“Since when?” It didn’t make sense. Alex was able to Change from wolf to human after his fall, even with a stick protruding from his chest. Liam seemed disinclined to enlighten me, but I wasn’t having it. I stormed over to him, stopping just far enough away that I could look him in the eye without craning my neck. “What kind of injury could prevent a Shifter from Changing?” Liam just stood there. “Tell me, damn it!”
He stepped closer, which pissed me off. Now I either had to look up to him or take a step backwards. I decided holding my ground was more important.
“I don’t follow your orders.” His words were quiet, yet dripped with hostility. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Jase and Talley watching with rapt interest.
“Liam.” It came out as a growl, a warning.
His eyes narrowed. “You have dad’s book. You tell me.”
I was about to snap that there wasn’t anything in the book about injuries preventing a Change, but then it hit me. “Your brain and spinal cord don’t Change. They’re the same in either form.” Dr. Smith hypothesized the catalyst for the Change resided in the Central Nervous System. “Is that it? Does he have a brain injury?”
“His spinal cord is messed up,” Jase answered. “The bullet wound was bad, but it was never the real danger. One of those assholes broke his back.”
“Is he paralyzed?” On the phone he said something about walking again. In the information bombardment that occurred afterwards I hadn’t thought to ask about it.
Liam, obviously bored with this conversation, went back to preparing breakfast.
I plopped down in the chair beside Jase. I felt a teensy bit embarrassed over my outburst with Liam, especially after our heart-to-heart the night before, but there was only so much space in my body for emotions to go, and most of that space was reserved for Charlie-related concerns at the moment.
“He shouldn’t have been there. He shouldn’t have risked himself like that.”
Liam sat a plate in front of me. “He made a choice, knowing the risks. All of us have. We think it’s worth it. The question is, do you?”
Was it? Was overthrowing the Alphas worth putting our lives on the line?
If it was a faceless horde we would be liberating, I would have said no. But it wasn’t an anonymous population on the line. This revolution or coup or whatever had Talley’s fearful tear-stained face from when she thought she would have to go back to the Matthews Pack because of the way the Alphas encourage Shifters to treat Seers like property. It had the face of Nicole, who died just because she would one day Change. It had the faces of Alex and Liam’s parents, and Alex and Liam, who had to suffer so much loss simply so a select few could hold on to their positions of power.
“I do,” I said. “I’m in. All the way.”
***
I tried to be good throughout breakfast. Really, truly I did, but Liam seemed intent on pushing my buttons.
“You weren’t kidding,” Jase said, squirting ketchup on his eggs because he’s weird like that. “Scout really doesn’t submit to you.”
Liam reached across the table and stabbed a stack of pancakes with his fork. “Took you this long to figure that out?”
“Isn’t this whole idea of submission really archaic?”
“No,” three voices answered me in unison. “Every Pack needs a Pack Leader,” Talley added on to the end of hers.
A little light bulb, like maybe the size of a Christmas light, went off over my head. “That’s because we’re not a Pack.” Oh yes. This was making sense. “We’re like two lone wolves peacefully coexisting with one another.”
Liam nodded in agreement. “We’re both perfectly accepting of the fact that we’re equally Dominant, so there’s no reason to force the issue.”
“Except, you know, we’re not really equally Dominant.” I snagged my glass of milk, frowning at its pale blue tint. “What we both equally accept is that he’s Super-Shifter, and I can’t be bothered to care.”
“I was wrong,” Liam said for perhaps the first time in his life. “We apparently don’t agree on anything.”
I looked at him over the top of my glass. “Seriously? You do realize you can Shift any time you darn well please and I can barely push myself through it under a full moon, right?”
“Only because you’re not trying hard enough.”
“Good grief, not this again.”
“Well, if you would just put some effort--”
“I am putting effort--”
“I’m new. It hurts. I can’t do it. Don’t make me try.” Liam’s voice went beyond mocking and into antagonistic. I didn’t realize just how much he pissed me off until the glass in my hand shattered. I jumped back, but my jeans, the only pair I had, were covered in milk.
“I’m blaming you for this,” I said between my teeth.
Jase looked at Talley. “They need to spar.”
“They definitely need to spar,” she agreed.
***
Someone may put our first fight down in the annals of Shifter history someday, but hopefully they’ll leave out the part where I slipped on a patch of grass covered in chicken poop and Talley almost went into an asthma attack because of a stray long-haired cat who didn’t have brains enough to be scared of a bunch of Shifters.
“Liam hasn’t had much training, so he fights street.” Jase stood behind me, rubbing my shoulders as if I was Rocky Balboa. I was only half listening to him. My body was buzzing with anticipation. I started taking martial arts when I was a kid, and it’s one of the few activities I’ve kept up with over the years. There is something both relaxing and empowering about having the control over your body it takes to execute a perfect move. I hadn’t realized it before, but now that it was happening, I needed this. Not to prove which of us was stronger, but just the simple act of fighting. It could have been Jase or anyone else standing in front of me and I would have still felt the same.
Maybe.
“Don’t expect him to follow the same rules we’re used to,” Jase continued. “And remember, this isn’t a real Challenge, so if your wolf instincts start to take over, back off.”
“Yep. Got it.” Whatever it was he said. I just needed him to get out of the way so I could go.