Boreas and Ginny hadn’t left each other’s side since that night. They’d spent every waking and sleeping moment together. Most of Ginny’s stuff had ended up at his place.

One morning, after breakfast, Ginny went back to her room to do her hair. Boreas followed her and blindfolded Ginny…but it wasn’t for a kinky reason.

“Okay, can I open my eyes now?” asked Ginny. “You show up at my hotel room with a blindfold and lead me outdoors. Either you’re kidnapping me, getting ready to harvest my organs, or you must really have something special planned.”

Boreas pulled Ginny closer and took off her blindfold. Ginny blinked, getting used to the light again. She hadn’t been able to see through the thick blindfold. She’d felt the ground beneath her feet change from soft carpet to hardwood to sand and then, gravel, and now, cobblestone. She’d smelled the world change, from the delicate floral scent of the hotel toiletries in her room to the smell of the fresh flowers blooming around the resort to the aromas of the hustle and bustle of the island around her. She smelled smoky and savory things that made her mouth water.

Ginny’s eyes finally adjusted to the light. Boreas had taken her to a market. It was filled with hustling, bustling folks, and he had a goofy grin on his face.

“What’s so funny?” asked Ginny.

“Nothing,” said Boreas. “You know, organ theft is usually reserved for the third date.”

“And what date are we on now?” asked Ginny, crossing her arms.

“Good point,” said Boreas. “I thought it might be nice to get out and have ourselves a day. There’s a festival today, The Pearl Festival.”

“The Pearl Festival?” asked Ginny. “Is this island known for its pearls?”

“To tell you the truth, I just saw a flyer for it, and thought you’d like it,” said Boreas.

“What, because girls like pearls?” asked Ginny. “That’s sexist!”

“Because of your necklace,” said Boreas, running his finger over Ginny’s cleavage to pick up her necklace. The silvery metal necklace was shaped like a round lattice. It had obviously held something at some point, something round – probably a pearl. There wasn’t a pearl in the necklace’s pendant anymore.

“You noticed that?” asked Ginny.

“You always wear it,” said Boreas, putting the necklace back down. “Obviously, there used to be something in it.”

“There was,” admitted Ginny.

“What was it?” asked Boreas.

“A pearl,” admitted Ginny, blushing. “Ugh. I hate it when you’re more observant than me! Aren’t women supposed to be the romantic gender?”

“Now who’s being sexist?” asked Boreas, taking Ginny’s hand and leading her into the lively street festival.

Vendors were hawking all manner of wares in a ragtag mess. Stands were selling grilled pineapple — imported to the island, not grown there. There were stands where Ginny could get her hair braided and decorated with local flowers if she’d so desired. There were artists selling paintings of the island, and artists sketching caricatures for a few bucks.

Ginny spotted something shiny in a booth and stopped to check it out. There was a store selling glassware.

“Come on,” said Ginny, leading Boreas into the store.

“I’d rather not,” said Boreas.

“What?” asked Ginny. “You allergic to glass or something?”

“I’m like a were-bull in a china shop,” said Boreas.

“Just be careful,” said Ginny. “Look with your eyes, Boreas, not with your hands.”

Boreas rolled his eyes. “That’s not the problem, but, whatever.”

Boreas followed Ginny into the tiny, jampacked stall. There were miniature glass figurines and wine glasses.

“Wow, look at this vase!” said Ginny, holding up a glass object that looked like a vase with far too many openings and parts to be practical. The glass had swirls of orange, purple, and green.

“I don’t think that’s a ‘vase,’” said Boreas.

“I know what it is,” said Ginny, putting the marijuana bong it down. “I am from California.”

“Anything in here catch your eye?” asked Boreas.

“What about that?” asked Ginny, pointing at a decanter and cup set.

Boreas looked at the set. He picked up the decanter. Just as he’d expected — the decanter wasn’t exactly made on the island. It was some mass-produced piece of junk.

“Not really my style,” said Boreas, putting down the decanter. “I am in the market for a nice decanter set…”

Ginny picked up the decanter and looked at the bottom. There was a label saying the piece wasn’t even made on the island but made somewhere else. She understood Boreas’ apprehension.

“Alright, let’s go on,” said Ginny.

Ginny and Boreas went through the market and bought some piña coladas to enjoy on their stroll. They stopped at a sunglass stand and picked out some goofy sunglasses for each other. Boreas walked through the streets with a pair of red heart sunglasses while Ginny wore a pair of goofy New Year’s Eve glasses from the New Year’s Eve 2000.

“Ooh,” said Ginny, lowering her funky glasses. “Are those what I think they are?”

“Well, it is The Pearl Festival,” said Boreas.

Ginny and Boreas walked over to a large stall with tons of display cases. Inside each case, there were pearls, in varying shapes and sizes and colors. There were ebony pearls that seemed gray and blue in certain light, perfectly round, that made Ginny think about Boreas’ black sand beach. There were tear-dropped shaped pearls in pale pink that reminded Ginny of the inside of a clam — and which reminded Boreas of the inside of Ginny’s ‘clam.’

Most beautifully of all, there were beautiful red pearls. They were in all kinds of shapes. Most were round.

“Wow,” said Ginny. “I’ve never seen anything like that!”

“Well, hello,” said the woman running the booth, who had a nametag reading ‘Ruby.’ “I see you found the diamonds of my pearl collection.”

“What are they?” asked Ginny.

“They’re dravrah pearls,” explained Ruby. “They’re very rare. They come from the dravrah oyster — a bright red and orange oyster from which the pearl gets its name. The oyster can only be found on this island.”

“Wow,” said Ginny. “They look so beautiful…but, they’re out of my price range.”

“No, they’re not,” said Boreas, passing Ruby a black credit card.

“Boreas!” hissed Ginny. “I can’t let you pay for a pearl!”

“Consider it a gift — a pearl for my pearl,” said Boreas.

“You two are a cute couple,” said Ruby.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” said Boreas, kissing the top of Ginny’s head.

“Wait…we’re a couple?” asked Ginny, looking up at Boreas with wide eyes.

“Look, do you see me buying any other girl a pearl?” asked Boreas. “Just as that pearl will be yours, so is my heart.”

The woman opened the display case.

“Just pick out the one you want, and I can charge the card,” said Ruby.

Ginny picked out the pearl she’d been looking at, one that was bright red and orange with licks of yellow. She picked it up and at once, her heart fell.

“You know…I think we’re going to look around a bit,” said Ginny, putting down the pearl.

“Babe, I saw the way you looked at it,” said Boreas.

“I can’t let you buy it,” said Ginny.

“What do you mean?” asked Boreas.

“I mean…I can’t let you buy it,” hissed Ginny.

“Ginny, I can afford it,” said Boreas. “Money’s no object.”

“Boreas, it’s made of glass,” Ginny blurted out.

Ruby put her hand up to her mouth.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but, these pearls are made of glass,” said Ginny. “I can’t let my man pay that price for them.”

“They are not made of glass!” Ruby shouted. “Well, in all my years, I never —”

“Ruby, give it a rest!” said another voice. Ginny and Boreas turned. A man running a booth next to the pearl booth was smoking a cigarette. He put it out and got up.

“So they are glass?” asked Boreas, looking between Ruby and the man, whose nametag read ‘Jax.’

“Yeah, they’re glass,” said Jax. “I should know — I’m the one who helped Ruby find her first supplier, after all, back when we were married. I’m Jax. I run a fishing boat.”

“‘The Ruby,’” said Ruby, rolling her eyes. “I can’t believe it’s still named after me.”

“It ain’t named after you no more,” said Jax. “It’s named after the color of the pearls! You see, the dravrah pearls…they’re real, even if those are fake. You want those pearls, you gotta go get them yourself.”

Jax passed Boreas a flyer. Boreas looked over it. There were details about where to find the boat, how to book a tour, and what the oysters looked like.

“They’re not real,” said Ruby, crossing her arms. “You just took some pictures of spiny clams, and now, you’re pretending they’re oysters!”

Boreas and Ginny left and let the divorced couple squabble over the pearls.

“Well, you and I both ended up without anything,” said Ginny. “At least we have our funky sunglasses.”

“How did you know the pearls were fake?” asked Ginny.

“Because I know what glass pearls feel like,” said Ginny. “That’s all.”

Technically, Ginny wasn’t lying.

So why was telling only part of the truth twisting her stomach up into knots?

Ginny and Boreas got some grilled pineapple and went to the park. They were eating their grilled pineapple, Boreas’ free arm around Ginny’s thick, plush shoulders, on the bench when a familiar figure came by.

It was none other…than douchey Paul. He was arm in arm with a very giggly woman.

“Well, well,” said Paul. “It looks like you two are a couple after all.”

“Yup,” said Boreas, gripping Ginny tightly. “That’s what we said.”

“Well, why don’t we go on a double date?” asked Paul.

“No thanks,” said Ginny.

“Come on,” said Paul, reaching out to lightly punch Ginny’s arm. “It’ll be fun.”

Boreas stood up and grabbed Paul by the shirt.

“I thought I taught you a lesson the last time,” said Boreas, snarling the words right in Paul’s face. “I thought the lesson would stick. Never touch my woman. Ever.”

“Or what?” asked Paul with a smirk.

“Or I might just have to teach you the lesson in another way,” said Boreas, pushing Paul down to the ground. “Class is in session.”

The man went down, but, what came up was no man.

What came up was a frikkin’ big cat. A brown animal with a mottled coat in shades of black, brown, and white, with large spots and dots, it was smaller than a lion but bigger than a house cat. Paul was a cloud leopard shifter.

The cat pounced at Boreas, scratching him right across the chest!

Boreas hadn’t wanted to expose his secret to Ginny, not this soon, but now, there was no choice. He wasn’t about to let some feral alley cat attack his woman.

Boreas felt a shiver run down his spine. Few things could make him feel a chill, especially under a hot tropical sun. His own inner cold was expanding outward, covering his body with ice. Inside, his body shrank, covering with feathers, in black, and white, and…in yellow. He became very short and squat, soft and round. A yellow beak appeared on his face, and his feet became flat and webbed.

Most people expected an ice elemental like Boreas to turn into a polar bear.

But, there were no polar bears in Boreas’ domain of Antarctica.

What Antarctica did have was penguins.

It also had rocks.

That’s why Boreas was able to turn into a rockhopper penguin.

Boreas’ shift was as tiny as its long yellow ear-feathers were adorable. The small penguin was squat and sported a permanent frown, but it looked just like a huggable plush toy. Its beak was reddish-orange as if the penguin was wearing some very on-trend lipstick, and its tiny webbed feet were piggy pink.

And boy – could that penguin hop on some rocks!

The leopard had been distracted by Boreas’ transformation. Boreas was still in command of his ice powers even though he was in the form of an ice bird. Boreas turned the ice statue of his body into a pile of slush and walked out of it.

When the leopard saw Boreas’ shift, he laughed so hard that one might’ve mistaken the cloud leopard for a hyena.

How was Boreas going to fight him, when, according to Paul’s leopard, Boreas was just an ice chicken?

Ginny had been watching Boreas and Paul’s exchange, but, was interrupted by a slap to the face, just as Boreas had started to shift.

“Ow!” shouted Ginny, looking at the source of the slap. “What was that for?”

“You’re just a dumb slut who’s trying to steal my man!” said the woman. “This is a single’s resort, not a bitch resort!”

“Am I a slut, or am I a bitch?” asked Ginny, raising an eyebrow. “Or am I both? I suppose I am an overachiever…given I was able to seduce my man and yours — not that I wanted yours.”

The woman raised her hand to hit Ginny again. As her hand came down, Ginny couldn’t hold back. A familiar heat passed through her body, and it wasn’t from the tropical sun. Ginny’s inner fire was coming out to play.

First, Ginny’s body covered in flames. Dancing red, orange, and yellow, the fire swirled around Ginny like silks around a dancer. The woman who’d slapped Ginny let her hand fall to her side as she gaped at the sight in front of her.

Then, Ginny shifted.

Ginny’s animal roared. It wasn’t about to let the woman strike Ginny again.

Ginny had sugared off pretty much everything below the eyelashes before vacation. In mere seconds, Ginny sprouted enough hair to scare an esthetician, all over her body — and not just on the bits she’d shaved before her trip to the Pacific Islands.

Hair sprouted out of her fingers and toes — thick, brown hair. Her nails turned longer, whiter, and sharper.

Hair sprouted on her face as it changed, revealing a snout.

As Ginny shifted, so did the woman across from her — turning into a tigress.

Of course, the cattiest couple at the single’s resort would find one another. Of course.

The flames dissipated. Where Ginny had been, there was now something big and brown, that could’ve been mistaken for a grizzly.

It was a bear — a Syrian brown bear, to be specific, a shift that had been passed down in Ginny’s family for generations.

The fight was tiger versus bear. The only thing missing was a lion, and given the events of the afternoon, Ginny wouldn’t have been surprised if one popped out of the crowd to fight alongside the big cats.

The tiger made a move toward the penguin. Ginny saw red. Not only was the bigger, stronger animal going after the naturally smaller, weaker animal — as Boreas was apparently a tiny penguin with no powers like Ginny’s — but, it was making it into a two-against-one fight. Ginny got between the tiger and the teeny tiny penguin, which didn’t even stand a full two feet tall!

Ginny swiped at the tiger, returning the slap from earlier. Then, before the tiger could react, Ginny swiped at it again, giving the tiger a second slap! The tigress hadn’t gotten that second slap in, but she’d tried to, and where Ginny came from, that was just as bad.

The tigress had gotten in dozens of fights before — at nightclubs, nail salons, and the DMV.

She’d fought bears before.

She’d never met a bear whose paws felt like hot coals, whose claws felt like branding irons.

Boreas stood his ground. With Ginny in control of the situation with the tigress, Boreas could focus his attention on douchey Paul.

Boreas had promised Paul he’d teach him a lesson

Well, he was a penguin, so he was already dressed up like a formal college professor.

It was time for the lesson to begin.

Paul lunged for Boreas. In doing so, the leopard leaned forward.

So Boreas did what rockhoppers do best.

He hopped.

He hopped right on to the back of Paul’s back, and he pecked Paul right on the head. When Paul reached up to swipe Boreas, Boreas hopped again.

It was like playing jump rope, except instead of rope, Boreas was jumping over a cat’s limbs that could rip him into shreds and turn him into a pulled penguin sandwich if he made the wrong move.

Boreas used his powers to summon a thin layer of snow around his body and quickly, it turned into ice.

When the leopard swung its tail forward to try and capture Boreas, Boreas’ wet, slick body slipped out of the leopard’s grasp!

Boreas hopped back down on the leopard’s head.

And Boreas reached forward to peck the leopard right on the nose.

Now, the leopard wasn’t just angry.

Now, the leopard was pissed.

The leopard shook Boreas off and yowled at it. It leaped forward, paws ready to capture Boreas, but, Boreas jumped.

This time, Boreas didn’t just jump.

He flew.

The idea that penguin are flightless birds is a stereotype Boreas worked hard to combat. Boreas’ wind powers weren’t his primary magical focus, but he had the most essential wind-related skill down — the power of flight.

As Boreas flew above the leopard, the leopards mouth gaped open as it stared at the flying ice chicken.

While the leopard was distracted, Boreas summoned a sheet of ice beneath the leopard.

Then, Boreas did one of the things that penguins did best.

He divebombed — through the air, rather than through water, and his prey wasn’t a tasty fish, but a mangy alley cat.

The leopard saw the penguin coming down at him like a hawk, like a bird of prey, but as he moved to escape, his paws and claws scrambled on the ice, and he twisted himself up into knots!

Boreas came down and pecked the leopard right on the nose — lightly.

The leopard had learned the lesson — don’t fuck with a penguin.

As it struggled to escape, Boreas showed the leopard mercy and made the ice sheet turn into snow that quickly melted under the tropical sun.

The leopard, in turn, made himself scarce and ran off – a scaredy big cat. Boreas cackled a little penguin laugh to himself, patting his small fins against his side as he wondered where Paul would end up, naked, embarrassed, and beaten up by a penguin.

Boreas shifted back into his human form. As his feathers receded, his form grew taller. The hair on his arms came back out. His beak disappeared, replaced with his normal human nose and lips. His stubble came back. The rockhopper penguin was no more. Left in place was an emperor — not an emperor penguin, but an emperor of ice, a guardian of a secret he’d just exposed to a woman he was sure couldn’t accept him for what he was — a teeny weeny icy bird with magic powers. He was more than just a shifter. How would he explain what she saw, or the fact his clothes hadn’t torn when he shifted? The latter could be explained by the fact his shift was teeny tiny, but the rest had a far more complicated answer.

Ginny roared in the face of the tigress. Billows of black smoke were released from Ginny’s nostrils as sparks flew from her mouth, singeing the tigress’ fur like a comedian roasting a celebrity on television.

The tigress started to back off, but that wasn’t good enough for Ginny. She wasn’t just going to stand her ground. She plodded forward with one big step and roared again.

The tigress felt Ginny’s flames lick at her fur. In fear of getting set on fire, she took off.

The funny thing was Ginny hadn’t breathed pure fire at the tigress. She’d reached out to lick her, to gross her out! It just happened to feel a whole lot like a flame licking at the tigress’ fur, given how Ginny’s tongue was quite hot and wet.

Ginny took off like a shot, running after the tigress with impressive speed, roaring all the while.

Ginny was singing her favorite song, the one she would sing in the cafe when she was sweeping up the floors just minutes before closing up the cafe.

Of course, the song sounded far more menacing in bear, as all Ginny’s bear could produce was a nightmarish series of growls, roars, and snarls.

Once Ginny had chased the big striped cat past the bounds of the park, she shifted back into her human form, behind a tree.

Never before had Ginny been so grateful that her powers allowed her the gift of keeping her dang clothes when she shifted. While that tigress and the cloud leopard would be naked when they turned back into humans, Ginny’s powers preserved her clothing when she changed.

Ginny looked out from behind the tree, hoping Boreas hadn’t noticed her odd powers. She knew that there was no way he’d missed them. He’d have questions, and she had answers…just answers that she hadn’t planned on giving just yet, to questions she hoped wouldn’t be asked for a while longer.

She spotted Boreas back by the bench, in his clothing. She smiled. He had a small shift — of course, his clothing hadn’t burst when he shifted. It must’ve been in a pile by the bench.

Boreas saw Ginny approaching him from across the park. He realized he had no idea what he could say to her to explain what she must’ve seen him do, what she must’ve seen him become.

After all, she was a smart woman. She was a bear shifter, but she was already wearing her clothes. She must’ve carried them in her mouth when she’d chased the tigress away. If she had that level of foresight, then there was no way that she hadn’t figured out Boreas’ big secret.

The only thing worse than saying nothing would be saying the wrong thing, scaring her away.

“Ginny, I need to leave,” said Boreas, shaking his head. “I…I just have to go.”

Ginny was shocked. Had her powers really managed to scare Boreas away? She had been sure he’d understand what she was, or that he could understand if he’d give her a chance to explain everything.

But Boreas was rejecting her. Apparently, their cute dates, their time spent in the sheets, had meant nothing to him, at least, once he’d seen what she was…once he’d seen what she could become.

“Boreas, wait!” said Ginny, running up to Boreas to put her hand on Boreas’ shoulder, the shoulder that had always felt so cold to her. This time, Boreas was literally giving Ginny the cold shoulder.

But, before Ginny could say that she could explain herself to Boreas, that she could explain what he’d seen, Boreas pulled away from Ginny’s hot hand.

“I can’t,” said Boreas, shaking his head as he turned away. He walked through the park, novelty sunglasses on, and considered whether he’d really avoided disaster…or whether he’d been wrong and that by turning a cold shoulder to Ginny, he’d closed the door on their relationship forever.

Ginny reached out and then, pulled her hand back, realizing that she couldn’t make someone listen. All she could do was be there when they finally wanted to hear her side of things.

And Ginny was sure that if Boreas came to his senses, he’d figure out just where to find her.