Defender Raptor (Protection, Inc: Defenders, #2)

by Chant, Zoe

  That made him feel much better—not only that she wasn’t angry with him, but that she understood that he’d never tried to manipulate her. “I was going to tell you. I’d meant to tell my teammates too, but, well, you saw how they reacted.”

  “Yeah, what was that about? They flipped out when you said that the powers match the person. So you’re a bit like a hyperactive velociraptor and Pete’s a bit like a bear. What’s wrong with that?”

  “I meant their other powers,” Merlin said. “Though you’re right, Pete is kind of bear-like. Hmm. Roland’s a phoenix. No idea what could be wrong with that. Ransom’s a hellhound—okay, I can see how that could have bad connotations. And I’ve only ever seen him shift once.”

  “What is a hellhound?”

  “A huge black dog with fiery eyes.” Merlin gave a frustrated sigh. “I wasn’t even thinking about that, though. I meant his other power, the power he has as a man. We were all supposed to have two: one in our animal form, and one as a human.”

  “What are Ransom’s?”

  “As a man, information. As a hellhound, got me. I was going to say that he’s a smart, curious guy who likes to know things, and he got the power to know things that nobody else does. It’s very suited to him. Except it’s obviously not much fun to use. Actually, it pretty much sucks.” He sighed again. “Okay, I can see where I put my foot in it.”

  “For Ransom. What about for the rest of them?” Dali was leaning forward, intent as a bloodhound on the trail. “What sort of animal does Carter turn into?”

  “No idea. I’ve never seen it, and he won’t say. And if he has any powers, I sure don’t know what they are.”

  “What about Roland? What are his powers?”

  “His phoenix can set things on fire. He says he doesn’t have any powers as a man.” Merlin shrugged. “Though up till today everyone thought I didn’t, either.”

  “How long has your team been working together?”

  “Six months.” Merlin looked gloomily out the window at a group of laughing teenagers doing skateboard tricks on the sidewalk. “And if you’re thinking we ought to know each other better and get along better, you’re right. We’re like the Bad News Bears of shifter security teams.”

  “You were all kidnapped and traumatized and had your lives uprooted,” Dali pointed out. “It takes more than six months to get through that kind of thing.”

  She, more than anyone, would know how long it takes to get through being traumatized and having your life uprooted, Merlin thought.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. Still, I’m not looking forward to setting foot in that office again. Hey, want to go straight to the circus? Mom makes much better coffee than Starbucks.”

  “Sure.”

  As they headed for the circus, he put his hand on her thigh, relishing both the sensual warmth of her body and the knowledge that she would welcome his touch. Dali leaned against him, her head tilted back so her silky hair drifted over his skin.

  It was a beautiful sunny day, and the woman of his dreams was at his side. This time, surely this time, everything would be all right.

  CHAPTER 15

  After a year spent in a haze of depression alternating with a strict focus on work, Dali wasn’t used to being so tossed about by conflicting emotions. As she sat beside Merlin in his ridiculously small but also genuinely cool car, she was turned on by his presence and thrilled that they were together and frustrated by the situation with his team and excited by visiting the circus and nervous about meeting his mother and pre-emptively broken-hearted that he might run off with the circus and she’d never see him again.

  Focus, Dali, she told herself. Just take it one day at a time.

  Or, considering that it was Merlin, maybe she should be taking it one minute at a time.

  He pulled into the circus parking lot. It was Monday, so there would only be an evening performance that day, and they were the only car in the lot. But not the only people; a middle-aged woman was leaning against a lamp post, waiting for someone.

  “Uh-oh,” Merlin muttered. “That’s Rosine. Rosine Richelieu, of the Remarkable Richelieus.”

  “She’s a poodle, right? And that’s the family that didn’t want you as heir?”

  “One of them, yeah. And she was one of the loudest of the ‘shifter leaders only’ faction, so...” He squared his shoulders. “Oh, well. May as well face the music.”

  Rosine made a beeline for them as soon as they got out of the car. Before they could even say hello, she said, “Merlin, I want you to know that things have changed. You’re a shifter now. From now on, you have my full support as heir.”

  It was the first time Dali had ever seen Merlin at a loss for words. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  Rosine went on, “I’m going to talk to my family, and also to everyone who had a problem with you before. I think I can persuade them to support you now. But it’ll go better if I do it privately and discreetly. That’s why I came out here alone. So don’t go around yet saying I support you, okay? And don’t try rounding up support yourself. I’ll do that for you. It’ll look better coming from me.”

  “Uh... okay,” Merlin said, staring at her like she’d grown two heads.

  She nodded briskly. “I’ll let you know when I’ve persuaded everyone who’s persuadable. Until then, we didn’t have this talk.”

  With that, she turned around and walked out of the parking lot, toward the circus entrance and fairground. They watched her go in silence.

  Dali wanted to be happy for Merlin, but in her heart of hearts, she wished she was a size-changing velociraptor so she could have bitten that woman’s ankle and scared her away before she said a word. If Rosine Richelieu was right about how influential she was, once she was through Merlin would no longer have any reason not to return to the circus.

  “That was weird,” Merlin said.

  Dali forced herself to focus on what was going on right now, not on her impending heartbreak. “Well, you are a shifter now. Or did you think she had something against you personally?”

  “Yeah, actually, I did. But also, she’s not normally this sneaky. She doesn’t make secret plans and talk to people privately, she says exactly what she thinks as publicly as she can.” He shrugged. “Well—I guess people can change. Anyway, I’ll let her do her thing. Don’t mention it.”

  “My lips are sealed,” Dali promised. But she couldn’t help hoping that the poodle woman’s out-of-character plan would fail.

  They headed into the fairgrounds. The stalls were closed, and it had a slightly desolate air. Merlin led her to the train behind the big top. A pair of kittens were pouncing and squeaking, Max the ringmaster sat in a lawn chair getting his magnificent moustache trimmed by his wife Renu, his daughter Kalpana was scribbling on a clipboard, and a group of sea lions were playing basketball with their noses.

  They all greeted Merlin and Dali. (At least, she thought the seal lions’ barks were greetings rather than jeers.) She tried not to blush when she saw them look from Merlin to her clothes that were in fact his clothes, then shoot her meaningful looks. They knew how the two of them had spent the night, all right.

  “Janet’s in her room,” Kalpana said. “Go get your scolding and get it over with!”

  “I already got it,” Merlin replied. “Over the phone. Hey, Kalpana? Last night you said something about Natalie maybe leaving because of an accident. What was that about?”

  “Oh... It probably wasn’t that,” Kalpana said. “She left so suddenly and she didn’t really explain why, so I was grasping at straws.”

  “What accident, though? Was it serious?”

  Kalpana shook her head. “She was up in the rigging helping to set up the lights, and she got an electric shock from a frayed wire. She fell. We had the net up, of course, so she wasn’t hurt. But I was there supervising, and I almost had a heart attack. It reminded me of how you fell when you first came here. Natalie left a few months later. Afterward I thou
ght maybe it had made her decide she wanted a less dangerous job.”

  “Did she seem scared?”

  “No,” Kalpana admitted. “But you know Natalie. She never seems scared.”

  Merlin sighed. “No, she doesn’t. I don’t suppose she left any contact info?”

  “No. She said she would, but she didn’t. Actually, that’s part of why I thought she might’ve gotten scared. It might’ve embarrassed her, so she didn’t want to talk to us.”

  “Could be.” But Merlin sounded unconvinced. “Thanks, Kalpana. Let me know if you hear from her. You have my phone number.”

  “Will do.”

  As they headed for the train, Dali said, “What do you make of that?”

  Merlin spread his hands in frustration. “Got me. Kalpana has a lot of insight into people, and if it was anyone but Natalie, I’d say she was probably right.”

  Quietly, Dali said, “You never know how almost dying can affect you till it happens.”

  He put his hand on her back. “I know. But Natalie didn’t almost die. And she wouldn’t have felt like she had. What Kalpana doesn’t know is that me and Natalie used to sneak out in the middle of the night and practice trapeze at the full height, way before we were allowed to do that. We fell all the time, but into the net. Natalie would’ve been startled, sure, but not terrified.”

  “What do you think happened, then?”

  Merlin sighed. “I wish I knew.”

  They went into the parked train. Dali had ridden in one only a few times in her life, and was fascinated by the interior. Merlin walked her through the “animal cars,” which contained the neatest, cleanest cages she’d seen in her life—unsurprisingly, as no animals actually lived in them.

  “We get inspected by animal welfare people occasionally,” Merlin said. “They give us advance warning, so we can show them animals in their cages. That also gives us time to mess them up a bit, have some of the kids pee in them, and so forth. You know, for realism.”

  Dali snickered. “I bet the little boys love that. So the animal welfare people don’t do surprise inspections?”

  “No, that would be dangerous if we had real animals. You don’t want to have some random stranger suddenly showing up when there might be lions and tigers training in the ring. They give us a day or so’s warning, and schedule it when we’re not doing a show, so they’re all in their cages.”

  They passed the sea lion tank, which was much more convincingly lived-in. “Because the sea lions really do swim in it,” Merlin explained.

  Dali grinned to herself as they walked past. She could definitely see why Merlin loved the circus so much.

  For the first time, she wondered if she might consider following him to it. Sure, she wasn’t a shifter, but neither was Kalpana. It didn’t seem to be an issue unless you were the heir. And it obviously required an immense amount of organization, which was Dali’s specialty.

  On the other hand, between Merlin’s mom and Kalpana, it was beautifully run already. Dali would be redundant. And it wasn’t like she could double as an acrobat or a performing poodle.

  Enjoy the roses while you have them, she told herself. And try not to think too much about how in the blink of an eye, it could all disappear.

  They found Janet waiting for them in her room, with coffee and three mugs ready. She and Merlin hugged, and then he stood there fidgeting and trying to change the topic while she fussed over him and prodded at his head. Dali drank her coffee and tried not to look too amused. It reminded her so much of her with her own grandmother. Maybe, once everything was over, she could bring Grandma to see the show, then take her backstage and introduce her to Janet.

  When Merlin finally convinced his mother that he was fine, she fixed him with a sharp, rather parrot-like eye. “I’m absolutely furious about that ‘accident.’ Give me a little more time, and I’ll find out who was behind it. And they’ll be out of the circus like that!” She snapped her fingers.

  “I’m not sure it was anyone at the circus,” said Merlin. “An audience member could have snuck into the rigging, dropped it on Dali, and taken off while everyone was distracted.”

  “Pffft!” snorted Janet. “You think it was directed at your girlfriend? That was aimed at you! Someone’s trying to get you out of the way so they can take over your rightful position!” She rounded on Dali, who was still mentally stuck on “girlfriend,” and said, “Don’t you agree?”

  “Er...yes,” Dali admitted. Janet’s fierce protectiveness toward Merlin made Dali feel like the two of them were on the same side.

  “Come on, mom,” Merlin protested. “You seriously think Fausto Fratelli would do something that might kill me?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him,” said Janet. “Or maybe Rosine Richelieu.”

  “It’s definitely not Rosine.”

  “Well, it’s somebody,” said Janet. “And I won’t rest till I find out who. Maybe Renard Richelieu.”

  “Mom! It’s not any of the poodles!”

  Dali sensed a fight about to break out, and moved to head it off at the pass. “Merlin and I are going to talk to people here. Not interrogate them, just catch up with them and keep our ears open for any clues. He’s got lots to tell them.”

  “He does indeed,” said Janet, rather ominously. “Such as the fact that he can now shift into a giant velociraptor, which one might think would be something he could have shared with his own mother just a little bit earlier.”

  Dali, slightly frantic, said, “He can also shift into a tiny velociraptor! You should see that, it’s really cool. He gets down to the size of a hamster!”

  “Really?” Janet asked, intrigued. “That small?”

  Merlin put down his coffee mug and said to himself, in a low but forceful voice, “Absolutely no breaking anything. Tiny!”

  And then a hamster-sized raptor was perched on the bunk where he had been sitting. Both Dali and Janet gasped in delight. The tiny raptor leaped on to the table and made a beeline for the sugar bowl.

  Janet picked out a sugar lump and fed it to him, remarking, “Very impressive. And so versatile. You could get into buildings through the ventilation ducts, then open the doors from the inside. You could hide inside a bank and memorize the combination to a vault.”

  Dali repressed a sigh. She’d forgotten for a while that it was a crime circus.

  Merlin crammed the last of sugar into his jaws with his tiny talons, then leaped back on to the bed and became a man again.

  Shooting a guilty look at Dali, he said, “Never mind the burglary applications. It was great seeing you, Mom, but Dali and I need to get going with the ‘let’s catch up’ thing.”

  “How are you going to explain her presence?” Janet inquired. “If all you’re doing is casual catching up with friends, you shouldn’t bother with that while you’re bodyguarding her.”

  Dali felt like an idiot. Everything had been moving so fast, that hadn’t occurred to her. From the look on Merlin’s face, it hadn’t occurred to him either.

  “Say you’re dating and it’s getting serious,” Janet suggested. “Say you want to see more of the circus in case you end up joining it.”

  Behind her thick glasses, the old woman’s eyes glittered with intelligence. Dali was positive that Janet had suggested that because she knew they were together and thought that was exactly what Dali ought to be doing.

  Dali restrained the impulse to run out of the train car screaming.

  “Yeah, that’d be easier to pull off,” Merlin said. Then, glancing at Dali, he added, “Right?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Let’s get on that right now!” She drained her coffee mug. “Nice to see you, Janet!”

  Dali fled the room, so quickly that Merlin didn’t catch up with her till she’d reached the empty animal car.

  “Are you really all right with that?” he asked. “You left awfully quick.”

  “It’s fine. Just a little weird and nerve-wracking.” She didn’t add, And heartbreakingly ironic.

  Merlin liked
her, obviously, but she was the one who’d fallen too hard, too soon. She didn’t want to dump a ton of... not love, it was way too soon for love... intense feelings on him that would do nothing but make him feel guilty about living the life that was right for him.

  “You’ll be great,” he assured her, and kissed her. Which did nothing to take away from all those feelings.

  “Let’s talk to the Duffy brothers first,” Merlin said, when they’d reluctantly broken apart.

  “The sparrow guys? Do you think they know something about the trapeze, or about my necklace?”

  “Your necklace. It’d be nice to get it back, right? I know you wanted to before your dinner with your grandma on Sunday.”

  Her last Sunday dinner felt like a lifetime ago. Impulsively, she said, “Will you come to dinner with me? I’ve met your family, so...”

  “I would love to meet your grandma,” Merlin said. “I’ll bring a bottle of wine. Or maybe homemade marshmallows. And dress up. No dinosaur shirts!”

  Dali was about to say there was no need, then decided not to. She did want to see what Merlin looked like dressed up. It would either be incredibly hot or, depending on his idea of “dressed up,” incredibly funny. “It’s a date.”

  He led her to another train car. On their way, they passed a number of people who greeted Merlin with varying degrees of warmth, from chilly politeness to exuberant hugs. Rosine Richelieu pretended not to see him, which was a clear snub as they ran into her in a train corridor and had to step aside to let her get past.

  Once she was gone, Dali pointed out quietly, “See? She really is putting on the act she talked about.”

  Merlin scratched his head. “Yeah. I’m impressed.”

  The Duffy brothers weren’t in their room, but Tawny Lyon said she’d seen them at the fairgrounds. Merlin asked her if she’d heard from Natalie or knew anything about why she’d left, but Tawny only shrugged and said she had no idea, but she’d happily give up her job as target girl if Natalie came back.