Free Claire De Lune by Christine Johnson

slid underneath her fingertips.
I just shaved it off this afternoon—but damn, it doesn’t feel like I ever even touched it.
    Still, it was not horror that she felt when she looked at her fur this time—it was relief.
I did it. I can control it. Oh, thank God, uh, Goddess, I can control it.
    Success glowed in Claire’s chest like an ember. She checked to see if she was any different than she had been last night, but everything looked the same. Furry ears, furry hands, and human-looking everywhere else.
    But still, she needed to be able to change back. And she’ddone that before only with her mother’s help. Now she had to figure out how to do it on her own.
    She sat down, folding her legs underneath her, determined not to be knocked over by the force of turning human, the way she had been when she tried to become a wolf. She sucked a breath deep into her lungs, smelling a deer somewhere to her right, deep in the forest. The surprise of the scent—so clear and so far away—shook her concentration, and she let the breath slip back out in a quiet
oh.
    Claire twisted to face a thick stand of trees. She could see the individual grooves in the bark of each tree. The sharp, musky scent of a scared doe wafted out between the branches. It was definitely in there.
    Claire clenched her fists. A desire to hunt swelled in her chest. It blotted out everything else. She could barely keep herself from slinking off into the trees, following the deer’s scent. Her stomach grumbled.
    She forced herself back onto the ground. Without meaning to, she had risen up onto all fours, ready to run.
What the hell am I doing?
She shook her head, clearing it, and pulled in another deep breath. If she was hungry, she’d go home and get a snack like a normal person.
Jesus. I was actually going to chase down a deer. …
    The most important thing now was getting rid of her fur. Drawing herself in was trickier, but she held her breath and focused on being normal—being with Emily, hanging outwith Lisbeth, hearing Lisbeth laugh at something she said.
    “… right now, no … I
can’t
. Think how suspicious that would look!”
    Lisbeth’s voice rang in Claire’s ears and she gasped, opening her eyes and staring wildly at the trees around her. It had sounded tinny, like a bad phone connection, but it hadn’t been in her head. It wasn’t the same echo of Lisbeth’s voice that Claire heard when she left the water running while she brushed her teeth, or when she threw her clean laundry in a pile on the floor.
    She had actually heard Lisbeth. Talking. Here.
    What the hell?
    Claire closed her eyes again. Had she made that happen, somehow? She’d been focusing so hard on Lisbeth, on hearing her. She kept the sound of Lisbeth’s voice fixed in her mind. It felt sort of stupid—but then, it
had
happened before.
    “You know I didn’t mean for things to go like this! But it’s too late. I can’t go back and change—”
    Excitement flooded through Claire and her concentration wavered. Lisbeth’s voice was gone again, but she didn’t care. She could
hear
her.
    Immediately, she wondered if it would work on anyone else. She tried to think about Emily the same way she’d been thinking about Lisbeth. She wrapped her arms around her knees and listened hard. Nothing happened. Well, it was the middle of the night—Emily was probably asleep.
    “Oh. Shit.” Her voice sounded loud in the quiet forest.
    If Claire couldn’t hear someone unless they were actually saying something, then that meant Lisbeth was awake, which put Claire one bed-check away from being in deep trouble. Who on earth was Lisbeth talking to at this hour, anyway?
    Oh, God, what if she’s talking to Mom? Okay. This is not the time to panic. All I have to do is change back and then get home. It can’t be that hard to transform. It just can’t.
    Claire pressed her fur-covered hands against her eyes. She focused on the memory of the skin, smooth as an egg, that she’d worn every day