Page 18 of Hold my Reins

And he’d have someone to swim with. Which was both exciting and disturbing as the only people he’d swam with since being taken from his herd ended up dead.

Rox leaned into him. “Can you tell me a little about your people so I’m not accidentally rude?”

“If it is accidental, it is forgivable.” He didn’t expect humans to know or understand anything about monsters. There were some monsters he didn’t know anything about. “I can tell you about my herd.”

ten

Lynck’s arm around his shoulders was an unfamiliar but comforting weight, but Rox didn’t want to push him away and walk on his own. Leaning into him felt nice. His body was warm, and Lynck wouldn’t let him stumble on the soft sand. Nor would Lynck trip him for a laugh.

Soft waves lapped against the shore as they walked. The silence stretched, tempting Rox to ask a direct question, even though sometimes it was better to wait. While Lynck had agreed to tell him about his herd, it didn’t seem to be an easy topic.

Perhaps it was too much for whatever they were.

“A herd is a family, but what humans call extended family and centered around the women. My grandmother and her sisters were the leaders.”

“What happens to the men?”

“They join their wife’s herd.”

Rox glanced up at him. “And if they don’t have a wife?”

Lynck smiled. “Then they either join a herd of like-minded men, or they seek permission for their mate to join. It depends on the herd and the numbers.”

“Did they kick you out of home?”

Lynck was silent for a moment. “No.”

That wasn’t the entire truth, but Rox didn’t press as it was obviously a sore subject. “Can I ask if you spent more time on two feet or four?”

Lynck laughed. “It’s very hard to build a village with hooves instead of hands.” He lifted his hand. His palm was the same soft gray as his lips, and on the back of his hand, his hair was white and dappled gray like his back. “It depended on what we were doing. Fishing and farming are easier on two feet. Defending our home was on two and four—I’ve ridden another kelpie, armed with a bow and spear.” He exhaled as though the memory hurt. “It wasn’t a conscious thing, but a question of which form served the purpose.”

“That sounds cool. Like sometimes a motorbike is better than a car.”

“I will trust you on that because I have driven neither.”

“But you’ve been in a car?”

“Yes. Of course I have.”

“How am I supposed to know?”

Lynck flipped the question on him. “Have you ridden a horse?”

“No. And until a couple of months ago, I’d never seen a horse in real life because I grew up in the city.”

“A kelpie isn’t a horse, though we appear similar in the same way donkeys and zebras seem like horses but aren’t.”

“Oh.” To Rox, they all looked like horses. But to some people, all engines were the same, and they couldn’t tell a boxer engine from a V8. “Aside from the ability to shift, what makes a kelpie different from a horse?”

Lynck stopped walking and dropped his arm, leaving Rox alone. Rox realized they’d walked well away from the main area of town. They’d walked closer to the forest, and the shadows had deepened as the sun slipped lower. He faced him and lifted one of Rox’s hands. “I am not a horse or a human. I am a kelpie,a monster. Though it is easier to say I am a horse shifter, as humans can grasp that idea.”

“I’m trying to understand what that means. And who you are.”

Lynck tilted his head. “But you do not need to understand those things if?—”

“If we’re just fucking,” Rox finished. He knew that. “Is that all you want?”

For the first time, he wondered if they were on the same page. What if only he wanted more and Lynck was being polite?

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