Chapter 11: Silver

I didn't shift on the tower.

I lay on the planks in Rhett's arms under a sky full of stars.

My wolf paced my ribs, and she was so loud, after thirteen years, that I could not think.

"Jessa," Rhett said. "Your eyes."

"What about them?"

"They're silver."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not."

My skin prickled from my scalp to my heels.

The pull I had been refusing for half my life rose in me, and I knew what it was.

"Rhett, I think I'm going to..."

"Go down," he said fast. "Go to the clearing. I'll be right behind you."

I took the stairs three at a time, in his flannel shirt, with my jeans over one arm.

At the bottom of the tower I fell onto the pine needles and let it come.

Shifting had always been something that happened to other people.

I had watched it a thousand times, with their clothes in my hands.

Nobody ever told me it felt like coming home.

Bone slid and muscle stretched, and my hands became paws in the dirt.

The whole world went sharp and bright and full of smell.

I could smell the river from two miles off.

I could smell him.

I stood up on four legs in the dark and shook out a coat of thick, pale fur.

I was tall.

Taller than I should have been.

Rhett came down the stairs and stopped on the last step.

He stared at me.

His mouth opened and closed.

"Rawson wolves are brown," he said slowly. "Every one of them. Your father's wolf is brown. Your mother's..."

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