Silver Basilisk - Zoe Chant Page 0,29
about your mother through his own shamanistic network, I guess you could call it. Your mother was taken by her sister to a shaman-midwife. Once she was healed, they headed back for you, but by then your father was dead and you were long gone. They turned south, and I was unable to trace them beyond that. Too much time had passed. I crossed back into the States to try to find you, stopping only to talk to my grandfather Tzama, who now told me the truth about the shifter side of my family. By then it had been almost two years. Godiva, I realize this is a lot to take in.”
She rolled a fierce eye his way, brimming with a sort of wry amusement. “Swallows. Is that where the hummingbird in your story came from?”
“No,” he said. “Before I discovered I was a shifter, I always thought of you as a hummingbird. So quick, and vivid.”
Her answering smile was brief, a little bemused, and bewildered.
As she gazed down into her empty mug, he said, “I would love to spend the rest of the night talking to you. It’s so good to see you again. But like I said, you’ve just taken in a lot. And I have some stuff to do tonight. There’s another matter I promised to help with, which I can tell you about later, if you like. Right now, well, as you said to Alejo, it’s late.”
At that, all the tension went out of her shoulders. “I guess . . . yes. I think I’m ready to pack it in for the night.” Another expressive look. “And I bet you know right where I live, don’t you.”
“You didn’t exactly hide yourself,” he said apologetically. “But I promise not to turn up uninvited.”
She uttered a sniff that was closer to a snort. “Just as well. Basilisk or not, I have some roommates you really don’t want to spring any surprises on.” She finished with a flash of her old grin, the one that had first enchanted him all those years ago.
In spite of all that had changed, some things were still true as gold, and one of those was her shining spirit. It took all the strength he had left to refrain from hugging and kissing her. He smiled, and said as lightly as he knew how, “I’ll take you back.”
Chapter 7
GODIVA
There were so many emotions whirling through her head that at first she wasn’t even aware of the silence as he drove her back into town.
Next time she looked up, he was turning onto her street. He pulled up to the driveway, but then stopped, and faced her in the dark. “Godiva, I promised myself—and our son—that there would be no secrets between us, if I ever got a second chance.”
“Okay,” she said, peering up at his face. But all that she could make out was the jut of his cheekbone, and the clean line of his jaw in the light of the streetlamp fifty yards away. “Why do I hear a but?”
“Because telling the truth also means laying a huge secret on you. I probably should have asked first. Though how to get at it without any hints would take better skills than I’ve got. The thing is, shifters are a secret from the rest of the world. You can imagine why.”
She tried to imagine Rigo walking before Congress and turning into a basilisk. “Riots, fear. Government controls,” she said, shuddering. “Maybe even labs and experiments.”
“No maybe. That part has already happened,” he answered grimly. “The bad thing about secret labs is little to no oversight. These ended as badly as you can imagine.”
“Okay. I get it that it’s a secret. And that you and our son are not the only ones. So how many are there?”
“Shifters are a very small part of the general population. And we mythic shifters are an even smaller part of that number. We do have our bad guys—what group doesn’t—but we try to take care of our own. Which is yet another story that I’ll have to get to, but not tonight. The thing I think I’d better tell you right now is, you do happen to be friends with some shifters. But their mates were sworn to secrecy.”
“I do?” Godiva cast her mind over her household. Wendy? Godiva could easily imagine her some fiercely loyal animal. Loving as well as lovable, and cuddly. But Wendy and she had talked so much about every part of Wendy’s life that