His Nanny Mate (Moana and Edrick Morgan) novel Chapter 231

#Chapter 231: Shifting Early

Moana

I felt my eyes go wide at Kat’s proposition.

“Really?” I asked quietly. “You could actually help me shift… today?”

Kat nodded with a smile on her face. “It’s easy,” she replied. “You could get it over with really quickly.”

I could feel my wolf reacting strongly to this. It had felt as though Mina was coming close to shifting for a while, ever since Edrick and I marked each other, but it still hadn’t happened. And maybe, just maybe… shifting could finally make all of this ambiguity stop.

“What do you think?” I asked Mina.

She seemed excited. “We should do it,” she replied. “I’ve been feeling stuck, like I keep coming close to shifting but I just can’t make it happen all the way. This could be what I need… And I trust Kat.”

I agreed with Mina. With a smile, I nodded at Kat. More than anything, I was just excited to finally be able to shift. Maybe then, Edrick wouldn’t think that I was so incapable of taking care of myself.

Maybe if I shifted, I could actually be my own person again, and not a damsel in distress who needed a man to protect me.

“Let’s do it,” I finally said.

Kat grinned, then glanced over her shoulder at the house. We were still within sight of the house itself despite being in the forest a little ways. Suddenly, she took my hand and began to lead me deeper into the forest.

“Where are we going?” I asked. The deeper into the forest we walked, the more quickly the air temperature lowered. Soon, I let out a little shiver just from the chill in the pine-filled air.

“There are herbs that grow in the forest that can help induce the shifting process. We need wolfsbane and valerian roots. It shouldn’t be too hard to find either of those around here…” Kat looked around as we walked, occasionally pausing to check by tree stumps or around mossy rocks.

I watched as she occasionally bent down to small patches of weeds. She rifled through them, inspecting the leaves and flowers as she looked for the right plants that we needed. However, pretty soon the gap in the trees where we could see the house was becoming smaller, and the house was turning into a small speck in the distance. I started to get worried that we would eventually lose our way in the woods, especially since it was getting much darker out because of the oncoming storm.

I felt a bit clueless about all of this, but Kat seemed to know where she was going, and so I decided not to cause a fuss. As we kept walking further into the forest, I felt my anxiety starting to rise. The sky was darkening and I could feel the damp sensation in the air of oncoming rain.

There was almost a sort of static electricity to the air, like a thunderstorm could happen at any moment.

“Are you sure we have time?” I asked, looking up at the sky as Kat let go of my hand for a moment to stoop down behind a log and pick at some weeds. “It looks like it’s about to storm.”

As I spoke, the wind started to whip my hair around me even through the trees, which only solidified my concerns.

But Kat simply shook her head and stood again. She was holding a few small flowers in her hand. They were a dark purple color, and she held them up to me with a smile.

“Don’t worry,” she reassured me. “I already found some wolfsbane. Valerian might be a little more difficult to find, but we should be able to find some if we go just a little deeper into the forest.”

“Oh… Okay,” I replied. I felt reassured by my bodyguard’s warm smile, and followed her once again as she started walking down a gradual slope with the wolfsbane in her hand. She kept swiveling her head from left to right, searching.

“What happens when we find the valerian?” I asked. “Do we make it into a tea, or…?”