Page 31 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

“Of course,” Rory agreed easily. “There’s no timeline.” His brow furrowed. “But I can leave whenever you want, of course. I don’t have to stay with you.”

Max regarded him narrowly. “Where would you go?”

Rory shrugged. “I’d find somewhere else to stay.”

“But you don’t have somewhere specific to go or someone to stay with,” Max pressed.

“Nope,” Rory said, still brimming with cheerfulness. “But I’d figure it out. I always do.”

Max was almost positive that Rory would end up a cardinal again, living outside. Rory had told him that he didn’t usually let his bird instincts take over, that hitting the glass had apparently been because he’d caught sight of Max and just known that Max was his mate, but… what if he was shocked again? What if Rory got distracted and hit another window and this time, he wasn’t just stunned?

What if kids with pellet guns or paint ball guns or a slingshot shot him? What if there was an accident and he got hit by a car?

Max could actually feel his anxiety ratcheting up, swelling through his body. No, no, that was definitely not happening.

“You can stay here,” Max said firmly. “It’s fine.”

Rory looked hopeful, his golden eyes big and bright. “Really? Are you sure?”

Max nodded. “It’s fine.” He smirked. “We’ve already been roommates for days, haven’t we?”

A huge smile blossomed on Rory’s face. “Yeah, we have.”

Even though a large part of Max’s brain was telling him he was going to regret this, it didn’t feel like he was going to regret it—even if a human had a lot more needs than a bird, and seeds and a saucer of water weren’t going to cut it. But… they’d managed with the grocery shopping. It had been less of an ordeal than it usually was, in fact. Rory’s enthusiasm had been infectious. And much as Max usually hated incompetence, he found himself eager to… what, protect Rory? Something like that. He didn’t want the other man to be hurt, and he admired the fact that Rory seemed ready to learn and embrace every new experience.

Now that Max was aware that he’d been a bird for the last decade or so—holy shit, he still couldn’t quite grasp that—it definitely explained a few things. Rory recognized a lot, but there were things he had no hands-on experience with. (Because he hadn’t had hands for the last decade. The mind boggled.)

Max was a witch, not a shifter, but he liked to think of himself as broadly well educated. He knew that while there were no hard and fast rules about shifting, it wasn’t very common for someone to spend that much consecutive time in their animal form, not unless something had gone wrong.

Of course, based on the little Rory had said, something had gone wrong, and Max wasn’t going to press for more information, certainly not this soon. If Rory had needed nearly a decade as a bird to process it, it wasn’t something to bring up lightly. Especially since he’d apparently changed back because he’d worried he was inadvertently deceiving Max, not because he’d gotten over what had happened. Or… Max considered this. Might he actually have gotten over what had happened, but he’d been kind of… stuck in his bird form? Maybe not literally, but mentally and emotionally? And he’d needed something to give him a nudge to change back?

Max was pretty sure that made a lot more sense than Magic pairing people up and Max being a partner for anyone.

Yeah, that was way more reasonable.

And if that was the case, then it was totally reasonable for Max to help Rory reintegrate as a human. As far as Max was aware, shifters didn’t usually lose themselves in their animal forms, but who knew if the regular rules applied when someone was shifted for that long. If nothing else, there would have been plenty of things Rory hadn’t done for a decade simply because he hadn’t been capable. That had to leave a mark.

Max would make sure that Rory had time to acclimate to being human again. Even if Max didn’t really believe that they were mates, he didn’t want anything bad to happen to Rory. He’d clearly been through something traumatic and stressful. He didn’t seem to have anyone to depend upon, and Max was willing to be that person until Rory was back on his human feet and ready to face the world. (Well, honestly, he seemed like he was ready to face it now, but Max wanted him to be better prepared.)

Max realized that Rory had finished all the food on his plate. Max had apparently been eating absentmindedly while pondering Rory, and had nearly finished his own meal as well. He didn’t really remember eating it—apart from the burning heat.

“Want more?” Max asked.

They’d made a serious dent in the meal, but there were leftovers. It might not make another full meal, but Max could always have a sandwich instead, since it was obvious Rory had loved the spicy heat.

“No, I’m good,” Rory assured him. “It was delicious. Thank you.”

Max would definitely add curry to the rotation. He’d been too cheap to order a lot of takeout over the years, but now there were two of them.

“Want ice cream?” Max asked.

Rory’s face lit up.

Max got the ice cream out of the freezer and then left it on the counter to soften up a little while he cleared the table and packed up the leftovers. Even though he told Rory he didn’t have to help, the shifter did anyway, demeanor open and cheerful.

If there was someone who was Max’s opposite, it was probably Rory. (But wasn’t “opposites attract” a cliché for a reason? No, Max wasn’t thinking about that. Just because Rory had fanciful romantic notions in his head didn’t mean that Max did. Despite what Rory had said, Max had learned that romance rarely came without a desire for sex, and he didn’t want to deal with that again.)

Max found an old container of chocolate sauce in the cupboard, and they began to dish up the ice cream.