Page 33 of Radiant Shadows

“Hey,” she mumbled, rolling halfway onto her back and stretching an arm over her head.

“How are you feeling?” I asked in a soft voice.

“Like death warmed over,” she groaned, covering her face with her hand.

Concern for her gripped me, shoving my excitement to the backburner. “Did they find out what’s wrong?”

It was a well-known fact, even to someone as clueless as me, that harpies don’t get sick. They die of old age after a long, healthy life. But Arya was also a mermaid. Did that leave her more vulnerable to disease or infection?

She slid her hand down her face, revealing a frown and eyes cast down and to the side.

Oh God, this must be something really serious!

“Come on, what is it?” I pleaded, my stomach twisting in worried knots. “If you don’t tell me, I’m just going to imagine the worst. Is it cancer? Are you dying?”

“What? No! I’m not dying.” Arya buried her face in her hands once more and mumbled something.

“I can’t understand you. What are you saying?” I leaned forward and tried to pry Arya's hands away from her face.

After a moment of struggle, she scoffed, removed her hands, and pushed herself up to sit against her headboard.

“Okay, okay,” she conceded, continuing to avoid making eye contact, which only made me worry more. “Ms. Heather ran some tests, and it turns out…mermaid and harpy aren’t the only shifters in my DNA.”

I stared at her for a moment, not understanding what that meant and why it was making her sick. “What do you mean?”

She sighed, fingering a loose string at the top hem of her comforter. “I’m also part ursa.”

My eyes widened, a surprised smile beginning to stretch my features before I recognized embarrassment in hers. “Hey, why is that a bad thing?”

She pursed her lips, then finally looked up at me and shrugged. “I know all the other shifters kind of look down on weres. Especially…”

Oh, now I got it.

“Dragons?” I ventured.

She nodded, her frown deepening.

“You’re worried about what Tobias will think,” I surmised.

She nodded again. “It’s just, things are finally really,reallygood with us. I’m afraid this news is going to screw everything up.”

I chuckled lightly and shook my head. “Listen, Tobias is a lot of things, but he’s not a fool. That boy is legit head-over-heels for you. And if he’s pigheaded enough to think that adding an ursa to your arsenal of badassary is somehow taboo rather than incredible, then he doesn’t deserve you.”

She gave me a half-hearted smile, obviously not convinced. “Either way, can we just keep this between us for now? I’m already the first topic on everyone’s lips in this damn place. I don’t need to give them another thing to gossip about.”

I nodded. “I understand. But you’re not going to tell Tobias?”

“I will. When the time is right. I just want to get a handle on this new part of me before I share it with anyone else. Especially Tobias.”

“Okay. These lips are sealed.” I mimed locking my lips and tossing the key.

She snickered. “Thanks.”

“Wait. If that’s all this is, how is it making you sick?” I asked, still confused about that part.

“Oh,” she said, sitting up even more and putting her hands in her lap. “Apparently, weres experience fever symptoms when they go through their first shift. Apparently, my ursa is going to burst out any day now.”

Relief washed through me, cooling the fiery anxiety of my phoenix. She was going to be fine. My best friend wasn’t dying; she was just even more of a powerhouse than I already knew.

---