Chapter Eight
May stared at their entwined hands. Sisu’s was large, tanned, warm, comforting. She could visualize herself holding it every day. Yielding to his strength, his confidence, his trust in this crazy thing about soulmates.
Every time she glanced his way, something inside her stirred. She wanted to get closer. She yearned for him. His touch. His scent. His proximity.
She hadn’t told him, but after the mind-blowing orgasm he’d given her in the entrance to her home, the ache had faded. When he was at her side, it subsided, changed into something malleable, something which whispered in her ear and urged her for more, enticing her to believe. Only when she thought of asking him to leave, did it violently rekindle.
She looked Sisu in the eye. There was no anger or fear in his gaze, only patience and understanding.
Tell him.
Her instinct spoke loud and clear. She had nothing to lose.
“You’re right, Sisu. I didn’t tell you the truth. But can you blame me? I hardly know you. Even though we share this.” She waved her arms in the air, struggling to find the appropriate words. “This connection. I know nothing about you and I grew up in a world where soulmates and insta-love doesn’t exist. That’s a myth left for romance novels.”
“It exists for us, sunshine.”
“Maybe, but I was brought up to believe soulmates was a term loosely used by men as a ruse to trick women into their beds.”
May sighed. It was time to come clean.
“My father was a shifter.”
Sisu’s eyes widened. He licked his lips.
“Go on,” he said.
“My parents had an off-and-on relationship for a year before my mother became pregnant. According to my mother, Killian, my father, didn’t really believe I was his child and, though he stayed until I was seven, their relationship was rocky to say the least.”
May swallowed the lump that formed in her throat every time she thought of her mother and father.
“When I was seven, my father left for good. I distinctly remember the day.”
May wiped at her eyes.
“He sat me down and told me he’d met someone, his soulmate.” She smiled through her tears. “He explained he wouldn’t be living with us anymore, but he’d keep in touch.”
“I never heard from him again.”
“Bastard.” Sisu growled. “Now I see your reluctance to believe in love.”
“There is more. My mother never recovered from my father’s abandonment. She slipped in and out of relationships. Every time one of them failed, she’d come to me. I spent all my life hearing stories about unworthy men who treated my mother like shit.”
Sisu tensed.
“That wasn’t everything. My mother didn’t hide the fact that Killian had been a shifter. Occasionally, she’d throw comments at me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Things like, thank goodness you’re not one of them, I’m glad you aren’t a freak. Those shifters are animals, dirty, dangerous beasts.”
“Between your mother and father, I can now see why you’re so averse to shifters,” Sisu said. His eyes blazed and the nerve in his jaw ticked.
Her phone started ringing again.
Sisu snarled. He sucked in his cheeks. “But all this still doesn’t explain—why were you hanging out with Alkaline?”
“Three years ago my mother became terminally ill. I cared for her until the end. The day before she died, she revealed she’d been lying to me all my life.”
May laughed derisively. “It’s taken me two years of ongoing therapy to get over that alone.”
Sisu stroked her forearm, giving her the necessary courage to continue.
“She admitted to having tricked my father into having a child. He’d been truthful to her from the start, but she’d ignored his warnings and had hoped to tie him down. She didn’t understand shifters would spend their lives searching for their one and only. Regardless of that, my father did love me. She confessed he had tried to keep in touch with me, see me, take me out, but she hadn’t let him. She destroyed any letters he sent me and eventually moved us away. In her delusion, she thought he’d find us, but he never did.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sisu tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. The feather-light touch made her shiver.
“This is where Alkaline and my step-brother come in. For months, I pondered on whether or not I should try to find my father. I only had his name and an old picture to go by. I did some research on the Internet, but the results were overwhelming.”
“So what did you do?”
“I knew my brother had been gambling with shifters, so I contacted him to ask for his help. I figured shifters would know other shifters, and it’d be easier that way. He put me in touch with Alkaline. He said they’d help narrow down my search and find him. I was supposed to give them the information I had the night we met.”
“Shit, I’m sorry, May. I fucked things up for you.” Sisu’s face fell. He passed a hand across his face.
“It’s okay, Sisu. I guess it’s why he’s calling me. “
“Is that why you were holding on to your purse all night? Because you had the picture and the information in there?” Sisu paused. “And money? I saw the bills when I grabbed your phone.”
May nodded.
“Yes, a thousand grand. It was the agreed-on price. Alkaline wasn’t going to help me out for free.”
“Shit.” Sisu pulled her into his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck, surprised at how natural the gesture felt.
“Now everything makes sense.” Sisu rubbed soothing circles across her back. “Including your pain.”
“My pain?” she repeated.
Sisu’s gaze didn’t waver.
“May, I think you might have shifter genes.”
May pulled back. “What? That’s impossible. I’m human. I’ve never changed into anything else.”
“Easy, sunshine. You might have never shifted because you didn’t know you could, or maybe you only have some shifter traits. After all, your mom was human, but the ache you tell me about, that’s what I felt when I first transformed. And even now, it’s a constant presence within me. It’s the beast in my soul, driving me onward. It has a voice of its own, which only I can understand and interpret. It’s wild and wonderful at the same time.”
Sisu cupped her cheek. “It’s nothing to be afraid of.”
May stared at the man in front of her. The thing within her swirled, squeezed her heart tightly, making itself known. What if he were right? What if she were a shifter? What would that imply to them? It’d explain her feelings, her sudden compulsion to be with this man. To hold him, kiss him, make love to him. Keep him as hers, forever. May swallowed.
Then, the phone rang.