“We have to stop them, Andrea—these people who snatch cubs. Bradley and everyone like him, and the people who hire them. It’s terrible.”
“I know.” Andrea held Kenny closer a moment, protective. Then she handed Kenny up to Maria’s outstretched hands and rose, stretching as only a Shifter could stretch, every limb supple. She kissed Maria on the cheek. “But you focus on your tests tomorrow. It will be a big day for you.”
Maria enjoyed the warmth of Andrea’s hug for a moment, the baby scent of little Kenny. Andrea took Kenny back into her arms, left the room, and Maria turned out the light.
She went to the window and raised the blind enough to let in the moonlight. On the porch across the street, two cowboy boots were crossed on the porch rail, long legs in jeans stretching back into shadows.
Maria smiled, her heart lightened. She undressed, blew a kiss across the street, and got into bed, where she lay awake for a long time.
Thoughts tumbled through her mind—the panic when she’s lost Olaf, her sudden fright inside the culvert, her rage when she discovered that men were trying to kidnap Shifter cubs, the distracting worry about the exams.
Over all of this she relived the water embracing her, Ellison holding her, the heat of him inside her, finding something buried deep inside her and dragging it out into the light.
After a long time, she drifted to sleep to the memory of the warmth of Ellison’s touch, the tenderness of his kiss. The image of him running into the water, naked but for his cowboy hat, was a fine one too.
***
“Here, I found more pencils for you.” Olaf held them up on the porch in the early light of morning, yellow pencils nicely sharpened.
Elizabeth—Ronan’s mate—and Cherie, Scott, and Rebecca, another Kodiak bear, were with Olaf, Ronan hulking in the background while he talked to Spike and the Morrisseys.
“Thank you, Olaf,” Maria said, taking the pencils and putting them into her purse.
“Why did you get up early to take a test?” Jordan, Spike’s four-year-old cub, asked her. “That’s no fun.”
“You should write the answers on your hands,” Scott said. A large bear Shifter of about thirty years, he seemed calm this morning, not in the frenzy of his Transition. “Always worked for me.”
“It’s not that kind of test,” Maria said, laughing. “I think they check for that anyway.”
“Aw. Too bad.” Scott grinned.
“I still don’t see why she has to go,” Jordan said. “Stay home and play with me, Maria.”
Connor, who was waiting impatiently at the bottom of the porch steps, said to Jordan, “You’ll understand when you’re older, laddie. We need to go.”
Difficult to leave when all of Shiftertown—at least this block—had turned out to see her off. Maria had talked about her ambitions to very few, but this morning, so many seemed to know her secret, and they were excited for her. Hard to keep anything quiet in Shiftertown. Maria warmed though, at the send-off.
Spike’s mate, Myka, a human woman who trained horses for a living, was also making an early start. Horses liked early, she said. She hugged Maria. “You’ll bust chops,” she said. “That means you’ll do well.”
Glory almost lifted Maria off her feet with her hug. “You go, girl. I’m so proud of you.”
Andrea had another hug, and this time Kenny was awake and talking to himself in wordless sounds. Maria kissed both him and Andrea.
That made Olaf and Jordan clamor for kisses and hugs before she went. Maria bent down to hug each in turn, having to pry them away from her and promise more hugs when she came home.
The only Shifter missing was Ellison. She kept glancing at his closed house, but she heard nothing from within. Maybe Ellison had simply gone inside and fallen asleep after staying up all night watching her house from his porch. He had to sleep sometime.
Maria swallowed her disappointment and turned to follow Connor to Dylan’s pickup, which she and Connor were borrowing. Tiger was tinkering with something under the hood, and he dropped the hood closed, watching Maria quietly with his strange eyes when she and Connor approached.
Ellison still didn’t appear as Maria took the keys from Connor and got into the driver’s side of the truck.
“You know, I do know how to drive,” Connor said, hopping into the passenger seat.
“I know. I’ve ridden with you. I want to get there in one piece.”
Maria looked behind her, but Ellison’s house remained quiet, the doors closed. Well, she would go over when she came home. She and Ellison weren’t mates or married. Just friends.
And lovers. Maria shivered as the heat of yesterday afternoon slid over her again. She started the truck, smiled at Tiger, who returned her look without changing expression, and pulled onto the street.
Behind her the Morrisseys, Ronan’s family, and Spike’s family all waved and cheered for her. A warmth spread in Maria’s heart. She’d been trying so hard to survive on her own that she hadn’t realized she’d created a family for herself right here, without knowing it.
“Test me while we go,” Maria said to Connor.
Connor unfolded the sample book he’d had ready in his hands, and started asking her questions. Maria had chosen to take one of the biology subject tests. She’d studied and studied, with Connor’s help, for the last six months. She’d learned so much—knew the sample tests back and forth—but knots formed in her stomach. What if she went blank when the actual test lay in front of her? What if she couldn’t remember anything?
She shouldn’t have let Ellison take her out yesterday. She should have broken away from him and shut herself in the house. She was tired now, and so distracted by thoughts of Ellison, bare in the water . . .
“I said, what is found in DNA but not RNA?” Connor asked. “Is it, a) . . .”
“Um. Thymine. Right?”
“Yes, right. Concentrate.”
“I’m trying.”
Connor shook his head as he turned the page. “That’s what mating frenzy does to you. Clouds your brain to everything but mating. At least, that’s what I hear. I won’t have that joy for a few years yet.”
“I don’t have mating frenzy,” Maria said firmly. “I’m not a Shifter.”
“But you had sex with Ellison, you can’t stop thinking about it, and you want to do it again. That’s mating frenzy.”
Maria clutched the steering wheel. “Who told you that? Why can’t Shifters mind their own business?”