by Chant, Zoe
Merlin gave an inner sigh. Probably the whole idea of him meeting his mate, whether he recognized her or not, was wishful thinking. In theory, everyone had a mate, whether they were shifters or not. In practice, not everyone actually found theirs—shifters included.
He should just enjoy being with Dali for as long as it lasted, whether that was a day or so (a thought which filled him with gloom) or forever.
But he couldn’t help hoping for forever.
When they reached the underground parking lot, he watched Dali look around with interest at the admittedly unusual selection of cars.
“I know that one,” she said, indicating Tirzah’s car, a Tesla that had been modified for hand controls. “And I don’t see Pete’s, so I assume he came with her.”
In the brief time he’d known Dali, he’d seen her suspicious, disapproving, startled, heroic, protective, sad, amused, and flirtatious. There was so much to her— no man at her side would ever be bored. She’d been playful, too, which was a mood he had the feeling she hadn’t experienced recently. Merlin wanted to let her experience it more.
Rather than heading for his car, he stopped. “Guess which is whose.”
Her eyebrows arched in surprise, then pulled together in suspicion. “Is this some kind of test?”
“No,” said Merlin. “It’s a game. If you don’t think it’ll be fun, you don’t have to play.”
Dali smiled. “Okay. I’ll give it a shot.”
He watched her, not the cars, as her gaze traveled over them, sharp but also amused. Enjoying herself. He liked seeing that.
“Dark blue Volkswagen,” she said. “Sturdy, reliable, not flashy. Must be Roland.”
“Correct,” said Merlin.
“Lipstick-red Ferrari,” she went on. “That car screams ‘I have a lot of money and possibly a midlife crisis.’ Carter?”
“Very good!”
Dali grinned, clearly enjoying herself and enjoying his attention. Merlin couldn’t believe how much she’d brightened up from the serious, buttoned-down woman he’d first laid eyes on.
Like a rose in winter, he thought. All you see at first is the thorns. But add a little sunlight and water, and it blossoms.
“Okay,” she said. “To be honest, I got to the next one by the process of elimination, not insight. I’m guessing that generic-looking white car is Ransom’s, because I know the tiny red one is yours.”
“Excellent! A+” Merlin applauded. To his delight, Dali took a bow. As they headed for his car, he explained, “Ransom rents a new car every month. I assume so he’s not easy to find or follow. How’d you guess mine?”
With a perfect deadpan, she said, “Because it’s a clown car.”
“I’ll have you know, this is a 1969 MGB-GT. A classic British sports car, perfectly restored.”
“A teeny-weeny clown car,” Dali teased. “Goes with your teeny-weeny dinosaur.”
“A sleek, fast mini-car to go with my sleek, fast mini-raptor,” Merlin corrected her, and opened the door for her.
In fact, the MGB-GT had more room on the inside than was apparent from outside. Though it only had three doors (driver’s, passenger’s, and rear), two small people could squeeze into the back, or you could flip down the rear seats to get a reasonably roomy luggage compartment. It was true that it was half the size of most modern cars, but as far as Merlin was concerned, that only made it extra-cool.
“A clown car would be even smaller,” he remarked as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Makes it more impressive when all the clowns come out.”
“How does it work?” Dali asked. “Is there a trapdoor in the floor?”
Merlin shook his head. “No, nothing like that. You use a real car—a VW Beetle is best because they have a funny shape—and take out the entire interior. Seats, the panel separating the trunk from the rest of the car, everything. You paint over the windows so the audience can’t see what’s inside...”
“And then you cram in the clowns?”
“And then you cram in the clowns,” Merlin agreed. “Once we tried getting in more by having a bunch of small shifters, like flying squirrels and cats and so forth, go inside while they were shifted. And then they’d shift back to human one or two at a time. Only they had to get into their clown outfits and red noses and stuff before they got out, and it slowed down the whole thing too much.”
“Why didn’t they put on their costumes before they got in the car?”
“Because only magical and extinct shifters take their clothes with them,” Merlin said. “If a regular shifter transforms with a clown suit on, it’ll either fall off or explode off. Wigs and buttons and red noses flying in all directions!”
Dali chuckled, then shook her head in wonder. “I saw you turn into a velociraptor, and I still can hardly believe this is all real.”
“It’s real,” he said.
His words came out freighted with more meaning than he’d intended. She looked right into his eyes, and her steady brown gaze flooded him with sexual heat. She was so close, sitting right there next to him in his very small car. With his keen shifter senses, he could smell not only the scent of her green apple shampoo but the natural perfume of her body.
He had to tear his focus away from her. It was making it hard to concentrate on the road, and driving in Refuge City required one’s full attention. Spotting a Starbucks, he said, “Want to stop for coffee?”
“I already had some. But you haven’t, have you?”
He shook his head. “Not even the stuff that got tossed in my face had caffeine in it.”
“Sorry, but we better not,” Dali said. “I’m not sure how long Cloud will stay in my purse. But I have a coffee maker at my apartment.”
A meow from Cloud prompted them to stop anyway, at a supermarket to buy kitten food, litter, and a litter tray, but they went in and out as fast as they could. Merlin resisted his raptor’s suggestions to buy twelve bags of marshmallows and one each of every brand of cereal, and make “everything treats.” He scanned for danger, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Nor did anyone mistake him for an evil ex or their long-lost true love, so he counted that as a win.
Tell her about that power of yours, advised his raptor. Right now!
Later, Merlin said firmly.
Everything was going so well, he didn’t want to mess with it. Besides, he’d startled the hell out of her when he’d impulsively turned into a giant raptor. Surely she’d had enough surprises for one day. The “let me tell you about my weird, out of control secret power” talk could keep. She’d said herself that she could barely wrap her mind around the power she already knew about.
They parked at Dali, Pete, and Tirzah’s apartment building. Merlin looked around with interest as they approached the steps. He’d heard a fair amount about it, mostly from Tirzah. Apparently it had a lot of nosy, friendly neighbors...
Dali stopped dead, looking with alarm at the people standing on the sidewalk and chatting. She whispered, “Those are my neighbors. They’re going to wonder who you are.”
“Leave it to me,” Merlin whispered back.
As they approached the door, everyone on the sidewalk called out friendly greetings and looked curiously at Merlin. A woman flipped her cornrow braids away from her face and said, “Hi, Dali. Hi...?”
Merlin Merrick and his amazing inner raptor, suggested his raptor.
Merlin gave them all his best and brightest smile. “Hi. I’m Merlin Merrick. I’m a friend of Pete and Tirzah’s from Protection, Inc: Defenders, and I’m helping Dali retrieve a stolen necklace.”
When they began to exclaim in dismay, he assured them, “It was a nonviolent theft, like a pickpocketing. But police don’t take those sorts of things seriously, so... enter me!”
“Come on, Merlin, I need to drop off my shopping.” Dali hustled him into the elevator. When the doors closed safely behind them, she arched her eyebrows at him. “Very smooth. Not a single actual lie, and yet it left so much out.”
“You get good at th
at when you’re a shifter,” Merlin said. He didn’t add that you also got good at it when you’re raised in... well, okay, a crime circus.
Dali let him into her apartment. For the first time since she’d left the Defenders office, she lifted her hand from her purse. Cloud leaped out. Her iridescent wings buzzed as she flew around, inspecting everything.
As Merlin watched the kitten fly, he also checked out Dali’s living space. It was a one-room apartment plus a bathroom and a strip of linoleum that, with a few shelves and a space for a sink, a hot plate, a coffee maker, and a mini-fridge, functioned as a kitchen. There was nothing else in the room but a plain and narrow bed, an equally plain table with one chair, and a closet.
Cloud landed atop the mini-fridge and let out a loud meow that Merlin guessed meant, “Feed me, human!” Dali filled a pair of bowls with kitten chow and water. They were plain white plastic, like the rest of her dishes.
There was absolutely nothing in the apartment indicative of Dali’s personality. He’d have thought she’d just moved in, but then there should have been boxes.
It’s like Ransom’s rental cars, Merlin thought. Only Ransom, as far as Merlin could tell, was trying to avoid people who might be looking for him. Who—or what—was Dali hiding from?
Cloud gave an excited squeak, buzzed down, and began neatly eating from the food bowl. Her wings folded into a shimmer over her back and her tail curled around her side as she ate.
“How long have you lived here?” Merlin asked.
“A year.” Catching his startled look, Dali admitted, “It is kind of plain.”
“Like Army barracks,” Merlin said. Then, realizing, he said, “Or a Navy ship.”
“Yeah. I—I really loved the Navy.” Dali’s eyes suddenly glistened with unshed tears. She whipped around, turning her back on him, and busied herself with the coffee machine.
Merlin wanted to kick himself in the shins. She’d already told him she missed the Navy. She obviously hadn’t left by her own choice, but had been forced out on a medical discharge. And he had to go and toss a handful of salt in her wounds—and then put her in the awkward position of having to try to hide being upset because he was around. Him and his big mouth.
“I’ll set up the litter box,” he volunteered.
He took his time doing it, to give her a chance to recover. Cloud flew into the bathroom and perched on the towel rack. He scritched the dragonfly kitten behind the ears. Cloud had either forgotten or forgiven him for the raptor incident, because she nuzzled him and purred.
“Someday, Cloud,” he promised her. “Someday I’ll have a sweet little kitten of my own for you to play with.”
His imagination wandered as he petted her. He’d always loved cats—well, dogs too, not to mention rabbits and tigers and all furry creatures—but of all the magical animals he’d seen so far, it was the flying kittens that had captivated him. Kittens with butterfly wings and kittens with moth wings, kittens with furry wings and kittens with dragon wings. Black kittens, gray kittens, Pete’s green cactus kitten. He tried to decide what kitten he’d like best, but it was impossible to choose. They were all so adorable.
At least Dali, in her apartment that she kept bare and impersonal because she’d been happiest in a bare, impersonal ship’s berth, now had a kitten to comfort her. He hoped Cloud would bring her back some of the joy she seemed to have lost.
“Coffee’s ready,” Dali called.
He washed his hands and came out. She had recovered her composure, to his relief. The hurt was still there, undoubtedly, but she’d managed to stuff it down below the surface.
“Milk? Sugar?” she asked.
“Both, please.”
Unexpectedly, she said, “Homemade cookies?”
Merlin eyed her kitchen set-up. “How in the world do you make cookies on a hot plate? You must be some kind of scientific chef genius.”
She chuckled. “Hardly. My neighbor Khaliya baked them. She was the one who really wanted to know who you were. So, do you want them? They’re snickerdoodles.”
Eat ALL the snickerdoodles, demanded his raptor. Then, apparently enjoying the word, he began a background chant of Snickerdoodle, snickerdoodle, snickerdoodle...
“I love snickerdoodles,” Merlin said. “Thanks.”
Dali sat down on the bed and waved at Merlin to take the chair. It was with immense pleasure that he took his first, life-giving gulp of coffee.
Sugar, demanded his raptor.
Merlin satisfied it with a bite of snickerdoodle. Not that it was some kind of sacrifice. The cookie was fresh-baked and delicious.
Dali had also taken a cup of coffee, but obviously didn’t need it as much as he did. “How come your office doesn’t have a coffee machine?”
“It’s had lots of coffee machines. ‘Had’ being the operative word.”
“What happened to them? Raptor attacks?”
“Some of them got broken by Tirzah and Pete’s flying kittens.”
“And some of them got broken by a certain size-changing raptor?”
“Maybe one. Or two. The last one had nothing to do with me. It just spontaneously exploded.”
“Someone must have forgotten to turn it off,” Dali said.
“Could be,” Merlin said easily, though he personally was voting for ‘spontaneously exploded.’
Cloud came bouncing back in, taking long leaps and beating her wings while she was in the air, like a kung fu movie character doing weightless leaping. She landed by her food bowl and returned to crunching her kibble.
“I should get Cloud her own bowls,” Dali said. “With mice on them. Or dragonflies. It’s a bit of a waste of money, though. I have enough for her and me, and they’re perfectly functional.”
Functional, Merlin thought. That’s the most joyless word in the world.
“You could paint the ones you have. That wouldn’t cost you anything.”
“It’d cost me the paint.” But she gazed speculatively at her white dishes. “Though... Pete does carpentry. He might have paint he could loan me.”
“What would you paint the rest of them?” Merlin asked.
“Maybe I’ll get Cloud to step in the paint and make paw-prints,” Dali proposed. Then, with a grin, she said, “Or I could get you to shrink down and make velociraptor prints.”
It was such an unexpectedly hilarious idea that Merlin burst out laughing. “You’re on. Get the paints and I’ll do it. That is, if you don’t mind eating off dishes I’ve stepped on.”
“You’re only allowed to step on the outside.”
“I promise to keep my raptor in hand,” he assured her. Inwardly, he crossed his fingers. Probably they should do the project in a very large area with nothing breakable. Just in case.
Confirming his worst fears, his raptor said, This apartment is boring. Dali should have a fun apartment! I’ll dip my feet in paint and decorate the floor for her, and then I’ll dip my tail in paint and decorate the walls, and—
Let’s start with the dishes, Merlin replied.
“So, about the circus,” Dali said. “You said we’re going to a matinee. Should we have lunch first?”
Eat there, suggested his raptor. Popcorn and cotton candy and hot dogs and enough soda to fill a swimming pool!
Not a bad idea, Merlin admitted, ignoring the mental image of his raptor happily thrashing around in a root beer-filled swimming pool.
“The circus had a fair attached,” he said. “It’s small, but it has games and fortune telling and food stalls. Or we could go to a restaurant if you’d rather.”
“I would love to eat at the circus. Let me change. This dress has bacon grease on it. And honey. And Kool-Aid. Um...” She glanced around, clearly realizing the problem. They were in her bedroom, so to speak. The only place Merlin could go in the one-room apartment would be the bathroom.
“I’ll step outside,” he said.
He waited in the corridor, imagining what Dali was doing inside. Now, she was going to the closet and selecting somet
hing else to wear. Now, she was stripping off her dress. Now, she stood naked in that bare room like a jewel in an empty box, her brown eyes and midnight hair and soft curves vibrant and enticing in that cold white space. Now, she was walking nude across the floor, her breasts moving—
The door opened. Merlin jumped. Apparently she changed a whole lot faster than he’d been imagining. And also, there had probably not been any random wandering around in the nude. In fact, probably there had been zero nudity, as she had no reason to change her bra and panties.
He dragged his mind away from the incredibly arousing image of Dali in bra and panties, and said, “You look great. Perfect circus outfit.”
She’d changed into light blue jeans that hugged her curves, a black blouse with rhinestone-studded short sleeves, and candy apple red shoes with short wedge heels. Dali looked sexy and gorgeous, of course, but the sparkle of the sleeves and the pop of color in the shoes gave her an air of playfulness as well.
“Thanks. I pulled the blouse out of the back of my closet. Haven’t worn it in years.” She bent down, shooed Cloud away from the door, whispered, “I’ll be back,” and quickly closed it.
As they walked to the car, Merlin realized that he’d boxed himself into a corner. They were going to eat at the circus, which meant they were going straight there. He had to warn her now, or he’d leave her unprepared. She might even blurt something out, which would be bad for him and totally unfair to her.
Once the MGB-GT was moving through Refuge City’s busy traffic, he said, “It’s been a while since I’ve been to the circus. They’re international, you know. And I’ve had a lot going on, what with being a Marine and then getting kidnapped and turned into a shifter and leaving the Marines and becoming a bodyguard and... Well, anyway, they don’t know I’m a shifter.”
“But they’re all shifters.”
“Right. But when I was with them, I wasn’t one. And I haven’t told them. So please don’t mention it. As far as they’re concerned, I’m just your bodyguard.”
“Okay. But if they’re shifters anyway, why don’t you want them to know you’re one too?” Dali asked.
“Circus politics. It’s complicated.” That was the truth, at least. “To be honest, I’m hoping to say hi to everyone, find out who told some pigeons how to steal jewelry and who the pigeons are, and leave.”