Page 10

Chapter 10

JASON

G lowing eyes in the dark.

In the trees.

Teeth.

Pain.

So much pain.

Only… it wasn’t from a bite.

It was the light. It kept expanding, and it was too bright to look at. I’d fallen to my knees because of it. Maybe? Had I? When I looked down, I was on bare feet, but they looked so tiny. I was tiny. I was too small, too confused to understand why this hurt so much. How could light hurt, like it was trying to suck me toward it?

Toward the glowing eyes in the dark.

In the trees.

No . In the center of the light. Its arms were outstretched, like it was reaching for me, reaching and clawing out of the light to snatch me up. Then, from whatever it held in the abyss beneath all that awful light, I heard a voice.

“Jason! I love—”

All the air rushed out of me, and I gasped awake. I was shivering, in a cold sweat, with my claws and fangs extended. Who knew which version I was now, unless I wanted to check my eyes in the mirror.

And who knew what those scientists might suggest today when their opener had been: snake bite . I hadn’t exactly scoffed at it, but I wasn’t looking forward to it.

Ricky was snuggled against me, and even though I had my arms around him, it didn’t look like my claws had torn through his T-shirt.

Mickey the cat was snuggled with us too, asleep right between our feet.

I took a breath to steady my pulse and willed my monster sharpness away. Maybe it was too dangerous to sleep with Ricky, with anyone or any pet, when I could change unexpectedly, and I didn’t even know what form I might take.

The dream had never been like that before. Some of it had been the same, but it was different than remembering being bitten. The light was like what I remembered from the other day, finding the clearing with the unstable portal and that torn piece of flannel. I hadn’t seen any sign of the portal when I was attacked last summer. Had I? In tonight’s dream, the glowing eyes had seemed like they were inside of it.

And the voice…

The voice had sounded like Dad.

The only recording we had of him was on an old voicemail on a flip phone my mom kept charged. Silly and sad maybe, but people hadn’t constantly recorded every moment of their lives twenty years ago the way we did now. She was allowed to keep what she could. I wanted to listen to that voicemail now, but I had a date with needles and test tubes.

And a snake.

I think Ricky knew I’d had a nightmare, but he didn’t ask. All signs of it had been gone by the time he woke.

If having Whitmore over for dinner two nights in a row had been bad, then having him there in time for breakfast was worse. Just because we’d made peace didn’t mean I was a fan of his presence. He hadn’t even brought coffee as a peace offering! He’d be escorting us like some twisted motorcade, leading my truck with his Men in Black car and its tinted windows.

“I’m sorry about all this, Mom,” I said before we parted for the day.

“I can handle the workload, honey.”

“I don’t only mean that.”

“I know. I can handle any new face you wear too. It has changed quite a bit over the years.” She said it with a smile, but I hadn’t shown her my new faces yet. She didn’t even know there was more than one. It helped that she never asked to see anything.

Showing Ricky had been different.

Showing Ricky had been… nice.

I let him drive the truck. He offered, since I was apparently very obviously in my own head this morning. The research facility was as intimidating as he’d warned me, and I couldn’t help feeling like I was being led to the gallows. He said it wasn’t as daunting once you got inside and spent time with the scientists, but I was skeptical.

They’re laid back! They’re quirky! They’re Kai’s parents!

Yeah. I still went in expecting the worst.

The size of the facility was discouraging enough. And how white it was. And how bright. I hadn’t had a physical since before my attack, and the first thing the scientists had me do was take off all my clothes and put on one of those paper gowns.

At least I’d managed to sneak a new note into Ricky’s jeans while he was taking a shower that morning. I got to witness the moment he found it too, just as I was coming out from behind the changing partition. Today it said twenty-five times:

I WILL DO BETTER

I figured that should still count toward my total.

Ricky gave me such an adoring smile, I almost felt like I could do this.

Whitmore was present but he had the courtesy to look the other way when I strolled over to the exam table. The gown didn’t tie enough in the back to keep my ass from hanging out.

Once the team got started on my tests, I told him, “Dude, it’s not like my dick is visible. You can look now. My ass is seated, and when I change, it’s covered in fur anyway.” I wasn’t worried about him. I was worried about the poking and prodding.

And there was plenty of that. Blood to draw. Scans to take. Yeah, I peed in a cup. All in all, not too different from a normal physical. Until they asked me to transform in front of them. The people at the base in Edgewind had made me transform too. Only once, for their records, which Whitmore had witnessed, so he knew what the wolf looked like.

The scientists didn’t ask me to remove the gown once I’d transformed, but they did have me go through the whole routine. More blood drawn. Scans taken. Yeah, I peed in a cup again . Then we did it all a third time after I changed into the cat.

“When you are next here, please bring the cat that bit you as well,” Beck said.

“No way. I’m the guinea pig, not him.”

“Jason.” Ricky drew me in with his pleading tone. “We wouldn’t do anything a vet wouldn’t. The cat needs blood drawn anyway, tests taken, shots. He needs to be neutered.”

“ They’re going to neuter the cat?”

“There is a veterinarian on staff,” Zinnia said, “since some monsters have physiologies more related to your world’s animals than to humans.” She’d emphasized ‘related’ as if the consonants were difficult to get right. Her and Beck’s accents were thicker than Kai’s.

“Fine, but I’m going to be a lot more skeptical when it comes to the cat.”

There were no scalpels involved, but that didn’t mean I felt any better when Zinnia brought out a snake.

“We’re really doing that?” I shifted on the exam table, back to human, at least for the moment. “I can’t control the change the first time. If this works.”

“It is a garter snake, Mr. Bosco. Non-venomous,” Zinnia affirmed—which I could tell for myself, thanks, but who liked getting bit or stung?

“I know I have to do this, that it’s the right thing to test, but that doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to it.” I held out an arm as Zinnia brought the snake closer.

It didn’t seem interested.

“While we do not usually condone negative treatment of animals, I am afraid you may need to provoke the snake to get it to strike.” Zinnia had on protective gloves and goggles. They all did, I realized, even Whitmore.

“Fine.” I kept my arm out but also leaned forward, waiting for the snake’s eyes to meet mine. Then I growled, summoning enough of the cat to grow fangs.

The snake lunged, and I was human again at the exact moment that it bit me.

For half a second.

“Ah!”

I pulled my arm to my chest and tried to lay on the table. It hurt. Not so much the bite itself but the first change always hurt. I started to shake. My instincts were to try escaping the pain, which was stupid and implausible since all that amounted to was trying to roll over and ending up toppling off the table onto the floor.

“Jason!” Ricky dove after me.

“D-don’t… touch me.” I didn’t want to be touched while I was transforming.

I tried to get up on my hands and knees, but I didn’t have knees. At least the opening of the gown at the back hadn’t mooned anyone for long, because I now had a tail for my lower half, with scales all down it and also up my sides and arms. Where I would usually have had fur—or hair—was frilled almost like the head fins of the fish people.

I could feel the frills when I reached up to smooth my hands over my scalp. At least I had hands, and they were clawed like in any of my forms, despite nothing else being the same. I had scales everywhere, in the same black color as the garter snake that had bit me, with cream stripes and red diamond-shaped spots.

“Are you okay?” Ricky was right there, crouched in front of me, but not trying to touch me. He didn’t look spooked, but he never did. “You look really cool.”

I laughed. The pain never lasted long, but I hated it. I hated that, at least the first time, I couldn’t control the transformation. I couldn’t control most of this.

It did feel a little cool slithering upright and resting my weight on a part of my tail, sort of like kneeling but at the height as if I was standing.

The stunned look on Whitmore’s face was pretty worth it too.

“ Hot . What sort of monster is he?”

We all turned to the corner of the lab where the door to the living quarters had opened, and not only was Kai standing there agape, but also who I took for his soon-to-be senior in high school sister who’d said that.

“Gross.” I pointed at her. “Are you even eighteen? And also… we don’t know what I am.” I slumped, really wishing I could turn human again, but we hadn’t done the routine of blood draw, scans, and peeing in a cup, so I figured I couldn’t.

My junk was internal at least, but in a very different peek-a-boo way than when I was the wolf or cat. It was really weird having only a slit down there.

“Doctors,” Whitmore began in his no-nonsense voice, “this lab is supposed to be for sanctioned—”

“Our son and daughter,” Beck broke in. “We live connected to the lab, Agent Whitmore. We cannot bar them from entry, as that is the only way in and out.”

“Even so—”

“I see no issue with their presence,” Zinnia added. “We would tell Kai and Bina all of our discoveries anyway.”

Ha! Laid back indeed.

Whitmore practically face-palmed, which I didn’t think I’d ever seen in real life.

“One of these days we are going to have to discuss what classified means,” Whitmore said. “But so be it. Do not share anything you see or hear outside of this room,” he ordered Kai and… Bina, was it?

“Like I even want to know,” she said.

She didn’t have an accent, or she’d done a really good job of phasing it out. Her voice and general presence were indistinguishable from any human high schooler I’d met, if not for the fins, black eyes, and frog legs. And possibly hallucinogenic skin? Her coloring matched Beck’s but a slightly darker shade of magenta with more pink stripes.

She also wore modern teenage clothing like Kai and a glittery headband beneath where her mohawk fin began and around the back of her head just above her ears.

“Although I wouldn’t be opposed to learning snake-man’s digits.” She batted her sideways eyelids at me. “I’m eighteen next month.”

“ Gay .” I pointed at myself. “And taken.” I pointed at Ricky.

Kai whispered something in Bina’s ear, and she giggled.

“ He’s the one you—”

Kai slapped a hand over her mouth. “Unimportant. Mistaken identity.” Then he gave Whitmore an up and down perusal almost as penetrating as he—and his sister—had given me.

That boy really needed to get laid.

“Can we finish the tests, please,” I said with hinting eyes at Kai. “In peace. With only the professionals present.”

“Sorry!” Kai grabbed hold of Bina and started dragging her out of the lab. “But I would very much enjoy spending time together someday. With both of you! No Bina.”

“Hey!”

“Absolutely, Kai,” Ricky said.

Bina huffed and shrugged out of her brother’s hold as they left. “Geez, you are so Ohio .”

I was clearly too old already for the next generation’s slang.

I really wanted to ask about the skin licking thing though. Knowing my luck, asking either of them would get mistaken for flirting.

We returned to the testing, and once the newest blood was drawn, scans taken, and cup-peeing completed, I finally got to be human, bare-assed again on the exam table. Unlike having to wait for results after a normal physical, we had some to go over pretty much right away. I had zero idea how to read any of it, but I could tell that certain levels of things were completely different when comparing my various forms.

“Well?” Whitmore asked, after Beck and Zinnia had been staring at the results and scribbling notes for far too many minutes. “What is he?”

“It is quite fascinating!” Zinnia said. “We have no idea.”

“ What ?” Whitmore and I both snarled.

“You’re from the monster realm,” I complained, “and not even you know what I am?”

“There are so many species!” Beck said. “So many areas of our realm that most registered monsters have never seen. Have you seen every corner of your realm?”

“Well, no, but I know every species that exists—”

“Actually, we don’t,” Ricky interrupted. “Even if not humanoid examples, we still discover new species every day. It makes sense it would be the same in their realm.”

“Awesome,” I grumbled.

“With nothing on file to match these readings,” Zinnia said, “we will need to consult with outside experts. Learning the full truth of what Mr. Bosco is could take any number of years—”

“ Years ?” I leapt down from the table, because no. No way. I didn’t care if the open back of my gown meant mooning someone. “I went through all of that for nothing?”

“Not nothing! Every flesh discovery—”

“ Fresh discovery, mi bavi .”

“Oh yes.”

“I don’t give a shit!” I bellowed. “I added another species to my fucked-up DNA, and you still can’t tell me anything! What about the portal? What about all the people disappearing right—”

“Uh, Jason…”

I turned to Ricky. He and the others were surrounding me in a semicircle, with him at my left. His eyes had gone very wide. All of their eyes were widening, and when I looked at my hands, at my bare feet on the cold, sterile, white floor, I had scales again.

And fur.

And some of it was striped but not all of it.

“Am I… monstering out with all three forms?”

I did not enjoy the excitement that sprang to Zinnia and Beck’s faces. I was half changed, but while half was human, the rest was a mix of wolf, cat, and snake. I hadn’t even felt it happen!

“Remarkable!” Beck said. “We must draw blood from this form as well—”

“ No .” I shook my head. I shook my whole body until I was human again. “I am done. At least for today. Please? I can’t do this anymore. I need a break.” The anger I’d been feeling had faded enough to make me sound way too desperate and pathetic. “Don’t you have, um, enough to keep running tests on your own for a while? Contacting experts, all that?”

“We do,” Beck said supportively, much as Zinnia’s ears drooped like when Kai looked disappointed. “We have plenty to do on our own. Go. Rest. While science is not always swift, it is reliable the more we are able to test. We will find you answers.”

“Yeah. Thanks for, uh, trying.” I wanted to change and just get out of there, but Whitmore blocked my path when I headed for the partition. “Guess I won’t be getting rid of you any time soon, huh?”

It helped that he looked sympathetic again. “No more unannounced house calls unless necessary. I trust you enough for that. But then you keep coming here, as often as they ask you to. And another thing.” Whitmore tossed me something so suddenly, I almost failed to catch it. My phone. He must have snatched it out of my pile of clothes. When? “Keep that on you. No more naked romps in the woods.”

“Figured that one out, did you?”

Whitmore crossed his arms.

“I got it!” I raised my arms in surrender. “No more naked romps in the woods.”

RICKY

“Dude, I just promised Whitmore: no more naked romps in the woods .”

“This is different! Trust me.”

I realized my suggestion probably sounded rash, but no one, aside from Jason and his faint sense of something in the woods the other day, had seen any evidence of a monster lurking who wasn’t one of the guards. Plus, I wasn’t suggesting we go near the portal. We just needed somewhere with space, somewhere Jason could monster out and not feel constrained.

He clearly felt constrained in the house, in his room, where we’d been sitting on his bed getting heated until a moment ago. Not only constrained either; he was so obviously afraid and more than he’d been before. Any time he grew fangs or claws or scales now while being intimate with me, he pulled away.

“I think we’re approaching this wrong,” I said.

“Do you not want to—”

“I do . That’s the whole point. I don’t want to have to stop every time your claws come out, and you shouldn't feel like we have to either.”

Jason pouted. As adorable as that expression was, I’d rather see a smile. It had not been a great day, considering the tests hadn’t given us any answers, and Jason was acting even more reticent than a few days ago.

“In the woods when we heard that scream,” I continued, “we were interrupted, but we were being successful leaning into your transformation instead of trying to fight it. Practice shouldn’t mean trying to not be the real you. It’s about control, yes, but also about trusting each other. Plus, I…”

“Yeah?” Jason pressed when I trailed off.

“I… maybe kind of like it when you scratch and bite me a little.”

“You do ? Freak.” He chuckled.

I shoved him. “Apparently so. But I trust you to have enough control to not break the skin. You can do that. I know you can, because I think all these new parts of you are the real you now. Human, wolf—”

“—cat, snake,” Jason droned on mockingly. “Maybe I should try a bear next.”

“Do not try getting bitten by a bear.”

“I was joking.”

I knew that but at least I got a larger smile out of him. “I don’t care which version of you I’m kissing, Jason, because they are all you. Impatient, short-tempered, no filter you.”

He snorted but with more of a laugh again than dismissal.

“What we need to practice is you being in control whether you look human or not. You need to give in to your beastly nature. Lean into your primal side, or you’ll never trust it. What better way than by playing in the woods?”

“Because it could be dangerous? Because we were told not to?”

“We won’t go near the portal.”

“What about Whitmore?”

“Whitmore doesn’t need to know.” I reached into Jason’s pocket and took out his phone to set it on the nightstand. “He only found out before because we told him we’d gone into the woods and his app hadn’t shown that. This time, we simply won’t tell him.”

Jason looked at me as intensely as he had when we first got down here and started getting handsy. “It is weirdly sexy when you break the rules.”

I snickered and took out my phone to set it on the nightstand too. I didn’t need it for what I had planned. More tit for tat. Tat for tat?

Definitely more everything.

“Come on. We won’t go in far.” I stood and led Jason out of his bedroom onto the porch. I still had hold of his hand when I made to step onto the grass.

“Wait. It looks like rain again.” Jason tugged me back.

I glanced at the sky. “We have time,” I said. I could feel it. “Look. You can still see the Summer Triangle.”

“The what?”

I pointed to a grouping of three twinkling stars. “Vega, Deneb, and Altair. Astronomy student here, remember? They’re the brightest this time of year, but you can’t see stars through cloud cover, and they’re still visible. We have time,” I said again.

I let go of him and started to undress right there in the backyard.

Jason watched on in muted shock, all the way up until my shorts came down. Then his cheeks flushed, and his eyes shimmered like a deer’s caught in headlights—or a cat’s, or a wolf’s, maybe even a snake’s, but all heat .

I loved how much this was a reversal from last time.

“Come and get me,” I said and darted into the trees.

It was cold this late at night, especially being naked and on bare feet, but I knew Jason would catch me to warm me up. I had a head start, but I imagined him tearing off his clothes in record time to give chase.

I ducked right, following the first forking trail away from the portal. Then I heard the bounding of paws and a playful growl and snap of teeth. I was heating up already with the rush of blood flowing through me and heading decidedly south. It wasn’t only monsters that got something out of being primal.

Huffing visible breath as I darted between trees down a different trail, I risked a glance back. When I turned forward again, Jason leapt out in front of me.

“Shit!”

He leapt at me , and a momentary spike of real panic hit me as he slammed me back and up against a tree. Up because my feet were dangling. Then Jason dug his face into the crook of my neck and bit down.

“Ohhh,” I moaned. I hadn’t hit the tree harder than I could handle, and he hadn’t bitten hard enough to break skin. He was marking me, claiming me, while keeping me pinned.

I brought my legs up to wrap them around his waist and better anchor my lower back against the tree. Something about the mix of wolf, cat, and newly acquired snake just did things to me. Was his tongue forked like this? I definitely felt two independent prongs flick over the indents he’d left on my neck.

Jason bit down again, a little lower, right where my neck and shoulder met.

I bucked against him. I was hard, so hard already, and the slide against his fur and scales and skin was so good, while knowing I didn’t have to hold my own weight. Jason had me. He had me .

As his cock made its presence known, that felt different too, like maybe it was also scaled. Jason’s forked tongue laved over the newest bite marks, and then he found another spot on my neck and bit again.

I was rutting now, trying to find the friction of his cock against mine. A little more… left. A little… lower and… yes! Our cocks collided, his slick and textured and strangely bulbous somewhere near its base.

I wanted to see it, and as I pushed just enough at Jason so he’d know I wanted room to look at him, one of of his fangs punctured too hard.

“Ah!”

“Ricky?” Jason pulled back with a smear of blood on his lips. Thin lips like a snake. Then cat-like. Then snout-like. As if he was in constant transition.

As his eyes started to widen, I grabbed his hands where they were holding me up and dug his claws deeper into my skin. “Ahhh!” I cried, letting the sound become the moan I’d intended the first to be. I tilted my head back, exposing more of the side of my neck that Jason had been marking, trickle of blood and all that I could feel sliding down my clavicle.

“R-Ricky…” Jason’s voice was all growl. “This… this is—”

“It isn’t dangerous. It isn’t. Because it’s you. You can do this. I trust you.”

Our eyes locked, his in flux between different forms and colors, and then it just stopped. A shimmer crossed Jason’s face, solidifying him into one magnificent chimera.

He latched back onto my neck, sucking on the spot where he’d drawn blood, and started to rut like I had been. A scratch or bite or rougher hoist of my hips never startled or hurt me enough to elicit more than a hiss. His tongue was forked, thick like a wolf’s, with the scratchy surface of a cat’s. When he moved from leaving a map of our debauchery on my neck, the feeling of that tongue tickling my lips, and then twirling inside my mouth made my insides ache.

The world suddenly tilted, and I found myself on plush grass beneath the tree, with Jason climbing on top of me. While I could, I glanced down and… whoa . There really was a bulb to Jason’s cock now and a smattering of scales up it.

“You really like me this way?” Jason shifted my hips beneath him and tilted them back.

“I like you any way, but fuck yes, you are gorgeous.” I touched his scaled cheeks to prove it, noting how smooth it felt where the scales faded to skin that was almost like bone.

Jason thrust forward, his tip quickly finding my entrance.

“ Ohhh …”

“Ricky, I need you,” he growled, pushing there, though he didn’t yet breach me. “But we didn’t bring any, ya know… condoms.”

I laughed. You just didn’t expect the monster having his way with you in the woods to say that. “Strictly speaking, since monsters and humans are different species, receptor binding—”

“Dude, now is not the time to turn me on more by being sciency.” Jason ground into me a little harder for his head to start pushing inside.

I rocked down against it. “We don’t need a condom.”

Jason pushed in his tip the rest of the way with a swift cant of his hips.

“Oh!” I bucked with him. He was in. He was finally inside me, but as we started to rock, with him sliding deeper and deeper on each thrust, he eventually hit a wall. Resistance. “ Fuck .”

Jason stilled, but I didn’t want him thinking he’d done anything wrong. I grabbed one of his hands to lead it down between us and feel where he couldn’t enter me anymore because the bulb couldn’t pass the breach.

“We don’t need a condom,” I said again, “but to finish this, we’re gonna need lube. You’re too big for me now.”

“Oh shit.” Jason nuzzled his face into my neck again. “Stop turning me on so much.”

“I mean it.” I chuckled and wrapped his hand around his bulb. “You’ve got this, um, knot now, see? I don’t think I can take it.”

“Oh… shit .” Giving it his own squeeze apparently triggered him to start rocking again, and the slow shallow fucking made my insides boil even if it kept meeting that resistance and stretching me almost too wide.

“J-Jason!”

“I can, uh, try to will it away?”

“ Don’t .” That was the last thing I wanted. I liked the stretch even if I couldn’t take the whole knot inside me—yet. “I’m already close.” I wrapped his hand around my cock instead, while I took the place holding his knot so my hand was added to what kept rubbing against my rim while he thrust into me. “Are you close?”

“Fuck yeah.” He rolled me even more folded in half and started moving faster. Thrusting harder.

It didn’t matter that he wasn’t fully inside me. It felt amazing . And the emptiness of knowing there was so much more to take someday only made me want him more. “More! Jason!”

He growled, and above me, the shimmer across his face this time was… different. Darker? Or was his face turning white, with his eyes glowing brighter than ever?

“J-Ja—”

Antlers sprouted from Jason’s forehead as he came inside me.

He kept rocking, fucking into his release, slowly milking out the last of it, and used his scaled, furred, chimera fingers around my shaft to pump me to completion with him. When I released, only the faintest scratch up my tip proved the presence of his claws, and even that made it sweeter.

“Fuck,” I huffed. “Fuck! N-next time… I am taking that knot.”

“Yeah, ya are,” Jason rumbled. He kissed me, and as I enjoyed his uniquely textured tongue, I felt with my hand the mix of fur and scales and definitely bone on his face. Then I felt higher, all the way up to the start of his antlers.

“Um…” I licked my lips as we paused for breath. “These are new.”

“Huh?” Jason reached up too, and his eyes glowed a distinct amber when he found what I had. “The hell?” He felt up them as high as he could reach. “ Why ? I wasn’t bitten by a deer!”

I laughed again, which jostled the remainder of his cock inside me. “Mm… I don’t know. But now you know you won’t hurt me. Most of my scratches are from the tree trunk. And the, um, pricks? I didn’t mind at all.”

Jason’s concentration and worry faded as he met my eyes. Slowly, he pulled out but kept me folded as he ducked down to start licking the come from my skin.

Fucking in the woods? No problem. Zero embarrassment. But Jason licking my hole and cock and stomach clean? That was a little much and set my face on fire.

“J-Jason… you don’t need to lick everything,” I said.

“But I love it.” He kept licking, careful to not let his new antlers skewer me, and finally twirled his long, forked tongue up around his lips to swallow the last of it down. “I love how you taste.”

“Now you’re going to make me hard again.”

“Good,” Jason rumbled, burying his face in my neck to tongue all the places he’d marked me. “But let’s do round two on the bed. The rain’s starting.”

I felt the first droplets on my skin as Jason hoisted me up with a single leap to his feet. I expected the motion to ache, too soon after we’d finished, but he had me so encased, I barely felt a thing. Using strength that seriously made my cock jump, Jason carried me bridal style out of the woods.

I could get used to this part of dating a monster. The strength. His tongue. His knot. I could get used to all of it. I even liked the new antlers. They made him look like some mythical beast, which… I supposed he was, since we didn’t have another name yet.

Jason paused before exiting the tree line, and I saw one of his wolf ears twitch.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah…” he said, though he glanced over his shoulder, staring for a moment before he looked at me. “Sometimes I still think there’s something in there. But I must be imagining it, right? You don’t sense anything, do you?”

“Not right now.”

“I trust your senses more.” Jason lowered his forehead to press it to mine. Then he continued out of the woods, shifting human as he carried me. “Only the snake part of me kind of sucks, because wow, could I smell that lemongrass.”

I laughed. I also had to sneak a peek back at the woods. Jason might be imagining things. My sense of the unnatural and coming storms wasn’t foolproof.

But given he was something we didn’t understand, he could just as easily be right.