Damon's P.O.V
"Were you born with them or they just appeared one day?" She continues when her discomfort as transparent as her eyes.
"Do you have a teeth fetish I should know about?" I tease, raising a questioning brow that makes her roll her eyes as she pulls my hand from her hair to bite a finger in warning. "You're more of a wolf than I am."
"Maybe I am." Will teases making me snort. "I could be, you said there are dormant bloodlines!"
"They are." I admit with a nod, trying not to laugh in her face as she watched me expectantly. "But the stench of human in literally soaked into your bones babe, there's no way you're mixed with anything outside of your species."
"You're hatred for 'my species' is both understandable and annoying." Will replies slowly as she bends my finger back to the point that I was wincing. "And stench?"
"No." I groan as she continues her attempt to breaking my index finger. "Stop, for fuck sake."
She lets go with a proud smile, pressing a kiss to the pulsing finger before resting her face into my palm.
My mate is a little psycho.
"You don't smell like them, you smell better," I admit making her eyebrows pull a little. Before she could question me on the area I was avoiding with maximum effort, I answer her earlier question. "The teeth grow in after a wolf's first shift, along with talons. Shifting usually happens at fifteen or sixteen."
Will, like Theo predicted, did not take to the talons. She freaked out and begged me to put them away, finding them troubling to look at. I couldn't really blame her though, they weren't the most pleasant to look at for a wolf, so I could only imagine what they looked like to a human.
"Why do I get the feeling that you were different in that aspect?" She asks, quirking a brow that makes me smile widely.
"Because I was," I admit, unable to hide the pride from my voice as I tilted my chin upwards a little. "I shifted at twelve, youngest shifter recorded in history."
"Boosting your ego another step up." She states while rolling her eyes, despite the smile that was tugging at her lips. "How was it? Doing it for the first time?"
I'd already covered the topic of shifting with Will but hadn't shown her yet, unwilling to overwhelm or scare her with something like a huge, white wolf in her kitchen. Will was intrigued the most by the shift, unable to understand how a human body could break itself down to take on a second form that was purely animalistic.
She had many questions about the shift and I answered them as best as I could, relying on Theo to answer the ones I couldn't possibly hope to.
I hadn't told Will about Theo yet, per her request. She wanted me to share that part of us after I told her we were mates.
I hadn't done that either...
"Well, it hurt like a bitch," I admit as I lean back a little, eyes casting themselves towards the ceiling as memories tossel themselves around my mind. "We didn't expect it at that age, so my parents hadn't thought to begin preparing for it. I was playing with Felicia one second and the next, I was screaming on the floor."
"Why didn't anyone help you?" Will asks sounding pained by my words alone. "Couldn't they make it easier?"
"Touching a wolf during their first shift can stunt the process," I explain looking back to her. "Each bone is being broken down to something fine enough, like dust, to spread it and morph them into the bones of a wolf. To touch a wolf during that can alter that natural process, potentially distorting the form of the wolf after it carries on. There's also the possibility of stopping the process altogether and leaving a wolf unable to shift."
"That's so stupid," Will grumbles as if it were her facing such a fate.
"Yeah, it is." I agree with a chuckle. "That's why wolves are prepared beforehand on how to speed up the process and there's medication one can take in the coming days to ease some of the pain. I didn't get any of that, so I just had to push through it."
Will's face falls once more as she looks at me as if she were imaging the event in her mind and clearly, hating the result.
"It wasn't all bad, I had my parents there and my family around me supporting me." I offer in attempts to ease her pain only to spark my own. The memory a sharp reminder that things weren't the same as they once were. "When it was done, I came out with a white coat... just like my dad. She was really happy that we were the same, it was something for us to share because white coats are rare for wolves."
I feel myself sink into the memory, a smile pulling from me as I remember the way dad pounced on me the moment I'd stood up on four legs for the first time. Remembered the way she'd shifted and circled me over and over, helping me stand when my legs trembled beneath me.
Remembered the way she looked at me...
"Anyway, it wasn't all that bad," I say pulling myself angrily from a memory that never sparked agony through me as much as it did now. "I shift all the time now without any pain so don't worry."
Will studies me with sad eyes, the translucent greens fixed on me, somehow hearing the words I hadn't shared. She sits up them, resting her arms on either side of me to help her crawl her way up my body. Once we're face to face, her eyes hold mine for a moment longer before she hugs me.
The position was a little awkward, her body dragged behind her like a dead thing as she laid on top of me. Her smaller arms circling my neck to hold me to her as she tucked her head beside my own. I smile nevertheless, wrapping my arms around her small waist as the scent of honeysuckle envelops me in a loving warmth that made the past's sting dulled enough for me to breath.
"You don't have to go back if you don't want to,"