“Does the whole random swelling thing happen a lot?” Nyx asked, snickering in between words.
“Far more often than I care to admit,” Kekoa said. “I’m just glad none of them turned out to be my mate. What a cruel joke that would have been, to be given a mate who was allergic to me. It has made me far more cautious about the people I try to date, since I tend to attract macho types who insist they are immune to my toxins or only experience mild reactions when exposed to them.”
“Yeah, that part about your mate being allergic to you would suck,” I said.
“Are you mates?” they asked.
“Halfway,” I explained, stretching out my arm to show them the incomplete bondmark on my wrist. There were one-inch pieces missing on both sides that I was anxious to see filled.
“I’ve heard of that,” they replied, “but I’ve never seen a bondmark with missing pieces.”
“Most people haven’t,” Nyx explained, “since it only happens with multiple mates, and humans still have a bit of a hang-up about people being poly, so most shifters keep that bit of information to themselves.”
“Especially when there are a few species who have the same hangups about multiple mates as the humans do,” I pointed out.
“I’ve met a few of those,” Kekoa said. “Mostly avians.”
“Yeah, those birds seem to be pretty particular about the whole one-mate thing,” I replied.
“We kind of doubled down on the whole rare-mating thing by being a mixed-shifter couple,” Nyx explained. “Add in having a third, and our mating will really stand out.”
“Wait,” Kekoa interrupted. “I thought you were both sea turtles?”
“We are, but not the same kind,” Nyx explained. “I’m a leatherback, and he’s a green sea turtle.”
“Ahh, gotcha. I guess that makes finding your third even more difficult.”
“Don’t we know it,” Nyx said. “We’ve even had a few guys offer to audition for the part after they saw our incomplete bondmarks.”
“Ick.”
“Right?” I said. “Some people just lack home training.”
“No bull,” Kekoa said.
“So, tell me what else you’d have put on the dating app you didn’t fill out,” Nyx said.
For a moment, Kekoa sat with a thoughtful look on his face as he stared out across the water. “Must love the beach. That one’s a dealbreaker. I spend most of my free time in, on, or beside the sea. I’ve never lived more than a few miles away from it. I’m not a big sports fan, but I love music and even tried my hand at playing the bass guitar when I was a teenager. Unfortunately, it was an epic fail, and my dreams of rock stardom went up in flames once I resigned myself to the fact that I had a better chance of playing Enter Sandman with my tentacles than I did with my fingers.”
“Sounds like me and the drums,” Nyx said. “My folks were so happy when I gave them up that they held a bon voyage party the day they were hauled away.”
Kekoa snorted and shook their head. “I call bullshit.”
“Nope, they seriously did,” I insisted. “I was there. His mom waved a handkerchief as a farewell gesture and everything as that pickup truck drove away.”
“Just how bad were you?” Kekoa asked.
“Bad enough that I once cracked myself in the face with a stick so hard I thought I’d broken my nose,” Nyx explained.
“Oh, ouch!”
“It wasn’t the only time he injured himself playing, either,” I said. “And audience members, which I often was, were always at risk.”
Nyx shrugged. “You got good at ducking.”
“Out of sheer and utter self-preservation.”
Kekoa laughed with us like we’d been bantering together for years, the morning floating past with a relaxed ease not unlike the tide lapping against our toes when we moved our conversation to a nearby rock.
