I didn’t want to hurt him.
“Trust me, baby shifter, I can handle myself.” He sounded amused.
I drew in a deep breath, then let it out.
“Don’t let me eat a squirrel or something, okay?”
He barked out a laugh at that.
“I’m serious. I eat a squirrel, I go into anaphylaxis, and you’re going to have a hell of a time catching me and giving me an epipen without thumbs,” I grumbled.
“So then don’t eat a fucking squirrel,” he told me.
I shot him an incredulous look.
“Seriously,” he said, his expression suddenly serious. “You need to be able to control your actions in fur. If you can’t stop yourself from eating a squirrel, you also can’t stop yourself from biting somebody who deserves it much more and has pissed you off—but you can’tdothat unless your life is literally threatened.”
Despite the best attempts of the Magic-Free Movement and other anti-Arcanid groups, shifters were still allowed to defend themselves against attack or assault—or murder—by shifting and using teeth and claws. But the law was very clear—you had to match force with force, as in any case of assault. You couldn’t beat someone to death with a bat if they groped you, nor could you chew someone to death if they only hit you with a bat. And, in practice, it tended to be the case that juries and districtattorneys were much more likely to prosecute a shifter or other Arcanid for excessive force in self-defense than a normie, even when it was justified.
So yeah, I could bite somebody if they were trying to kill me, but if it wasn’t going to end with me being dead, I probably had to keep my fangs and claws to myself. So Elliot wasn’t wrong—but I’d also never shifted of my own free will before, so not eating a squirrel by accident seemed like a big ask. And no squirrel was going to take me to court for wrongful death or unintentional homicide.
I sighed. “This is a bad idea,” I said. “I—I don’t even know how to force a shift?—”
“Jesus fuck, are you telling me you’veonlyshifted unintentionally?” Elliot sounded both shocked and angry. And it was also apparent that he and Hart shared a common vocabulary, at least sometimes.
My whole neck turned red, and my skin prickled.
“Don’t you dare,” he snapped at me, which absolutely did not help me keep myself under control. It did make me cringe a little, because Elliot’s rough voice angry was honestly a little scary.
He froze, hazel eyes wide and nostrils flared. When he spoke again, his voice was wound tight, but it was softer than it had been. “Seth, you know I won’t ever intentionally hurt you, right?”
I nodded, although I honestly wasn’t entirely certain of that. I didn’t know himthatwell, after all.
“Please don’t lie to me.” He sounded frustrated, tense.
I swallowed. “I?—”
“You don’t need to be afraid of me,” he said softly. “I won’t ever hurt you intentionally,” he repeated, “although I will do what I need to do to keep you safe.” And, like when Noah had wrestled with me in wolf form, that might mean I would geta little battered. Better that than I eat somebody. Or even just maul them. Or make myself fatally sick by being dumb enough to eat a squirrel, I guess.
“Okay,” I managed, when it became clear that he expected some sort of response from me.
“It’s really important that you learn to control yourself. To be able to make conscious choices while you’re a wolf, just like you would as a man.”
He wasn’t wrong. I understood this on an intellectual level. But in order togetto that point, I’d have to go through the horrible ordeal of actually shifting.
“You know that, right?”
I nodded.
“So it’s better to practice out here, where you feel less stressed.”
And where I was less likely to maul an innocent bystander or break something. Or myself.
I nodded again.
“I’ll be right here with you.”
He didn’t say he wouldn’t let me do something stupid. He didn’t have to. I understood that a wolf has much longer legs than a goddamn badger, and if I took off, there wasn’t going to be a damn thing Elliot could do to stop me.
