A Pack of Their Own novel · Chapter 28 of 32

Chapter 28: Shift, Alpha

My father came down the three steps from the platform one at a time.

He took off his jacket and handed it to the man beside him.

"I will do it," he said, to the room. "I will do it to put an end to this."

"Then my daughter can explain to the packs why she lied."

He walked out to the open floor, a few feet from me, and did not look at me.

The hall had gone so still that I heard a chair creak at the back.

He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled his shirtsleeves to the elbow.

Then he shut his eyes.

I knew what pure wolf looked like.

I had watched Dale's father shift on the lawn, once, easily, in one long stretch.

My father's hands went down to his sides. A ripple ran up his forearms, and the dark hair there thickened and grew.

"There," Mom whispered. "That's wolf."

It was.

His back bent. His jaw began to lengthen, and a murmur went around the benches, uncertain.

For two breaths he looked like exactly what he had sworn he was.

Then his shoulders jerked.

They rose and kept rising. The seam of his white shirt split from the collar to the waist.

His wolf's long jaw went square. Gold flooded his eyes, and his back swelled and lifted, heavy with muscle.

He dropped to his knees and made a sound I knew.

It was low in his chest, and it was the sound I made at the pasture fence.

"No," my father said, in a voice that was half a growl. "No. Stop."

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