Chapter 19
Magnum
I tried my hardest to just chill while she was in the shower.
I’d been terrified while she talked to Nickie, but her scent hadn’t been full of anger or grief when she’d finally come to me. It was all over the place, and I couldn’t get a handle on what she was thinking, but I was pretty sure she wasn’t thinking this was the end of us.
It was all I could do, though, to give her the time and space she needed without ordering her to tell me everything going through her head.
But I managed it that night in bed, while we cuddled and talked.
And then the entire next day — and she didn’t work; she gave me the day.
We cooked together, we ate together. And no matter what we were doing, we talked.
Even normal conversations, though, were mostly her asking questions and me answering them.
Some questions involved an hour-long answer, but I gave her everything I could.
My entire truth, no matter the question.
She wanted to go for a run, and I ran with her, only for this to make her realize I never get winded because of my supernatural nature.
She waited until nearly twilight to ask me if I’d show her my turtle, and shyly added, “You said he’s most active this time of day, right?”
It touched my heart, but then I had to try not to laugh at her when she said, “Unless it’s too cold? I mean, I thought I’d get to see you walking around and maybe even in the water, but it’s pretty chilly, even for Alabama.”
“You do realize turtles in the wild don’t have heated homes, right? We’re built for the outdoors.”
“And… shifters are the same?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I wouldn’t want to, but there’d be nothing to keep me from going to turtle and deciding to never come back to human. Wolves do that, sometimes. They mate for life, and I’ve known two who just disappeared into the woods after their mate died, and no one ever saw them again.”
“Wow. That’s sad.”
She’d already asked every question a human would normally be asking right now — does it hurt to change, can you understand me when I talk to you — so we walked to the water’s edge in silence, and that was fine.
I’d wanted to show her my turtle for months, and it felt like I should say something about that, but I wasn’t sure what to tell her, so I stripped without ceremony and let the turtle come forward.
One minute my vision was from six and a half feet above the ground, and then it was from a foot above the ground, and the world around me sharpened into a different focus.
Her scent was… not toxic. Not bad. Human. The human we love.
We walked out along a fallen log that jutted over the water, completely at ease on four legs.
The turtle looked back at her before sliding into the water, and then focused on swimming back to shore.
As soon as all four feet were out of the water, we changed back to human, and then stood naked in the fading light, water still running off my skin while I adjusted to standing on two legs again.
I analyzed her face and pulled in a slow breath.
Her scent was a chaotic mess, and I still couldn’t get a handle on what she was thinking, but there was one thing completely missing — disgust.
I breathed out in relief. The absence of revulsion was enough for now.
“You’re huge,” she said. “I was expecting, like…” She held her hands up and made the shape of maybe an eight-inch-long turtle.
“Natural snapping turtles, as opposed to the shifter variety, do get as big as me if they live long enough, but most people never see them.”
“You saw the snake because of the pattern thing?”
I nodded. “Movement, but yeah. It broke the pattern.”
I’d worn swim trunks down, and I stepped into them.
“Yeah,” she said, her gaze on the shorts, then my face. “We should go back in. Nickie said to make sure you eat after a change.”
“The ol’ladies here can answer your questions, too,” I told her.
“I’ll talk to them this weekend, and I’m sure I’ll have tons of questions, but Nickie is human, and I’m guessing most of them aren’t.”
She was right, but the women would have to tell her what they are.
- - - ? - - -
Storm
Walking the little fairy-like trail up to the house, my mind was all over the place. Were fairies real? Had he been to wherever they were from, if they were?
I shook my head and tried to focus. Nickie had coached me, explaining at length how to keep my scent from showing him how I’m really feeling.
So while I was completely shocked and a little… not grossed out, but definitely shaken up and a little horrified, I’d managed to focus on remembering how much I love him, so those feelings didn’t make it to the part of my brain that changes my scent based on my emotions.
Because I thought I’d been ready, but it turns out, there’s no way to fully prepare to watch the man you love strip naked and morph into a massive, prehistoric-looking creature.
Seeing his human frame vanish, replaced by thick, ancient-looking armor, dark leathery skin, and those beady reptile eyes… it was a visceral jolt.
And the business end of his… mouth? Beak?
The snapping part, whatever it’s called, you could tell meant business — razor-sharp and scary strong.
And he was so fucking big. With normal-sized snapping turtles, you worry about them taking part of your finger off, but this turtle could easily take my arm off.
I’d researched snapping turtles and knew they eat fish, frogs, snakes, birds, and pretty much anything they can kill and fit into their mouth.
But my research hadn’t shown me how fucking big they can get. Damn.
And I was feeling guilty as fuck, because I don’t think I’d have reacted that way for a wolf or an eagle — sexy animals, right?
But the man I love is a stubborn-headed turtle with walls thicker than his shell, and an attitude that one-thousand-percent matches a snapping turtle.
I wouldn’t change a thing. Not a single fucking bullheaded, unmovable, tenacious, vigilant, meticulous thing.
“Should I be making, like, duck or goose dishes for you?” I asked him.
“Not opposed to either of those,” he said. “The turtle loves catfish, but it isn’t my favorite in human form. His body is made for consuming bottom feeders, but I don’t think this one is, really.”
- - - ? - - -
Magnum
While I ate a stack of venison steaks, she focused her questions back on vampires. I wished I could tell her there are three species of vampires, but Brooke had only given me the okay to tell Storm about the Strigorii.
Friday afternoon, I asked her if she was going to need more time, and she shook her head and thanked me for opening up to her, for giving her time to get to know all of me again — and then told me she was looking forward to how much she was going to hate me putting the waist cincher on her in a few hours.
And somehow, we went right back into the schedule. I heard her asking a million questions of the ol’ladies over the weekend, and she asked me how many criminal attorneys are mongoose shifters, which made me laugh, but I told her, “I only know the one.”
The rest of the winter went by entirely too fast. She got caught up in a story in fucking Denver and was there for nearly five weeks, but I flew out to be with her for…
not quite half of it, but not far from it.
I couldn’t let my girl go that long without feeling me deep in her cunt with every step of every day, could I?
She quickly became comfortable at the clubhouse on the weekends, but I wasn’t sure how she’d feel about a prop vest. She doesn’t dress like a biker’s ol’lady, and that’s fine, but she hadn’t gone on any of our long trips, and that bugged me.
I knew she’d been in the middle of investigations and hadn’t been able to just take off for days at a time, but it still made me feel like she didn’t want to be seen with us in public. I mean, sure, she’d managed to fly into Daytona for two days of bike week, so she was clearly making the attempt.
And how could I bring it up to her? I didn’t want to accuse her of being a snob if that wasn’t the case, but if it was… well, if it was, then it would break my heart. She said she’d accepted all of me, but there was still this one thing I wasn’t sure of.
So I just kept not doing anything about it until Kitty pulled me aside at the clubhouse one night and said, “You ever going to properly claim her?”
“You think she’d actually wear a vest proclaiming her to be my property?”
“You know I can hear what ya’ll get up to at night in your room. She’s yours in every way.”
I ran my hand through my hair. “Being my property behind closed doors and proclaiming it to the world are two completely different things.”
“You need to talk to her, then.”
“Has she asked you about your vest?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t suppose you’ll tell me what was said?”
I didn’t figure she would because the ol’ladies are a pretty tight group, so she surprised me by saying, “You’re an idiot, Magnum. She acts like it’s fine that she doesn’t have one when we’re all wearing ours, but I can smell her… it isn’t grief, exactly, but it clearly bothers her.”
“She’s never…” I sighed. “Okay, she’s never let me scent that, but I believe you. Thanks.”
I needn’t have been worried about asking the club for a vote. Most of them gave some version of “It’s about damned time you got off your ass about this,” when they gave their yes vote.
The lady who makes our vests takes for-fucking-ever, and she’ll go even slower if you rush her, so it was April before I had it in my hands.
We were close to the Thunder Rally in Milledgeville, which it looked like she was actually going to attend, so I decided to wait until the morning before we left, when the entire club would be there — so she’d ride into the rally wearing it.
Assuming she accepted it.
- - - ? - - -
Storm
Breakfast at the clubhouse is always loud, but on the morning before we left for a rally, the excitement was palpable.