“I am literally still a shifter,” Edith protested.
“Mmm,” Bas said. “Sounds suspiciously human.”
Grundlepus, at least, had the decency to look mildly conflicted about the entire situation.
Unfortunately, he was also allowing the others to commit fully to the bit.
“I can still fit in the clubhouse,” Edith argued.
“No,” Binky said immediately.
“I absolutely can.”
“You have knees now.”
“Rude.”
“The bylaws are very clear,” Bas added solemnly.
“There are no bylaws!”
“There are now.”
Edith stared at them in disbelief. Honestly, she revealed one deeply traumatic life secret and suddenly she was being excommunicated from the familiar collective like she’d committed tax fraud.
“Traitors,” she muttered.
“Tall traitor,” Binky corrected.
Edith resisted the urge to throw a cushion at him. Mostly because her hands were shaking… again.
She curled them tighter into the sleeves of the borrowed jumper she wore, hiding the movement before anyone noticed, or at least before anyone except Jessica noticed.
Jessica noticedeverything.
Edith could feel the occasional glance sent her way from across the room, careful and concerned. Which was sweet and also horrifying. Because the last thing Edith wanted right now was for everyone else to realise just how close she was to completely losing her mind.
Not over the human thing. That part was a relief. A strangeand terrifying one, but a relief all the same.
She had forgotten what it felt like to breathe properly in this form. To stretch without compressing herself down into something small and hidden.
She missed her wings, not the tiny dragon ones. Her real ones, large and powerful, Draconian wings that could blot out the sky like the legends of old. The thought made something ache deep in her chest. It had been far too long since she had shifted and let her wings stretch.
Maybe soon. If she dared and was able to stay, and if everything didn’t go tits up first. Which brought her neatly back to theactualproblem at hand, the male on the beach.
Edith’s sighed at the memory. He was tall, and yet handsome as hell, even if he was one of the two bounty hunters. Only now he had seen her, luckily not in her dragon form, but as much as she wanted to lie to herself,she knew.He had recognised something. Maybe not fully and not with certainty. But enough look at her too closely. Edith wrapped her arms tighter around herself.
Because if he had figured it out, then it was only a matter of time before the other one did too.
And after that? They would come for her. That was what bounty hunters did, after all, especially hunters with reputations like theirs.
“No,” she whispered under her breath.
Jessica looked over immediately. “What?”
Edith forced a smile so quickly it almost hurt. “Nothing.”
It was clearly a lie but Jessica let it go and returned to her notebook. Edith’s gaze drifted toward the window. Toward the sea beyond it.
