Page 41 of Magnum, Volume 2

“Wait, don’t say anything yet,” Nickie said. “Give me a sec.”

She played music that sounded a little like the Indian snake music when I first heard it, but then I picked up some deeper notes, like a didgeridoo, or maybe even bagpipes, under it.

“I’ll send you the MP3,” she said. “Turtle hearing isn’t quite as good as wolf hearing, but it’s still really good. This fucks with it. Anyway, say whatever I can see is about to explode out of you.”

Somehow, the idea that Nickie had figured out how to circumvent her wolf’s hearing helped ground everything for me.

But she wasn’t wrong about my need to speak to what was really bothering me, so I told her, “I thought he knew me inside and out. I thought it was this deep, magical connection, like he could feel what I needed before I did. But it was just him scenting how I was feeling!” I sighed and worked hard not to get teary-eyed, but my voice cracked and shook. “It isn’t a magic connection at all, and I think I romanticized that and… fuck. I built so much of what I feel for him on that idea.”

And the more I thought about it, the more I understood he was scenting my adrenaline, my fear, my arousal. And I’d need to research how birds and turtles see patterns, because there was no telling what he was getting from my micro-expressions.

“Oh, wow, I can see how it might seem like that, and their senses do tell them more about our state of mind, but they still have to know us well enough to figure out what the problem is. Their noses only tell them there’s a problem… or that there isn’t one.”

I shook my head, and she said, “Let me try again by saying you can never, ever assume he knows what the problem is because he’s scenting it or seeing it. Communication is still fucking important. Bud and I once had a huge fight that lasted way longer than it should’ve because I assumed he knew why I was upset, but he only knew I was pissed, and he jumped to the wrong conclusions about why I was pissed.”

I sat back and considered that. “But he always knows right when it’s too much, when the pain is going from good to bad. That’s what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah, that’s a nice bonus, but it doesn’t mean the magic isn’t there. Just means he has more ways of knowing where you are than a human would. Also, there are ways to kind of lie, so they don’t pick it up, and I’ll explain it another time if you want, but I have a feeling you aren’t going to want to learn it. If you do, though, I’ll explain how it works.”

I sighed. “Probably something I should know in case I think I’m interviewing a shapeshifter.”

She nodded. “Yeah. It’s so annoying when you think someone might be, but you can’t be sure. I can show you how to work on not broadcasting your emotions with your scent, too, but that’s a lot harder.”

Yes, I absolutely needed to learn that, but my heart was breaking and I couldn’t think past that, so I told her, “I think… I think I fell for him without all the facts, and I don’t know if things would’ve been the same if I’d known… everything. If I’d understood what was actually happening when he knew I left something out, or when he needed to make an adjustment in bed, when to back off on edging me…” I met her gaze on the screen. “I made wrong assumptions. I built my feelings for him…” I closed my eyes. “On lies, and I get that he couldn’t tell me the facts, but that doesn’t change the facts.”

“Maybe the facts have more to do with how well he knows you, and that him reading you so well is about more than his nose. You have great intuition — you’d have known from the start if it was all bullshit, but you saw it as the truth — he was getting to know you inside and out. And yeah, his extra-human senses helped him do it faster, but you saw that he cared, and I can’t imagine you got that wrong.”

I was chewing my way through that, not really liking the fact she was making sense, when she asked, “You love him?”

My eyes fully watered, and I nodded.

“You’re seeing it as, like, the house was built on shaky foundations, so it might crumble, but I don’t think that’s the case. To me, it’s more like, the house was built with a stronger concrete than most people have access to, so you thought it was magical concrete, when it’s just… stronger. But it doesn’t mean anything is going to fall apart.”

I wanted to argue with her, because that wasn’t quite it, and yet, I also took her point.

I considered what I wanted to say to him, and I realized I didn’t want to leave. We needed to talk, and I needed to figure out… everything. And that needed time. When you don’t know what to do next, you go back to square one, right?

“Okay, nothing drastic, but I’m going to put the power exchange on hold while I figure things out. I feel like we have to get to know each other all over again, right? So, we go back to the beginning for a little while.”

“But not too long. Don’t punish him for this.”

I shook my head. “No, I get it. Whoever is in charge of this shit doesn’t fuck around. The secret has been kept for millennia, and that doesn’t happen without some serious oversight.”

She asked me a little about the missing scientist I’m looking into; I asked her about the fraud story she’s digging into, and we agreed to talk again soon.

And then I went to find Magnum. He was in his game room, shooting zombies, but he paused the game as soon as I stepped through the door.

“I love you,” he told me as he stood and turned to me, and I could see the strain in his expression. He was worried, but he’d given me time to talk to Nickie. Hadn’t come to bug me, even though we’d talked at least an hour.

“I love you, too, but… I mean, it kind of feels like I don’t know you, or at least, don’t know this huge part of you. Feels like we need to go back to square one so I can, like, properly meet you, right?”

He nodded, his expression guarded, and I hated that, but I couldn’t fix it.

I took a slow breath in and let it out. “I need two full days, plus… make that two and a half days. We can probably pick back up with our normal routine Friday afternoon, but I need time completely out of power exchange to come to terms with… this. My view of you was built on faulty data, so I need to—”

“Okay,” he said.

I nodded. “I think that’ll be enough time, but if it isn’t, I’ll let you know.”