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“Yep,” Kylie said. “I’m un-budge-able.”
West grimaced, but Nate held up his hand. “If Ren trusts her, then we can trust her too. Ren’s memory has nothing to do with her emotionalawareness.”
“It’s against policy to break silence with non-kin,” Aaron put in. “But I think just this once, we can make a reasonableexception.”
“Would you all please stop talking about whether you can say it and get on with it?” I burst out. “What’s the big secret? What are ‘non-kin’? What thehell—”
I fell silent when Nate moved closer. He sat down on the chair Marco was standing by, kitty-corner around the coffee table from me. The closer he came, the closer I wanted to be to him, but I stayed frozen in place on the settee. His voice came out as warm as before, but his deep brown eyes were sosolemn.
“Ren, your mother let you believe that the two of you were just ordinary people. But you’re not. And neither are we. We’re not human at all. We’reshifters.”
Chapter 5
Ren
For the firstfew seconds after Nate spoke, I could only gape at him. Finally, I relocated my tongue. “Shifters,” I said. “What does that even mean? How am I not human? How areyounot human? Look atus!”
“That’s kind of the point, princess,” Marco said lightly. “Welookhuman, but when we’re in the mood, we can shift. Into somethingelse.”
“Something likewhat?”
“Whatever animal essence is tied to your spirit,” Aaron said. “It’s different for each of us here. But our nature comes with additional powers even when we’re in human form. I’m sure you’ll have noticed you’re stronger, faster, more agile than anyone else in comparable shape, forexample.”
My heart skipped. I’d become Fisher’s best thief because my sticky fingers could snatch a valuable off a person so quickly they’d never notice. The warehouse manager had stared at me when I’d shown him how easily I could handle the heavy boxes. How did Aaronknow?
Oh. Because if what he was saying was true, he and the other three guys before me were the exact sameway.
“Oh my God!” Kylie said, cocking her head at me. “He’s totally right. I know pro athletes who can’t move like you do. I always thought it was just cool. But supernatural powers—that totally makes sense.” An undercurrent of laughter ran through her words. She didn’t totally believe it. She turned to Aaron, her gray eyes sparkling. “Is she supposed to be psychic too? I swear sometimes she knows things about people there’s no way sheshould.”
“Ky,” I protested, but it was true. I’d known just what soft spot to hit to make that guy in the bar back off. I picked up on the flavor of people’s emotions all thetime.
“That’ll be part of your animal side too,” Nate said, but I was too keyed up for even his rich rumble of a voice to besoothing.
Aaron nodded. “Instincts for reading body language, pheromones in the air—our senses extend beyond what any ordinary human would pick up on. And we’d expect you to be particularlysensitive.”
I held up my hands. “Okay. So maybe I’m a little weird in a few ways. But I definitely don’t have an ‘animal side.’ I’ve never ‘shifted’ into anything. This is the only body I’ve ever had. I’m pretty sure I’d have noticed if it warped into something completelydifferent.”
“Hold up,” Kylie said. “I forgot about that part. You shift intoanimals. You’re talking, like, werewolves and shit then?” She cracked up, patting my shoulder. “Ren, you’re a werewolf! This isawesome.”
“Not a werewolf,” West muttered where he was still skulking by the door. “Human horror stories have no idea what they’re talkingabout.”
“Let’s be fair,” Marco said. “There are some similarities. But we come in a lot more forms than the garden-variety wolf. And the full moon doesn’t really factor in. When we want to shift, we do.” He snapped hisfingers.
“You know how crazy this sounds, don’t you?” I said to all of them. “Again, I repeat, I have never changed into any kind of animal. Not a wolf, not a goldfish,nada.”
“There could be a couple of reasons for that,” Aaron said. An academic-ish enthusiasm colored his measured voice. He rocked on his heels, looking even more the part of professor—a really, really hot professor. Explaining this stuff was obviously his wheelhouse. “If your memories of knowing you’re a shifter have been locked away, you wouldn’t have thought to try to exercise those powers. You might have felt an urge, but not known what itmeant.”
My back stiffened. That clawing sensation that came into my chest when I was caught up in anger—or other sorts of passion. As if there were something inside me trying to dig its wayout...
“And,” Aaron went on, “none of us come into our full powers until we turn twenty-one. Even if you’d been fully aware of who and what you are, the shift would have taken more effort and been difficult to hold for very long. So it makes sense that it wouldn’t have happenedautomatically.”
Nate leaned forward and set his large hand on the side of the settee, just inches from my arm. “Before she left, did your mother tell you anything about your twenty-first birthday? We found you because of a pulse of her magic we started sensing yesterday. I think she must have wanted you to return to yourkind.”
Kylie’s eyes widened. “Yournecklace.”
I clutched the locket. “She gave me this right before she left. And told me not to open the locket until that birthday. You’re sayingit’ssome kind of magic?” After everything else they’d already said, that part no longer sounded particularly absurd. Well, actually, it all sounded equallyabsurd.
West must have heard the incredulity in my tone, maybe because he was so well versed in skepticism himself. “We’re all here, aren’t we?” he said. “Believe me, it’d have been a lot simpler if we’d found youearlier.”
