Chapter 18
Magnum
Your Storm is smart, Brooke telepathed. She won’t think about what this means for the two of you while she knows I’m in her head. I’m sorry that I can’t give you assurances she won’t walk away from you.
And that was a problem, because if she wasn’t around me on a daily basis, she couldn’t know about supernaturals. It was my job to know if she might change her mind about reporting on the supernatural.
You know I’ll follow the rules, I assured her, because if Storm left me, I’d have to notify Brooke or Dev immediately, even if it killed something inside me to do it.
Brooke didn’t respond, so I focused on Storm, trying to figure out what I could about how she was dealing with this new knowledge, and I scented doubt, anger, and sorrow coming off my Storm — and that last one had me alarmed.
However, I passed out hot chocolate made with actual dark chocolate and whole milk when we returned, and Kitty made sure Squatch was properly fed when he came back to human.
We all sat around the dining room table with chips, brownies, and several charcuterie boards while Storm asked questions and we answered them.
All about werewolves, tiger shifters, and bird shifters — and she jumped right to realizing Skippy is some kind of bird, and we don’t have a fancy bird-drone.
She also asked about Logan being shot, but we couldn’t answer that — not our secret to tell. Brooke told her, “Logan will need to answer that question. It isn’t Magnum’s secret to tell.”
And Storm had said, “There wouldn’t be a secret if he was human.”
Brooke had merely tilted her head, and then, finally, my girl started asking questions about reptile shifters.
I don’t know why she asked about wolves and birds first, but it actually made it easier to explain my turtle, since reptiles are much the same as birds — minus the flying.
We’re hatched and not born, and we see patterns.
My turtle scent is much better than the birds’, though.
Also, I can hear better, though my forte is in the bass sounds.
When I’d answered all her questions, she asked about bears, and Brooke answered a few questions before moving her back to turtles with a comment about us being stubborn and particularly difficult when we set our minds to something.
“So,” Storm asked me, “you have so many siblings because turtles are hatched?”
I nodded, and she said, “Okay, crazy question, but the cartoon — the turtles are martial arts protective turtles, right? And your family is in security, plus you’ve told me you learned several forms of martial arts, growing up.”
I smiled. “Love your brain, and how you put things together. The creators of the cartoon actually got into a bit of trouble for that one, but nothing super-serious because no one in their right mind thought the cartoon was saying turtle shifters are real.”
“But they put too many accurate details in,” Brooke said, “so the rest of the shifter world had to see consequences meted out. Quite severe, actually, but then over with, so they could return to their lives.”
Storm looked at Brooke. “You’ve been through my head. Is there anyone in my life who isn’t in Birmingham who knows about all of this?”
“Your friend Nickie in Atlanta knows.”
“But she writes about werewolves! How did she get away with that, if the cartoon guys got in trouble for it!”
“I understand she wrote those books before she found out about the supernatural. There are restrictions on future work, so she has to run new manuscripts by someone higher up before she can publish them.”
“And she couldn’t tell me because of the binding thing?”
“Correct. Someone much higher than me handled hers.”
“Really?” Kitty said. “Who?”
“It was before the split, so Apollonius handled it.”
“Fuck,” Squatch said.
Brooke nodded at Squatch, then told Storm, “A big rule in our world is that most can only tell their own secrets. I can share a little about your friend, but I can’t tell you the circumstances that allowed her to be brought into the secret.
Magnum can set the two of you up on an encrypted video call, so you can talk to her about what you’ve learned.
I will get word to her that you’ve been bound, and she can speak freely with you. ”
Brooke looked to Squatch. “It’s time for us to leave. We’ve answered her questions, and now she needs to speak with her friend.”
I didn’t really breathe easy until Brooke was off my property, and the first thing Storm said when I came back inside after seeing them off was, “You didn’t have to invite Brooke inside.”
I shook my head. “Nope. That part of the myth isn’t accurate.
You can see them in mirrors, too. They seeded a bunch of untruths back when the vampire hunters were so good at finding them and killing them.
Someone who was thinking they might be a vampire would see their reflection in a mirror, or would see them crying real tears that weren’t bloody, and would assume humanity. ”
“It bugs me that you can’t tell me who’s human and who isn’t in the club.”
“That’ll be fixed this weekend,” I told her again. “Works best for all the wolves to stand together, all the cats, etc. You’ll know what everyone is because they will tell you.”
“Can you get me set up to talk to Nickie?”
I desperately wanted to talk to her, to get a feel for what was going through her head, but common sense told me to let her handle this on her terms, so I said, “Yeah. Text her and make sure she’s available for a video call.”
Her phone signaled an incoming text message, and I could see from across the room that it was from Nickie. “OMG! You *know*!”
“Yeah,” Storm typed. “Magnum’s going to set up an encrypted video call, do you have time to talk?”
“Fuck yes. Set it up. I’ll grab my tablet.”
I initiated the call using the club’s encrypted app, and the first thing Nickie said when she came on was, “And now you know why his cock isn’t normal. I don’t suppose they told you about werewolf cocks?”
I actually appreciated Nickie going there to start — making it seem like normal supernatural gossip. I already knew how close these two are.
Storm had told me that as soon as it’d been safe to call Nickie, once she was back home in Pennsylvania, she’d called her friend over an encrypted video call to tell her everything — starting with her time at my house, and most every detail about Storm’s rules and why our relationship worked for her.
It turns out, Storm knows all about Nickie’s unconventional relationship, too.
Tonight, the first ten minutes of their conversation included me and Bud, who told her he’s a wolf, but then the two of them told us to get lost so they could talk in private.
I left, but stood outside the door because I needed to know what was said — except Nickie played music that fucked with what I could hear. Even standing right outside the office door, I couldn’t make out individual words.
Shit. Nickie was going to teach her all kinds of things I’d probably rather my girl not know.
But that was okay. It would make things a little more fair, probably.
I’d known since Storm’s first week with me that, should we ever reach the point I could get permission to tell her about my true nature, this would be a huge make-or-break moment for us.
I still wasn’t sure what it was going to be, and that thread of sorrow I’d scented on her had me terrified, as if she was already grieving something, but it’d faded while she talked to Nickie — and I hoped that was a good sign.
I needed to get my mind off my worries while she talked to Nickie, so I headed downstairs and tried my hardest to lose myself in a video game.
- - - ? - - -
Storm
“Wait, don’t say anything yet,” Nickie said. “Give me a sec.”
She played music that sounded a little like the Indian snake music when I first heard it, but then I picked up some deeper notes, like a didgeridoo, or maybe even bagpipes, under it.
“I’ll send you the MP3,” she said. “Turtle hearing isn’t quite as good as wolf hearing, but it’s still really good. This fucks with it. Anyway, say whatever I can see is about to explode out of you.”
Somehow, the idea that Nickie had figured out how to circumvent her wolf’s hearing helped ground everything for me.
But she wasn’t wrong about my need to speak to what was really bothering me, so I told her, “I thought he knew me inside and out. I thought it was this deep, magical connection, like he could feel what I needed before I did. But it was just him scenting how I was feeling!” I sighed and worked hard not to get teary-eyed, but my voice cracked and shook.
“It isn’t a magic connection at all, and I think I romanticized that and…
fuck. I built so much of what I feel for him on that idea. ”
And the more I thought about it, the more I understood he was scenting my adrenaline, my fear, my arousal. And I’d need to research how birds and turtles see patterns, because there was no telling what he was getting from my micro-expressions.
“Oh, wow, I can see how it might seem like that, and their senses do tell them more about our state of mind, but they still have to know us well enough to figure out what the problem is. Their noses only tell them there’s a problem… or that there isn’t one.”
I shook my head, and she said, “Let me try again by saying you can never, ever assume he knows what the problem is because he’s scenting it or seeing it.
Communication is still fucking important.
Bud and I once had a huge fight that lasted way longer than it should’ve because I assumed he knew why I was upset, but he only knew I was pissed, and he jumped to the wrong conclusions about why I was pissed. ”
I sat back and considered that. “But he always knows right when it’s too much, when the pain is going from good to bad. That’s what I’m talking about.”