“Pretty much.”
“And is this a common thing in your community? I have to admit, I’ve been around quite a while, and I’ve never heard of a shifter who can’t shift outside of being very injured or extremely old.”
Confusion lanced through me once again before I reminded myself Rowan was a vampire. That meant he likelywasn’tin his forties, like he’d told me.
“Yeah, it’s not exactly a popular topic of conversation. It’s kept pretty hush-hush. About one in ten thousand of us is born with no inner animal to call on. We have somewhat accelerated healing, somewhat enhanced senses, and somewhat of an extended life, but nothing in full, and we can never shift. There’sno curing it. There’s no injecting of an animal spirit. It’s just a thing.
“As you can imagine, we’re not exactly the most popular in our communities. In the past, you’d hear all sorts of horrific tales of banishment or even execution with the excuse that it was like a virus that needed to be stopped, so it’s much better than it used to be. But it’s still not that great.”
Now that I had opened the floodgates, it was impossible to stop the word vomit. I had grown to trust and be quite fond of Rowan in the past weeks, so the weight of keeping my full backstory secret from him had been steadily increasing. Despite my nerves, it was a relief to get it out in the open.
No more secrets. No more lies.
“Sometimes people treat me like a leper, sometimes they just try to ignore me, and sometimes they act like saints just because they were interacting with me. So, as you can imagine, it’s made dating pretty hard. For a long time, I thought I was fine being permanently single, but now that I’m getting older...” I trailed off in embarrassment, not entirely sure how I wanted to word it.
“Now that you’re getting older, you’re realizing you want companionship and support that values you for you.”
God, how did he know exactly what my brain was trying to say before I even said it?
“Yes. That.” I wanted to take comfort in that, but my anxiety was raging far too hard. After a lifetime of being rejected for what I couldn’t help, it was hard for my conscience to come to terms with Rowan being okay with that. When I thought he was a human, it was different. But now that I knew he was magical... “I’m kind of the equivalent of a disabled shifter. I get it if that’s a bit much for you. But I have to admit, I would really, really like it if you still wanted me despite that.”
Rowan took a very deep breath, and the back part of my brain reminded me that it had to be an old habit becausevampires didn’t actually need to breathe. Wow, I had so much to reexamine now. This was bigger than finding out that Samus Aran was really a woman and that Fruit of the Loom’s logo never contained a cornucopia.
“I don’t care if you’ve got no wolves, two wolves within you, or are a human. I care about you foryou,Naomi.” Another deep breath. “I hate that I know exactly where you’re coming from, but believe me when I say that I understand.”
“You do?”
He nodded. “You see, the reason I’ve never had a relationship with my own kind is because they see me as a corruption.”
“A corruption?” While I’d assumed in the few minutes since he revealed himself to me that his albinism had caused some of his kind to be prejudiced toward him, that particular word sounded like something far more serious.
“That’s the most common phrase for it. There’s also aberration. Curse. Failure.” I was openly staring once again, baffled at how awful all those terms sounded. “You see, when one of us goes through the change, we’re buried in the soil as imperfect humans and are supposed to resurrect as perfection itself. Scars are erased. Limbs regrown. Features sharpened or softened, hair thicker and healthier. All sickness is banished. All maladies vanish. All weakness is eradicated.
“The blind are able to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the frail become mighty, andallbecome beautiful.”
If anyone else was saying those words in that particular order, it might have sounded lovely. But from Rowan’s mouth it almost sounded like a funeral dirge, a lamentation of a culture that clearly cut deep.
“You see, I was never supposed to rise out of the ground as white as I was when I went in. Most vampires think that means I’m not a true vampire, that I’m some sort of half-turned thrall or twist of what they’re supposed to be. Some are not asharsh, but they all find it uncomfortable to be around me. I’m a deviation from the norm they all rely on.”
I hated the pain in his voice. I hated it so goddamn much. I wanted to hold him. I wanted to go to war with every vampire who had ever made him feel less than for something he couldn’t help. For something that wasn’t even a problem.
“I’m essentially a pariah of my own people,” Rowan said in what I recognized as a reflection of my own words. “So, I get it if that’s a bit much for you. But I have to admit, I would really, really like it if you still wanted me too despite all that.”
“God, Rowan!”
That was all I could say before I slammed into him and wrapped my arms around him. He returned the hold almost instantly, and I finally got why he was so preternaturally cool despite the summer heat.
“Yes, I want you. I do, more than anything.”
Yeah, there was the whole issue that we’d both essentially catfished each other (speciesfished? magicalfished?werecatfished?), but I simply didn’t care. Now that the truth was out between us, not only were we clearly equals, but we had both been struggling with the same thing in different fonts. I’d been so sure that I was largely alone in my journey through the solitary quagmire, with only Tweety to understand some of it, but no. That wasn’t the case at all.
“I’m sorry that anyone ever treated you as less than,” Rowan murmured against my hair, his cool lips soothing against my heated scalp. “I am happy to inform you that you are spectacular, Naomi Bracken. In every possible interpretation of the word.”
I could cry. I really could. In fact, I was pretty sure my eyes were filling with tears. But before I could indulge in that emotional release, there was a skittering sound and a small, dark shape rushed toward us.
I yelped and jumped aside, only to realize that the shape wasn’t heading for us, and rather was beelining for the doggie bags that had been dropped on the asphalt, and also that said shape was a raccoon.
Well, I couldn’t blame the little guy for being motivated. The food really had been that good.
