He said, “Sure. See you in a bit.”

  But she didn’t let go of his arm and squeezed tighter while her brother was talking to one of the reindeer in a stall. She raised her brows, hoping Maverick got her message. She didn’t have to go to the bathroom. She had to turn into a wolf.

  She hurried off then. She figured Maverick wished he could go with her and reassure her for her first time. But she needed him to keep her brother away from her. She hoped she could just turn back at will, but what if her brother wanted to leave and say bye to her and she had just—vanished?

  She couldn’t worry about that right now and hurried out of the stable.

  Weston glanced in Gina’s direction. “Where’s Gina going?”

  She heard him because of her enhanced hearing despite having left the stable already.

  “To use the bathroom and then clean up the dishes from lunch.”

  She finally reached the house and threw open the door to the house, feeling panicked, like a fever was filling her with heat. She stripped off her clothes as soon as she slammed the front door shut, hoping Maverick wouldn’t let her brother come into the house and find her clothes strewn all over the place. She would never do that—normally. But she couldn’t help it. She was so afraid she’d shift and still be wearing her clothes.

  Then she pulled her panties off at the last minute. She went to grab her clothes and take them into the master bedroom, but suddenly she felt like she was changing, and the next thing she knew, she was standing on the floor on four furry paws. No matter how much she thought she’d be ready to face this, she wasn’t prepared for it at all. She couldn’t talk, except to bark. Or howl, which of course she wasn’t about to do.

  Again, she felt panicked. She paced. How long would this last? What could she do now?

  Her clothes! She grabbed her panties with her teeth and ran them down the hall to Maverick’s bedroom. Not having hands to work with, she had to find another way to do things. For now, her teeth did the job. She returned to grab her bra. She needed to take more of a load at a time, but every time she tried to grab two articles of clothing, she couldn’t manage, losing the other. Giving up on it, she grabbed her bra again and raced down the hall to the bedroom. Then she ran back to the living room and grabbed her jeans, but she kept tripping on the pant legs on the return trip. Man, this was a job. Next time she had to shift, she hoped she wouldn’t have to hurry like this.

  She managed to get both socks in a mouthful, squinching up her nose a bit because of the idea she’d had the socks on her feet earlier, even though it seemed different to be carrying things in her mouth as a wolf. Then she managed to carry one hiking boot into the master bedroom and dropped it when the front door opened.

  Ohmigod, no! Her heart was doing double time. She went into the bathroom and stared at herself in the full-length mirror. She thought she was a pretty red wolf with a black-tipped tail swishing behind her, but her brain couldn’t embrace the idea that she and the wolf were one and the same.

  Then she heard Maverick and Weston talking in the kitchen. “Want a beer?” Maverick asked.

  Are you kidding me? Maverick hadn’t understood that she’d actually shifted?

  She sat on her rump, annoyed. Then she realized she’d better try to shift back. But no matter how much she tried to convince her body to turn back into a human, it wasn’t working. Okay, so, yeah, this was frustrating. She was glad the other times she’d shifted, she hadn’t known about it.

  “Where’s Gina?” Weston asked.

  Her heart skipped a beat.

  “She came in to use the bathroom,” Maverick repeated. “She was up really late last night. Maybe she lay down to take a nap.”

  “I wouldn’t think she would until I left. Well, you have quite a setup here. It’s really a nice ranch.”

  “Thanks. We enjoy it.”

  “And so does my sister from the sounds of it.”

  Maybe Maverick wanted her to join them as a wolf and bite her brother. Or maybe she was supposed to pretend to be one of the wolf dogs, though she guessed that wouldn’t work because they were supposed to both be male.

  “I’m going to go check on her,” Maverick said, and she could hear him walking down the hall toward the master bedroom. He walked into the bedroom and shut the door.

  She peered out of the bathroom at him, and he smiled broadly, appearing pleased with the way she looked, even though she hadn’t wanted to turn into the wolf while her brother was here, of all things. She was glad Maverick felt that way about her when she was a wolf though. Animals in the wild partly selected their mates because of their appearance, and in some cases, the males had to do unbelievable feats to win the female’s attention. She did wonder if lupus garous were the same.

  Maverick was carrying her other boot and set it on the floor next to the one she’d managed to bring with her. “You’re beautiful, you know?” He gave her a big hug.

  Then she licked his face to thank him. It seemed a natural thing to do, and she was amazed how some of the wolf traits that she wasn’t born with would be so innate. This was an adventure and a half. Everyone should have this experience. Then she thought about her pierced ears. She wasn’t wearing earrings because of the fear of shifting and having them still in her ears, but were the holes in her ears still showing?

  She pulled away from him and returned to the bathroom to look at herself in the mirror again, only this time concentrating on what mattered. Her pierced ears. No holes! Or so tiny they weren’t noticeable because of the fur on her ears. Yay! One obstacle overcome.

  He joined her in the bathroom. “You can stay in here and pretend to be napping or come out and greet him as a new wolf dog he hasn’t seen before. Or you could, if you want to, bite him. Make him one of us.”

  She perked up her ears. Seriously? Maverick wanted her to bite her brother? Well, she’d been saying she should all along. Maybe her brother had said something to Maverick out at the stable that made him realize they truly needed to turn Weston earlier rather than later.

  She nudged Maverick’s hand. She would go with him and try to feel out the situation on her own.

  She walked over to the closed bedroom door and looked back at Maverick. She hadn’t thought of all the repercussions of being a wolf—like the fact that closed doors were impenetrable barriers.

  He opened the door for her and walked with her down the hall. She felt like running down it ahead of him but at the same time staying behind him for cover. Her feelings were all over the place. In her mind she was walking in a wolf’s body, with a human brain that couldn’t let go of the way she felt people would see her—as Gina, human.

  When she reached the end of the hall, she stopped dead, afraid to show herself to her brother. Afraid he would see her as Gina—eerily transformed. What if he was horrified to see her if he really believed she was a wolf shifter now too?

  Maverick waited with her for a second, petted her head, raised his brows at her, watching her to see what she wanted to do. Appreciating him for that, she pushed at the back of his leg. She wanted him to go first.

  She wasn’t sure, but she thought she’d feel better if Maverick started talking to Weston in the beginning. Then she’d come out, and he could introduce her.

  “You want me to go in first?”

  She nodded.

  He leaned down and hugged her and kissed her on the face. She licked his face again. Then he walked into the living room. “Do you want a refill on the beer?”

  “Where is Gina?” Weston asked, frowning, sounding a little worried.

  Maverick glanced back at her.

  Oh, oh, he really wanted to call her out?

  She came out at a trot, and Maverick waved at her. “Gina. Wolf shifter extraordinaire.”

  Weston laughed.

  Her brother didn’t believe it now?

  “Seriously. I can shift and show you my wolf form if you want, and you can decide who bites you, or we can do a non-bite method,” Maverick said.

  Weston stood up from one of the couches and smiled. “Yeah, sure, go for it. You can both bite me if you think it works best that way.”

  Was her brother serious? She didn’t think so. She thought that he was playing along with it. Where was her brother going to stay if he had to shift and didn’t have any control over it? Had Maverick even thought of that?

  Maverick started stripping off his clothes. Ohmigod, he was going to do it. There was no turning back.

  Weston was still smiling. He glanced at Gina. “So you turned my sister?”

  “I accidentally turned her, yes.”

  “When you were kissing?” Weston wasn’t being serious at all. This was going to be a rude awakening for him.

  “We can’t turn someone when we’re in our human form. We have to share saliva in the bloodstream to make the turn possible, but only when we’re in wolf form.” Maverick was still pulling off his jeans. “I turned her when she was trying to pull me out of the lake water. I cut her skin accidentally with one of my teeth.”

  “Okay.” Weston definitely was playing along, not believing any of this.

  Gina drew closer to Weston, still not sure if Maverick was going to go through with shifting in front of her brother, but if he was, then this was it. She wasn’t sure she could bite him. The others were right. Making a choice to turn someone was a lot different than accidentally turning a person.

  Maverick reached for his boxer briefs waistband and Gina moved even closer to her brother, nudging his hand, and he ran his hand over her head in a firm caress. She was just a dog, or wolf dog, to him. About the time that he did, Maverick pulled off his boxer briefs and shifted into his wolf.

  Weston’s eyes were huge, his jaw hanging. He didn’t cry out. He stood there like a statue, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing and he was frozen in time.

  She waited for Maverick to indicate to her what they should do. Maverick was eyeing her brother, giving him a chance to react. Weston was still as death, looking like he didn’t know how to react to what he had just seen.

  Then Maverick rushed forward, just as she was about to open her mouth and bite her brother.

  Maverick bit her brother’s hand. Weston cried out, yanking his hand away and stepping back from him as if he was afraid Maverick would bite him again. She figured Weston might have now realized what he had gotten himself into with all his probing into what Maverick and his kind were.

  Frowning, Weston was favoring his hand. “Damn.” But he was just staring at Maverick, like he couldn’t believe that he was right about Maverick and the others being werewolves. Or that Maverick bit him. Or even that his sister was already one of them.

  Gina wagged her tail. There hadn’t been any going back, she had figured, though she really had planned to bite him instead so it would be on her and not Maverick.

  Maverick woofed at Weston, and then he shifted again to prove to Weston that the blur of forms he had seen was truly what he thought—that Maverick had been a human and then a wolf in the blink of an eye. He was a wolf shifter.

  Then Maverick shifted into the wolf again.

  Weston sat down hard—or fell was more like it—on the couch behind him, sinking down in it, looking gobsmacked. “Hell. I can’t believe it.” Then he glanced at Gina. “Shift back.”

  Maverick shifted and began getting dressed. “Okay, so did we make you a believer yet?”

  Weston tore his attention away from Gina and frowned. “I can’t believe your kind really exist.”

  “Your kind now too. You’re officially one of us. We thought you believed we were werewolves already.” Maverick went into the kitchen, got a first aid kit out from under a cabinet, and then returned to doctor Weston’s hand.

  “My kind now too,” Weston said, watching Maverick clean the bite wound. “My kind now too?” It was finally sinking in that Maverick had turned him.

  “Yeah, that’s what you wanted, isn’t it? To find our kind? You can’t tell anyone else about us, but now you’re one of us and don’t have to hunt for us any longer.”

  “Hell. I, well, I didn’t really think you were real. It was fun believing it, but… I mean, how can any of this be real? It’s like something we’ve always wanted to discover but never truly believed we would.” Then Weston glanced at Gina. “Gina’s not changing back.” He sounded worried.

  Maverick bandaged Weston’s hand. “That’s the issue you’ll have also in the beginning. But mostly around the time of the full moon.” Maverick took a seat on the couch, and Gina sat next to him on the floor.

  She didn’t want to shed wolf fur on the couch.

  Maverick ran his hand over her head and back and began explaining all about lupus garous and the pack. He told Weston he’d talked to Josh, and Weston was welcome to stay at Josh and Brooke’s house for now so that he wouldn’t run into humans if he couldn’t control his shifting.

  Gina suddenly felt the heat filling her body again, and she tore off to the bedroom. She loved seeing Maverick stripping out of his clothes and showing off his beautiful body before he shifted. But no way was she shifting and appearing naked in front of her brother. She wondered if she would ever be able to strip in front of others in the pack and not feel insecure.

  When she reached the bedroom, she immediately shifted. This was unbelievable. She thought her brother was taking the news in good stride though. At least she hoped so.

  She put on her clothes and then took a deep breath and headed back to the living room. Her brother was just sitting there, looking a little shell-shocked.

  “Okay, so you were right, Weston. Are you happy?” Gina asked, approaching him and giving him a hug.

  He hugged her back. “Hell, Gina, I knew it! Well, at least in my vivid imagination, I did.”

  She smiled and sat down with Maverick on the couch. “Yeah, keeping it from you was getting harder because of all your inquiries about the wolf dogs.”

  “Wolf dogs that were actually wolves… I thought so, though I thought they would be a little bigger.” Weston glanced at his bite wound.

  “We’re red wolves,” Maverick said, “not the bigger gray wolves.”

  “I hope you are…okay with it,” Gina said, really meaning it. She hated the idea of terrifying her parents by biting them like that though.

  “It’s going to take some getting used to. What about our parents?”

  “We can’t be around them if we’re having shifting issues, unless we turn them. Mom’s not going to like that when she dyes her hair, it will go away once she shifts. She also won’t like that she can’t wear her wedding rings.”

  Weston raised his brows in question.

  “You should see how fast the need to shift occurs. Well, I guess you did. But with us, since we’re newly turned, we have no control over it. I didn’t think I’d make it in time to even reach the house from the reindeer stable so I could yank off my clothes and then turn wolf. I had to carry my clothes back into the bedroom as a wolf so if the two of you came into the house, you wouldn’t see my clothes lying all over the floor. You wouldn’t have known what to think,” she said. “So if Mom were to do that outside sometime? She could lose her jewelry. Except for during the new moon phase.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “I’m sure they would miss their friends.”

  “But they would miss us even more,” Weston said.

  “Yeah, exactly.”

  Maverick was on his phone texting away, and she glanced at his cell to see whom he was texting. He said to her, “Leidolf and Cassie. And my brother. I need to let them know we have a new pack member.”

  “Pack member. It still seems so unreal. Part of me—” Her brother smelled the air. “I can smell things more. Scents are…much more defined. But it doesn’t seem like I’m really one of you. That you two are either.”

  “Wait until you don’t have to turn on a light at night,” she said. “I kept thinking it was light out when we were camping, and I hadn’t even used a flashlight.”

  “Hell, you were a wolf on the campout,” Weston said, as if all of this was sinking in a little further. “That’s why you were sitting in the dark. And probably why you got up so early too.”

  “Yeah, I don’t remember ever shifting though.”

  “We have to turn Mom and Dad,” Weston finally said, as if he had come to the same conclusion as she already had.

  But she was glad at least that her brother felt the same way as she did, and that made it easier to turn them.

  “Okay, Leidolf and Cassie Wildhaven, our pack leaders, want to know if you want to go down there to see them or stay here and they can come here,” Maverick said. “If you go to their ranch, you can meet more of the pack members. Yes, you’ve already met some, but it will be a different experience for you now that you are one of us.”

  “I won’t be an outsider,” Weston said.

  “More than that. You’ll be able to smell people’s scents and make connections you need to make. They have plenty of land, 30,000 acres, for you to run freely on as a wolf, be yourself, not worry about anyone seeing you if you have to suddenly shift. And we have others who were more newly turned a year or more before you were.” Maverick finally told him about Sarge and the others.

  Weston raised his brows. “Damn, so learning about you could have deadly consequences.”

  “Yeah. But like I said, your other friends were killers, bent on destroying our kind. Sarge made amends, and he serves as the accountant for the pack. So he’ll be glad to see you and reminisce over old times, I’m sure. He can speak to you about how it is to be newly turned also and answer any other questions you might have,” Maverick said.

  She loved how patient Maverick was with her brother, how he did everything to make him feel like part of the pack right away. She hadn’t been sure Maverick would be that way with anyone else. She suspected he had treated her in that manner because he was interested in dating her—and because he’d accidentally turned her.