“The enemy?” Sam asked, staring at his girlfriend through eyes that looked just like my boyfriend Ben’s. “What are you talking about, Starla?”“Listen, Ben,” she began, still wiping at her eyes with the leftover fast food restaurant napkin that he had handed to her a few moments ago. “The reason that I asked you to take me today was because I was afraid all of this would come out, and I thought you would be more understanding than anyone else would be. You always seem like such an even-keeled person. If I had known you were going to get this angry, I wouldn’t have asked you to be the one to take me to the doctor today.”“You’re acting like it’s some sort of a privilege that I got to take you to the doctor today,” he said, sounding absolutely more like Sam than Ben. Starla’

I lay on our bed with Ben for about an hour, neither of us even speaking for the better part of that time. He was content to rest there next to me, holding my hand, while we stared at the ceiling. When he did talk, it wasn’t to ask questions or to tell me what he’d learned from the run with Sam, only to make sure that I was okay.I wasn’t sure I was okay, so that was a difficult question to answer. I just wanted to take Starla and throw her as far away from me as I could so that I’d never have to see her again. I had known from the beginning, somehow, the second that I’d met her, that she was going to end up being trouble for me. Even though I’d avoided her at all costs, it was inevitable that she would come back around and end up being a major pain in my ass.Despite my agitation, I was beginning to get tired, and my eyes we

There is something about running in the form of a wolf that is freeing in a way I cannot quite describe. Since I’ve learned about my magical abilities, I have tried traveling a few different ways, and all of them are fun. Riding a unicorn. Flying as a bird. Running in other animal forms. But when I am a wolf, I feel so connected to my pack. I feel like I am more one of them than any other time when I am just their mage. So even though it was just Brice and I running through the woods that evening, as the sun was beginning to set, our paws crunching over the fallen snow and decaying leaves, I still felt like I was one of them in a way I hardly ever felt.We ran for about a half an hour, making our way through our forest toward the river, crossing a few yards, and heading past the quarry, through the forest that Ben had taken me to that first time he kissed me. We ran through the trees over there, me f

It just seemed fitting that when I flew over to the Flamingos house, I may as well be a nightingale. I don’t know a lot about those birds, but I knew they weren’t nearly as big as some of the other birds I could’ve chosen, and I figured they probably flew at night, what with a name like that. I needed to make sure I watched for owls so I didn’t become someone’s dinner. Visions of me changing my form back into my human self while an owl tried to swallow me down cracked me up a little.I headed right up the stairs as soon as I hung up, intending just to fly to the Flamingos’ house and look for any lights that were on. I didn’t intend to do anything more than that, and I figured it wouldn’t take long. My wolves were still out in the forest and probably wouldn’t be back for at least an hour, maybe longer, depending upon how deep into the forest they decided

It seemed to take forever for me to fly back home. The snow and wind had picked up a lot since I’d left. It was getting late, and the sky was darker by far than it had been when I’d originally flown to the Flamingos’ house, which seemed like forever ago now. I considered stopping to shift into something else, but my desperation just to get back to where I knew I was safe and could get out of the weather kept me going.When I finally got back home, my talons touched down on the railing of the front porch before I shifted into my human form and extinguished the light on top of the house I’d put there to help guide me back. I rushed inside. All of the lights were on, but the house was silent. “Hello!” I shouted, hoping that someone from my pack was there so that they could let everyone else know I was okay. The thought that something might’ve happened while I was gone