Birds of a Feather
The Paranormal University Files: Skylar, Year 2, Summer
Vivienne Savage
writing as
Dominique Kristine
Illustrated by
Merely Art
Edited by
Hot Tree Editing
Birds of a Feather
The Paranormal University Files: Skylar, Year 2
Summer
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By Vivienne Savage writing as
Dominique Kristine
All material contained herein is Copyrighted © Dominique Kristine 2018. All rights reserved.
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your preferred e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Edited by Theresa Schultz
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When Gabriel arranges a vacation in New Orleans with his half-faerie girlfriend, he expects creole cuisine and opportunities to watch her prance in a skimpy bikini. The local sentinel office that polices paranormal activity has another idea in mind—agency numbers are dwindling, vampire turnings are high, and they need his help on the case.
It’s not the kind of action he hoped to get over the summer, but the NOLA sentinel chief is family, and raven shifters flock together.
Contents
1. Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy, Unless You’re a Fae
2. Man Enough
3. When My Girl is a Living Sun
4. There’s Nothing Like Family
5. Café Nocturne
6. The Lord of Rosehill
7. The Thick Plottens
8. Finding Loopholes
9. A Birthday Surprise
10. To Harass and Protect
11. Excessive Force
12. Annalise
13. Answers and More Questions
14. Confrontation is a Bitch
15. A Tale of Two Grandmas
16. The Demon Queller
Other Books by Vivienne
About the Author
1
Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy, Unless You’re a Fae
My girlfriend’s baby brother preferred me. We’d spent much of the afternoon on the rear patio with the little dude in my arms, giving her mother and father a rest from their newborn. He dozed happily whenever I held him, but the moment Sky had a turn, he’d fill his diaper or spit up in her hair.
Man, I wasn’t financially or emotionally ready to have a kid of my own yet, but he was growing on me. It didn’t help that Sky was my ideal mate, and I spent every waking moment in her presence fighting back the urge to take her to Pound Town. Except for when I was holding Dante, anyway. The kid was like a shield, a reminder telling me to keep my dick under control. That, and I was pretty sure her dad could turn me into a toad. Or worse.
That was the danger of dating a half-faerie girl.
“You know,” Sky’s mother said from the doorway, “if you kids want to stay here for the rest of the summer, we wouldn’t mind.”
“You just want us to watch the baby so you and Daddy can sleep.”
Mrs. Corazzi laughed. “Not at all. Dante is perfectly happy to sleep when I hold him.”
“Oh, just rub it in,” Sky muttered.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, your brother is going to love you. Next time you visit I’m sure he’ll give you a big smile.”
“Yeah, because he burped or something.”
Her mother laughed and stepped over to reclaim her newborn. “We’ll see. And speaking of seeing, Marco wanted to show you something, Gabe.”
I perked up and stretched. “Where at?”
Sky’s old man was a cool dude for a fae, and not at all as scatterbrained as she’d described him. In the month since our arrival, he and I had enjoyed beers on the couch way too many times to count. He was always bringing something cool out of their liquor stash, like his father’s limoncello, or pistachio and chocolate liqueur. He liked to cook, which meant we’d eaten authentic Italian cuisine almost every night since our arrival, save for a couple evenings when I’d taken Sky out on the town.
“He’s on the front porch.”
We left Mrs. Corazzi in the living room and headed outside. Golden rays from the setting sun slanted into my face the moment the door opened, momentarily blinding me. Squinting against the brightness, I stepped outside and angled my body away from the sun. And froze.
It took me a moment to reconcile the fact that the car in the driveway was mine. Mr. Corazzi had given it a carwash glamour before, but this time he’d gone a hundred steps further, because it looked like it had come off the set of Pimp My Ride.
My eight-year-old, dinged up Chrysler 300 had been through some rough times, a vehicle I bought for a couple grand back in high school before my parents gifted me a truck for graduating valedictorian. When I broke up with Jada, another raven shifter, and my family disowned me, I ditched the truck in favor of the car with the better gas mileage. I couldn’t keep up with Chicago’s outrageous gas prices without help.
Old Faithful had never really let me down. Except for when the brakes went to shit and the AC died that one summer, or the time the windows stopped working.
Okay, so maybe Old Faithful had let me down. A lot.
I suspected Sky had been funneling faerie magic into the piece of shit to keep it running as efficiently as it had during our drive from Chicago to Virginia.
“Is that even my car?” I croaked out, hurrying off the stoop to the front of it. The Texas plate matched my car, but it didn’t look like my car.
“It certainly is. How do you like it?” Mr. Corazzi asked.
I didn’t know what to say. What did you say when your girl’s father transformed your bucket of rust shitmobile into a car worthy of a celebrity? “I… This is amazing. Thank you. How long will it last?”
He chuckled. “Last? For as long as you take care of her, I suppose.”
“Huh? But Rags-to-Riches glamours are temporary.” It was a spell fae used to turn old and busted shit into shiny, new shit.
“Unless you imbue the proper amount of faerie dust. I happened to save quite a bit for the occasion.”
I blinked a few times, throat suspiciously tight. “It’s permanent?”
“As permanent as can be.”
The longer I waited for the punchline to the joke, the more apparent it became that he wasn’t pulling one over on me. I wouldn’t be driving this fine-ass car for a few days, or even a few hours—it’d be mine years from now. I glanced toward the porch, seeking my girl. She watched with a knowing grin on her face.
“Daddy saved faerie dust for a year to do this.”
“Mr. Corazzi, this is too much. I don’t even know how to thank you for it.”
“No,” her father said, smiling warmly before he grabbed me in a tight embrace. “Call me Marco.”
In all the years I’d dated my ex, her father had never hugged me. It took a moment for my limbs to take orders from my brain to return it, and somehow, I kept my dignity instead of clapping and shouting like one of those dudes who’d just won The Price is Right.
Except, I kind of had just won it, hadn’t I?
“Marco.” I tested it, deciding it didn’t feel unusual to call the older faerie by his
first name. “Still, what was this for?”
He released me and fell back a few steps to the glossy vehicle. “For being a good man. You take care of Skylar and you’ve protected her. Even helped her achieve her dreams. That means more to me than any amount of faerie dust. If this is the car that drives my daughter around, then I want you both to be protected.”
“He’s lying. He did it because you mowed the lawn while he was out working with Sam,” Sky chipped in.
Marco chuckled. “I mean, that helped, but I had already made up my mind.” He raised the hood and propped it open. While I stared at the customization—everything inside was cobalt blue, even the sparkling Hemi engine glittered like a sapphire—he walked around to the driver’s side and opened the suicide doors. The aroma of authentic Italian leather wafted out; I didn’t know how the fuck I knew it was Italian leather from the smell of it, but I knew.
“I added an extra dose of faerie dust to the doors.” He started pushing buttons and explaining the additional safety features guaranteeing the doors could never pop open accidentally.
When I slipped into the driver’s seat, I noticed the Star Wars wheel cover and Millennium Falcon visors. Every inch of the car had been kitted out as if I’d ordered the individual parts myself. “Dude, that’s my favorite movie!”
Her father’s grin widened. “I know.”
“I wanted to go with a Lord of the Rings theme, or something out of The Birds, but…this is better.”
“Ugh, that movie gave us such a bad rap. Only magpies do that dive-bombing shit.”
“Uh huh, suuuure.” Sky grinned and leaned down to kiss my cheek, but I turned my head and caught her mouth. Brief and tender, no tongue because I was still feeling out her folks and how cool they were with me dating their daughter.
If he took offense to an innocent kiss, he was a master of maintaining his poker face, though it was less of a poker face and more of a dopey grin matching Sky’s goofy smile.
“I can’t believe you managed to keep this a secret from me.”
“Are you saying I suck at secrets?” she asked, exaggerated offense in her voice. She squatted beside the open driver’s side door.
“Uh. There’s a reason no one tells you or Ben anything.”
Our mutual magician friend, Ben, ran the university newspaper, but before that he’d been one of the most notorious gossips to ever hit PNRU.
An adorable, kissable pout pursed her lips, and it took all my self-control to resist. Thankfully, my new ride provided the perfect distraction.
“All right, kids. Go eat pizza or whatever you’d like on your last night in Suffolk.”
“But we’re not even dressed for—”
Skylar’s protest died from the moment her father snapped his fingers. Clouds of faerie dust fell over us in a magical storm. Her shorts and tank became a sundress, and my jeans morphed into khaki slacks.
“Uh. This is kind of dressy for pizza at Amici’s,” Skylar said, while I gawked at my Armani button-down shirt. I had new reasons to be both impressed and intimidated by her father.
Reason A: I’d been checking the shirt out online a couple days ago, debating if I could afford it—which meant he’d used one of his faerie talents to sense my minor wants and needs.
Reason B: If he saw my craving for high-priced male fashion, what the hell else had he seen in there?
Hopefully he saw more love for his daughter than primal urge to bone her crippled.
“One can never be too dressy for good pizza,” her father deadpanned before retreating into the house. “Bring back a rosemary chicken pizza for us.”
2
Man Enough
The next evening, we reached our destination. Maison du Corbeau Noir occupied a prime lot in the famous French Quarter of New Orleans. I’d never been able to stay at the place without rolling my eyes, familiar with it from previous visits during family vacations. As clever as my people could be, the founder had been literal when she’d named her hotel. Then again, that probably was the joke—that a bunch of ravens ran a place called the Black Raven House.
Skylar kept twisting around as we made our way inside, which brought back memories of my first visit. I’d been impressed, too. Glossy black marble floors stretched across the lobby, offset by white leather couches and gold-trimmed counters.
A friendly receptionist checked us in as a valet brought up our luggage.
While Sky claimed her side of the room and set her suitcase on the luggage rack, I placed Amaterasu’s travel cage on the computer desk in the corner.
“Wait, wait!” Sky dashed over, wand at the ready.
“What?”
“Mom taught me the glamour to expand Ama’s cage. Set it on the floor for me.”
Trusting my girl not to crush my best friend in a freak magical accident, I set the small white cage on the floor and stepped back. One flick of her crystal wand issued a stream of faerie dust and golden sparkles, spirals of magic encircling the cage before it expanded into a miniature aviary teeming with toys.
The image flickered twice and shrank a few inches, but when Sky tapped it with her wand and funneled another spurt of faerie dust into it, the size held. “There!” she crowed in victory. “I knew I could do it.”
Uh, so did I. I was definitely not prepared to rescue Ama from the jaws of a flaming wreck with my bare hands. Impressed, and feeling a little like an ass for underestimating her, I nodded. “Good job. Promise me this thing won’t fall to pieces or squish her in the middle of the night though.”
“It won’t. Mom and I practiced some permanence charms since I have the class this fall.” Her gaze flicked to the cage. Instead of celebrating and playing with her new toys, Ama hustled into the original fleece tent with her tail feathers pointed at us.
Damn. Even I got the brush off?
No matter what Sky tried, my stubborn girl refused to warm up to her, and I didn’t have any clue what to do about it. Gloria had suggested letting them work it out on their own since Sky was the new woman in my life and Amaterasu—I named her after the Japanese sun goddess when I was a kid, failing to realize what a mouthful it was for a bird to learn—would adapt over time.
I had my doubts.
“This room is beautiful.” Sky wandered over to the windows and peered out. “But the view isn’t quite what I expected.”
“People don’t come here for the view.” I chuckled and joined her. Outside we had a look at a café across the narrow one-way street. “We’ll get free music, though. Musicians like to play out there throughout the day.”
Sky leaned back against my chest. I wrapped both arms around her, flattening my palm over the flat stomach exposed by her low-rise jean shorts. Midriff tops looked good on her, and hard work had toned her abs with definition I could have spent an hour kissing.
Among other places I wanted to place my lips.
“Gabriel?”
“Hm?”
“Are we going to actually sleep in two beds?”
Shit. The question took me by surprise. I’d reserved a room with two beds specifically to avoid giving in to my animal urges, but the mere mention of it brought a slight pulse to my dick, stirring it from lazy slumber. Sky noticed and wiggled.
“Yeah, why?” My heart became a wild drum beat, slamming against my ribs. “Are you…? Did you make up your mind about—?” Please say yes.
“No,” Sky said quickly, dashing my hopes. She twisted around in my embrace and peeked up at me. “Not yet. I’m still thinking about it.”
Not yet. I could work with that. “Not yet” was neither an acceptance nor a refusal. I still had a chance, and fuck if there was anything I wouldn’t do. “There’s no rush. I don’t expect anything. Really. I don’t ever want you to feel pressured.”
“It’s been on my mind, but not because I feel pressure.”
“What’s on your mind, then?” I sat on the edge of the bed and tugged her over by a hand.
“I just want to understand a little more about it. Yo
u know, because of all that talk about bonds. Before I can say yes, I need to know exactly what it means to you, and what it’ll mean for us.”
Sometimes I wished I had never mentioned the mating bond to her. Not because I wanted to hide shit, especially important shit, but because it had spooked her. It would have been worse not to tell her.
“All right. If at any moment I confuse you, say the word, and I’ll try to make sense of it.” She nodded. “There’s two parts to accepting a claim. I made it at the Wild Hunt meeting, but nothing proceeds until you make the next move. It puts the ball in your court, so to speak.”
“Right. You mentioned the claim, but you never really told me what it means or explained why I had to leave that night.”
“I made you leave because I was so hard it physically hurt.”
Her eyes opened wide.
Months ago during Christmas break, Sky brought over her grandfather’s limoncello and the ingredients to prepare a delicious manicotti. No woman had ever cooked for me before. My ex would have catered the meal and pretended she baked it.
Not Sky. She’d navigated my kitchen like it was hers, kicked me out of it, and parked me on the sofa while she worked. Usually, she brought pizza when we hung out at my apartment. That day, she’d cooked for me, even donning a cute apron with unicorns and sparkles.
Then she’d skated around the subject of why all the shifters treated us different, and I’d lost my composure. I fingered my girlfriend on the couch and had been one step from making love to her when my meathead bear shifter cousin stumbled in and interrupted us.
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