If you are reading this novel on any other platform other than Wattpad or Tapas, you are very likely to be at risk of a malware attack. If you wish to read this story in its original, safe form, please, find my watt or tapas accounts where I go under treepipit, thank you!

Nota bene: the chapter features mature content!

She has always loved Billy since the movement she saw her in Astrid's garden when they were about five. Nina could identify her smell among all people in the whole world. Once she asked Lev why she wanted to be with her so much, while Billy didn't understand her feelings. Lev was surprised a little, as if not believing Nina, then he smiled and said, "You'll understand when she's yours, but... don't give up if she doesn't want you too. Shifters love differently: we are devoted to witches like some pets, unfortunately... unconditionally."

"Why can't we be with other shifters? You could have chosen... Sally. She likes you, and she's a nice wolf. She has lovely fluffy ears, Sally let me touch them once, besides she can run very fast!" Nina presented the last argument in Sally's favour.

Lev laughed, petting Nina's red hair, "Well, you have a lot to learn, baby squirrel. I wish everything could be so easy, and I could fall in love with someone who is convenient like Grandma's old chair, but you can't control your heart and the inner animal." He looked at Nina with hope in his eyes, "Are you sure about Billy? You are both so young: you might have misunderstood your feelings."

Nina tossed her head, "Sometimes I have this strange feeling... odd, blind understanding that if she tries to kill me, I will think I deserved it and let her do it without asking why."

Lev sighed, nodding his head in agreement. He, like nobody else, understood Nina's feelings. Even being half human, he wasn't able to escape his true animal nature, "I know, this advice should be given by your parents..."

"You and Astrid and Grandma are my parents!" she said resolutely.

"Yes, baby squirrel, but I never expected that it would be me who should tell you about it." Lev sit himself in front of her with a light gesture of his hand inviting Nina to join him. She gladly turned into a squirrel and jumped on Grandma's beige cushions. "Shifters can be pure like you: a mother shifter and a father shifter. You can always 'touch' your animal and turn."

"But you are a half shifter, and look at you: your lion tail is always with you!" Nina interrupted him. "You can't turn into a lion, but you are not a human. I think you can always feel your animal. When I turn into a human, I don't have claws or my tail."

"We are talking about you, girl," Lev chuckled, "but you are right. I'm forever stuck. Unlike me, you had a chance to choose, and you'll have another chance to choose soon."

Nina wrinkled her nose, "What do you mean? I've already chosen to be a squirrel before my birth."

"Shifters have always been attracted by humans, either witches or mere mortals. When we are together with our tribesshifters, we may be more inclined to our animal nature, and it's simple, and could be boring sometimes: only mere instincts... But when we are with humans, it feels our world is filled with colours."

"Being with people is always being perplexed. They are always making things difficult! Just being together, that's all that really matters, but they keep and keep on doing things I don't understand!" Nina jumps on the floor and turns into a human immediately. She grabs a little log and throws it vigorously into a fire as if seeing that girl in a changing room and beautiful blonde Billy who was kissing her tenderly pressing the girl's body against the locker.

"Grandma won't like it, Nina... That's what I'm trying to explain to you. We absorb their emotions and feelings, because we love them. Would you throw the log like this not thinking about Billy? The same 'they', you were talking about, is actually one person, and I surely know who it be."

"What shall I do?" asks Nina in dismay. "I don't want to lose myself! What shall I do, Lev?"

"Try to keep your animal in your heart, or else you'll lose the squirrel. If Billy leaves you, you'll never be able to be as you used to. But you should always know, whatever you choose, whoever you are, we are always with you."

After her unexpectedly adult conversation with Lev, Nina has always been afraid to become Billy's pet and at the same time not to be the one, that's why she has been trying to stay childish and 'silly' as long as possible not to have her heart broken when Billy leaves her in the end. No wonder she got used to think that she was just a stupid forest squirrel and no one else, or rather nothing else, for they call animals 'it'. Thus, Nina has been balancing between two sides of her shifter nature, not sure which one to choose.

***

Billy's moves were a little awkward but truly passionate. Nina was a bit surprised: she didn't expect the way things happen to them. That day Billy's aroma was different, Billy's posture was unusual: too sweet, too tempting. As Lev said, she had that urge to serve and surrender. She was more scared than Billy thought, but she had been starving for her love for too long, not just platonic tenderness and amiable kisses on the cheek, but real deep passion and caramel languidness in her movements.

Nina closed her eyes with a moan when Billy, having put off Nina's panties, spread her legs and put them on her shoulders. The young witch didn't even understand how thrilling and vulnerable it was for the squirrel girl to be like that: stretched on her back, showing her tummy.

***

"Billy? Billy Greenwald? Hahaha I can't believe it is you! We haven't seen each other for ages!" She dyed her hair, but Nina recognises her immediately.

"Wow! Is it really you? The world is small," Billy jumps on her feet to hug her school friend and teammate. "What are you doing in this part of the world?!" She is given a quick friendly kiss on the cheek: it's almost imponderable, but evoking distinct memories.

If Billy were younger, she would be tomato red, but now she can keep everything inside. Trying her best not to facepalm, she turns to Nina, "Nina, meet Rita Thorn, my... classmate."

Nina is slowly standing up, leaving the table to greet the woman, "We've already met, but I don't think you remember me," says Nina in a dry voice. One might think the tone is absolutely normal, but not the people who know her.

This Rita doesn't even know how aggressive squirrels can be during the mating season.