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Kennedy...

Meat around her hand, Kennedy could feel the life that remained in his tissue. The pulse of his heart thumped weakly against the back of her hand. She could feel his body’s desperation to pull itself back together. The healing was a faint glimmer of the tidal force of a change, a fairy light, thin and fragile. Delicately, she touched the edge, where it was brightest, and she felt its heat flare. So this was life, a delicate spiderweb. She feared tearing it and damaging the man more. What would they do to her mother if he died?

Fear rose like a wave in her chest, adding pressure to a drowning tide. She allowed herself to float on the feeling, refusing to be drawn away from the delicate work that his body was desperately trying to manage. She curled her body close to his wolf shape, as she eased the flickering edge of healing tissue closer to the other side of the rend. Fizzy against her fingers, she felt his body begin to knit.

Impossible. A magic trick of the gods. She was just a stupid girl who worked at the Mega Mart. With half of her forearm within the man’s body, she eased the torn edges back toward each other, slowly bridging the gaps. Time bent into a bubble around them. The room was distant and far away.

Her entire world was the center of his body. She felt the space around his lung reseal and the wolf took a full breath. Tears rolled down his furred cheeks. He rested his solid muzzle on the top of her head, but he didn’t push her away or bite her.

Each breath helped more brightness and fizz gather around her fingertips. The sensation reminded her of popping candy as his life returned. His body was strong, and the way he was healing took her breath away. As soon as his breathing became normal, she felt him try to turn again. A wildfire of sensation shot up her legs. Little bear within her belly flipped wildly, bright as a star, wanting to change with him.

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“Shhh…” she soothed the man, “Not yet…. Give me just a little more time. I know it hurts.” The groan he released was a rumble around her hand. Gritting her teeth, she resisted her own change, and held him at bay the best that she could. As new as the taste of stinging nettle tea, she began to understand the pattern of his Wolf shape as she held his change at bay.

The path was not so different, near to what she knew of bear, a cousin, a brother, a twin. Her body sang to her that she could explore the shape and open new worlds. If she let go, she could slide into this new shape like pulling on a bathing suit. Little bear reached toward the pattern, mailable, exploring it. “Not you too.”

It took all she had to hold all three of them in their current shapes. If Little bear had been further along, or the wolf more healthy, they would have pulled her into that unfamiliar landscape. She could barely wrap her mind around her own heart shape. “Just a little more time.”

Only her hand remained in his chest, each breath pushed her further out. The Wolves healed like Red did, with terrifying speed. Forcing herself not to rush, knitting with threads of energy fine as spider floss, she slowed the bleeding until it finally stopped. His heart beat became strong. Healing all the muscle tissue was more than she could do.

Exhausted, Kennedy pulled her fingertips free of the meat of his body. His eyes flickered open, and she met his golden gaze. As he changed, she pushed herself away from him, not wanting to be pulled any further into the energy of his transformation. With no remaining strength to lift herself from the floor, she lay sprawled on the blood slick kitchen tile and watched him struggle through his shift.

David stepped over her and crouched, sheltering her with his body. She rested her hand on his ankle. Madness sometimes came with a change. David’s body thrummed, ready to launch, or leap, or change. Whatever had happened with his family, this man was more than ready to give his life for hers and for little bears.

The moments of the Wolf’s transformation drew out. He lay exhausted, drained of fluid and blood. She released a breath when he finally came together whole. Handsome as sin, he had shaggy dark hair and ocher skin marked with scars. He tried to lift himself from the floor, and the wave of pain that came with the effort caused him to pass out.