“Are you okay?” Kayla whispered as she came to stand beside me.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice equally low. It usually didn’t take Brittany long to fall asleep, but I didn’t want to risk disturbing her. She wouldn’t appreciate my confusion, wouldn’t offer me solace. Kayla would.
“You know…one thing that happens after that first transformation is that all your senses are heightened,” Kayla said softly.
“Yeah, I’ve heard.” I wondered what she was getting at. Unlike Kayla, all this wasn’t new to me. My parents were Shifters. I’d grown up around Shifters.
“Scent is the one I notice the most. You know how you go into your favorite restaurant and it just smells so good?”
“Sure.”
“Well, now it’s as though I can smell each individual scent. I don’t smell lasagna. I smell tomato and garlic and noodles and mozzarella. I smell each distinct ingredient. When I go into a room filled with people, I smell each person. Like right now. I can smell a hint of Connor…and a whole lot of Rafe.”
Busted!
“Are you trying to make a point?” I asked, irritated with her sense of smell and slightly panicked at the thought that maybe Connor had smelled Rafe on me, too. Maybe that was the reason he’d seemed distant and hadn’t pulled me into the corner for a kiss.
“You were with Rafe a lot more than you were with Connor tonight. It’s not any of my business, but if you need to talk”—she touched my shoulder, squeezed—“you’re my best friend. I’m here for you.”
“I don’t know, Kayla. I don’t know what I’m feeling right now. I know when you have your first transformation that you bond with the guy—”
“I think the bond needs to be there first, Lindsey. Yes, it’ll grow deeper after what you go through, but the emotions need an anchor.”
“Connor’s a good guy. He’s always steady. I can depend on him.” But did that mean what we felt for each other was right, was as deep as it might be? If I told him I had doubts, would I lose his friendship? Could I stand to lose it after having it for most of my life?
“But do you love him?” Kayla asked.
Why did that question seem to be a common theme tonight? And why in the hell didn’t I know the answer?
The next morning I caught up with my mom and dad for breakfast. The dining room had lots of small, cloth-covered round tables so families could engage in intimate conversations. What I got, though, was the third degree.
“We didn’t see you last night,” Dad said conversationally, but I knew a lawyer tactic when I heard one. His dark hair was turning silver at the temples. It made him appear very distinguished, even with his brown eyes homing in on me as if he were a wolf scenting a rabbit.
“I was hanging around with my friends, as usual.”
“Connor was looking for you,” Mom said. Even in the wilderness, my mom looked as though she could take tea with the queen. Yes, my family—just like Connor’s—was among the elite of our clan. We never got our hands dirty from making an engine work; we hired people for that sort of thing. We’d even hired Rafe’s dad, until he’d declined into heavy drinking and become undependable and quarrelsome.
“He found me,” I assured her.
“I’m not sure why he would have to look for you in the first place,” Mom said, tucking a stray strand of her blond hair back into the French twist she wore.
“I got bored watching the football game, so I walked around for a while.”
“Do you know that when a person lies the scent of their skin changes?” Dad asked, casually buttering his toast.
I groaned inwardly. It’s impossible to keep a secret around here. I decided to change the subject.
“Is that why you’re so successful in court? Because you know when the witness is lying?”
“That’s one of the reasons. So do you want to try another answer?”
“No. I’m happy with the one I gave.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. That predatory look was probably another reason he was so successful. If I hadn’t grown up with it, I’d be shaking in my sneakers. I knew he was more growl than bite—well, except when he was in wolf form. Then he could rip out a throat without remorse. It was rumored that he’d actually done it once—to a guy who had killed a couple of teens and gotten off on a technicality. But if that was true, Dad had never admitted it. He believed in the law of the jungle, but he was all about working within the confines of the Static law.
“I saw you with that Lowell boy last night,” he said with deadly calm.
I felt anger rising up within me.
“Boy? Rafe is a Dark Guardian, protecting your butt—”
“Watch your tone with me, young lady.”
Sometimes my parents could be so…well, parenty. It was irritating. “Why didn’t you just ask about him to begin with, instead of treating me like I’m a bad guy on a witness stand?”
The muscle in my dad’s cheek jerked. “Trust me, sweetheart, I’m a little more ruthless with the bad guys. You don’t want to go there.”
“We’re just worried, honey,” Mom said, restoring tranquility to the table. She was good at that. She owned a world-class spa in our small town. It drew practically as many tourists as the forest did. “I’ve been where you are. I know sometimes things can get scary when you’re approaching your time, but you have Connor. And he’s better suited to you.”
Better suited? I thought about Brittany’s shoe comment the day before. It did sound like my parents and I were selecting accessories. It was kind of insulting, to both Connor and me.
“Meaning…?” I prompted.
“Connor comes from the same type of background as you do. Rafe’s family is a little more…coarse.”
“His dad was a drunk, but he’s not.”
“Rafe was arrested for stealing a car,” Dad said.
He’d hotwired a car a few years back—I’d forgotten about that. “When he was sixteen. Right after his dad died in that awful car accident. Maybe he was acting out. He hasn’t done anything wrong since.”
“You mean he hasn’t been caught doing anything wrong.”
“Okay, look. Rafe is my friend. He’s Connor’s friend. If you’re going to put him down, I’m out of here.”