Am I dreaming?
Lainie felt dizzy. For a moment, she wondered if she was still up on the hill in the ruins of her grandparents’ home, delirious from the cold.
What she was seeing couldn’t be real. Harrison had stood up in front of her and, as casually as if he was buttoning a shirt, transformed into a massive griffin.
This is just like what I thought I saw in the house. I must still be hallucinating.
But she couldn’t be. That terrifying sprint across the cliff-side path, the feeling of warmth seeping back into her body under the hot shower, the grilled cheese she could still taste in her mouth—she couldn’t have imagined all that.
Which left only one explanation.
“Is this real?” she breathed.
The griffin took up half the kitchen. It looked at her with Harrison’s hazel eyes, and nodded.
“Oh, my God.” Lainie staggered, bracing herself against the table. She hadn’t even realized she was standing up. She made her way around the table, with one hand on it for balance, until she was standing in front of the griffin. In front of Harrison. In front of Harrison, the griffin.
She reached out, and stopped with her fingertips inches away from the griffin’s beak. From Harrison’s beak.
Some prehistoric part of her brain was screaming at her that this was a dangerous animal. That she should run, now, as fast as she could.
But a bigger part of her, a far bigger part, was caught by a sense of dizzying wonder. What she’d just seen—it was amazing. And the longer she looked at this griffin, the more she could see Harrison in it. The way he held his head. His stance, even on four legs, was strangely reminiscent of how Harrison would stand.
As was the watchful look in his eyes, as he waited for her to react.
“This is crazy,” she said. “This is just… oh.” She sank to her knees. The griffin dropped its head, to keep it level with hers. Just like Harrison, keeping an eye on me, she thought distractedly.
A new, horrifying realization had struck her. “This is why I had to leave Hideaway Cove, isn’t it? You’re all… like this?”
Harrison nodded.
It all made sense now. Her parents’ fights, which always stopped the moment she entered the room, as though there was more than just their marital problems in the air. Mrs. Sweets’ determination that Lainie not move to Hideaway Cove. Even the strange, curious looks she got from the other people who lived here. If they were all keeping a secret like this...
Then it’s no wonder they all wanted to get rid of me, she thought. Even my grandparents. Even my father. Because I don’t belong here.
“I always thought my parents split up because of me,” she said, her voice wavering. “Because of something I did. But it wasn’t that, was it? It was because of what I am.”
Her heart felt heavy, and her chest went so tight it was difficult to breathe. There was that knuckle-cracking noise in front of her again, the one she remembered from the house, and then Harrison’s arms were around her. She collapsed against him, letting him hold her to his chest.
“Why didn’t they tell me?” she cried out. “Oh, hell. I can’t—the estate, the money—what am I going to do?”
Harrison’s arms tightened around her, warm and secure. “I’m so sorry,” he said, his own voice catching.
Lainie took a deep breath. Somehow, being in Harrison’s arms made the knot in her heart hurt less. “So—what? Everyone in this town can turn into a griffin?”
“No. I’m the only griffin.” Harrison sighed. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I can’t keep you in the dark any longer. I won’t. We’re called shifters. Each of us has an animal side, a creature we can transform into. Like a griffin. Or a bird, or a fish…”
Lainie was listening to his explanation, eyes wide. But at that, she couldn’t help interrupting. “A fish? What if they shifted when they weren’t around water?”
Harrison smiled. “Well, we’re a coastal town, aren’t we? Anyway, shifters can control when they transform. It’s not like—oh, stories about werewolves, where the full moon forces them to transform.”
“I can’t believe I’m asking about the technicalities of how people handle turning into other animals,” Lainie grumbled. She lay her head against Harrison’s shoulder. “How do you know if you’re a shifter?”
“Well, for me, I grew up with it. My parents were both griffin shifters, too, so they taught me all about it. I could shift from when I was a baby, but it’s not like that for everyone. Which is a good thing, I guess. I can’t imagine any human parents wants to look down into the cradle and see their newborn has transformed into a baby weasel.” He paused. “Not much fun for a parent no matter what age their kid is, really. Some of my friends here are like that, shifters whose parents were human.”
“When did it first happen for them?” Lainie asked. Her mind was racing as she pieced together her memories of childhood with this new information. “When did they first find out they were shifters?”
Harrison’s hand stilled on her hair. She wondered if he guessed why she was asking. “From what I’ve learned from the people here, it’s normal for shifters who don’t grow up around their own kind to change when they’re ten or eleven. Shifter kids from shifter families tend to start shifting in the cradle, but I’ve never heard of a shifter who hasn’t found their animal before puberty.”