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Rebby
Shifters mate for life?! How cool is that! Maybe this won’t be such a bad deal. Well minus the fact that I am some weird animal creation for all but three days a month.
“Rebby, where did you grow up?” Tristan asks. I turn to look at him and he is kinda cute. He has that boy-next-door look with dark, chocolate brown hair and to-die-for, melt your panties brown eyes. He also is in awesome shape. It must be a shifter thing because what I saw of the lab-created shifters they all had pretty decent bodies, and my own body has become a bit more toned since being changed.
“Um, not much to tell. I was going home⸺or to the town I knew as home⸺to see some high school friends, my sisters really. I grew up in the foster care system, so didn’t really have the best childhood until I was placed with Granny. That’s what she wanted her kids to call her. She was an older woman who, every few years would take in a couple older kids and pour love on us. She is the reason I became an art teacher.”
“But you weren’t going to see her?” Theo asks quietly.
I shake my head and wipe a tear away. “No, she died three years ago. One day she was fine and then the next she wasn’t. Turned out she had a really aggressive form of cancer.” I clench my fists. “She didn’t even fight it. Said that if the good Lord was calling her home, who was she to argue.”
Theo places his hand on my leg. “I’m sorry. She sounds like she was a great woman.”
“She was.” I smile sadly at the memory of Granny, then start in shock. “Oh no! My sisters; they think I am dead!”
Theo squeezes my leg. “We will have to talk with James and figure out what and how to tell them. Humans aren’t really aware of shifters, so we need to be careful.”
“Yeah, I don’t care to have our names branded across the media and have the public go on a rampage armed with silver weapons,” Tristan snorts.
“My sisters would...” My voice dies away as I look at Theo’s raised eyebrow.
“Wouldn’t they? What person would willingly keep our secrets when they could sell them out? No, it isn’t a risk we can take.”
I nod my head, understanding but not understanding what he is saying. I can’t believe that they would do something that might result in me being hurt. But then again, I am not as close to them as when we lived with Granny. Ginger is the youngest and spent the least time with Granny. She was still rough around the edges and had to go to a different home for two years until she aged out of the system.
Amber was a year older than me. Instead of going to college and making something of herself like Granny wanted, she got a job at the local supermarket and moved in with her boyfriend. Last I heard he didn’t have a job and spent what little money they had on booze and smokes.
Maybe the guys are right in being cautious.
“So what do you like to do for fun? Skinny dipping at night?” Tristan wiggles his eyebrows at me as he says it, causing me to laugh.
“Nope, not that I can remember doing. I kinda like having my clothes on.” I don’t add on that I had learned this lesson early on in some of the foster homes. Either the husband would be a little grabby hands or one of the other teens were. Best to keep my clothes on and my body covered up.
“Come on! Really? You can’t be much over 22 and you have never skinny dipped?” Tristan throws himself back on the blanket comically. “What is this world coming to when hot girls don’t skinny dip?”
Theo swats Tristan’s stomach hard enough to make him gasp. “Stop being an ass. Not all girls are as loose as those you hung out with in high school and college.”
Tristan covers his heart. “I’m hurt, man. After all I do for you, you call my girls loose.”
Their antics have me giggling so much that I don’t hear the approach of James and the girl with him.
“You must be the mystery shifter.” The girl smiles down at me. “I’m Jenny and I come bearing gifts.” She holds up a bag from a big box store. “Let’s ditch these guys and get you into something more comfortable.”
I jump up and follow her to the house I had seen when I came in. Wearing clothes for the first time in over a year will be a novelty.