Page 55 of Zodiac Beasts

I shared with her my gaze again, and I shifted my pupils back into something vaguely human, retracting my spell immediately. She drew in rapid breaths, like she’d just reached the surface of the sea after nearly drowning in its depths.

Drowning in dry air was truly the kiss of the Basilisk.

“A Basilisk? That’s your other bloodline.” Lila touched her hand to her chest, as if double checking her heart was still beating. “That’s… terrifying.” Her laugher was nervous at best.

“Disappointed? Were you expecting something more spectacular?” I moistened my lips, giving her a glimpse of my forked tongue. “Fortunately for myself, I’m also half shifter, so I can revert my eyes to something less vicious. ” I replaced the glasses on my nose. “I just prefer my gift to be less deadly when I’m interacting with people I don’t want to kill. My prescription both tempers my gift and hides my eyes, since I can’t wear colored contacts without melting them like most magical beings. A full blood Basilisk, like a full blooded shifter, has more control than I do, unfortunately.”

“I can understand why you’d hide something like that.” Lila was too compassionate for her own good. “I think… I think I might be part snake too.”

“I’ve deduced as much. Part snake, part vampire, part seductress.” I finished for her.

She shook her head. “No, not a seductress. Humans hate me.”

That clinched it. It seemed so obvious now. “Only magic kind is drawn to you then?” I wanted to see it. I wanted so badly to confirm my hypothesis. But I couldn’t risk moonlight exposure.

Could I?

Of course not.

Stop thinking like this, I chastised myself.

“If I shifted for you, do you think you could figure out what I am?”

That temptation was too much.

It was my birthday though. Letting myself exist in my truest and most powerful form would be a gift, no? She could handle it.

Stop bargaining. You know that’s not acceptable.

“I have my suspicions, but seeing you in shifted form would make it much easier to narrow down to a single species.” What was I saying? Of all nights, this wasn’t the month I should have brought her here, and yet I’d let my selfishness win out over my logic. And now I was about to let fucking stupidity win out over her safety.

But Demon Lila wasn’t looking for safe tonight, now was she. She’d chosen to spend the full moon with me, not her mate. She would have been so secure and protected in the arms of her mate. The night with a solo Alpha under a Gemini moon would have been quiet, inconspicuous, easy. He wouldn’t have shifted, unless her other mate had been there with him.

Marcus gave me his blessing anyway.

No, fuck, no, shut up.

I tightened my grip on the door knob.

“If you want to step out, I can just open a window and close it again.”

My Adam’s apple bobbed in my throat.

“No, it’s fine. Go ahead.” My own lips betrayed me, but I couldn’t shake the curiosity in either side of my splintered soul. “I’d like to see it. And I think you deserve to know exactly who you’re dealing with.”

I closed my eyes as her footsteps trailed across the carpet. I listened as she unlatched the lock on the window. I took small, anxious breaths as she hesitated to lift the glass.

“You’re sure?” she said. Still so sweet. She was too good for the men she’d gotten mixed up with.

“I’m sure.”

Chapter 31

The moonlight penetrated and filled the room suddenly and forcefully, as if I’d opened the window during a hurricane. Though moonbeams didn’t exist in physical form, on a night like tonight, their warmth and power was overwhelmingly tangible. I shifted just as I always did. Pointed ears, invisible scales, and little else of note or merit. I was the blandest shifter on a full moon.

Ceto stood by the door as the wash of moonlight filled the space, his chin tipped towards his chest, his eyes closed, and his breathing slow and steady.

I didn’t see him change. I was fairly certain he hadn’t shifted at all. Though what a Gemini might shift into, it was difficult to imagine. Maybe he hadn’t been triggered yet.