Chapter Eighteen

Harbor

Being in the city this long was rough.

Really, really rough.

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t. This place wasn’t for a shifter like me. There were pluses, of course. I could do my work here easy peasy, there was a great coffee shop down the road where I could hang out, and my mates were here.

And because it was a city, there were so many activities. If I wanted to go to one of the fancy cinemas where they brought food to the table, and your seats reclined all the way—I could. If I wanted to go to an art gallery—I had my pick. If I wanted to go on a boat tour— there was one leaving in an hour.

The options were endless. If I was bored, it was because I chose to be. Work and mates and boredom—none of that was the issue. My unicorn was.

My beast wasn’t okay. He absolutely despised the city. Between the noise of the vehicles, the scent of the soot from car exhaust, and the concrete—oh-so much concrete, he felt like he could never get away from it. And yes, the penthouse was luxurious and beautiful, but even there, my beast was on edge. He hated being this far up.

Obviously, there were some parks we could escape to for a little while, but it wasn’t enough to give him the reprieve he needed. He was pacing inside me, back and forth, wanting to get out. I tried to convince him to stop, but it was like he didn’t even hear me, sense me. I was starting to worry.

Normally if he even hinted at being upset at our surroundings, I’d move the van and find a place where he could shift. But we weren’t mobile anymore. It wasn’t as easy as that. And being an animal that didn’t blend, it wasn’t like we could find someplace and just shift for a stop gap.

This is one of those times when being a squirrel would have been super handy, or even a raccoon. But as a unicorn, he had to suffer in silence.

And I hated that for him. I hated that I was making that choice for him, because that’s what this was. This was a choice I was making for him, not with him.

I loved my mates, loved them with all that I was. Magnus’ life was here and, unlike mine, he couldn’t drive to the next place and call it good. His life was here, and asking him to give that up? I wasn’t going to do that.

Objectively, what was I giving up by moving here? A little van that was barely holding together. It was in stark contrast to what he would be giving up, which was everything. I couldn’t ask that of him. I refused.

My unicorn would adjust. He just needed time.

“I’m going to grab some coffee,” I said, picking up my backpack, the one that held my laptop. Magnus had offered to buy me something nice, a satchel, or whatever fancy rich people used to carry their computers, but I liked this one. It was comfortable, and if someone was looking for something to steal, they weren’t going to see it and think they’d found gold. If anything, they’d put money in the faded thing.

“Sure, I’ll go with you.” Ayelet looked up from his laptop. “I just have to finish one thing first.”

I wasn’t sure what he was doing on his computer, but I grabbed a water bottle while I waited for him to close everything up.

Magnus was working, and that left us with a couple of hours to kill before we could hang with him. It was the perfect amount of time for a coffee run.

We walked, hand in hand, down the road. There was a street performer on the corner, singing a really bad version of some musical number familiar enough that I should know it, but just badly enough that I couldn’t quite place it. They’d be asked to move soon. This wasn’t a “sanctioned” location for such activities, and the city had moved away from the free for all that used to be the norm.

That was one of the odd things about the city. It had all this freedom and individuality, but it was ensconced in regulation. The two shouldn’t work together, but they sort of did in this uncomfortable way. Or maybe it was only uncomfortable to me because I had a freaking unicorn pacing inside of me.

“I like it here.” Ayelet shoulder bumped me. “Not the city in general but here. It’s like the place where make-believe and reality meet.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Within two blocks, we would go from the place of the elite to the place where the average Joe hung out and…got their joe.

The next corner featured a man wearing a bear costume and using duct-taped plastic buckets as drums. He sounded remarkably good, and I wondered if his day job was in the orchestra for a musical or in a rock band.

I had to admit, it was one of my favorite parts of being in the city—the people saying all the wild and silly and off-the-wall things that they did. But I could find a million things I loved about the city, and it wouldn’t counteract the way my unicorn was feeling.

We arrived at the coffee shop, and it was packed. Not crowded packed, but it would be hard to get to the counter packed.

“I thought we were arriving during off hours,” I said by way of apology. There was no way we were going to get a seat, even if we managed to get a coffee.

“Want to grab it to go? I just wanted to spend time with you. The coffee was a bonus.” He gave my hand a squeeze. Ayelet was such a sweetie.

“So, did you want to go somewhere else instead? We could go to the bakery that Magnus likes. Maybe get some dessert for tonight.”

“I do like dessert.” He gave me a little hip check.

“Not that kind of dessert.”

“Why can’t we have both?”

Spoiler alert: We opted for both.