Duke(59)

Moments later he stood before them in all of his naked glory, and didn’t seem the least bit shy or self-conscious.

He took a breath. Blew it out. Closed his eyes. Took another breath, and pushed it out a little slower than the one before.

His back arched, his arms reached for the floor, his body jerked, and he went to all fours.

Gen saw hair forming, realized it was fur. Duke’s face morphed, changed, and Gen shrank back into Isaac.

“It’s okay, Gen. He wants you to see who he is.”

“This can’t be happening.”

Brain sat beside her. “It’s happening, Duchess. Duke is a werewolf. I am, too.”

A very large wolf sat in front of her, bigger than the German Shepherd that used to live next door. Closer to Great Dane size, though more the shape of the shepherd.

Gen thought she was being way too calm about this, but the wolf was just sitting there, as if he were waiting for her to do something. He’d turned into a wolf, now the ball was in her court.

“I don’t have anything up my sleeve anywhere near as cool as turning into a wolf, Duke. I’m not sure what you’re waiting for me to do.”

Duke looked at Brain and Gen would’ve sworn he rolled his eyes. Brain laughed and said, “He was waiting to be sure you weren’t going to freak.”

Gen slid off Isaac’s lap and sat on the floor, and Duke came to her, going to the ground as he reached her, his chin on her lap. She touched over his eye, tentatively, but his eyes stayed on her face. She realized he was still watching for her to freak.

“I’m not freaking, Duke. I mean, I reserve the right to have a minor freak out later, but I’m oddly calm now.” She ran her fingers through his fur and he closed his eyes, obviously enjoying her touch. “I won’t freak because I’m afraid of you, but because you’re an effing werewolf and my entire picture of reality just shifted.”

She looked up to Brain. “This is why he recovered so fast when I throat punched him? Why he didn’t stay down when I kicked his knee?”

Brain nodded and she said, “Good to know. I’d have hit the next guy harder, and might have done more damage than I wanted.”

She looked back to Duke. “Okay, so I’m sure once you can talk to me, this’ll explain a lot of things I don’t understand, and I get why you wanted Isaac here, and I have to say it was a good call, but I’m wondering why Abbott needed to be here?”

“I’m a witness, and as Isaac pointed out earlier, a somewhat grumpy one, so just ignore me.”

Looking down at Duke with her eyebrows up, she asked, “Even I know Abbott doesn’t like being awake during the day. You couldn’t do this later in the evening?”

He licked her chin, stood, and walked to the other side of the room.

“You should come back up here with us, Duchess.”

Gen looked up, accepted Brain’s hand, and sat between him and Isaac this time.

“The strongest shapeshifters have a dual form. It means we hold the change, so we have bits of both our human and animal qualities. It looks an awful lot like a scary monster, but it’s still Duke.”

Gen watched in awe this time, a little more prepared to see what was happening. Her brain hadn’t fully registered the shift before, but this time she could see the morph, watch the change.

When he stopped changing he stood at least seven feet tall, his legs, arms and torso more human than wolf, his head more wolf than human, but with a shorter snout. His claws were neither human nor wolf, the fingers not quite what they should be, with long, scary looking claws on the end. Not retractable claws, either.

Gen went to stand up but Brain stopped her. “Give him a minute. Most shapeshifters can make one change, and then their bodies revert back to human when they go to sleep. Duke has just made two changes, and he’ll need to make a third in a few minutes, so he can answer your questions.”

Duke turned to a table by the door, lifted a dome off a plate, and turned his back as he lifted a huge chuck of what Gen thought must be raw beef. He downed it in a few short minutes, looked as if he was trying to wipe his mouth, and turned back towards them. Three steps brought him what it would’ve taken ten for her. He looked at his hands a few seconds and the long claws disappeared. He took a breath, closed his eyes, and gradually, much slower this time, turned back into Duke.

It looked like it hurt this time, like it was much harder, and when he finished he looked as if he needed to sit down, but he just stood, looking at her.

“So, werewolves drive motorcycles because it’s too hard to hang your head out the window of a car while you’re driving?”

Duke smiled, Brain chuckled beside her, and Abbott burst into laughter.