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This is so bad.

She stares at me like I’m about to pull off a mask and reveal I’m an alien, too.

“Bears don’t turn into people, Kian,” she whispers.

Her voice is so small, it cracks something open in my chest.

And her eyes. Her big, heart-wrecking, crystalline blue eyes are filled with disbelief and a whole lot of what the actual fuck.

“Actually, Mo Chroí,” I say softly, stepping closer. “Sometimes, they do.”

I shrug.

Her mouth opens.

Closes.

Then it opens again.

Like her brain is rebooting in real time.

“See, Shifters exist,” I continue, watching her like she might bolt. “Dual-natured creatures exist. But they are just people. People who share their bodies and souls with an animal or cryptid counterpart. We walk among humans. Always have.”

She just stares at me like I’m trying to explain calculus in interpretive dance.

“What? Since when?” she asks, voice low and shaky, like maybe if she whispers it, it’ll make more sense.

“Since always. Some say even longer than humans. We’ve just gotten really good at hiding.”

“We? You said we twice now.”

Her gaze narrows. “So, you mean you?”

Her voice drops to a whisper. “Are you a Bear too?”

“No,” I say with a small smile. “I’m a Shifter, yeah, but I’m not a Bear. I’m a Bull Shifter.”

She blinks.

Processes.

“But we, I mean, last night, you and I, and you bit me!”

Her hands fly up to her neck.

“Oh my God. Am I gonna turn into a Bull? Am I gonna start mooing? What do I even eat now—grass?!”

“No! What? No, Arliss, you’re not gonna turn into a Bull.”

I have to fight a laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because she looks ready to Google all sorts of nonsense. Like do cows need birth control or can cows eat cheeseburgers?

“First off, Bulls are male. Second, you can’t ‘make’ someone a Shifter. It doesn’t really work like that. Especially not with my kind. It’s complicated, Mo Chroí.”

She crosses her arms, blanket slipping a little and doing very distracting things to my focus.

“Complicated how? And what does that mean? Mo Chroí?”

I sigh and scrub my hand down my face.