by Selena Scott
She carefully dried his ears and neck and forehead and he pushed toward her every which way she pushed against him. He was aware of her eyes on him, but he didn’t barely bother to open his own eyes to look back. He felt as relaxed and pain-free as he ever had. This was a heavenly place to be at that very moment.
“All finished,” Ida said with a light squeeze to his shoulder.
Phoenix forced his eyes opened and let her lead him to the other side of the room where Wren was organizing some tools to cut his hair. He felt like he was walking on clouds as he made his way into the chair.
Wren’s touch was nothing like Ida’s. Much firmer, more businesslike and less creative. But after Ida had turned him into liquid sunshine, everything felt pretty good. His eyes fell closed again and he was surprised to find that the metallic clicking of the scissors as they moved around his head was actually soothing, not threatening.
His eyes came open, however, when Wren moved on to his beard. She did some business with hot towels and a few creams and then she used a loud buzzer thing to straighten out his edges. Lastly, she held up what looked like a tiny knife of sorts.
“I’m not gonna use this,” she told him the moment she saw the look on his face. “But I’m going to teach you how to use it so that you don’t look like a mountain man in a week. Cool?”
He nodded and paid close attention while she talked him through the shaving cream and the direction to drag the knife over his neck and cheeks in order to keep things “nice and tight,” in her words.
When he’d toweled off and stood up, all there was to do was eye himself in the mirror. He turned his head one way and then another. He definitely looked much more … something.
“What are you thinking?” Ida asked, almost nervously, as if his reaction to his haircut meant a great deal to her.
“I’m wondering if I’m much more attractive than most human men,” he answered honestly.
Both women burst out laughing. He turned to them, a frown on his face and waited until they were done laughing.
“He’s not joking, is he?” Wren asked Ida.
“Nope,” Ida responded, popping the P. That sent them into more laughter that Phoenix didn’t understand.
Then Ida was guiding him out of the house and he was crutching along behind her. He stopped, turned, and looked back at Wren. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, baby,” she called over her shoulder, still laughing.
When he made it to the car, Ida was studying him. “That was nice of you to thank her.”
“You just told me this morning to thank people when they give me a gift.” He looked up at her as he slid into the passenger seat.
“I didn’t think you were listening.”
“I was listening. I’m capable of learning, Ida. I’m not a, what did she call me? Mountain man?”
Ida nodded, started the car and drove back in the direction of his house.
“And I wasn’t making a joke when I asked that question.” He wouldn’t normally keep the conversation going at a time like this, but he still felt dozy and loose from that scalp massage, his head leaned back on the seat and the scent of flowers in his nose.
“The one about your attractiveness?”
“Yeah.” He rolled his head to study her profile while he drove. “It’s not something I understand about humans yet. What they find attractive.”
“You can’t use your own feelings as a barometer for that?”
He didn’t know what a barometer was, but he got what she was asking.
“I know what I find attractive, but apparently, there’s a whole range of opinions. And sometimes I don’t realize something is attractive until someone else points it out.”
“Example, please,” Ida said as she switched lanes.
He didn’t want to give the example of Watt saying that Ida was a hot chick because he didn’t know whether or not that would be rude. He didn’t want to make Ida uncomfortable. And honestly, he didn’t want to talk to Ida about Watt, especially now that he knew they’d kissed. He cast about for another example he could use. “Like Wren’s hair. I assume she dyes it purple because there are people who find it attractive.”
“Well, I think she dyes her hair for her own reasons, mostly. But I can definitely tell you that she certainly has her fair share of admirers. When we go out together, she can barely walk ten feet without some guy or another trying to buy her a drink.”
He thought back on Wren’s thin form, her fox-like face and intelligent eyes. He guessed he understood the appeal there.
“So, you genuinely aren’t sure of your own level of attractiveness?”
Phoenix nodded, thought better of it, and cocked his head to one side. “Well. I’m pretty sure I’m good looking.”
Ida laughed again. “Oh, the wonders of growing up in the wilderness. You actually survived puberty without a damaged sense of self.” They pulled up to a stoplight and she too rolled her head to look at him. “Just so you don’t have to wonder anymore, yes, you’re significantly more attractive than other human males. You’re kind of a perfect specimen. But just like you said, there’s lots of ways to be attractive, so it doesn’t necessarily help anybody to start measuring against other people.”
He saw the wisdom in that. He stayed quiet, however, attempting to figure out why he was suddenly experiencing such a potently smug joy. Must be some sort of after-effect from the haircut.
“Like when you compared me to Rose,” Ida said. “If I were someone who measured my own worth against others, that might have really hurt my feelings. But I don’t really do that. I try to stay true to myself and understand what I’ve got. That way other people’s successes don’t equal failures for me. I got to be happy for Rose in that moment that you found her attractive. And I got to laugh, because you saying it like that was funny.”
Funny or not, the memory of it still made him feel like an ass. As a thought experiment, he pictured Watt kissing Rose. He found he didn’t really care.
He wanted to tell Ida that she was being too sweet to him. That she should have yelled at him. He wanted to say thank you for the scalp massage that had turned him into a wolf pup in her hands. He wanted to talk about the flavor of that candy from the other day. He wanted to know more about her kiss with Watt without having to bring it up.
He said none of that. “So, what’s the next thing on your list to convince me that human culture isn’t so terrible.”
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” she said to him, a sparkle in her eye. It was the kind of sparkle that he wanted to see better, closer. He realized that he wanted to take off her glasses and really look at her.
He was glad that he hadn’t been matched up with Rose.
CHAPTER FIVE
Quill was trying to be patient. He really was. But the girl wouldn’t speak. And frankly, he had way too much on his plate to put up with this.
He had five other mentees who actually wanted him around.
Dawn Wolf obviously wanted nothing more than for him to disappear from her life completely. Or for her to disappear from her life completely.
He’d never met someone who could sit more still than she could. Or who could blend in to the scenery like she could. Literally.
After the crash and burn of their first meeting together (a half an hour of excruciating one-sided conversation until he’d given up and dropped her back off at her house) Quill had decided that maybe the sitting across a table and chatting thing wasn’t for her. He took her to the Leach Botanical Garden where the two of them could wander the mossy green paths, admire the twisting, serpentine branches of the black-green trees. But he’d promptly lost track of her at least ten times. Seriously, if he hadn’t been a shifter and able to track her scent, he wouldn’t have seen her there, blending in with the scenery. Sure, she’d been wearing a green shirt. But her ability to hide herself, the sheer patience that it took, was really something to behold.
It was irritating the crap out of Quill. He hadn’t beco
me a mentor at New Day Center to babysit a girl who was incapable of interacting with humans on the most basic of levels. He’d taken this job, well, for a lot of reasons. But mostly so that he would be able to have a foothold in the shifter community in Portland.
It was important to him. And normally, he was pretty good at this job, always finding a way to connect with his clients. He played indoor soccer with the young hare shifter he’d started working with a year ago. He’d learned to play bridge so that he and Tabby, his oldest client by far, would have something to do during their sessions together. The list went on. He was a giver for god sakes.
Unfortunately, Dawn Wolf was not a taker and she was not making this easy on him.
They sat in his car, on their third session, and she stared straight ahead, her mass of dark hair falling in her face and shielding her from view. She seriously looked like that creepy girl from the horror movie whose hair was in her face all the time.
“Hungry?” he asked, knowing his question would go unacknowledged. “Thirsty? Are you breathing over there?”
Nothing. Not even a hair moved on that head.
He couldn’t hold back his sigh of frustration. “Fine. I’m gonna drive to Voodoo Doughnut and I’m going to eat them right here in this car. And you can have as many as you want. But you have to talk to me in order to get one.”
He wasn’t above bribery.
But half an hour later he sat in his car with a box of fresh doughnuts in his lap and she wasn’t saying a word. And he’d really gone all out with his order. He’d gotten a classic chocolate and a classic glazed and a classic sprinkles, of course. But he’d also sprung for an oreo doughnut, a grape and lavender doughnut, a fruit loops doughnut, a maple cream, a triple chocolate, a blueberry cake doughnut, and a lemon jelly. That was fifty bucks he’d just dropped on this chick! He didn’t even usually spend that much on a date!
Still, she stared straight ahead and did not speak.
In a fit of frustrated desperation, Quill lifted up the box and waggled it next to Dawn’s face, willing her to at least take a sniff.
“Okay. Let’s compromise. I can compromise. If you got to know me you’d see that I’m actually a really flexible guy. How about this? You don’t have to say a word. Not a single syllable. In order to get a doughnut, you just have to look at me. Acknowledge my existence. Come on, Dawn, I’m starting to feel like a ghost over here.”
He waited a moment, with very little hope in his heart, and was just pulling the box back when her nose dropped down. He still could only see her profile, but then she slowly, slowly turned her head to face him, moving more her gaze than her face. And then, for one moment, her eyes met his.
She blinked.
He blinked.
She reached for the maple cream doughnut and then faced back front.
For some reason, the ends of Quills fingers were tingling as he pulled the box back and dropped it on his lap.
She had green eyes. Very intelligent green eyes. Eyes that could see right through a man, deep into the heart of his every intention, every ambition.
His palms started to sweat.
He’d been pushing her, because that was who he was. But he knew now, quite clearly, that he was going to have to be careful with this one, lest she see right through him.
***
“Rose isn’t usually late to meetings,” Ida mused as she sat in the conference room across from Quill and adjacent to Diana.
Diana peered up over her glasses, a frown on her beautiful face. “Rose isn’t coming. She isn’t Orion’s mentor anymore.”
“Oh?” That was startling information. Once they were assigned a mentee, Diana usually did everything she could to keep the original pairing intact. She felt that bouncing clients around from one mentor to another undermined the process. It wasn’t always easy at the beginning, she was clear, but it was worth it in the end to stick together.
Rose, who was the most professional mentor that Ida could think of, hadn’t even lasted a week and a half with Orion.
“Really?” Quill asked. “What happened?”
Diana sighed and pushed her folder to one side. “The client is being … difficult. He didn’t feel that he and Rose were the right match and so he refused to meet with her in his human form.”
“He was shifting into his wolf form during their sessions?” Ida gaped at Diana. Though all of her clients were, obviously, shifters, Ida had seen very few of them actually shift. It wasn’t something that a shifter should do in front of others without their consent, and besides, they were working with their clients on human culture and etiquette. It defeated the whole purpose of their sessions.
Diana curtly nodded. “Rose felt that it was some sort of passive protest of his. She got sick of it. I don’t blame her. It was a waste of her time. We’ll find a different mentor for Orion.” She briskly re-stacked the folder in front of her, giving Ida time to admire the killer manicure she was rocking. “Now. I’d love a status update on you two. How are things going with Phoenix and Dawn? They aren’t giving you trouble, are they?”
Ida and Quill exchanged glances.
“I’m making progress,” Quill answered evasively.
“He’s not the easiest client I’ve ever had, but it’s definitely not a waste of time,” Ida chimed in when it was clear that Quill wasn’t going to be saying any more.
Diana looked back and forth between her two employees, a look of skepticism starting to bloom over her expression. “Well, aren’t you two suddenly the tactful mentors.”
Ida laughed. “I’m not trying to hide anything. Sure, he’s hard to please and he’s grumpy and unintentionally rude and doesn’t want anything to do with the human world. But our progress hasn’t stalled out.”
Diana’s eyes swung over to Quill. “No comment,” he said, smirking with that beautiful face of his. Diana raised an eyebrow and Quill huffed like an errant child. “Fine. She still isn’t talking to me, but now she’s piqued my competitive side and I’m determined to make her talk.”
Ida laughed. “You sound like an old school mobster. ‘Making her talk’ doesn’t sound quite as friendly as you might think it does.”
Quill laughed too. “She’s a hard nut to crack.”
“Well, I knew when I agreed to take them on that they wouldn’t be the easiest clients we’ve ever had. True shifters have so much more work to do than those who’ve been hiding in plain sight.”
“Can I ask how they came to be a part of the center?” Ida asked. It wasn’t really her business, but it was something she’d been wondering. After all, the center wasn’t free, and they’d never had true shifters before because true shifters didn’t have any money. Their clients were generally those with money of their own or who had some kind of benefactor.
“It’s a new government grant program that I’m taking advantage of,” Diana answered evasively.
It was clear that was all she was going to say on the matter.
“Well, thank you for the update,” Diana said. “I have a meeting I have to run to.”
And then she was up and gone, her heels clicking the way to her next meeting.
Ida and Quill sat across the table from one another and made eye contact. “Is yours as hard as mine?” he asked her, more willing to be candid now that the boss-lady was gone.
Ida thought back to yesterday’s meeting with Phoenix. It had been her third meeting with him and unfortunately, they hadn’t had time to do any fun human stuff. She’d had to take him to meet with the hospital registrar and then run him by the unemployment office to pick up his welfare check. It had not been a happy meeting. By the time she’d dropped him off back at his house he’d been giving her the full dead-eyed stare and barely speaking. She planned to make it up to him tomorrow morning. She had a very relaxing, very enjoyable human thing all lined up for them to do together.
“Yeah, he’s hard,” Ida admitted. “He’s got this dead-eyed stare thing that just reminds me of what he must be like as a wolf. Sometimes
it freaks me out.”
“Mine has freaky eyes too,” Quill said, his gaze on the table between them, his thoughts obviously racing. “Like she can see everything, knows everything, but just chooses not to comment.”
“Must be hereditary.”
“Or a wolf thing.”
Ida cocked her head at Quill. “It isn’t like you to make generalizations about other shifters.”
Quill stiffened a little in surprise and Ida wondered if she’d just put her foot in her mouth. She and Quill had never spoken before about the fact that he was a shifter. It was generally common knowledge, not like he hid it. And anyone who was truly watching could take a look at their mentor schedule and deduce that he took every single full moon off.
She knew that he wasn’t hiding it, or else he probably wouldn’t have taken a job at a shifter assimilation center, but still, people had a lot of reasons for why they might not want to talk about it openly. If not just for the fact that for centuries, being an unregistered shifter was illegal. And being a registered shifter meant living out your life in one of the government run shifter camps.
She knew that Quill had done just that. He’d been interned in one of the shifter camps and, as far as she knew, had no remaining family to speak of. She wasn’t sure if that meant that they’d been separated and never reunited, or if they’d perhaps passed away in the camp, the way so many shifters had. Or, perhaps worse, had abandoned him when they’d realized he was a shifter. Many parents didn’t have the fortitude to raise a shifter child and some even handed them directly over to the government. Maybe some of them believed that their children would live better lives in the shifter camps. It seemed terribly naive to Ida.
She was all too aware of the reasons that someone would be uncomfortable openly speaking about their status as a shifter, and calling that status out wasn’t something she would normally do. She instantly regretted it.
“Wolf shifters are notoriously hard to work with. You know that,” Quill said after a moment. “Whether it’s a stereotype or not, you have to admit they’re often moody. Territorial loners.” He paused. “Not that bear shifters are really any better. So I probably shouldn’t be talking.”
