The voice in his head protested weakly, but it also seemed to have been blindsided by the touch of the kind woman.
The fae slumped back as Max severed the connection between them, unconscious but still breathing wheezily, and suddenly the blue light faded away.
Thank you, Max,came the woman’s reassuring voice, and he felt a surge of what felt like gratitude pass through him from her hands.You did a great job.
He turned to look at her once more, finding that he could still see her despite the darkness. She, perhaps, was struggling to see him, because she pulled out some sort of object with one hand and summoned a bright light from it.
That’s better,she muttered to herself, and the ordinariness of her speech almost jolted him. Now that the threat of the fae had been neutralized and the voice inside his head had quieted itself – and now that he wasn’t riding the wave of energy that had come from using his powers – he was starting to find himself confused. He really had no idea of what was going on, and now that he’d realized that, it was starting to worry him a bit.
Or a lot.
Maybe you should ease up on that guy a little,the woman went on.You don’t want to crush him to death.
It took a moment for Max to work out what she was talking about, but then he realized that he still had a hand pressing down on the fae’s chest. He glanced down at it as he lifted it – and saw that it wasn’t his hand at all.
Scrambling madly backward, he felt himself crashing into the wall – or thewalls, it felt like, and possibly theceiling. He cried out in pain and surprise, but his voice wasn’t his own. It wasn’t evenhuman.
Max!came the woman’s voice, her hands reaching for him again.Max, it’s okay. You shifted. But you’re still you, Max. Come back to me.
I… shifted?
It didn’t seem right. Since when had he been able to shift? Andwhathad he shifted into?!
But somehow, it seemed to make the most sense. And if his mate thought that it was true, then he had to trust her.
I know you can do it, Max.
Closing his eyes again, he concentrated hard, not sure even what he was supposed to do. He had no idea how to shift. No matter how many times he’d imagined shifting when he was growing up, or the fact that he had apparently already shifted once today, the idea of trying to deliberately do it now was kind of terrifying.
But the thought of being stuck as – stuck aswhatever the hell he was right now– was even worse, and he did his best to keep calm as he tried and tried again to shift back into human form.
Come back to me.
He followed the warmth of what had to be the mate bond, trusting it, letting it lead him back to himself. Toher.
And then, suddenly, he was Max again, and in her arms.
Poppy.
The name came back to him in a rush – how could he have ever forgotten it? – and he pulled her closer, simply enjoying being able to hold her, to feel her warmth and strength and know that she was okay.
“Poppy,” he murmured. “Thank you.”
“Max,” she whispered back.
She pulled back from him, cradling his face and looking into his eyes, as if trying to make sure that he was really himself. Apparently satisfied, she pulled him close once more, almost crushing him in a hug. Not that he was complaining.
He would’ve been perfectly happy to stay like that forever, but eventually reality started to sink in. Today had been… alot. And it wasn’t over – not by a long shot. If nothing else, there was an unconscious fae lying there on the ground, and Max had put him in that state.
Max didn’t even know what, exactly, he’d done to the fae – his new powers were still a mystery to him. Was it just an amplified version of his old powers of forgetting Max’s existence, or had he wiped his brain completely? Was he even going to wake up?
The idea that Max could have permanently harmed someone didn’t sit easily with him, self-defense or not. There had definitely been a point where he could have stopped, leaving the fae incapacitated but most likely okay in the long run.
No – he’d been blinded by rage, by the need to protect his mate, by the sheer power coursing through his veins. By that voice in his head, which, he was now coming to realize, must be his shifter animal.
It was there all along?he thought in frustration.Why didn’t it justtellme that’s what it was, instead of acting like it was just part of my natural thought processes?
His shifter scowled at him.I should not have to explain what is painfully obvious.
