Page 77 of Truthfinder’s Promise

“I wanted to.” He’d hated himself. For wanting her, wanting anything, when Natalie was out there somewhere. For being rational enough to realize that the nights he’d spent with Meredith weren’t even a betrayal, because he hadn’t had enough leads to follow to do anything useful. Giving Meredith up wouldn’t have helped him find Natalie, back then. But it had still felt wrong to be happy about anything, at the time. Even knowing that his time with her was the only thing that might let him find Natalie now didn’t make him feel less guilty about the then, because he couldn’t have known it would end up this way.

“So why didn’t you? Hate me?”

“Because you’re impossible to hate.”

“I’m exceptionally easy to hate. Ask half of Aspect Society.”

“They don’t know you. I do. You kept me from drowning when I didn’t know how to tread water anymore. You’re doing it again right now.”

Her breath caught. “Jensen, I—” She broke off as she cleaned the last of the blood off his arms, running her fingers over his skin. “You don’t have a single mark on you.”

“Perks of being a Shifter.”

“You’re telling me all the werewolf fiction that has you guys having super fast healing got that part right?”

“If I get Not a Werewolf tattooed on my chest will you stop calling me one?”

“Maybe, if you get it tattooed in flowery cursive. So, super fast healing? How does that work?”

He shrugged. “How does your fearless leader’s super fast healing work?”

“She is Life,” Meredith said, as if that explained everything.

“And we’re Shifters. Going from human to animal and back isn’t exactly fun. It hurts. It breaks your bones. What do you think Shifting is besides healing the body into a new form? It’d make less sense if we healed normal.”

“Huh.” She chewed on that for a minute. “I thought you said all the werewolf lore in fiction was wrong.”

“No, I said I don’t go around howling at the moon and eating human hearts.” He shrugged. “We may have always kept a low profile from your kind, but extreme secrecy where ordinary humans are concerned wasn’t as big a deal until cameras were invented. A Shifter kid makes a mistake and gets seen, you pick up and move your enclave before the angry mob shows up. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t getting plastered all over the internet for everyone and their mother to track you down either. It’s unsurprising that some actual Shifter abilities made it into the realm of public consumption.”

She twisted the piece of gauze in her hand, rolling it into a smaller and smaller piece. “Anything else in the realm of public consumption that I should know about?”

She sounded nervous. Or worried.

“Like what?”

“Like…” She shoved her tattooed arm at him. “This is reversible? You said it was, and you weren’t lying, and I don’t think you were manipulating the truth, but you guys don’t, like, you know…?”

Suddenly he did know. Nat had gone through a phase where she’d torn through shifter-based fiction and proceeded to tell him all the gritty details every night over dinner. A lot of them had one theme about Shifters in common. Jensen fixed a serious expression on his face when what he wanted to do was laugh. He met Meredith’s gaze and held it, caught her around the waist and pulled her in.

He spoke deeply, his voice low and intense. “Like, do we all have one true mate? One we recognize instantly upon meeting them? One we would move mountains for, fight for, die for?”

Absolute horror filled her eyes, and he was sorely tempted to say yes out of sheer curiosity to see how fast and how far she would run for the hills before her Aspect clued her in that he’d been lying.

He leaned in and whispered, “No.”

She exhaled in a rush, laughing, and punched him on the arm. “Asshole.”

He laughed too, pulling her closer. “I’m the asshole you married.”

“I prefer to think of you as the asshole I’m divorcing.”

“But still sleeping with and seeing where it goes.”

“Right now, the only place things with this asshole—” she jabbed a finger in his chest “—are going, are back down into the treasure room because we didn’t get Julian a trinket before I got all hypnotized.”

“You didn’t.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the necklace he’d nicked before he’d gone and grabbed her. “I did.”

Her nose wrinkled. “That thing smells like the magical equivalent of moral evil.”

“Then Julian should love it.” He shoved it back into his pocket, the laughter they’d shared fading from him altogether. “Do you want to call him now?”

She shook her head, heading back outside. “No, I’d rather do it from the house. Rationally, I know calling him won’t summon him to my side, but…” She trailed off. She didn’t have to say anything more. He got it. “Besides, I’ve been getting grief lately for not including others in everything I do. Which reminds me, I think you’re invited to join a support group with Jace and Random.”

“A support group?” he echoed. “For what?”

“Men involved with women who have issues asking for help.”

Now that he might actually find useful. “What time are meetings?”