Chapter 7

Chapter

Seven

S he made it three days before she realized she was going to lose her mind if they didn’t meet again soon. Every time she closed her eyes she saw him. When she dreamed … they were X-rated, and he was the star. On the street, she’d pass a guy in glasses and stop short thinking it was him, but it never was.

If this whole mate bond thing was real, and if he was feeling anything close to what she was feeling… he’d come and find her before long. He’d had to. But waiting for that was starting to become problematic

She could deal with the sudden startles when she thought she’d seen him pass. The fact that she kept making mistakes at work, because she couldn’t think straight was more difficult, but she’d manage. What she couldn’t handle was that she seemed to be in a constant state of horniness.

Seriously, she was going to wear out her vibrator if things kept up. She woke up wet. She tossed and turned because of the pulsing between her thighs. Coming was, at best, a few minutes of relief before she was ready to go again.

It had gotten so bad that she’d even had to rub one out in the bathroom during her break, just so that she could calm down enough to think. Never, not once in her life, had she ever needed to be fucked so badly.

That alone was enough to convince her that she needed to find him. Not for sex, well, yes, that too, but to find out what the hell was going on with her body before she imploded. He’d acted like she should have known what a mating bond was, but he didn’t understand her situation and she hadn’t been ready to explain.

She was half-convinced he’d done this to her somehow. Maybe it was some magical ‘always horny’ spell to force her to make the first move. Making her track him down would definitely be a power move, but it was going to work, because she couldn’t live like this.

You win, Jacob. I’ll do the work, but it would have been nice if you’d at least given me your phone number. She only knew his first name, which wasn’t a big help. Of course… he had also said his family owned the property around the lake.

It could have been a lie. She would have no way of knowing, and there weren’t any signs posted saying it was private property. She’d assumed it was public, and had treated it like a park since she’d first arrived.

She very rarely saw anyone else when she went, but that didn’t mean much. The call of the only open body of water close to her house was hard to resist, but she tried. She knew that when she did go, she’d probably end up changing, so she only went at night and no more than once or twice a month.

Still, whether or not he’d been telling the truth about his family, or about the inconvenient bond, he was definitely like her. Well, not exactly like her, but similar enough to know he’d also be drawn to the water. It was a good place to go looking for him. If his family did own the lake that just made it even more likely.

Her feet hurt and she was worn out, but as always, the tiredness dropped away as she got close to the water. You’re not changing tonight , she reminded herself sternly. No matter how much she wanted to… she needed her human brain to deal with Jacob if he showed up.

And… it was embarrassingly obvious her swan side couldn’t resist his preening skills. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

The shore was silent and peaceful. No one, bird or otherwise, was in evidence, but she took a seat on a large rock and waited. The minutes ticked by, and boredom set in quickly.

She was amusing herself, by skipping rocks across the still surface of the water, when she heard a crunching of footsteps on the gravel. She looked up and there he was. After four days of seeing him everywhere, she was half-convinced he was an illusion, until he stopped and said, “Hey…”

He sounded nervous, but she was too. “Hello.” Her tone wavered and cracked. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I didn’t know where to find you.”

There was silence and then he laughed and muttered a curse. “I’m an idiot. I was giving you time to adjust and come to me when you were ready. I didn’t want you to feel pressured. Forgot you didn’t really know how to find me when you were.”

So it hadn’t been a power move. He was just as muddled as she was. “It’s okay. Honestly, I did probably need a few days to sort things out in my head. I—” She blew out a long breath. “I came here for answers and instead ended up with more questions.

He moved a little closer, and when she didn’t object, he settled on a flat rock next to hers. “We have a lot of things to discuss, but if you’ve got questions…” He trailed off, leaving the offer there.

The response exploded from her, “I have so many questions! My life has been nothing but questions, and I came all this way to figure out who I was and—and now there’s you.” She shot him an accusing look. “And I don’t know what’s going on, but I can’t get you out of my head!”

One eyebrow went up as he looked at her. “Well, maybe I could explain a few things, if you told me a little more about yourself. All I know right now is that you’re a waitress, a swan, and a Lizzy-short-for-Elizabeth.”

Her mouth twitched, wanting to smile, but his closeness was making it hard to think. “I’ve never met another changer.”

“Shifter, you mean?”

She shrugged. “I guess. Is that the official term? I’ve always thought of it as changing.”

“As official as it gets. It’s not like there’s a definition in the dictionary, but it’s how we all refer to it. We’re bird shifters. We shapeshift into birds.”

She inched herself around, so she was facing him. “All? How many are there?”

Jacob snorted. “We’re not in the census either. I can tell you my family is big, although each generation seems a little smaller. When two shifters mate, the chances for multiples go up, but these days most of our mates are human to avoid inbreeding.”

“That’s why you wanted to know if we were related?” She didn’t wait for him to reply. “I can’t tell you that. I was adopted. I don’t even know my biological parents.” There was that old familiar pain, making her voice tight and tense.

He started to reach out to her and then seemed to reconsider and let his hand drop. “Well, chances are good we’re distant cousins, at most. There aren’t any missing relatives in my generation or the one before it, or the before that. So genetically… we should be fine.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Fine for what?”

“To be mates, of course.”

“What makes you think I want to … why would you assume…”

“Elizabeth, let’s not pretend. I’ve never felt a mating bond before but it’s pretty obvious when it happens. You’re all I can think about and I’m betting it’s the same for you.”

Her eyes widened and she swallowed hard. “Are you trying to tell me that I don’t have a choice? That I have to be with you?”

He let out a long sigh, as if she were being especially difficult. “You have a choice. We can avoid each other and be miserable for a while. Eventually the bond will wither if we don’t feed into it. It won’t be pleasant, but if that’s what you want, we can try it.”

And just keep feeling like this until… “How long does that take?”

He shrugged. “No way of knowing. Could be months. Could be years. My parents gave me a little refresher on being a shifter yesterday. Since I never shifted… I haven’t really been living as one.”

She caught her breath, mouth dropping as she remembered him saying it was his first time. “Wait, so you never changed until the other night? Seriously?”

“Nope. Thought I was a throwback, or a freak. Boys usually change during puberty but I… I just never did.” He looked away, staring out at the water with an intensity that spoke of a lot of suppressed emotions.

She knew what it was like to lock down all your feelings to avoid the pain. “Puberty? Weird. I started changing when I was much younger. Before I can remember really. I…” Her chest felt tight, and she took a second to breathe through it.

“Yeah.” The pain was still there. “I was adopted as a baby, but then I guess… well, they weren’t expecting to find feathers everywhere. Eventually I did change fully and… they weren’t sure what to do with that, so they gave me up.”

“Ouch. I’m sorry.”

She skimmed another rock across the lake, but there was too much anger in it, and it only skipped once before it sank with a splash. “They left me with a suitcase full of clothes and an old book I’d never seen. Inside was a note. From my birth mom, I guess.”

“What kind of book?”

“It was old, and an amateur thing. Written like a nature documentary, except it talked about people who changed into birds. There were some hints that, well, led me here.”

He let out a low whistle. “Huh. I bet my father would love to see that book some time.”

“I—sure. That’s fine.” She was normally very careful who she showed it to, but in this case, it made sense. “Would have been nice if it had some practical information. Anything about what I was would have been a big help.”

“So, you really don’t know anything about being a swan maiden then?”

“Swan maiden? That sounds like something out of a fairytale.” She laughed.

“Well, it is. Or rather the fairytales about swan maidens were based on people like you. Women who change into swans.”

She squinted at him. “How do you know so much about swans? You’re a goose.”

“Funny story that…”