Nash just winked, letting me know just how offended he wasn't.
As I settled in my seat, pulling the seatbelt over my lap, a worry struck. "What about last night? Tyrone? You don't think the shifters will be angry to see us?"
He didn't look over but stared out the windshield without blinking. "They haven't been happy to see me in years. No different now."
I didn't completely understand, but I wasn't sure I was meant to. I figured this was like the difference between being a fan of something and being in the fandom. I knew enough to play the game, but I still didn't understand all the rules. Or hacks. The only way to do that, though, was to listen and learn. "I'm with you now," I said, sliding to his side. "I'll block you from their stares."
He didn't say anything, but he wasn't frowning anymore either.
"Do you remember your first shift?" I asked, eating the rest of my breakfast.
"No, not really. I was very young. My mother used to—" He stopped speaking so suddenly I'd worried he bit his tongue. His jaw was tight, the rigid line framing his face sharp enough to cut paper.
"You can talk about her, you know. I won't get the wrong idea. I understand what it's like to hate someone but love them." The food I had eaten rolled uncomfortably in my stomach. "I sometimes think I hate my parents. When I think how they must have known what would happen when they touched me. If I'd been given the choice, I would have wanted them to live instead. I'm not sure I was ready to face the world when I did. I've always been scared, hiding in my room instead of living in the real world." Part of that had been the curse, but I'd been so quick to assume I had one that it never occurred to me that maybe, I was just a chicken and needed a push. Funny, I hadn't blamed myself once last night for what happened to Alpha Walker. Maybe that was an oversight.
"Nash… do you think what happened… do you think it could be because of my—"
"Don't say it, Phineas," Nash growled. "I worried you would the second I saw that fireball. You are not to blame. Do you hear me?"
I nodded, but I didn't really hear him. Nash wasn't convinced anyway. "Say you understand, Phin. I need to hear it. You won't blame yourself. You won't try to fix everything on your own." He stopped and swallowed. "You won't run away to save everyone. Do you hear me?"
He couldn't stop me if I chose to, but I wasn't there in my head. I didn't really think I was to blame. I didn't even really like Alpha Walker, and it seemed like if he died, the pack would be pushed into making choices they'd allowed to grow stagnant.
"I hear you, alpha."
This time, Nash didn't chastise me. But he did look extremely pleased. "Man, I made fun of Branson so much when he tried telling us how good it felt for Riley to call him that. You can never tell him."
I could only smirk.
Once we crossed into pack lands, Nash's mood darkened. "We'll drive around, sniff at the site a little if there aren't too many people there."
We circled the entire other half of the island while Nash drove. Every once in a while, he would pull to the side of the road to let another car pass. When I asked why, he launched into an explanation of rank in the pack. "If I'd stayed, everyone would be pulling over for me," he said, not sounding like that was something he missed all that much.
I didn't get the point of it, other than to show respect. But there were so many other checks and balances in place, it seemed like overkill.
Nash didn't see anything that made him want to stop and check, and we circled back around to the Alpha's house. People had been through. There was a stack of lumber in one corner, and some of the debris had been pulled out and placed in a pile that would only grow larger.
"Do you want to look with me?" Nash asked.
I cocked my head to the side, confused, until I caught on. As wolves, he meant. Heck yeah I did. I opened my door, shifting before I stepped a human foot on the ground. Nash laughed before running around the front of the vehicle, also in his wolf form.
Being around him like this was unlike anything. I'd expected having a wolf inside me would be like hearing voices, arguing with the entities in your head. But it wasn't like that at all. I sensed my wolf, but it was more of a knowing. He was there, I was here, and so far, our wants and needs had lined up. And when I looked at Nash in this form, the wolf in me recognized his dominance. I bowed my head, fighting the urge to roll belly up.
Nash licked my muzzle and shook his head as if to say, You don't have to worry about that. I wasn't, not really. It was more of an instinct I had to learn how to control. He reared up on his back legs and ran forward next. There was no way I'd be left in his dust, and I sprinted to catch up, overtaking him after a few leaps and bounds.
Nash snarled and ran faster, zooming by. He ran past the house into the forest, and I followed him, planning on jumping on his back the moment I was close enough. He must not have noticed the tree he ran toward, and I was going to catch him when he skidded to a halt. Except he never slowed, and it was me who skidded to a halt right before Nash ran headfirst into the tree. He jumped at the last second, running up the trunk before springing off into a backflip and landing behind me.
I watched him move with fascination.
He made a chuffing noise and turned around coolly, but I wanted to try to be a ninja too, and I backed up, scratching my claws into the dirt before launching forward. I jumped and landed shoulder-first against the tree. A yelp escaped my mouth, and Nash was there in a flash, in his human form, petting me down where I'd hit the tree.
"It's okay. Branson still can't do that," Nash told me. That was information I might have wanted before I tried it.
Still, it was a good lesson. So far, I excelled at being a wolf, maybe more than I'd ever excelled as a human, but I still had things to learn and a new body to get used to.
I shifted and sniffed so that he would feel just a little sorrier before I kissed him. "Race you back," I murmured, pushing off his chest.
Nash yelled that I was a cheater. At least I'd be a victorious cheater. I would have been anyway, if Nash hadn't zoomed by, reaching the line of the property a full two seconds before me.
With the smoldering home in view, I sobered, remembering we were here for important work. Nash kept his nose to the ground, picking through the wreckage and pausing to give this or that a deeper sniff. I copied him, but there were so many new smells, and old smells that had never been so strong before, that I had to stop and wait in the yard for my head to stop spinning.
It was an overcast day, but I wasn't looking at the clouds. I was listening. The world was so much noisier as a shifter, but I practiced picking sounds and zeroing in on them. After a while of that, the noise became less chaotic and more like a song. The sharp pounding of a woodpecker, the rustle of a mouse, or the great loud roar of planes overhead.
I didn't notice Nash returning until he was right on top of me. He didn't head back for his vehicle, though. He walked by, toward the forest, and then looked over his shoulder as if to ask, are you coming?
I'd follow Nash Walker anywhere.
We ran to a small house. The door was open like the person inside had been expecting us or, at the least, company. Nash shifted, putting a hand out to me that clearly meant to stop and wait as he peered inside. Nana appeared behind him in the doorway and smacked Nash against the backside of his head. "That's for Paul."