“Maybe you should practice more.” I feel blood rising to my face.
He gives me a sidelong grin. “I think that can be arranged.”
While he goes to one of the dressers in the sleeping area, I stare down at my body, my hands still trembling a little.
I’m struggling to believe this is real. In fact, it’s harder for me to grasp than the Phantom being a god or Christine being a vampire. Her revelation shocked me, yes, but it explained a lot, too. I was relieved that my senses weren’t going haywire—her changing scent had a reason behind it. But I worried that once she did find out about my shifter nature, she might hate me. Turns out I was right.
Maybe supernaturals have an innate perceptiveness, an instinctthat draws them to others with mythical heritage. It can’t be justluckthat pulled me and Christine and the Phantom together. Somehow we felt theothernesswe each possessed, an ineffable similarity, and we attracted each other like magnets.
I never expected that threesome to unlock my full potential as a shifter. Part of me is resentful, to be honest, because I suffered all those years at the hands of a family who thought I was broken. Maybe what I needed all along was kindness, touch, and intimacy—not the sexual kind, just the human kind. Maybe if my family had accepted me and loved me unconditionally, I could have shifted much sooner.
I can feel my wolf form in my head now, just beyond a filmy barrier. All I have to do is press through that barrier, and—
With a jolt, I land on all fours. I shake myself. The ripple of fur and canine muscle feels weirdly natural.
The Phantom returns with my phone in his hand and the blanket tied around his waist. He pauses at the sight of me.
“Good boy,” he says with a faint smile. “You did it again.”
Exuberance rushes through me from head to tail, and my jaws open, my tongue lolling out. He approaches slowly, extending his free hand.
“I never interacted much with animals,” he says. “I’m more connected to plant life. But you’re not really an animal, are you? And I must say you are rather intriguing in this form.”
I stand stiff-legged and quaking with anticipation, trying to wait for his touch without letting my black plumed tail wag, doglike. Wolves don’t wag their tails, do they? So why do I feel the strange urge to do so when his hand slides over the fur between my ears? He curls his fingers, scratching me lightly, and I push my head harder against his hand to show him how good it feels.
“There were dark tales of the púca when I walked the earth,” hemurmurs. “Some of them devoured humans, while others hunted vampires for their flesh.”
I pull back from his hand. A whine escapes my throat.
“I do not believe you are a danger to Christine,” he assures me.
That’s a relief, I suppose.
I lean back through the mental veil, and my body reverts to human shape. It’s not as if the pieces of me are rearranging. Instead, it feels like half of me is always waiting in another phase of reality, and I can simply switch back and forth depending on which body I want to inhabit in the physical world.
The moment I’m back in human form, the Phantom sets my phone on the arm of a leather chair.
Rather than picking it up, I wander to the upright piano and let my fingers run over the keys, picking out a sorrowful tune. “Once upon a time, I thought I might be able to unlock my other side with music,” I murmur. “I wanted to try a gentler stimulus than the agony and terror my family used. Music was something I loved, and while it didn’t bring out my second form, it became my refuge, my solace. I began to write songs, and through that, I realized that I wasn’t bad at lyrics.”
“Own your skill, poet,” says the Phantom. “It is foolish for mastery to feign humility.”
“I have never been the master of anything, least of all my own life.”
He steps in beside me, takes my shoulders, and turns me toward him. His golden eyes blaze into mine.
“I’ve been trapped in the darkness, too. I know what it is to be reviled by a family—in my case, the deities who should have been my partners, who decided to reject and punish me. I had every choice wrenched away from me, every pleasure stolen. I thought I wouldgo mad, there in the motionless dark.”
He glances aside and hauls in a ragged, determined breath. I can’t help being moved…and a little scared, because he seems to be on the verge of prying my soul open, perceiving me far more clearly than I thought anyone ever could. In revealing himself, he reveals me, because like it or not, we are linked, bound together not only by our shared affection and admiration for Christine but by our pasts, which are somehow both dramatically different and yet intrinsically similar.
“I broke out,” he continues hoarsely, “through the efforts of a man who summoned me for his own ends, at great cost to those around him. I took possession of a body that wasn’t mine. I intended harm, and I caused pain, all because Irefusedto descend into that confining prison again. I thought I wanted to reclaim my former status as god of the dead, but now I realize that role is superfluous, unnecessary. It isn’t what I crave.” He renews his grip on my shoulders, looks me in the eyes again. “You do not have to step into the role they have given you. You owe nothing to the family who made you suffer. Choose to be free, in this moment, and they can never control you again.”
“My sister can,” I whisper. “She controls everything—the family money, our home, my fucking life. She has connections throughout the city, so defying her would close a hundred doors for me. She uses guilt, manipulation, and threats to keep me in line. She’s a wolf-aspect púca like me, descended from the purest bloodline still in existence in the southeastern United States. Her control isn’t something I can escape.”
I almost tell him about the way she can command me. As the leader of the Shifter Collective and the ascendant shifter in our home, she has the voice of the alpha. She can’t use it on anyone whoisn’t in our immediate family, but if I had siblings, she would be able to control them, too. Like my father controlled both of us. He rarely used the alpha voice on Philippa, though—always on me. Shewantedto obey. I was the one who had to be broken.
The Phantom is watching me. The confession is on the tip of my tongue, but I hold it in, because I don’t want him to know how weak and helpless I truly am. He’s right—I am proud, despite everything.
“All you want is freedom,” he says, low. “You crave a world with no more darkness, no more cages. You need someone at your side to guide and guard you. I’ve done that for Christine—I can do it for you.”
