggy laugh as he launches after me, swaggering and assured of his physical superiority, even after my shift into a form that’s closer to his equal. Now we’re truly in the game, and I’m just barely keeping ahead of Logan because he’s letting me. Surprisingly, the sensual thrill is still there, even if I feel like I’m hitching a ride in my new body. I’ve seen Logan and his wolf interact, through our mind link. I’m not privy to most of their “conversations” because Logan and I really only share surface-level thoughts. We’ve been learning the difference between feelings and the thoughts that form as our internal monologue.

What I’m feeling now seems a lot like his wolf feels to him. I haven’t found my wolf inside of me, if I’m thinking of her as a separate entity, but I’m noticing the vague difference between her feelings and urges from mine as a human. I wouldn’t normally challenge Logan when it comes to our bedroom play- he always seems to one-up himself even with my willing obedience. All of my introspection has slowed me down enough that Logan couldn’t believably stay behind me. I’m pulled from trying to ferret out which of my thoughts are me and which are the wolf by Logan tackling me to the grass.

As we’re rolling together, we wrestle to establish a pin on each other. Something inside me knows that we’re playing a dominance game. I’m sort-of-not-really new to the pack, and the urge to establish where I am in the pack structure is inescapable. On top of that, Logan is the worst person (wolf?) in the pack to start this game with. As the Alpha, he’s the strongest in the pack and has more consequences if he shows any quarter with me. Now that I’m not a weak little human, it’s not as cute for Logan to let me argue with him. It’s one thing for a kitten to attack you, but when a bobcat comes after you, the laughs stop.

All the struggling I can manage still ends with me underneath Logan, his razor-sharp teeth gently closing around the back of my neck. I’m winded and panting. It startles me to realize that I’m not sweating when I totally would be as a human. *Pinned, baby. What should we do now?* Surely he doesn’t mean… in this form? Part of me- that primitive, unspeaking part- is all for it, but the human part of me is hesitant, to say the least. I feel Logan’s sigh on the back of my neck, but he backs off to lick my ear. *Some shifters are comfortable with it and some are not. It’s more likely to happen in the heat of the moment, like after a full moon ceremony, but it’s also perfectly normal to always shift beforehand.* I’m both glad and disappointed to feel Logan’s hands petting my back a moment later.

“Alright little rose. You’re gorgeous as you are now, but it’s time to find your way back to two legs for me. I should have known you’d be red, but I find the darker fire of your hair even more gorgeous than this gingery fur. You should be pleased that your eyes are the same color in both forms. Think about your human body. How it feels, how it moves. What you’d see. Find your way back.” I sink into the familiar comfort of Logan’s touch as I think about my humanity in a way I never have before. Slowly, slowly, I come back to myself.

It’s not exactly the same as before. I still feel those primitive urges in the back of my head, and the smells and sounds are still overwhelming. I’m not incredibly sure why my sight isn’t still color-shifted, but I can only be grateful. There’s so much about me that feels different, I’m not sure I could handle the endless sepia for the rest of my life. Once I’m standing on two feet again among the shreds of my clothing, I turn to Logan. “So what now?”