by Zoe Chant
“We...do have a doctor for shifters, yes,” Santos said slowly. “Do the red dragons not have a doctor?”
“Well—no. Because shifters heal. Most of the time.” Athena blinked and turned to the doctor—Reid, Santos had said his name was. The mayor’s son.
Doctor Reid’s eyebrows were up near his hairline. When she looked at him, though, his expression smoothed out right away. “Shifters don’t need doctors as much as humans do, but we still need them,” he said. “Quick attention right after a bad injury can save a life. We still get sick, and some of those illnesses can be cured.”
Athena took that in. Santos put a hand on her shoulder. “Reid, this is Ronan’s cousin Athena,” he said quietly. “She came to town with her daughter last night, and—she’s my mate. It turns out.”
“Your—” Doctor Reid’s composed expression broke down again, and Athena watched him be shocked, wondering, thoughtful, and finally intensely curious. “Ronan’s cousin. You’ve come from the red dragons.”
She nodded, feeling defensive all of a sudden. This man wasn’t just another shifter. She knew doctors went through all sorts of education, and she had a sudden and deep suspicion that he was thinking of her as some uncivilized animal, after what she’d said. What of it? she was tempted to say.
She bit down on that impulse, though. This wasn’t back home. Picking fights wasn’t the right thing to do.
Instead, she gave into the other impulse that had surfaced at the word doctor. “Do you take care of babies?”
“Yes, I do,” Reid said, looking suddenly alert. “Do you have a baby who needs medical attention?”
“I—well, no, she’s not sick or hurt, I just—she’s never been to a doctor.”
Reid stared. “She’s never been to a doctor at all? Not even one outside your clan?”
Athena shook her head. “Our clan leader doesn’t believe shifters need them.”
He was staring at her like he’d never heard anything like it. Athena guessed he hadn’t. She could feel her shoulders rising defensively.
His expression softened, looking at her, and he said carefully, “I’m sorry to hear that. I’d be happy to examine her. And you, if you like. As soon as possible.”
She nodded, feeling uncertain again. Oak Ridge people just...brought this out in her. She ended up feeling like she’d been on the wrong foot her entire life.
But she could almost see a future where she didn’t. Where she was also in a place where she could assume that of course she would be able to go to a doctor. Or a restaurant. Or have floor-to-ceiling windows in her home, without being worried about what might come through them.
“Congratulations,” Reid was saying to Santos. “Even if the circumstances are difficult, I’m happy for you.”
Santos was smiling. “I’m happy for me, too. Let’s all have dinner soon, the three of us, so you and Athena can really get to know each other.”
“I’d like that,” Reid said, sounding entirely sincere. He held out his hand. “Welcome to town, Athena. You couldn’t have a better mate than Santos.”
“We can definitely agree on that,” Athena said wholeheartedly, and shook his hand, which was a little human ritual she was still kind of getting the hang of. It seemed to go fine, and Reid and Santos said goodbye, Reid clapping Santos on the shoulder, and they went their separate ways.
“He cares about you,” Athena said as they walked slowly down the street back to the furniture store.
Santos nodded. “He’s not the best at showing emotion, but we’ve been close since we were kids. Very different upbringings, though.”
“Oh?” Athena was wildly curious about what Santos’ childhood had been like. She wondered if Rita would be willing to tell some stories.
“Yeah, Reid was raised in this very overachieving household—you know, his mother’s the mayor, his dad’s a lawyer, and he always got perfect grades and had a bunch of prescribed activities and so on. His parents expected a lot of him. My parents expected me to be a good man and do something that made me happy and did some good in the world. Very different environments.”
Both of them seemed equally foreign to Athena, but she could see how they could each produce very different types of people. “But you always got along?”
Santos nodded. “I think he appreciated having someone more relaxed to hang out with, and I could always count on him to motivate me when I was feeling lazy about something.”
Athena smiled a little. “You don’t strike me as the lazy type.” Careful and measured, maybe, but not lazy.
Santos grinned. “You didn’t see me when I was a teenager. Whole different story back then.” They were at the store, going in through the front door this time, and Athena was struck with a powerful sense of disconnect, remembering how she’d assessed this exact space—was it only this morning?
This very morning, she’d come in here with an eye only for strategic assessment, looking for a place to sleep for a few hours and nothing else.
Now, it was—it was a home. It was where her mate lived. Where she might live.
Santos made a noise while she was trying to figure out how she felt about that. “Oh, I left my book down here this morning. Hang on.”
He went across the room to the chair he’d been sitting in when she woke up, and snagged a book from a side table.
“What book is it?” Athena asked, curious. She didn’t read much for fun—she’d found the occasional book in the houses the clan occupied, but she was too used to dismissing anything by humans as stupid, and shifters didn’t seem to write many books of their own.
At least, not any shifters she knew. Maybe there were tons of shifter authors and she’d just never heard of them.
“The Iliad,” Santos said, holding it up. “It’s an old, old human story, about an old, old war, between the Greeks and the Trojans.” He looked a little sheepish as he came over to join her again. “I’m a little bit of a history buff. I like learning about different time periods.”
“I know about the Greeks,” Athena offered, pleased to have some kind of context. “I’m named after one of their goddesses. My mother told me about them, a little.”
“Athena’s in the book,” Santos said with a smile. “A very warlike goddess. Appropriate to you.”
“Maybe I should read it.” She eyed it. It looked really, really long.
“Maybe I could read some of it to you and Olivia?” Santos asked tentatively. “It would help me, too. It’s taking me a while to really get into it.”
“Maybe we could—” Athena stopped.
“What is it?” Santos asked.
“I just thought of—maybe it’s dumb. Maybe we could take turns reading it to each other.”
Santos broke into a huge smile, his whole face lighting up. Athena could feel the blooming warmth of his happiness in her chest.
“Okay,” she said, “maybe it isn’t a dumb idea.”
“I would love that, Athena,” he said sincerely. “You have no idea how much.”
She had to admit, it was an attractive mental picture. Maybe even more so because of the length of time involved. It would take forever to finish a book that huge. That was a lot of evenings of sitting in Santos’ beautiful living room, together on the couch, reading while Olivia slept or played beside them.
She liked that idea a lot.
***
“You’re what?” Rita clasped her hands to her chest. “Oh, I knew it! I knew it. Santos, my baby—Athena, how wonderful—”
Overwhelmed, Athena let herself be pulled in to an enthusiastic three-way hug. Rita’s joy was almost tangible, almost a living thing in the room with them, and it was more emotion than she was used to.
At one point, Rita broke away from them to say, “This means that that baby is my granddaughter now—” and went over to shower Olivia, who was playing with some crinkly paper a few feet away, with kisses and tickles until she giggled and shrieked.
Eventually, Rita said, “I have to go tell Luis all abo
ut this—Santos, why didn’t you call your father over here too? Now you have to come to dinner, tomorrow night, I won’t hear anything otherwise—”
“Yes, Mama, of course we will, we’d love to—” Santos was assuring her, although then his eyes cut to Athena in a sudden question.
She nodded quickly, although the mention of Santos’ father had sparked a slight worry. But it would be fine, she thought firmly. A bad man wouldn’t have raised someone like Santos.
Rita had one more hug for everyone time, and then departed in a flurry of well-wishes and blown kisses.
Athena had never wondered what a good tornado might be like, but she thought that this had been pretty close. She let out her breath, looking over at Santos.
“Want to have something to eat and sit down to read?” Santos asked, smiling ruefully. “Relax a little?”
“That sounds great,” Athena said, heartfelt.
She thought, tiny and private inside her heart, that she might be able to get used to having a mother again.
***
A couple hours later, Athena was realizing she’d never known how similar humans and shifters really were.
“You’re sure a shifter didn’t write this?” she’d interrupted Santos, just a few lines into the book.
“Well, no,” he’d said. “I suppose Homer could’ve been a shifter. But I do know that it’s only around because humans have copied it for centuries and centuries. They teach it in human schools. It’s a huge part of human culture. And the characters in it are humans.”
“Huh,” she’d said, and settled back in. They were both on the couch, Athena curled on one end while Santos sat with the book on the other. A few more lines in, Athena stretched her feet out, and Santos caught one and put it in his lap, rubbing her arch with his thumb. Smiling to herself, she leaned back and listened.
It was a story about fierce warriors, about violent battle, about harsh customs and big egos and powerful magic. Men fighting over women, men fighting over insults, men fighting because they just wanted to fight. There hadn’t been any actual shapeshifting in it so far, but other than that, Athena couldn’t see any difference between the type of people in the book and the type of people she’d grown up with.
It made her think. Because if humans could be like this, violent and aggressive and unreasonable, why weren’t they?
She brought that up with Santos when he paused for a minute in reading. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I think—well, some humans still are. I think it depends on how they grew up. If they had a safe environment when they were kids, and parents to teach them how to solve problems without violence. Same as shifters, really.”
Athena looked down at Olivia, who’d fallen asleep on her chest a long time ago.
Safe. A safe environment.
“We’re going to do our best,” Santos said, and Athena looked up, startled, to see him staring at Olivia, too. “No parent can guarantee anything like that, but we can try.”
Athena took a deep breath. “I want us to raise Olivia here. In Oak Ridge. I want her to be safe like that.”
Santos set the book down. Leaning across the couch, he first pressed a kiss to Olivia’s curly head, and then to Athena’s mouth.
“Athena,” he said. “You’re going to be so happy here. I want you to experience everything you missed. I want you to have—ice cream and bubble baths and classic movies and summer barbecues. Skiing. Hot chocolate.”
“I’ve had hot chocolate,” Athena said.
“Really?”
She nodded. “One time there were some packets left over in the cupboards of a place we stayed in.”
Santos let out a little laugh. “Better hot chocolate. Hot chocolate from scratch. Katie’s selling it at her coffee shop, I think. Whipped cream on top.”
That did sound good. “Maybe we can get some tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, we will get hot chocolate. Check.” Santos kissed her again. “I love you.”
Athena closed her eyes, let the words fill her up with a warmth unlike anything she’d ever known before she met this man. “I love you, too.”
Chapter 16: Athena
Katie’s coffee shop wasn’t like a regular restaurant, but it was still someplace unlike anywhere Athena had ever been.
It was...cozy, she decided tentatively. Cozy wasn’t a word she’d used about many places before, but this definitely qualified. It was fairly small, with a lot of dark wood, and little tables with chairs scattered around—but also a couple of couches, which she hadn’t been expecting in a place of business.
“Did you make the furniture?” she asked Santos, looking around.
“A few of the tables and chairs,” he said. “I’m not much of an upholsterer. And I helped renovate the bar a bit, too.”
There were shiny coffee-making machines, and a case full of cookies and muffins and pastries that Athena didn’t have names for. Hesitantly, she stepped up to the counter, where Katie was standing with a smile.
“Hi again,” she said.
“Hi,” Athena said. “I—wanted to thank you, for yesterday.”
Katie bit her lip. “Really? Ronan was afraid that it was too much. He said you might not appreciate someone poking their nose in your business like that.”
“Usually that’s true,” she admitted. “I’m not very good at...taking advice. But everything’s changed really quickly. It was good to know that there’s a place here. I’ve decided to stay.”
Katie’s eyes went wide, and she broke into a big smile. “Really? Oh, good. You have no idea how much better it can be.” Her eyes flickered to Santos, quietly smiling next to Athena, with Olivia strapped to his chest.
Athena was surprised at how quickly she’d gotten used to having him at her shoulder, knowing that he was there with her, even if she wasn’t looking at him. His presence felt like a foundation under her feet, a layer of strength that she’d never known she needed.
“I’m sure you’re going to be happy here,” Katie was saying. “We should get together, the two of us. Get to know each other.”
Athena looked at this bright, happy human, standing here in her strange cozy coffee shop—a place Athena would have dismissed as utterly useless, just a couple of days ago—and said, “I’d like that.”
“Great. Good. And you should meet Lila, and Cam, and everyone. Oh, but what can I get you? On the house.”
Here was something else Athena had only seen in the occasional movie about humans, which she and Alaric had always watched like they were strange nature documentaries. They’d only ever seen a few, but she knew what on the house meant.
“A hot chocolate?” she asked. “With whipped cream.”
Katie smiled, and said exactly what the people in movies always said: “Coming right up.”
Santos tugged her over to one of the couches, which were so soft it felt like you were sinking right down into them, and Athena watched as Katie steamed milk for her hot chocolate.
“Could we do this every day?” she asked impulsively. “Come here and sit, and have a drink or a muffin or something?”
Santos smiled. “We sure could.”
Something else struck Athena, as she watched Katie put a swirl of whipped cream on the mug. “Should I get a job? People all have jobs, here.”
“If you want one,” Santos said. “If you want to just spend your time taking care of Olivia, that’s fine, too. Or you could get a part-time job. Maybe Katie needs some more help.”
As he said that, the door opened, and a few other people came in. Katie was just coming over to set the hot chocolate down on the table next to the couch, and with a smile at Athena, hastened back to the counter.
Athena tried to picture herself doing that. Smiling at people, like Katie, like Lachlan, because she was happy to see them come in. Saying, What can I get you? and Coming right up.
“Maybe,” she said slowly.
“Or anything you want,” Santos said. “I have more than enough socked away for the two of us and O
livia, so money won’t be a problem. Try out whatever you like. Be a welder or a computer programmer or a dancer or a writer.”
None of those were anything that Athena would ever in a million years have associated with herself. Suddenly the world seemed very, very big.
Santos nudged her. “Try your hot chocolate.”
She picked it up and took a sip. It spread over her tongue, sweet and deep and delicious. “Oh,” she said quietly.
Santos kissed the side of her head, and she took another drink, not even trying to contain the smile that was spreading over her face.
***
They stepped out into the cool, crisp sunlight. Athena automatically scanned the horizon, looking for potential threats—
—and then realized what she was doing. It was instinct, born from a lifetime of living in the middle of danger, always ready for an attack. Oak Ridge wasn’t supposed to be like that...at least not most of the time.
She still needed to scan the horizon right now, though. She’d been telling herself that Oak Ridge was safe. But the problem was, it wasn’t yet.
And with her decision to stay, she was making it more dangerous.
Jeremiah wasn’t going to take this lying down, she knew. One of his few remaining female clan members, and a baby? The insult would be too great. He’d come at the town with full force, and he’d never be deterred.
She kept staring up at the sky, looking west, the direction her clan was settled in right now. Even though she knew it was silly, that Jeremiah wasn’t coming for her right this second.
But then she saw the flash of sun on scales.
She stopped short. Beside her, Santos turned to look, starting to frown, and then followed the direction of her gaze.
The bright figure drew closer. The sun refracted brilliantly off its scales, confusing the colors, so it took a few moments. But she could see, after a little while, that it was red.
Who was it? The possibilities flashed through her mind, and part of her was afraid that Jeremiah had shown up after all, ready to haul her back and bring her to the clan as a traitor.
“Get Olivia inside,” she hissed to Santos, who was already moving. He disappeared inside the coffee shop—and then reappeared a second later, without Olivia. He must have given her to Katie.