Luke smiled almost shyly. "Thank you. Okay, what else did you ask. No, not everyone in Virtue knows. Maybe a quarter of us are shifters, andmaybeas much as half the town knows."
"Right. So I won't go blabbing it to everyone I meet."
"That would be greatly appreciated."
Sabrina smiled and nodded. "And…your clothes?"
"They go with us. Anything non-organic touching our skin, generally. Glasses, earrings, clothes, bags. We learn how along with learning to walk and talk, so I don't remember evernotbeing able to do it. And I'm a big breed of rabbit to begin with, but shifter animals tend to be larger than their true counterparts anyway, so that's why I'm so big."
"Wow.Wow." Sabrina flopped back in the chair, studying him. "This is mind-blowing. I had no idea."
Luke crooked a smile. "Most people don't."
"Could…could I see it again? Or is that a weird ask?"
He laughed. "No, it's fine. I know people who've had their ffff—friends ask them to shift a dozen times before they start to believe it. I can understand you in that form, but I can't talk. Just so you know."
"OkaaA-AA-AY!" The word turned into a yelp as Luke shifted into his rabbit form.
To be fair, it was only slightly less startling the second time. One moment a great big handsome man was sitting on the couch, and then without anyexplainabletransformation, a truly enormous fluffy bunny was there instead. The air did some kind of twisty thing, maybe, but it was just…instant and inexplicable. Sabrina got up cautiously and the bunny—Luke—perked his ears and tipped his head invitingly. She went to sit next to him,giving him the palm of her hand to sniff, which seemed like a reasonable thing to do with a rabbit and anincrediblybizarre one to do with a human. "Oh, God, I'm being weird."
Luke clearly did understand her even if he was a rabbit, because a ripple went through him, looking exactly like he did when he gave a quick silent huff of laughter.
"Well, it is weird," she muttered. "I wouldn't giveyoumy hand to sniff! I mean, human-you!"
She had never seen a rabbit laugh before. She had, in fact, hardly ever seen a rabbit, so she'd definitely never seen one laugh before. Nevertheless, it was very clear Luke was laughing at her. His brown eyes sparkled and he chittered a little, ears twitching back and forth in obvious bunny humor. She said, "Hmph," and he chitter-laughed again, then bumped his head under her hand, inviting scritches.
Again, not a thing she would do to human-Luke—well, not precisely the same way, at least—but she rubbed between his ears and then stroked along his back, laughing as he flattened and lengthened in much the same way a cat would. "You're very soft. And very muscular. I thought rabbits were just fluffy, but I wouldn't want you to kick me, no. Even as a rabbit! You must weigh at least half as much as I do!"
Luke hopped down off the couch—no other word for it, he literally hopped—and sat up on his back feet, which was adorable when little six pound bunnies did it and borderline alarming when a rabbit this big did it. Sabrina stood up, too, and gaped.
He came up to about the middle of her chest, and then, dog-like, put his front paws out for balance. Sabrina turned her palms up beneath them to help support him, and Luke stood up as high as he could on his back legs. His eyes were about level with her chin, that way. "Good God. If you lie down and stretch out you're probably taller than I am. You don't weigh asmuchasI do, do you? No, you can't," she said dubiously. He was a huge rabbit. Hemight.
He shifted back to human while standing there, their hands still touching in the way his paws and her hands had been before, but now he was six five, broad-shouldered, and very close to her. "I weigh about fifty pounds as a rabbit."
Sabrina shrieked, laughed, and took one of her hands away from his to press it against her chest. "Jeez, that's startling! And jeez, that's a big rabbit. Wow. How much do normal rabbits weigh? I mean, normal rabbits of…what kind of rabbit are you?"
"Flemish giant. Fifteen, twenty pounds, somewhere in there, generally. Shifter species aren't usually twice the size of the true breeds, but…rabbit shifters are. Or all of my family is, anyway. I don't know any others." Luke curled his fingers against the hand they still had in contact with one another, a light, ticklish touch, and Sabrina closed her hand around his.
"Really? No other rabbit shifters?"
"There aren't many of us," he said with a shrug. "Fortunately we generally breed true, or we'd have died out centuries or millennia ago. But most shifters are predator species."
"That…is probably a survival thing, huh? But wow. Wow. I know I keep saying that, but…wow."
"It is, yes. A survival thing, I mean. Easier to get by if you're near the top of the food chain." Luke was smiling down at her, and Sabrina thought she could probably stay there happily for the rest of her life. "'Wow' seems appropriate. It's certainly better than throwing things at me."
"Who could throw something at such a fluffy bunny?" Sabrina asked indignantly, and Luke laughed.
"I don't know. Mean people. Or ones who are rightfully alarmed by a rabbit fighting at three times its expected weight class."
"Iguess." Sabrina smiled up at him, feeling shivery. "Thank you for telling me. Oh!Areyou going to have to mind-wipe me before I leave Virtue?"
"No! No, I'm afraid you're stuck with this information for the rest of your life." Luke hesitated. "I hope you don't mind. It's a lot to ask of somebody."
"I don't mind at all. I'm thrilled you think I'm safe enough to explain it all to." Sabrina sighed gently and stepped back to sit down again, though she was reluctant to release Luke's hand. Luckily for her, he seemed happy to keep holding hers, and sat down with her as she said, "I do understand why some people aresostressed about the railroad now. But it used to go through here, though!"
"Seventy-plus years ago. Everybody wasn't carrying a camera with them at all times back then, or able to tell the entire world what they just saw a few seconds after they saw it."
