be private.
Luckily Ben gets the hint. He picks up Scooch’s tray. “We’ll go into the bedroom. I need to do some photo editing anyway. Good to see you, Lu.” He slowly lures Scooch to the back hall with the tray of vegetables and the occasional, “that’s right. You can do it.”
Cy leans back into the cushions. “Pregnancy traditions are very gendered. Todd’s mothers even created a binder outlining the ‘alpha’ and ‘omega’ responsibilities. I don’t want Axe to massage my hands with peppermint oil or wait on me hand and foot. Also, how would Ben fit in with all of that?”
I never thought about it like that.
“If you had told me before that you were pregnant, I would have brought you gifts. Can I still do that?”
“Yeah,” he says. “That would be nice. It isn’t that I wanted to keep it from you.”
“I know. It’s okay, Cy. I’m really happy for you. The three of you will be great dads.”
He folds his hands across his belly. “Thanks. But as much as I’m loving this chat, this isn’t the reason you came. You’ve never visited me, Lu. What’s up?”
He’s right. Which is awful. Sometime in the years we lived next to one another, I should have come over to his apartment. I assumed that he wouldn’t have time to hang out with me. That wasn’t fair, considering he made time to watch Mary once a week and to stop by with strawberries and tea.
Now that he’s my brother-in-law, I have the perfect opportunity to change that.
“I need to tell you something. It’s going to sound far-fetched, but I need you to believe me, okay?”
Cy’s focus zeroes in on me. Sometimes I forget how intense he can be. “I don’t think you’d lie to me. What happened?”
Liam and I talked about how I would need to explain the magic that transformed his body, and he gave me permission to tell his story. I just don’t know where to start.
“Penguin shifters have this traditional paint. A recipe they’ve passed down from generation to generation.”
“That explains the fiasco with the face paint. It got all over our shirts, and the penguin shifters all had clean collars.”
“This paint isn’t just a way to keep formal wear clean. I think it has magical properties. Like the metal you weld.”
He sits up. “The penguin shifters have magic?”
“No. But I do.”
I tell him about the patterns I learned online, and what happened when I painted them on Liam’s skin. Cy listens quietly until I get to the part about Liam’s feet shrinking.
“Wait. Are you saying his body changed?”
“I know it sounds insane—”
“No, it doesn’t. The paint glowed? Like magic metal?”
I nod.
He drags a hand through his hair. “This is incredible. And it makes sense. Why wouldn’t omegas have access to magic? I bet you that the alphas suppressed this information. The same ones who decided to create fidelity necklaces and sell the ragers to oil companies.”
“Yeah. That’s what I think too.”
We sit there in silence for a few moments. It’s a lot to process.
“How much do you know about this power? You were able to change Liam’s anatomy. What else?”
I sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t even know how I’d find out. We’re lucky Liam didn’t end up hurt. Even if I found another trans penguin shifter, I don’t think I’d do it again without more information. The problem is that I don’t know where to look. Does the Guild know anything about this power? Would they tell me even if they did?”
Cy stands up and starts pacing across the living room. I can’t watch him because the movement makes me sick.
“I don’t think the Guild would tell us now. They have a lot of secrets they don’t share with anyone. Maybe if we went to New Mexico…”
That’s right. There are polar bear shifters who went south and mated with Grizzlies at the same time my ancestors founded Anchorage. They ended up in New Mexico, creating magic trackers for the Illusors. Maybe this information was hidden before we were driven out of Russia. But if it wasn’t, they would know.
“Do you know anyone in New Mexico?”
Cy sits down again. “Not anyone I want to talk to again.”
Then he knows someone.
“Is this person a rager?” I ask.
“No. There are worse things than ragers.”
“Like what?” I didn’t think Cy was afraid of anything.
“Most of the police force are scorpion shifters down there.”
I’ve only seen pictures of scorpion shifters. Unlike penguin shifters, their animal forms aren’t in proportion to regular scorpions.