Silver Basilisk - Zoe Chant Page 0,30

Godiva was very sure she’d know about it by now. Doris? No, not practical Doris!

So . . . who?

“I have his permission to tell you, if you want to know,” Rigo said, his face still in shadow.

“His,” Godiva repeated, looking confused. “You already told me about Alejo . . . You said friends. I don’t have a ton of male friends. Who?”

“Joey Hu.”

“Joey?” Godiva repeated, thinking that he’d be the last one she would have guessed. There were some tough guys she sort-of knew, like Jen’s kung fu master at her studio. She could see him being a lion or a bear. But Joey Hu? Joey wasn’t all that much taller than she was, slight, kindly. “I just can’t see him as a huge . . . critter.”

“He’s a nine-tail fox,” Rigo said.

“A fox! Even with nine tails, that’s somehow much easier to believe than he’s a rhino or an elephant. Wait a minute. You said mates. You don’t mean mates in the Australian sense—buddies, bros.”

“No, I mean the love of one’s life.” His voice had gone husky. “Shifters mate for life.”

Shifters mate for life. She felt the resonance through her bones, pooling down deep where she’d done her best to put out the fires years ago. Life was so much easier that way.

With an effort that was almost physical, she wrenched her mind back on track. Maybe other shifters mated for life, but Rigo clearly hadn’t, or there would not have been a half century of silence.

Anyway, right now it wasn’t about her. “But that would be . . . Doris? Doris knows about shifters?” Godiva asked, light-headed with amazement. “You’re serious! Okay, I really have to take time out, or my head might explode. Practical, no-nonsense Doris, high school teacher Doris, cookbook-writing Doris, knowing about werewolves and minotaurs?”

“Talk to her. I think,” he said in a soft, tentative tone, “it will probably come as a relief. I suspect, from the little I saw of her, she did not like keeping the secret from you. No one did.”

“No one? There’s more?”

Rigo sighed. “I think I’ve done enough damage for one night. We can take this up after you’ve gotten some time to process. Rest up. If you want to trade numbers, I can call you tomorrow. Or you can call me.”

Numbly she held out her phone. He stilled a moment, and she sensed that something had changed between them, but she was far too tired and too dazed to pursue it.

In silence he got the numbers paired, and handed the phone back. Their fingers met briefly. His were warm, and she felt his touch linger after she whacked the car door open and stepped out into her driveway.

The familiar ocean breeze steadied her. She drew it in, turning in a slow circle. Yes, the world was still the world. Familiar night birds called in the distance, and a neighbor’s tiny rescue chiweenie gave a yip of welcome, letting her known he was on the job as Watchdog for the Block.

Everything around her was the same, and yet nothing was the same.

She walked away from the car. After a few seconds, he started up the engine, and drove away. Only then did she look back, and watched until his tail lights vanished around the corner.

Then she walked thoughtfully up the driveway to the house. It was a long driveway, which gave her time to think. But she couldn’t think. Her thoughts lay inside her, inert as a stunned mouse.

She was still trying to wrap her head around that basilisk—wondering if she was some kind of weirdo for finding Rigo in that form awe-inspiring rather than horrible—when she reached the door.

But before she could open it, her phone rang. This time it was Jen.

Godiva punched Facetime, and there was Jen looking like a Viking goddess ready for battle, but her forehead puckered with worry. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Godiva said. “I didn’t have to touch my pepper spray once.”

“What did he say?’

She opened her mouth to begin with “You’d never guess in a million years,” then Rigo’s voice echoed, That part has already happened. This shifter craziness was a secret that concerned people’s lives.

Doris knew, and had kept the secret from Godiva, which meant she’d kept it from Jen.

So Godiva said only, “He put me on the phone to my son. Gets points for that. The rest will come.” And then, though ordinarily she loathed pulling out the old age card, she figured this was anything but ordinary circumstances. “Listen, I