Chapter 26
PRANCING GLITTER BOMBS
NELSON
Morgan leaped off the snow-covered step into the snow below, nearly giving me a heart attack.
“For fuck’s sake, Morgan,” I shouted. “You don’t know what’s under the snow. You could break a leg doing that!”
I sounded like a helicopter parent shouting after a busy two-year-old, but I couldn’t help it. If anything happened to him…
“Ready?” He spun around to face me. As a shadow, I could see him perfectly in the darkness. The grin on his face was stunning, as if I’d given him ten birthdays and twenty Christmases all at once.
I didn’t know how to answer. Was I ready to see my mate in his shifted form? Probably not. But I couldn’t deny him this, and maybe I couldn’t deny myself either.
“Are you?” I asked instead.
“Yes!” he shouted.
His shift was unlike anything I’d ever seen. He didn’t shimmer. His body didn’t merely begin to contort and reshape itself. Not at all. His was the most extraordinary and magical shift I’d ever seen. And considering the supes I knew, that was saying something.
The air surrounding him sparkled in every hue of the rainbow, like he was caught in a giant glitter bomb.
I only knew about glitter bombs because of Mercer, a raven shifter who lived in Willow Lake.
The guy was obsessed with glitter, and he used it whenever the opportunity presented itself, including in his revenge plots.
A few months ago, Clive, a cat shifter, had re-arranged the figurines in Sparkle and Spice, Mercer’s giftware store, and put them in compromising, not-safe-for-work positions.
Mercer had gotten his revenge by giving the mischievous cat shifter a glitter bomb.
The raven had been so pleased with the glittery chaos that he plastered pictures of it around his store.
You might think those pictures were to serve as a warning, but that wasn’t it at all.
Mercer just loved seeing things coated in glitter.
If Mercer ever saw Morgan shift, he’d want to keep the unicorn for himself. A bit like I wanted to.
I held my breath. I didn’t dare breathe in case the huff of air clouded my vision, and I couldn’t look away in case I missed what was happening.
The glitter dissipated to reveal Morgan in his unicorn form.
He was covered in glossy, white hair. His mane and tail were like rainbows.
And his horn… It was gorgeous. The long spiral reminded me of polished moonstone, milky in tone with a bluish, silvery sheen that shone, even on this dark, cloudy night.
Even his hooves were beautiful, looking like they’d been dipped in silver.
“You’re stunning,” I whispered.
Morgan lifted his head and shook out his mane. His ears pointed back a little, and his mouth opened to show his teeth, and I knew that was his way of smiling. Then he rose up on his hind legs, kicking snow at me. I shouted in protest, making him neigh happily and dance in front of me.
When he’d said he wanted to prance, I immediately thought of that prancing woman who’d hit the internet a decade or more back.
But Morgan didn’t prance like that. His movements were fluid, powerful, and controlled.
His gait was so graceful and smooth, I couldn’t believe he hadn’t shifted in two fucking years.
I’d expected him to chatter away at me, but he didn’t. It made me wonder if he couldn’t in this form. It’d be unusual, but everything about him was. But that was okay. We didn’t need words. I knew he wanted to play.
I walked through the snow toward him. When I arrived in front of him, I held his gaze for a long moment.
“I mean it,” I whispered, lifting my hand to touch his mane. From this close, I could see that even his white hair sparkled like freshly fallen snow. “You are gorgeous. Thank you for showing me this side of you.”
It was a privilege. And I vowed to do everything I could to earn the trust he’d bestowed on me. He pushed his nose into my shoulder, as if urging me to get on with it.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
I let my human body slip away until only the shadow remained. As soon as my shift was complete, Morgan trotted toward the loop road, flinging his mane from side to side. It reminded me of how he twitched his cape when he walked. Once he was on the road, he started high stepping like a show horse.
If I’d been in my human form, I would have shaken my head at his antics. Instead, I swirled close to his ears and whispered, “Come get me.”
Then I raced ahead.
He reared and took off after me. I didn’t go as fast as I could have; I didn’t want to hide from him. A couple of times I even let him catch me. And when he did, he wiggled and bounded through the snow like a colt.
We went around the loop road more times than I could count. You’d think it would have been boring, but it wasn’t. I don’t think I’d ever felt so happy, even as a child.
When we finally shifted back to our clothed human forms and returned to the cabin, Morgan was giggling and shooting rainbow bubbles through the air like a bubble machine at a kid’s birthday party.
We stripped off our jackets and shoes and set them by the fire, even though we hadn’t been in our human forms long enough to get them wet.
Then we settled in front of the fire on the woolen blanket Morgan had found earlier. It was nice to sit so close to the fire with him. Some might even say it was romantic.
But that wasn’t it. Really.
“Thank you,” Morgan said. “That was perfect.”
I wanted to tug him close, kiss his rosy cheeks, and taste his smile. I didn’t. Instead, I said, “You won’t have to wait so long to shift once we’re in Willow Lake.”
His eyes took on a dreamy quality. “You make Willow Lake sound like a fantasy world. It’s too good to be true.”
“Hardly that. It has problems like anywhere else.” After all, I couldn’t see anyone meeting Paws and thinking they were in a fairytale, but the community did have its moments.
And it would be easier for a supe like Morgan to live in a place like Willow Lake, where he wouldn’t have to hide so much.
I wanted to give him that freedom and safety. I wanted to give him Willow Lake.
We sat in front of the fire deep into the night. We talked about his favorite sitcoms and my favorite geocaches and everything in between. But when Morgan couldn’t say more than a few words without yawning, I knew I couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer.
“We should hit the hay,” I said, just to tease him.
“Is that a horse joke?” He snorted and rolled his eyes. “But honestly, I am glad we aren’t sleeping on hay. The stuff makes me itchy.”
Earlier in the day, we’d decided to leave the bed made, so there wasn’t much to do. We each took turns going outside to take care of our needs, then all that remained was to crawl into bed.
We chose the same sides we’d taken the night before. I didn’t even try to pretend we wouldn’t end up entwined again. I opened my arms, and Morgan cuddled right in.
Doing this was dangerous. I knew that. But I was beginning to think the danger might be worth it. Just for tonight.