Page 73 of Found Objects

Yes, I did.

“Do you feel it too?”

“I do.”

“Could we go inside? I really want to go inside. I want to bring all my things into your home and close the door and be safe with you.”

With me.

“And lie down next to you.”

“Yes.”

“And Mere, you have to let me put my mark on your skin and make you mine. I have to claim my mate.”

With a deep inhale, I was human again, and the second I changed, Cole clutched me tight, because in my everyday form, he was bigger than me. When he laughed, I stepped back to look at him.

“Man, I wish I could go from me to my wolf and not have to take my clothes off. That is some epic shit right there.”

I squinted at him.

“What? It is. If you had to strip naked every time you made the change, fold your clothes, and put them on top of your shoes, you’d be jealous too.”

Ondine nodded, stepping around us to take my arm. “I’ve met many shifters in my life, and they all have similar complaints.”

Cole gestured at her. “See? She gets it. Even though, just like you, bird to goddess and back is a neat trick too.”

She smiled at him. “Thank you, Cole.” She pinched my bicep, so I turned and looked at her. “Did you hear that? He said goddess. Not mermaid like I was some insect he stepped on.”

“Who said you were an insect?” he asked her.

“Never mind,” I grumbled at him. “Let’s go get everything from the car.” I glanced at the others, who honestly looked like they’d seen not just a ghost, but an entire army of them. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” I told them. “That was never my intention.”

They were going to speak, but Ondine cleared her throat and everyone went silent. I understood. I had changed so they could see my true form. She had wielded her power over them, and they were scared.

“Years ago,” she began, her voice soft, the dulcet tones utterly bewitching, “Merritt first lived on the coast, where he found me, in fact, and in time befriended a family that lived outside of the town. The wife was a healer and an herbalist, and because of that, the townspeople, of course, called her a witch.”

Everyone was staring at her, rapt.

“As expected, one hot summer evening, a mob formed, and they came for this woman and her daughter, and they were going to do something awful to the husband and son, brand them or—I don’t recall, but all of it promised to be a horror.”

“Why are you telling⁠—”

She shushed me, patting my arm to quiet me, then continued. “So when they showed up, Merritt had no choice but to shed his humanity and become the creature he truly is.” Heavy sigh from her. “And of course, all the men died. He let the women and children flee—I know, they brought their children, just awful—but once he looked around, he realized that the family, his friends, those he had protected, were now terrified of him.”

“I’m sorry.” Cole slipped his hand over my shoulder.

I could still remember the stricken looks on their faces. All our history had been forgotten in those moments. That I had been there, helping, taking care of their children. Everything was erased because I was a monster.

“That, sadly, was not the only time that ever happened. So when he says to you that it was never his intention to scare you, he means it. He’s learned patience and understanding over the long years of his life. And while what you attempted earlier seems horrific to me—terrible form for an alpha pair, having your son try to use his mindfuck powers on someone—Merritt is likely to forgive the attack, as you could never hurt him.”

And I did, and I had, but she was right, it was horrible. What Abel, Narah, and Justin had tried to do to me, they had clearly done before to many others. They had oppressed other people’s free will, and that could not be allowed to continue.

“Sometimes I forget what I was made for,” I said, easing free of her and taking a few steps away.

“You were made to be loved,” Cole told me, and when I turned to look at him, he was bathed in the green light of my eyes. “Your eyes are glowing, and it’s really pretty.”

“You weren’t made to hurt others,” Ondine reminded me. “You were made to mete out justice, and as Cole says, to be loved.”