"She's right here, man," Eren said.
"What game is this? Did she shift?" Dane looked even more alarmed now. He leaned forward across the table, frowning. His nose was almost buried in Lucy's hair. If he moved any closer, he would be touching her. Eren stared, fascinated, while Lucy remained perfectly still, eyes half closed. "Did she shift into something small? I don't see—wait—what's that smell? Vanilla?" His nose twitched.
Lucy let out a long sigh. Eren felt her tight grip on his arm relax. "It's my shower gel," she said, and Dane jumped so hard that his feet literally left the ground. Eren had never seen anyone do that outside of a cartoon before.
Dane scrambled backward until Eren had to yelp out a warning so he didn't stumble into the stove. And then the panic on his face reassembled itself into an intrigued look.
Lucy was smiling. She tilted her chin up.
"I have secrets too," she said, and picked up her coffee cup.
"You were there all along," Dane said slowly. He stalked forward, righted the tipped-over crate, and sat on it. Planting his elbows on the table, he stared at her. "You can disappear."
"It's more like I can make people not see me," Lucy said.
"That's—" Dane began.
"Yeah, that's what I said," Eren said.
"It isnot the same!" Lucy insisted. "I'm not really invisible. If you had touched me, or bumped into me, you would have been able to see me in a minute even if I hadn't said anything. And you could still smell me, as you noticed."
Dane turned a look on Eren that was somewhere between accusing and fascinated. "You knew she could do this."
"She told me she could do this," Eren corrected him. "It doesn't work on me."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm his mate," Lucy said proudly.
"At least we think so," Eren hastily added, while a look of profound amazement and happiness spread over Dane's face. Eren had never seen a look that open on his normally reserved friend.
"That's great." Dane leaned across the table to shake each of their hands. Lucy looked a little surprised, but allowed her hand to be engulfed by his. "This needs a celebration. Something better than cookies." He got up and went to one of the shelves, where he took down a dusty bottle. Eren recognized it. On one of his rare runs to the island during the winter, when he had taken advantage of a stretch of clear weather to make the risky trip around Christmas, he had brought Dane a bottle of whiskey. Only a few fingers were gone from it. Dane poured a generous dash into each of their coffee cups.
Dane raised his cup. "To you gettin' hitched," he said. "Congratulations, man. You deserve it."
Eren choked a little athitched. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves here," he said, flushing. After a swig of whiskey-laced coffee, he set the cup on the table. "Okay, so you saw what Lucy can do."
"Yeah." Dane turned to look at her. "You mind if I ask if you can shift too?"
"I don't think so," Lucy said. "But I've been able to dothatall my life. I never knew why, but we think we know now. My uncle and my dad might have been griffin shifters."
Dane just gave a slow nod.
"I expected more surprise," Eren said. "Since I never heard of any such thing."
"I have," Dane said. This got him twin looks of surprise. "There was a griffin shifter in my old unit." A shadow of regret crossed his face. Eren didn't have to ask what had happened to that shifter. As he had told Lucy, Dane was the only survivor.
Lucy leaned forward eagerly. "So there are more!"
The open joy on her face caught Eren off guard. It hadn't even occurred to him that she must have thought she and her uncle were the last of her kind.
"Yeah," Dane said. "There's a whole bunch." He hesitated. "Why can't you ask your uncle?"
"Because we think he's trying to kidnap her," Eren said grimly, with a bear's growl in his voice. "He wants to take her inheritance away."
They filled Dane in briefly on the bare bones of the story. Dane took it in with his usual vigilant quiet, and when they were done, he nodded.
"Ah," was all he said.