Nishiki
I didn't expectNero's visit to end up with me getting spirited away on some whirlwind adventure, but here we were.
Weston was gorgeous. There was no other way to put it. With his dark skin, full lips, and my God, thoseeyesthat were piercing and yellow even in human form—he made my chest flutter every time I looked in his direction.
It wasn't just his physical appearance, but the way he carried himself. He radiated confidence without seeming arrogant. He had the aura of a man who knew exactly what he wanted, and knew the steps he needed to take in order to get it. Weston didn't seem like a person who had things handed to him—he was the one who went out there and took them for himself.
Surely a man as sexy and capable as him would already have a mate? But he said himself that he didn't have a home, which meant he probably didn't have a partner either. That only led me to believe that he wasn't interested in one, because there was no way anyone could turn this man down.
I realized I was staring at him again and quickly turned my gaze onto a tree instead.
Since leaving the pond, we had been walking in silence, but it wasn't awkward. I was already learning that Weston wasn't the type to fill spaces of quiet with empty chatter. In that smooth deep voice of his, he spoke like every word had weight, like they were chosen carefully before being spoken. Honestly, I could have listened to him speak for hours, but I was also okay with enjoying silence with him.
Geez, if Weston was my professor in school, I might've paid a lot more attention to the lecture,I thought. I snuck another sidelong glance at him.Okay, maybe I still wouldn't have gotten that much work done…
"So, Nishiki," Weston said, startling me. "This long story of yours. I've yet to hear it."
“Uh..." I flushed suddenly. Being put on the spot like that freaked me out. I was never very good at presentations or public speaking because I was anxious that every pair of eyes on me was judging me, scrutinizing my every word. I never understood people who could stand in front of a crowd and speak as if they were all listening eagerly. In my case, the hypothetical crowd was always waiting for me to screw something up and then land right on my proverbial ass.
Weston smiled. "Take your time."
It wasn't said condescendingly, and his smile was genuine, reaching those gorgeous golden eyes. Looking into them for too long flustered me so I stared at some leaf debris instead.
Something about his presence called me and I was able to slowly formulate my words.
"I'm not really like other shifters. At least, not the ones that I know about. Like, there's a pack of wild shifters in the wildlife reserve—my brother Nero lives with them now, since he found his partner among them—and their lifestyle is totally foreign to me."
"Then you’re a shifter who used to live among humans?" Weston asked.
I rubbed my arm. "Well, not exactly. That's technically true but I didn't actually know I was a shifter until recently."
Weston's brow raised a fraction of an inch, but he didn't interrupt me. He didn't even seem that surprised. When he didn't say anything, I realized he was waiting for me to continue.
"It's not a very interesting story, and it's kind of convoluted." I let out a half-laugh.
"I'm interested. Go on."
I blinked. There was something oddly refreshing and charming about the blunt, honest way Weston spoke. He obviously wasn't a man who beat around the bush or sugar-coated his words.
I had always had a problem with being lied to or deceived. Call it naïveté, or just plain being dumb, but the amount of interactions I had with people in which I didn't realize they were playing me was frankly embarrassing. I remembered conversations with potential partners that I thought went well until I got home and relayed them to Nero, who'd raise a sympathetic eyebrow and say, "You know they were just screwing with you, right?"
It was heartbreaking. Every single time.
I slowly gave up on trying to get close to people. Nobody ever seemed to be making the same amount of effort as I was.
But with Weston, I recognized something different about him. It was hard put my finger on it, but he just seemedreal.
I forced myself to stop spacing out so I could continue. "So, me and Nero were raised by a single mother. She was always kind of… How do I say this nicely? Harmless, but not like other people. She was always obsessed with the paranormal, werewolves and all that stuff. Or I guess, things Ithoughtwere paranormal."
"Was she a shifter, then?" Weston asked.
"No. That's the thing. She's a totally normal and yet not-normal human woman. Anyway, soon after Nero and I both failed at postsecondary education—our mother’s a doctor so maybe we inherited our sucking at academia gene from our dad—our mother disappeared. Didn't leave a note or anything. Just gone. We filed a missing person report that accomplished nothing, and since we couldn't afford a private investigator, we decided to start looking ourselves. We spent months which turned into years."
"That must've been rough," Weston said. "I can't imagine."
I nodded, grateful for his sympathy. "I can't say it was all bad. Nero and I got a lot closer during that time, and honestly, it gave us some kind of purpose in life since before then we were both kind of floating aimlessly, never quite fitting in anywhere."
In the back of my mind, I realized that Weston was still listening with full attention. He wasn't bored, even though I hadn't even gotten to the part about being a shifter yet. The man had the patience of a saint. If someone else was telling me this far-fetched tale, I would've nodded off by now.
