Page 24 of Riding A Cock-Horse
“I hate that,” Belle says. “I mean, I guess it's handy and all for you, but I just hate how it's like you never existed.”
“I understand. It's just the way it needs to be for our kind. And we know we existed and you know we exist,” I say softly with a smile at her.
“I guess I kind of overreacted in there, huh?”
“Hey, don't beat yourself up. You didn't say anything about trouser snakes.”
She chokes on a laugh.
“Yeah, I guess there is that, huh?”
I walk her out back towards the lake.
“Jack said you really liked it out here.”
“I do. It's so beautiful and peaceful. I can kind of forget everything for a moment looking at all that’s around me.”
“It’s something special, huh?” she murmurs, gazing at the lake. “Hey, you wanna go for a swim?”
“No,” I swiftly negate “I don't.”
“I mean as a human, not as your fish.”
“I would need to ask Arthur if it's safe first.”
“What the hell's in Scotland's lakes that it's not safe to swim in it?!” Belle exclaims, side-eyeing the body of water.
“Well, thisdoesdrain from Loch Ness, and we all know what they say is in there.”
She squints.
“I don't think this is big enough to have something the size of the Loch Ness Monster in it.”
“Do you really want to test it?”
“Well, when you ask methatway—no.”
“Sorry, love, Ialwayshave to be cautious. It's something that was instilled into me since I was a little boy. If you get eaten as a slippery dick…that's it.”
“You know, I was reading and thought that slippery dicks could only come from the ocean.”
“The majority of my kind are salt water fish, but I'm a very rare freshwater species.”
“Oooooo, special,” she teases.
I smirk.
“It does make it easier. There's some shifters that have to be in either freshwater or saltwater if they want to shift, but I can go in both.”
“I suppose that is handy,” she says. “Do you go to the ocean often?”
“Actually, no, I've never been. My parents—they're terribly fearful. If you can get lost in the lake; imagine what can happen in the ocean.”
“Yeah, I can see how that would be worrisome. There's just some things I never thought about before.”
“When you're shifter, you have to look at life in a completely different way and ask yourself,‘Is this going to kill me?’”
Belle cringes.
