Total pages in book: 254
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
He gave me a look as Sienna snickered. She knew that story already, about me having to lie to him for two years after I’d found out the truth about ol’ Saint Nick. “I’m not, but… have you been watching Underworld again?” he scoffed.
“Maybe, but only because I was looking for clues.”
To be fair, I had already known the folklore in the movie was all off and there was no way anyone who had worked on the movie was one of their kind because they’d gotten it so wrong, but I had been desperate, couldn’t sleep, and the storylines were entertaining. I regretted nothing.
And peeking down at the still-napping puppy on my lap reminded me of exactly why that was the case. I couldn’t believe he’d slept through our trip up to Matti and Sienna’s apartment. I couldn’t believe he was still asleep now. He loved them. There was no reason he should have been so exhausted, but my gut said something was there. Something that had nothing to do with him being sick.
He was stressed, and I blamed myself.
“I don’t know what to do,” I told them, my childhood best friend and teenaged-Nina’s best friend. “I’ve done so much research, and I still don’t know what he is. But now, I can’t hide him anymore, during the day or at night. It’s too obvious he’s different.” Which was why I was in this predicament of panic and helplessness. Why I was considering doing what I was considering doing.
Why I was here.
The expressions on both their faces said exactly what they thought about me not telling them about this change in him until now, and I was positive they were going to give me shit over it later, which was fair enough. But you had to put out the fire before you figured out what started it.
Just like I could read their faces, they could do the same to mine. Plus, they could smell my feelings. I could count on one hand the number of things I’d ever been able to hide from them before this. The fact I’d made it this long was only because I hadn’t seen them in person or talked to them on the phone since they’d gone on their trip.
Now that they were back, I needed advice. We needed help. I had to be realistic about our situation. Duncan and I couldn’t keep going the way we’d been going before, that was a fact.
I knew in my heart that our time traveling around in my RV, just the two of us, while I worked remotely, was over.
I had spent the last couple of weeks thinking and thinking, then thinking a little more, trying to figure out what our options were and why 99 percent of them couldn’t work. What it all came down to was this final act of desperation. The only idea I could come up with that might work long-term.
Life hadn’t been the same since I had found my furry donut, and now it was changing again. And I could either ride this new reality out with him because he had attached himself to my life and my heart like a cherished barnacle that gave me the kind of love that I’d become addicted to or… I could do something that I would never be able to live with.
There wasn’t even a choice to be made. The only thing I wanted to do was make sure they couldn’t think of something I hadn’t been able to first. Just in case.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, but I have to figure something out,” I told them, trying to stay neutral. “He’s gained four pounds since his tail happened. He was eight pounds up until then. I can hide him in a blanket right now, but barely. What about in a month at the rate he’s going? In six months? How big is he going to get? What else is going to change about him?” My voice got higher and higher with each sentence, and I had to clear my throat by the end.
There were too many variables, and Duncan wasn’t the only one stressed out. I hadn’t even gotten to the part about his telepathy. “He can’t live out in the world anymore unless he pulls a Pinocchio and turns into a real boy.” That was the best way to explain what Matti and Sienna, and every other nahual, or shapeshifter, like them could do: go back and forth between their fairy-tale body and their human one.
It was such a weird concept if you thought about it. To be human one second and something so totally different in the next, still fully aware of yourself—or so I’d been told. It was kind of a miracle, depending on how you looked at it.
And a curse, sometimes, in some ways, for some. For people who weren’t likable werewolves. Or nine-tailed foxes revered in so many different mythologies. Or unicorns—everyone loved a unicorn. Or dozens of other beings like that, that were cute or honored or respected.