Shepherd's Moon by Stacy Mantle

dying woman. I didn’t want to hear her heavy sigh as she realized her time on earth was nearly over, knowing she would be forced to lie on the big bed awaiting death alone. Without knowing he was doing it, Daniel extended her life just by being near her.
    I shook the images from my head. God knows I have enough problems without adding that of an elderly woman and her untrained, shape-shifting cat.
    Gently touching either side of his head with my hands, I wordlessly transmitted images that would lead him to my home as his wondrous blue eyes stared up at me.
    “When she passes on, you’ll need help. You come and find me when she’s gone.”
    In normal cases, I would have forced his shift.
    But this wasn’t a normal case.
    In this case, the caretaker he loved was dying from cancer. In this case, the creature was an empathic chimera with little to no experience as a human. In fact, I wasn’t completely certain what his native form was. If he phased at the wrong time, he had the potential to expose our secrets, to endanger my pack and all those I protected. And with a soul as young as Daniel’s, there was a very real possibility of that happening. I would need to coerce him to change back, even for a few moments. And the sooner the better.
    “Do it now,” I urged, understanding the importance of a shift the longer I was in his head. “It’s been too long since you’ve shifted. You can’t stay in this form forever.”
    Images of Meg in the kitchen flashed through my head before I could complete my thought and I glanced at the doorway. “If she does walk in, I’ll handle it.”
    How I would handle it, I didn’t have a clue…
    His hesitation was palpable, yet I knew the human shape he once had lay buried under the thick fur. I felt his desire to become human once more. He was conflicted, but I wasn’t about to take no for an answer. Not tonight. Either he would do it willingly, or I would have to take him back to the house and force his change, which wouldn’t be comfortable for either of us. Letting him know this, I eventually felt him relent.
    Finally, with as much of a shrug as a domestic cat can give, he leapt from my lap to the floor and crouched into a hunting position. If anyone walked in on us now, they would see a cat that appeared ready to pounce on a mouse, not a shifter beginning the first stages of a change. A great shiver ran through his body beginning at the tips of his ears and moved slowly along his spine until it reached his tail. I felt him struggle once, twice, before I finally reached out to remind him how to make the change. As the magic swept over him, the change was nearly automatic and his relief nearly overwhelmed me.
    And then a man, one barely out of his teens, suddenly lay naked on the ground, his long legs drawn into a fetal position. It was nothing I hadn’t seen before, but never in one so young. I moved towards him mumbling nonsensical words and stroked his long blonde hair just as I would the stroke the scruff of an animal. His features were perfectly symmetrical, almost feminine in their delicacy. Slowly, his brilliant blue eyes opened and he gazed fixedly upon me as if he were just now seeing me. He shivered and curled tighter on himself.
    It would be awhile before he could move. Making the transformation from quadruped to biped doesn’t come easily when you’re out of practice.
    I scooted back against the wall, glancing through the drapes of the large picture window as Daniel whimpered softly, his incoherent words filling my consciousness. The sun was setting, but a final ray of light spiraled down making his long hair shine like spun gold. Soft, flaxen hair that had likely never seen a barber fell over his porcelain face and he was hidden from me once again.
    Sensing eyes on me, I realized we were no longer alone. Meg stood in the doorway staring at the young, naked man on her floor and a very obvious lack of a cat in the room. Dropping the tray of tea she held, the elderly