But, I want him.

“You won’t get what you need out of this, Charley. It won’t happen.”

I still want him.

“He’s human, Charley.”

Undone, she let the shimmer fade. The force above her remained, but like an artist with a broken muse, she stopped the change. Her muscles burned with heat confined to her extremities. She blinked, opened to Cael’s upside down face, and closed her eyes once again.

“Is she back?” James’s voice carried to her.

“Yes. Lavender irises and vertical pupils. I’m going to let go, Charley.”

Released from the hold, she curled into herself. One day a year she had to deal with life as her natural self. She almost lost everything thanks to teenage desire which overruled over two hundred years of experience.

A hand massaged her shoulders, kneading muscles worn both from her original transformation and the second attempt.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

James’s breath caught the back of her ear, warm against the cool night. As her body’s temperature lowered, shivers ran through her. He fit himself snugly behind her.

“You can’t be sorry for wanting something so much you’d give up your life for it, but you promised, remember?”

She slid into his lap. Charley wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders as she laid her head down upon one.

“I’m so tired.” She whispered the words.

“Sleep.” James said.

Within seconds, she complied.

Exhaustion had overcome Charley. She’d teetered in consciousness, remembering only the sway as James lifted her into his arms before she’d woken, nude and tucked tight in bed. Given her ability to morph her entire body into another’s, she’d long since gotten over the need for modesty.

With the stars above and the trees everywhere around her mountaintop home, Charley’s balcony offered a place of refuge. Bundled in several blankets she’d hand-knit over the years, she curled into a wrought-iron chaise and let the wintery air take hold of her senses. Wyatt’s scent lingered, if only in the recesses of her mind.