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“Are your clothes in there?” she asks. I nod.

She opens the small closet and digs around until she finds the stack of clothing on the top shelf. Pulling it down, she hands it to me. Taking the bundle of clothes in my mouth, I quickly trot to the bathroom to shift and change.

When I exit in human form, wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt, I find Lottie attempting to brew a pot of coffee. And I say attempting because she’s got the grounds in the machine without the filter.

“You need a filter for that.”

She jumps at the sound of my voice behind her, gripping her chest over her heart. She’s still wearing the soft as sin sweater I rubbed my scent all over when I first saw her tonight.

After the afternoon I had, I needed to do it to assuage my growing mate pull. I needed to feel her and to have her smell of me. Just in case Vincent needed any further confirmation that she is mine.

“Must you be so quiet and sneaky?” she scolds.

“Sorry,” I chuckle. “I didn’t mean to be. Here, let me do that.”

Without waiting for her snappy reply, I gently reposition her by her hips to the side and take over making the coffee. Grabbing the reusable gold filter from the cabinet, I clean out the machine and restart the process properly.

“Oh. I was wondering why my coffee was grainy,” Lottie admits quietly, while also watching my movements intently, memorizing the process for later.

Once the coffee is properly brewing, I turn and face Lottie. Leaning against the counter, I grip the edge at my sides to keep from reaching out to hold her. She stands a few feet away, her arms wrapped protectively around her middle as she eyes me up and down. I don’t mind her perusal of my body. Just as I hadn’t when she did it before when I was naked. My cock responds in the same way now as it did then. Thickening against my thigh and making itself known through the thin material of my sweats, having nothing to restrict its upward progression as I didn’t think to store underwear with my backup clothes.

“Are you a werewolf?” she asks blatantly, not a hint of fear in her expression, only sheer determination.

“No. I’m a shifter.”

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

“Not even close.”

“Hmm. Could have fooled me.”

I did.I think internally, but don’t dare verbalize. I hate knowing I was lying to her, but I’m glad she knows now. I don’t have to hide from her anymore, and maybe if I can explain everything . . .

The coffee pot gurgles behind me, filling the carafe, the only sound in the quiet cabin I once used as a retreat, and now is coated in Lottie and her scent.

“What is a shifter? How did you become one? Are there more of you? How many forms do you have? Are you immortal?”

“Woah, woah, slow down.”

I raise my hands in surrender, unable to control my smile around her any longer. I tried to hide it before, not wanting to allow myself too close. There’s no way to suppress it any longer.Just being near her and smelling her sweet gardenia scent has my smile instantly forming.

“You said you would answer all my questions, so...” She sits at the small table and primly folds her hands on the tabletop, sitting alert and clear-eyed. “Start answering.”

Running my hand around the back of my neck and around my chin, feeling the scruff starting to sprout there, I take a deep breath and start answering.

I tell her what I am, that I was born this way, that there are many others like me and others different from me, and I clarify that I am not immortal, although I will live far longer than any human.

When she asks about the others I mentioned, the coffee finishes brewing, and I pour us each a cup, setting the sugar and creamer I find in the fridge on the table in front of Lottie. And then, I settle in the chair across from her for a long conversation. Trying my best to explain as plainly as possible about shifters, meres, fairies, nymphs, pixies, and elves. Not getting into the nitty gritty tiny details but the basics of each and how we disguise ourselves with glamours or shifting to human forms.

“Wow, I was not expecting all of that.” Lottie finally says when I’m finished with my explanation. “So, what about Big Foot? Is Big Foot real?”

“No,” I scoff. “That’s a myth. But yetis are very real. They remain in the far north, where they can easily hide in the extensive wilderness and snow. They can’t shift like us or glamour themselves either, so they like to remain more hidden.”

Lottie’s jaw drops, not expecting that answer.

“And Chupacabras?”

“Nope.”