Hazel woke slowly, caught somewhere between sleep and the beginning of another impossible day, and it took her a moment to register that something felt different beneath the sheets.
She shifted, still half-convinced she was dreaming, and then went completely still.
Oh, her wolf said, entirely too pleased with herself.
Don’t, Hazel warned.
Her wolf ignored that completely, practically vibrating with amusement at Hazel’s expense.
Hazel sat up carefully, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular, trying to process the fact that Aldrien’s body had apparently decided to betray her without any warning or consultation.
Absolutely not, she thought first.
Why is this happening, she thought second, with considerably more panic.
She tried getting out of bed, walking to the window, thinking about paperwork and border patrols and anything that wasn’t currently the problem at hand.
None of it worked particularly well.
Her wolf continued having what sounded like the best morning of her entire existence.
Aldrien woke up not long after, blinking against the early light, and took one look at Hazel standing rigidly by the window before asking, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said, refusing to turn around.
“Hazel.”
“Go away.”
He sat up properly then, confusion giving way to something else as understanding worked its way across his borrowed face.
Hazel caught the shift in his expression and knew immediately that he’d figured it out.
“You know what this is,” she said, mortified.
He nodded.
“Fix it,” she demanded.
“It’s not broken,” he said, and she threw the nearest pillow directly at his head.
He caught it without much effort and set it aside, remarkably composed for a man discussing this particular subject before breakfast.
He explained, with a calm that only made the whole thing worse, that it was simply a normal reaction, nothing dramatic, nothing she needed to be horrified about.
“Occasionally.”
“Occasionally?”
He gave her a look that suggested the answer should have been obvious.
“I’m a man, Hazel.”
She covered her face with both hands and groaned into her palms, and to his credit, he didn’t make it worse than it already felt.
He was clearly amused, she could hear it in the way he wasn’t quite hiding his smile, but he never once made her feel ridiculous for not knowing how to handle any of it.
He offered a few practical suggestions, patient about it in a way she hadn’t expected from him, and slowly the panic in her chest started to settle.
Once the worst of it had passed, curiosity got the better of her.
“So you’re telling me you’ve just been walking around with this happening randomly, this whole time?”
He glanced at her.
“Do you want me to answer that?”
“No.” A beat.
“Actually, yes.”
He gave her a dry look that told her exactly how much he was enjoying watching her squirm, but he answered anyway, honest about it in a way that felt strangely private.
It wasn’t the kind of conversation either of them would have had a week ago, and something about that struck her as she listened, the fact that he was letting her see a part of himself he’d probably never discussed with anyone, least of all her.
It occurred to her, somewhere in the middle of it, that she’d always thought of Aldrien as someone entirely in control, every expression measured, every reaction deliberate.
Watching him now, faintly embarrassed himself despite his effort not to show it, she understood something she hadn’t before.
“You really don’t have control over everything, do you,” she said.
He looked at her, something steady in his gaze.
“Neither do you.”
She understood, in that moment, that he wasn’t only talking about bodies anymore.
The conversation went quiet after that, neither of them quite ready to say more.
They got dressed after, and this time the process felt easier than it had the first morning, less like fumbling through a stranger’s wardrobe and more like two people who’d simply learned each other’s routines.
She noticed, buttoning it, that she’d stopped fighting the fabric the way she used to.
He noticed, watching her, that she moved through his body with far less awkwardness than she had days ago.
It felt disturbingly close to normal.
I could get used to this, she thought, and immediately shoved the thought away before it could take root anywhere she’d have to deal with later.
Before they left the room, Aldrien reached up and adjusted his own collar, still not quite used to seeing Hazel’s hands do the work instead of his.
Without thinking about it, Hazel reached up and fixed his collar in return, straightening the fabric at his throat.
They both went still.
They were standing closer than either of them had meant to be, and neither one moved to close the last bit of distance or step away from it.
Their eyes met, just for a second, but after everything that had passed between them the night before, a second felt like considerably more than that.
Something passed between them that neither one wanted to name out loud.
Aldrien stepped back first.
“We should go.”
“Yes,” Hazel said, and followed him toward the door.
As they made their way downstairs, her wolf spoke up again, quieter this time, none of the earlier teasing left in her voice.
You weren’t embarrassed because of his body.
Hazel stiffened at that.
What do you mean?
You were embarrassed because he was there.
Hazel didn’t answer, mostly because she didn’t have anything to say to that.
She looked ahead at Aldrien walking a few steps in front of her, wearing her own body, carrying himself the way he always did no matter whose skin he was standing in.
For the first time since the wedding, she realized she wasn’t thinking about getting her body back at all.
She was thinking about him.
Dear readers, I’m setting some update goals for the book!