holiday. Once again, our little town worked its magic and when Obsidian met Kee, well, let’s just say he was quietly stunned to find his fated mate. They want to stay in town, because they love it here, but as they are rare beings they felt it needed to be a town decision.”
“We’ve never worried about what a person can shift into before.” A larger man in a white coat standing with the deputies scowled. “They have no need to share anything about themselves, provided they treat other people with respect.”
“In this case, it’s relevant, Doc,” Ra said. “While I know neither Kee nor Dian will cause this town any harm, outsiders might if they know these two are living here.”
“I gave Kee his place to live the night he came into town,” Mrs. Hooper said crossly. “I saw into his soul, I know what he is, and mated or not, he has every right to be here.”
“Here, here, Mrs. Hooper,” Fergus said hotly. He was sitting with Ivan on his knee, next to a woman who shared his features, except she was in a wheelchair. “There’s nothing about who Kee is that makes him a danger to any one of us.”
“I’m not a danger to anyone here!” Kee stood up, his hands clenched in front of him. “But people might come – people who have no respect for the wonderful lives you have all created here. If they hear about me and Dian, if they know what I can do, they might come to take us and some of you could be hurt. I don’t want that.”
“Everyone here knows everyone else.” Rocky, the town sheriff, spoke up. “If we have to be doubly suspicious of strangers then so be it, but it’s not like you meet someone new and say ‘hi, what’s your species’.”
“By law, if you and your mate ask for sanctuary here, then your new address doesn’t even have to be registered with the council,” a tall slender man said. Kee’s fox recognized the man as a snake shifter. But it was difficult to feel fear around a man with a young child in his arms.
“That’s a good point, Simon,” Ra agreed. “The town can agree to give the pair of you sanctuary, and no one need know where you are.”
Kee turned to Dian who was still standing with Cam and Eagle. “You work for the council,” he mouthed. “How can they not know?”
Eagle drew two of his fingers across his mouth like doing up a zip and then threw away the key. In the meantime, Dave was speaking from the front of the room.
“Look, boy, it’s simple. You spit out what you are, you and your hulking mate, we all gasp and say, ‘oh, my goodness,’ and then we go back to what we are doing. There ain’t nothing in this life this town can’t handle if we all stick together. So, get a move on. I left a beer getting warm for this, you know.”
“Some of you already know my mate, Dian, shares his soul with a gargoyle.” Kee glared at Ronald who was sitting in the middle of the hall with a crowd of rabbit shifters. “He rarely shifts because he’s been led to believe his shifted form is fearsome, but I think it’s kinda cool. As for me, I’m a hybrid – my mother was an arctic fox shifter and my dad… my parents weren’t true mates, but my dad… he’s a pixie. I’m a hybrid pixie. Apparently, that makes me and my mate targets for the crappier elements in society.”
For a moment, there was stunned silence, before pandemonium broke out as people talked to each other and over each other. Some were explaining to others what it meant to be a pixie; others were making lewd jokes about how rich a mated pixie could get by tugging themselves off. Kee was terrified – the mood in the room was all over the place. Excitement, spots of greed and envy, concern; nothing nasty, but it was overwhelming.
“You did the right thing.” Dian was there, by his side, his heavy hand solid on Kee’s shoulder. “This is a surprise for most people here. Mated pixies are rarer than gargoyles.” His grin was tight, but it was a grin, nonetheless. “Ra will let them get this out of their system and then call for a vote. It will be all right.”
Ignoring the crowded room, Kee turned, unbuttoning his mate’s suit jacket and slipping his arms