Shift

  Estilorians didn’t have issues with privacy, but there was a certain expectation regarding the respect of personal space. There wasn’t such a concept when it came to the Kynzesti homeland. Family was family, they said, and Quincy had always been the equivalent of family.

  While he was honored by this distinction, he knew now that this contributed a great deal toward him failing to express his true feelings to Sophia. His love for her had begun when she was so young, as had his undeniable attraction to her. She had captured his heart with her unquenchable curiosity and sharp intelligence, then had all but slain him with her beauty when she grew into her mature form.

  He had known that she—never mind her parents—wouldn’t understand his intense feelings for her back then, and he had wisely kept them to himself. But now that Sophia was old enough that his admission might not be seen as creepy or result in his death at the hands of her father, he had no idea how to begin to get her to think of him as anything other than an extended family member.

  “Hi, Quincy,” Olivia greeted him as he walked into the kitchen. Her light green eyes caught his and she smiled, making the dimple in her left cheek appear. “I was just sitting down to a little snack. Can I interest you in anything?”

  “No, but thanks,” he said, returning her smile. “I’m here to see if Sophia needs any assistance with the inoculation she intends to create today.”

  “Oh, yes,” Olivia said with a soft laugh. “You know Sophia. She’s been hard at work on it since before the sun graced us with its presence this morning. I’m rather surprised she hasn’t come running down with a loud declaration that she’s finished yet.”

  “I’m sure it’s just a matter of time,” he said.

  “I’m sure you’re right, especially with Zachariah up there helping her out. He really seems to know what he’s doing.” She stacked cheese on a slice of pear and added, “I don’t know how he dragged Tate out of bed so early to get her to come over here.”

  Quincy hadn’t ever experienced it before, but he recognized the jealousy that surged through him at the mention of the other male.

  “Zachariah is here?” he asked mildly.

  “Yes. He said something about testing the inoculation today. Sophia was very excited to see him this morning.”

  Clenching his hands into fists, Quincy nodded. “Well,” he said in a deliberately level voice, “Guess I’ll head on up to the lab and see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “Quincy,” Olivia said, reaching out and touching his arm. “Is everything okay?”

  “It’s fine,” he replied. But even he heard the underlying tension in his voice. Frowning, he added, “I just don’t understand why everyone seems okay with Zachariah’s treatment of Ariana and Sophia yesterday. He punched your daughter.”

  “I see.” She nodded. “Well, I can’t say that I would have wanted to witness that. I’m sure I would have been as bothered as you. But Sophia came home from the experience more enthusiastic about her abilities than I’ve ever seen her. Knowing that she can complete a partial shift and not lose all of her clothes in the process was very…freeing for her.” She smiled. “So, even though the methods were unlike anything we would have done, Zachariah managed to accomplish something remarkable.”

  He supposed he saw her point.

  “You love Sophia,” she continued, making him start. “Much as you love all of our children. It’s understandable that you feel protective.”

  The feeling that struck him as he once again realized Sophia and her family would only ever see him as a close friend or surrogate family member was difficult to bear. He looked at the ground and cleared his throat. The thought occurred to him that the only way they might begin to shift their thinking about him was if he came clean about how he felt.

  “You’re right, Olivia,” he said. “I do—”

  “Get out of here!”

  Quincy stopped mid-sentence as Sophia’s voice, followed by her laugh, bounced into the room from the stairs leading to her laboratory. She arrived just seconds later, followed closely by Zachariah and Tate. She wore a practical mauve tank and khaki capris, her hair up in a bun. Her cheeks were pink and laughter filled her beautiful eyes.

  “There’s no such thing as a mermaid,” she said.

  Her eyes were on Zachariah as they entered the room, but she looked away and spotted Quincy. Her smiled faltered. “Oh. Good morning, Quincy,” she said.

  He couldn’t help but notice how stilted and formal she sounded compared with the more easy-going tone she used with Zachariah and Tate. “Good morning,” he replied. “Have you completed work on the inoculation, then?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed, reaching over and stealing a piece of the sliced cheese in front of her mother. She deftly moved her hand when her mother tried to swat it. “We were actually on our way to see you at the clinic. You have the best implements to use to inject it, and we’ll want you to monitor the effects.”

  Was that the only reason she would seek him out?

  He couldn’t stop that thought from entering his mind even as he forced a smile. “Sure. Let’s go and see how you did.”

  Sophia was a mass of nerves as they walked as a group to Quincy’s cottage. She had worked very hard on this inoculation. She really wanted it to be successful.

  She told herself that it was her thoughts about her experiment and not Quincy’s nearness that had her jabbering like a crazed being as they crossed the forested path outside of her family’s home and approached the central training paddock and Quincy’s cottage. She absolutely didn’t wonder whether he thought that her ability to partially shift was cool or yet another sign of her weirdness. He had left the training paddock and not returned after she shredded Zachariah’s chest, so that was answer enough, she supposed.

  “…we should know right away if it works,” she said before pausing for breath.

  Reaching over, Tate rubbed her arm. “I know, Soph. You’ve mentioned that about four times already.”

  Seeing Quincy give her a brief, questioning look, Sophia shut up.

  “Hey, are you going to test Sophia’s inoculation?” Clara Kate asked.

  She and a number of others, including Ini-herit, stood in the training paddock. Judging by the sweat covering all of them, they had been training pretty hard for quite a while. Clara Kate sheathed her blessed butterfly swords and started toward them, though no one responded to her.

  “Cool,” she said. “I want to see how it goes.”

  Noticing that the Corgloresti elder followed C.K., Sophia’s eyebrows rose. He sure did seem fascinated by her, even if he couldn’t make heads or tails of her.

  “Okay,” Sophia said. “We’re headed to Quincy’s.”

  They all walked the remaining fifty feet to the cottage. Quincy opened the door on the clinic side and moved so that everyone could walk in. Despite the fact that the structure was a cottage by design, the clinic was spacious. They were all able to fit in the exam room where Quincy kept his medical tools without being too crowded.

  “Let me have the serum,” Quincy said to Sophia.

  She handed him two vials.

  “I thought we were testing this on Zachariah,” he said with a frown as he took the vials.

  “We are,” she replied, her chin lifting. She was certain he would argue with her next statement. “And on me.”

  There was a pause when it did appear he might argue, but eventually he just asked, “Why?”

  Her defensiveness eased at his calm tone. She shrugged. “The serum needs to be tested on both full and part-Estilorians. Since I created the formula, I should be the second one who tests it.”

  “It would seem to me,” Ini-herit observed, “that another Kynzesti would be a more appropriate test subject.”

  Sophia frowned at the elder as Quincy hurriedly said, “He has a point. If anything goes wrong, we need you to be able to help fix it.”

  But Sophia knew that Ini-herit didn’t say something unless there was a significant reas
on why, and her instincts flared. “That isn’t what you meant, is it?” she asked him.

  “No,” he replied. “I was referring to the fact that your DNA differs from your kin.”

  She wondered how the elder had drawn that conclusion. Yes, she could shapeshift and it was an unusual ability, but all of them had second powers as well as the ability to control an element. His statement made little sense.

  “Sophia—” Quincy began.

  “No,” she interrupted, holding up a hand. “I want to hear this.” She didn’t turn her gaze from Ini-herit’s. “What makes you think my DNA is different from my kin? Do you know why I have such a different ability from everyone else? Why I was the only premature Kynzesti? Why I’m smaller and my hair and skin colors are so much fairer?”

  “Sophia—” Quincy started to say again, but Ini-herit interrupted him.

  “I imagine it is because your mother was struck with a cursed weapon while you were still in her womb.”

  Never in a million years would Sophia have predicted that those would be the words to leave the elder’s mouth. For a moment, the only sound she heard was the sound of her blood pulsing through her head. Her vision tunneled until all she could focus on was Ini-herit’s unemotional silver eyes. A sharp, uncomfortable stinging sensation flushed up the back of her neck. Eventually, she looked at Tate, whose face was pale and her eyes wide.

  “Is he lying?” she managed to ask.

  Tate’s gaze grew watery, answering the question. But she slowly shook her head.

  Feeling as though she wasn’t really standing there, Sophia swallowed hard. Then she looked at Ini-herit and said, “You’re saying that my DNA is cursed? That I’m even more of a freak than I thought?”

  “Sophia—” Quincy began for the third time.

  This time, she cut him off with a look. “You’ve always known,” she said, her tone biting. “You, of everyone, know our DNA. You knew I was different because of that curse.”

  She read the truth all over his face. And then she finally, after all these years, realized why he saw her as such an abomination.

  Because she was one.

  Turning, she ran from the cottage. She ignored the hands that reached out to stop her, ignored the cries for her to wait. Deciding that she might as well be around creatures that felt more like kin to her at that moment than any being in the homeland, she shifted into her panther form and fled.

  Chapter 12

  Domino seemed to know that Sophia needed comforting. She ran straight for the panther’s den and found him napping. It took only one nudge with her muzzle and a soft cry to get the cat’s attention. He opened a yellow-green eye, studied her for a moment and then got to his feet. Without even engaging in his normal grooming upon waking, he bounded off into the forest with the clear intent that she follow.

  She gladly did so. In her panther form, she was half-controlled by the panther’s instincts. She had enough awareness to know what she was running from, but not enough to care.

  That suited her just fine.

  They raced through the forest, moving in a northern direction toward a part of the homeland she hadn’t ever explored before in this form. Her sharp eyes, heightened hearing and improved sense of smell made it an amazing experience. The autumn leaves covering the ground crunched beneath their paws, releasing the sweet and homey scent of organic decay. The cool air added a crisp and invigorating element to each inhalation. She saw the bark of the trees they passed with exceptional clarity, even noting movement if there were birds, squirrels or insects among the tree branches.

  She focused on these sensory images as they ran to avoid facing the reality that awaited her once she inevitably lost the shift. The knowledge that she was different had always bothered her. Now she had to deal with the fact that the reason she was different was so awful that her parents hadn’t ever told her about it.

  Freak. Mutant. Aberration.

  Much as she tried, she couldn’t stop the thoughts from running through her mind even as she worked to escape them. If she had been in her Estilorian form, she suspected she would be a bawling mess. So she vowed to maintain the shift as long as possible.

  Domino appeared tireless, springing ahead of her with a goal of some sort. She eagerly followed, welcoming the adventure. Eventually, they entered a small clearing. Domino stopped running, prompting Sophia to do the same thing. They both had to catch their breath after such a long sprint.

  As she collected herself, Sophia noticed an enticing aroma in the air. Curious, she turned in the direction of the scent and padded over to it. Domino went with her. She realized the odor was coming from a grouping of green plants that nearly reached the top of her panther head.

  It smelled so good that she couldn’t fight the urge to taste it. Domino gently pulled some of the leaves from the plant and chewed them. Sophia followed suit.

  Whatever properties were in the unusual plant quickly had Sophia’s mind growing hazy. Her blood sang, giving her the urge to flop on the plants and roll around…so she did. She vaguely realized she was forgetting why she was there and what had so upset her in the first place. That was when she understood that Domino had led her there on purpose.

  Smart kitty, she thought with a great deal of enthusiasm before she couldn’t think at all.

  Quincy forgot all about testing the inoculation after Sophia left. The moment she sprinted away, he turned to his elder with fury slashing through him.

  “Why would you tell her that?” he demanded, for the first time in his existence not caring that he sounded disrespectful.

  Ini-herit looked back at him with a placid gaze. “She would have received skewed results if she had proceeded to test the serum on herself. As a scientist, I thought she would appreciate the—”

  “Sophia isn’t just a scientist,” Quincy interrupted. His chest and throat were tight with searing anger. He couldn’t tell whether he was more upset with his elder or himself. “She has feelings, damn it. You’ve just made her think that she’s somehow less than everyone else because of her differences.”

  When that provoked no reaction, Quincy cursed and stormed out of his cottage. He walked over to Sophia’s clothing and picked it up from the ground. Whenever she shifted, her form used energy to convert from Estilorian to animal. During the split-second in her shift where her form was nothing but energy, she always lost her clothing. Since he intended to go after her, he knew he’d have to bring the clothing with him.

  He started in the direction of her paw prints at a jog. They passed near her home, so he reasoned out where she’d gone. Before he started down the path leading to the panthers, the door to the house opened.

  “Hi, Quincy,” James said as he and Olivia emerged. He raised an eyebrow. “Do I want to know why you’re holding Sophia’s clothing?”

  Glancing down, Quincy realized he had Sophia’s bra and panties in one hand and the rest of her clothing in the other. Feeling his face flush, he quickly balled everything up so the undergarments were no longer visible.

  Clearing his throat, he explained, “The experiment started off on rocky footing.” When James and Sophia approached and stopped a few feet away, he said, “Archigos Ini-herit told her about the cursed arrow.”

  Olivia inhaled sharply and lost all of her color. James reached out and pulled her against his side, looking nearly as shaken.

  “Oh, my God,” Olivia breathed. She looked up at her husband as her eyes filled. “James…”

  “Where did she go?” James asked.

  “I think she’s with the panthers.” He lifted her clothes. “I was about to go after her.”

  James nodded in understanding. “Thank you, Quincy. We were about to go and meet with the elders. Zayna had difficulty reasoning with Hoygul and she’s heading back without the scroll piece. We have to figure out what to do.” He exchanged a look with Olivia. “But now…”

  Quincy’s mind jumped from one concern to the next. The Scultresti elder had failed in her attempt to get the map to
the library, which meant the scroll piece was still out there and potentially accessible to Eirik. He didn’t see how that was possible. Why would Hoygul defy his elder when it came to something so important? Why didn’t Zayna try to force the issue and use her power to retrieve the map?

  He thought back to his own experience with the odd Scultresti male all of those years ago. If it hadn’t been for Saraqael’s quest to save the woman he loved, Hoygul never would have shared the map with them. Quincy wondered if he might have more success if he approached the Scultresti, but he doubted it.

  Shaking his head, he returned to his more immediate concern. “Let me go and retrieve Sophia. I’ll talk to her about this and help her process it.”

  James frowned. “I’ll come with you. She must be upset with us for keeping this from her. She has a right to feel that way.”

  Tears trailed down Olivia’s cheeks. She didn’t comment, but her grip on James’ hand was tight enough to turn her knuckles white. When she jumped a little and rubbed her belly with her free hand, Quincy gave her a questioning look.

  “I think it would be best if you stayed with Olivia,” he told James. “The baby is very close to arriving. I’d feel better if I knew you were with her in case she goes into labor.”

  Clearly torn, James looked at Olivia. “I don’t—”

  “I promise, I’ll bring her back as soon as possible,” Quincy interrupted. The need to go after Sophia tugged at him. “Let her get her anger out with me rather than you. Go and find out what the plan is regarding the scroll piece, and once you’re done, Sophia will be back and you can talk to her about everything.”

  The couple exchanged looks and thoughts. Eventually, James reluctantly nodded. “Okay, Quincy,” he said, catching his gaze. “Please let her know…”

  Even without the words, Quincy understood. “I will.”

  Before they could change their minds, he turned and hurried in the direction of the section of forest where the panthers dwelled. He knew Sophia very well. She had likely gone straight to Domino.