“No,” Cole said. “He’s not a vampire. He’s a bear shifter.”
Maya blinked. “Abear?”
“Yep, a big old grizzly. The skills we have because of our shifter species is actually why we were all recruited for the SWAT team in the first place.”
“Really? So, you’reallshifters?”
“Um, maybe I should have kept that information for later, until you’d gotten used to the idea that fully grown men could change into wolves.”
“Wait, you can change into anactualwolf, not just a wolf-man thingy?”
Cole chuckled. “Yes, an actual wolf, the wolf-man thingy,” he grinned at her choice of words, “is actually pretty rare. I have three forms because I’m an alpha, but not all wolves do.”
“An alpha,” Maya repeated. “Wow, this is…”
“I know. Well, I don’t know, but I can imagine.”
“All right, so you’re a wolf shifter, Nash is a bear. What is Flint?”
Cole sighed. “Perhaps we can leave this for another time.”
“No, tell me, please. I want to know.”
He grimaced. “That’s not for me to say.”
“Is it that bad?”
Cole shook his head. “No, it’s not bad exactly. It’s just that, in the world of shifters, Flint’s species is incredibly rare. There are only about a hundred left in the entire world.”
“You have to tell me now,” Maya probed, eyes wide.
“Sorry,” he said, the smile playing across his lips, and she suspected he was enjoying teasing her just a little too much. “No can do.”
“Fine,” she pouted, and then her levity fell away. It was all so much to take in, this whole secret world. Cole seemed to read her mind.
“Look, if this is all too much for you…”
“It isn’t,” Maya said, a little too quickly. “Can you, I mean, are you allowed to tell me what the rest of the team are?”
“Sure.” He dragged his arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer to him. “So, you know about Nash. Kit is a panther shifter, Hawk, well, the name is pretty much self-explanatory there. That leaves Ice. He’s a polar bear shifter.”
Maya shook her head as if to clear it. “This is so surreal. I feel like I fell asleep and woke up in some weird, alternate reality.”
Cole chuckled. “I promise that you’re awake.” His grin widened. “And still on earth as we know it.”
She laughed along with him. “Good to know. So, what did you mean earlier when you said that I’m your, um, what did you call it…yourmate?”
“Ah, okay, so this is the part that’s going to be the hardest for me to explain.”
“What, worse than telling me there are wolf and polar bear shifters?”
Cole lifted one of his huge shoulders in a shrug. “Just, more personal, I guess.”
“Okay.”
“So, you know how humans meet someone and they fall in love then they get married?”
Maya frowned. “Yeah.”
