Shifter (16 page)

I try out my powers and reply, “Fine, thank you.”

She smiles big, not at all surprised that I’m speaking to her.

“So, you are most definitely a supernatural.”

“Yeah, sorry I wasn’t able to respond earlier. I’m having problems with my magic.”

“It looks as if whatever powers you had are coming back.”

“Thankfully.”

“Good. I’m going to go out on a limb and say you are a shapeshifter.”

“Yep.”

“And you tried to shift again?”

“No. I actually shifted.”

“Really?”

“Yep. I was human for maybe fifteen, twenty minutes. She caught me just as I had shifted back.”

“Was that the first time you shifted into a human?”

“Since I was cursed, yes.”

“So you were cursed?”

“Unfortunately.”

“What did you do while human? Did Abby see you?”

“I didn’t do anything I should have done. What I did, I’m ashamed of and don’t want to talk about. But no, Abby didn’t see me.”

“I understand your need for privacy, but if I’m going to help you, you’re going to have to give me all the information.”

“Okay, just don’t think badly of me. I really am a decent guy. And never tell Abby. The truth will be just as embarrassing for her as it is for me. Both times that I tried to shift and last night’s full shift was while Abby was masturbating. They were all accidents, especially last night. I woke up and she was…well…you know. I watched. And the next thing I knew I was human again.”

“Huh. What were you thinking at the exact moment you shifted?”

“I was thinking about how much I wanted to be with her. In her.”

Her cheeks flushed, but that is the only reaction she has to my words.

“And you shifted back once she was done,” she says.

“No. I shifted into her bathroom as she was finishing because I…uh…”

“Oh. I understand,” the angel said, blushing deeper.

“Shortly after that, I shifted back.”

“When the intense need to be with her was gone, you went back to being an animal?”

“I guess so. What are you thinking?”

“Why were you cursed?”

“Because I slept with a crazy woman.”

“Dimitri.”

“That was basically it. My pack and I got drunk. I slept with Mave. A month later, she showed up at my door ranting and raving about how I didn’t call her. That I used her. Blah. Blah. Blah.”

“Huh. It sounds like, to me, that your curse has to do with love, commitment, respect, or something similar. All of which are things you need to have in a relationship. Mave assumed you were unable to feel one or all of these emotions since you didn’t feel them for her. She cursed you never thinking that you would be able to either.”

“You think the curse is breaking somehow?”

“I do. I think you are developing feelings for Abby, and the stronger these feelings get, the stronger you are getting. Your need to be with her, not just sexually, is forcing your body to try to take human form. It is also forcing your powers to come back.”

“Eventually I will become human again?” I don’t bother hiding the hopeful tone of my voice.

“Maybe. As long as your feelings for Abby continue to grow, I think so.”

“And if they don’t?”

“You’ll have to find someone else. I believe the moment you fall in love with her or whoever, you will revert to your real self. Those feelings will counteract her spell.”

“I think Mave knows this. She met us at the house this morning. She felt my shift. She tried to curse me again.”

“You still have my charms, don’t you?”

“I do. But what if I turn human and Abby kicks me out of the house.”

“If that happens, you will need to convince her to let you stay until you are at full strength. After that, you will have to go to the Council and find some way to stop her. I don’t think she will be able to curse you with the same spell, which is a good thing.”

“Can’t you…”

“Sorry, but no. Until the curse is broken and you are a shifter again, there isn’t anything I can do. You wouldn’t register as a shifter, and I would have a hard time proving any of this to the Regent, especially if she counters any of my claims. When you are who you say you are, we’ll take your case to the Council and the Regent.”

“I understand. Thanks anyway, Doctor. What are you going to tell Abby?”

“I think I have the perfect thing. You’ve been using your magic to speed up your growth, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’m going to tell her you have the animal version of human gigantism. People with this condition have an excess of human growth hormones that causes them to grow too fast and to abnormal heights. This condition will let you get as big as you can, but keep it within reason. It will also make her less panicky, and keep her from bringing you in every time she sees you convulsing.”

“Thank you.”

Chapter 15

~~~Dimitri~~~

“Devan showed up at my door last night,” she spat into the phone before her sister could say anything. It is mid-afternoon and three days have passed since my last visit to the vet.

For a second, the line is silent while Carrie processes what Abby said. “Are you serious? What did he want?” she asks, sounding as annoyed as Abby does.

Devan had some nerve showing up here. A week has passed since he had the cops searching her place, and she had been pissed ever since. If she hadn’t been on her way back from the grocery store, I doubt she would have even spoken to him, the stupid fucker.

I heard their conversation through the front door. He caught her carrying in an armful of bags and said he wanted to talk. She told him to go fuck himself and came into the house. The problems was that she still had a few bags of refrigerated food out in her car that she refused to leave sitting out there until he left, so she had to go back out.

“He tried to claim that they had a different witness this time saying that his brother was spotted in my neighborhood a few days ago. I told him I didn’t give two shits about him or his missing brother and that if he ever showed up on my doorstep again I was calling the cops.”

“You didn’t,” Carrie says in her proud mother voice that annoys Abby because she is the oldest and feels as if she should be the one talking to her sister that way. I know this because Abby has accused Carrie of using this voice on more than one occasion.

“I sure the hell did. I didn’t mean it. If his brother has been spotted around here I’ll keep an eye out, but that is as far as my involvement goes.”

“How did he respond?”

“He told me that I had better have my shit together because the police were about to search the entire neighborhood this time.”

“He actually warned you.”

“I don’t think he meant to. I think I pissed him off, and he spouted off before he could stop himself.”

“Did he seem regretful or anything?”

“Nope. He’s acting as if I’m completely to blame. I’m beginning to see why Dimitri went missing. If you were as much of a bitch as his brother is an ass, I would have been gone a long time ago.”

“Thanks,” Carrie says sarcastically.

“Welcome. You know, it is odd how no one I have talked to has seen his brother, yet Devan keeps coming up with witnesses who claim to have seen him in my neighborhood. This entire situation is bizarre.”

“That Mave woman hasn’t been around in a while, has she?”

“Not since Dimitri’s last seizure. I am sure someone is watching me, though. Someone I think she has hired.”

“What do you mean?” Carries tone goes hard as she asks this.

“Every time I step out my door, I feel like someone is watching me. When I’m in the grocery store, I get a tingling feeling as if someone is following me. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”

Abby doesn’t tell her about the man she spotted lurking around the neighborhood. The only reason I know much about that is because she called Officer Richards a few days later when she saw the man outside her OBGYN’s office. She told the officer that the moment she entered the lobby of her Dr.’s office, she had them call security. They didn’t find the man, unfortunately. The officer said he would try to get an extra patrol for the neighborhood, then he gave her the “how to be safe spiel.” The “don’t go anywhere alone after dark or in an isolated place, carry pepper spray, lock up the house at dusk, don’t park in parking decks,” etc. spiel.

“Do you want to come here for a while?” Carrie asks.

“No. I’m fine. Really,” Abby says when her sister begins to protest. “Besides, if there is someone after me, I don’t want to be at your house with the kids when they decide to make their move. Not only that, but I would never get any work done with all your kids running around me. You know I love the rug rats, but man, they can be a handful.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’ll be all right here. As I said, it is just a feeling. Nothing to worry about right now. Listen sweetie, I should get off here. I want to finish this piece before I go to bed tonight. Love you. Hugs and kisses to the babies.”

“All right. Love you too.”

“Do you think I should have taken her up on her offer to stay with her and the kids?” she turns to ask me. I’m sprawled on the sofa beside her desk, my head propped up on the sofa’s arm. My answer is to turn my head away from her. I’m afraid she will see the worry in my eyes. The emotion is too human, and my human emotions disturb her. “I agree. It’s safer for everyone if I stay here,” she says, and I know she has mis-interpreted my reaction.

I actually want her to go to her sister’s house, but I have already spread the charms that Dr. Smith gave me throughout the house, and there is no way of knowing if the charms will work anywhere else. I know I couldn’t get to them all in time, and if we do step out this door, Mave will surely snatch us.

No, we are safer here. I haven’t shifted into my human form since the night I watched her masturbate, but I know I will be doing it again soon. I can feel the shift coming. I’ve tried a few times to bring on one, but as usual, nothing happens. I even tried shifting into my wolf form, my preferred animal state, but that didn’t work either.

I had been sleeping when Devan showed. When I woke, he was about to leave, and I was so pissed at him for Abby’s sake that I didn’t even try to communicate with him. I know I can now because I spoke with Mave and the doctor. Besides, it wouldn’t do me any good to talk to him while I still hold this state. I will have to wait until I can shift at will and can hold human form for long periods of time before I let him know where I am. Right now, he would try to take me from Abby who would in turn call the cops on him for catnapping me. Plus, as soon as I am free of the charms, Mave will be after me.

I’m going to have to wait this out a little while longer. I need something to tell Abby, and I don’t know what that is going to be. Of course, it will have to be the truth, but how much of the truth? I will have the proof she will need. I just wonder how she is going to react to it all. I want, no,
need
her to accept it all. To accept me because I want her. I want her badly, and I think I might love her.

I haven’t known her that long. Just a few months, but I’ve spent nearly every day with her and can honestly say that I think I love her. Something about the way she acts when no one is around appeals to me. She seems more confident…most of the time. She handles her job with a professionalism that contrasts the unprofessional sweat pants and t-shirts she wears while doing it—a plus side to working from home.

I like the way she snorts when she laughs at something funny on television. The way she cries every time Rue dies in the first
Hunger Games
movie even though she has seen all the movies hundreds of times. There is another thing I love about her, but that also drives me insane, and that is the fact that she can watch the same things over and over again. Some of it is a testament to how much time she spends alone locked up in her house and some of it is that she honestly loves the stories.

I love the way she loves her niece and nephews. The way she interacts with them, how attentive to everything they do and say shows what kind of mother she will be, and I can’t help but picture her carrying my child, nursing my child, playing with my child. That was when I truly knew I was falling for her. The day she sat in the middle of her living room floor for nearly three hours playing one board game after another with those kids, I saw her doing that with my child and the thought scared the shit out of me. I had never in my life pictured a woman that way.

I’ve spent so much time contemplating my situation that I hadn’t noticed the effect she was having on me until then. The problem, of course, is that she doesn’t know me. I don’t know what I will do if she refuses to talk to me once she finds out who and what I am.

“Okay. I’m done with the day. It is bedtime boys,” she says a few hours later. I’d been so lost in thought that I hadn’t realized how much time had passed. Bedtime is my favorite time of day, and it isn’t because of the near nothing she has started wearing to bed each night. No, it is the only time of the day that I can curl up on her bed with her. I haven’t been doing it long. I told myself I was only doing it so that I wouldn’t get surprised again like last time she pleased herself. She never did such things while we were in the room. This meant that if I were in the bed with her when she got the notion, she would kick me out of the room.