But Mikhail was vigilant. Even if Cang reappeared, he would never take Mikhail by surprise again.
Bird leaned up against him as his arm closed around her. Bec was now shooting Skater swinging Tala up into the air as the child gurgled with laughter. If either of her children had turned out to be more like her, it might have been more tempting to let them in on the secret. But they’d both inherited their father’s focus on things in this world, while being blessedly free of his driving ambitions. She was contented with that. Why burden them with a secret from which they would gain no benefit?
What she did regret was not being able to tell her friends. Her attention swung toward still-grieving Jen, sitting quietly beside Doris, but still seeming separate from the celebratory laughter and joking. Jen was very much like Bird, imaginative and in love with the possibilities of magic. Bird suspected she would adore discovering the shifter world. Would learning that magic existed give Jen a new lease on life?
Doris probably would go with the flow if she found out. She had a large, very colorful, very demanding family. Nothing would surprise her, Bird was sure.
And Godiva? Bird knew she’d absolutely love shifters, and wouldn’t blink twice about magical artifacts and all the rest of it. She’d probably demand a trip on dragon back! Bird’s regret was strongest there, especially as Godiva had been enthusiastic about Mikhail from the start.
But the shifter world had to be protected. And so did non-shifters. Bird couldn’t let her friends in on a secret that might lead to mysterious government types banging on their doors in the middle of the night.
Still. Even if Bird never said a word, she now knew that she lived in a world far bigger and more magical than she had ever known. And so did her friends.
“What are you thinking about, my love?” Mikhail murmured into her hair, and kissed the top of her head.
Bird shivered with desire. Then she smiled, knowing that desire could, and would, be explored more thoroughly later.
She turned her face into his shoulder. After all, she had come this far. “I was just thinking, who knows what the future will bring?”