Soul Mates: Scent (The Soul Mates Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

great great grandfather, Alexander Jaguara. Great Grammy’s father. Alexander married Simone Felidae. They lived in Texas. Alexander liked the dry heat, as did Simone. They had four children. It was 1866 and not too many other families lived nearby. One day Alexander did not come home. He had shifted and gone hunting. Selina was only eight years old. So I only know the story from her point of view. News had spread that their neighbor had spotted a large cat preying on his herd of sheep and that he had killed it. Selina swears that her father would never have gone after their neighbor’s livestock.
    Her mother was devastated and moved the entire family back to Canada. Her family was there, the Felidae family. Selina swore she would never marry into the Felidae family, which was numerous by now. When she turned eighteen she married James Sampson. A human man, a good man, but not a shape shifter. She didn’t realize at the time that she would out live him by several hundred years or more. Pure shape shifters like Great Grammy can live to be about four hundred years old.”
    “What about granddad? And you? How long…”
    “Ah that is the unknown part, Max. You see… Well, my dad was born in 1908. How old does he look to you?”
    “1908? He’s over 100? No way! He only looks about 35!” I was freaking out. Mom had to be joking around. There was no way this was possible.
    “He looks, feels and is about 35 in human years. Once we complete puberty Max, about the age of 17 or 18 our biological clock changes and we don’t age as human’s do.”
    “Wait, what about your Aunt Sarah? She doesn’t look young; in fact she looks like grandpa should. Why isn’t she aging slow?”
    I watched mom’s face fall. She looked sad again. “Well, it seems that the shape shifter gift is passed from Father to daughter and Mother to son. Since your great grandfather was human, Aunt Sarah and her sister were not gifted.”
    “So what you are saying is Grandpa passed the gift to you, and you passed it to me, but not to Abbey?” I asked incredulous. How could she have done such a thing? Abbey was my baby sister and now I am going to outlive her by probably a hundred years or more!
    Mom nodded, her eyes lowered. I knew this was the reason for her sadness. I could see the tears glistening on her eyelashes.
    “It’s all right mom. I understand,” I said trying to comfort her. I tried to process all that she had told me, going back over her words, trying to make sense of it all. “Mom… when you said you could have, but something happened and you couldn’t, what did you mean?”
    “Well it’s like this… Your grandpa did not relay that part of our history to me until after I had already turned eighteen. You have to make the shift before your eighteenth year. When he told me, I was furious. He didn’t think that I would be interested in shifting. He was wrong. I didn’t speak to him for many years. Then I met and married your father and became pregnant with you. By then I had figured out the long life part as well and I didn’t want you to grow up not knowing your family.”
    “So…does dad know how old you really are?” I asked softly, afraid I knew the answer.
    “No. I don’t think he would believe me Max, would you if I told you I was 63?”
    “No, not without the whole story to go along with it, and maybe not even then.”
    “Right. So your dad thinks I was born in the 1970’s and I am 35. He still says I don’t look a day older than the day I married him. And he is pretty much right. I don’t look old enough to have a 17 year old son.”
    “So if Anna hadn’t found me, would you have told me before my birthday? Or would you have made the same choice as granddad?” I asked her, hoping my face did not betray my feelings.
    “Oh Max,” Mom sighed and shook her head. “I would never do that to you dear. Grammy is coming this weekend. We were going to tell you then. I… I couldn’t tell you how the shifting works