Full Moon by Rachel Hawthorne (best biographies to read .txt) 📕

Kayla’s parents had been killed when she was younger, and she’d been adopted by a non-Shifter family. Until this summer, she hadn’t even realized that our kind existed. Talk about blowing apart your concept of reality. I couldn’t even imagine the shock of it.

Grabbing my backpack from the foot of the bed, I scrounged around until I found cotton shorts and a tank top to sleep in. Once I’d changed clothes, I sat cross-legged on my bed. Brittany had finished her exercises and was getting ready for bed. I figured it was time for a little intimate girl talk. “Listen, Kayla…the guys will never talk about what it’s like when they shift. They’re all secretive about it. What was it really like? The first time?”

“Oh, gosh, it’s hard to explain.” With her back pressed against the headboard, she closed her eyes and intertwined her fingers together. “It’s so intense. It’s as if pleasure and pain are all mixed up, and you don’t know what you should really be feeling, and then all of a sudden—bam! It’s maximum overload and suddenly you’re body is shaped differently and your mind is more…aware.” Smiling softly, she opened her eyes. “It’s awesome.”

“I’ve heard it’s excruciatingly painful,” Brittany said.

Kayla nodded. “It is—if you go through it alone. Like the guys have to, but when Lucas was with me, he kept me distracted, so the pain was just an irritant.”

“Do you think it would have been more painful if you didn’t love him?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t want to go through it with someone I didn’t love. It’s really kinda personal and private.”

Not exactly what I wanted to hear. I did love Connor, but was it enough? I mean desperately, my-life-would-be-over-if-he-didn’t-love-me-back love him?

“Sounds like I’m screwed,” Brittany said. “I either go through it alone—and maybe die in the process—or I go through something intimate with someone I don’t love, which sounds icky and worse than going through it alone.”

“Someone will claim you, Brittany,” I insisted.

“I only have two weeks! My time is running out. Besides, I don’t want just anyone. I want someone who looks at me the way Lucas looks at Kayla, like she’s the moon and the stars.”

Kayla laughed lightly. “Does Lucas really look at me like that?”

“Oh, God, does he ever,” I said. It had been strange to see strong, silent Lucas fall so hard. But like all girls, I craved a guy who thought I was his destiny. It was both terrifying and romantic. In most societies, girls our age aren’t supposed to fall in love so young, but we aren’t most societies. Ours is ruled by destiny.

“Of course, you look at him the same way,” I told her.

She grinned brightly. “I probably do. I’m so nuts about him.”

“So maybe your true mate just hasn’t noticed you yet, Brittany,” I said, trying to be positive. In truth, it was really rare for a girl to be approaching her time for change without a guy speaking up for her.

“Yeah, right. And he’s just going to stumble into me sometime during the next two weeks? Get real. I’m going to sleep,” Brittany said, just before she reached out and turned off the lamp by her bed, immersing us in the darkness.

I felt so bad for her, but I also realized that she didn’t want my pity. She was always trying to prove how strong she was.

I was too restless to slip beneath the covers and try to go to sleep. I was afraid that another dream like the one I’d had the night before was waiting for me. I walked over to the window and peered between the curtains. For some reason, all that talk about finding one’s true mate, about going through the first transformation with someone you truly loved…it had left me feeling hollow and confused. I would go through it with Connor. Why wasn’t I comforted by that realization?

I heard the light padding of bare feet.

“Are you okay?” Kayla whispered as she came to stand beside me.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice equally low. It usually didn’t take Brittany long to fall asleep, but I didn’t want to risk disturbing her. She wouldn’t appreciate my confusion, wouldn’t offer me solace. Kayla would.

“You know…one thing that happens after that first transformation is that all your senses are heightened,” Kayla said softly.

“Yeah, I’ve heard.” I wondered what she was getting at. Unlike Kayla, all this wasn’t new to me. My parents were Shifters. I’d grown up around Shifters.

“Scent is the one I notice the most. You know how you go into your favorite restaurant and it just smells so good?”

“Sure.”

“Well, now it’s as though I can smell each individual scent. I don’t smell lasagna. I smell tomato and garlic and noodles and mozzarella. I smell each distinct ingredient. When I go into a room filled with people, I smell each person. Like right now. I can smell a hint of Connor…and a whole lot of Rafe.”

Busted!

“Are you trying to make a point?” I asked, irritated with her sense of smell and slightly panicked at the thought that maybe Connor had smelled Rafe on me, too. Maybe that was the reason he’d seemed distant and hadn’t pulled me into the corner for a kiss.

“You were with Rafe a lot more than you were with Connor tonight. It’s not any of my business, but if you need to talk”—she touched my shoulder, squeezed—“you’re my best friend. I’m here for you.”

“I don’t know, Kayla. I don’t know what I’m feeling right now. I know when you have your first transformation that you bond with the guy—”

“I think the bond needs to be there first, Lindsey. Yes, it’ll grow deeper after what you go through, but the emotions need an anchor.”

“Connor’s a good guy. He’s always steady. I can depend on him.” But did that mean what we felt for each other was right, was as deep as it might