3. Dan #7
Dan rolled into Fox Hollow and yawned, glad he was meeting Quinn for coffee. He pulled into the Bear Necessities parking lot, unsurprised to find the café already busy.
Quinn waved from where he had already staked out a table and had a coffee cup in front of him, so Dan got in line and went to join Quinn as soon as his order came.
“You look very perky for this awful hour of the day,” Dan jokingly groused as he sat down.
“Did your drive go okay?” Quinn asked, and Dan figured he was tiptoeing around the real questions he wanted to ask.
“A surprising number of people are on the road overnight,” Dan stifled a yawn and took a gulp of coffee. He decided it was going to take more than one cup to keep him functioning. “Lots of trucks. They must be nocturnal.”
“If it’s their usual schedule, they probably are,” Quinn replied. “I have to get up in the wee hours sometimes if I’m checking on animals that only come out after dark. It’s a whole different world.”
Dan took another long drink of his coffee and realized Quinn had stopped talking. “What’s wrong?”
“I heard the podcast,” Quinn said quietly.
Dan’s heart raced. “What?”
“The one with Chet and Phil about the Dover Demon,” Quinn replied.
“How?”
“I knew you went to Dover, Massachusetts. Something dire had to have happened to make you change plans and drive home in the middle of the night, so I checked for new headlines from that town. There wasn’t a fire or any other kind of danger, but the only new link was to the podcast, so I logged in.
Given the timing of when it originally aired, and your text to me about leaving, I figured the two had to be connected.
” Quinn didn’t ask the question that hung, unspoken, between them, but he met Dan’s gaze looking for an answer.
Dan let out a defeated breath and wished he could crawl under the table. “Can we talk somewhere else, please? I promise I’ll tell you everything.”
He and Quinn walked to a bench looking out across Fox Lake. They sat quietly for a moment or two, sipping coffee, putting off the inevitable.
Finally, Dan broke the silence. “I’m the Dover Demon. Actually, a daemon, nothing infernal,” he added reflexively. “It’s been a partnership down through generations in my family for a long time.
“My daemon—I think of him as Wally—is a protector. We don’t hurt anyone, or eat pets, or attack people,” Dan continued.
“For over a hundred years, people told stories, but no one tried to catch or kill the daemon. It didn’t pass to my father because he died before my grandfather passed on the legacy, so it came to me. ”
Dan finished his coffee and set the cup aside.
“I’m fond of Wally. We look out for each other.
It just means that every so often, I need to go into the woods and shift so he can wander around.
I don’t know much about other types of shifters, but I’d guess it isn’t all that different except for the kind of creature I turn into. ”
“Not much, from what I’ve heard,” Quinn said.
“I was going to tell you, once we got to know each other a little better,” Dan replied.
“Dr. Jeffries guessed, but I suspect he’s got some psychic ability, given that he runs the Fox Institute.
I think Liam suspects that I’m a shifter of some sort, but he didn’t ask, and I didn’t volunteer.
” He kept his eyes on the lake, not ready to see disgust in Quinn’s expression, bracing himself for the breakup.
“It’s rather convenient with you being a daemon, since I’m a daemon whisperer,” Quinn broke the silence.
Dan looked at him sharply. “What?”
“I told you I had some ‘abilities’ just like you said you did,” Quinn replied.
“And I didn’t lay all the information on the table right off the bat, either.
I suspected there was more to you than the weather sensing, but I figured you’d tell me when the time was right, and I could explain more about what I can do. ”
“You talk to demons?”
Quinn chuckled. “Daemons. Nature spirits. In my case, it’s not a shared consciousness, more of being able to tune into feelings and impressions from the world around me, which includes the weather, plants and trees, animals, and cryptids—people, not so much.”
“Can you read minds?” Dan asked, intrigued.
“No. I read energy. It makes me a very good observer, but I can’t ransack anyone’s thoughts,” Quinn laughed.
“That’s pretty interesting. So…you’re okay with me being…me?”
Quinn smiled. “Yes, are you okay now that you know more about me?”
“That doesn’t change a thing,” Dan assured him.
“Then we’re good.” Quinn reached over to take his hand. “Because I think we’re fated mates. That zing when we first touched…” He looked apprehensive, as if he was worried about how Dan might react.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing.” Dan squeezed Quinn’s hand in return. “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it, or me, or us, since everything is so new, so I was waiting for the right moment to say something…and I guess this is it.”
“I always thought the whole fated mates thing was just a romantic legend. I never thought it would happen to me,” Quinn confided. “But I’m so glad you’re mine.”
“I’m glad you’re mine too.” Dan leaned in for a kiss.