“Come on, shift. It will be fun.”

He gave me a look. A defiant look that was set around his eyes. My wolf didn’t like it.

“Shift,” I growled. And he did. He dropped his towel to the ground, and his body vibrated to the point of looking blurry, and like that, he was a wolf. It was the first time I was a man, and he was a wolf. It was certainly the first time I realized how striking his wolf was. It was perfect. Big. Huge. Easily as big as any one of The Brothers. His chest was broad. His fur, thick and lustrous. His stance and conformation were nothing short of ideal. “Fetch!” I said again. And that time, I threw the stick long and hard. Like I knew he would, he took off after it like a shot. When he brought it back, he had the stick in his teeth and was grinning wolfishly around it.

“Drop!” I said. He started snarling, but I could see in his eyes he was playing. I grabbed the stick and tried to pull it out of his grip, and when that didn’t work, I scratched him between the ears and said, “If you drop it, I’ll throw it again, dumbass.”

He dropped it begrudgingly, and before long, we had a nice little game of fetch going. We played until he was panting.

“Told you you’d like playing fetch,” I said when he shifted back to human form.

He looked at me in disgust. “Oh, bite me.”

The second my wolf heard his words, I felt like I was nowhere near half man, half wolf. I was all wolf. All wild. Saliva pooled in my mouth. I closed my eyes tightly, but I knew they were still alight when I opened them and looked at him. Suddenly, I was the one whose chest was heaving.

“Jules,” I said tightly. “You can’t say that around me anymore, okay?”

“Why not?”

“You can’t. You’ll just have to take my word for it. Don’t do it again.”

He seemed to lose interest in the conversation and gave me a shrug. We bathed in the river in silence. When we came out, he was erect. I looked away quickly, but he noticed. He looked down and shook his head.

“Jesus, bud. Piss off already,” he said to his cock. “Sorry, I guess it must just be a hangover from the heat.”

“I guess.” I swallowed hard. It wasn’t like me to lie to Jules. “Maybe we should head back and try to get some sleep.” I was exhausted. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had a good night’s sleep.

“But we just woke up? We literally ate breakfast a couple of hours ago.”

“You were up most of the night. You must be tired. Your body needs rest.”

He grumbled as we walked home, but when we got there, he climbed into bed.