by Zoe Chant
“—and Natalie’s about to tell us how you two met,” Merlin said, not missing a beat.
She glanced at Ransom, who took a breath like he was bracing himself to fight a quetzalcoatlus and said, “There’s something I need to tell you all first.”
His teammates all began to talk at once.
“Get some rest now, and tell us later,” Pete said.
“Is it something immediately life-threatening?” asked Carter, barging forward barefoot and shirtless. “No? Then save it.”
“Natalie didn’t lose half the blood in her body, let her explain,” suggested Merlin.
Natalie glared at him. That was the worst possible suggestion. Sure enough, Ransom struggled to sit up. “No! I have to tell you myself—”
“Settle down,” said Roland, giving him a commanding stare via the rear view mirror. “That’s an order.”
“No—” Ransom protested. “I have to—”
“Relax,” said Dali.
“If it’s more than one sentence, it can wait,” said Tirzah.
Exasperated, Natalie broke in. “Let him talk, you guys. Can’t you see he won’t rest till he does?”
At that, they quieted down. She took Ransom’s hand. “I’ll fill in the details, all right? You can stop me if I say anything that’s not true.”
He swallowed and nodded. When he spoke, his voice was quiet but steady. “Jager and I worked together. We—I—invented a process for enhancing intuition. I used it on myself.” He stopped to catch his breath.
Quickly, Natalie said, “He found out that Jager was going to use it on people without their consent. Ransom tanked his entire career blowing the whistle on him.”
He nodded, then went on, “I thought the project was shut down. I didn’t know Jager took it to black ops. They made it more powerful. More dangerous. It became the Ultimate Predator Process. And they became Apex.”
Carter sucked in a breath, then turned red with fury. “Now you tell me?”
Natalie was horrified. She’d been so sure his teammates would understand!
Ransom didn’t say a word, but his entire body seemed to sag with resignation. That must be what he’d looked like when he’d been strapped to the lab table, and let the hellhound bite him because he thought he deserved it. Her heart broke for him.
“Jager was right there!” Carter went on. “The man who ruined my life! How could you let me get in the van and drive away from him? I would’ve killed him! For me—for all of us—for you! He stole your invention and twisted it into something evil. Why did you let me go without getting revenge for us both? Roland! Turn this van around!”
Roland kept on driving. Natalie glanced at his face in the rear view mirror, but his expression was unreadable.
Ransom’s, on the other hand, was purely astonished. “You’re only angry at Jager? What about me?”
“What about you?” Carter snapped. “Roland!”
Without looking back, Roland said, “I’m not turning around so you can attack a prisoner.”
“But—” Carter broke off when Natalie grabbed his arm.
“Carter,” she said, her patience fraying. “If you don’t blame Ransom, tell him so!”
“Of course I don’t blame you.” Carter sounded annoyed that he had to say so, as if it ought to be self-evident. “If someone gets run over by a reckless driver, that’s not on Henry Ford. You should’ve said something earlier, though. You’re, what, a chemist?”
“A biochemist.”
“You should’ve said so sooner. I like talking science. And chemistry’s not my field at all, so I could learn a lot from you.”
Ransom looked relieved, if a bit bewildered, but hadn’t relaxed yet. His gaze slid to Merlin, who waved his hand and said, “I hope you never thought I’d blame you. Is that how you always seemed to know when something was going to go down, when we were in the Marines?”
Ransom nodded.
“How cool!” Merlin exclaimed, then chuckled. “Do you remember that time when I think you thought I was coming out to you? I mean as gay? I thought you were a shifter and you could smell bombs or something, and that was why I was trying to tell you it was safe for you to come out to me. I mean as a shifter. Though if I had been gay, you would have been a great person to come out to. Or if I’d been a shifter myself, for that—”
Dali nudged Merlin. Hard. He broke off in mid-sentence.
Pete put his hand on Ransom’s shoulder. With a surprising gentleness, he said, “I’ve been inside your mind, remember? I didn’t know any of this. But I do know you. What Natalie said about you destroying your own career to try to stop Jager—that doesn’t surprise me at all. You’re not the kind of guy who invents grenades. You’re the kind of guy who throws himself on them.”
Ransom opened his mouth, as if he was going to argue, then closed it. Natalie felt him try to push himself up—to see Roland in the rear view mirror, she realized.
“Lie down,” said Roland. “You know and I know that you’re not the one who killed her.”
Her? Natalie wondered, then remembered Ransom saying that Roland had never stopped grieving for a woman whose name he didn’t know.
“If that’s the burden you’ve been carrying, you can lay it down,” he went on. “None of us are asking you to bear it. And I’m sure she wouldn’t, either.”
Ransom drew in a deep breath. Once again, his gaze drifted around the van, searching for blame that wasn’t there.
“Ransom,” Natalie asked softly. “What’s your hellhound say?”
“He says to lay it down.’” For the first time since she’d met him, he looked truly at peace. His eyes closed, and his breathing settled into the deep rhythm of sleep.
Natalie sat stroking his hair and not paying much attention to anything else while Carter retreated to the back to finish dressing and Tirzah connected her laptop to her drone and Roland made a series of phone calls and Dali petted the puppies and Merlin found a pair of tweezers in a first aid kit and twisted his arms behind his back to remove the shiftsilver splinter. But slowly, what was going on inside the van started registering more with her, especially as the others in the van seemed to decide she’d had enough quiet time.
“Want me to get your splinter out, Carter?” Merlin offered.
Carter emerged, fully dressed but still barefoot. “I was thinking of leaving it in. Permanently.”
“Seriously?” Tirzah asked.
He rolled his eyes, then looked away. “Well—Maybe. It’s definitely quieter with it in.”
Quieter? Natalie thought.
“Not a good idea,” Roland called back from the driver’s seat. “I just got off the phone with the dragon cops. They strongly advise removing the splinters as soon as possible—they said I should stop at the next rest stop to get mine out.”
“What happens if you leave them in?” Carter asked. “You never shift again?”
Natalie couldn’t tell if he asked that with dread or with hope. She wondered if his shift form—which, she realized, she still didn’t know—talked to him like Ransom’s hellhound used to.
“I don’t know about that,” Ransom replied. “But it’s poisonous in large doses, and a splinter of solid metal constitutes a large dose if you leave it in long enough for it to dissolve.”
“Oh.” Grumpily, Carter said, “Fine, Merlin, take it out.”
He took off his black coat, carefully folded it and laid it down on a seat, then pulled up his shirt and tapped his lower back. “Here.” A moment later, he added, “Thanks.”
Merlin put down the tweezers, became a tiny velociraptor, and leaped from his seat to Carter’s.
“Agh!” Carter yelped. “What—”
The small raptor dug his claws into Carter’s back, provoking another yelp, and withdrew them clutching a silvery splinter. Still holding it, he jumped back to his seat and returned to human form.
“What did you do that for?” Carter demanded. “Am I bleeding on the shirt I saved specifically not to bleed on? You ha
d the tweezers right there!”
“You’re not bleeding, you big baby,” said Dali. “Merlin was very careful.”
“I’m a baby for not wanting to ruin a good shirt?”
“It’s easier to use my claws,” said Merlin, unruffled. “Also, it’s more fun.”
Natalie laughed. “You really love your shift form, don’t you?”
“It’s the best! Do you love yours? You do, don’t you? Is it wonderful to fly? Could you take me flying? I mean as a small raptor.”
“Yes, yes, and yes. I could take you as a man, actually, if we jumped from a height. I flew with Ransom on my back before I got shot with a splinter and we got dumped into a pool of fake tomato juice.” Then, because it was Merlin and he loved a good story, she added, “And then a giant prehistoric fish jumped into the pool.”
“You need to tell me everything,” Merlin said. “The entire story. How you met. How you got the puppies. Everything.”
Roland pulled into a truck stop. “Get my splinter out first, Merlin. I’ll let you do it as a raptor. As a special treat for you.”
Merlin laughed, shifted, and scuttled up front.
“Want some cookies, Natalie?” Tirzah offered.
Natalie was about to say she wasn’t hungry when she realized that in fact, she was starving. “Yes, please.”
Tirzah began pulling little boxes and shrink-wrapped parcels out of her purse. “I have snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies, lemon-rosemary shortbread, and Moravian sugar cake. That’s not a cookie, it’s more like a coffee cake. Gifts from my neighbors. And Merlin. He made the sugar cake.”
Natalie’s brain stalled out like an out-of-gas car when she tried to decide which sounded best. “Um…”
“She’s still in the combat zone, Tirzah. It’s not a good time to make decisions.” Pete opened a compartment, removed a paper plate, and began opening all of Tirzah’s packages and dumping them on to the plate. When he was done and the plate was piled high, he set it down beside her. “There you go.”
Natalie grabbed the closest one and stuffed it in her mouth. She’d barely finished swallowing it before she attacked the next. She felt vaguely guilty over using what were undoubtedly delicious cookies as mere fuel, but she needed that fuel.
Roland craned his neck around, making the tiny raptor perched on his bare shoulder give a hiss that probably meant, “Stop squirming.”
“We can stop at a drive-in,” Roland said. “Do you have any special requirements, Natalie?”
“Special requirements?” Natalie asked blankly through a mouthful of buttery lemon-rosemary deliciousness.
“Vegetarian? Kosher? Gluten-free—no, I can see not that one.”
She swallowed, then said, “No, nothing like that. But you don’t need to stop for me. I can wait.”
A chorus of voices went up, as every single person in the van who was conscious and not currently a raptor assured her that they were hungry too and she wouldn’t be inconveniencing anyone, then immediately began to squabble over what sort of food they wanted.
“No chain restaurants,” said Carter and Merlin, almost simultaneously, then glanced at each other as if they had mixed feelings about being on the same side.
“What’s the matter with chains?” Pete inquired in an ominous tone.
Roland started up the van again, an action which Natalie would never have thought of as being expressive but which conveyed a clear sense that they were going to eat whatever was available wherever he drove them to.
So these were Ransom’s teammates. She could see why he cared so much about their friendship, and why he’d been so glad to be back on the team. The way they squabbled and looked out for each other reminded her of the circus. Maybe that was why Merlin had been content to leave the Fabulous Flying Chameleons for the Defenders—they were a three-ring show all by themselves.
Merlin noticed her looking at him, and went to sit by her. “I imagined us meeting up again a bunch of times, but I never imagined it would be on top of a tomato vine water slide and you’d nearly chuck me off it because I was a gecko-sized raptor and you thought I was attacking you.”
“Me neither,” Natalie admitted.
Lowering his voice, Merlin asked, “Why did you leave? I’ve been wondering and wondering.”
“It’s a long story,” she began.
“It’s a three-hour drive back to Refuge City.”
Natalie had forgotten how persistent he could be. Then again, she no longer had any reason not to tell him. Probably.
You’re not dying, said her Gabriel Hound.
Am I completely cured, though? Natalie asked. Was shifter healing all I ever needed?
You’re not cured, her Gabriel Hound replied, directing her attention to Tirzah’s wheelchair and Dali’s prosthetic hand. But you’re not dying.
Merlin flipped his hand in a “go on” gesture.
“Before I start, I want to let you know that I’m all right now. I have a heart condition. But I’m going to live.” Natalie heard her own words, which had been so long and hard in coming, and repeated them, just to savor their sound. “I’m going to live.”
Chapter 32
Ransom awoke in an unfamiliar bed with a gloriously familiar body beside him. Even before he opened his eyes, he knew it was Natalie. He knew her slim legs, her strong shoulders, her breasts the perfect size to cup in his hands. He knew her scent, that bright lemon sharpness with a warm musky tang underneath. He knew the tousled silk of her hair.
He opened his eyes, hoping to catch her asleep. It was a moment in time that he wanted to enjoy, like so many other moments: Natalie sleeping, Natalie waking, Natalie laughing, Natalie flying through the air—with or without wings.
Her head rested on his chest, and her eyes were still closed. Her hair was mussed with sleep, a lock of tomato-red obscuring her shell-pink ear.
I wonder if I’ll ever think of anything but tomatoes when I see a shade of red, he thought. A chuckle escaped him at the thought.
And then he got to see Natalie waking up. Her eyelids fluttered, she nestled in closer with a soft sound that went straight to his heart, and then her eyes flew open.
She lifted herself on one arm, peering down at him. “Hey! You’re awake!”
He nodded, drawing in a cautious deep breath. It didn’t hurt. His chest and side were freshly bandaged, and he wore clean pajama bottoms. “How long have I been out?”
She rolled over to peer at the small clock on a side table. “Looks like a day and a half for both of us. I was exhausted. I vaguely remember taking a shower with Dali knocking on the door every few minutes to make sure I hadn’t fallen asleep standing up. I guess I did, because I don’t remember going to bed. Whose house did they take us to?”
“No one’s. It’s the bedroom at Defenders.”
Natalie sat up, rubbing her eyes and looking around. “You have a bedroom in your office?”
“We sometimes have witnesses or people we’re protecting, who need a safe place to stay…” Ransom realized that he was using ‘we’ as if he was still on the team, then remembered that he was still on the team. Roland had said so. And none of his teammates blamed him or were angry with him. And Natalie would live.
Natalie would live.
“We have time now,” he said. “We have all the time in the world.”
“Let’s start using it.” Her eyes gleamed opalescent, catching glints of sea blue and leaf green and storm gray. “If you kiss me now, I won’t drop dead.”
“How could I resist such a romantic invitation?”
He leaned in, and all playfulness fell away as their mouths met. Her lips were soft and hot, her body molding itself to his. Her small strong fingers clenched on his shoulders as their kiss deepened and lengthened. His head swam with a haze of conflicting desires. He could kiss her forever, and be satisfied. He had to rip off their clothes and bury himself in her, right now.
A yip and a bark made them jerk apart. Heidi and Wally were sitting on the carpet, staring at
them soulfully and wagging their tails.
“Just what we want,” Natalie said drily. “An audience.”
Let me help you, said her Gabriel Hound.
“Go take a walk around the office,” Natalie ordered the puppies. “A long walk.”
A trace of her inner hound’s growl was in her voice. The pups vanished.
A silence fell. The air felt charged with electricity, as if before a storm. Ransom imagined that if he touched her now, sparks would fly from the point of contact. And he also knew that if they touched again, they wouldn’t stop at kissing.
“It is safe now, isn’t it?” Ransom asked.
“My hound says it is. And she should know. Apparently I still need some sort of treatment, but…” She shrugged. Even that ordinary up-and-down motion of her shoulders was fluid and beautiful. Entrancing. “If you’re up to it…”
“I am,” he said immediately. “Shifters heal fast.”
“Then there’s nothing to stop us now.”
Ransom swallowed. He could almost hear the air crackling between them. His blood felt as if it had been replaced by a surging electric current. “All that time lying in separate beds. I thought I was going to lose my mind.”
“Me too. What did you imagine doing, when we were lying there?”
“Other than everything?”
Natalie’s rose-pink lips curved into a smile. Her voice was low, almost a purr. “When you were imagining everything, what did you imagine most?”
An image leaped into his mind, complete with scent and touch and taste. “I—”
She reached out and put the pad of one fingertip to his lips, silencing him. That one little touch sent a jolt straight down his spine. “Show me.”
He was relieved not to have to talk. He was hard as steel, his mind swimming with pure need. But even in the midst of the primal drives of body and soul, he was touched by her trust. She was telling him that there was nothing he could do that she wouldn’t want. That she wanted him, all of him, everything that he was and anything he might do.