Pride (Shifters #3)(38)

“But just in case, we’re going to give your body a little nudge in the right direction. I usually start with my feet.” I wiggled the bare toes of my left foot for effect. “Or back paws, in your case. Concentrate on only that one part of your body. Feel your toes. Move them if you want. Sheathe and unsheathe your claws.”
Her eyes closed, and I knew without looking that she was doing as I’d suggested.
“Good. Now, instead of your cat paws, picture your human feet. Remember what they look like. If you have any scars on your foot, think about them. Where are they? What are they shaped like? How did you get them?”
Her eyes were scrunched shut in concentration now, and I couldn’t help smiling at her honest effort.
“Your toes…” I continued. “Are they long and thin, or shorter and thicker? Is your big toe the longest, or your middle toe? Picture the fine, thin hairs on your big t—”
The tabby sucked air in sharply, and it came back out as a hiss of pain. With the next breath, she mewled, deep in her throat.
Her Shift had started.
I sat on my feet, my fingernails scraping the hardwood in excitement. “It’s happening, isn’t it? Do your feet hurt?” For a moment, there was no answer but more mewling, with her eyes still shut tight. “Wait, now, look at me.” No change. 
“Look at me.” I demanded, firmer that time. I was emulating my father now, and doing a damn fine job of it, in my own estimation.
Whether surprised into compliance by the change in my tone or desperate for more instructions, the tabby opened her eyes, staring straight into mine in pain and in growing fear.
“Do your feet hurt?” I repeated, and this time she nodded. “Good. I know this part sucks, but it’s supposed to feel like that. Really. That means this is working.”
She shook her head, and I sighed silently. “No, don’t try to stop it. You want to be human again, don’t you?”
She nodded and closed her eyes again, this time in concentration. She was trying so hard to deal with the pain, and the poor thing now had my respect, as well as my sympathy.
“You’re doing great. Seriously. The next step is to push it forward, instead of pulling it back. Picture your legs, like you did your feet.” Her eyes were still closed, so I leaned to the side to check her progress. There was no visible change in her yet, but I could hear the muted popping as her bones began to rearrange themselves.
To keep the pain to a minimum, she needed to Shift evenly—put each part of her body through the same stage at the same time. In short, her top half needed to catch up.
“Okay, you’re still doing very well. Now let’s work on your hands. Do you have long, pretty fingernails, or short stubby ones like mine?” Not that it mattered. If she’d been in cat form for a matter of weeks, rather than hours, her nails were going to be long, and likely ragged in human form. But for the sake of the imagery exercise, picturing them the way she liked them would work just as well.
Movement near the floor caught my eyes; the toes on her front paws were wiggling. She was really trying. I had a soft spot for people who did what I wanted without questions or complaints. I got that from my father, too.
Another tiny joint popped, and the tabby’s right front leg buckled beneath her. Before she could shift weight onto the other leg, she overbalanced, toppling to the ground on one side.
Oops. Forgot to warn her about that part.
“Are you okay?” I stamped down the urge to pet her, to somehow comfort her—I knew better than to touch a cat in mid-Shift. As long as her cat jaws were still in place, she could take off my hand with one good bite. Even if she didn’t mean to.
When she didn’t answer, shaking all over now that the changes were visible, I tried again. “Hey! Nod your head if you’re all right!”
She nodded, an unstable up-and-down motion in the grip of the full-body tremors that ushered in her human skeletal structure.
As I watched, her tail seemed to shrink into her spine—easily the most amazing part of the process—and the fur across her back began to recede in a broad arc, as if the follicles were sucking each hair back into her skin. I’d done it at least a thousand times, but it was still amazing to watch. Riveting. Though the tabby probably wasn’t enjoying it quite so much.
Fortunately, by then she was past the point of needing my guidance. And past the point of no return, at least for such a young werecat. A more experienced cat could probably have reversed the Shift at such a late stage, if he was willing to put up with the extra pain and extended duration. But the tabby was over the hill and on the way down, with nothing to stop her progress now but completion of the transformation.
A few minutes later, her bare paws twisted and stretched into hands, and her claws thinned into fingernails, long and dirt-caked, as I’d expected. Then she went still, lying on the floor on her stomach, one leg out straight, the other bent at the knee. A long, matted mane of thick brown hair covered her head, shoulders, and much of her back. When it was clean and healthy, she would probably have one of the most beautiful heads of hair I’d ever seen. A true mane.For several moments, she didn’t move, other than the rising and falling of her chest as she panted beneath that blanket of hair, winded from the most strenuous and unique exercise she’d ever endured. I thought back to my first few Shifts, trying to remember if I’d been so exhausted, or looked so incredibly frail. I didn’t think so. But then, I’d known what to expect. And I’d never in my life been as weak as she had to be, nor half as thin.
Between matted strands of hair, I saw bony shoulders stretching into a pair of arms so fragile-looking and thin that her elbows had actual corners. Her waist was impossibly tiny, and her hips so narrow I would have assumed she was prepubescent, if it wasn’t impossible for a werecat to Shift before puberty sent hormones raging through a body, triggering much more than just breasts and menses.
But that was impossible. She was probably just petite, like Abby.
Or so I thought, until she lifted her head, pushing tangled strands of hair aside with one arm while she supported her slight weight with the other. Huge hazel eyes stared up at me, a little browner than they’d been in cat form, and much larger than they should have appeared because of how thin her face was. Her cheeks had more hollow than bone, and her chin looked sharp enough to draw blood.
Still, she had the makings of true beauty, and I had no doubt that once she’d put on a few pounds—like, twenty or so—she was going to break tom-hearts all over the world. And, if she was half as fierce as the gleam in her eyes suggested, she might break a few heads, too.
I liked her already.
Sixteen

I smiled at the now-human tabby and rose onto my knees, extending one hand to help her up. But as soon as I moved, she scuttled away from me on all fours, hair trailing the floor, eyes wide and frightened.
As she moved, I caught fleeting glimpses of the front of her body, and the enforcer part of my brain kicked in, looking for wounds or scars that could have come from an initial infection. She was almost certainly not a stray, but I didn’t want to overlook any evidence in what could turn out to be a landmark case.
Unfortunately, she had no such marks. Other than odd scrapes and several deep bruises, the most serious injury I saw was the medicated gash on her hand, exposed because the bandage had fallen off during her Shift.
When her back hit the corner, the tabby hugged bare legs to her chest and stared at me over a pair of dirty, bony knees. Her focus roamed from my face to my tee, then to my faded jeans, as if seeing them for the first time. She’d seen them before, of course, but not with the full range of colors the human eye dealt with.
Then she twitched, as if with sudden understanding, and her gaze flicked back to mine. Her cheeks flushed, and she looked away, hugging her legs tighter. 
She was…embarrassed.
My Pride—all Prides, as far as I knew—paid little attention to nudity associated with Shifting. And even some nudity not associated with Shifting. But there were some exceptions. My mother, for instance. As with humans, levels of comfort and acceptance varied widely, most of us falling somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, with the odd few on either end.
So it was possible that the tabby’s entire Pride was more conservative regarding gratuitous nudity than we were. But this wasn’t unwarranted bare skin. She’d just Shifted. There was no way to do that with clothes on. At least, not without ruining them.
“It’s okay.” I edged closer on my knees. “You did it! I knew you could.” I didn’t play cheerleader for just anyone, but I was hoping the pride and enthusiasm in my voice would be contagious.
The tabby said nothing. She only stared at me with those huge eyes, her chin resting on her knees. She looked shocked. Terrified. And not just of what she’d done. She looked horrified to find herself naked in front of a stranger. That was not the typical werecat response. Not even after a first Shift, though that couldn’t possibly have been her first. She’d had to get into cat form somehow.
I knee-walked a step closer, and my leg came down on something sharp. “Ow, shit!” I looked down to find a cocklebur stuck in the denim over my knee. What the hell? I plucked it out and dropped it on the wood floor, where it landed next to another just like it. Glancing around, I found several more, and only then did I understand. They’d fallen from the tabby when the fur tangled around them receded into her skin.