Page 16 of Forget Me Not (The Shifters of Timberfall #1)
Bastien
Bastien had been pacing and pulling at his hair while he waited for her to get dressed.
When he heard the rapid, gasping breaths, he ran back inside to find her having a complete panic attack.
Acting on instinct alone he grabbed her shoulders to try and ground her, then he saw her skin slowly begin to tremor.
The last thing they needed was for her to shift again.
Without a thought, his hands moved up to her face and he barked her name. That had been enough to get her attention. Enough to stop the shift, before it was too late.
Now, she was sitting across from him, greedily emptying water bottles while absolutely drowning in his clothes .
What a mess.
“So…” he began cautiously. “I don’t really know where to start. I guess it might be easier if you just ask questions and I can fill in any blanks where I see them?”
She was halfway through her third water at this point.
“You.” Her face screwed up in confusion. “Turned into…a wolf?”
Bastien had to stifle a laugh. She looked like she thought she was crazy. To be fair, if anyone else had heard her, they might have thought the same thing.
“I did,” he confirmed and paused, waiting for it to register—to see if she was going to laugh or accuse him of lying. She did neither, only stared.
“That was real.” Not a question, a statement.
“And I…I turned into—this is insane.” She stood, hands shooting up in exasperation, then coming down to rest on the top of her head as she began pacing.
“There is absolutely no way—no way—that I,” she gestured wildly at herself, “turned into a fucking deer.” She let loose a single, “ha!” then dropped down, ass on her heels, and pulled the neck of the hoodie up over her face.
Her voice was muffled by the fabric when she spoke again. “Please just tell me that this is some weird, drug-induced fantasy. Tell me I’m going to wake up in a padded room.”
He could not help it; he laughed .
Like an odd little gray cotton turtle, her head popped up just enough to reveal her eyes, which were shooting daggers in his direction.
“I’m sorry, it’s just…” He shook his head and pulled his legs up, resting his forearms across his knees. “This is insane.”
She blinked at him, unimpressed.
“I just can’t wrap my head around how a shifter could possibly not know they’re a shifter. It’s insane .”
It took longer than he expected for her to settle back onto the bench and start talking again.
Naturally, she started back up with, “How is this possible?” Followed by, “Why me?!” Neither of which he had a good answer for.
They spent the next few minutes assessing one another, him waiting for her next question and her, hopefully, thinking of one he could actually answer.
“Oh.” She broke the silence. “What’s your name?”
Now it was his turn to blink rapidly. After everything that had happened, how had he not introduced himself? If Soriah were here, she’d have an absolute cow.
“Shit, sorry, I’m Bastien, Bastien Yerovi.
Everyone just calls me Bas, but you can call me whatever you want.
You’re Syve, right? I know I already kind of asked you, but you know…
Please tell me I haven’t been calling you the wrong name this whole time.
” He groaned and put a hand over his face, splitting his fingers over one eye to look at her.
“Bastien.” She said his name like she was sampling a new food, and he decided he liked how it sounded coming from her mouth.
“As much as I would love to fuck with you, yes, my name is Syve. Gehring. Though I would really love to know how you knew that.” She squinted at him skeptically.
“And why were you so intent on chasing me down? You tackled me! Wait, how did we even get back here? I ran all the way to the lake!” She was standing again; hands threaded through her hair.
“Whoa! Okay, I’ll explain! It’s okay.” He held his hands up in surrender for the millionth time that day and waited for her to sit back down.
“I only followed you because I wanted to help. I chased you because I didn’t want you to get hurt—or lost!
The tackle was…instinct?” He cringed, what a stupid answer.
“And I carried you back here.” Syve stared at him, jaw slack in disbelief.
“You didn’t shift until we were halfway back—I ran after that, and I never looked down… ”
He shut up, cheeks heating. Syve looked away, color rising to her face as well. She remained silent, waiting for him to continue.
Bas dropped his head back against the wall with a soft thump and stared at the ceiling. He ran his tongue along his teeth while he searched for a way to explain his stalking without sounding like…well, a stalker.
Fuck it.
Starting with an incredibly long sigh, Bas spoke again, “I don’t think having you asking questions is really getting us very far. I don’t think you know where to start asking questions—obviously, this is all new—it wasn’t fair of me to ask that of you.”
He proceeded to tell her everything he knew. How he first happened across her, how he could not explain why he kept coming back and why he had kept getting closer. Syve raised an eyebrow at him when he confessed to following her home and he grimaced, apologizing for being a grade-A creep.
“This whole time I truly thought I was dreaming. I never cared that a big ass wolf was hanging out because I legitimately thought it was all in my head. If you were like…a real wolf I could have literally been eaten.” She laughed, a hint of self-depreciation evident.
“Hey, in your defense, I really tried to approach you in a non-threatening way—I’m sure you would have reacted differently if I was like…” He threw his hands up, clawing at the air with a pathetic ‘grr’ that immediately had him internally face-palming.
Syve slapped a hand over her mouth, poorly concealing her laugh.
“Well…” He cleared his throat. “If I had to guess...I think you’ve been shifting in your sleep this whole time—kinda like sleepwalking.” That only seemed to upset Syve more.
“Great! Now I’m not just a mess, I’m a sleepwalking mess! Why did this happen now? I’ve never had an issue before recently! I’ve only been having these dreams—or sleep-shifting, whatever, since December.”
“Those were your first shifts?” he asked, aghast. “Typically, the first shift follows the onset of puberty—no later than fifteen or sixteen. I’m assuming you’re older than that.
” He raised an eyebrow at her, and she shot him a look that he assumed meant, ‘don’t be a dipshit,’ so he carried on.
“Strong physical, hormonal and emotional changes happen around that time…I guess the same could happen later in life? Maybe…maybe you experienced a strong emotional trigger?”
Syve seemed to physically sink away at that.
“Syve, who is Noah?” he whispered.
“So, you’re a shifter too? Even though we are different, uh, species?”
She quickly changed the subject and he begrudgingly took the hint.
Some questions would remain just that, it seemed.
He confirmed they were both indeed shifters, regardless of the fact they did not assume the same form.
Yes, it’s genetic, yes, there are shifters everywhere, and yes, there are more kinds.
Syve’s eyeballs almost popped out of her head when Bastien told her about his family—how his father descended from a long line of horse shifters and his mother from an even longer line of wolves.
She asked if that was common, for different ‘species’ to cross, which led to the question, “Are certain animal genes recessive? Are predators naturally dominant? Is that why you’re a wolf like your mom? ”
The question caught him off guard, and he laughed.
“No, I’m sorry, it’s just…you haven’t been asking any of the questions I thought you would ask.
There is no rhyme or reason behind which animal a child will inherit—at least not one that we know of—and actually, my little sister took after our father. She’s a horse shifter.”
Syve gasped, then spent a solid five minutes excitedly jabbering about how majestic Del’s horse form must be before they could move on.
“I just don’t understand why your first shift was so delayed. I’ve never heard of that happening…”
At this she clapped her hands together, pressing them to her nose.
“I might have the answer to that…Is it rare for shifters to be with…humans? Non-shifters?” She had his full attention, and he tilted his head toward her, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“My Dad. He wasn’t a shifter.” She shrugged.
“I guess that makes me half-blooded. Do you think that could be why I’m so… different?”
Bastien stared at her, mouth agape as he processed her words.
“It’s completely unheard of—I didn’t know it was even possible to have a baby with a non-shifter. I’m sure I would have heard of, or met one by now…”
Syve smiled sadly and told him about the trouble her parents went through just to have her. How they had eventually given up on the idea of a second child after years of trying .
“You’re a miracle then, that’s incredible,” he whispered reverently. “So, if your mom is a shifter, why hasn’t she told you any of this? Why didn’t you know ?”
“Was. She was.” Syve murmured the words, studying her hands in her lap as she did.