by Zoe Chant
Callum had never been able to shut off his talent. And in the past couple of years, since he’d moved to America, it had only gotten worse. It was like his pegasus was constantly reaching out, searching for something…
He ignored the insistent stream of information as best he could, trying to concentrate only on his ordinary senses. “Can’t.”
Rory’s gaze raked across his face. “Can’t, or don’t want to?”
Damn it, the griffin shifter had always been too perceptive. Squirrelsquirreljayhawk—Callum dug his fingernails into his palm for focus. “Like Wystan said. Someone needs to stay to keep guard.”
“Over what?” Edith said. “I mean, that Lupa woman was targeting Joe, right? Even if she still wants to get at one of us, she can’t do that if we’re all on the other side of the ocean.”
“Edith’s got a point, Cal,” Wystan said. “I’ll be leaving the base and ranch warded while I’m away, of course, but you’ll still be safer with us than on your own.”
*Pack stays with pack,* Fenrir agreed. *Sometimes must hunt alone, true. But important to come back to den, too, otherwise forget why one is hunting at all. Shadowhorse should come with pack. Sleep fur to fur. Gnaw sweet bones. Sing to the moon.*
Blaise snorted with laughter. “There’s no party like a Fenrir party. This will be quite a Christmas. Come on, Cal. You can’t seriously want to spend the holidays on your own.”
Actually, Callum could think of nothing better. Unfortunately, even alone at the hotshot base, he would still be sharing the surroundings with countless woodland creatures. But that was still infinitely preferable to going to a city.
Especially his home city.
“Wait. Wait! I…I’m seeing something.” Joe put one hand to his forehead in an over-dramatic gesture, as though he was about to fall onto a fainting couch. “I’m having a vision…of Callum…wearing a paper party hat…”
“No, you aren’t,” he said flatly.
Joe let his hand drop again, shrugging unrepentantly. “It was worth a try.”
“We all want you to come home, Callum,” Rory said softly. “Even just for a day or two. And we’re not the only ones, you know.”
Callum clenched his teeth, hating the sad, pitying look on Rory’s face. Wystan, Blaise, and Joe wore similar expressions. It was all too familiar. Over the years, they’d often regarded him with the same baffled concern, ever since they’d been little kids together.
Even his oldest friends didn’t understand him. They were all so close to their own families, they simply couldn’t comprehend anyone who wasn’t. Anyone who didn’t want to be.
If he was better with words, maybe he could have explained it to his friends. But he’d always been the quiet one. The one who wasn’t good with people. The one who struggled to filter out the world, always distracted by crow crow jay mouse mouse mouse rabbit THERE—
Callum jerked, attention utterly derailed. Amidst the shimmering constellations of life-forms all around, one blazed like a supernova. No, not one—two, as close as binary stars. They were like nothing he’d ever sensed before. They were…they were…
OURS. His inner pegasus reared in his soul, wings spreading wide. OURS, THERE, THEY NEED US, GO!
“Stop,” he blurted out.
Rory held up his hands. “We’re not trying to pressure you into doing something you don’t want, Cal. But we’re your friends. We’re just worried—”
“No,” he interrupted. He fumbled for his seatbelt, releasing the catch. “Stop the truck. Now!”
Wystan looked concerned. “Is something wrong?”
“I’d say there is.” Blaise leaned over the steering wheel, peering up through the windscreen. “Uh, guys? Is it just me, or is our base on fire?”
Urgency beat in his chest like a drum. Callum didn’t need the thick plume of smoke rising on the horizon to know that something was wrong, badly wrong. The two lives he could sense called out to him like beacons in the night, calling to him across the mountain.
And they weren’t alone. There was a third life circling them, blood-red and malevolent, closing in…
“Hellhound.” Callum struggled free of his seatbelt at last, accidentally elbowing Wystan in the ribs in his haste. “Attacking—they need me—stop!”
Rory nodded to Blaise, reaching for his own seatbelt. “Do it. Callum, hang on. We’ll go together—”
Callum was already opening the door. He hurled himself out, even though the truck hadn’t yet fully come to a halt. He hit the ground hard, rolling, shifting.
He came up on four hooves, his pegasus surging eagerly up from his soul. With a single leap, he was in the air. The world dropped away beneath him. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Rory leaping down from the truck, his stocky form blurring into his golden griffin—but nobody could beat a pegasus for speed.
*CALLUM.* Rory’s telepathic roar blasted through his mind. *Wait for me! It’s not safe to go alone!*
*No time,* he hurled back, his flame-red wings never slowing. *And there’s only one hellhound.*
*That you can sense now,* Rory retorted. His telepathic voice was getting fainter as the distance between them increased. He was doing his best to keep up, but his hawk-like wings weren’t built for rapid acceleration like his own. *You can’t detect hellhounds when they’re using their invisibility power. There could be dozens of them waiting to ambush you!*
The griffin shifter was right, but Callum didn’t care. He stretched himself out, tucking up his legs and sweeping his wings back into a streamlined arrowhead. He cut through the sky like a knife, leaving Rory behind.
Smoke burned in his sensitive equine nose. As he shot toward the mountain, he could see that it wasn’t the hotshot base itself that was ablaze. Only a small section of the forest was on fire, in an unnaturally straight line. The flames were spreading much faster than should have been possible in the wet conditions, burning with an evil red glare.
Hellfire, Callum thought. It wasn’t a curse, just simple recognition. The hellhound had breathed a fireball across the track, setting fire to the trees on either side of the road.
The reason why was immediately apparent. A car was nose-down in the ditch, airbags filling the windscreen. The driver had managed to avoid hurtling straight into the flames, but the crushed vegetation around the tires was starting to smolder as sparks fell into it.
A burly man was yanking at the driver side door. He could have been trying to rescue the people trapped inside—but Callum knew better. The man’s life-force crackled in his senses, sharp and feral.
Rage filled him. He didn’t shriek, didn’t give voice to it. He simply folded his wings and dropped, silent and swift and deadly.
Only shifter instincts saved the hellhound. He glanced up just in time to throw himself to one side. Callum’s front hooves clipped him in the shoulder rather that striking him square in the head as he’d intended.
He still hit the hellhound with enough force to send him hurtling through the air. The man flew into the forest, disappearing into the smoke. A crunch and a sharp scream indicated that a tree had interrupted his brief flight.
Callum was going too fast to land and go after him. He soared back into the sky, flaring his wings to execute a tight turn. He sensed the hellhound struggling to his feet, wisely staggering deeper into the cover of the trees rather than facing him out in the open. His life-force blurred, going thin and wispy like fog before vanishing utterly.
Gone invisible. As Rory had reminded him, he couldn’t detect hellhounds when they did that.
It would have been safer to stay in the air, but Callum dropped to the ground. If the hellhound did try to ambush him, he’d just have to rely on his own reflexes. The creature would have to return to corporeal form to attack him, giving him a split-second to react and counterattack.
Right now, that was the least of his worries.
Flames licked at the tires of the crashed car. An ominous dripping sound came from the car’s engine, indicating a fuel leak.
In his previous career as an urban firefighter, he’d attended enough car collisions to recognize the danger signs. The whole vehicle could go up at any moment.
The two lives inside the vehicle beat strong and steady, but one was unconscious and the other was just an infant. Neither would be able to get out on their own in time.
Callum didn’t waste time trying to shift and force the driver’s door. Hellhounds were just as strong as any other type of shifter; if the burly man hadn’t been able to get it open, it was unlikely that he himself could.
Instead, he galloped around to the far side of the vehicle. A quick assessment of the positions of the people inside; then he spun, kicking both back hooves into the front passenger-side door. Metal crumpled. Shifting back into human form, he yanked the now-destroyed door off its hinges, hurling it away.
The smoke was getting thicker. Coughing, he crawled into the crashed car. To his relief, the air in here was clear. Neither of them could have suffered any damage from smoke inhalation yet.
In fact, the infant’s lungs were definitely healthy. Her high, outraged screams cut through him. His pegasus surged forward, nearly mad with the need to comfort and protect the young one.
Be quiet, Callum shouted—not at the baby, but at his unruly animal. Turning into an enormous winged horse in the middle of a Ford Fiesta would not help the situation.
A dark-haired woman slumped over the airbag in the driver’s seat. Instinct screamed at him to grab her and get her out of the car, but the baby had to come first. He crawled through the gap between the front seats, having to contort himself like a pretzel to reach the baby car seat clipped into the back.
“Shhh, shhh,” he murmured as he tried to work out how the hell the damn harness unfastened. Giving up, he pulled his utility knife out of his belt and started sawing through the straps. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
To his surprise, her wails faded into hiccups. Her wide green eyes fixed on his face. Callum didn’t know the first thing about babies, so he couldn’t guess at her age, but she seemed to understand that he was trying to help her.
“That’s it. Everything will be fine.” For once, words came easily. He kept up a stream of soothing, meaningless babble as he untangled her from the harness. “There’s my girl. Up you come.”
Her little hands fisted in his shirt. Something in his chest seemed to crack open as her small body nestled trustingly against him. He suddenly felt as though the most precious treasure in the world had been placed into his arms. Cradling her in the crook of one elbow, he wriggled back into the front of the car.
Freeing the woman turned out to be much easier, thankfully. Carrying her, on the other hand, was considerably more difficult. She groaned, stirring, as he bodily dragged her out of the vehicle.
“Sorry.” With a grunt, Callum heaved her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. Sparks swirled through the smoke. Even through his protective gear, he could feel the heat of the rising flames licking at his legs.
He sprinted for the drainage ditch, diving into it just in time. Heat blasted across his back with the force of an angry dragon. He covered the woman and the baby with his own body, sheltering them as the car went up in a blazing fireball.
*CALLUM!* Rory’s mental shout echoed the explosion.
*I’m fine,* he sent back. *We’re all fine.*
Callum risked a glance over the top of the drainage ditch. Now that the fuel had burned off, the car had settled into a crackling nest of flames. From experience, he could tell that there was little risk of further explosions. On his old crew, this would have been the point where they’d close in to put out the fire.
*No immediate danger here,* he reported to Rory. Several trees were still burning, but this far into fall, the forest was too wet for the fire to spread easily. *Can’t sense the hellhound. Went invisible.*
*Fenrir’s going after him. Seren too.* Rory’s broad-winged shadow swept over his head. *I’ll stay in the sky just in case our firebug friend is still hanging around. The others are coming to handle the fire. I take it you got anyone in the car out in time. What’s their status?*
Callum looked down at the bundle of baby in his arms. *Adorable.*
There was a moment of deafening silence from Rory. *Uhhh…what?*
He hadn’t meant to send that thought telepathically. He mentally shook himself, trying to focus. *Woman and a baby. Both stable, but the woman is unconscious.*
*Wystan’s on his way.* A hint of amusement rippled through the griffin shifter’s telepathic communication. *And we’ll rescue you from the baby as soon as we can. Just sit tight, okay?*
Callum sent a wordless acknowledgement and cut the connection. He sat back on his heels, giving the baby a more careful inspection. She stared back at him just as intently, as though she was evaluating him too. There was something strangely familiar about that focused, unwavering green gaze.
Ours, whispered his pegasus.
He snorted. That seems unlikely. Particularly if that is indeed her mother.
Surely he would have remembered making love to such a stunning woman. And yet, and yet…there was something familiar about her. As though he’d met her in a dream, or another life…
He shook his head free from the fanciful thought. Shifting the baby to a more comfortable position on his hip, he knelt to check on her mother.
Even though he knew it was inappropriate, he couldn’t help appreciating the woman’s lush curves as he rolled her into the recovery position. A strange thrill ran up his arm as he brushed her glossy, raven-black hair back from her striking face. There was a mark on her forehead showing where she must have hit her head, but otherwise she seemed uninjured.
His fingers ached to trace the curve of her cheek. He had a sudden mad, burning need to discover whether her lips were truly as soft as they looked.
What was wrong with him? It had been a long time since he’d been intimate with anyone other than his own right hand, but that didn’t excuse ogling a trauma victim.
Even if she made his inner stallion paw at the ground…
Getting a firm grip on his inner animal, he reached for the woman’s wrist to take her pulse. She stirred at his touch, letting out a low moan. Her fingers flexed, clutching anxiously at him, then letting go. Her hand swept across the ground as if she was searching for something.
In a flash of intuition, Callum understood. He caught her hand, guiding it to her child. The infant made a happy chirp of recognition, gripping her mother’s fingers.
“It’s all right.” He folded his own hand over both of theirs, holding them together. “She’s safe. You’re safe. You’re both safe now.”
The woman gasped in relief. Her eyelashes fluttered.
“Beth?” she whispered. Her fingers twitched under his. In a sudden convulsive movement, she tried to sit up. “Beth!”
“Lie still.” Callum put his free hand on the woman’s shoulder, holding her down. “You were in a car crash. You could be injured.”
She shook her bruised head, though he could tell the movement had to hurt. Her eyes never left her daughter. “I don’t matter. Beth’s the one that’s important. Is she all right?”
“She’s fine.” She was, in fact, becoming increasingly wiggly. He adjusted his grip, holding her out so that the woman could see her better. “Look, here she is.”
“Beth, oh, my baby, my baby.” The woman clutched at the child, her breathing going ragged. Shock must be catching up with her. Her voice wavered, then firmed. She was clearly forcing herself to be calm for the sake of her daughter. “It’s okay, sweetie, everything’s fine. Mommy’s just, just having a little rest. You need to let the nice man hold you for a minute, okay?”
The woman lifted her head, finally tearing her attention away from her daughter long enough to meet his eyes.
MINE
He’d heard his friends talk about that first shock of recognition when they’d met their mates. Rory had said it was like being hit by lightning; a primal force of unimaginable
power coursing through every cell in his body. Wystan had described it as the whole world tilting, suddenly revolving around his mate instead of the sun. Joe, for once short on words, had simply said: Everything changed.
He’d always thought they’d been exaggerating.
Now, looking into the infinity of her eyes, Callum knew that they hadn’t. They’d been struggling to explain something unexplainable, with metaphors that were pale, feeble shadows of the real thing. No words could capture the immensity of the shift in his soul.
She was his, and he was hers. Would always be hers. Had always been hers. He just hadn’t known it until now.
She froze as well, eyes locked onto his face. “You.”
“Yes,” he breathed.
Sheer joy filled him like light. She knew him. Recognized him as the other half of her soul, just as she was his.
But…she wasn’t a shifter.
Despite the way that she was staring at him, her life-force was completely human. Incandescently bright in his senses, true, blazing with vitality…but human. She didn’t have the distinctive two-tone duality that marked someone who shared their soul with an animal.
So how could she be looking at him with such unmistakable recognition?
“Oh no.” The woman’s face had gone pale. She shook her head again, sharp and urgent, as though she could deny his entire existence. “No, no, no. It is you.”
Dismay sliced through his joy. Somehow she knew he was her mate, and…she didn’t want him?
The woman’s eyes flicked from him to the baby. She let out a high, somewhat hysterical laugh, and buried her face in her hands. “Oh God. Your expression…you already know, don’t you?”
He knew that his heart beat only for her. He knew that he would die for her, and her child—no, his child now. His pegasus had been right after all. He might not share genes with the baby in his arms, but he would share everything else, his whole life, always.
Callum wanted to explain all that to his mate, to wipe away the apprehension in her face. But he was the one who was bad with words. Bad with people. He would get it wrong.