Mythe: A Fairy Tale (43 page)

“And now?”

“It’s not frightening at all. Incredible, yes. Frightening, no. It’s still just you guys, only wearing a different exterior. I wasn’t sure it would be, but it is. How could I be afraid of you two?”

Richard’s face cleared and he relaxed. “So, which one was your favorite then?”

“That’s easy,” Manda replied with a smile. She stretched her arm across the console between them and pressed the tip of her gloved index finger to the center of his chest. “This one is far and away my favorite.”

Her answer caught Richard off guard and it took him several moments to whisper his heartfelt response. “Thank you.” He captured her extended hand and carefully slipped off her glove so that he could press a warm kiss to her
palm. He closed her hand around the kiss and wrapped his own hands around her fist. “So, what’s your second favorite then?”

Manda chewed her lip thoughtfully, considering. “The tiger,” was her eventual reply, “but there was one you didn’t show me today, and I think that one is in the top three.”

Confusion flickered across Richard’s face, followed by comprehension. “Oh, you mean Rigel. I’m glad you like him. He was my dog when I was a kid. I loved that dog. I was so afraid he wasn’t going to survive until I started shifting, and I wanted him in my collection pretty badly. He made it though, barely. He was my first.” He smiled slightly at the memory. “I’m really glad you like him, but I would have thought you would like the lion more.”

“But I liked Rigel before I even knew it was you,” Manda explained, thinking back to the first time she’d seen the dog in her backyard. A fond smile was just beginning to turn up the corners of her mouth when an obvious fact occurred to her and she frowned in annoyance instead. “Good grief! I really am slow, aren’t I?”

“Hardly! Why would you say that?” Richard asked. He still had her hand captured in his own. She left her hand where it was, but directed a challenging look at him.

“You never really left!”

Her reaction confused him once again. “I
told
you I didn’t leave you. I would never leave you when you were in danger.”

“No, I mean back in November. Josh told me you left, and you said you went to see Sarah and Daniel, but you were at my house—in my backyard! Almost every night!”

“Oh, that. We didn’t really lie,” Richard explained with a sigh. “I did go to see my parents for the first few days, but I just couldn’t stay away.”

Manda thought back on those evenings by the fire, when Richard had joined her as the dog, and tried to remember what embarrassing things she might have said or done in front of him. She couldn’t think of anything particularly mortifying and was just beginning to relax when she thought about the last night before he had returned. She’d cried her eyes out—had literally cried on his shoulder, albeit a furry shoulder.

“Oh, no,” she groaned in horror, covering her eyes with her free hand. “That’s why you came back when you did. I was pathetic and you felt sorry for me. Just kill me now.” 

Richard’s fingers convulsed around her loosely fisted hand. “Please don’t use that expression, Manda. I don’t like it. It’s…disturbing.” His expression was uncharacteristically grim. “I’m sorry if I was intruding, but I was worried about you. That’s why I came back from Texas. I needed to know you were safe.”

“Why wouldn’t I have been safe?” Manda demanded, bewildered by his explanation. She lived in a quiet suburban neighborhood, not a war zone.

“I was just afraid that if anyone connected you with Josh and me, they would harass you, snoop around your house, stalk you, or who knows what. There are a lot of crazy people in the world. I was just going to check around your yard to make sure no one had been there who shouldn’t have been, but then you came out onto the patio and I couldn’t resist. I couldn’t pass up the chance to
see
you, to be close to you. I missed you so much, sweetie. I thought if I could just see you once, see that you were okay, I could leave again, but you looked unhappy and I couldn’t stay away.”

“So you felt guilty and came back?” Manda hoped she was wrong—hoped it was affection for her that had brought him back, not guilt.

Richard captured her eyes with his intense gaze. “It was never guilt or pity that made me come back, Manda. I love you. Leaving was hard, but at least I thought it would be best for you. I didn’t even think you’d miss me that much. Josh kept telling me how wrong I was. Every time he’d see you, he’d call me all manner of idiot. Told me I wasn’t being fair to you. He was pretty mad at me.” He fell silent, staring unhappily down at their intertwined hands.

“But you didn’t believe him?”

“No.” He looked back up at her with a grimace. “I convinced myself that he was misreading your reaction. He said you never even mentioned me. I thought that meant you were angry, and that you wouldn’t want to see me anyway. I had just about talked myself into going back to Texas. You were safe. There was no reason for me to stay, torturing myself every night. That last night on the patio was supposed to be the last, but then I saw how upset you were, and how exhausted and stressed, and I knew Josh was right…it wasn’t anger. I’d made you unhappy. I’m ashamed to say that my willpower completely crumbled at that point. I decided that if you’d have me, I’d be a fool to leave again. After all, the point of leaving was because I thought you’d be happier and safer without me around, but you weren’t happy, and since you were making yourself sick from overwork, you weren’t, arguably, any safer. It was complete and total rationalization on my part, but I was easily convinced. Did I mention that I
really
missed you?”

“I think you might have,” Manda conceded with a smile. “I’m very glad you didn’t leave again. As you may have noticed, I really missed you too.”

Richard tugged on her hand, pulling her closer as he leaned across the center console and pressed his lips to hers in a tender kiss. Then he rested his forehead against hers.

“I don’t seem to be doing a very good job of keeping you safe though. I’ll try to do better.”

Manda scowled at him in mild exasperation. “Keeping me safe 24/7 is not in your job description. I’m all grown up and I’ve been taking care of myself for a while now. You need to stop worrying so much. I mean, how often does a girl get attacked by a mountain lion anyway?”

Richard raised one eyebrow. “Well…,” he began meaningfully and then laughed when Manda swatted his shoulder.

Josh’s arrival interrupted their teasing exchange, and on the way back to the hotel the two men answered Manda’s questions about the third Raines brother. Richard had mentioned him before, but with so many other revelations, Manda had forgotten about it until then. Richard was notably unenthusiastic about the subject—yet another mystery that Manda filed away for future consideration—but Josh was happy to provide an abbreviated biography of their other brother.

William, it turned out, was the eldest brother by several decades. He’d been living in Arizona with his wife, Becky, until her death several years ago. Josh produced a picture of an elderly couple from his wallet. The man bore a marked resemblance to Richard, though the strong features were deeply lined and weathered, the line of his mouth was hard and turned down at the corners, and his hair was gray.

When Manda expressed surprise at their aged appearance, Josh explained that Becky had refused to be changed. She was unable to have children because of a genetic abnormality, and genetics were the one thing that therianthropy could not correct. Every form was keyed to the genetic code, after all. Becky had been unwilling to condemn William to a childless life, so had only agreed to marry him on the condition that his life not end with hers. She had extracted the promise from him that after they grew old together and she died, he would start over. She had wanted to guarantee him the opportunity to have the children she hadn’t been able to give him.

Neither Richard nor Josh knew if their brother had started shifting again. Neither of them had seen or talked to him in many years—since well before Becky’s death.

“We’re not very close,” was Richard’s only explanation. He’d then very deliberately changed the subject to a discussion of their dinner plans with David and Stacey that evening. Their conversation about William and Becky lingered in Manda’s thoughts, however, resulting in restless night filled with bad dreams. More precisely, she had essentially the same dream over and over throughout the night.

In her dream, she and Richard had grown old. All of the dreams started out that way—they were much older and very happy. In every variation of the dream their happiness ended abruptly with Manda’s death, though the details varied from one version to the next. Sometimes she met a violent end. Sometimes she died a quiet, peaceful death. Sometimes she just
was
dead, without any thought about why or how; it was just an accepted fact
of the dream. Whatever the circumstance of her demise, it has oddly not her own death that troubled Manda’s sleep but its effect on Richard. Manda’s dream-self watched the events unfold after her death like a ghost. She was able to see Richard, but it wasn’t really Manda that was watching. Instead she looked out through the eyes of a variety of animals—a cat, a fox, a bear, a leopard. It changed from dream to dream, but whatever form she took she wasn’t Manda anymore. Manda was dead and Richard was heartbroken. He had loved her for a lifetime and now that she was gone he was haunted by his loss. His mouth, that had smiled so readily, now hardened into a grim, frowning line, and perpetual sadness darkened his once-vivid eyes. It was his eyes that tortured Manda and troubled her rest.

She had barely slipped back into a troubled sleep when Josh’s voice woke her. She could hear him talking with Richard in the sitting room, but she couldn’t make out their words. When she heard the outer door open and close, she slipped out of bed and into her robe, tying it tightly around her waist. The morning light was still dim around the edge of the curtains, but she dismissed the thought of trying to go back to sleep. That had probably been Josh leaving for his usual morning excursion and she wanted nothing more at that moment than to see Richard smile.

When she opened the bedroom door, Richard looked up from the book he was reading, but didn’t greet her with the smile she was looking for. Instead, he wore a worried frown. He set his book on the side table near his elbow and started to stand up. Manda motioned for him to stay seated and padded across the thick carpet to curl up next to him on the sofa.

“Was that Josh leaving?” she asked as she tucked her legs up beside her. Richard’s arm encircled her shoulders and he leaned down to place a welcoming kiss on the top of her head.

“Yes. Out for his morning prowl.”

“How long have you been up? It’s still early.”

Richard shrugged in the manner he had of downplaying things. “Not long. What about you? You didn’t sleep well. Nightmares?”

“No, not really. More like unsettling dreams.”

“Yesterday was too much, wasn’t it?” he fretted. 

Manda understood his absent smile then. As Josh had guessed, he was worried about how she was reacting to his shapeshifting. She stretched up to kiss him on the cheek.

“Just the opposite,” she reassured him. “Yesterday was perfect. I told you, it completely put to rest any nervousness I had. Now I don’t visualize something out of an old werewolf movie. I love you, you silly man.” This drew the desired smile from Richard and the knot in Manda’s chest finally loosened as the lingering unease of her dreams faded.

“I’m sorry you had to learn about us the way you did,” he apologized earnestly. “I would have told you about us soon. I was just trying to figure out how. That’s one reason I hadn’t done it already. I honestly didn’t have a clue how to approach the subject, and I didn’t know how you’d react.”

“Well, now it’s over and done with and you don’t have to worry about it anymore. And, you’re my hero besides.”

“I don’t know about that,” Richard deflected. “You’re a bit worse off for your adventure, aren’t you? Not very heroic work on my part. So, what kept you from sleeping then? Was your ankle bothering you again? Or your arm?” He examined her lightly bandaged forearm.

“No. I’m fine,” Manda sighed. She’d hoped he wouldn’t ask the reason behind her restless night, but of course she should have known better. “I just kept thinking of your brother, William,” she evaded with a half truth.

“What about him?” Richard asked, suddenly wary.

“Did he love his wife?” Manda probed and found that she was genuinely curious.

Richard considered for a long time before replying. “Yes. I believe he did. I think he must have loved her a great deal.”

“Then it must have been really terrible for him when she died. It must be hard for him to face the future without her now. It’s so sad.” Manda’s voice was thick with emotion as she envisioned the tormented eyes of the Richard in her dreams. Her reaction caught both of them off guard.

“Hey now,” Richard soothed, “you don’t need to worry about William. You don’t even know him. Why is this bothering you so much?”

Manda smiled sadly. “I know it’s silly, but it’s so easy to imagine how he must feel.”

“Look at me,” Richard directed, tipping her chin up with his finger. “I love you, okay? I’m not going to let anything happen to either of us, so just put those thoughts right out of your head. And you don’t need to feel sorry for my brother, either. He had a long, happy life together with the woman he loved. That’s a lot more than some people get.”