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“It is only natural that you do,” Verity replied, which gained nods of approval from all but Brennus and Gresham.
The topic shifted to the Council meeting that had been called and Conall told the Elders what Sloan had told him. He left out the part concerning Cronin’s potential involvement with the meeting, wanting to be certain of it first. By seven o’clock, most of the Elders had filed out of his office. Zahira remained where she was, staring at him with all-seeing eyes.
“Yes?” Conall asked, rolling his shoulders. The tension was still there. “You’ve always had a temper, Conall, but never like this.”
She earned a glare for her honesty. Zahira brushed that off with a little smile.
“I haven’t slept,” he began gruffly, an attempt to explain his short leash to the woman he viewed with maternal affection.
Zahira chuckled and stood. “Slept? You think your temper has something to do with sleep?” She approached his desk and he lifted his head to stare up at her. Zahira did not look a day past forty, with her smooth, golden complexion and vivid eyes. “Your wolf is uneasy because while you have staked your claim on a mate, he has not.” She paused and waited for those words to sink in. “I will begin the preparations for a mating ceremony, if only to keep the heads from rolling.”
She smiled, which let him know she was teasing, before turning and walking from the room.
***
Vivienne awoke in a new body.
She looked the same, she’d checked her mirror to make sure, but everything just felt drastically different. When she’d placed her feet to the floor after waking up, she’d almost purred. She could feel every bumpy ridge of the soft carpet. Even the little fibers tickled her toes. And as her stomach grumbled and twisted, she’d inhaled deeply, finding that although in her bedroom, many feet away from the kitchen, she knew exactly what her mother had prepared for breakfast.
It was then she began experimenting. She focused her attention on her other senses, finding that if she tried hard enough, she could hear random conversations, probably of the people outside her house. An image of two bouncers from Fangs entered her mind as she remembered zoning in on their conversation and hearing them. Her eyes followed suit. From her position against the opposite wall of her medium-sized bedroom, she could make out a pencil dot on the other wall. Better yet, she could see it in different sizes. Her eyes were working like magnifying glasses.
That, along with the odd things that had happened as she was in the bathroom, would definitely take some adjusting to. She’d been hitting the bottom of the shower gel bottle, hoping that there was at least a pearl of body wash inside, and growing quite frustrated, when the bottle suddenly pitched from her hand. She didn’t throw it nor did she drop it. It just flew from her hand and spiraled into the trashcan. And then there was the matter of her dropping her plate. She’d closed her eyes, expecting the loud crash and pain of dish shards hitting her lower foot. When there was no sound, she opened her eyes to find the dish hovering inches away from the floor. After she shrieked and stepped away, the dish fell to the floor, cracking along the middle.
“How are you feeling?” Evelyn asked later in the day.
Vivienne shrugged her shoulders. Physically, she felt fine. Mentally, she was still getting adjusted to it all. She’d awoken with the intention of going to work today, and then she’d remembered that life as she knew it was officially over. No more normal. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she’d been told that she was a druid, and witches were out to get her, and then there was Conall. She knew he’d been in her bed last night. As soon as she woke up, she smelled him on her sheets. Her eyes had been closed, arms reaching for him, before she realized what she was doing. Her reaction was immediate, instinctive. She remembered him calling her his mate. He’d mentioned them belonging to each other. What did that even mean?
She shook her head and settled for answering the questions she understood.
“Everything is…sensitive. My ears, my eyes, my skin.” She paused and rubbed her arms through the woolen sweatshirt that she wore. “If I focus, I can hear conversations outside. Strange things have also been happening. A bottle flew from my hand, and the plate just now.” Her mother had witnessed the plate in silence.
“This is all very normal, ma chère,” Evelyn assured her before asking curiously, “How far can you hear? Can you hear to the end of the block?”
Their home in Scarsdale was the last house on their block. It looked up the street at all others and marked the end for those drivers thinking there was elsewhere to go.
