Chapter 20 - Olivia

All night, I dream of Byron.

I dream about running my palms over his back while he's on his stomach, touching the softest part of his chin, and sinking into the bath with him. I dream of waking him up by climbing in his lap, begging him to open up to me. I dream of touching every part of him with my lips teeth, and tongue.

But when I wake up, he's gone. I step out of the bedroom tentatively, exploring, calling his name, and after I check the bathroom and his computer room, it's clear that he's not there. Why would he leave me alone in his apartment? After all this talk of me not being safe?

I get into the shower, thinking as I scrub my hair. Luckily, I still had some of my shampoo and conditioner here under the sink. Luckily, Byron didn't throw any of my things away, just left them here. The thought is bittersweet.

There are pieces of me all over this apartment, like he couldn't bear to let them go, and yet, right up until the apartment fire, I hadn't been here for an entire year. No matter how I try to distract my head from the moment, I can't stop thinking about being in the woods with him, feeling him inside me.

It was, hands down, the most intense sex of my life. And then he ruined it by pulling out of me. Maybe it's a problem—perhaps it's perverted to wish, but I wanted him to stay until the end, release himself inside me.

I grind my teeth together, shaking my head as I step out of the shower, wrapping a towel around myself and taking a deep breath. I just need to find a way to get him out of my head.

Which is pretty difficult to do, when I'm standing in his apartment.

I find a microwave meal in the freezer and make it, then carry the food to the table. My tablet was in my apartment when it went down, so after eating my food, I head to his computer room, standing in the doorway for a moment.

Back when Byron and I first met, I'd imagined a little army of gamers in here, kids with headsets, all talking to their dad. I pictured us playing together as a family and having game nights like Byron and I talked about.

"There's just something about a gaming marathon," he'd said, when we first met, holding his hands up over his head, making shapes with his fingers and thumbs. "I used to—well, I used to stay up all night playing Mario Kart. It was a lot of fun."

"It'd be even more fun with more people," I'd said, rolling over and putting my head on his shoulder.

Now, I push through the doorway and force myself to sit down in front of the computer. Byron is smart—he wouldn't use a birthday as his password. In fact, if anything, he probably has a password that resets every ten seconds, interlinked with his other technology, or something like that.

On the off chance that it works, I lean forward, clear my throat, and punch my birthday in. Of course, it immediately rejects it, and informs me that I only have two more tries, unless I want to use the bio log-in.

I accidentally hit the button for the bio log-in option, then blink when I realize the computer has unlocked for me. Did Byron program my bio-optics into his computer?

It takes me a moment to recover from that, then I click over to his files, pulling up the video from the night that I was cursed. I've watched it over and over, and still, I can't find anything that helps me remember anything about the man who cursed me.

Something else draws my attention as I'm watching, and I click in closer, zooming in on the mayor's wrist. It's a different color than the rest of his body.

I zoom in even closer, straining my eyes to see better.

His wrist is dainty, and small. Like a woman's. With a tiny golden bracelet.

Rearing back away from the computer, I put my hand to my chest. What the hell? Why would he look like that? Pulling my phone from my pocket, I call the one person who might be able to help me with this.

***

"Interesting," Rafael says, leaning back and pushing his glasses up his nose. "You know what—I think I know exactly what this is."

"That's great," I say, "because I thought I was having a stroke."

"Yeah," he says, leaning over me, his shoulder pressing into mine as he points at the screen. "That is a classic shapeshifter glitch."

"Shapeshifter?" I ask, glancing up at him, eyebrow raised. "So…a shifter?"

"No," he says, clearing his throat. "That's actually—"

"What the fuck ?"

I turn to see Byron standing in the doorway to his computer room, looking enraged. His eyes flicked between Rafael and me. At this exact moment, I feel a rush of emotions that must be coming straight from him.

Betrayal, confusion, anger.

"Byron," I say, at the same time, Rafael jerks away from me, and I realize we were closer than I thought. From his vantage point, it would look like we were doing more than just examining an image on the computer.

"Hey, man—" Rafael says, his hands up as he backs away. "I was just—"

"Olivia?" Byron says, his gaze coming to me, his eyes glassy, his face red. "You know I don't like other people in here."

I glance between him and his computer, then take a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," I say, putting a hand on the armrest of the chair as I twist to look at him. "I was looking at the footage from the night I was cursed, and I thought Rafael could help me with something. I thought—I thought he might know more about this."

Byron looks torn between his anger and his confusion, but he inches forward, easing his laptop bag from his shoulder, his eyes shifting to the screen.

I can feel his negative emotions drift away as he looks at what I'm pointing to.

" How did I miss this?" he asks, his voice breathy. "I've watched this video a million times."

"Me too!" I say, grabbing his arm, my fingers curling around his bicep. I watch his eyes track the movement, pausing there momentarily, his breath coming out fast, but I can't focus. For the first time since the blood-bonding, something else has actually managed to take some of my focus and attention off of Byron, even if just for a second. "This part of his arm looks completely different!"

"Right," Rafael says, and the two of us jump. I'd completely forgotten he was here. He clears his throat, stepping back toward the screen, his hands still partially in the air, like he's afraid Byron could change his mind and turn on him, after all. "As I was saying, this is a shifter—a shapeshifter . Typically, these types of shifters are more supernatural than genetic in nature, though not a lot is known about them. They like to fly under the radar, for obvious reasons."

"Sick," Byron mutters, leaning closer, getting his nose even closer to the screen. "I've never seen anything like that before."

"Shapeshifters are incredibly rare," Rafael says. "Because rather than just having one other form, like we do, they have several others, and can learn them through time. It requires a certain level of control and creativity. It explains how one could make a mistake like this."

"So, what does it mean?" Byron asks, drawing back from the screen. "Does that get us any closer to discovering who this is?"

"Like I said, it's nearly impossible to know a shapeshifter's true form, because they change so often and very intentionally keep their identities hidden. But this explains why the "mayor" would be so willing to kidnap you in front of everyone, Olivia—it's not the mayor, at all."

"But the mayor isn't the one who cursed me," I say, shaking my head. "There was someone else with him. That's the guy who said it."

"From this mistake," Rafael says, leaning closer and hovering his finger just over the monitor. I suck in a breath, glad he knows better than to touch Byron's UHD screens. "We can deduce that he—she—they—were shifted into a woman just before this. Did you see a woman with this coloring, this bracelet?"

I close my eyes, thinking back, then gasp when I remember it—bumping into the woman serving champagne, nearly making her knock over her champagne. She was gorgeous—I remember thinking she was too pretty to be a server—and she'd stopped to give an older gentleman a glass.

"Yes," I breathe, opening my eyes and looking between them excitedly, "she was a server. I remember she talked to an older man. Gave him a glass of champagne."

"Do you remember anything about him?" Byron asks, his eyes meeting mine, and that familiar twinge in my chest pulls. I swallow and close my eyes again, desperately trying to pull the image to mind.

An older guy, short, thick, bushy mustache. Dressed like a professor with these round, thick glasses. I see his pudgy hand reaching for the glass on the tray, and remember I'd felt slightly alarmed that he might knock them over and make that poor server spill, after all.

"He was old," I say, "short."

"You know," Rafael says, clearing his throat, "it's common to communicate with language, through the pack or…mating bond. But there have been reports of people using bonds to convey images, memories, even."

"So what?"

"So—" he says, clearing his throat again and glancing between the two of us. "Depending on how…strong your bond is, Olivia, you might be able to project the image of this man into Byron's head. Give him something to work with more than old and short."

I feel my entire face flame with mortification. Everyone knows, can tell, that we're mates. Even Rafael is aware of the fact that we have a mating bond—Byron just doesn't want me.

"I can try," I say, finally, my voice just above a whisper. I avert my eyes from Rafael and drop them to the floor, not wanting to meet Byron's, either. "But I don't think our bond is that strong."

Byron reaches out, putting a hand on my knee, and it's like he's opened an electrical current directly into my body. I breathe, think about him, think about the man at the party, imagine him, then try to project it outwards.

"Do you see it?" I ask.

Byron is quiet for a moment, then says, "No, sorry. Keep trying."

"Establish the connection first," Rafael says, his voice low. "Then move onto the image."

I'm here, Byron says, his voice coming through my head, crystal-clear. Back when I lived in California, nobody in the pack used projection—it was too risky, because Amon could hear all of it. Rosa and I never used it at the cottage, for the same reason.

Here in Rosecreek, the pack uses it all the time, and the special ops team has a special connection that keeps their communication separate from everyone else. As the Alpha, Aris can send to anyone privately, without anyone else hearing.

The only other way to get a private line with someone is if you're mates. Thinking about it sends a shiver down my back—Byron and I being alone together, with our thoughts.

Me, too, I send back. I'm trying .

Olivia, he sends, and for some reason, I get the feeling he's not talking about communicating through our mental link. I'm trying, too.