“It stands for ‘happily ever after’. He’s all about love and believes there’s a soul mate for everyone, so when he found out I was going on a trip by myself, he had Theo make all these meals big enough for two because he thought it would encourage me to find someone to share them with. Wait till he finds out his plan worked.”
“So you were expecting to find your mate?”
Shaking his head, Sawyer chewed and swallowed his food. “Not at all. To be honest, I never thought I’d have one.”
“Why not? I mean I didn’t either, but I thought it was because of my genetic defect.”
“It’s not a defect!” Sawyer growled. “The gods picked you for their gift because they knew you were worthy of it.”
“I don’t know how you can say that. This isn’t a gift by any means. Dueling animals inside me…constantly jockeying for dominance. It took me years before I finally achieved détente with them.”
“See, that’s what I mean…the gods selected you because they knew you would be able to handle it. I know I couldn’t. Hell, I have a hard enough time handling my wolf,” Sawyer said, scraping the last bits of food from his plate.
“Do you want more?”
Glancing down at his mate’s empty dish, Sawyer said, “How about we split the rest?”
Dishing out the remaining food, Alex said, “I’m not sure I did a great job, but at least I don’t have to listen to them squabbling anymore.”
“How does it work? Do you decide which one you’re gonna shift into?”
“It’s kinda complicated…”
“No shit!” exclaimed Sawyer, laughing.
Grinning at his mate, Alex picked up a forkful of casserole, lobbing it at Sawyer’s face before quickly holding his hands up in surrender before his mate could respond.
“Hey, no fair! I demand satisfaction,” Sawyer said, picking bits of food off himself.
“How about waiting for it until we’re at the beach where there’s lots of water available to clean us off.”
“I suppose…but only if you agree to let me teach you how to swim,” Sawyer said, smirking.
“Maybe…now, back to your question. Until I was about fourteen or fifteen, I never knew which animal I would shift into because they controlled that part of me.”
“You said they fight?”
“Back then…yeah. They would start early in the morning on the day of my shifting appointment with the headmaster. Back and forth…always a tug-of-war between them, circling each other, issuing warnings and sometimes even engaging physically with each other. It wouldn’t stop until I started my shift when one of them would seize control at the right moment in my shift. I know it sounds crazy, but I can’t explain it any better than that.”
“Like musical chairs!”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s a child’s game me and my brothers used to play. When the music starts, everyone walks around a row of chairs. The object is to always be in front of one so you can sit down when the music stops. There is always one chair less than the number of players so the person who fails to claim a chair is eliminated.”
“Yeah, in a really weird way that describes what happened with my Fire Fox and Fire Dragon. That’s why I never knew which one I would shift into.”
“But now you do, so how did you control it?”
“One day, they were fighting as usual, and I simply ignored it because I was so tired of it. Well I was heading to meet the headmaster when suddenly there was absolute silence in my head. I was stunned because it never happened before. I looked at what they were doing, and I saw my fox on the ground bleeding, while my dragon was backing away. Their fight had turned violent and, as you can imagine, my fox wasn’t much of a match against my dragon. I was furious. I began yelling at my dragon as I ran to the headmaster’s and threw myself into a shift immediately when I arrived, hoping it would be my fox so I could save him— which I did.
“After it was over, I confronted my dragon and told him I would never shift again until he and my fox figured outhow to peacefully co-exist. After much discussion among the three of us, I finally agreed to their truce. Now, I usually shift into my fox but if I’m in danger, the fox cedes his rights to my dragon, so I shift into a dragon instead. In exchange, my fox gave my dragon the right to order me…like when I was thinking of running away from you, he told me I couldn’t. I know it sounds weird, but it isn’t, because he rarely exercises that right. And frankly, whenever he has, it’s always turned out to be the right choice for me.”
“Wow…sounds freakin’ complicated.”
Shrugging, Alex said, “Not to me, but you’re the first person who ever asked me about it.”
“Good. The less people that know, the better it is,” growled Sawyer. “What did you do after the lawyer threatened to turn you over to the High Council?”
