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I chuckled. “You’ll get used to it.”
Her eyes grew wider. “Does this mean I’m going to shift?” There was no denying the pure terror on her features.
I pulled her closer once Sofia crawled out of my lap and back to the pile of leaves she’d been making. Tightening my arms around her, I said, “There’s a lot that might happen at any point. There’s going to be a lot of adjusting, and controlling your dragon won’t come naturally at first.”
Honestly, I couldn’t imagine what she was feeling. It took every shifter a while to adjust to their “puberty” phase and prepare for their first shift, but I’d known it was coming my entire life. This had been thrust upon Mariah, and she had no idea what to expect.
“How do I control it?" My mate looked so afraid.
“Your emotions are tied to it, for one, and any strong feelings could trigger your first shift.”
She stiffened in my arms, and I knew her mind had just gone where mine did.
“We might need to put the trip to New York on hold,” I said gently, pulling back to look her in the eyes. “At least temporarily. Now that she’s awake, we need to be in a predictable environment.”
Mariah laughed. “Right. The last thing we need is for me to shift on an airplane.”
I smiled, glad to see that she could make light of this, even though I felt her trepidation. “Definitely not. We need to wait until you can control your dragon.”
“I know you’re right. I was just really looking forward to getting some answers.”
I squeezed her shoulder. “I know. We will as soon as we can. Who knows? The meeting this afternoon could give us a new lead.”
I hoped so. After we’d reached out to Sebastian’s FBI contact, he’d responded swiftly. He wanted to meet as soon as possible, and Lucas would be coming along as well.
Any progress was something at this point.
“It sounds promising,” she said.
“But I don’t want you to worry. You need to focus on adjusting to this new stage with your dragon.”
She bit her lip and glanced over at Sofia, who was currently throwing leaves in the air and giggling as they rained down on top of her.
“I don’t want to shift out of nowhere, Evan.” She looked back at me with unease. “I don’t like the idea of being out of control.”
I pulled her close. “Don’t worry. You are in control. We just need to make sure nothing out of the ordinary causes it to happen too unexpectedly.”
I felt her tense and could nearly hear what she was thinking. Unexpected events were now a regular part of our lives.
“You and Sofia can have a nice, quiet dinner with Abi and Cynthia while Lucas and I are gone, and we can just go from there.”
There was no point in worrying about something we couldn’t predict. For now, we just had to prepare and monitor Mariah’s newly awakened dragon as best we could.
Tammy’s Diner was a small, unassuming place just off the highway, nestled between the clan lands and the next closest town. The days were starting to get shorter, and trees casting shadows across its cracked asphalt parking lot and over the few cars scattered outside. The neon sign in the window flickered, announcing Tammy’s was open for business.
The place was something out of a crime novel, except this was real life.
Lucas and I entered the diner, our eyes scanning the room for any sign of Matthew Hensley.
“I think that’s him over there,” Lucas said, nodding toward a man in the far corner.
I agreed. Out of the four patrons in the diner, he was the only one sitting in a booth near the back. The rest sat on stools at the counter. If that weren’t enough of a clue, the man stared at us as steaming mugs of coffee sat untouched before him.
Lucas and I made our way to the man, but before we could ask, he extended his hand. “Matthew Hensley.”
I glanced at Lucas before I nodded and reached out as well. “Evan Guerrero, and my brother Lucas Carey.”
The hint of pride in Lucas’s eyes when I introduced him didn’t escape my notice. We’d been through a lot, but despite our rocky past, Lucas was my brother.
