“It was pretty serious. Your mother’s been crying off and on since last night,” Waverly explained.
“So, what’s the underground saying?” Tau asked.
“That you’re a beast... Prince Tau?” Waverly looked him up and down.
Zander glanced over at Tau. “Oh yeah, about that--”
“Zander!” his mother called from the front door. Zander turned to find his mother’s eyes red and her face streaked with tears.
“What is it?” he asked meekly, sounding like a little boy half his age.
“Your grandmother and I need to talk to you.”
Chapter 27
“What the fuck do you mean I’m part shape shifter?” Zander’s voice echoed through the large house.
“Quit cussing at me before I turn you into a salamander,” his grandmother said. Zander knew that she never would.
“For all I know I might be part salamander. Neither of you would tell me,” he said hotly.
“It isn’t your mother’s fault. You know why we had to keep the secret. But I am so sorry,” Grandma Zoe said.
Grandma Zoe had always been one of his favorite people, and as far as he knew, she had never lied to him -- until now.
“I hardly know how to be a warlock, and now you tell me that I am part shape shifter.” Zander sighed. “So when were you going to tell me?”
“We had hoped that we might not have to. Sometimes the gift doesn’t show up in those who only have a quarter shifter blood,” Grandma Zoe explained.
“I guess that was another reason that I encouraged your father to move away from the magical community,” Crystal admitted. “It was less likely that someone would magically sense my secret if we weren’t around them so often. It has been a difficult secret to keep. I have been on a regular regimen of potions since I got married to hide it from your father.”
“You always tried to act like it was my father’s family who didn’t want me near the magical community, but it was you two all along,” Zander spat. “No wonder he left. He just found out that his son is gay and his wife is a shape shifter.” Neither woman responded.
“So why now?” Zander asked.
“I knew when I saw you with Tau that he was drawn to you partly because you are part shifter. No doubt he likes you because you are attractive, but he is most likely connected to you on a species level, too. If he can sense it, then there is a pretty good chance that you are going to be able to shape shift,” his mother said.
“You both are nothing but liars. All my life you have been lying to me and forcing me to lie to everyone else. I thought it was bad enough that I had to lie to all of my mortal friends, but that wasn’t even the half of it. You two were lying to our entire family. The secrets have to stop now.”
“We are so sorry,” his mother cried.
“Are there any more family secrets that I need to know about? Who else knows this shit besides the two of you?” Zander asked. They were both silent for moments before his mother spoke.
His mother sniffed. “I told your father last night. He told his brother and Finity. I don’t think they told Waverly... and Tau knows.”
“What? I just met him. How does he know? Why did you tell him?” Zander asked.
“I told him to make sure that you knew in case something happened. It’s pretty likely that you may be able to shift,” Crystal said.
“Great! I feel like a fucking idiot,” Zander said.
“Don’t be mad at him. He was bound by the oath not to tell you,” his mother continued.
“What oath? You know what, don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter. I don’t know if I can believe anything that the two of you say anyway.” Zander stomped from the room.
Chapter 28
Waverly and Giovanni were sitting directly across from each other at the dining room table, trading verbal jabs. It seemed like the only people that Giovanni didn’t argue with were Zander and Hung.
Hung and Muslee were chatting and measuring the vampire community’s response to the abductions, while Tau, Kyle, and Chelsea seemed to be doing the same with regard to the shifter nation. When Zander entered the dining room, everyone went silent. Without a word, Tau rushed to Zander and pulled him into a nurturing embrace. Zander had only known Tau for a very short period of time, but his arms felt like the only safe place in the world.
“Let’s go outside and talk,” Zander whispered, before he led Tau to his mother’s garden.
Zander remembered how different his life had been the last time he was in his mother’s garden. The night fairies from the garden greeted Zander with song -- a song that only supernaturals could hear -- and it was beautiful. It actually made him smile.
“I am proud of you,” Tau said.
“What do you mean?”
“No temper tantrum this time. Your family just dropped some pretty heavy news on you,” Tau said.
“Let me start out by saying that I am really sorry about that temper tantrum that I threw at Giovanni’s place. That was no way for me to act,” he apologized.
Tau smiled. “Apology accepted.”
“My mother told me that you were bound by some oath not to tell me that I am part shifter,” Zander said.
“Yes, I was. Otherwise, I would have told you. I know how you feel about secrets.”
Zander took a deep breath. “I’m afraid. I don’t know who I am, what I am, or who I can trust.”
“I can understand that,” Tau said.
“I have a grandfather that I don’t know, and my dad hates me and my mother. I can’t say that I blame him. You must think that I’m a complete mess. One minute I’m making love to you, and the next I’m having a magical temper tantrum.” Zander frowned at the ground.
Tau lifted his chin with a careful finger. “First, you should be excited to find out that you are part shape shifter. There are some wonderful things about shifting, and I’ll teach them all to you. Second, your dad is probably just in shock. He’ll come around, and if he doesn’t, then so be it. Giovanni seems to be doing just fine without his parents. Finally, I don’t think you are a complete mess -- just a partial mess.”
They both laughed, and Tau pulled Zander close.
“Those labels are for humans. Shifters are inclined to follow their instincts. We shared our bodies, but that was just a step in the journey toward sharing our souls. And if you are a mess, then so am I. I wanted it more than you did.”
“I don’t think that’s even possible,” Zander replied.
“Let’s agree to disagree on that. As a matter of fact, I could use some right now,” Tau said.
“We can’t do that. The night fairies would be shocked to see me getting fucked in my mother’s sacred garden,” Zander whispered. Tau burst out laughing again.
“What does it even mean to be part shape shifter?” Zander asked, curiously.
“Let’s see if I can make this simple.” Tau thought for a moment. “Back in the beginning, our blood was pure, and shifters only mated with other shifters. Over time our numbers dwindled, and shifters started mating with humans. Our blood and our gift got diluted, and some of our offspring eventually lost the ability to change.”
“Why did your numbers shrink?” Zander asked.
“There were a lot of reasons. One was evolution. Some shifters started taking advantage of modern technology, no longer embracing the life of a shifter, and lost the ability to shift over generations. Then there was a brief period in our history where humans realized we existed and starting hunting us, almost to extinction.”
“How do you know all this?” Zander asked.
Tau chuckled. “That’s another thing. My father is a pack leader. That means that I’m sort of... kind of like... a prince. Pack royalty is obligated to train on the history of every supernatural species,” Tau explained. Zander realized then that Tau probably knew mor
e about being a warlock than he did.
“I gathered that,” Zander said with a smile. “Is there a special title that I need to call you now that I know?”
“Yes, you must call me Big Daddy,” Tau teased. They laughed again. The moon glowed the way that is does for lovers, illuminating everything about them.
Zander looked up at Tau. “It must be nice to be a prince. To have people adore you like Kyle and Crystal. At least you know who and what you are.”
“That’s just it,” Tau sighed. “Being a prince means that pack law binds me. My father made an agreement a long time ago to have me compete in the pack trials when I came of age. That time is now. I’ll be competing in the pack trials in a month.”
“Who will you be competing against?” Zander asked.
“A werewolf shifter named Benin. He is very highly regarded,” Tau said, almost reverently.
“What happens if you just don’t do it?”
“I would be expelled from the pack, and I would bring shame on my entire family. I could even be killed,” Tau said, trying to soften the blow for himself and Zander.
“So, the pack trials may not be that bad. Is it like an Olympic contest?” Zander asked.
“It is a fight to the death,” Tau said heavily. That was more than Zander could take. Tears were rolling down his cheeks before he knew what was happening. He had sworn to himself that he would be stronger, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Baby, don’t cry.” Tau wiped tears from Zander’s face. Zander laid his head on Tau’s strong shoulder as they rocked in the swing. They sat in silence for a long while, and the night fairies’ serenade become more somber.
“I don’t like this,” Zander said.
“Don’t worry about any of the bad stuff. Just enjoy this right now. We shifters have a saying. ‘Hunt for today, for tomorrow is not promised.’”
“My money is on you. You could win these pack trials, and then we can be together, right?” Zander asked.
Tau glanced away.
“Right?” Zander asked again.
“The thing about being a pack leader is that they are expected to be mated. If a newly crowned pack leader doesn’t have a mate, then any shifter can compete to become his Alpha Mate,” Tau explained.
“This fucking day just keeps getting better,” Zander said. Then he realized why Tau was so anxious to mate with him. Tau didn’t want to take the chance that someone -- anyone could become his first mate. He had selected Zander. At the same time, Zander didn’t know if he was ready, willing, or able to be mated to Tau for the rest of his life, given everything that he had just learned.
“So, what do we do now? What about how we feel?” Tau asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t have any answers right now. I want to tell you that I’ll be yours forever, but my head just isn’t clear right now. I need some time to get myself together,” Zander told him.
“So, does that mean that we just walk away from each other?” Tau asked.
“Do we have to decide today? Do we have to decide right now?” Zander asked.
“I guess not, but we don’t have long. So, what will you do now?” Tau asked, trying to change the subject.
Zander thought for several more minutes as the night fairies stopped singing. “I think I’m going to find out who kidnapped the supernaturals. It isn’t like we can call the police, and I’m sure that this wasn’t just a bunch of gothic kids in uniforms.”
“I don’t know if I want you in that kind of danger,” Tau said, tightening his arm around Zander.
“Just like I don’t want you to participate in the pack trials?” Zander asked.
Tau sighed. “It isn’t the same.”
“Isn’t it?” Zander asked.
“I don’t know,” Tau said, and pulled his large hand through his hair.
“I may even go find my real grandfather. I bet he’ll be glad to meet his gay, one-quarter shape shifting, three-quarter warlock grandson,” Zander joked.
“Are you sure that the night fairies don’t want to see us have sex?” Tau teased.
“Yes, I’m sure. I can’t do that. They’ve known me all my life. It would be like having sex in front of my parents.” Zander shuddered.
“We kind of did that already. Remember, your grandmother had the ruby looking stone,” Tau reminded him, a teasing glint in his eye. Zander swung at him, but missed. Tau was up and off the swing in the blink of an eye. Their hearty laughter filled the sky.
“About that,” Zander said, as he pulled the ruby looking stone from his pocket. He tied the necklace back around Tau’s neck.
“Is it mine to keep now?” Tau asked.
Zander smiled. “Yes.”
“Forever?” Tau asked.
“Yes, but under one condition.”
“What’s that?” Tau asked.
“That you explain the shifter mating process to me,” Zander said.
Tau grinned. “That’s easy. First, we share personal gifts from Mother Earth. I gave you a cowrie shell from the sea, and you gave me a ruby from the earth. Second, we share our bodies. I think you remember how that went. Third, we share our families. I sat at your family table, but you have not yet met my family. Finally, we share the pledge to love eternally. It is like a ceremony. Again, the other way that a shifter prince can be mated is directly after the pack trials.”
“Seems backward,” Zander said, wondering if Tau wanted him to complete the mating process.
“It seems backward to you because you were raised as a human. We get the preliminaries out of the way and end with the pledge. It makes sense if you think about it,” Tau explained.
Zander sighed. “I am glad that I met you.”
“And I, you,” Tau said. “Do you still want to wear my cowrie shell?”
Zander held up his ring finger proudly and showed off the ring.
“And I see you have on your grandmother’s ruby looking stone,” Tau said.
“Yes. Now you have one, and I have one. We can keep in touch supernaturally. That is, if your new mate doesn’t make you take it off...”
“I wouldn’t allow it,” Tau said softly, and looked into the stone directly at Zander, who was also looking into his stone.
Just then all of their friends came from around the house.
“Can we crash this party?” Giovanni said. Waverly was right behind him with several bottles of alcohol that he had liberated from the family liquor cabinet. Hung played some music from his phone, and in just a few minutes, they were all laughing and dancing and singing around the garden.
Zander Knight didn’t have to keep secrets any longer. He was a same-gender loving, sixth generation, part-warlock and part-shape shifter who had just graduated from a mortal high school. Zander’s high school friends only knew him as the little dude with the good grades and great smile, but his new friends would come to know him for who he really was. This was only the beginning of this warlock’s love story.
Epilogue
Zander and his mother moved about the house without very much interaction. She continued to make her potions, but she no longer sang the songs that he had always heard her sing growing up. He spent his days talking to Giovanni on the phone and pining over Tau. Between him and his mother, someone was always crying in the house.
Zander sat on his childhood bed with three piles in front him. To his left were all of the things that he had saved from the medical center fire before he and his friends had burned it to the ground. He had the handheld device that could identify shifters, magicals and vampires, the box of files and jump drives, and numerous Internet articles on the man who owned the medical facility, Archer Carmichael. On the right, he had a pile of maps and brochures on every major metropolitan city in the United States. And in the center sat his family’s Grimoire.
His father had called back to the house s
everal times, not to ask after him or his mother, but to demand that they give him the Grimoire. Zander had hung up the phone each time. He flopped back on the pillows and let his mind float back to thoughts of his strained family relationships, the news that he was part shape shifter, his new friends and then his beloved Tau. He thought about Tau’s advice to ‘hunt for today, for tomorrow is not promised,’ and he knew exactly what he needed to do next.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
All Knight Long, Book I: One Warlock's Love Story Page 14
