to the first section. She looked for anything about eyes, but didn’t find anything. She remained focused and kept turning the pages.
A hand on her shoulder startled her. She tensed and whirled in her chair. Her eyes widened and she felt her claws burst from the tips of her fingers. She relaxed when she realized that it wasn’t danger. It was Colm. She’d been so focused on the book that she hadn’t even noticed that he got to his feet. His lips twitched, but he didn’t fully smile. Which was a good thing, because if he had, she might have had to kick him.
“It’s time to go run.” He tilted his head toward the door and held out his hand. “This will wait. He might get through more without us here than we are currently, because, I have to be honest, there was a point when all of the information seemed to blur together.”
She rose without argument, even though she wasn’t so sure that the chatar would get through it faster. The urge to get outside and into her fur was too strong to ignore. She could always come back to help.
She slipped her hand into his. It was beginning to feel almost natural to hold their hands. She still didn’t know completely what was behind it. They knew she wasn’t going to run off and they didn’t seem to be the openly affectionate type. Linc stood and walked over to join them.
“I’m ready to see how you look in your tiron form.” Linc smiled down at her.
To tell the truth, she was a little curious about how they looked in animal form as well. A normal tiron had a broad head, pointed ears and visible canines as well as the powerful, large feline body. Were they bigger than a normal Santir since they were larger in human form? She knew that it sometimes worked that way. She also wondered about their fur. Was it the same color as their hair? She knew her fur had more brown than her hair did.
Chapter Eleven
Linc led the way out of the fortress and into the forest. Cami inhaled deeply and savored the scent. It pulled at her wild side and she was more than ready to let it out. The scent of the earth filled her and she wanted to go investigate the scurrying sounds coming from nearby bushes.
“We’ll let you change here and we’ll go change somewhere else.” Colm squeezed her hand and released it. “Don’t go charging off without us. We want to see you. We’ll be back.”
“I’ll wait for you.” She smiled and waited for them to disappear into the trees before starting on the buttons of her shirt.
Cami wanted to rip the clothes away, but knew she couldn’t. She’d need the clothes to wear back to the fortress. Even though nudity before and after shifting wasn’t a big deal among shifters in general, she didn’t feel comfortable right now doing it. She was still all too conscious of her scars on her thigh.
The scars on her face didn’t bother her so much anymore, but her leg was a different matter. It wasn’t the look of the marks that bothered her. The limitations she now had because of them upset her. Running any distance at first had sent the muscles into seizing cramps. Now, that happened only after strenuous activity or when she pulled the muscle. Sometimes, she still limped at the end of the day. She hated that, but she’d take that over not being able to run at all.
She folded her clothes and put them in the bend of two branches to keep them off the ground. Shifting, she stretched. Her claws flexed and dug into the grass and dirt beneath her four fur-covered paws. It felt so good to be in this form. Her back arched and she turned to the tree where she’d put her clothes. Rising onto her back legs, she raked her claws down the trunk.
She looked around the area. She wanted to move, to go deeper into the forest, but remembered her promise to Colm. Waiting wasn’t easy. She sat, but couldn’t stay still for very long and began to pace the small area as she waited. As she turned to make the few steps back to the tree, she saw two tiron waiting just inside the bushes.
One male’s coat was so black that the sheen almost seemed blue. That had to be Colm. The other’s fur was a gold blond with