I yahe box back as soon as the alpha let it go. While I had seen my orb, I had ighe rest of the tents of the box. My orb sat in the ter of a of interwoven wires. Each of the wires was as thin as a hair. The mix of colors caught my breath. A ptinum color domihe lot, but it was intermixed with some iridest blues and purples.

  Tiny jewels caught in the light as I carefully lifted the piece of art out of its tainer. Just how much had this thing cost? Stones, no matter the size, couldn’t be all that cheap. Add in all the work that Steven had put into it, I doubted I could ever have had enough moo even put a downpayment on it. I almost wao get Gio return it.

  Not that Xander inger would have ever let me turn it down. Hell, they would probably tell me that I needed something that we knew wouldn’t break easily. It would also help that its beauty distracted anyone who might see the orb.

  With an internal sigh, I tried to figure out how to put the thing on. It was missing any sort of csp or hook. “Let me,” Ginger said as she took the neckce out of my hands. She did something and the thing expao the point that the spread-out threads became a thin cord. In its newly expaate, it easily slipped over my head aled on my neck.

  The moment her hands released the thing, it practically so my throat. My neck hurt where the neckce hit. It hurt worst where the orb had smacked into my throat causio cough.

  “The dwarf does good work as always.” Ginger sounded as if she was gloating over her son or something.

  “Is that a sealing spell woven into the wires?” Pendragon asked out of curiosity.

  “You caught that?” She sounded as if she had expected him to. “I asked him to add it. Not to seal her powers but to seal whatever she ordered to her person.” He whistled while the alpha simply let out a grunt of approval.

  “Um, where is the bathroom I use?” I felt a bit awkward asking but that didn’t ge the fact that I suddenly had to go. I hadn't even had much to drink today yet here I was having to find a restroom.

  The alpha poi a hall on the right side of the room. “Third door on the right.” I took off like a missile with a mission. The moment the door en I mentally took a vacation as I tried to slip my pants down my legs. A sharp tug at the base of my spine reminded me that I had a tail to deal with now. I am fairly sure I growled a little while my hands fiddled with the tch hidden in the seam of my pants.

  With the tch released, the fabric dropped, taking my panties with it. While I still cursed the gods and my ge in equipment, the pressure on my bdder was a more immediate . Ohat I knew how to fix. Though, it didn’t help that I happeo have a brief fshbay st attempt. A fshback that was enough to vince me to take at least a moment to adjust myself before I released the flood.

  A relieved sigh escaped me as I let it all out. This time, the stream retty steady. I still had to wipe myself, but it was nothing like st time. As I finished washing my hands, I looked into the mirror over the sink to find that my choker had ged slightly.

  Surrounding the orb, almost looking like it was holding it there, was a siail. Whatever it was made out of shimmered like blue fire. Its fire matched that dispyed by the orb, allowing it to blend ier.

  The sight made me question if I was in a dream or not. There was no way I would ever be allowed to own something so beautiful. Surprisingly, while it looked like it might e, I barely felt it. Out of curiosity, I pulled up the item's stats and nearly cried out in shock.

  Item:

  Seine Last Tragen

  Rank:

  Unique

  Special:

  Sealed to Kyren Vulpier (Alex Man).

  Socketed Gem:

  Kyren’s Kitsune Orb

  Passive:

  Adjusts to the user's size.

  Access to the Socketed Gem from iory.

  Mana Battery.

  Unknown.

  Unknown.

  Unknown.

  Active:

  Bell, unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown.

  Special:

  This item travel between worlds.

  Mana Charge:

  2500/2500

  Charge Rate:

  +10 mana per hour in the current location.

  Description:

  While this is a mere tri, I hope that it is able to help you carry your heavy burden.

  -Steven

  I shook my head as I shut the window. What the fuck was this thing? If one ignored all the unknown stuff, and the pitiful mana charge, the neckce could hold over three times what I could. It almost felt like cheating to even have the thing. And that description. The dwarf called this a tri. Just what would he sider useful?

  As I opehe door, I heard Gialking, “Do you really have no idea who keeps killing the oracles?”

  “We have bed the pce with everything we could. I eve people in wolf form to try and sniff out the culprit.” The Alpha sounded pissed about the ck ress. “Yet we get nothing. I am starting to think it is a group w in cert to disrupt our defensive lines.”

  “What do the other iigators think about that idea?” Pendragon asked.

  “They don’t agree,” Brandi answered for her alpha. Given the low growl, he didn’t like that she had done so. Not that she seemed to care. “Most are in agreement that our security is too tight for more than one or two to have slipped into our ranks.”

  “They are going so far as to disrupt my iigation.” He growled. “And before you ask, I already checked to see if they were . While they have a few issues, they have had nothing to do with the murders.”

  “Are they following any sort of pattern?” Ginger asked.

  “Their only pattern is in who they are targeting and the fact that they have never used the same method twice,” Brandi spoke as I heard the front door open.

  Whoever it was didn’t speak all that loud before exiting the building. “Kyren, you stop eavesdropping and e out here.” My cheeks burned as I stepped into the hallway. Everyone's eyes verged on me for a moment before he turo look at the other two. “I suggest that the two of you get going.”

  Pendragon and Ginger shot me a worried look but did as he suggested. As they left, Brandi and her followers did the same. “I will make sure they get out safely a everyone knoill have someone new joining us tonight.”

  While the alpha turo face me, he didn’t speak. Even after the thump of the dainst its frame was followed by silence. I almost wondered if he was waiting for me to say something until, finally, he broke the silence. “Do you know how to shift?”

  What kind of question was that? Of course I didn’t know how to shift. The only hint I had about being able to ge came from my orb. I mean, if I had to I could probably figure it out but why would I want to? Okay, I had to admit it was o have a fluffy tail I could pet anytime I wished. Oh, and the senses were fairly det. But everything else was just, I could do without it. I didn’t say any of this though. Instead, I simply shook my head in answer.

  He didn’t seem all that surprised or a the fact that he would have to teach me. In fact, he looked a bit relieved. “Well, there are a few different ways someone shift. Mostly it is due to the race. Weres,” he gestured at himself, “for example, just will their animal forward. The moon force us to shift, but she only does so when she is full. Selkies, their non-human form is their dominant shape. Then you have creatures like Skinwalkers, not that you will see them around here, but they must don the skin of the creature they want to shift into.”

  “And Kitsune?” I asked.

  He shrugged, “I don’t know. Are there any hints in your race description that might point to how you shift?”

  I highly doubted it, but there was a hint in one pce. My hand reached up to tap against the orb as I relutly spoke. “The only pce I have seeion to transform was in this item’s description.”

  “Is it in the use category?” He didn’t sound all that surprised which made me think he had decided to take a look at my orb before we got here. So why had he ha back? Was he trying to get on my good side? Was the theft of my orb what he cimed; a way to force me to e see him?

  “Yes, it lists fox, human, and kitsune as options for me to transform into.”

  “Okay,” he smiled. “Now es the part you might not like. It is up to you if you want to get naked before ging or not. I would personally reend taking it all off as you have no idea how big your animal will be. They could either get trapped in the clothes or tear them to ribbons. Trust me when I say that tearing them is not a pleasant experience.”

  Oh, great, shifters were streakers. I get that he wao be frank and give me every piece of information I o make a decision, but I was not getting naked in front of him, let alone in front of any uy. At least, not for a while. To be ho, I wao yell at him for even suggesting I do such a thing. He could of at least offered for Brandi to watch me if someone had to be here to make sure I didn’t get into trouble.

  Before I could say a word, he offered a third option. “You could use the bathroom to transform. That way you won’t be unfortable.” His soft, deep chuckles chased after me as I bolted for the bathroom. “Just paw at the door when you are done and I will open it.”

  The st of his words filtered through the closed door as I leaned against it. My mind raced over the fact that I had to do this. I had no choice but to shift into a fox. Would it hurt? I mean, my muscles and bones would shift around as my human body ged into the shape of a fox, so it had to didn’t it? Then again, it was magic. Magic ain at times. Sometimes it would help and other times it would just make the pain worse.

  Wait, could you use a healing spell wrong and do more damage? Like, if you broke y and healed it without setting the bone would it heal that way? Would the flesh grind against the sharp points of the bone? Would it…focus! I o focus on shifting. Which meant I o get undressed.

  Yeah, my hands didn’t move. I knew I was avoiding what I o do but this wasn’t like going to the bathroom. I couldn’t simply ignore what was going on with a bit of mental effort. Not with the balls of fat on my chest. Both of which refused to be ignored when they were free. Especially the nipple region. At times, those sensitive bundles of nerves just loved to get my attention at the littlest touch, while at others they were just as iive as ever.

  Thankfully all of that was tained within a bra. A bra that I would have to remove without help. An a that would, on its own, remind me about how my body had ged.

  How that, below all the fabric, was a body I didn’t want – ohat would have made part of me hard, back when I still had a body capable of such reas. Of course, now the feelings were different. They were alien. They were not mine, yet, they were.

  I get that most people would love to see how the other side lived, but what would they do if they were told it erma? Most would run. Hell, I would have. But what if you were given no other choice? Would you hide from your new body or experiment? As for me, the majority of my mind wao ig all, to just never look at my body until I forced a god to ge me back. Yet, there was a tiny part of me, lying in the bay mind, that wao see just the body. Wao see just what was so different about it. The worst part was, that tiny part of myself was growing louder.

  It didn’t help that I had no choice but to take my clothes off. At least for this oime. Just so that we could see just how big my other form was. If I was lucky my other form would be small enough that I could wiggle my way out of my clothes. Of course, that was assuming I ever shifted again.

  Yeah, this wasn’t helping. I didn’t know how long I had been standing here but I was sure that the alpha robably starting to wonder what was going on. I o get undressed and I could either do it with my eyes closed and hands fumbling, or I could just deal with my new body. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen it before. If anything, I had gotten a great look over my body as Ginger forced me into various pieces of, well, I wao call them lingerie but that was being too gracious given how much skin the pieces left uncovered.

  While they were shaky, I forced my hands down to the hem of my shirt. The fabric felt silky against my skin as I pulled it up and over my head. It went into my iory as my hands reached back to y bra. The things fought me tooth and nail as I twisted, pushed, and pulled the fabric to get each tooth disengaged. As soon as the st tooth released its hold, the ehing was shoved into my iory.

  Of course, my breasts reminded me why I he damn piece of fabric the moment I went to remove my pants for the sed time ihan an hour. They swayed and caused my tail to stretch out as it worked to keep me banced.

  Then, I found myself pletely naked. Well, save for the colr. Inside of which sat the orb that should allow me to ge forms.

  One of my hands reached up to touch the orb. Its information came up without issue. I stared at it as I tried to think about how to initiate the transformation. Toug the s did nothing, my hand passed through it as if it wasn’t there, which it wasn’t, not really.

  But what if… I focused oing the fox transformation option. It blinked once before mana flooded out of the orb. Mana surged around me. Everywhere tickled as the mana started to push and pull at various parts of my body.

  Every part of my body vied for my attention, but my ook priority. I watched as it was slowly pulled away from my face as it ged color and grew fur. Suddenly, I lost my footing as something shifted inside me. I fell to the ground in a heap as bones snapped and muscles shifted. None of it hurt, it just felt, weird.

  I must have whimpered or something because the alpha was suddenly standing over me. His nose was inches from mine as his eyes bore into mihey had gone from the chocote brown color I had seen earlier to a bright amber color with golden striations. The effect was almost mesmerizing. Almost.