Fortunately, Esther pulled Tabi from her seat. Clearly she was the one who ran this freak show. It made me wonder how much she knew and how much she kept from the rest of them. People always hid things. It was in their nature.
I was a little closer to that nature than I wanted to be. I liked the openness of my life. And now, that was all about to change. I couldn’t very well tell people that I was a half-woman-half-dragon-beast kind of gal. What would they say?
I needed Tabi and Esther to go, but ridiculously, at the same time, I wanted them to stay, explain, help me through this like they promised.
Esther dropped a card on the table by my door. “Call if you need anything.”
Because she just kept staring, I finally nodded. “Definitely, yeah. Sure.”
As soon as they were gone, the silence of my place came for me, along with thoughts of shifters.Hunted to the point of extinction.There was a lot to unpack in that phrase and I didn’t know where to start. But it kind of sounded like if my daughter and I could shift into animals, we were in danger.
I went to the kitchen, found my Michael Meyers Halloween killing-slash-carving knife, and slid it under the pillow on the sofa when I sat. For a moment, I felt relieved. If anyone or anything came for us, I could protect us. But as I started to lie down on the pillow, I froze. It took about ten seconds for me to imagine how exactly the knife could end up chopping my own head off. I moved it to the coffee table.
Feeling lost and confused, I bounced to my feet and crossed the living room to light my favorite candle, a nutty, vanilla blend that made the house smell like the holidays. But that wasn’t enough. I tugged all the curtains over the windows in the main rooms, making sure that no one could peek in through any of the cracks, ate a cookie, and stared around my house.
A shifter. I was a shifter. My daughter was a shifter. Shifter. Shifter. Shifter. The word bounced around my brain.
But what does that mean?
Then curiosity got the better of me. I’d seen what I’d seen in that lake and there was no denying it. And really, what could a good incognito internet search hurt? I typed inshifterfirst and was redirected to listings for several auto parts websites. When I added the wordvampireto my search string, thousands of warring Team Jacob versus Team Edward fanfiction sites popped up.
I read something in one of the gazillion sites about silver and wolf shifters, although all the information bled together in my head. Still, long after I shut the laptop, the idea festered.
My jewelry box sat on my dresser under a thin veil of dust, and as silly as it sounded, as ridiculous as I felt even thinking about it…I had so many questions and so few answers, so experimentation was my learning tool. I laid the tip of one finger over a silver bracelet I’d bought to wear to a company Christmas party a few years back. If silver bullets were werewolf kryptonite, then I figured it was safe to assume that a dragon would be similarly afflicted. This was middle of the night, semi-drunk logic. Fallible, at best.
I didn’t burst into flames, and my finger didn’t so much as tingle, so, of course, I gave it the tongue test. Who didn’t stand at the dresser and lick their jewelry only a few hours after their friends told them they were a dragon shifter? Surely everyone would.
But alas, nothing happened. So, after the single strangest day of my life to this point—strangerhadto be coming if I was truly a dragon shifter—I gave up and went to bed.
CHAPTERELEVEN
Despite everything, I fell straight to sleep and didn’t wake until I heard Tornado Tilly working her way through the house. That was one thing I’d surprisingly missed about having my daughter home. She’d always been a bit of a morning person. She’d get up early before school, shower, change and get ready while listening to some classic rock, then sit down with a book and breakfast before going off to school.
It seemed some things didn’t change, even after all this time.
Unfortunately, I wasnota morning person. But, today, I closed my eyes and listened to her with a smile. I hadn’t realized how sad it’d been to be able to sleep in every day and wake up with an empty house. Something about having another person’s noise was soothing and made my heart feel a little lighter as the bass from her stereo shook my wall ever-so-slightly.
I lay in bed for a few more minutes, because in the light of day everything looked different. Literally. Rays of much brighter sunlight streamed through my window in little beams of dancing dust. Every sound was crisper, more defined. A pot clattered. A coffee mug chinked.
Then the previous night came back to me. I wanted to think it was a drunken dream, but I was still wearing the silver bracelet. My new friends thought I was a dragon shifter, and that my daughter was a bunny. It was a lot to consider before my morning dose of Joe.
Another thing that occurred to me was Tilly wasn’t home when I returned, naked and out of my mind. Okay, I hadn’treallybeen out of my mind. Or had I? The jury was still out on that one.
But as much as I enjoyed sleeping in, I suddenly felt antsy. And Tilly and I needed to talk. So, I threw back the blanket and made my way to the kitchen to find Tilly standing at the counter pouring coffee into one of the thermal cups she took with her to school, even though it was Sunday. “Morning, Mom.”
“Morning.”
For a second, I just stared at her. It was true she’d lost some weight since leaving for college, but there had been other changes about her. Some people would’ve described my daughter’s style as punk, but to me, it was more artistic. Expressive. In her teen years, her hair had been every shade of color imaginable, and every length. Sometimes she preferred it super short, other times she’d let it grow. Today, it went just past her shoulders. Her natural brown hair was there, but she’d put in layers of blonde. Her nails, which she loved to paint, had been a bunch of different colors with stripes and designs, but the paint had chipped away since she’d done it last.
Which was surprising. She loved to do her nails. I didn’t think I’d ever seen them with more than a small chip. Overall, nails didn’t matter all that much, but the sight of them made that gut feeling that something was going on with her grow deeper.
Being a shifter, perhaps? Or was she like me before the ladies had explained it and simply felt confused?
I had to ask her about the bunny, weird as it was. “Tilly, is everything okay?” I chickened out. Yeah, I’d meant to ask her if she was a bunny shifter, and yet that was all that had come out. I’d go for easing into it.
“Yep. Doing great.” Her shoulders tensed like she knew I was just warming up with the easy questions. She knew me too well.
My gaze swept over her face. The girl loved her makeup, and today was no different. Tilly was one of the most naturally beautiful girls I had ever seen, even though I was a little biased as her mom, but she’d never liked to just go natural. She preferred eyeshadow in various colors, usually matching the accents of her black t-shirts, dark brows and eyelashes, and dark lipstick. Even now, early in the morning. She’d always told me if she didn’t do her makeup, she didn’t feel ready for her day.
