Silver Basilisk - Zoe Chant Page 0,27
Rigo said.
Godiva scowled. “I remember that Erich, if he’s the one who always tried to flush out Eddie, just to pick on him. Called him all sorts of mean insults, but Eddie was smart enough to see him coming and hide whenever he could.”
“Tonio insisted on being the boss of the horses, but all he cared about was speed. He was careless and cruel, and criminally negligent. And Gravas, the owner, didn’t give a damn about anyone, horses or men. He was all about the money he could wrench out of us all. All three were evil, and they liked being evil.”
“So you didn’t know about the shifting, before then?”
“No.” He shook his head. “After I left, I found out that my grandfather Tzama was an iguana shifter. Ordinary animal shifters tend to make their first shift a lot younger. I didn’t, Grandfather assumed I was human, and so he never told me. I took off as a teen, much like you did, and for a lot of the same reasons.”
“I remember you told me once your dad was in jail for assault.”
“It was after he got caught finally and couldn’t argue or bribe his way out that I was able to think about taking off for good. The instinct to shift didn’t start hitting me until I was around eighteen. I drank to suppress it. I hated drinking. I hated having to get up and ride when my head was pounding from hangovers. But it was the only way I could numb this instinct I couldn’t explain, that scared the crap out of me.”
The coffee arrived then. Godiva plopped milk into it and then stirred slowly, absently, the spoon whirling round and round as he said, “I sensed that it was dangerous. I was dangerous, if I let it happen. It seemed to be caught up with my ability to hear the thoughts of animals—”
“What?” she dropped the spoon into the mug.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s how I got into the rodeo business in the first place. I was a good rider because I understood the horses and they understood me. I tried to get Gravas to let me do the training, but Tonio was his cousin. He was a bad boss, but worse, if he didn’t win in the ring, he took it out on us. We riders knew we had to let him win most of the time, but that day, his horse had stumbled, and I won—well, later that night Tonio threatened to shoot my pinto, but I realized later that was just an excuse to get me out there. He tried to jump me. I lit into him. Tonio yelped for Erich to jump me from behind, Gravas sat by to watch, laughing at the prospect of me being beaten to a pulp.”
“I never liked those men, but I never knew any of that.”
“I know. I didn’t want to drag the dirty parts of my life into your clean life.”
She looked away, and he said quickly, “Well, to get this sordid bit of my history over with, when both men went for me, the instinct hit me harder than ever before. Thanks to you, I was stone cold sober that night, or I probably would have died, as like I said, being drunk suppressed the shift-instinct. Tonio grabbed up a piece of iron to beat my brains out, and without knowing how, or even what, suddenly I was a basilisk. Erich fell on his ass screaming. Tonio yelled at Gravas, shoot it, shoot it! Gravas pulled out the pistol he always carried—”
Rigo sighed. “He glared at me as he took aim. My eyes met his, and he instantly turned to stone, his finger pulling the trigger. Never got off that shot. Then I looked at the other two. Same thing happened. All it took was eyes meeting eyes. I was so shocked I shifted back to myself, and then ran like hell. Straight to you, my safety island in a sea of bad. My sanity.”
Godiva winced, and he hated to see that troubled look. But he had to get the truth out there. “So when you told me you were pregnant, all I could think of was you meeting my eyes, or our baby meeting my eyes . . . and so I ran. The morning after I left you I went to the spot where we’d had the fight, half-convinced I’d hallucinated it all. I half-hoped I had. The statues weren’t there, but there were