The Last Warrior (Shifters Unbound #13) - Jennifer Ashley Page 0,51
a Tuil Erdannan could become an eagle? Would he trap her? Make her work for him? I’m trying to avoid that. It’s why I’m confiding in you and swearing you to secrecy.”
“Bowman isn’t so bad, Ben.” Kenzie spoke with the warm conviction of a woman who loved her mate.
“Yeah? I remember when you didn’t believe that.”
Kenzie’s merry laughter rang through the phone. “I know—I thought he was a total asshole even while I was falling in love with him. I was wrong. I admit it.”
“I’ll concede he’s not so bad because he is madly in love with you, which means he has brains and good taste. Still, I don’t trust him with anything concerning me. Right now, Rhianne concerns me.”
“Which is why I say you’re the best one to teach her,” Kenzie said. “Sorry, I gotta go, Ben. My daughter is screaming her head off, which could mean she’s hungry, bored, saw an ant, the world is ending, or she can’t find her favorite toy. Just think about it.” Click.
“Think about what?” Ben demanded, but he knew. Everything, she meant.
Ben tapped the silent phone to his lips. He was tempted to call Zander, in spite of the overblown devil-may-care attitude the big polar bear approached every situation with, but he had the suspicion that Kenzie was right.
Rhianne didn’t necessarily need a Shifter. Rhianne and Ben were both creatures of Faerie and bound by those compulsions, no matter how hard each were trying not to be.
Ben heaved a sigh, climbed the front porch steps, and walked back into the house. The noise the fluttering rose vines made sounded exactly like a snigger.
“You don’t have to take care of me.”
Rhianne sat on the bottom step of the main staircase in the house, folding her hands to keep them from shaking. Ben tucked his phone into his pocket and leaned on the newel post next to her.
“I like taking care of you.”
“My mother asked you to bring me here. You’re not obligated to babysit, as you called it.”
“I’m not obligated to do anything.” Ben rested his arm on top of the post, muscles pulling at his T-shirt. “Neither are you, except to sit tight and wait for your mom to give you the all-clear. But that would be boring.”
Rhianne peered up at him, but as usual, Ben kept what he really felt deep down inside. He’d had to hide his true nature for centuries, she surmised, which had made him the master of camouflage.
“Why do you appear that way?” Rhianne indicated his body with a flutter of fingers. She very much enjoyed the way Ben looked, but she was curious. “I glimpsed what must be your true self when you took me out of the dungeon and then again last night when we fought the snakes. Your real form would frighten humans, I understand. But most of the human men I’ve seen so far are, well ... taller.”
Ben’s sudden grin flashed like a beam of sunshine.
“Is that all you’re worried about? Well, I’ll tell you.” He left the newel post and sat down on the step beside her, his warmth comforting. “When I first entered this world, about a thousand years ago, humans, at least ones in the area I’d landed in, weren’t very big. There were some tall men, but so few they were given nicknames like Longshanks. Over the centuries, people grew bigger boned—they had better nutrition in some cases, or just changed for whatever reason. But when I first arrived, I took on the average height. I couldn’t afford to stand out.”
“You could have made yourself taller as things changed.”
Ben’s cheeks reddened. “I could have, I suppose. I could be like Dimitri and tower over everyone. Shifters love to do that. But I realized that, at the height I have, I intimidate people less. A guy most other guys have to look down at isn’t threatening. They think I’m harmless.”
Rhianne’s amusement bubbled through her worry. “Harmless? You?”
Ben spread his hands. “It’s all part of the illusion. And you know? I decided at some point in my life that I’d rather have friends than enemies.”
“Oh.” Rhianne’s voice went soft. “That’s a beautiful thing to say.”
He shrugged. “It probably means I’ve been alive too long.”
“I don’t have many friends.” Rhianne heard the loneliness in her words. “When you’re the daughter of Lady Aisling and Lord Ivor, it’s difficult to know who wants to be with you because they really like you, or because they think you can curry favor for them. I