“So, a bunch of old women don’t like a group of powerful young adults. Big surprise there.”
I scoffed this time. “It isn’t about our ages or about them not liking them. They said that pack was dangerous.”
“I don’t care, and there’s nothing you can say to change my mind on this.”
Clenching my teeth together, I debated about taking this fight to the next level, then calmed. I didn’t want her to take off. She’d be in even more danger then. I’d have to talk to the bunco pack. Maybe they’d have some ideas. “We’ll talk another time. But this isn’t over.”
I sighed and walked out of her room. There was no point in continuing this conversation right now. She was too drunk and too convinced her alcohol-buying, situation-handling friends were the only answer. I wasn’t giving up on her. We would finish our conversation. But not now. And not like this.
I went back to my room like there was even a chance I was going to be able to go back to sleep, and when I failed at that, too, I put on a pair of sneakers and headed out for a walk. There was thinking to be done.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
Unable to settle my thoughts, I walked through the neighborhood, keeping under the street lights because I wasn’t itching to find anything that preferred the darkness. But if there was anything untoward out there waiting for me, it never showed its face. The entire town seemed to be asleep, and that was okay with me. I needed the time alone to sort out what had happened between me and Tilly.
Shifters are the supreme race.That wasn’t the daughter I’d raised. Of course, I also hadn’t raised her to be a bunny, but it was what it was. Still, I wished there was something I could do to get through to her that this pack she was involved with was leading her down the wrong road. Literally.
I’d raised her alone, and only ever tried to do what was best for her. Best for us as a family because every decision, from the day she was born, was about us as a family. That was what a young woman with no support and a baby did.
How this had happened, I would never understand. Until now, she was as close to a perfect child as anyone could ask for. Got good grades. Did what she was told. I wasn’t equipped to deal with a problem child.
From the moment I’d seen her, I was in love. I’d worked my ass off in those early days to give her a stable home and food on the table. Since Mom had left me the house and retired to Florida, money wasn’t as tight as it could have been. I worked temp jobs so I could be there for my daughter as much as I could.
People said we seemed like the best of friends. A perfect match. And I couldn’t agree more. It was the same relationship as I had with my mom. Only now Mom and I enjoyed our time together over the phone or video chat.
I wasn’t saying that Tilly and I had the perfect mother-daughter relationship. We’d had our tiffs and riffs, if that was a thing. No matter what we went through together, though, I always admired her spirit, her sense of right and wrong, her ability to reason her way through to a resolution to whatever problem plagued her. This current behavior couldn’t be more out of character for her.
Her words continued to play over in my head, and no matter how hard I tried to push them down, the anger hit hard in my stomach, spreading through my veins like little fingers.
My body began to sweat, and wooziness came over me, just like what I’d felt the last time my clothes had shredded, and I ended up seeing a dragon in my reflection. Oh crap! Was it happening again?
I darted into the woods. The last thing I wanted was to shift out here in the open so that anyone looking out a window or driving down the street would see. And with every step I took, I realized that running had been the smartest choice possible, because it was definitely happening again. My body was expanding. My clothes were straining. The world around me seemed to be shrinking.
I made it to the trees then shifted and… I know, I know… took flight. At first, I didn’t even realize what was happening, but then I was aware of my arms. Err. My wings, flapping. And the trees below me weren’t just small in comparison to my size, they were small because they were that far below me. I darted Into the clouds above me, like I’d done this a million times before. Like the dragon I’d shifted into had always been there, right below my skin.
It was all realwind in my hairsort of stuff, although my hair was…I didn’t know where it had gone and didn’t care. This was the best kind of new experience. Like I was free. Like I was untouchable. Like I should have been living my life in the sky.
As I flew, I could smell something so indescribable. It called to me like the scent of a warm pie baking on a windowsill. I wanted to understand what the smell was and why it seemed to speak to some part of me I never knew existed.
I sniffed, distracted from the clouds and the endless night sky. I followed my nose to the edge of the lake and dove down, almost skimming the surface along the edge, where I found a cat, a koala, a squirrel, a beaver, a skunk, and a raccoon. This time, though, I recognized them. Eden, Bailey, Esther, Tabi, Juniper and River. I knew them like I knew my own reflection in a mirror. Like I would’ve known them in human form.
I circled them, then started back toward them, looking for a place to land.
But then, I smelled somethingmore, something so intoxicating it stole my breath. I turned toward it, slicing through the wind, flying higher and higher. I was excited, my heart pounding, wings flapping, feverish. It was that thing I’d been looking for all my life. That missing piece. The closer I moved toward it, the more it terrified me, the more I wanted to be closer, the more I needed to get away.
My instincts warred with each other, and then it was like my human self suddenly remembered that we were adragonflying over ourfreakingneighborhood, compelled by some strange scent. Was it dangerous? Was it a trap?
The truth was I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know. Switching directions, I ran. Ran from the scent as fast as I could.
I flew to the edge of the woods and landed in a clearing. Time to be human again. Time to stop this dragon dream. I told myself those words over and over again until I felt my body changing, shrinking, cooling. I shifted back to myself again, looked down and groaned, then scrambled back toward the house.
Naked. Again.
I was going to have to figure out how to prepare for these shifts and how not to get caught naked trying to get home. Which probably meant talking to the ladies.
But then, there were an increasing number of things I needed to talk to them about. Before I made a dangerous mistake…like following that intoxicating smell. Whatever it might have been.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
