Read Online Shadowed Instincts by Wendi Wilson - Free Book Online

eyebrows. “Yes?”
she squeaked out.
    “This is something that happens from time to time. People
forget themselves and shift, or fall asleep out in the open and wake up human
and naked. It’s nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed over. Please don’t let Declan’s
mistake make you feel uncomfortable. It’s his problem, not yours.”
    “But,” she said hoarsely, then cleared her throat before continuing,
“I hurt him. Did I break some kind of pack law or something? Am I in trouble?”
    At that, several people in the room burst into laughter.
Melanie wanted to crawl under the table, but Jeremy’s warm hand on her knee
kept her in place. The laughter halted as abruptly as it started when Darren
held up a hand.
    “Melanie,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “you are not
in trouble. I couldn’t be more proud of you, actually. You protected your mate
from a threat. That’s rule number one in the cynanthrope handbook.”
    Melanie felt Declan tense beside her at the word “mate,” but
her mind was reeling too fast to make much of it. “There’s a handbook?”
    Darren’s smile widened. “Figure of speech, sweetheart. Don’t
worry. You’ll learn everything you need to know while you’re here.”
    Melanie nodded and looked back down at her barely eaten
food. She stirred it around with her fork, willing her hot cheeks to cool. She
was extremely grateful when Darren changed the subject, even to a distasteful
one.
    “I got a call from one of my police contacts in Amblin. Your
former teacher has been indicted and the trial is set for September. They’ll be
calling you, Melanie, as a witness for the prosecution. We’ll have to go back
to Georgia for the trial.”
    “Okay,” Melanie said in a small voice. She had no intention
of living here that long, but she didn’t voice it. She had agreed to give
Wilkes a chance, so she kept her mouth shut and let her parents think what they
would.
    “Well, enough of that subject,” Elaine said, cutting through
the silence that had fallen on the room. “Melanie, your birthday is in just a
few days. What do you want to do to celebrate?”
    Melanie was in the process of drinking a sip of her water
and nearly spewed it across the table. She coughed and gagged for a few seconds
before choking out, “Um, I think I might be a little busy, you know…shifting.”
    Declan snickered beside her and Melanie saw several other
people hiding smiles behind their hands. She looked across the table at Willow,
who was biting her lower lip. Melanie’s eyes shot back to Darren who had one
side of his mouth quirked up.
    “What’s so funny?” she asked.
    “The first shift doesn’t automatically happen on your
seventeenth birthday, sweetheart.”
    “But I thought…” She trailed off and her eyes shot to
Jeremy.
    “It did for me,” he said quietly.
    “Sometimes it does,” Darren said. “Most times, not. The
first shift is always after that birthday, but usually closer to the next full
moon.”
    “But I thought the moon didn’t cause the shift.”
    “It usually doesn’t. There’s something special about the
first shift, though. The moon seems to pull it out of us.”
    Jeremy grabbed Melanie’s hand and looked into her eyes.
“There was a full moon on my birthday. I didn’t think anything of it,
especially since the moon had nothing to do with any of my subsequent shifts.
Something else my parents failed to mention to me, I guess.” His mouth pulled
down into a frown.
    “Jeremy,” Darren said, “don’t hold that against them, son.
They were trying to protect you the only way they knew how. I’m sure they
figured the less you knew, the better. If they started having all this
information about what they are, what you are, you would have started
questioning how they knew so much about it.”
    “I guess,” Jeremy mumbled, sounding unconvinced.
    “When is the next full moon?” Melanie asked, to no one in
particular.
    “On the ninth,” Declan answered.
    Melanie did the