When Life Gives You Lemons

2. The Pack

Each of the wolves, one by one, stood up on their hind legs and morphed into humans. To my surprise, only three of them were male, the other was female.

The man who was the large wolf slapped the younger boy, the smaller wolf, upside the face. "You idiot! There goes dinner!"

"What the hell, Burn? I could've caught 'em if you'd let me run." the boy wined.

I laid on my stomach, with my paws covering my eyes, peaking through. I wasn't used to being surrounded by people so comfortable with being completely nude around each other. It was too weird for me.

The girl looked at me with slanted dark brown eyes. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

I lifted my paws from my face and cocked my head to the side. She didn't really think I was going to, did she?

They all looked Native, and I'd never seen them in town before, so they probably lived on a reservation. The girl had beautiful flowing black hair down to her shoulders, but I didn't care to look farther down than that.

The other boy, the medium-sized wolf, had dark-chocolate brown hair just passed his ears, with hat-head hair wings. He looked about my age. He was lean and muscular, like he worked out a lot, but it was probably just from runs like this every day.

The young boy had shaggy black hair, shorter than the other boy's, but not quite a buzz cut. He was scrawny, but still fairly lean, and looked very athletic.

Finally, the oldest, the one the young boy had called Burn. He was very muscular, and his fine black hair was cut short and easily manageable. He looked very intimidating, like his very glance could kill you. I assumed he was alpha.

The odd part was that they mostly looked like teenagers, with the exception of 'Burn', who looked about twenty-one or twenty-two. The girl looked about eighteen to nineteen; the young boy, about fourteen or fifteen; and the other boy, about sixteen or my age.

Because of this, I had no intention of morphing - if I even could - and displaying my full body to four strangers whose names I didn't even know.

The young one laughed at me. "Come on, now, try it. It's easy, and we don't bite... well, no guaranties about Jack..."

"Oh, really? Well I guess you're about to find out!" the one he called Jack tackled him to the ground and the began to wrestle until the older boy separated them.

"Enough, you two, that's not going to make her any more comfortable about morphing." He walked up and crouched in front of me. "Now, just try to stand up on your hind legs and it all will happen naturally from there."

I nodded. I still wasn't going to do it in front of them. I stood up and trotted off behind the bush.

"What's she doing?" the middle-aged boy asked.

"I don't know, Jack, maybe she's getting ice cream? What the hell do you think she's doing?" the girl replied sarcastically.

I attempted to stand straight on my hind legs but lost my balance and fell onto my side. I sprung back to my feet and stood there for a second, preparing to lock my muscles and concentrate on human form.

I lifted my front legs off the ground and leaned back onto my back legs. I closed my eyes and let my body do its own thing. After a few long seconds, I was stable on my own two feet.

I ran my fingers through my hair, pulling out all the plant material that had gotten caught in it. It would need a good brushing after a thorough shampooing when I'd get home.

I looked at my body. I was toned, lean... and completely unclothed. I was tempted to change back and hunt down my clothes before going out to the pack.