CHAPTER 2
Norris couldn’t believehis luck. Ten minutes ago, he’d been a lonely single shifter who’d believed that he probably didn’t have a mate, and that if he did, the unusual circumstances under which he’d become a shifter would mean he’d be unable to recognize her. And then he’d walked into a busy coffee shop and seen Annabeth.
She wasglorious.
Tall and strong as a Valkyrie, graceful and quick as a ballet dancer, she’d handled the madness of the holiday coffee season with aplomb. Her curly brown hair flew around her beautiful face as she spun and whirled and never spilled a drop of coffee, milk, oat milk, almond milk, or syrup. Even the too-big elf hat only added to her charm. He’d been struck by her even before they’d spoken, and he’d been delighted by her sense of humor even before their eyes had met.
There are many more winter holidays than Christmas and Hanukkah,his inner Dunkleosteus had remarked when they’d joked about her being an octopus forced to camouflage itself in festive colors. As always, the voice of the enormous prehistoric fish that was his shift form was slow and ponderous and erudite, like a college professor who’d gotten tenure many years ago.And many of them have signature colors. If she was an octopus, she could be green for Eid al-Fitr, and black, red, and green for Kwanzaa. And perhaps light up with bioluminescence for Diwali. Tell her that.
Norris did not tell her that, as the conversation had already moved on. But he tucked it away for the future. He really hoped they’d have one.
Then their eyes met.
If he hadn’t been wedged into a crowd of customers, his knees would have buckled and he’d have fallen flat on his face from the sheer shock of it. Her eyes were green-brown as the water of a deep and living lake, rich with algae and fish and all kinds of aquatic and amphibian life. They were eyes he could look into for the rest of his life, and never tire of.
I love her,he thought, astonished.So there really is such a thing as love at first sight.
Then he had to laugh at himself. Of course he loved her. How could he not love a woman who could make tentacle jokes while juggling fifteen drink orders?
A beat behind his own realization, with the slow yet inexorable approach of an enormous prehistoric fish, the voice of his inner Dunkleosteus sounded.
MINE, it boomed.She is our mate.
It only got better from there. Her name was Annabeth. What a beautiful name. She was working on a PhD in marine biology. Of course she was.
Definitionally, one’s mate is the person with whom one is perfectly compatible, put in his Dunkleosteus.It would be more surprising if she wasnota marine biologist.
Giddy with happiness, Norris silently replied,You never know. She could have been a marine paleontologist, like me.
True, replied his Dunkleosteus.Or an oceanographer. Or...
His inner Dunkleosteus was still listing off ocean-related occupations when Norris had to make the customers stop yelling at his mate.
My mate, he thought.I have a mate.
Up till then, the best moment of his life had been becoming a Dunkleosteus shifter.Sorry, buddy,he thought.That’s now second-best.
He waited for his mate (his mate!) to finish everyone else’s drink orders. The crush had died down a bit, and he hoped they’d have a few moments to talk when she got him his coffee. That was plenty of time to ask her out. He tried to think of the perfect first date. Dinner and the aquarium? Dinner and beach-combing? Dinner and sailing?
There were so many possibilities, it was making him feel dizzy. The floor seemed to lurch beneath his feet, as if he was standing on a surfboard. He was hot with excitement.Feverishwith excitement. So excited, he felt like he was about to explode. His body was straining at the seams.
Oh, no,Norris thought.
He’d been so thrilled to meet his mate, he’d failed to recognize the feeling of being cursed into his shift form rather than doing it of his own free will.
I believe we are about to...began his Dunkleosteus.
But Norris was already shoving his way through the rest of the customers. He burst out of the coffeeshop and looked around frantically for a large body of water. Unfortunately, he was in the middle of the city. All he saw were streets, shops, sidewalks, roads, cars, and...
...the park!
He ran as fast as he could, hoping he wouldn’t turn into a gigantic armored fish in mid-stride. The last time he’d been cursed into his shift form, he’d also been stuck in it for days. He could function on dry land for a few minutes, but much more than that and he’d suffocate.
I can’t die now,he thought.I’ve only just found my mate!
The swelling feeling was getting more intense, as was the fever-heat. Either from the curse or from running full-tilt with sweat running into his eyes, his vision had blurred. All he could see were blobs of green surrounding a stretch of blue.
Those ‘green blobs’ are bushes,said his Dunkleosteus helpfully.They arepaeonia suffruticosa(common name tree peony),hibiscus syriacus(common name Rose of Sharon), and—
