Page 52 of Research with Rivals
The reminder was like ice water poured over my head. I couldn’t flirt with her when there was this magical tether between us. Her reaction wasn’t her own. I swallowed and triedagain. “We should get off the road for when this works. We don’t want anyone to see you shift.”
She cleared her throat and nodded, leading us into the trees. Her bag hit the packed dirt with a thud. Thankfully, it was the type she could toss over her back when she shifted.
“I’ll tell you what my father told me, what I tell the twins. Feel free to move me along if you’ve heard any of this before.”
She chewed the inside of her lip again. I was sure she was trying to determine whether I was serious. The worst thing I could do was tell her something she already knew as if it was brand new information. I would start with the basics, because without her father, I feared no other Vesten would have shared them, but we had plenty of more advanced options available if needed.
“My father talked to me about flame and shift being two sides of the same coin. The flame burns away the old and makes new.”
“The shifted form is new?” she asked. I could tell she didn’t see her shifted form as a prize. To her, at least so far, it had only been a burden.
“Not necessarily. Because when you’re in your shifted form, the fire also burns away the animal to bring back the fae, or half-fae,” I corrected myself.
“I see.”
I took a step closer to her. She craned her neck to look up at me, but she didn’t step away. I held her gaze as my hand moved slowly—so slowly—toward her sternum. The pace gave her every opportunity to push me away.
Our breaths released in sync when my hand met her skin. A flame licked behind my own rib cage with the connection. I took a beat before studying her further. Did she feel this, too? I shook my head to focus. The flare couldn’t distract me; she needed to hear this, needed to understand this for the shift to work.
“Your veil cat is part of you,” I said, pressing my fingers against her. “The candy will help you access the heat, the flame of change inside. But for the shift to be on your terms, you have to believe that it’s as much you in here”—I pressed again—“as your heart beating in your chest.”
She sucked in an uneven breath. “How can—” She cut herself off and tried again. “What if it chose the wrong person?”
My eyes closed as anger flared to life within me. My wolf wanted to howl, a cold, lonely sound in honor of whatever Evelyn had experienced with the fae to make her voice the concern. “The animals are never wrong. Fae can be wrong. Fae can be stupid and prejudiced. But the animal can never be wrong.”
“It’s so unpredictable,” she tried.
“Only because you aren’t participating in the conversation. If the two of you communicate, I think you’ll see that the veil cat’s every action is carefully calculated, the same way the half-fae part of you would make a decision.”
Her lip almost curled into a smile at that. She took a deep breath, letting her eyes close and her chest expand into my touch. When her eyes opened again, they found mine. “What do I do next?”
“You tried the candy from yesterday?”
She nodded slowly.
“Do the same. Instead of pushing the heat out to your limbs, let it consume you, like you’re burning from the inside.”
Her head tilted. “That sounds … painful.”
I let my head sway from side to side. “It’s not. Have you felt pain when you’ve shifted before?”
She shook her head.
“This shouldn’t be any different. Your fire doesn’t burn you—it’s a part of you. You already figured that part out. The candy is the fire starter, then apply that same thinking to your animal.”
I’d seen Evelyn wield her fire magic, even if she didn’t know how to do so with precision. That part, she had figured out more intuitively than the shift.
Finally, regretfully, I stepped away, letting my hand fall from her chest. My fingers were automatically cold. Every part of me wanted to rectify the situation by encroaching on her space once again.
But she needed to try this on her own.
She licked her lips like she did when she prepared to test some tricky magic. Then, she popped a candy in her mouth. I felt heat, even though I saw no flame. She was incandescent in the darkness. Her eyes narrowed, and I worried that she was trying too hard—that she was trying to force the cat into submission. Our gazes locked and held. In that moment, her chest fell, and she took in a breath so deep it was like she wasn’t sure she’d ever inhale clean air again.
With a final, imperceptible nod in my direction, her body crumpled forward.
I took a step toward her instinctively. With Evelyn, I should have known my concern was unnecessary. Her reddish-brown fur filled my vision as she prowled forward in veil cat form.
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