“No, don’t do that!” her mom protested. “Really, there’s no need. I’m fine.”
“Mom, you’renotfine. I could tell the moment you stepped off the bus. You’ve been barely holding it together all day.”
“I’ll be fine once I’m back home.” Her mom knotted her fingers together in her lap, knuckles whitening. “It’s just this place. All these people.”
That didn’t make any sense. Paige had seen her mom plow through Wal-Mart on Black Friday like a bargain-seeking missile. “You don’t normally have any trouble with crowds.”
Her mom attempted another wavering smile. “They aren’t normally made up of people like this.”
“You mean shifters?”
Mom’s chin jerked in the slight, shamed nod. “There’s somanyof them here. And you can just tell that they’re not like normal people.”
Paige remembered when she’d met Buck and Honey, or Zephyr; that immediate, indefinable impression of power. “Yeah, I suppose some of them can be a bit disconcerting to us humans.”
“Not just some of them.” Her mom’s breath started to take on a ragged edge again. “Don’t you feel it? The, the energy, like sandpaper on the inside of your skin? It’s hard enough when it’s just Archie. When there’shundredsof them, not even trying toconceal what they are—animals shining behind their eyes—just like, like?—”
She doubled over as though gripped by a stomach cramp. Paige grabbed her shoulders, holding her tight.
“Mom!Mom!”She crouched, trying to see her mom’s face. “It’s all right, I’m here, it’s okay!”
“No!” Her mom flinched away, voice rising in panic. “No, I can’t, Ican’t. Keep them away, don’t let them look at me, I don’t want to remember!”
And looking into her mom’s eyes—pupils wide and unseeing, trapped in the past—Paige finally understood.
“Oh God,” she breathed. “The problem isn’t that you’re stressed about Archie’s lack of control over his shifting. It’s that he shifts at all. Something happened the night you broke up with his dad, didn’t it? You found out he was a shifter.”
“I don’t know,” her mom whispered. “One moment, everything was perfect. He said he wanted us to be together forever. I was so happy, I thought my heart would burst. And then everything changed. There were screams, and teeth, and—and that’s all I remember. The next thing I knew, I was three blocks away, running as fast as I could.”
Teeth?Maybe Archie’s dadhadbeen her mom’s mate after all, and had attempted to bite her to complete the bond.
“He must have shifted in front of you,” Paige said, putting the pieces together. “And you were so traumatized that you repressed the memory. You can’t stand to be around shifters because they remind you of him. And every time Archie turns into a bear, it brings back all the pain you’re trying to forget.That’swhy you’ve been spiraling ever since he started shifting.”
Her mom’s gaze shifted slightly. Paige felt her freeze, her whole body locking in horror. Her lips moved, shaping a single, silent word:
Archie.
“Mom?” said a small, scared voice.
Paige whipped around. Her brother stood in the doorway, silhouetted by sunlight.
“Archie!” She scrambled up, trying to block his view of their mom. “You shouldn’t be here. Give us a minute, okay?”
Her brother didn’t move. “Mom, is that true? I’m the reason you’re sick?”
Their mom didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Her stricken silence spoke louder than words.
“Archie,” Paige started, but he was already turning, running, as though he would never stop. “Archie!Wait!”
CHAPTER 37
“Completely unacceptable,” Lord Golden announced, pacing back and forth across the office. “An utter outrage.”
“Indeed,” Conleth murmured, only half-listening. It had seemed prudent to let the irate dragon shifter berate him in private, but it was hard to keep up a constant stream of soothing bullshit while simultaneously keeping track of everyone else with his pegasus sense. “We appreciate your candid feedback, Lord Golden. I assure you, we will treat it with all due consideration.”
“I should hope so!” Lord Golden banged a fist against Zephyr’s desk in emphasis. “It is a scandal! An absolute indignity! A humiliation not to be tolerated!”
“Uncle.” Ignatius looked like he would welcome a direct meteor strike with open arms. Conleth shared the sentiment. “I think he gets it. Please stop going through the thesaurus.”
