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Zayn reached back with his longer arms and scooped Pepper up. “There we go.”
“Thanks. Salt will come now that Pepper’s here. Pepper is always the leader.” Sure enough, Salt made his way over.
I tried not to worry as I watched the little white rat struggle over the obstacles. Was he already losing his mobility? Crap. I wouldn’t be able to perform the ritual this weekend, not with Zayn around. I’d have to do it next week when we were alone.
With my babies safely back in their carrier and not ingesting random garbage, I unlocked my phone and handed it to Zayn. He added his contact information as I pulled out of the parking lot.
Back on the road again, I decided to broach the delicate subject of his curse. “If I’m going to help you break this curse, you’ll need to tell me everything you can about it. You say it’s an uncontrolled shift. Are you aware of it happening?”
“Sometimes I’m present enough that I can talk to my snake, argue with it, try to control it. But sometimes it takes over completely, and I don’t remember a thing.” He dropped my phone back into my purse.
“Is your serpent your natural form? Or is your human?” Some shifters, like dragon shifters, had their non-human creatures as their natural form.
“Neither. My natural form is my naga.”
“Of course.” I smacked my forehead. “Duh.”
Zayn chuckled. “Don’t beat yourself up. It’s not like you’ve seen it.”
“No, I guess I haven’t. You don’t count the final few seconds before you turn back into a man from your serpent? Could I see it?”
Zayn didn’t answer.
“Oh crap. Is that rude? I don’t know much about naga culture. I’m sorry if it’s a private thing only shared with special people.”
“No, no. Not that I know of. It’s just that…” Zayn blew out a breath. “I can’t shift to my naga anymore. At all. Not since the curse first showed itself.”
“Really?”
That was interesting. Usually, uncontrolled shifts were to the shifter’s naturally shifted form. There was definitely magic at play here, and even if he hadn’t already told me there was a curse, I’d have guessed it was something similar.
I turned to glance at him for a brief moment before looking back at the road. “Shit. That sucks. That’d be like me being unable to do any magic.”
“Well, if I get my naga form back, I promise you’ll be the first person I show. I don’t want to brag, but it’s quite impressive.” He winked.
“Oh, really?” I totally believed it.
“Yup.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to work extra hard to break this curse, won’t I?”
Chapter 10
Zayn
Sybilhadnotbeenexaggerating when she implied her great granny was a borderline hoarder. The home was quite large for a cottage. It had to be, to hold all the odds and ends Sylvana had collected over her long life.
We got Salt and Pepper settled in Sybil’s old room. They had a cage here, though Sybil found some ants in the food she kept here for when she visited. She dumped the whole bag in the trash.
“It’s old anyway,” she said as she gave Pepper a scritch. “I have more in my purse.”
I looked at her tiny purse for a moment before remembering it went to a cabinet back at her condo.
“We’ll need to supplement with our own food since we’re here all weekend.” She scooped Salt up and kissed the top of his head. “It’s your lucky day, baby. You get people food. Minus the seasoning, of course.”
She put the rodent back into his hammock, and we went out to tackle the living room, the first room on our list.
“Is everything here enchanted?” I asked.
