Fourteen
Gareth
“Show me? How?”
Riley shed the blanket that was around his broad shoulders.
He stood naked for a moment, then in a blink he was in the bobcat form I’d heard about.
He was magnificent in both forms, and I was proud to call him my mate.
With another blink, he was a fox. At least it looked like a fox.
The coloring differed from any I’d ever seen.
Then he was a dog. A raven. A squirrel. Then a rabbit. A tiger.
He went through his forms quickly, never giving me a chance to examine them properly.
Finally, he returned to his human form, panting and with a sheen of sweat covering his skin.
I flung back the comforter and opened my arms to him.
He came to me with a contented noise, pressing close and letting me hold him.
“You are amazing!” I said honestly.
He was quiet. I waited for him to speak, not wanting to rush him. “You know what? I’ve heard of metamorphs,” I mused, filling the silence. “I thought them to be myths.”
“We stay hidden. It’s safer,” Riley finally said.
“Why? I mean, it’s cool, changing into so many animals, but why would that mean you have to hide?” I wasn’t trying to be insensitive, I just wanted to know more about my mate.
“Pure metamorphs are rare. When a female metamorph is discovered, she’s usually treated as breeding stock until her body gives out.
Their lives are shorter because they don’t always produce metamorph children.
Like with most cross-species breeding, it depends on who the father is.
Like my brother, Paxton. He was born to a wolf?shifter father, so a wolf is his primary form.
He has a few animal faces, but not as many as I do.
My dad was a metamorph too. He… uh… he died getting Mom and Pax out when she was pregnant with me. ”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. They’d been staying near a shifter village, only sticking to one form, but Pax was only four. He didn’t understand that he was supposed to stay as a wolf. He knew that Mom and Dad could shift into birds, and he wanted to fly too. Someone saw him.”
A sick feeling swept over me, stopping any words from escaping. Maybe that was all Riley needed. Not a bunch of platitudes. I just held him, smoothing a hand over his back. I couldn’t be sure, and I certainly wasn’t going to point it out, but I felt tears.
“Another shifter caught Pax, and my dad had to fight to get him free. Pax ran to freedom, doing what he was told by my dad, but—” A sob escaped.
I held Riley tighter as he shuddered against me, my chest getting soaked with his tears.
“The injuries were too extensive. Mom begged a witch to help, but there was nothing to be done at that point. He died as I was being born. The stress of it all was too much. We nearly lost Mom too. If it hadn’t been for the witch, we would have. ”
“The witch hid us for a few days until Mom was strong enough to leave. Then we ran. They took new base forms, since we can’t hide that we’re shifters from other shifters—we smell and act too much like them to be anything else.
After a bit, they found a town to stay in for a while.
There, they blended in, flying under the radar.
Mom said Paxton didn’t shift into anything other than his wolf for three years.
She worried that he’d damaged himself, even thought about trying to find a therapist for him, but he just had to work through it. His grief just wouldn’t let him.”
“Fuck. I’m so sorry.”
“Every few years, we would move, because complacency leads to danger. Then, when I was seventeen, Mom met Boyce.”
I heard the hatred when he said the name. This had to be the warlock who’d made Riley hate my kind.
“Boyce was charming. Rich. Successful.” He paused for a moment.
Then sighed. “Mom was tired of hiding. Sick of moving all the time. She wanted me to have some stability, so it was easy for her to fall into his trap. To be fair, for the first year, he was good to her. He moved us into his big house when they got married. Pax was finishing up at college, but Boyce even impressed him when he came home for breaks. It was only when I graduated high school that cracks began to form.”
“Is that when he found out what you were?”
Riley’s red-rimmed eyes met mine. “No. He knew almost straight away. He promised Mom he’d protect us from those who would use us. Then he turned around and became the biggest user.”
“Riley, you don’t have to tell me any of this.” I could tell it was taking a toll on him.
He stayed silent for such a long moment that I thought he was taking me up on the out. “The thing is, if we want this to work, and for me to stay in Greyhaven, you need to understand what happened and why.”
“It doesn’t all have to be now,” I argued, tightening my grip on him.
“Maybe not, but I’m running out of time. I get a month in a place, Gareth.” His tone begged me to understand. “I can’t afford to waste a day.”
My heart sank. “I’ll use every spare moment I have on breaking this curse,” I vowed.
“You also have a life here. A job. You can’t ruin that, just in case—”
“Don’t say what you’re about to,” I cut his words off. “If you leave, I’m tracking you down.” Pressing a kiss to his head, I pulled him even closer. Inside my chest burned a desperate need to keep him with me. I felt it in my soul that Riley was supposed to stay here, with me, in Greyhaven.
“Fuck! We’re not bonded. We hardly know each other, Gareth. You can’t say that shit already!” He tried to pull away, but gave up with a sigh when I refused to relax my hold on him.
“I can. It’s how this works, Riley. As my fated mate, you are the one single soul meant to match mine. You are everything I could ever ask for in a mate, and you came at just the right time.”
“Did I?”
“Yeah. Before you arrived, I was so damn lonely. It was suffocating.”
“You were?”
“Yeah. You wouldn’t know this, but I’ve been on my own for the last decade.
I thought I was fine, but I wasn’t, not really.
My parents were decent growing up, though we weren’t particularly close.
Still, I knew they were right behind me if I needed them.
Once they got me through college early and started on my teacher training, they left Greyhaven.
They never truly wanted to be parents. It was just something they ticked off.
Dad’s parents expected at least one grandchild.
” I gave a rueful laugh. “I’m making them sound awful.
Honestly, I had a great childhood, it was just there was this distance between us that I didn’t see with other kids and their parents.
Mine were too engrossed in themselves for me. ”
“Are they fated?” Riley’s question came out muffled against my chest. I loved the way he had wrapped himself around me.
“No, I think they felt like they had to love each other harder because of it. They were obsessed. Still are. Neither of them gives me much thought. They’re traveling the world right now.
Going to other havens and teaching all that they know, which is a lot, but it was a lonely time for me.
I’ve gotten used to being on my own. This last week… ”
“What is it?”
“I thought if I could just convince you to give me a chance, then I wouldn’t be alone anymore. Now you’re saying that you’ll leave me.”
“Gareth—” He sounded so goddamn sad.
“No. We’re fated. That means something to me—”
“And me. I tried fighting it.” He tightened his grip on me, the touch almost bruising.
“I mean it, Riley. Even if it takes years, I will follow you and make things right. Hell, I’ll track down Boyce,” I spat his name.
“And I’ll end him.” Riley laughed. The sound was so genuine and pure, it made me smile.
“I mean it. I know dragons. They’ll help.
” Now I was teasing, but honestly, I was sure Tatsuya would want to help me.
“It might be too late for Mom, but if it would give her some peace…”
“Okay, it’s getting late. Let’s sleep, and we can work through what we want to do in the morning. Just know that we have a plan. If the curse isn’t broken, I’ll track you down and we’ll head to Boyce. Let’s see which of us is the more powerful warlock.”
When I woke, I was sure I was still dreaming. I pinched my arm just to assure myself that this was real. Nope, real. Riley was still cuddled up next to me, sleeping soundly, tiny snores escaping.
Minutes passed as I studied him. He had that shifter attractiveness, a sort of wildness they all had.
His nose had clearly been broken and reset poorly, which was easily done with shifter healing.
Instead of wanting to fix it for him—by getting Oscar to straighten it since I couldn’t—I relished that one imperfection. It made him feel real.
Then I noticed something I hadn’t seen the night before.
All the times I’d been close to Riley were in low light.
Under the bright light of the winter morning, I could see silver scars along his cheekbones, and one bisected his eyebrow at the corner and continued along his temple.
Shifters shouldn’t have scars like that.
I wanted to ask him about them, though I knew it would open old wounds for him. Being patient wasn’t my forte, yet for Riley, I’d learn.
So much had changed since our chance meeting at the grocery store.
I was going to enjoy this for as long as possible.
Riley was dealing with some real trauma.
I didn’t know even half of what he’d been through, so I was sure there were going to be blips in our future.
He just had to know that I was committed to making this work. No matter what.
A fated mate was a gift that I wasn’t going to take for granted.
Finally, he stirred and opened one bleary eye. “Morning,” he croaked, his voice sleep roughened. It made a shiver work its way through my body. I longed for hundreds, no, thousands of mornings just like this. “What time is it?”
My phone was on the nightstand. As I reached for it, it vibrated with an incoming call.
I hesitated, not wanting to break this slow, sleepy morning with my mate.
The ringing stopped, then started again immediately.
I looked at Riley, silently asking if he was okay with the interruption.
He nodded. “Better answer, or they’ll just keep calling. ”
“It’s Tatsuya. He’d just text if it wasn’t important.” I hit the button and put it on speaker, though Riley could probably hear the call without it. “Hello?”
“Gar? Where are you? You’re supposed to be helping set up the parade!” Tatsuya sounded worried, not mad.
“Fuck. What time is it?” I sat up and untangled myself from the blanket. Without Riley’s quick movements, I’d have fallen out of bed. Riley grinned and wrapped his arms around me, keeping me in place.
“A little after nine. We were supposed to meet at eight for breakfast, and you never showed.” Now Tatsuya sounded annoyed. “It’s not like you. Are you sick?”
“He was with me, Tatsuya. Sorry about that. We’ll be there soon.” In my shock, Riley took the phone from me and ended the call.
“What?” I scrambled to get out of bed and follow Riley as he made his way to the bathroom and started the water for a shower. “We? Are you coming with me?”
Riley got under the spray, pulled the curtain back, and beckoned me. “Of course I am. I’ve still got a lot to tell you, and we aren’t going to waste a day apart, are we?”
With a grin, I joined him in the shower.