“I don’t even have a place for her to stay in my apartment. The group home isn’t ready yet. I don’t know what I would do.”
“If we decide to go this direction, you can start with one night, and bring her back here if she shifts. Beyond that, we can give you time to set up a space for her, and to make arrangements as necessary—we even have some guidance on that, as well. I know that many of the doctors and nurses in the hospital are eager to help integrate these children into our society.” Lines formed around his eyes as he smiled. “No matter how it might have seemed, there are more of us on your side than not in this.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay.”
My stomach clenched into knots at the word, but I also knew it was the right thing to do. If what Serena needed was to spend more time with me, then I would give that time to her.
Along, apparently, with the time required by my jobs as both counselor and Shield, my physician boyfriend, several pregnant women eager to rid themselves of the infants growing inside them, and a Hunter with a hyena-shifter boyfriend—those last two secretly.
Yeah.
My life was getting a little twisty.
Chapter 14
I WAS ON THE PHONE with Kade when I walked into the CAP-C office after I left the hospital. It really wasn’t a discussion I wanted to be overheard, but at the same time, I felt like we needed to at least get started on it before I showed up at his place and dropped on him the idea that Serena might be coming home as soon as the weekend.
“No,” I was saying as I moved into the tiny kitchen, “the doctor says he thinks she might do better at home with me.”
I tilted my chin up in greeting at one of the new interns we’d recently hired from a counseling program at one of the local colleges. She waved and kept walking.
“You just got to your office, didn’t you?” Kade asked.
Balancing the phone between my chin and my shoulder, I opened a tall cabinet and pulled out a slightly chipped, weathered mug.
“How could you tell?” I asked. I stared at the cup for a few seconds before deciding to get one of the better ones out of the cabinet instead.
“Your voice goes from incredibly direct and straightforward to kind of cagey, like you’re hiding something.”
I laughed. “Well, I am.”
My parents had always focused on using what we had rather than looking for new things, but this morning, I decided, I wanted a better mug, dammit. I was having a trying morning.
“You don’t think your colleagues would be thrilled to know that you can change into a giant snake at will?” Kade was asking.
“I don’t think it’s anybody else’s business,” I said, shaking my head and filling the mug from the coffee pot. “So, what’s your take on Serena? What should I do?”
“Oh, no,” Kade said. “This is all yours. I don’t actually have any stake in this beyond being a very supportive...” His voice trailed off.
“Yes?” I said. “A very supportive what? What would you call yourself?” I kept my tone teasing, but to my surprise, a flicker of anger curled through me at his response.
“I think I’ll stick to ‘a very supportive... whatever’ for now,” he laughed.
I’d thought I was fine with Kade’s disinterest in helping me raise the babies. Apparently, I was not as okay as I’d assumed.
Unlocking the door to my own office, I bumped it open with my hip, juggling the coffee I’d poured for myself in one hand and the files I was carrying in the other.
“I’ve got to go. I have a client coming in. I’ll talk to you later.” Without waiting for his response, I hung up.
I HAD DUMPED EVERYTHING onto my desk and was staring at the jumble trying to determine where to start—the state of my desk seemed to mimic the state of my mind at the moment, and I needed to work on finding my way into the case files for the day.
I picked up my appointment calendar, to double-check that I didn’t have anything scheduled specifically until this afternoon.
No.
Good. That should allow me to catch up on some of the paperwork I have pending.
I had opened up my computer and started typing up one of the intake forms I had completed at the women’s shelter, when Gloria poked her head around my door. At the same time, she knocked on it lightly.
“Hi, Lindi.” She stepped partway inside my office, flashing one of her trademark smiles at me.
If anyone I knew in my normal, human life was going to figure out my secret life as a shapeshifter, it would be Gloria, with her sweet, round face that hid a sometimes frighteningly sharp mind.
Right now, she had her unnervingly incisive gaze focused directly on me. I worked not to squirm under that steady regard.
“When you were walking down the hall a minute ago, did I hear you say something about Serena’s doctor considering sending her home?”
Oh, hell. I really didn’t want to talk to her about this yet. I knew I would have to eventually, especially if I put Serena on my health insurance—another odd thought, since when I was a child, my parents had avoided taking me to any doctors, too afraid that someone would see something abnormal in me. But the Kindred Hospital, where Kade worked, was a full-service medical facility, and though it didn’t say so on its promotional materials, it offered a complete range of services to both human and shifter patients.
After several beats of silence too long, I finally answered Gloria. “It’s under discussion.”
“I have a client leaving,” she said. “Would you be willing to come in and talk to me in about fifteen minutes?”
No.
That was the last thing I wanted to do.
“Sure,” I said.
Under normal circumstances—anything before three months ago—I would not have hesitated to tell Gloria about everything going on in my life.
Then again, back then, my world had been neatly separated into different segments. I’d had my human job, my shifter secret, and my entirely human—if not exactly normal, given the fact that they were both absent-minded professors and scientists—parents. I had rarely dated, and then only casually.
From Gloria’s perspective, it must have looked like my life was spinning crazily, maybe out of control, and definitely in some new and unexpected directions.
I just know she’s going to suggest I get treatment for PTSD after the whole Scott debacle.
Watching the clock for those fifteen minutes to pass distracted me from getting anything useful done. When I made my way to her office, she was waiting for me, sitting at her desk. She very carefully had not placed anything in front of her—a notepad would make it seem too much like a counseling session, even though she and I both knew that that wasn’t far off from what she was about to do.
It wouldn’t be an actual counseling session, of course. It would be unprofessional for her to practice counseling on a colleague—or anyone with whom she had a dual relationship.
But it’s not all that easy to quit being a counselor. And we both knew it.
I slid into the seat across from her.
Gloria’s eyebrows pulled down into a V over her nose as she studied me, trying to decide how to begin this conversation. I withdrew into my usual wait-and-see mode, despite wanting to jump in to forestall whatever was coming.
“I think it’s great what you and Kade are doing,” she finally said, “helping out with some of the unwanted babies at his hospital.” She paused for a long while as she tapped her fingers together in her lap. “But I have some concerns about the thought of you actually adopting any of them. Or even fostering them.”
Crap. Here it was. The lecture I’d been expecting ever since she’d figured out our plan.
“You know as well as I do that PTSD comes in a number of different forms.”
PTSD. I knew it.
And she didn’t know the half of it.
“Gloria,” I began.
And then I paused, having no real idea of where to go from there. If I told her that she didn’t have
all the information, she would ask for more, and I couldn’t give it to her. Not without the Council’s approval. It struck me for the first time exactly how strange that was. I had spent all my life believing I was the only shifter around and dealing with the inherent loneliness of that. I had resented it. What I had never done was realize exactly how much freedom it gave me. Until I had joined the Shields and agreed to take a place in the shifter world, I hadn’t had to answer to anyone other than my family—and since I had moved out on my own, not even them.
Gloria was still waiting for a response, using my own silence technique against me.
“I understand that this seems odd,” I said. “But I want you to know that it’s nothing I am taking lightly. It’s nothing that I’m doing without considering any number of ramifications.”
“But can you really understand all the potential consequences this might have?”
“No. Then again, can anyone about to become a new parent say that they understand all of the possible consequences of that decision?”
Gloria opened a hand, conceding the point. “I don’t want to see you do this—make some irreparable move—and then realize that perhaps your motives were not as clear as they seemed at the time.”
I laughed softly. “Gloria, you know better than anyone else that no one’s motives are ever direct or clear or pure.”
She laughed, nodding and acknowledging that point, as well. “Just promise me that you will see somebody, talk to somebody about what happened with Scott before you sign any kind of finalizing paperwork.”
I nodded. “Okay.” I could promise that much. A little counseling never hurt anyone, and if it would ease Gloria’s anxiety about me, I’d do it for her.
And, truth be told, I’m sure I did have lingering issues surrounding the events that Scott had initiated in his attempts to repopulate the lamias of the world.
Those issues weren’t really anything I could tell a counselor about—not if I didn’t want to end up with a schizophrenic diagnosis of my own.
AT LUNCH, I TOOK FOOD back to my apartment for the hyena and Hunter. I was balancing soft drinks and a giant bag of tacos, trying to unlock my door, when I heard the locks clicking open inside.
The door flew open and Shadow stepped into view, her giant ax positioned to strike if necessary.
“It’s me,” I said. “I brought lunch.”
Shadow didn’t apologize, but she nodded and moved her ax back to its apparent spot right inside my door.
“I didn’t know what you liked, so I picked up tacos. I assume you’re probably a carnivore,” I said to Jeremiah.
“Yes,” he said. “Thank you, and I am quite happy with your choice.” His voice hadn’t lost any of the musicality from the night before.
I plucked out a single taco for myself and handed the rest of the food over to Jeremiah. He and Shadow fell on it as if they were starving.
For that matter, they might’ve been. I wasn’t entirely certain what I had in my pantry, but I was sure it wasn’t anything even remotely as appetizing as a taco from Tito’s.
I sat down in one of my kitchen chairs and tried my best to determine how to broach the subject I’d been considering on and off all morning. “Have the two of you come up with a plan yet?” I finally said after everyone had eaten a little.
Shadow shook her head, even as she said, “Sort of. We want to approach Jeremiah’s alpha—”
“Matriarch,” Jeremiah corrected.
That’s right. Not all of the shifter clans used the typical alpha-male structure. Suddenly Jeremiah’s relationship with Shadow made more sense to me—he came from a matriarchal society, so of course he would be interested in a woman who was willing to take charge.
I shook my head a little, reminding myself that it was not necessary to psychoanalyze every single person I met.
“So why haven’t you contacted her already?” I asked.
A single glance at Shadow showed that she, too, was waiting for an answer to that question. She stared at Jeremiah with both eyebrows raised and her head slightly tilted to one side, her long, white-blonde hair sliding over one shoulder.
“I left Savannah without permission.” Jeremiah’s liquid brown eyes glanced from one to the other of us. “I abandoned my position as both a protector of my matriarch and as a Council Shield.”
At that, I came to attention. “You’re a Shield?”
He nodded, a single dip of his head. “I am.”
“Why didn’t you say that before? Why can’t we simply call in the Shields on this?”
“There are a number of wolves in the Shields,” Jeremiah said. “I fear that any report made officially as a Shield will make its way back to the werewolves.”
I hadn’t said so aloud to anyone else, but after the events in the NICU the week before, I had begun to worry about that as well.
I stared at the two of them for a long, silent few seconds and then nodded. “I will help you communicate with your matriarch. Would you prefer to have her come here, or should we attempt to set up a meeting someplace neutral?”
“Is your apartment not neutral?” Shadow asked a hint of amusement in her tone.
“Someplace else neutral,” I corrected.
“I will let the two of you and Keeya decide that,” Jeremiah said.
“One more thing,” I said. “I think we should move your car out of my apartment complex. Too many people know I live here.”
“Where can we leave it?” Shadow asked.
“There’s a strip mall across a field not far from here. Easy to get to on foot, but the surface-road route is a little twisty. It might provide some cover for you.”
“Sounds good,” Jeremiah said, but he glanced at Shadow for approval first.
“I’ll follow you there and bring you back in my car. That’ll minimize scent trails.”
“Let’s go,” Shadow said.
That was all we had time to do before I had to head back to the office for the first of my afternoon appointments.
“HAS ANYONE EVER DIAGNOSED you as paranoid?” I asked the teenage girl slumped down in the chair in my office glowering at me.
She sat quietly for a long time as I counted the seconds in my head, waiting for a response.
After she’d stood the silence as long as she could, she bugged her eyes out, clenching her jaw as she bowed her chest out toward me aggressively.
Her stance engaged every one of my own predatory shifter instincts—I desperately wanted to pop my fangs out at her at that moment.
“Has anyone diagnosed me as paranoid? Like who?” she asked suspiciously.
I half-expected her to look around for people wanting to sneak in and diagnose her, and it was all I could do to keep from toppling over laughing. Her question deflated my incipient antagonism entirely.
“Guess not,” I managed to respond, keeping my expression serious.
My client continued to glare at me, however. “The thing is,” she said, her tone perfectly serious, “just because they diagnose you as paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not looking for a way to get you.”
BY THE END OF THE DAY, I was thoroughly exhausted, but I knew I needed to go see Kade. If nothing else, I wanted to talk to him about Serena—not to have him help me make my decision, but to help me figure out how to best manage what I already knew I wanted to do.
Serpent-Serena would be coming home with me soon.
I simply wanted to make sure I was as prepared as possible for what that might entail.
I didn’t want to admit as much, but Gloria’s attempted intervention earlier had shaken me. I was self-aware enough to know that I still had some post-traumatic responses to the events I’d been through in the last few months.
My human side did, at least.
And Gloria didn’t even know some of the worst of it. She didn’t know that I had helped kill Scott. I had participated in his execution, a punishment ordered by the Council for his murder of several local shifter children.
The fact t
hat I was about to begin raising his children sometimes bothered me, as well. Since I had begun working as a children’s counselor, I had become more and more convinced that much of what we are is encoded in our DNA.
But I was also living proof that DNA can be overcome by the right combination of love and training.
My serpent side was perfectly content with the way things had worked out. It also remained unworried about the lamia children.
But it wasn’t my snake-self that wanted to talk to Kade, either.
I shook my head and worked to pull my mind back around to the idea that both the snake and the human were part of the larger “me.”
Many of the shifters I know easily talk about their animal forms as if they’re somehow separate. They say things like, “That really made my inner cat sit up and meow,” or “I had to push my raccoon back down inside.” Like the animal is a whole other entity, waiting to come out. And maybe for some of them, it is.
I can’t afford that kind of separation between my inner snake-self and my inner human-self. If I did, it would be far too easy to give in, to separate myself from the actions my serpentine nature often urges me to take—to do heinous things and then disavow my responsibility for them.
Maybe if I’d grown up around other shifters, it would be different. Maybe I would have no trouble truly separating my human self from my shifter animal.
But that doesn’t work for me.
And if I had my way, it wouldn’t work for the lamia children I helped raise, either.
Chapter 15
I WAS BEGINNING TO wish I hadn’t promised Jeremiah and Shadow not to tell anyone that they were here. Or at least, I was beginning to regret not making an exception of Kade in that.
This was the first time I’d kept anything from him since we began dating. Granted, it had not been that long in the overall scheme of things, but we had been through some pretty serious events in our short relationship. I wasn’t used to not being able to ask for his advice. As I pulled up in front of his house that evening, I considered what it might mean to me to break that trust—and then I even had to think about what I meant by those words. Whose trust was I breaking? Kade’s, as my boyfriend? Or Jeremiah’s and Shadow’s, as two people who were not quite my clients?
The Skin She's In Page 8
