Blizzard

chapter 2

After Martha's distressing text, Shelby left the diner. Only Toni Shalifoe would run away right before a frickin blizzard was about to start. Shelby tried to squash the guilty feeling in her stomach. It wasn't her fault. Not this time, anyway. And she couldn't help that Toni was such a hothead. So really, there was no reason for her to feel guilty. She was just going to make sure the idiot didn't get herself killed. Shelby might not exactly get along with Toni, but that didn't mean she couldn't be worried about her.

Once she was in the cover of the trees behind the diner, she made sure no one was around before undressing, neatly folding her clothes as she hid them beneath a bush.

Shelby closed her eyes and began to shift. She had to concentrate on releasing the ever present, tingling feeling locked in her chest. Heat rippled through her body, starting in her heart, pouring through her veins and ending in her extremities. She felt her bones breaking and reforming, though the heat drowned out most of the pain.

The shift still unsettled her. Shelby hadn't gone through it that often, especially by will. She could count the amount of times she'd shifted on purpose on one hand. The only times the shift happened without her consent was during the full moon.

It still felt very strange, letting that foreign heat loose in her body, allowing it to transform every cell on its path. When her spine changed, she fell on all fours. As the shift came to an end, the heat settled down to a tingling in the background, slowly fading away completely. She opened her eyes and began her search.

It didn't take long for her to find Toni's trail. The storm made it harder for Shelby to catch her scent, but she managed.

Toni was lucky Shelby found her when she did. If she'd been any later Toni would have lost at least few fingers and toes to frostbite, if not her life. It was already a bit of a challenge to get her warmed up, with the blizzard in full force and Toni's clothes at first isolating her from Shelby's body heat.

Toni was curled up on her side with her back against the rock overhang, poorly shielded from the storm. Shelby had curled herself around her, effectively shielding her from the snow and the boisterous wind.

As the storm raged, Toni almost woke up a few times, moaning some unintelligible words, burying her face in Shelby's fur.

By the time Toni woke up, the storm had mostly subsided.

It was too late to leave before being seen. Besides, she wasn't sure Toni could make her way back on her own.

She carefully watched Toni's reaction to her. She didn't really know what to expect. She'd never come across another person as a wolf who didn't already know what she was and that she wasn't going to hurt them. And it was Toni Shalifoe after all. The girl was as unpredictable as they come.

When Toni just stiffly kept looking at her, Shelby got impatient. She was already quite late. Her parents were not going to be happy with her.

She needed to do something to get Toni out of her stupor without scaring her, so she did the last thing she thought she'd ever do to Toni Shalifoe. She (begrudgingly) licked her face.

Well, that got a reaction.

Toni scrunched up her face. "Ew."

Shelby's shoulders shook with laughter, surprising herself. That's another thing she'd never thought she'd do near Toni. They didn't exactly get along.

"Ha ha, very funny."

It really was.

Shelby got up. They both really needed to get home.

After she stood up, Shelby noticed Toni attempting to subtly look at her behind...

What the heck?!