Page 35 of Shifting Years (Whispering Hills #5)

"You know," I said after we all climbed in, "I was angry at your father, thinking he made me, uh, gay, but I was always me.

My experience can help, but you know what's best for you, at least in the things that really matter.

" I paused. "We can show you something amazing, which might become your life.

" I shrugged. "Or we can drive you home, and you'll have enough explanations to satisfy most of your questions. "

Mike's light green eyes pleaded.

"I'm not telling her not to come, but she should know what this means."

"She deserves an open mind."

"Like in your books?"

"Why not? It's better than planting seeds in her head."

"She should know what this means," I said.

"And what will she know?" asked Angel with the same gruff, vocal inflection as her father.

"The truth," I said. "The day will come when you decide which world you want."

"She doesn't have to answer now, Todd. Magic is possibilities and wonder and—"

My hand ran over my face. "I had a speech ready. You know the kind a man gives to a daughter." It was an assumption since she didn't come out of me and might not want another or two extra dads.

"So, I speak and ruin things," said Mike. "I'm so sorry!"

"Whoa," Angel drew out the word. "You two really are married."

"Mated," we said in unison.

"No, married , because you argue like you do." She said nothing more, adjusted the seatbelt, and crossed her arms like her father. Mike leaned forward from the back, before showing me his folded arms. How could I miss them when he shoved his elbows against the back seat?

I kept the sigh inside. One Mike was plenty and now there were two.

After twenty plus miles of Texas driving, forest surrounded us and Mike sniffed deep through the open window, inhaling the vanilla-jasmine aroma. "Here. It smells like—"

"Forest and honeysuckle," said Angel.

We pulled over, then off-road, rattling everyone. My black car was style, speed, and power. Mike said we should have taken his delivery truck just in case. I didn't need to look behind or in the rearview to feel his eyes on me as I coasted to a stop.

I exhaled hard as we exited. Humans weren't supposed to know about this world, but the pup came from a shifter. Without a word, we strolled past several, tall bushes, and I kept an ear out for anyone approaching.

From behind the leaves, I spoke. "She's already prepped and knows about magic. Bobby handled it fine. We'll disappear and she'll see two wolves. She'll be eased in."

He looked up with pleading light-green eyes. He didn't say anything, but a decade's enough to guess a question. "Mike, there's no hate, fear, or will. What happened before won't happen to her. I refuse to accept anything bad will come from love ."

"But Henry!"

"That wasn't love," I said. "It was possession with him. We did the opposite with her."

We stared at each other naked, not speaking, but understanding.

So much could go wrong. She might not believe even with evidence, and we'd have a tear in reality, but I knew Mike.

He wanted to impress her and become the cool dad.

It wasn't greedy to want to be a father again.

We had two pups already, but no daughter.

"All this wouldn't be an issue if we could have kept her." Mike hugged himself.

"It wasn't an option." No amount of worry would reach back through time and change things. I sure as hell wasn't going to wish.

As bones snapped and fur burst through skin, my mind focused on her. Would she see monsters or something magical? Each twist of my body was for her, to show the truth and something special. Without thought, my head with a longer snout went back and I howled with a deep, baritone.

Mike finished his hairy transformation and joined my wolf-song, but with a higher modulating pitch.

Some tones I can never do, but he could, and vice versa.

As two other still-unknown wolves did to us, decades back, we walked out on fours to a brown-haired girl who took one step back and steadied herself.

"Radical…"

There's no way for giant wolves with a mouthful of sharp teeth to look cute and non-menacing. My human self would have stayed still, understanding this was a 'Big Moment,' but my Other was in control. I leaped to her, landing next to her feet, and playfully nudged her with my giant head.

Mike lowered his head, and slow-moving painted nails scratched his blond fur before she reached into a tiny Day-Glo purse. From inside was an old, folded paper. Slowly, it revealed a crayon drawing with two large dogs.

Mike howled several times, yipping too, but with no sadness in his song. I joined in adding my deeper melody. Angel stuffed the paper back in her purse, and after a moment's hesitation, howled.

With a playful shove, I nudged her, and her fingers gently scratched my neck.

My mate's pup is mine too.

Angel was closer to a woman, but a child's playfulness took over and she climbed on Mike's back. Around the world, children played 'horsey' with their parents, but none like this.

Off into the forest we sprinted, while she screamed with a laugh. "Faster!"

We did, giving her something almost like a wolf's experience. There were no words, except from her, but father and daughter played like no others. There's no time in wolf form, but it does pass outside our universe. Common sense said she snuck away from her… parents and had to get back soon.

Off we raced back to the bushes. After a reluctant shift back, we stood naked in our human forms. Mike hugged himself with shiny eyes. "This was better than I could ever imagine, but I want it forever. It shouldn't stop."

I leaned down, kissing him. "I know."

"She might want to live with us."

Tina and Dawn stressed a cost for all magic and everything. The scrapbooks we started filling out implied the payment would continue for the rest of our lives. "We had to give her up so she could heal."

"She's healed now."

Words are magic, and he once yanked out a monster who lived inside a man. Maybe with enough belief he could change her, but what would be the price?

He might believe it, but I didn't. The teenage girl on the other side of the thick bush might as well be me, a few years out of Nam.

No longer terrified but never relaxed. Her guarded position meant she could see an armored snake slither to her, and it was intentional.

She watched and would stay on guard for decades.

The bushes weren't a concern, and I suppose that meant she trusted us.

My Omega gestured toward her, silently begging me to agree. All I had to do was nod and he'd ask her to stay… and tear a family apart.

I pulled him into my arms, holding him tight. "She's got my eyes, Mike. Haunted ones. She's not whole yet. But one day, she will be. And when she is, she'll find her own way home to us."

***

Penny spoke carefully from the table as I handed her the muffuletta sandwich. "I've seen her, right?"

Face blindness meant she studied people's fashion and memorized things like bright red hair or pearls around her Alpha. Common sense helped, like knowing Mike was the short Omega from Mike's Place .

"Some people," said Mike. "They love the idea of magic so much, they throw themselves into the paranormal."

"Truman," we said.

"It's not a perfect world," I said. "But turning into a wolf is seeing the world, like you're looking at—"

"—an HD color television after a small black and white?" offered Mike. After I nodded, he continued. "Others like the human world. If she lived here, she wouldn't be a sister to four other girls who needed a pack leader."

"We still see her," I said. "Angel looks younger than most women her age and has a great sense of smell and taste, but she doesn't care for wolf law or obligations."

Like Mike, she became a cook, giving father and daughter a connection. I got to help her with the nightmares. Not as wonderful as baking a cake, but there was something to being needed and having her call me 'Papa' once the night terrors drifted away.

Mike's voice cracked. "She put others before herself, even when it cost her. That's how I know she's ours."

***