Xan grabbed my hand and squeezed it gently, letting me know he understood where I was at.
“I am Devlin’s niece,” I told him. “I’m a caster like my uncle and my mom, but I’m a shifter too. My father was a dragon shifter, so I’m both.”
I raised my chin and kept my eyes on Benson, showing I was telling the whole truth.
He laughed and Trey joined in with him.
“Nah. That can’t be right,” Benson smirked. “There are no half-breeds.”
I shrugged my shoulders and took a step forward. “Believe what you want. I really don’t care.” I looked at Grayson than up to Xan. “Excuse me, guys. I need to work on shifting at will, and my mate needs to help me.”
I turned and began walking, tugging Xander behind me.
“That bitch has to be lying,” the shifter with a death wish said a little too loud.
Xan stopped walking and tried to turn around, but I kept pulling him forward.
“Would you shut the fuck up?” I heard Grayson reply to his friend. “I know for a fact she’s not lying, man. And now you’ve gone and pissed off her big dragon mate with your stupidity.”
There was a beat of silence then I heard Benson’s annoying voice from a little further away.
“What do you mean you know for a fact? How do you know?”
“Shut up, Ben!”
That came from a different voice, probably Trey, as the three walked back into the house.
I took in a deep breath and let it out, letting the stress flow out of me once we met a large cropping of trees next to the rocks that overlooked the rolling waves below us.
“You didn’t have to tell them,” Xan turned his penetrating gaze on me. “Why did you do it?”
“Because, like you said yesterday, the more people who know a secret, the harder it is to keep. A few people here already know at least part of my truth and I wanted to control the narrative. If people are going to talk about me, I want it to be the truth. They’re already scared of us, and I still believe we need help. More now than ever.” I wrapped my arms around his waist and looked up at him. “Please tell me you are still with me. I need your support as much as I need you.”
He moved his hand from my waist and flicked me on the arm. I winced and backed away from him, rubbing the sore spot on my bicep.
“Fucker! Why did you do that?”
He leaned back against a tree and crossed his arms, annoyed. “Oh, that hurt, did it?”
“You know it did!” I was getting pissed off.
“Don’t ever ask me if I’m still with you ever again, you hear me? That shit hurt more than my flick on your arm. I don’t deserve your doubt. Not now or ever.”
My anger simmered when I realized what I had said with my question. I didn’t mean it like it sounded. I never really doubted him. I just needed reassurance.
I looked down at the ground. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I know you are with me. I, I just, I don’t know. Honey, I’m scared, terrified even. I just wanted to hear you say it out loud so your words could help me feel better. I’ve always been alone. It’s hard to get used to the fact I have someone who loves me unconditionally, and I needed reassurance. I won’t ever ask again, okay?”
I peeked up at him and saw his expression had softened.
“Well then, I’ll make sure to tell you how much I love you every chance I can then. Does that sound good to you?”
I fell into his arms and nodded into his chest. No crying because I was done with crying, but the emotion sat heavy between us.
He loved me. He loved me. I kept repeating the words over and over in my head, hoping they would sink in and I would just believe it.
Several minutes passed as my mate held me. Neither of us spoke or even shifted our positions as the wind whipped around us.
“Do you really want to work on shifting?” he then asked. “Because I’d be more than happy to help. I know how much your dragon likes me.”
My dragon nudged against my subconscious at our mate’s words and I lightly laughed. She really was a big softie for him. She snorted at me, but I knew there wasn’t any heat behind it. She knew I was being truthful.
“She loves you almost as much as I do,” I smiled. She began rumbling in my chest at the almost part and I laughed out loud.
“I bet she loved that you just said that, huh?” He laughed with me.
“Oh yeah. But I don’t think fully shifting is a good idea right now, do you? Besides, I think I have that down. Can you help me partially shift? I haven’t done that before.”
He chuckled again. “Yeah, I can do that.”
* * *
Six days went by in the house, and Xander and I settled in as much as we could. After our little run-in with Benson, word spread quickly about who and what I was. I knew it would happen like that, because that’s how people were. They loved gossip, but at least I got a bit of my story out there myself.
The residents of the house were a little more scared of me at first, then they became curious, and eventually accepting when they saw I was essentially harmless. Well, harmless enough anyway.
Though the biggest surprise was Grayson’s girlfriend, Camille. She approached me the day after I told Benson and Trey what I was and asked if it were true. I told her it was and she just nodded her head and walked away. No attitude. Just curiosity.
The day after that, she sat next to me at breakfast and invited me to a casting circle
