Page 67 of The Lunatics

I looked at Michael. “What about you? I’m guessing you don’t want to try this shifting experiment in front of others?”

He shook his head.

“Come on. I know where we can go, if you’re still up for it.” I led him away from my parents’ place, toward the end of the road and the towering pines that loomed like jagged mountains over the pavement.

“I still don’t know that this is wise,” he said.

“What are you so worried about?”

He glanced around us.

“There’s no one close enough to hear you.” Which he would know if he stopped suppressing.

“The wolf can be unpredictable.”

“You, Michael. The wolf is you, just in a different form. You ever think that maybe part of why you’re unpredictable in fur is because you’ve divided yourself to the point that you’ve created multiple personalities?”

“That’s… disturbing.”

“Yes. It is. And it’s not entirely unheard of. One of the wolves in our pack got run over in wolf form and didn’t shift for a few months because of the trauma the thought of shifting caused her afterward. When she finally did, she went lunatic and we had to cage her. It took her weeks of regular shifting to normalize.”

Michael remained silent. Unease rose in the back of my mind, tinged with embarrassment.

I glanced over at him as we stepped from the road onto the dirt trail that led into the forest. “Please tell me you don’t have to cage yourselves.”

He clenched his jaw and nodded.

The Kolbecks were lunatics.

“Fuck,” I said, with feeling.

“I knew this was a bad idea. We should go back.”

“Oh, no. I need to shift, and so do you. We need to know how bad it is. Because what if your lunacy infects me when I turn? Think of the damage a MacKenzie wolf could do if it went off the rails. At least where we’re going, the only thing we can hurt is deer.”

And each other, but I didn’t need to say that. We were both thinking it.

CHAPTER 15

Ifixed my gaze on the trail ahead, feeling itchy. Michael and I had a ways to go, and at this rate, it would take us another hour to get there. Silver shafts of moonlight flitted through the forest canopy. I was drawn to the light like a moth to a flame. It made me want to drop to all fours and chase Her path through the night sky. The need to shift was driving me to distraction. How did Michael stand this all the time?

“Wanna run?” I asked.

“If you think it necessary,” he answered.

“It’s not necessary. It’s fun.” I moved closer to him as we walked, butting my shoulder against his. “You do know what fun is, right?”

He arched a brow at me. “Contrary to popular belief, I do.”

What did someone like Michael do for fun? All I could picture was him in a library with a glass of good scotch and a book open on his lap.

“Let’s go then,” I said.

I broke into a jog. He pulled even with me a moment later, our strides the same, our hearts beating as one. I smiled toothilyat him, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring down, picking out his path with care. Oh, right. This trail was new to him, and with his senses suppressed, he might not be able to see it as clearly as I could. Thankfully, I knew a way to fix that. I loosened the cage on my power and it swelled to engulf him.

He shuddered, toe catching on an exposed tree root, and nearly faceplanted.

I grabbed his arm. “My bad. I should have warned you.”