by Zoe Chant
“I met my mate,” Wystan blurted out.
There was a beat, in which everyone stared at him.
Then Joe let out a loud, raucous whoop that scared a couple of crows out of the nearest pine tree. “Bronicorn! Congratulations!”
“That’s wonderful, Wystan!” Edith’s hands flapped, expressing her delight. Words spilled out of her in an enthusiastic torrent. “Who is she? Is she a firefighter? Oooh! Is she going to join the team like I did?”
“That would be awesome,” Blaise said before Wystan could so much as open his mouth. She glanced around at the others, raising an eyebrow. “No offence, guys, but we could do with more women to balance out this sausage party.”
“No argument from me.” Joe stuck one hand straight up in the air. “All in favor of Wystan’s mate joining the squad?”
“I swear, it’s like herding cats on meth,” Buck growled, slapping Joe’s arm back down again. “What do you think this is, a democracy? Stop flapping your lips. I’m not done yelling.”
Wystan noticed Leto, one of the B-squad firefighters, nudging his husband Tanner with an elbow. Shifter hearing let Wystan overhear Leto’s muttered, “Do you have the faintest friggin’ clue what’s going on?”
Tanner shook his head slowly, his face baffled behind his bushy brown beard. The rest of B and C-squads were also looking back and forth between Wystan and Buck as though watching a particularly perplexing tennis match. Wystan caught Buck’s eye, jerking his head to indicate their all-too-human audience.
Buck swept his flame-thrower scowl indiscriminately over the rest of his crew. “And what are you lot all gawping at? Practicing your frog impressions for the next season of America’s Got Talent? Get those tools properly stowed away before I decide to store them up your lazy butts!”
The crew scattered at his roar, fleeing back to their tasks. Buck crooked a finger, motioning A-squad to follow him. The shifters trailed at his heels as he stomped out of earshot of the rest of the crew.
“Seven billion people on this planet,” Buck muttered. He looked physically pained. “Seven billion. And yet another of my best team happens to bump into his one true soulmate while he’s supposed to have his mind on the job. Do normal statistics not apply to you people? Do you magically screw with probabilities just to annoy me?”
“Er.” Wystan wasn’t quite sure what to say to that one. “Sorry?”
“And now, I suppose, you’re going to turn into another Rory,” Buck said gloomily. “Moping around like a scolded puppy, and about as useful on the line.”
“I didn’t mope,” Rory protested. His face fell as he looked around at them all, taking in their expressions. “Did I?”
“Bro, you were Mopey McMopeface,” Joe said, patting him on the shoulder. “It’s a miracle Edith didn’t run for the hills.”
Edith wound her arm around her crestfallen mate’s waist. “I thought you were cute.”
“Yeah, but the rest of us were about ready to bash him over the head with a shovel and forcibly gift-wrap him for you,” Blaise said, grinning. “Don’t worry, chief. Wystan can’t possibly be worse.”
“That remains to be seen,” Wystan muttered.
Buck shook his head. “If I’d known shifters attracted weird crap like cat hair on corduroy, I’d have thought twice about hiring a whole damn squad of you. Fated mates, all that business with that demon-snake thing earlier in the summer…and now, apparently, motherloving unicorns. Whose good idea was that?”
“What did you do with the baby, Wys?” Edith asked anxiously. “Is she okay?”
As briefly as he could, Wystan filled them in on the events of the afternoon. At least, he thought he was being brief. Halfway through his description of Candice, he became aware that Buck was staring at the sky with the expression of a man longing for the sweet relief of death, while the rest of the crew were all exchanging glances and nudging each other.
He broke off his recital, looking around at them all in confusion. “I’m sorry, is there something wrong?”
“Not at all.” The lines around Rory’s golden eyes crinkled with amusement. “Just…she really is your mate.”
“Please make him stop,” Buck entreated the heavens. “I think I’m developing diabetes.”
“She sounds wonderful, Wys,” Blaise said. She was also looking a little glazed. “But maybe leave a few things for us to discover about her for ourselves, okay?”
“I’m just relieved you didn’t make her a job offer.” Buck folded his arms. “I’m running a hotshot crew, not a lonely hearts club.”
“Edith worked out all right,” Rory said, with the barest hint of a growl in his tone.
“Edith is one in a million,” Buck said matter-of-factly. Edith’s cheeks went pink, her hands flurrying in embarrassed pleasure. “Any of your mates turn out the same, I’ll gladly take them on. But crew members need to earn their place.” He fixed Wystan with a penetrating stare. “Every day. Are you going to start pining, Wystan? I’ve got no place for fools on my crew, and love makes the biggest fools of all.”
Wystan straightened his shoulders. “I promise I will continue to fulfil my duties to the best of my abilities, Superintendent. This won’t affect the crew. And I’m deeply sorry for returning to base camp without permission today. It won’t happen again.”
Buck grunted, looking marginally mollified. “Well, it was a damned unusual situation. Can’t say I would have ordered you to do any differently. Just check with me first before you go haring off in future. I need to know where my crew is at all times.”
“Ah.” His face heated. “In that case…may I have permission to, er, not be in my own tent tonight?”
Joe let out an impressed whistle. “Damn, bronicorn. You work fast.”
Coming from Joe—a man who, on average, picked up women in under five minutes—it was quite a compliment. Wystan could feel his ears going beet-red.
Buck pinched the bridge of his nose as though he had a headache. “For the love of fuzzy little squirrel nuts. Let me rephrase. Always check in with me when you’re on duty. What any of you randy freaks do in your own time in base camp, I actively do not want to know.”
“No moping and pining for you, hey Wys?” Rory’s tone was teasing, but genuine delight showed in his warm eyes. He held out a hand. “Truly, we’re all happy for you.”
A sheepish smile spread across his own face in response to his squad’s beaming grins. He clasped Rory’s hand—and snatched his fingers away again with a gasp.
“Wys?” Rory’s amusement fell away in an instant. The griffin shifter automatically reached out to support him, but dropped his hands quickly as Wystan flinched away. “What is it?”
Wystan gripped his own wrist, sparks of agony still stabbing through his fingers from that brief contact. He couldn’t suppress a hiss of pain.
No wonder Buck was so angry. Apparently I wasn’t the only ones skipping out on cutting line today.
He would never have thought that Rory and Edith would engage in some surreptitious extra-curricular activities out in the woods when on duty. But there was no fooling a unicorn.
His own weak beast was much less sensitive to sexual energy than most. But he still couldn’t bear to come into contact with people who had recently been intimate. It wasn’t like Rory—his oldest friend—to forget his minor disability.
“Usual problem,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m sure it just slipped your mind in all the excitement, but please try to be more careful in future.”
Rory blinked at him. “What?”
He cast a meaningful glance at Edith. “You know there are times when I find touch…difficult.”
“But Rory and I haven’t had sex today.” Edith sounded distinctly disappointed by this fact. She sighed, oblivious to Rory’s sudden fit of coughing. “We haven’t had sex for three days, actually.”
“I did not need to know that,” Buck muttered.
“That can’t be right,” Wystan said blankly. Even from several feet away,
the sexual energy roiling off of Rory and Edith had his unicorn shying away in distaste. “Are you certain?”
“I think I would know when I’ve had sex!” Edith said indignantly.
A powerful unicorn would flinch back from someone who’d last been intimate days ago. But not his pathetic beast.
Unless…
He whirled on Joe. The sea dragon’s eyebrows shot up as Wystan threw his arms around him.
“Uh, I love you too, bro,” Joe said, returning the embrace with some confusion. “Also, are you feeling okay?”
“No,” Wystan gasped, releasing him again. “You’re like sandpaper on the inside of my skull. Did you seduce that nice lady crew leader out on the line?”
“While we were working?” Joe sounded honestly affronted. “Of course not.”
“I thought she invited you back to her tent tonight,” Blaise murmured.
“She seduced me,” Joe said with great dignity. “And nothing’s happened yet. I have standards. I at least demand a blanket between my backside and the ground.”
“You hurt too,” Wystan said, grabbing Blaise’s wrist. It was a much fainter twinge of pain than that from Rory, Edith or Joe, but it was definitely there. “When did you last…?”
“Hey!” Blaise snatched her hand back. “What is this, some kind of unicorn purity test? Stay out of my sex life.”
That left only one.
“Do not,” Buck said, in tones of great finality, “even think about it.”
“Wys, what’s going on?” Rory said, looking concerned. “You’re acting very strangely.”
“Don’t you see?” His heart was pounding almost as much as his head. “It’s my unicorn! I’m suddenly more sensitive to sexual energy. A thousand times more sensitive!”
Buck’s eyebrows drew down. “And what the blazes does that mean, in plain English?”
“It means,” Wystan said, “that I need to make a phone call.”
Chapter 6
This was, Wystan was certain, going to be the most mortifying conversation of his life.
He braced himself, and dialed.
The time difference meant that it was some ungodly hour in the morning at the moment in England. Nonetheless, it only took two rings before the video call connected. A familiar white-haired figure frowned up at him from his phone screen, ice-blue eyes narrowed in concern.
“I take it this is an emergency,” his father said.
“I need to ask you about sex,” Wystan blurted out.
Hugh stared at him. From his appalled expression, he was clearly now hoping that this was all a terrible nightmare.
“Sorry,” Wystan added. “Did I wake you up?”
His father grimaced. “No. I’m on duty—“
“Wystan needs to ask about what?” said several overlapping voices in the background.
“And you’re on speakerphone,” his father finished.
“Out of the way, Hughnicorn!” The image on the screen whirled dizzyingly, showing glimpses of a parked fire engine and a rack of turn out gear before focusing on a wide, wicked grin. “This calls for an expert. Let me explain matters to the boy. You see, Wystan, when a mommy unicorn and a daddy unicorn love each other very much—no, wait, let me correct that. When two unicorns, or indeed more than two unicorns, of any or all genders, love each other very much—“
“Thank you, Chase.” The screen went black as a hand closed over the camera. “I think I can handle this.”
“But you’ll do it so badly,” Chase’s voice said, sounding somewhat muffled. “You’ll probably use words like ‘secretions’ and ‘gusset.’”
Not for the first time, Wystan wondered how on earth someone like Callum could have a father like Chase.
From the thumps and scuffles coming down the line, his father was having a hard time reclaiming the phone from the pegasus shifter. “Chase, if you don’t drop it right now I swear I will break your arm, Hippocratic Oath be damned. Dai, John, stop laughing and come restrain this joker, or you’ll both be healing your next injuries the slow and painful way that nature intended.”
A last burst of white noise, and the picture returned again. Hugh ran his hand through his now somewhat mussed hair, scowling.
“Right,” he said, straightening his uniform shirt. “We’re private now, or at least as private as it’s going to get in a small fire station filled with nosy shifters. Why were you calling? And please don’t tell me it really is about sex.”
He was really starting to wish that he’d made this a voice-only call. He wasn’t quite able to look his father in the eye. “I’m afraid that it is.”
His father looked just as pained as Wystan felt. “Didn’t we already have this conversation some time ago?”
As if he could have forgotten that childhood experience.
It was, of course, an obligatory rite of passage to have your parents sit you down for ‘The Talk.’ For most children, it was merely excruciatingly embarrassing.
Sex is a beautiful and natural thing, many parents doubtless told their cringing children.
Wystan suspected that very few followed that up with: And if you ever do it you’ll lose your unicorn.
His father had—in a horrifying hour that still haunted his nightmares—laid out exactly what was on the line. The old legends associating unicorns with virgins had a kernel of truth. If he engaged in any form of sexual activity, he’d lose his inner animal. He’d never shift again.
He’d told Candice that he didn’t do one-night stands. It was absolutely true. He’d had no choice other than to remain untouched.
Until now.
“You explained why I had to wait for my mate,” Wystan said. He cleared his throat. “Well. I’ve met her.”
Startled joy wiped away his father’s usual cranky expression. “Wystan! Truly?”
“Yes. Just this afternoon.” Despite everything, Wystan found himself grinning foolishly. “Her name is Candice. She’s an animal rescue officer, and utterly marvelous.”
His father suddenly seemed to be needing to blink rather a lot. The video picture lurched as Hugh swiped his sleeve across his eyes.
“Well,” Hugh said gruffly, coming back into focus again. “Your mother will be very relieved. As am I. You’ve never breathed a word of complaint, but I know how difficult it’s been for you over the years.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” Wystan said lightly, on pure reflex. “Can’t miss what you’ve never had.”
His father’s penetrating stare cut through his automatic defenses. “Wystan. I know. You might be able to smile and wave it off with everyone else, but not me. It’s not just about denying yourself the physical pleasures. Having to cut yourself off from closeness, intimacy, all forms of human contact—it leaves a deep wound. I’m the one person who truly understands how much it hurts.”
“Which is exactly why I need your advice.” Wystan hesitated for a moment, searching for the right words. “When you were explaining things to me all those years ago, there were a few areas you left vague.”
Hugh coughed, looking embarrassed. “Well, you were eleven at the time. It seemed inappropriate to tell you in detail about my own sexual experiences.”
“Believe me, I am very grateful for that decision,” Wystan said fervently. ”Unfortunately, I suspect I can no longer remain in blissful ignorance.”
His father muttered a swearword, rubbing at his forehead. “Sometimes I really wish we were squirrel shifters. What did you want to know?”
“You said that before you met my mother, you used to get terrible headaches around people who were unchaste, right?”
From his father’s blink, whatever he’d been expecting him to ask, it wasn’t that. “That’s correct. My unicorn was unusually sensitive to sexual energy, even for one of our kind. But why are you asking? You’ve never been too badly affected by that issue, thankfully.”
“I wasn’t,” Wystan corrected. “But suddenly I am. Just standing within three feet of Joe gave me a splitting migraine.”<
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“Oh no.” Hugh narrowed his eyes. “Wait. Why do you look downright delighted by this development?”
“Don’t you see? At last my useless beast is behaving like a proper unicorn! Do you think it’s the influence of my mate? You did say that your own bond made your animal stronger.”
Hugh’s frown deepened. “Yes, but in my case the effect was that I stopped experiencing pain from sexual energy. I became a better healer purely because touching other people no longer felt like laying my hands on hot coals.”
“I wouldn’t mind enduring a bit of pain if it meant I could finally heal.”
“I know. And I also know that it’s a much heavier burden than you think. I wish you weren’t so eager to shoulder it.” Hugh shook his head. “Wystan, I’m concerned. This seems backward. Meeting your mate shouldn’t cause you pain. Are you certain Candice was the trigger?”
“Positive. It’s like meeting her knocked something loose inside me.” He keenly felt Candice’s absence, like a hollow in his chest where his heart should be. “Perhaps mating her will finally unlock my powers!”
His father suddenly looked alarmed. “Wystan, you aren’t thinking of rushing into anything, are you?”
Damnation, he could see his own face going red in the picture-in-picture display. “Well. Er. My mate is certainly a woman who has no qualms in going after what she wants. And I’m fairly certain she’s experiencing the mate attraction, albeit on a subliminal level. We’re both consenting adults. What harm could there be?”
“More than you can possibly imagine,” his father said, strangely urgent. “Wystan, does she know what you are? And what she is to you?”
“It’s not exactly something that’s easy to work into casual conversation. I only met her today.”
Hugh put a hand over his eyes. “And yet you want to leap into bed with her.”
Wystan couldn’t help bristling. “She is my mate.”
“Yes, but that’s not a magic Get Out Of Jail Free card!” his father snapped, dropping his hand to fix him with a glare. “Think, Wystan. The only sexual energy our unicorns can tolerate is pure, true love, freely given and freely accepted. That takes more than a single moment of eye contact!”