Chapter Eleven

We’re going to reveal ourselves to our mate , Wade’s polar bear said, its dark eyes openly jubilant. She will see and understand us, and we can tell her that we’re meant to be together.

His polar bear was essentially the voice of his subconscious, and by the time those feelings bubbled to the surface, they had usually calmed down a little. Not now. Wade felt everything his bear was feeling. If anything, he might feel it even more. Every inch of him, every particle of his soul, was vibrating with anticipation as he followed Mira into her apartment.

He was too distracted to spare their surroundings much attention, but even so, he could tell that Mira’s home was very Mira , and that made him love it. He spotted several framed posters of romance movies: When Harry Met Sally, His Girl Friday, Love & Basketball, and Moonstruck all jumped out at him. Her shelves groaned with books, with the bright rainbow spines of romance novels scattered about like flowers amid the more sober-colored mysteries, classics, fantasies, and thick volumes of film history.

The apartment’s most notable fixture then came up and meowed at him.

Mira crouched down, stroking her fingers through her cat’s fur. “Wade, this is Bigfoot. Bigfoot, this is Wade.”

“I can see how he got his name. Will he let me pet him?”

“I don’t know,” Mira said, pursing her lips. “He doesn’t usually even come out of hiding for new people. Try it?”

“I’m honored,” Wade told Bigfoot, slowly lowering himself down beside Mira and doing everything he could to telegraph his movements so the cat wouldn’t be surprised. He let Bigfoot sniff his hand a little, and when that didn’t set him off, he carefully petted Bigfoot between the ears.

“Bigfoot, I’m so proud of you,” Mira said, doubling down on the petting. “You’re being so brave!”

Bigfoot purred so loudly that it was like a jet was coming in for a landing.

“Seriously, he’s never been like this with anyone else I’ve brought over,” Mira said, marveling at the way Bigfoot pushed his whole face into Wade’s hand. “My parents have been here plenty of times, and he never comes out when they’re around. They like to joke that he might as well be the original Bigfoot, that’s how few people get to see him.”

“Although at least your pictures of him aren’t blurry.”

“That’s true.”

Wade wondered if Bigfoot could sense the mate bond and was reacting to that. Maybe that was also why Fiona had gravitated to the sound of Mira’s voice on the podcast. It was like both cats were thinking the same thing: This is my person’s person, so they must be okay.

They both reluctantly straightened up and gave Bigfoot a break from all the adoration. He sauntered off to meow insistently at the automated feeder until it gave him his dinner. Wade had the same one for Fiona, and she was probably doing the same thing right now. It was on a timer, but Fiona always seemed sure her plaintive cries were what made it work.

“So,” Mira said. Her voice cracked again, but she powered through it. “What do you want to do next? Cookies? Or shifters? Or—?”

He was unbelievably tempted by that tantalizing, lingering “or.” But while he didn’t think it would be wrong to sleep with Mira before he’d managed to tell her he was a shifter and her true mate—he would have been falling for her even if he’d been totally human, so what came after that “or” was inevitable for them anyway—he didn’t like the idea of getting this close to revealing everything and then getting distracted. Even if they were the ones doing the distracting. It would be better to have it all out in the open.

Besides, it seemed like Mira already knew something . She’d said she hadn’t heard of shifters, but he had seen the idea click as he’d told her a little more.

After he’d mentioned werewolves, right? Maybe she had a werewolf friend?

“Shifters, if that’s okay,” Wade said. “So ... you’re good for me to show you? And you said you like bears, right?”

Mira nodded. “Love them. And go for it.”

That was all his polar bear needed to hear. It gleefully barreled forward, and Wade took a deep breath and let it leap to the surface.

Some shifters naturally transformed slowly, with one body gradually melting into the next. They could feel themselves sprouting fur and changing shape.

Wade had always been more on the instantaneous side of things. He changed in a flash: human to polar bear, or vice-versa, in the blink of an eye.

This was the first time it had occurred to him—unfortunately belatedly—that that might be kind of alarming .

Mira jumped back and cried out in surprise.

For once, her lost voice came in handy. The full-throated yelp that would have immediately summoned all her neighbors instead came out as a stifled, barely audible squeak.

“Oh God,” Wade said, already human again before he could even think about it. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you!”

She stared at him with saucer-wide eyes, clearly speechless ... and then broke down into uncontrollable laughter.

“ I’m sorry,” she said in between wheezes. “I thought you were writing a book!”

Wade blinked. “A book?”

“Or a screenplay! I thought you’d come up with this cool idea about people who could turn into bears, and you were writing something about it, and ... I have to sit down.”

There was a couch just a few feet away, but Mira folded up onto the floor instead. She pressed her fist to her mouth to catch the last few incredulous guffaws.

Wade sat down beside her. “I thought maybe you were friends with a werewolf,” he offered.

She turned her head and buried her face in his shoulder, her shoulders shaking with new I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening laughs.

“No wonder you didn’t want to talk about this in the restaurant,” she said finally. “So there are more people out there like you? People who can turn into animals? Of course you’d want to keep that a secret.”

“And you thought I just felt self-conscious talking about my fantasy novel idea,” Wade said, putting the pieces together. He had to laugh now too. “You were really encouraging!”

“If you wrote a book, I would absolutely read it,” Mira said, and then suddenly she lifted up her head and her lips met his.