Perfect Mate (A Werewolf BBW Shifter Romance #2)(5)

Damien maneuvered deftly around the trees, slowing to walk behind Jordan only when there was a particularly dense cluster of brush ahead of them. Overhead, the chickadees and jays chirped to each other, and squirrels shook the branches as they leapt from tree to tree.

"How do you walk so easily?" Julia asked, after stumbling over yet another tree root.

"The branches move. I hear them," Damien said. "And I could follow Jordan through anything; his footsteps sound like an elephant rampaging through the woods."

"I don't have an alpha male figure to maintain," Jordan sniffed, patting his stomach. "And I weigh less than you do, anyway."

"Skinny-fat," Damien teased. "You're just not as graceful as me."

"That's what I think of when I think of my alpha," Jordan said, chin tilted up in the air. "A graceful ballerina prancing through the forest."

"Just don't make me wear a tutu."

Julia got the sense that they'd been teasing each other their whole lives, but as soon as they reached a small clearing the jokes stopped. Jordan looked over his shoulder toward the forest they'd trampled through.

"Is this far enough away, you think?" he asked.

In response, Damien knelt and lay the body of the shifter on the ground. He touched the forest floor, scraping away the leaves and letting his fingers dig into the loam underneath.

"This is a good spot," he said.

"Oh!" Julia said. "We didn't bring shovels. Should I go back?"

Damien shook his head.

"He asked to be buried as a wolf. Part of that is digging the grave."

"I can help," Jordan said.

"No," Damien said. He paused, his head bent. "I killed him. It's my job." He tore off his shirt and threw his glasses aside as well. Julia didn't realize what he was going to do until his form began to change. She gasped as his body shifted into that of a wolf.

The first time he'd changed in front of her, she had been too scared to look at what exactly was happening in front of her. Now, she watched with a keen curiosity as his face morphed outward. Hair sprouted first on his face, back, and shoulders, turning his skin dark with fur. His chest was the strangest part of him to change, for the altered bone structure made his ribs pop as they realigned, the muscles underneath snapping into place one by one, rippling under his skin. Then fur grew over his chest and that, too, was covered. He turned toward Julia, and his eyes shone golden. He seemed to be asking her a question.

"I'm alright," Julia said. She realized that she'd been holding her breath the entire time, and she inhaled deeply. "It's just strange." Damien stepped out of his pants, which had fallen away as soon as his legs shrunk, and sniffed the forest floor.

"You get used to it," Jordan said, shrugging.

"He... he said that it uses energy to shift," Julia said.

"It does. You should rest a minute," he called over to Damien, who had already started digging into the earth. If Damien heard him, he didn't show it. His claws raked the soft earth, tearing a hollow in the ground.

"Let's leave him alone for a while," Jordan said. "It shouldn't take too long."

Julia looked back over her shoulder at Damien as they walked away. Dirt flew from his paws and he was already sunk into the ground, his jaw open and panting. A wolf. That was who she was in love with.

He stopped digging and looked over at her, his eyes wild, almost seeing. He was reading her doubt. Julia turned and followed Jordan away through the brush.

CHAPTER FOUR

It was hard work, but Damien found himself enjoying the exertions as he got deeper and deeper into the ground. A long time had passed since he had dug so much. The last grave he'd made had been for his grandfather, a shifter who had lived nearly a hundred years after changing permanently into his wolf form. Damien wondered idly if he would live that long. He would have to live without Julia, and the thought of it made him cringe.

The earth was colder now under his paws, and he was almost entirely submerged in the ground. Roots tangled through the stony earth so far down, and it was harder to dig. The smell of the earth was nutty, deep and rich, and Damien rested for a moment, leaning against the side of the hole he had dug. His chest swelled, pressing against the earthen wall. There were worms down here, beetles, grubs. The scent of a fungus, the vein of its growth squirming its way in slow curves through the ground. Other dead things, too, and not just plants. The earth would take back the bodies of whatever lay down and did not get up.

Would he live as long as his grandfather? Long enough to shift permanently into wolf form? Or would he die in a fight, as his father had?

Damien remembered the fight that had taken his sight away from him. It had been a mistake. He had never meant to offend the alpha male by eating his portion of deer; he'd only been hungry and had taken what he thought was the pack's meat. But such an offense had led directly to a challenge, and he was forced to battle the leader of the pack.

He'd told Julia that he'd lost his eyes in an accident, and that much was true. It was a stupid accident to have eaten food left out without knowing whose it was. He was lucky he'd escaped with his life.

The day he'd fought the alpha male had been the worst day of his life. He remembered it vividly now, and as the memory played back in his mind his fur bristled as though a wind had suddenly come through.