I shook my head and sighed. This had to be a dream of some weird sort. “Male? No. This is my daughter’s room. She’s a college student.”
Tabi’s shouted, “a-ha!” was loud in the silence of the room.
Esther tilted her head, pursed her lips, stared around the room for a full three seconds then glanced at Tabi. When she looked at me again, concern softened her expression. She was no longer so fierce or intimidating. Now she looked like any other soccer mom on the street. “We need to talk. Do you have any good liquor?”
“I have liquor.” Good was a stretch. Good was too expensive.
I had an airline-sized bottle of rum from a trip I’d taken back east, and a pint of Jack Daniels I’d bought on a whim three or four years ago and never touched. I’d said it was my emergency bottle. This probably qualified as an emergency. In my book, it did, anyway.
With a solemn nod, I walked out of the bedroom and waited in the kitchen, whiskey in hand after rifling through the freezer. It was time for some answers.
CHAPTERTEN
We all sat at the table, and I handed them each a glass. They didn’t look like the kind of girls who would want to just pass the bottle. Plus, we weren’t frat guys from the nineties.
Esther poured herself a shot of the whiskey that, now that I looked closely, wasn’t Jack but an off-brand instead. At least it looked like Jack. She sniffed it, took a drink, then looked at me. “Okay. There are things you need to know.”
“I know things.” I took a deep breath. “I mean I watch TV.” I didn’t want to come off like a total dunce here.
Tabi chuckled and looked from Esther to me. “Oh, honey. TV rarely gets it right.”
Plus, I had no idea if we were talking Teen Wolf or Twilight with a sprinkling of Game of Thrones. There was a lot of lore out there.
“You saidshifters.”They nodded at me. I had questions. And an admission that might help. “I was bitten by a rabbit.”
Tabi nodded and snapped her fingers. “Rabbit.” She tossed her long, curly hair back and glanced at Esther. “Did you pick up rabbit?”
Esther seemed to ignore her and pulled her lip between her teeth. As far as odd conversations went, this topped my list, but neither Esther nor Tabi seemed disturbed by it.
“So, why…” I cleared my throat, not quite ready for a full admission of what I’d seen. “Why did you think I was a dragon?” An odd, awkward chuckle at the end served as punctuation to the oddest sentence I’d ever spoken.
“Okay, I don’t know the exact logistics, but witches and shifters are quite real. And vampires.” Tabi looked at Esther as if she was asking permission to continue like even here Esther was her boss, but Esther didn’t so much as blink, and Tabi continued anyway. “Supernatural creatures come in many forms. Not all are common.”
I gulped down some of the whiskey, trying not to choke on it. Vampires and witches. Oh, my. And I was a shifter.
“Most are glorified or vilified by Hollywood, but eighty percent are harmless.” Esther spoke as if she was offended by the Hollywood portrayal and ran a hand through that long hair of hers, the pink strands falling through her fingertips.
“Shifters and vampires are more common than fae and witches, but none of us are really out in the open.” Tabi rolled her eyes. “Humans would hunt us for their research studies, to see how they could use us.” Her aversion to humans was quite obvious. That made sense. Humans could be pretty bad.
This was a lot of information to digest. But I couldn’t deny what I’d seen. Not when other people were confirming it. There had been a dragon in the water where my reflection should’ve been. And maybe their explanation—as ridiculous as it sounded—had merit. I’d been bitten by a rabbit, and it turned me into a dragon? I needed more, but whispered, “okay,” because what else was I going to do? Call them liars? I’d seen what I’d seen, even if I wasn’t ready to admit it.
“So, this was transmitted via bite?” I asked.
Tabi nodded. “It’s also hereditary. So, any children that Tilly or you might have—”
I scoffed. “No, not here.” My tubes were long since tied.
“Well…” Tabi grinned. “Tilly then. They’ll be shifters as well.”
Wow. Shifter grandchildren. I hadn’t even wrapped my mind around grandchildren at all.
“Any other questions?” Tabi asked softly.
I had a million. All fighting for supreme location in my mind. Why was I a dragon and not a bunny? How had they known I was a shifter and didn’t know before?
“Will I be okay?” I replied in a whisper. That was the most important thing. I could find out everything eventually, but was this a death sentence?
Tabi smiled. “Yes, we’ll be here to guide you every step of the way. Your life isn’t over. It’s just… a new beginning.”
