Farley grunted. "Hard to describe. In a weird way, Animus was more down to earth than Mistral."
"I'm guessing that's not a joke about Mistral being an air spirit."
"No," Farley said. He smirked, but it faded as he went on. "Not sure what their beef is. Why's Mistral so scared of Animus, and why does Animus allegedly want to hurt him?"
I wracked my brain, squeezing out all the information I remembered from Zak and Kamari's stories. "As far as I know, Animus is a pretty bad dude. Nautilus—he's a water spirit and my cousin Zak's grandfather—he got attacked by Animus. Spirits can't die, but Nautilus was hurt badly. It turns out Animus was stealing his energy. As for Mistral, I think Animus warned him he was 'next.'"
"So Animus is planning to steal Mistral's life energy?" Farley asked with a frown.
"As far as I know," I said, shrugging. "We have to stop that from happening."
Farley snorted. "Too bad Mistral wasn't much help. He basically told us to go fuck and give him special powers."
I blushed. "Something like that."
The cold wind died down the lower we walked on the mountain, yet the sun kept beating on our backs. Farley wiped the sweat off his forehead. A sweet scent wafted off him but I was too distracted by our confusing task to focus on it.
WhatdidMistral mean when he said we had to be intimate? From what I understood, fated mates could cause spikes in spirit energy. Could Mistral use that energy to ward off Animus?
All the spirit drama went way over my head. It would be a lot more convenient if they could just get along.
"Why did Animus go to the Society, anyway?" I asked.
Farley went quiet. "It's strange. It's almost like he's got hang ups about alphas. When I told him about the treatment of omegas at the Society, he dropped everything to get over there."
"Really?" I asked, surprised.
"Could've been an act. Or he really did want to help them. I don't know." Farley shrugged. "In any case, aside from being creepy as fuck, he was a lot easier to talk to than Mistral."
"Weird," I mumbled. Everything I knew about Animus was negative. I hadn't expected to hear Farley talk about him in terms that bordered on positive.
Farley grunted and wiped his forehead again. His skin glistened with sweat. He seemed to be dealing with the heat worse than I was, even though we were both in our human forms.
I sauntered closer. "By the way, sorry I had to go and blurt out the fated mates thing. I remembered that was a big part of the events Zak and Kamari told me about."
"Doesn't bother me," Farley muttered. There was a distracted air about him. He wasn't looking at me and his cheeks were flushed. Was he embarrassed?
"I guess it was true, since Mistral's tune changed after I brought it up," I mused."By the way, is everything okay?"
"Fine," Farley said. He made an effort to look in my direction and flash me a tight smile. "These Zak and Kamari folks. You close with them?"
"Well, yeah! They're family. I'm not related to Zak or my other cousins by blood, but we grew up together and I consider his parents my uncles." I chuckled. "I have alotof uncles."
The smile on Farley's face was genuine this time. I wondered if the heat from the sun was bothering him and he needed a distraction, so I kept talking.
"Let's see... There's Uncle Len, Uncle Hugo, Uncle Dax, Uncle Morgan, Uncle Sage, Uncle Xander, Uncle Nero and Remington—they're Zak's parents—and Uncle Nishiki and Uncle Weston."
Farley waited patiently until I listed off each one, then I inhaled a deep breath and started rattling off all my cousins.
"And of course, there's Zak, who you already know, and Lupa, Leveret, Cloud, River, Starry, and Ashe."
Farley whistled. "Wow, you weren't kidding about having a lot of uncles. What's it like having such a big family?"
"It's the best," I said, grinning. "Even when my cousins get on my nerves. We all live together, but it's easy to just shift and get out into the wilderness for a while. When I'm sick of being alone, I know they're waiting for me at home."
"Sounds nice," Farley said. "I don't have a big family. Finch shifters grow up fast, so I haven't even seen my folks in a while."
"No siblings?" I asked.
