From Broke Technician to Luna novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: First Shift

Stevie's POV

The clearing was a quarter mile behind the pack house, a flat circle of trampled grass with birches around it.

Dane stood at the edge with his arms crossed and a duffel bag at his feet.

Tiernan stood in the middle, and I stood in front of him in leggings and one of his shirts, feeling stupid.

"Tell me what to do," I said.

"You don't do anything," Tiernan said. "That's the hard part."

"That's not a lesson."

"It's the only one. You've been a wolf your whole life, and you've spent twenty-two years holding the door shut. We're not teaching you to change. We're teaching you to stop blocking it."

"How do I stop blocking something I can't feel?"

"You can feel it," he said. "It's been in your chest since the car."

I thought of the gold I'd seen in the window glass, and the rage that had rolled over inside me.

"It only came when I was angry," I said.

"Then be angry," Dane called.

"Dane."

"What? It's a valid method. I shifted at fourteen because my brother ate my sandwich."

Tiernan's mouth twitched.

I hated that it helped.

"Close your eyes," he said.

I closed them.

"Go back to the car. Back to Roth's hands. Back to the picture of your mother."

I did.

The thread in my chest pulled tight, and the old ache opened, forty-one names with a line through every one.

Heat flooded my arms.

"Good," Tiernan said, quieter. "Don't push it away. Let it up."

My skin crawled.

My spine bowed, and I gasped, and a pain went through my hips and shoulders that was not like any pain I'd had.

"Tiernan..."

"I've got you."

His hands closed on my arms.

"It hurts," I said.

"I know. It's over fast. Breathe out."

I breathed out.

Something gave in me with a wet, loud crack, and the world flipped.

I was on the grass on four feet, and everything was enormous.

The birches loomed. The air was full of a thousand smells, wet bark and cold stone and Dane's cheap soap and the warm green scent of the man in front of me.

I could hear a mouse in the leaves forty yards off.

I looked down and saw paws, pale gold, with dark pads.

"Holy hell," Dane breathed. "She's a blonde."

Tiernan stepped back and looked at me.

His face was open in a way I had never seen it.

"You're beautiful," he said hoarsely.

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