Forty One

Too shocked to speak, Tasha just stared at him. As his eyes took on a faraway quality, Tasha knew he was back there, seeing those flames surrounding him all over again. Wanting to bring him to the present again, she said, “Onyx?”

His gaze snapped to her. “You’ve heard of shifters whose animals have surfaced early before, right?”

She nodded. “I don’t know any. But I’ve heard that it can happen.”

“Do you know what happens to them in later life?”

At his hard tone, a blast of cold traveled down her spine. “What?”

“Healers aren’t sure why it happens, though they speculate that it’s because the body and the mind were forced to deal with changes they weren’t ready for at a young age and that those changes put too much of a strain on them. It causes the cognitive functions to degenerate later on. When I found you, I was having healing sessions to try to fight it. The sessions worked. But I had that fear that the improvement was only temp