Well, at least he was part lion. Hopefully his mom and her family wouldn’t be disappointed.
A light touch on his hand brought him back to the present, and he looked down to see Poppy gently holding up one of his wrists to the light of her cellphone.
“We should get you some medical attention,” she said. “You got cut up pretty bad.”
“I guess I did,” he murmured.
“At least the bleeding has stopped,” Poppy added. “But we should still get you checked out.”
It was funny – he couldn’t feel it all that much. Prodding gently at the edge of the dried blood, he watched as some of it flaked away… to reveal half-healed skin beneath. It wasn’thealing at the same rate as he knew a regular shifter’s would, but it was definitely much faster than he was used to.
Poppy looked up at him, eyes wide, and he managed a smile that, hopefully, didn’t look too much like the expression of someone who had had one too many surprises for the day.
“Shifters heal fast,” he said. “Normally I would be getting to the hospital right now, but it looks like a few things have changed.”
Poppy nodded, looking a little surprised, but not too concerned or freaked out.
Despite Max’s new healing powers, however, some other things hadn’t changed at all. Like the fact that his close-range vision was still pretty blurry. Clearly being a half-shifter meant that some things were a bit more hit-and-miss than he would’ve preferred, but he wasn’t about to complain. It was far more than he ever could’ve hoped for.
Pulling his now somewhat mangled glasses out of his pocket, he put them on, smiling as Poppy’s beautiful face came into perfect focus. If wearing glasses meant that he could see Poppy clearly, he thought that he might never take them off again.
Studying Poppy’s expression, he couldn’t help but notice how calm she seemed – and a sudden thought occurred to him. “You seem to be, uh, taking all this in stride.”
“Oh.” Poppy looked a little sheepish. “Margot kind of spilled the beans. Shifters, mates, magic, the whole shebang.”
“Mates?” Max said, surprised. But then he remembered Poppy’s voice coming to him, when nothing else made sense:
My mate.You’re my mate, Max.
“So you know,” he murmured, looking into her eyes. “You know what you are to me.”
“I do,” said Poppy, looking up at him with so much love in her expression that it took his breath away. “And I want it, Max. I want all of it.”
Max could barely hear the words over the sound of the manticore’s joyous roaring.
Poppy wants to be my mate,he thought, dazed.
She paused, uncertainty creeping into her expression. “That is, if you want it.”
“What? Of course I – of course I want it!”
The thought that he wouldn’t want it was completely baffling to him. But clearly that moment where he’d paused in surprise had been enough for her to see it as a hesitation on his part, rather than being overwhelmed by sheer happiness.
Well, he didn’t want there to be any uncertainty about it whatsoever. He wrapped one arm around her waist, and then, guiding her head gently with the other hand, he brought her in for a slow, gentle kiss, trying to convey all of the feelings he had for her without words.
He must’ve been doing at least a half-decent job of it, because Poppy sighed into the kiss, her lips soft and warm, her body melting into his, the gentle buzz of the mate bond elevating it beyond any kiss he’d ever experienced.
It’s like we were made for each other.
Eventually she pulled back, a smile playing over her lips.
“So, do you have any other secrets for me?” she asked.
“I honestly don’t know,” Max replied helplessly. “I mean, I don’tthinkI have any more, but I didn’t know about half of this stuff, either. Oh, wait – my mom can turn into a lion. Did I mention that yet?”
Poppy looked only mildly surprised. “No, but I can’t say I’m shocked.” A sly smile slid across her face. “Idosee the family resemblance.”
Max sighed. “I have no idea how she’s going to react when she finds out. I mean, I think she’ll be happy that I can shift at all, but shifters can definitely get weird about that kind of thing. Usually shifters’ kids are the same type of shifteras their parents, and I’m guessing my dad wasn’t some sort of fae-scorpion-dragon hybrid… though honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised, at this point.”
