Chapter Thirteen
Theo
When I came to myself again, still as my dragon, I lay on the forest floor surrounded by blackened trees.
They only extended a few dozen yards, those beyond still green and living, so I must have been successful in stopping the fire.
I wondered what had caused it. Spontaneous combustion wildfires were rare, and on a cool night like this, almost unheard of.
Not likely it was a neighbor, from the direction it had come.
Not and have all the rest of the trees between them and us, still standing.
Possibly kids in the woods or perhaps a homeless person trying to stay warm.
I hadn’t seen any strangers in the area, and the dragon sensed no one harmed or killed in the burned area.
I went to move, to roll to the side, but there was something in the way.
A small animal tucked into my side.
A cat?
It couldn’t be Brent.
Mate. The dragon’s tone held satisfaction. Ours.
I shifted carefully to avoid harming the small creature, and pushed up onto my knees. The cat looked up at me, eyes holding a wealth of emotion I couldn’t decipher. I knew how to fix that, though. “Shift back so we can talk.”
The cat just stared.
“You don’t want to shift?” Or was it something more. We’d just been in a fire. Maybe it was hurt. “How about if I just take you home?”
The cat was on his feet and leapt into my arms, burying his face in my chest.
“You okay?” No answer because…cat. “All right. Come on.” I started for the house, cradling the cat—cradling my mate—against my body. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a shifter, Brent? I was trying to figure out how to explain being a dragon to you. Didn’t you say you were human?”
The cat purred as I realized he of course had not said he was human. I had just assumed. We all had. But we’d never actually asked him. Had he been struggling with trying to tell me about being a shifter without knowing I was?
That joke he’d made about me having a cape or wings? Had it been more of a hint than a joke?
Until he took his skin, I was going to have a hard time finding out.
Can you talk to the cat? I asked my dragon.
Not yet. Mate.
Yeah. I get that.
My dragon had two interests. Our mate and his hoard.
When we went inside, my mate still showed no signs of shifting back to his skin, and, at a loss, I found my phone in my pants pocket and called Sothea. It went right to voice mail. He probably had it on sleep mode.
Then I called my friend from work…same.
The sun would be rising soon, and the fact that no fire units had come to check out the blaze surprised me.
We were quite a ways from other houses, but the smoke should have carried even in the short time before I put it out.
I wasn’t crazy about the fact that nobody had noticed and called.
I would report it, but since it was out and I didn’t want to explain how that had been accomplished, I’d have to inspect and try to find out how it started.
Look for someone who might be camping on my land.
I didn’t have it all fenced, but it was posted, and there should be nobody on it without permission.
What if I hadn’t awakened? Still holding the cat, my mate, I was chilled to the bone to think of what might have happened.
Subtle rage sent heat through my bloodstream, and my dragon pushed at me, wanting out to find who had started the fire.
If it was accidental, we’d have a talk with them, remind them of the private property signs and promise legal action if they returned. But if I had any reason to believe it was not accidental? My dragon was not very forgiving about such things.
Not where it concerned our mate.
But for now, I was exhausted, a common reaction after dealing with a fire of such a large size.
I needed to rest and recuperate. Filthy, I gave myself a sponge bath far too weary to shower, but not able to go to bed like this.
The cat was pretty bad, too, and I used a clean, damp washcloth to wipe his fur.
“Mate, I wish you’d shift back so we could talk.
Not that I don’t like your cat. I do, very much and am glad to meet you, kitty.
Now that I know we’re both shifters, we have more in common than I thought.
“Maybe you won’t shift because you’re too tired too?
That fire was exhausting, wasn’t it?” I just kept talking to him as I got us both ready for bed.
If I wasn’t so sure he was my mate, it might feel odd, but it was comforting to talk to him.
Nice if he could talk back, of course, but it was also lovely to be with him in his other form.
“Who’d have guessed you were a cat shifter. You sure kept it to yourself.”
In the bedroom, I set the cat on the foot of the bed, pulled the covers back, and crawled in. Tucking them around my chin, I closed my eyes. “Sleep well, mate. Hopefully we can talk in the morning.”