Page 309 of As The Shifter World Turns

Nate

Of all the things I thought might happen at the lake house, dealing with a fainting Anthony was not one of them. Being a shifter, I couldn’t imagine what a shock that had been for him. I mean, I guess I could since he lost consciousness, but not on a real level.

He seemed to be handling it alright. But part of me wondered if he thought it was all a dream he would soon wake up from. He’d discover soon enough that wasn’t the case.

“Burgers are done,” Micah called from the grill. He’d taken to thedistract by full bellymethod of crisis management and I respected that. We had already eaten not an hour earlier, but he was cooking again.

I imagined that it also gave people a thing to do while Anthony digested what he’d learned. He was stuffing his face which was probably a reaction to the life-altering situation he’d just experienced.

Daire and Ivor gathered plates and condiments. Martin and Ryder made sure the little ones were all happy and entertained, I moved the seating around more to have something to do than out of necessity, and Archer sat with Neil talking about how done they liked burgers.

From the outside looking in, everything would look boringly normal. Except it wasn’t. We just had a huge secret revealed, one that could potentially be dangerous for us. I liked Anthony. We all did. But a scared human might blurt out something that they never would’ve done otherwise.

It was just their way.

“How are you doing?” I sat across from Anthony. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”

“Do you? Do you really?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Because I’m thinking none of you understand what it’s like to discover that movies are closer to reality than the reality you thought you’d been living. Just a guess.”

He was right. We didn’t. But that didn’t mean that being in on the secret because we were part of it was all sunshine and roses either. One little slip up and we put the entire shifter community in danger. The pressure was real.

“You’re right,” I conceded.

Neil came over and sat beside me, his plate filled with crackers and cheese. “Want some?” He held it out first to Anthony and then to me.

I shook my head but Anthony was apparently eating his fear away. Neil set the plate in front of him and grabbed some of each.

“So the thing is,” Anthony noted, “This is freaky as fuck cause my friends turn into furry animals.” He side-eyed our resident unicorn, “One of us turns into something that isn’t even supposed to fucking exist. AmIrite?”

Anthony just stared at Neil as he popped one cracker with cheese into his mouth followed by another.

“I’m not right?”

That seemed to break the silence enough for a, “No. You’re right,” from Neil with his mouth full.

Neil grabbed some more crackers. At least he was able to eat. I wasn’t even pregnant and my stomach was in knots.

“And you Nate—and the others for that matter, you’re all here feeling guilty because you’ve had to basically lie and avoid any true friendship from someone you like and care about. You had to hold this huge secret for not only you, but for all shifters in the world ‘cause humans suck and they’ll turn you into either lab experiments or second class citizens. Or maybe just try and destroy the entire population of shifter kind. AmIrite?”

Anthony gasped as I nodded my head.

“So it seems to me you were all in a really crappy place and now is the time you can move on to a better one. But what do I know? I’m just a human stuck in the middle of all of this. It’s not like I know what I’m talking about.”

Neil pushed the plate towards Anthony and Anthony took more crackers and cheese. These two humans sure had healthy appetites.

“Thanks.” He nibbled on one. “And not for the food. But for helping me see it in a different light. I’d felt left out but I always thought it was because you all had this tight knit group and I just didn’t fit in. And then… seeing what I saw did shake my world. But I only looked at it from my side. I didn’t realize that it could be rough on them too.”

“Yeah, it sucks all around, but you know, it also doesn’t suck.” Neil grabbed more food. Goodness he was hungry—or nervous. Maybe he didn’t need me there as part of this conversation. He and Anthony had being human in common. It was probably best to let them chat it out.

“I’m going to go get my mate a burger.”

The relief that flooded Anthony’s face told me I’d made the right decision. I felt bad for him. Being on the outside of a close group of friends was rough, I knew that first hand. Figuring out it was because of something so big like being a different species, that had to be an entirely different level of ugg.

Martin

The weekend at the lake house had not been exactly fun—I guess interesting was a better descriptor, but it all seemed to work out well in the end. It was a relief to not have to hide things from Anthony any more. He seemed to think so too and honestly, he took it a lot better than I probably would’ve in his shoes.

We arrived home and Neil crashed hard. He got on the bed for just a couple of minutes and when I came back in from putting away the milk we bought on our way home, he was snoring. I took his shoes off and managed to get a blanket on him.

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