“Are you going to kiss me?” she asked.
“Depends. Do you want me to?”
“Yes, please.” Mallory mentally rolled her eyes at herself.Yes, please? Lame.
She didn’t have time to finish chiding herself. He closed the gap and took her lips in a gentle but purposeful kiss. His lips were soft but insistent. He opened his mouth, and she opened hers at the same time. Their tongues stroked each other. Dante tasted like the wine they’d just had, plus something richer. Certainly not the boy he was describing. Something all man. This was the kind of man she could trust—and it scared the hell out of her. Anyone she’d trusted in the past had hurt her—or she’d beaten them to it.
Mallory started to shake and backed off a few inches. “Oh no…”
“What’s the matter?”
No, no! Not now!Mallory’s only experience with this feeling had been followed by running up a drain pipe and seeing a monkey in a puddle. She had been so scared of the police, she thought the shaking had to do with that. She wasn’t scared of Dante. What the hell was happening?
In seconds, she might be swinging from the chandelier in her foyer if she couldn’t get herself under control.
“I—I’m sorry…” That was all she had time to say before her arms and legs grew a thick brown coat of hair and she leapt from her spot on the couch—right out of her best black dress pants. She shook off the jacket and was soon running off to the upstairs bathroom wearing nothing but her pink lace bra and pink silk top. Her lace panties had fallen off one leg and looped around the other foot.
After hugging the toilet for a few tense moments, some maturity kicked in.
No. I’m not going to run and hide. I don’t want him to think he’s losing his mind or seeing things. He’ll probably dump me like a hot rock, but it’s only fair he should know. It’s not him. It’s definitely me.
She hadn’t heard the front door slam yet, so either he left it wide open when he fled, or he was frozen in shock somewhere.
She crept back down the stairway, her long arms and tail holding onto the railing. He was still where she had left him on the couch, so he must have been scared stiff.
He turned toward her and smiled. “There you are.” He seemed as calm as a summer breeze.
She didn’t quite know what to do. She hadn’t expected this reaction. He patted the couch next to him. “Relax. It’s okay.”
Her muscles sagged in relief, and her body returned to its normal size with her normal amount of body hair…but without her normal amount of clothes!
He grabbed her slacks off the floor, turned his head away, and held out the pants where she could reach them. She grasped and wriggled into them. Her blouse was still on, but she had to readjust the bra under it.
As soon as she was dressed, she murmured, “You’re still here.”
“Is that okay? We hadn’t said goodbye, so I wasn’t sure you wanted me to leave.”
“Uh…no, I don’t want you to leave. But I can’t imagine you’d want to stay. Are you…all right?”
He laughed. “I’m fine. In fact, I have a secret too. I’ll share it with you, if you can handle it at the moment, and also keep it to yourself.”
“If it’s about you being that boy in school, I think I figured that out.”
He laughed. “It’s not just that, but I’m glad you got the point. My secret is something like yours. Will you believe me if I just tell you, or are you someone who needs to see something with their own eyes?”
“I might need convincing, but I’d like to be warned first. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the same consideration.”
“I understand. It looked like you weren’t able to control the shift.”
“You’re right. I couldn’t. It’s only happened once before—about a month ago. I had convinced myself it was an illusion.” She dropped onto the sofa next to him. He held out his hand for her to grasp or leave as she preferred. She laced her fingers with his. “Tell me your secret. If it’s anything like mine, I’m dying to know. I feel so alone.”
“I’m a shape-shifter too. A phoenix, to be exact.”
“Phoenix? Like the firebird that rises from its ashes? I thought that was just a legend.”
“Nope. Not legend or fairy tale. We’re a race that can be traced back to written histories from ancient Rome. Some say a phoenix came to this hemisphere with Columbus when he set sail from Spain. But the Native Americans have stories about firebirds that have been handed down too.”
“Are there many of you?”
