The Skin She's In Margo Collins (the false prince series .txt) 📖

it’s great what you and Kade are doing,” she finally said, “helping out with some of the unwanted babies at his hospital.” She paused for a long while as she tapped her fingers together in her lap. “But I have some concerns about the thought of you actually adopting any of them. Or even fostering them.”

Crap. Here it was. The lecture I’d been expecting ever since she’d figured out our plan.

“You know as well as I do that PTSD comes in a number of different forms.”

PTSD. I knew it.

And she didn’t know the half of it.

“Gloria,” I began.

And then I paused, having no real idea of where to go from there. If I told her that she didn’t have all the information, she would ask for more, and I couldn’t give it to her. Not without the Council’s approval. It struck me for the first time exactly how strange that was. I had spent all my life believing I was the only shifter around and dealing with the inherent loneliness of that. I had resented it. What I had never done was realize exactly how much freedom it gave me. Until I had joined the Shields and agreed to take a place in the shifter world, I hadn’t had to answer to anyone other than my family—and since I had moved out on my own, not even them.

Gloria was still waiting for a response, using my own silence technique against me.

“I understand that this seems odd,” I said. “But I want you to know that it’s nothing I am taking lightly. It’s nothing that I’m doing without considering any number of ramifications.”

“But can you really understand all the potential consequences this might have?”

“No. Then again, can anyone about to become a new parent say that they understand all of the possible consequences of that decision?”

Gloria opened a hand, conceding the point. “I don’t want to see you do this—make some irreparable move—and then realize that perhaps your motives were not as clear as they seemed at the time.”

I laughed softly. “Gloria, you know better than anyone else that no one’s motives are ever direct or clear or pure.”

She laughed, nodding and acknowledging that point, as well. “Just promise me that you will see somebody, talk to somebody about what happened with Scott before you sign any kind of finalizing paperwork.”

I nodded. “Okay.” I could promise that much. A little counseling never hurt anyone, and if it would ease Gloria’s anxiety about me, I’d do it for her.

And, truth be told, I’m sure I did have lingering issues surrounding the events that Scott had initiated in his attempts to repopulate the lamias of the world.

Those issues weren’t really anything I could tell a counselor about—not if I didn’t want to end up with a schizophrenic diagnosis of my own.

AT LUNCH, I TOOK FOOD back to my apartment for the hyena and Hunter. I was balancing soft drinks and a giant bag of tacos, trying to unlock my door, when I heard the locks clicking open inside.

The door flew open and Shadow stepped into view, her giant ax positioned to strike if necessary.

“It’s me,” I said. “I brought lunch.”

Shadow didn’t apologize, but she nodded and moved her ax back to its apparent spot right inside my door.

“I didn’t know what you liked, so I picked up tacos. I assume you’re probably a carnivore,” I said to Jeremiah.

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you, and I am quite happy with your choice.” His voice hadn’t lost any of the musicality from the night before.

I plucked out a single taco for myself and handed the rest of the food over to Jeremiah. He and Shadow fell on it as if they were starving.

For that matter, they might’ve been. I wasn’t entirely certain what I had in my pantry, but I was sure it wasn’t anything even remotely as appetizing as a taco from Tito’s.

I sat down in one of my kitchen chairs and tried my best to determine how to broach the subject I’d been considering on and off all morning. “Have the two of you come up with a plan yet?” I finally said after everyone had eaten a little.

Shadow shook her head, even as she said, “Sort of. We want to approach Jeremiah’s alpha—”

“Matriarch,” Jeremiah corrected.

That’s right. Not all of the shifter clans used the typical alpha-male structure. Suddenly Jeremiah’s relationship with Shadow made more sense to me—he came from a matriarchal society, so of course he would be interested in a woman who was willing to take charge.

I shook my head a little, reminding myself that it was not necessary to psychoanalyze every single person I met.

“So why haven’t you contacted her already?” I asked.

A single glance at Shadow showed that she, too, was waiting for an answer to that question. She stared at Jeremiah with both eyebrows raised and her head slightly tilted to one side, her long, white-blonde hair sliding over one shoulder.

“I left Savannah without permission.” Jeremiah’s liquid brown eyes glanced from one to the other of us. “I abandoned my position as both a protector of my matriarch and as a Council Shield.”

At that, I came to attention. “You’re a Shield?”

He nodded, a single dip of his head. “I am.”

“Why didn’t you say that before? Why can’t we simply call in the Shields on this?”

“There are a number of wolves in the Shields,” Jeremiah said. “I fear that any report made officially as a Shield will make its way back to the werewolves.”

I hadn’t said so aloud to anyone else, but after the events in the NICU the week before, I had begun to worry about that as well.

I stared at the two of them for a long, silent few seconds and then nodded. “I will help you communicate with your matriarch. Would you prefer to have her come here, or should we attempt to set up a meeting someplace neutral?”

“Is your apartment not neutral?” Shadow asked a hint of amusement in her tone.

“Someplace else neutral,”