by Chant, Zoe
Dali didn’t interrupt. Even apart from his stunning good looks, his engaging manner, his unique background, and his previous experience with magical creatures—all perfectly obvious reasons for her to want to get to know him—she sensed a mystery that intrigued her. There was something about him that felt hidden, despite his open manner.
Then she realized that while she’d been waiting for him to go on, a silence had fallen. A silence in which that chemistry she’d felt earlier had come to crackling, electric life. She could almost feel the warmth of his body on her skin, even though they were standing apart.
The little details of him stood out to her as if they were rimmed in light. The unusual thickness of muscle at his wrists, which wasn’t something you got from working out at a gym. The sunlight coming in through the windows that turned his hair to molten gold. His stillness now, when previously he’d been constantly in motion, even if it was nothing more than twirling the windowshade cord between his fingers.
When she finally lifted her gaze to his eyes, she caught him looking at her as intently as she’d been looking at him. No, not looking: he was staring at her. Taking her in. Drinking her in. She abruptly recalled that she was still in the red silk dress, which showed off her cleavage and her hips and her ass and her legs and—well, pretty much everything. And while his gaze wasn’t obnoxiously glued to any particular part, there was no doubt in her mind that he appreciated the view.
Next time I see Grandma, I’ll thank her for telling me to wear this, she thought.
Grandma had been right. It was nice to stop and enjoy the roses. And there was a rose of a man right in front of her.
Sure, he wasn’t available. He’d already made that quite clear. But once upon a time, she’d enjoyed just having chemistry and looking and maybe a little light flirting, with no need for anything more to come of it.
“Can I ask you something?” Merlin asked abruptly.
“Sure.”
He shuffled his feet, gave a little cough, and asked, “What color is my hair?”
Dali stared at him. “Is that a joke?”
“No.” She could see from his expression that he was absolutely serious. “Just tell me, please. What color does it look like to you?”
“Like early afternoon sunlight. Like a field of ripe wheat. Like...” She broke off, hoping she wasn’t blushing. It was hard to describe his hair without thinking of running her fingers through it. “Is that specific enough? I’m not a hair stylist, I don’t know the technical terms.”
Merlin was grinning as if she’d just handed him a million dollar check. “Great. Great. That’s all I needed to know. Now there’s something I should tell you...”
CHAPTER 4
Merlin wondered where he should even start.
“I have this secret power I’ve never told anyone about, and I asked you about my hair color to make sure it wasn’t affecting you now.”
“I’m a shifter, like the pigeons who stole your grandma’s necklace.”
“Even my own teammates never believe a word I say.”
“About my circus...”
Everything, tell her everything, his raptor chimed in. All at once!
Maybe it would be best if he told her everything in the form of a story. Everyone loved stories. Well, everyone except his teammates, who had been known to flee the room when he began one. But maybe Dali would be different.
“I mentioned that I was raised in a circus,” he began. “It all began...”
“Not that again,” said an all-too-familiar voice. His teammate Pete had flung open the door and was holding it open for his mate Tirzah as she came in. In his other hand, he held a large Starbucks cup. Tirzah had another one in the cup holder of her wheelchair.
Merlin sighed. The moment was ruined, and he still didn’t have any coffee.
“Oh, hey, Dali, what’re you doing—” Tirzah broke off, stared, then burst out laughing. “You have a flying kitten! How long have you had it?”
“About an hour. I found her in an alley. Or maybe she found me.” Dali shot Tirzah and Pete a sharp glance. “You don’t seem that surprised that flying kittens exist, either.”
“No,” Tirzah admitted. “I have one too. So does Pete. I love yours, she’s so pretty!”
Tirzah approached Dali and the kitten, then came to a jolting stop as one of her wheels ran over what was left of his floor trap and the twine tangled in the spokes.
“Goddammit, Merlin!” Pete roared. “You’re a menace!”
Pete stooped to untangle Tirzah, then straightened up and pointed an accusing finger at Merlin. “YOU put an obstacle in her path, YOU get rid of it!”
Merlin, feeling guilty, took a step toward Tirzah. She held up her hands to ward him off. “Don’t come near me! You’re covered in... What are you covered in?”
“Watermelon frappuccino,” he said absently, but his attention was elsewhere.
“Hey, Merlin?” Dali said.
It was the first time she’d ever said his name. There was something so intimate about hearing it from her lips, in her beautiful voice. He’d treasure the memory always, whether they ever got a chance to act on their attraction or not.
And then he came back to earth as he took in the rest of what she was saying: “Why are you covered in watermelon frappuccino? And... is that a handprint on your face?”
Pete, glancing over his shoulder as he cut the twine with a pocket knife, said, “Don’t bother asking Merlin questions like that. Or any questions about himself. He’ll just come out with some ridiculous bullshit story.”
“Oh?” Dali’s eyebrows arched, but her skeptical look was directed at Pete, not Merlin. She turned to face Merlin to ask, “So, what happened?”
Resigned to her disbelief, Merlin said, “I went into a Starbucks, and before I could even place my order the barista threw a drink at me and slapped me across the face.”
“See what I mean?” Pete said to Dali.
Merlin liked Pete. Really. But there were times when he wanted to throw a watermelon frappuccino over him, and this was one of them.
Ignoring Pete, Dali asked Merlin, “Why would she do that?”
“She mistook me for her ex who cheated on her and stole her sofa.”
His raptor, who had been uncharacteristically quiet up to this point, broke in. Let’s go steal the sofa back! And pour a watermelon frappuccino over the ex while he’s sleeping!
“Who you coincidentally happened to resemble enough for her to think you were him from a foot away,” Pete said.
Merlin resisted the urge to flick some watermelon frappuccino droplets in his face. Instead, he gave Pete his biggest, brightest smile, and said, “When I was in the circus, we had these two trapeze artists who went by Mia and Pia Bonaventura, and performed as twins. They really did look a lot alike—especially when they had makeup and identical leotards on—even though not only were they not sisters, let alone twins, they weren’t related at all. They also weren’t Italian, but that’s another story. Anyway, once Pia was dangling upside down from the trapeze when a traveling salesman—”
“Merlin,” Pete interrupted. “There’s showers in the office. Why don’t you go take one?”
“Dali hired me for a job,” said Merlin, who did want a shower but didn’t want to leave Dali alone with Pete, who would undoubtedly tell her unfairly misleading stories about him. “To protect her and Cloud—her kitten’s name is Cloud—and to retrieve a stolen necklace. I need a few more details—”
“Oh?” Pete folded his arms. Between his size and his stubborn expression and his brown hair, he reminded Merlin very much of the cave bear he could turn into. “I’m her neighbor. I should be the one protecting her.”
“Guys,” Tirzah said, spinning her chair so the wheels made a barrier between them. “Number one, it’s Dali’s choice. Number two, Roland is the boss and you really ought to run the whole thing by him first. Number three, you’re not the only agents who work here.”
“There was another man her
e when I came in,” Dali put in. “Tall, brownish-red hair, looked kind of like a professor...?”
“Did he say anything weird, by any chance?” Tirzah asked, grinning.
“Yeah, he did, actually.”
“Ransom,” chorused Merlin and Pete.
“He didn’t seem very friendly. If your boss Roland is okay with it, I’ll go with one of you.” Dali looked from Pete to Merlin.
Merlin had to restrain himself from saying, Me, me, pick me—though that didn’t stop his raptor from saying it. But like Tirzah had said, it was Dali’s choice.
“I’ll take Merlin,” she said, smiling at him. “When can you start?”
“Immediately.” Half of him wanted to burst into song and skip around the room. The other half, looking ahead to what he’d have to do to retrieve her necklace, wanted to run screaming. “I mean, after my shower.”
He stared deeply into Pete’s eyes, trying to telepathically communicate She doesn’t know I’m a shifter and I want to tell her myself so please don’t mention it while I’m out of the room, naked, dripping wet, and unable to speak for myself.
Pete made an impatient gesture. “What?”
Merlin came to his senses. Pete might be willing to discuss flying kittens with someone who already had one, but there was no way he’d bring up the fact that Merlin was a shifter. It would be too close to admitting that Pete was one himself. And while Pete had gotten much more comfortable with his cave bear since he’d fallen in love with Tirzah, it still wasn’t a topic he’d bring up of his own accord.
“Call Carter and tell him to come fix the coffee machine,” Merlin said, and fled.
He took the fastest shower of all time, if you didn’t count the “lightning shower” act he’d once understudied at the circus, and was done, dried, and dressed in spare clothes in less than ten minutes. When he returned to the lobby, his hair was still dripping down the back of his TEA REX T-shirt, which featured a tea-sipping T-rex dressed like an Edwardian gentleman.
Dali was sitting on the sofa next to Tirzah, both of them tickling Cloud, who was rolling around on the floor. Tirzah leaned over to stroke her fat tummy, then winced slightly and put a hand to her shoulder.
Pete, who had been rummaging through a stack of files, put them down, stepped behind Tirzah, and started massaging her shoulders.
She moved her mass of curly brown hair out of the way of his hands. “Thanks, sweetie.”
“You’ve got a hell of a knot in there,” Pete said, pressing hard. “Okay, I think I got it.”
Tirzah leaned her head against his arm. “You have the best hands.”
An unexpected pang of jealousy went through Merlin. That was what it was like to have a mate. It didn’t mean your relationship would be free of difficulties or conflict, but it did mean that you would love each other and be there for each other. Forever.
Born shifters, like the ones he’d known at the circus, recognized their mates at first sight. But Merlin and his teammates had been made into shifters, and their wizard-scientist creators had destroyed their ability to recognize or bond with their mates. Pete and Tirzah had eventually managed to overcome that, but Merlin had no idea if that meant that all of them could, or if they’d been a special case.
He really hoped that all of them could. He couldn’t think of anything more wonderful than having a mate. Though now that he’d met Dali, it was hard to imagine a woman he’d want more than her.
He shot a glance at her. She didn’t look like someone who’d just been informed that the bodyguard she wanted to hire could turn into a raptor. Good. He wanted to tell her himself, preferably alone and in a more controlled environment than the office.
Why all the fuss? asked his raptor. I’m so cool! She’ll love seeing me! Who wouldn’t?
Merlin gave an inward sigh. Because the last time I showed you to someone who’d never seen anyone shift before, she screamed and nearly tipped her chair over.
Tirzah was just startled, his raptor said. She said so herself.
Not. Yet, Merlin said firmly. A veteran like Dali would be unlikely to scream, of course. And he already knew she had nerves of steel. But all the same, he wanted to do a better job of preparation this time.
Cloud scuttled behind the sofa, and Dali followed her. Crouching down behind it, she was momentarily invisible.
The front door opened and Roland came in. The Defenders boss ran his hand through his silvering hair, looking harried.
“Merlin!” Roland flipped open his briefcase and extracted a gnawed-on report. Waving it at Merlin, he said, “How many times do I have to tell you, ‘my raptor ate my report’ is not a valid excuse?”
“Roland!” Horrified, Merlin flapped his hand madly at the sofa. Roland glanced at it, saw only Pete and Tirzah, and mistook Merlin’s intent.
“Don’t point to Pete,” Roland said crossly. “Yeah, he had trouble controlling his cave bear, but he never let it affect his office work. If you turn into a raptor and it goes out of control, don’t give me some long, ridiculous explanation about how once in the circus ten clowns, three seals, and the daring young man on the flying trapeze all took turns eating the white tiger’s homework. If your raptor chews up your report, you write another report!”
Dali stood up, Cloud in her arms. Her eyebrows looked like a pair of loaded guns directed at Merlin as she repeated Roland’s words: “If you turn into a raptor?!”
“Er,” Merlin said. “That was what I was trying to tell you when Pete came in.”
She folded her arms. “Let’s get all our cards on the table. If you really turn into a raptor, I want to see it. Now.”
“Wait!” Tirzah, Pete, and Roland flung out their hands and shouted simultaneously.
But Merlin didn’t see any point in waiting and explaining. She already knew, so that part was out of the bag. She’d said she wanted to see it, so any delays would only annoy her. Besides, he was proud of his raptor and he wanted to show it off.
Small, he thought as he triggered the shift. Tiny. Hamster-sized. Remember, we don’t want to alarm her.
But his raptor had other ideas. And once he began to shift, it was his raptor who had the upper hand.
BIG! he gleefully exclaimed. We want to impress her! The ceiling’s the limit!
CHAPTER 5
Dali was not normally a screamer. But when a twelve-foot velociraptor suddenly loomed over her, with eyes like yellow lanterns and fangs like daggers and claws like scimitars, a startled shriek burst from her lips.
And then her reflexes took over. She might have been a desk jockey who’d never seen combat except for that one devastating day, but she’d been trained like everyone else. Instinctively seeking to protect those who needed it the most, she thrust Cloud into Tirzah’s arms and jumped in front of them both.
“Goddammit, Merlin!” Pete bellowed.
“Shift back, now!” shouted Roland, the burly black man who had scolded Merlin over the report. To Dali, he said, “Please don’t be alarmed...”
“It’s Merlin, Dali,” Tirzah said. “It’s fine. He’s just impetuous.”
“That’s a nice word for it,” Pete muttered.
Dali’s heartbeat slowed. Of course. A velociraptor. She’d assumed he meant a raptor as in a bird of prey. She wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed at Merlin for not warning her or annoyed at herself for screaming.
Cloud zipped out of Tirzah’s arms and flew at the gigantic velociraptor, wings buzzing like an angry hornet. Hovering in midair, she arched her back and spat in its face.
The velociraptor abruptly shrank to the size of a kitten. Cloud, undeterred, dove down and pounced on it. The kitten and the kitten-sized velociraptor began rolling over the floor together.
Roland and Dali moved simultaneously. Dali snatched up Cloud, anxiously examining her for injuries to her delicate wings, while the kitten struggled and hissed, trying to return to the fight. Meanwhile, Roland gingerly plucked up the tiny velociraptor and held it up before his eyes, sighing, “Merlin...”
Reassured that Cloud was unharmed, Dali returned her attention to the velociraptor. It had sleek rather than scaly hide and was black rather than green, but otherwise, it was the spitting image of the deadly dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Apart from being the size of a kitten.
The velociraptor gave a rather frantic-sounding hiss. Roland placed it on the floor and stepped back. It suddenly grew back to its full height, its head almost brushing the ceiling, then shrank, just as suddenly, to the size of a hamster. Cloud let out long “mrrrrorrrrw,” which Dali recognized as a hunting howl. She clutched the kitten tight. The last thing anyone needed was a repeat of the kitten vs. velociraptor battle.
The velociraptor grew once more, this time to the height of a man. It let out a furious hiss, and then was Merlin again, clean and fully dressed in a new outfit, his wet hair darkened to bronze. “Whew. Sorry about that.”
Dali stared at him. It was one thing to be told that people could turn into animals, or even to hold a winged kitten in your arms. It was a whole ‘nother thing to actually see that charming, fast-talking, annoyingly sexy man turn into a giant dinosaur. And also a tiny dinosaur. And a medium size dinosaur. It was so mind-boggling, she couldn’t even process it.
“I really am sorry,” Merlin repeated. “Remember that lab I mentioned, with the wizard-scientists who’d locked up Cloud and the other magical creatures? And how me and Ransom and Pete—and Roland too—got kidnapped and taken there? They experimented on us to make us into shapeshifters and give us special powers. So this is all pretty new to us. Which is why I’m still a little shaky on getting my size right when I shift. I didn’t even know I could get that big!”
Dali bit her lip, trying not to snicker. She had to be the only person there who’d thought of the double meaning, and she didn’t want to come across like she had a dirty mind.
Tirzah burst into giggles. “Merlin, do you say that to all the ladies?”
“I’ve seen bigger,” said Pete.
Roland, his lips twitching, seemed to be fighting an internal battle to not comment. He lost. “Is whatever you used prescription-only, or did you order it by mail?”