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“Feels better already.”
    “Okay. Strip and shift. Let’s see if you’ve got any issues.”
    Alex and Marcus both gave her a look.
    Ted sighed and turned her back to them. “Like either of you have anything I haven’t seen before.”
    Marcus shuffled around, and she could hear Alex helping him get his shirt over his head.
    “I just didn’t want Alex to see where I tattooed your name on my ass, Ted. He might bite me.”
    “Fine,” Alex said. “I’m out of here. I’ll give you guys some privacy.” He tried to sound amused, but Ted knew he was squeamish when he wasn’t a wolf.
    She heard the door shut and asked Marcus, “You ready?”
    “One snake, coming up.”
    The air changed around him as Ted turned back, a shimmer like hot air over asphalt. Within seconds, the large man was gone, and a glossy black snake with pure white rings lay curled at her feet. Marcus was brilliant in his natural form, an abnormally long California king snake who stretched over five feet. Ted loved examining the reptiles, because they were so varied. Most mature reptile shifters could turn into anything from a rattlesnake to a large lizard. The biology of it fascinated her. A few of the Quinns were desert tortoises in their natural forms, and as far as she knew, they were more limited in shifting. But most of the clan were scaled reptiles, and they had fun messing with their forms.
    She examined the snake carefully, nudging him with her gloved hand to stretch out to his full length, squatting down to make sure that no abnormalities presented. After a few minutes, she said, “Okay, looks normal in your natural form. Shift back and tell me how your arm feels.”
    Another shimmer in the air, and Marcus was back. He had black bands tattooed around his forearms, mimicking his animal markings. She’d never noticed those before. Cool.
    “Come on, Ted.” He grabbed his jeans and held them over his crotch. “Give a guy some privacy.”
    She threw a sheet at him and said, “Forget privacy. Let’s see the arm.”
    He tucked the sheet around his waist and stood, holding it out for her. 
    “All good?”
    “Feels fine. Anything look crooked?”
    “Nope.” She probed along the break, but other than residual swelling, the arm looked good as new. “You got lucky this time.”
    “That’s what she said.”
    Ted snorted. “Is Josie in town?”
    “Nope. Too bad for me. Shifting always makes me…” He smirked. “Well, you know.”
    “Quinns…” she muttered, picking up his clothes from the floor and throwing them at Marcus before she walked to the door. “Bad boys, every single one of you.”

Chapter Four
     
     
     
     
    They started early, but were still sweating like dogs before they got Alex’s stuff unloaded. He was renting the back trailer from Jena’s mom, the 34 foot classic, fully restored and with a brand new AC. He would keep most of his stuff from Huntington in storage, but was taking advantage of the small sheds that Kathy and Tom had built near each rental. It wasn’t permanent, but it was good enough. He’d borrowed Kevin, Allie’s oldest, and Lowell, Jena’s boy, from their moms. The work kept the boys busy and gave Alex the opportunity to see how Kevin was doing with his dad gone. 
    “Hey guys, two more boxes and then I think we’ve got it all.”
    Both of them nodded before they trudged back to the car. At fourteen, Kevin had already been shifting for a year. He’d taken after his mother, so his natural form was a fox. He knew the boy probably had a handle on his shifts, but hormones were hormones, and according to his mother, teenagers were even worse when they turned into an animal at the full moon. Lowell had shifted only a few months before. As Alex watched them both, he realized that Kevin had already taken on the weight of leadership over his younger friend. Natural personality or had Kevin been the de facto man of the house for a lot longer than any of them realized?
    “Hey,