| CHALLENGE PART 11 ____________________________________________________________________ I awoke later to the sound of whispering voice. There was warm fur under my head. I opened my eyes to find my situation hadn’t improved either. Nathaniel’s head was lying on my paws and I had had my head lying on top of his. “They can change back but they’ll just shift again tonight, there’s no getting around that.” I heard a deep male voice say. “And even if they did revert whether forced or not they’d be knocked out for the rest of the day. It’s best we just leave them as they are. We’ll have our questions answered tomorrow.” I lifted my head and looked in the direction of that new voice. It belonged to a very tall very built man with flowing golden brown hair. Until that moment I hadn’t given much thought to shifting back. I wasn’t sure how or even if I could without some sort of instruction. I lay my head back down and pictured myself in my head shifting back, almost willing myself to change. The pain started again and I gave a small cry drawing the attention of everyone in the room. I watched, as my hands became my hands again, the fur appearing to do a reverse flow back into my skin. When the pain subsided I sat inspecting myself then realizing I was naked. I reached down and pulled the sheet at the end of the bed around me. The silence was thick. I looked over my shoulder to find Jason, Zane, Anita, and the new guy looking at me with shocked looks on their faces. “What? Haven’t you ever seen a naked woman before?” I said sarcastically. The new guy found his voice first. “You just shifted back without passing out,” he said as if that explained everything. “Yeah, and.” I retorted. “And …. only alphas can do that.” He paused. “That makes you alpha, something that has been a rarity among the local leopards.” “What makes you such an authority?” I asked getting just a bit edgy. “I’m Richard, Ulfric for the wolves. That means I am their pack leader. It also means I am an alpha, I can change back without passing out. The same feat that you have just accomplished. That makes you alpha, the only alpha in the pard.” “But Nathaniel said Anita takes care of them, wouldn’t that make her alpha?” “They consider her dominant, and since there were no alphas to take their previous leader’s place they declared her Nimir Ra,” Richard continued explaining. A warm tongue brushed across my arm. I looked down into Nathaniel’s beautiful cat eyes and ran my hand over his coat. I leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on the bridge of his nose he purred heavily in response and rolled over onto his back exposing his belly. I took the invitation and started scratching him. He stretched his paws above his head and yawned very big. Everyone laughed. “Well someone seems quite content with this turn of events.” Jason said still laughing. “Speaking of which,” Anita interjected. “How did this turn of events come to be? When did he scratch you?” “What?” I asked, astonished that they could possibly thing Nathaniel had done this to me. “Nathaniel never scratched me. I think it happened on the night I woke up with amnesia. I had this big scratch on my arm.” I went to show it to them but it was gone. “But it was right here.” “One of the advantages to being lycanthrope is the ability to heal.” Richard commented. “Anyway,” I continued, “There was a cut on my arm when I came to. I thought I had fallen and cut it somehow. The doctor never mentioned a possibility of it being a lycanthrope scratch so I didn’t think anymore about it until I started getting these weird messages.” “Like the one at the club?” Zane asked. “Yeah, like that one but before that I got a phone call and this strange man asked if my arm was feeling better. So I figure it must be the one that infected me.” “Well regardless of what happened,” Richard continued, “you are lycanthrope now and apparently an alpha. This could mean many things for the future of the pard.” “Like what?” I asked. “Like if you’re dominant enough, you could take over my position,” Anita said from where she was sitting on one of the couches in the room. She had been quiet up until then. “Zane, you saw her right after she changed, right?” “Yeah.” “Any observations?” “She wouldn’t let me near Nathaniel when I thought he had infected her,” Zane began explaining. “She stood her ground. There was no way I was going to cross her. She’s easily the most dominate among us.” I glanced at Richard who was rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “What is it?” I asked him. “I’m just wondering about Nathaniel’s condition. When did he change?” “The same time I did, why?” “The exact same time?” “Yeah, when the pain really hit me hard it seemed to affect him too.” Anita spoke up again. “Could she have taken Nathaniel with her like the time at the lupanar after you killed Marcus? When you changed and everyone else changed with you?” Richard turned to Nathaniel who was completely stretched out on the bed still getting his tummy rubbed courtesy of me. “Is that what happened Nathaniel?” He nodded his head in a yes motion. “Well, I guess all we can do now is wait and see how the rest of the pard reacts to her.” He turned to Anita. “Bring them all to the lupanar tonight and we shall see what happens.” Richard and Anita left and I spent he rest of the morning and most of the afternoon learning some basics of how to use the power within me and everything I could about the politics and niceties of being a lycanthrope from Jason and Zane. ________________________________________________________________________________________ PART 12 INDEX |