“Nah. I’ll do this first one on my own. I’ll be back later to let you know what I found out.” Hashtag met Horvan’s gaze. “I’ll be here for dinner.” He grinned. “An address would be good.”
Rael got out his phone. “Put your number in here. I’ll send it to you.”
Hashtag quickly typed in his cell number. “There.” His eyes sparkled. “Send me loads of memes and you’re a dead man. I hate that shit.” Then he patted Rael’s cheek. “Don’t you worry. We’re gonna get your mate out of there,” he said quietly. “And you never know. I might go there and find out all I need real quick.”
Horvan smiled to himself. For all Hashtag’s brash manner and talk, he was a sensitive soul. Horvan walked with him to the front door. “Be safe.”
Hashtag held out his fist, and Horvan bumped it. “You know it. So point me in the right direction.”
Horvan snickered. “Head for the skyscrapers. The Global Bio-Tech building is one of those.”
Hashtag blinked. “You weren’t kidding. Your mate is on the top floor of a skyscraper?” His lips twitched. “Piece of cake, then.” His expression grew more somber. “You know you can rely on me. I might be a bit of a joker, but when the chips are down….”
Horvan knew it. “Go find out all you can.”
Hashtag nodded. He clasped hands with Horvan before heading up the steps to the street. When he was out of sight, Horvan came back inside.
“When we have a better idea of what’s going on, we’ll take turns doing the surveillance with Hashtag, if we need to,” Roadkill told him.
“So what do I do?” Rael demanded.
“Right now? There’s nothing you can do. And I know that feels awful, but we have to wait.” Horvan hated the weariness that stole over Rael’s face. “You really didn’t sleep that well last night, did you? Why don’t you go take a nap?” He indicated Crank and Roadkill. “These two are probably gonna play cards until Hashtag gets back. It’s not as if you’re missing anything.”
Rael nodded wearily. “A nap might be good.”
Horvan walked over to him and kissed him tenderly on the lips. “I’ll wake you if there’s any news or when it’s time to eat, whichever comes first.”
Rael smiled. You’d better. He headed for the bedroom.
As the door closed with a snick behind Rael, Roadkill cleared his throat. “Okay, can we talk? Because you gotta know we have a shitload of questions.”
Like Horvan hadn’t seen that coming. “Sure.” He joined Roadkill on the couch, and Crank sat on the coffee table facing them. “Fire away.”
“So how come you never told us?” Crank demanded. “Why keep it a secret? Have you always been able to do this?”
“How come nobody knows about shifters?” Roadkill chimed in.
Horvan held up his hands defensively. “Whoa, there. How about one question at a time?” He leaned back against the cushions. “As for how come no one knows about us, I was always told we were viewed as a myth. Maybe we should stay like that.”
“For God’s sake, why? I think it’s freaking awesome.” Crank chuckled. “Scary as hell, but awesome.”
Horvan shook his head. “Think about it for a second. Think how people react to things that frighten them. Other races, gays, et cetera. Mankind doesn’t have a good record when it comes to dealing with stuff that’s out of the ordinary. Sure, they might understand, but let’s be honest—who wants to test that theory?”
Roadkill gave him a speculative glance. “Have you met other shifters?”
“Sure. Not that many, but yeah.”
He smiled. “But how do you know they’re a shifter? Is there some secret handshake or something? A code sign you give each other?”
Horvan laughed. “We do it by smell.”
Crank wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, I can understand that. I can still smell that bear.” Roadkill whacked him on the leg, and he scowled. “Come on, don’t tell me you weren’t thinking the same thing.”
Roadkill ignored him. “What about kids?”
“What about them?”
“Well… if you had kids, would they be bears?”
“You only get shifter babies when you mate with a shifter. If I mated with a human, the babies would be human too. And as for whether or not they’d be bears, that would depend on who had the dominant gene.”
“Wait.” Crank’s eyes widened. “Shifters mate with humans?”
Horvan nodded. “A buddy of mine—he’s a bunny shifter—he mated with a human. A woman,” he added for clarity.
“A bunny shifter? For real?” Crank shook his head. “Now I’ve heard everything.”
Horvan chuckled. “They have eight kids.”
“She does know, right? That he’s a shifter?”
Horvan laughed. “Of course she does. Otherwise it might be difficult to explain why he disappears from time to time to go shift.”
Crank snorted. “Or why they’ve got eight kids.”
“Is that what you do? Shift now and again?” Roadkill asked.
Before Horvan could respond, Crank grinned. “Now I know why you live in that piddling little town. You’ve got all that space to shift in.”
Horvan nodded. “I have to be careful. There aren’t that many black bear sightings in Indiana.” He glared at Crank. “And watch what you say. I happen to like that ‘piddling little town.’”
Roadkill gazed at him thoughtfully. “When did you first shift?” He smiled. “Because I have visions of this cute little bear cub running around.”
“At the onset of puberty. That’s when I found out what I was. My parents are both bears. They took me on vacation to some god-awful remote spot. I’d been grousing the entire time about how there was nothing to do. Then I learned why we were there.” Horvan smiled. “It was the best vacation ever. Dad taught me to fish in the lake, and I spent most of the time in bear form. When it came time to go home, I didn’t want to go.”
“When you say he taught you to fish….” Roadkill laughed. “Suddenly I’m envisioning every bit of footage I’ve ever seen about bears catching salmon.”
Horvan chuckled. “Yup. Although we fished for trout, not salmon.” He smacked his lips. “Delicious.”
“I hate to stop you in full reminiscing mode, but you still haven’t answered my question.” Crank looked him in the eye. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
Horvan had known that one was coming. “If I’m honest? I was scared. I didn’t want you to look at me differently. I… I didn’t want to lose your trust.”
Roadkill smiled. “As if that was gonna happen.” He inclined his head toward the bedroom door. “So when did you meet Rael?”
Horvan grinned. “Yesterday.”
Crank’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? From the look of you two, anyone would think you’d been together ages.”
Horvan shrugged. “Maybe that’s because we’re mates. But like Rael says, don’t quote me. The first I knew about mates was when he turned up on my doorstep.” He glanced at the bedroom door. “Feels like I’ve known him a lot longer.” A feeling he couldn’t account for logically.