Chapter 6

Chapter

Six

H e was glad to see most of the cars were gone by the time he returned to the house. He had questions and no patience for a bunch of relatives trying to give him advice on his failure to…

Jacob stopped short, with one foot on the bottom step.

Holy shit . He had shifted. He was never going to have to listen to their advice on ways to force the change again. No more cousins trying to scare him into bursting out in feathers. No more ‘have you tried …’ or ‘I’ve heard that…’ from every elder who thought they had the secret to his problem.

The discovery of Lizzy, a shifter he wasn’t related to, and his mate, had pushed that further down on the list of priorities. He took a moment to revel in the realization of what his first shift meant, and then regretfully, he set it aside.

The festive party had died down to scattered family members sitting and chatting. They all looked up when he came in, and he saw a few guilty expressions as they looked away again. They’d probably been discussing him. Normally he would have been annoyed, but things had changed.

His mother hurried to greet him. “I’m so sorry, Jacob.” Her eyes held a soft sheen of tears, and there was a red puffiness underneath them. “I-I warned everyone else not to bother you, and then I went and did it myself. I promise, it won’t come up again for the rest?—”

“Mom, stop. It’s okay. Listen…” He looked around and then lowered his voice. “I need to talk to you and Dad privately.”

She drew in a deep breath, composing herself as she nodded. “He’s out back at the firepit with your uncles. I’ll grab him. Um, your room is all made up. That should be private enough.”

It was a short wait, but it gave him time to collect his thoughts and decide how this was going to go. In theory. In reality, he was still scrambling when there was a soft rap on the half-open door.

His mother pushed it open and came in with his father trailing behind. There was a pinched nervous look on his mother’s face. Almost immediately she tried to apologize again. “Jacob, I’m sorry about earlier. It was?—”

Jacob laughed and stood up. He touched her arm, saying “Relax, Mom. That’s not what this is about.”

She stopped, head tilting. “Really? Then…”

The careful organization of his thoughts immediately scattered, and he found himself blurting out the first thing that came to mind. “I shifted at the lake.” The second the words were out of his mouth he added, “Don’t freak out!”

But it was too late. His mother screamed and then both hands flew up to cover her mouth belatedly. His father’s reaction was less vocal, but still exuberant. “Congratulations, son!” He thumped him on the back. “I knew it would happen eventually. How did it feel?”

“Um… sudden. Unexpected. Kind of painful.” He cleared his throat, one hand going up to rub the back of his neck. “By the way, I found my mate. She’s a swan.” It was blunter than he had planned.

Both parents went silent and stared. His mother sat down on the end of his bed without warning, as if the strength had gone out of her legs, “I think you better start at the beginning.” She looked pale.

Jacob pulled the chair from his old desk over, turned it around and sat on it. He crossed his arms over the back and waited as his father took a seat next to her. “You’re saying start at the beginning, but I think what you most want to know is whether she’s a close cousin, right?”

They exchanged looks. “Well…” his father began, “it has happened before, and these days cousins marrying is a lot more problematic.”

“Well, relax. I’ve never met her before. There was no feeling of family. I think she’s new to town actually.”

He could see the releasing of tension and he grinned. “So, you won’t have to worry about breaking the bond.” He hesitated, and then added, “Well, not because of that anyway. I’m not sure she’s really thrilled about any of this.”

Bonds could be broken. It was painful, especially when both were shifters, but sometimes it was necessary because mating bonds weren’t always a choice. Sometimes it followed love, and other times it just happened. The ‘magic’ of it didn’t seem to care if people were already in love, or married, or relatives.

‘Now, you really do need to start from the beginning,” his mother said.

So, he explained about the restaurant and how everything had gotten strange when he met her. The way she seemed to glow. The feathers. He was as succinct as possible, and he left out the lake sex.

Shifters had sex in both forms, but they didn’t talk about it, and he understood why now. It had felt so natural to mate when he’d been shifted. Now, as a human, it just seemed… inappropriate. At any rate, it wasn’t something to tell your parents.

“You never told me the mating bond could be so powerful,” he said, as he finished. “I wasn’t expecting... It was a lot.”

“Well…” His father trailed off. Nate Brood was a man who took his time with his words. “It’s always more intense when both partners are shifters. It’s as if the effect echoes back on itself. We don’t see much of that anymore. Most mates are human to avoid too much intermarrying.”

“Your father and I were only distantly related… third cousins, I think?” She looked at him, and he nodded. Nate was a family historian.

“Third cousins, twice removed. Our mating bond also didn’t kick in until after we were married, so it was a choice.” Nate sucked his teeth thoughtfully. “I wonder if the fact that you had never shifted added to the intensity.”

“Or if the intensity of the bond caused him to shift for the first time,” his mother added. “He said he didn’t see any feathers until after they connected.”

“True. Jacob, can you describe what you felt when you ran into her at the lake?”

Without the sex part, that was going to be tough. He thought for a second. “Out of control, I guess. Like the goose took over and I was just sitting in the backseat watching him drive. I’m not sure I could have kept him from doing anything, even if I’d tried.”

“You should have more control over that. But it was your first time, and there are other factors. Most shifters change long before mating is an issue. It could have made everything more powerful. I think… we’re just going to have to wait and see how you adapt.”

Jacob sighed. There was a part of him that still expected his parents to know everything, and that part was disappointed. “Got it. Okay, next question… she’s a swan, but she’s not from our family.”

“That’s not a question. It’s a statement,” his mother said, in a tart tone.

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t even know what to ask, Mom. Help me out here.”

She laughed. “You’re asking about other shifters, non-family, I would guess.” She shrugged and pursed her lips. “There are plenty of shifters in the world, obviously. We all do our best to hide and keep our heads low, so it’s easy to lose touch. Likely if you go far enough back, you’ll find all us bird folk are related to some degree.”

“Seems like she’d be the one to ask about this, Jacob,” Nate added. “But I would be interested in finding out her lineage so I can add it to the records.”

“Dad, at the moment I’m not even sure she wants to talk to me.” He’d made such an ass out of himself at the restaurant, and she hadn’t seemed thrilled about the lake either. He’d be lucky if she wasn’t on her way out of town.

“The bond will help with that. It will draw you back together,” Gretchen said. She shot a look at Nate, who grinned.

It was one of those awkward couple moments that Jacob didn’t want to be part of. “Yeah, well, in the meantime I’m not sure what to do.”

“Give her a few days to get used to the idea. She’s likely to come looking for you, if you wait,” Nate said, as he stood up. “We’ll leave you alone so you can think about things. Find me if you have any questions. Your first shift can be confusing, and I know you had all the lectures the other kids got, but that was a while back. You might need a refresher.”

He held out a hand to Gretchen, who seemed reluctant to take it, but finally did and let him pull her to her feet. “If you need to talk…”

Jacob appreciated the offer, but his dad was right. He needed some alone time to work through everything. “Thanks. I’m going to crash, I think. It was a long day.” The latter was true at least. “Tell everyone… I’m glad to be back and I’m sorry I ran off earlier. I’ll be around tomorrow.”

His father firmly guided his mother to the door before she could say anything else. He ignored her attempts to turn back and made sure she went out first, but he paused in the doorway. “Don’t mate with her as a human, not until you’re both sure. Once you do, the bond will become permanent, and then it will have to be broken the hard way. No one wants that.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, but pulled the door closed behind them, and Jacob was left alone with his thoughts.

He stripped down to his boxers and flopped on the bed. Despite the whirling of his brain, the long day caught up with him and he fell asleep faster than he would have expected. Too soon, since it had him waking at a disgustingly early time of morning.

The house was silent. It was still dark outside. With nothing to occupy his thoughts they turned to her… Lizzy. It was a cute name, but it didn’t really suit her.

Elizabeth, on the other hand… “Elizabeth. My mate,” he whispered in the dark room. Just saying the words sent a reaction through his body. His skin tingled, feeling tightly stretched.

She had glowed for him in the restaurant. It wasn’t his imagination, and now he knew why. He pictured the way her mouth curved ever-so-slightly. The way her eyes had sparkled as she joked about her name.

Her beauty was undeniable, despite the dark circles under her eyes and the ugly uniform, but that wasn’t what made his cock harden and push against the front of his boxers. “Mine.” The mate bond was what made his body ache for her.

He could feel it tugging like a leash around the base of his shaft, pulling him to get up and go find her. They were meant to be together, so he could keep her safe.

So he could claim her.

But he wasn’t an animal, at least not all the time. He knew that she’d been freaked out. Even if the bond had never turned him into a babbling idiot at her job, the events at the lake had obviously been a shock. Time. He had to give her time, but for now he had needs

He pushed the blanket aside and thrust his hand into his boxers. His fingers curled around the hot hard length and began to pump up and down firmly. Images of her, sprawled beneath him, crying out his name as he thrust into her body, spurred him on.

It didn’t take much longer to hit his peak than it had when he was on her back in goose form. Something he sincerely hoped would change when they were together in person—in human shape.

He’d never had a problem holding back or lasting until his bed partners were satisfied. It was awkward that the one woman who counted was absolutely wrecking his control. Maybe that was part of the mating bond—to need so desperately that your body rushed to completion.

He sure as fuck hoped not, because he wanted to spend hours making her scream his name.