Page 19 of Fake It ’Til You Mate It

I hesitate.

Riordan pushes up from his lean, stalking closer to the table. “You should tell him.”

I know I should. He’s the sheriff, I’m a murder suspect, but none of that compares to the reality that I’m also his mate. I should tell him, and I do.

“Opossum.”

CHAPTER 6

VIRGINIA OPOSSUM

Burp.

Okay. Maybe this wolf isn’t so bad.

— gus

Silence. Pure, unadulterated silence.

Yeah. I’d been expecting that.

Outside of Onancock, it’s not as common to find prey shifters unless we’re in a sanctuary city. It’s a safety thing; our safety, and the safety of keeping the supernatural world a secret. When the clan knows to protect a fallen opossum, we’re nowhere near as vulnerable as a headstrong ding-dong who decided she’d move to human town and found herself waking up in the morgue not once, not twice, but three times…

“That’s what happened in the back alley,” I blurt out, figuring: in for a penny, in for a pound. I might as well explain myself now that he knows the truth. “Yeah, I fainted, but not because I’m some kind of frightened witch. It was more of a genetic disposition, the same way wolf shifters can’t help but howl at the moon, you know?”

The sheriff—Max—opens his mouth once, thinks better of what he’s about to say, then lets it shut with a near-audible click. A muscle tics in his cheek. He frowns.

I give him a tiny smile.

“You’re a—” He stops again. The frown deepens. “You shift into a… possum? I have that right?”

“Opossum,” I correct. Sorry. It’s habit. “With an ‘O’.”

“But… and I just want to make this clear… you’re a prey shifter?”

Ah, crud. I see where this is going—and, if I’m right, it has nothing to do with his position as sheriff of Moonburrow.

Oh, no. This is all about Max Lobo being the Alpha of the Moonshadow Pack.

“Um. Yes.”

“And you understand that all shifters in Moonburrow are, by default, members of my pack?”

Damn it. “Uh-huh.”

“And that, as the only opossum shifter I’m aware of in town, it can be dangerous if you appear as dead as you did earlier today? Because I’ll be honest with you: Riordan was almost sure you did die, just like Declan. Right?”

The Beta nods. “I couldn’t smell you, but I couldn’t hear your heartbeat, either. How did you do that?”

“I was startled when I saw the dead predator. I reacted. I am an opossum, and that means I might have engaged in… defensive stillness.”

“You played dead.”

“I played dead,” I say, agreeing with Riordan.

The sheriff has stayed quiet for the exchange—and that’s when the strangest thing happens. For a moment, he just stares at me. I know I’m dealing with the Alpha right now, but maybe I do have a death wish of my own because I sneak a peek at his eyes. I’m careful; it’s nowhere long enough for the powerful Alpha to take the eye contact as a challenge from the prey shifter a head shorter than him. Still, I look, and my stomach goes tight.

His expression, from the taut lines bracketing his full lips to the way his gold-colored eyes focus on me unblinkingly, is a mixture of surprise and concern. Almost like he’s realizing that the universe just plopped an anxious marsupial with a tendency to play dead into his lap that he’s now responsible to protect—and that’s assuming he doesn’t book me for murder first.