Chapter Seven
Her head didn't hurt as bad as she expected it to. Becky laid still, her eyes shut tight as consciousness came trickling back to her. Her head felt a little stuffy but she wasn't sure if it was a hangover or… She inhaled deeply. Nope. It wasn’t a hangover. And, it wasn’t just a weird drunk dream. Being attacked by bears, finding out Isaias was a bear as well, continually putting her foot in her mouth, and then the cops showing up and Isaias getting a condo-style hotel suite for the four of them… It was all real.
Her leg throbbed and Luci babbled. Becky swallowed hard as she sat up. Her stomach churned as she glanced at the bandage on her leg. Across the room, Adela was stirring in her queen-sized bed. The baby lay in a cradle beside that bed.
"I can get her," Becky said, testing her weight on her leg. It ached but not so much that she couldn’t walk on it.
Adela smiled at her before worming her way deeper under the blankets. Becky picked up Luci and carried her out, careful to make sure to keep her balance. There were noises from below and when she went down the stairs she found Isaias already up, mixing some pancake batter.
"Hi," Becky said awkwardly, limping towards the diaper bag sitting on the floor. "How… how are you?”
"Fine."
He was shirtless, revealing that the bloody tears in his skin from last night were nothing more than puckered, scabbed lines now. Of course. Shifters healed significantly faster than non-shifters, and could even regenerate dead tissue, to a point. She sat on the floor to change Luci's diaper while watching him. He didn't look at her, something that made her wince. Even if they were only fake engaged, she didn't like that it had come out like this…
"Isaias…"
He glanced at her.
"I'm sorry for what I said last night. I might have been drunk and in shock, but I still shouldn't have said it. I'm really sorry."
Isaias continued to mix the pancakes, not looking at her. She ducked her head, blinking away tears. Even though she didn't remember exactly what she had said, she knew that it had been somewhat aggressive. She finished changing Luci and washed her hands before looking in the fridge for a bottle. Her leg throbbed and she let out a pained hiss.
"Go sit down, I'll get her bottle."
Isaias gripped her elbow and walked her to the couch before returning to the fridge. He prepped Luci's bottle and returned. Once she was settled, feeding the baby, Becky glanced at him. He crouched beside her.
"So. Now that you know my secret, what happens now?"
Becky stared at him. "What do you mean?"
"Well, are we still fake engaged? Or are you upset that I hid that from you?"
"Uh…" She shifted Luci slightly, not sure how to respond to that. "Well… I mean, you were under no obligation to tell me. There are things about myself that I’ve never told you. So I don't think it would be fair of me to be mad at you, you know? There are things that I've never told anybody. Not even my own family."
Her expression darkened as she considered it. Her secrets were different from his, but she at least had a small idea of what he was going through when he had decided to keep his nature hidden from the world. There were plenty of people who thought that shifters ought to be forced to take part in some sort of registry, as though they were dangers to society. These people loved to point out all the well-publicized crimes that shifters committed. For each of those shifters that broke the law, they never mentioned the many thousands of shifters who just wanted to live their lives. Not to mention that non-shifter crimes weren't toted as 'Non-Shifter Commits Heinous Act' like it was with Shifters.
Isaias nudged her knee with his closed hand. "You know my secret. Tell me one of yours."
"Oh." Becky ducked her head, mind whirling. There were a few things that she could tell him but nothing that was at the same level of his. She sucked in a deep breath. "Okay. I'm… I'm bisexual. I can be attracted to both men and women, although I have a strong preference for men. For a while I thought I was demi but then I realized I was just repressing my natural inclinations due to the way I was brought up. Where anything vaguely sexual was evil and being called 'hot' meant that you were dressing too provocatively."
Isaias' brow furrowed. "Demi? Like a god?"
"What?" Becky had to laugh until she saw he was serious. "No. Demi sexual. It's when somebody requires a certain level of emotional intimacy before they develop a sexual desire for someone."
"Wait, there's a name for that?" Isaias's eyes widened. "I just thought that there was something wrong with me."
Becky's eyes widened. He was demi? "Well, you know, the way society is… sex is so often portrayed as the end all to relationships."
Isaias tilted his head. "Huh. Well it's something to think about. But that's beside the point. Being bisexual and being a shifter are two different things. Maybe some overlap, but your parents would never be murdered for your sexual orientation. Mine were. Because I'm a shifter, because my father was a shifter. My mother wasn't, but that didn't matter to their killer. She was killed anyway. Have you ever been afraid of being killed if you revealed your secret?"
Becky shook her head. "No."
He turned away.
"But I've always been afraid that my family will cut contact and disown me if I told them," she was quick to add. "We came from a very religious background and they have no tolerance for anybody who's not heterosexual. It's one of the reasons I decided to distance myself from them. But for so long they were the only support system I had and even now I just… I know it's not the same. And that wasn't really the point. But if I can't share that part of me when it's becoming more acceptable to be openly LGBT, then how can I expect you to share the fact that you're a shifter with me? I mean… we're not even a real couple."
Isaias studied her for a moment. She ducked her head again, checking how much Luci had left in her bottle. The baby stared up at her with amber eyes, so trusting and innocent. Adela would probably be up soon but Luci had been awake until nearly three and so the longer Adela could sleep, the better. Especially after the night they had.
She let out the breath she was holding when Isaias returned to the pancakes. He ladled some batter onto the griddle, washing and slicing fresh strawberries while the pancakes cooked. Luci finished her bottle quickly and Becky played patty cake with her for a little bit before setting her on her feet. She was still wobbly as she took a few tentative steps to the coffee table and started to bang her hands on it.
"Do you want me to put her in her highchair?" Isaias put a few strawberries on a small plate for Luci.
"Maybe. Yeah. Please. My leg's still pretty tender."
They had gone to the hospital to get it professionally cleaned and bandaged. She shifted, putting it up on the sofa and sighed. "I really am sorry for what I said last night. I didn't mean to freak out the way I did. It was a surprise but…"
"I know. And it's not the worst thing that's been said to me. We were all stressed and I might have read into your words too much." Isaias settled Luci into her high chair and gave her the strawberries before returning to Becky. He picked her up, earning a yelp, and carried her to the table before setting a plate of pancakes in front of her. "So, your family was religious?"
She didn't really want to talk about them, but she knew something that he didn't want to talk about, either. "Highly conservative religious. So much so that when my mom first caught me reading a book with a vague sex scene in it she refused to let me read anything but the bible for a month. But then, they never did seem to care about me unless I was straying from their path."
"I'm sorry. I know what that's like. My mother… she hated the fact that I was a shifter. She and my dad never meant to get together but she got pregnant and they decided they had to get married. My life would have been much better in those early years if they'd just gotten divorced." Isaias sat down. "Like the pancakes?"
"Oh!" She hurried to take a bite. "They're great.
"Good."
"Why do you think those bears were coming after me? They don't want to kill me or I'd be dead already. Do you think maybe they just wanted me to know you were a shifter?"
If that was the case, they'd have no reason to come after her again.
Isaias picked up Luci. "I doubt it. More likely they were trying to kidnap you or something. Trying to get a ransom."
Becky shuddered. "But now that they've been thwarted twice they'll give up, right?"
"Probably." He added a generous amount of syrup to his pancakes. "They were after you before we announced our fake engagement, so I'm guessing that was their original attempt. There might be more to it now, but I doubt it. If they're acting like this they're probably not part of the clan."
"Probably not? Why would the clan want to kidnap me?"
He leaned his elbows on the table. "Remember when I said I didn't like the way women were throwing themselves at me? In bear society we're highly matriarchal. Everything is decided by having mates and with my money, being married, even if I'm not married to another bear, would increase my prestige immensely. Some of the other men might feel threatened by our marriage. And some of the women might still be hoping to woo me. I don't know."
"I never knew that about bears. Are you all matriarchically led or just your clan?"
"Most of us are."
She slumped back, dismayed. "All my books are wrong. I've talked with shifters to get my characters as realistic as possible but I always just assumed… Obviously, I never did enough research." Her eyes lit up as Isaias stuffed a whole pancake in his mouth. "I've got you now, though. You can help me write this book, so that I get the details right."
Isaias' brows rose. "You want me to consult?"
"Yeah. I want to get it right. I want to change the way people see things with my writing. I want to speak to people who can't find themselves in most mainstream media. Please?" She clasped her hands and widened her eyes. "I know I've received praise for my shifter characters but shifter groups have criticized them, too. You can read my book before I send it to my publisher and then we can work together to make it better. Pleeease."
Isaias half-smiled at her. "You know what? Yeah. I can do that."
"Thanks." Becky beamed at him.
Luci dumped her strawberries on the floor and laughed. Becky sighed as she bent to pick them up.