Page 35 of There’s a Way (Mythic Beast #2)

Micca

I was an emotional wreck, so as soon as Kirsten was gone, I said, “Please don’t hate me, and please don’t be afraid of me.

I have total control now. The three shifters you saw were all born to it, but you’ll be able to pet me and climb on me and…

” I shrugged. “I haven’t turned into a beast and hurt you before, and I won’t now, either. ”

Dave stepped to me and pulled me into his arms. “I know you won’t. I could never hate you.”

I wasn’t so sure of that. I’d freaked the first time I saw one of the Drake Security wolves change and kill a man on an op, but I didn’t argue with Davy. Hopefully, they’d never see my bear have to kill. So far, she’d only killed animals to eat — rabbits and sheep, mostly.

Will met Davy’s gaze and asked, “How do you feel about the oath they’re demanding.”

“I don’t think we have a choice, Master. We need to know all we can about Micca, and that means doing whatever we have to so they let us remember what we’ve learned.”

Will pulled both Davy and me into a hug and kissed both of our foreheads. “My thoughts exactly, but if you were against it, I wasn’t going to order you to do it. I could’ve, based on our contract, but this needs to be your decision.”

“Agreed, so it’s good we both feel the same,” Davy told him, and he wrapped his arms around both of us as well.

What could I do, but wrap my arms around them?

I’d worried they wouldn’t want to be in the same room with me, much less touch me, and now I found myself wrapped in their arms, and I was overwhelmed with feelings.

Relief, love. These men loved me, and had accepted the fact I turn into…

okay, so they don’t yet know I turn into a bear, but they saw Collosa’s bear and didn’t freak.

Also, they know I turn into some kind of monster, they just don’t know which flavor of beast, yet.

“You were both hit with a lot, all at once,” I told them.

“I didn’t find out about supernaturals until I’d been working at Drake a couple of months, and I held it together while I heard about it from coworkers, but then pretty much lost it once I was away from them.

Fucking werewolves! And birds of all kinds!

And lions and dragons and bears!” I sighed.

“And the oath taking process, the lock it puts on you, was fucking scary, and I get that it isn’t for everyone, but it was for me. ”

I remembered the night I’d been told, and how I’d had to hold it together to be professional, since I’d just found out the two people who owned Drake Security, my bosses, were a dragon and a lion.

“I found out in the evening, and I had to work that night,” I told them.

“It was late the next day before I could fall apart, but…” I couldn’t tell them Razor and Matty were there for me and helped me work through a major meltdown, so I said, “If ya’ll need to freak out, it’s fine. I get it.”

“Is it enough?” Will asked. “Knowing you shift into something, but not specifically what?”

“I think that’s the way it has to be for now, Master,” Davy said.

“I want to know, too, but her bosses seem to think it’s best if we wait until they get some things worked out before she tells us.

We know enough now.” He tilted his head and focused on me.

“I knew something was different when you came back, but I couldn’t explain what it was.

Matty said you’d be back to yourself once you dealt with whatever had happened while you were gone. I guess he knew?”

“He did, but he couldn’t tell you because of the oath.”

Davy nodded and asked, “So, you knew what Hailey is? And Ghost?”

Hailey hadn’t especially wanted her bandmates to know what she was when we first talked about it, but then she’d thought it through and understood why they needed to know about me.

She was still a little worried they might freak and not want her, I think, but she’d agreed that it wasn’t fair to keep them in the dark that their lover could shift into a bear, thankfully.

So, it was important they accept her and understand why she couldn’t tell them.

“There was no way she’d have gotten permission to tell you. Even as my lovers, I was denied permission.”

“We know,” Will said. “It bothers me, of course, but I get it.”

Okay, time to change the subject. “There are some things you should know about any shapeshifter with better-than-human scent abilities. I can tell if someone is lying by their scent. I know when you’re happy, sad, pissed.

” I looked at Davy. “I can scent the difference between good pain and bad pain.” I looked back to Will.

“I can hear people talking several rooms away, and my vision is…” I shrugged.

“It’s felt dishonest to know things about you that you had no way of knowing I knew, so it’s good I can finally let you in on that. ”

“So, our security people hear more than we realize?” Will asked.

I nodded, and Davy hid his face in Will’s chest.

“Most of the supernatural world is kinky,” I told them. “Not all, but the vast majority. They get the whole power exchange thing because most of them live it for real. As in, I’m stronger than you so you have to do what I say. Like Kirsten said, survival-of-the-fittest reigns supreme.”

“Like with your so-called rehab?” Davy asked.

“Yes. What I couldn’t tell you was that while I was in the room-sized cage, they hit me with water and then touched electricity into it on the concrete floor, so I was shocked anytime I lost my humanity and went back to…

what I shift into. Also, horrid music that hurt our ears.

It wasn’t just teaching me to hold onto control, but teaching my inner animal to listen to me when I said not now .

It wasn’t just training me to hold onto control, but training her to work with me.

“It was bad, but it worked, and while I almost didn’t come out the other side because the person who bit me was so strong, now that I’ve learned control, I’m stronger than most of the shifters I come in contact with. Well, obviously not Aaron and Nathan or that caliber, but most of the rest.”

“You aren’t a dragon or bird because they can’t bite people and change them,” Will said.

“Something tells me you aren’t a wolf because I got the feeling they’re the most prolific of the shifters, and I guess it makes sense because we all know about werewolves, but who knew about werelions and werebears? ”

“So, lion or bear?” Davy asked. “Because I have a feeling she’s something they showed us.

I made my face a blank canvas and let them talk, but thankfully someone knocked on the door, and then four people walked in with huge trays of food they situated on the large dining room table.

Our room had the dining area, then some sofas and chairs for a seating area, and then a huge-fucking bed at the back, bigger than Will’s orgy-sized beds.

You could fit eight or ten people on this bed, all fucking and going wild, and still have plenty of room.

Kirsten had taken the sofa with her when she left. I wondered where the daybed was, but didn’t mention it.

While we ate, I considered what had been left out of my lovers’ education. Nothing about the Celrau or demons. They hadn’t named either the Concilio or the new Senatus, and—

“I’m thinking about the bikers more and more,” Davy said, interrupting my thoughts.

“They always know when someone is lying, and they can hear something you say when they aren’t anywhere near.

Also, most of them are gone for three nights every month, about a third of them at a time.

I guess I can look on a calendar and see if it’s around the full moon, but I’m guessing it is. ”

“If Ghost is a wolf, I guess it isn’t a stretch the rest might be, too,” Will agreed.

They both looked at me, and I shrugged. “One of the biggest rules that Kirsten only barely touched on is that, under normal circumstances, I can tell you my secrets but I can’t tell you anyone else’s secrets.

It turns out, I can’t tell you my secrets, and you know a whole lot of other people’s secrets, but I’m still not going to risk telling you someone else’s secrets.

If the bikers are supernatural, and if they want you to know, they’ll have to tell you. ”

“It feels like they’ll tell me, once I’ve had the oath that binds me,” Davy said. “I hope they tell you too,” he told Will, and then he looked at me. “You’ll know without them telling you?”

I nodded. “I can tell what most people are by scent.”

“Can you telepath, like the vampire?” Will asked.

“Not like him, because he can do it to pretty much anyone who doesn’t have super-strong shields around their brain, but there’s a little blood ceremony thing I can do that will open up those pathways.

I won’t do it until you know what I am, though.

Also, we should wait until after you’re bound by the oath.

” Time to change the subject. I’d never done the blood ceremony thing and didn’t trust myself to get it right.

“Kirsten telepathed me before she left to tell me we’re welcome to use anything in the armoire near the bed, and to leave anything we use out, so it can be properly cleaned before being put away. ”

I walked to the armoire, opened it, and grinned at the display of butt plugs, gags, paddles, whips, canes, clamps, and other kinky tools. I pulled a pair of clamps out, tried one on my pinky, hung it on the door because it was too intense for what I wanted right now, and tried another pair.

And then walked to Davy and proceeded to put a clamp on his left nipple, then his right. Will hadn’t put in him a shirt when they’d dressed, probably thinking they were just going to talk to Aaron and Nathan. They were both still barefoot, too.

Davy’s moan told me I’d judged right — intense discomfort without edging into pain just yet, but he’d get there before we took them off.