by Zoe Chant
She winced at that. “I did wonder why he was so quiet these last few miles. I knew he was nervous about meeting you, but I didn’t expect… oh, well.”
“He’s nervous? He’s—” Jackson stiffened his jaw before he could say anything else. “Where are you staying, anyway?”
“Almost there.” Delphine consulted the GPS on the dash. “He wanted a place quite out of the way, so he could go flying without anyone seeing him.”
“Didn’t stop him back there.”
She winced again and he felt guilty.
“Just around this bend—ah! There.”
The house loomed in the yellow glow of the headlights. It sat comfortably among the snow like it had sprouted up from the ground of its own accord and settled in for a good rest. Its empty windows promised a serene view of frozen trees, and it had a tall chimney that Jackson hoped someone had cleaned before the winter.
The worst thing was, he liked it. It was exactly the sort of house he’d like to live in one day.
“Here we are,” Delphine said needlessly as she parked in front of the house. “Now we just need to get him inside.”
Jackson would have suggested leaving him in the car, but even shifters weren’t that immune to the cold. He didn’t know why his father had decided to see him after all these years, but he wouldn’t get any answers from an ice block.
Besides, how hard could wrangling one pegasus be?
A few minutes later, he knew exactly how hard it could be.
Six limbs, Jackson thought. I’ll never complain about herding humans into the drunk tank again.
A wing buffeted Jackson in the face as he opened the back door of the car. A hoof followed, then another, then the pegasus got stuck.
“I’ll try the other side,” Delphine called. “Mr. Petrakis, your head’s at this end, try coming out this way…”
“Or shift?” Jackson suggested.
Delphine shook her head as Andrew tried to get out through both doors at once. “It’s an idea, but…”
The pegasus whinnied in desolate frustration. Jackson’s jaw tensed.
“What’s he saying?” he muttered, and tapped the side of his head when Delphine looked at him in confusion. “I’m not a shifter, remember?”
“Oh! Er. Nothing particularly helpful.” She fumbled in her handbag. “I’ll just, er, open up—”
Jackson bent down to look inside the truck as she hurried to the cottage door. Two soulful, sky-blue eyes stared back at him from a confusion of feathers and hooves.
“Mwheeeer,” the pegasus declared, and exploded in a flurry of sparkling lights. “My boy!”
Jackson covered his eyes. He’d seen more of his fa—of Andrew today than he’d seen in the last twenty-five years.
He really wasn’t in the mood to see even more of him.
“There-he-is. Issa. Jackson Petrakis.”
“Gilles,” Jackson grumbled as an arm landed heavily over his shoulders.
“Ja’son Petrakis-Gilles. Firs’ fledgling. Never thought…”
Andrew’s voice trailed off. Jackson yanked him to him feet, then braced himself and flung one arm around his torso to keep him upright as he stumbled. He felt wool under his hand and cracked his eyes open.
“How the hell did you get dressed that quickly?” he demanded.
“Eh?” Andrew stared dazedly down at himself. Gold glittered on his little finger. He wasn’t dressed for the climate; his suit was wool, but it was still just a suit jacket, not something that would keep the mountain cold out.
But the most important thing about his clothing was the fact that he was still wearing it. Every other shifter Jackson had ever met lost their clothes every time they shifted. Mythic or plain old ordinary animal shifters, their clothes all suffered the same fate. Though whether that fate was vaporized or just torn to pieces, he wasn’t sure.
“Keeping my kit on? Jus’ gotta… gotta not be lazy ‘bout it,” Andrew declared. “Warrathink, waste a suit like this e’ry time I shift? Pshh.”
He swung around so quickly Jackson almost dropped him.
“Teach you all about it,” he slurred. He patted Jackson on the chest and beamed blearily. “M’boy. Teach all… e’rything. Things. Important.”
“Sure,” Jackson said absently. Andrew nodded.
“Exc’llent. Good job. Don’… don’ know what I was worried about.” He puffed out his chest and one leg shot out from under him. “Argh!”
Jackson hoisted him back onto his feet. Andrew muttered to himself and straightened his jacket, and Jackson took the opportunity to look at his face properly.
The last time he’d seen Andrew Petrakis the man had looked like a giant. Two decades later, Jackson had two or three inches on him. It gave him the perfect perspective to see where their similarities started.
Curly dark hair. A solid jaw—Ma always called his dependable, which rankled now he knew where he’d gotten it. Even their eyes were the same shape.
It was like a punch in the gut.
“’Splain it all,” Andrew slurred. “Pegasus. Fledg… lish… fledgish. Fledging. Firs’… ever. Important.”
He kept muttering to himself as Jackson half-walked, half-dragged him inside.
“The bedroom’s upstairs, I’m afraid,” Delphine said as he closed the door. She was twisting her hands together, but her expression brightened when she saw him. “Oh, good, he’s human again.”
“Delphine!” Andrew cried out. “Have y’met… have you… my boy here.” He gestured at Jackson and his eyes lit up. “Jackson! Have y’met…”
“Delphine?”
“Thassaone.”
“Yeah, we’ve met. About a half an hour ago.” Jackson shot an apologetic look at Delphine, but she just shrugged.
“Delphine Belgrave. Ver’ good… old family. Lion shifters. Ver’… wings.” Andrew stared intently into Jackson’s eyes, as though he was trying to find the point of his sentence there. “Wing’ lionsh.”
“Lions?”
“Wiv wings!”
Jackson shook his head. “Winged lions, huh? I guess they would have wings, yeah.”
“It’s all in the name,” Delphine added blandly. She caught Jackson’s eye and shrugged.
Andrew’s head swung between each of them. “Good. Good… Now…” He trailed off. The silence stretched and Andrew’s face went contentedly blank, as though he’d forgotten he’d begun to speak at all.
“Time for bed, you think?” Jackson suggested.
“No, no… well, p’rhaps. Upstairs?”
Andrew craned his neck to look up the stairs. His eyes narrowed.
“Watch out!” Delphine called suddenly.
Jackson only had a split second to pay attention to her warning. He flattened himself against the wall, but not fast enough. Andrew shifted in an explosion of lights.
“You’re not seriously going to—” Feathers filled Jackson’s mouth as Andrew spread his wings. Something tumbled off a side table and smashed on the floor.
“Mr. Petrakis—”
The pegasus beat its shining wings. More crashing. It made it to the bottom of the stairs—and collapsed.
Another burst of lights, and Andrew was lying in a crumpled heap. “No ’nough room,” he muttered, and closed his eyes.
Jackson exchanged a look with Delphine. To his slight relief, she seemed as embarrassed as he felt.
“We could take one arm each?” she suggested.
Andrew wasn’t as asleep as he appeared, or at least not consistently so. As Jackson and Delphine half-carried him up the stairs he kept trying to launch himself forward, or sideways, or in one terrifying case, backwards.
“Just so long as he doesn’t shift again,” Jackson muttered to Delphine as he hauled Andrew onto the landing.
“No’ a chance. Can’ hear me, can ya?” Andrew slurred.
“I can hear you just fine.”
Andrew waved one hand and narrowly missed hitting Delphine in the face. “Inna head.”
�
��Yeah, humans can’t do telepathy, Andrew.”
Andrew muttered something he couldn’t make out. “’S’early. ’S’okay.”
“Right. Sure thing.” He nodded to Delphine. “I can manage him from here. Can you get the door?”
The cottage bedroom was situated over the living room. The flue from the downstairs fireplace ran up alongside one wall, to take advantage of the heating, and the window on the opposite wall looked out into the trees. It was a classic Pine Valley view, with a hint of gold in one corner from the glow of the town itself and the stars a brilliant scatter of light above. In the morning, the sun would slip across the valley, inch by inch, picking out the white snow and black trees and rock in vivid contrast.
And Andrew would be too hungover to appreciate it.
Jackson dumped him on the bed and he promptly slid off it.
“M’boy.” Andrew’s hand clutched in the air about a foot away from Jackson’s shoulder as he stooped to pick him up. “J’st like y’old man.”
I hope not. Jackson heaved Andrew onto the bed and Delphine reappeared at the top of the stairs in time to grab his legs and pull them up. Andrew grinned contentedly at them both and promptly passed out.
“Well,” said Delphine, straightening her sweater. “This is nice and awkward, isn’t it?”
Her hair was a mess, with a single silver feather sticking out from it. Jackson ran a hand over his own hair and found a loose feather there, too. He gestured to Delphine and she finger-combed her hair self-consciously.
“I think I’ll head to the hotel,” she said. “He won’t be up until late tomorrow, and that’ll give me time to finish some work.”
“You’re not staying here?”
Delphine’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“I meant—”
“There’s only one bedroom. Your father’s not that sort of boss, and even if he was, the only reason he brought me on this trip is…” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Something I will leave to him to explain.”
Jackson sighed. He didn’t know much about Andrew’s life other than that his business was the excuse he’d used for never having time for him, but he was pretty sure PAs weren’t usually expected to hole up in tiny mountain towns with their boss over the Christmas holidays. “I’m sorry you got dragged into all this.”
“Why?” Her honey-gold eyes bored into his. Winged lion, he thought, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling. Yeah, I can see that.
He shrugged. “I can’t imagine ferrying your employer around the mountains and hauling his drunk ass to bed is how you want to spend your Christmas.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Delphine started downstairs. “One boozy boss and a nice drive in the snow ranks above a planeload of angry families and dealing with Heathrow at Christmas, in my books. Though…” She reached the bottom of the stairs and looked back at him over her shoulder. “I wasn’t expecting anything like that party. Are shifters really so open here?”
“That depends. Off-season, the main worry is hunters, and maybe a few of the newer families who haven’t noticed they’re neighbors with dragons yet. Winter and summer is when people have to be careful. Folks come up for camping in the summer and skiing in the winter, and you never know who’s got a camera or a phone out.”
“But when it’s just shifters, it’s expected that people are going to be in their shifted form?”
“Within reason. Transforming into a mythical beast and crashing other people’s parties is taking it a step too far.” Jackson shrugged. “But most shifters aren’t mythical and most folks on vacation aren’t going to think twice if they see a bear in the woods. There are places in the valley that are private access only and if people are worried, they set a watch—”
Like Olly. His throat went dry. Olly always volunteered to keep watch. Her owl was the perfect guard, and knowing where everyone was and what they were doing always made Olly happy.
So how the hell had he managed to sneak up on her?
She couldn’t have changed that much in a year, could she? Jackson’s heart leaped, and he felt queasy. No amount of change on either of their parts could alter what was really important.
He shook his head. “Basically, if you want to stretch your wings, do it at night or someplace no one can see you.”
“That won’t be an issue.” Delphine bit her lower lip. “I mean, my lion isn’t quite as… excitable as Mr. Petrakis’ pegasus. And I’m more of a town person, anyway.”
“Not that Pine Valley’s much of a town?” Jackson joked, picking up on the uncertainty in her expression.
She stared at him. “Sorry?”
“Never mind.”
There was another awkward silence.
“You know, I’d really better get going—”
“I’ll help you bring the bags in.”
Jackson helped Delphine lug three massive suitcases out of the truck. He left them lined up in the hallway, said goodbye and just managed to stop himself from apologizing for Andrew’s bullshit again.
It wasn’t until the truck’s headlights disappeared in the distance that he remembered his own car was miles away, back at the Puppy Express.
He thudded into the sofa in front of the fireplace.
A shifter wouldn’t worry about—
He groaned and buried his head in his hands. Was that really his first reaction? That a shifter wouldn’t be put off by an hours-long trek through snow in the middle of the night? If he had wings, or was sturdy enough, sure, but no small animal would think twice before deciding to curl up in front of the fire and wait out the night.
He pulled out his phone. Rideshare services hadn’t reached Pine Valley yet, but the town did have a taxi. Singular. He could…
His thumb hovered over the screen. He could call the taxi, assuming it was still running this late at night.
Or he could face up to the truth he’d been running from for the last year.
10
Olly
Olly flew high above the trees, one thought whirling around and around in her mind: What am I going to do?
It wasn’t words that echoed through Olly’s head so much as a churning flood of emotion. She’d kept everything frozen up inside her and now the spring floods had come.
And like all spring floods they were leaving destruction in their wake.
Her first year in Pine Valley, when her parents had suggested she move to the small town to help her uncle with his business and get some good owl time in away from the city, an avalanche had torn through the forest. She’d almost gotten caught in it, and had learned after that to keep watch for the warning signs. She’d put that lesson to good use in the rest of her life, as well. There were always warning signs, and even if they weren’t warnings, they were good information. Knowing who was in a room before she went into it, or what people were talking about, just the shape of a social interaction in general before she inserted herself into it, made her feel safe.
But this last year, ever since the hellhounds, she’d gotten worse.
Except it wasn’t just the hellhounds, was it? They were the cause. But the thing that had made her really feel the world cracking beneath her feet was what had happened with Jackson.
She flew for an hour before she could convince herself it was safe to land on her bedroom windowsill and claw the latch open. She let the curtains fall over the window and shifted, heart hammering.
There was no movement in the house. She was alone. Safe.
What was that about? Her owl’s voice was brittle.
Olly bit back an hysterical laugh. What was she thinking? She was never alone.
The hellhounds? She tried to sound like she wasn’t terrified out of her skull. To a creature that lived in her skull. Just reminding myself they’re nothing to be afraid of. They can’t help their hellfire, and they’re friends, not enemies.
I know that! But… just after that… and what you were saying before, when we were perched on the best branch…
Emotio
ns threatened to crash through her, more terrifying than any avalanche. Olly tried to hold them back. It hurt so much. It hurt her heart and her head because if what she was feeling was real, there was something terribly wrong with the world.
Her owl’s feathers puffed out. You’re hurt?
I’m not—I can’t be…
Like before. You’re hurt like before?
This was worse than being spotted by someone else before she saw them. Her own owl was interrogating her!
What do you mean, like before? I’m not—I don’t—I’m fine.
Nothing’s wrong?
Olly covered her face. Nothing could be wrong. None of this could be happening. And nothing could happen, because there was no way Jackson could still have feelings for her after what she’d done to him last year.
Nothing’s wrong, she told her owl.
Right. Good.
And that was wrong, too, because her owl sounded relieved. And being relieved meant it had been worried in the first place, and why would her owl be—
I’m not worried! Everything is fine!
Her phone beeped.
Olly froze, her eyes snapping to her dresser. She’d left her phone there that afternoon when she started baking. Who could be trying to contact her?
Bob wouldn’t bother with a phone when he could telepath her. Meaghan might—Meaghan and Abigail were the main reasons Olly even had her phone, these days—but…
She checked the notification. New message from Jackson Gilles.
Oh, God.
What? What is it? Oh. Just him. Her owl’s voice was heavy with suspicion. The… not-important one.
Why do you keep saying that?
You said it.
Olly groaned. I’ve spent the last twelve months thinking— She pounced on the thought before it could get any further. If he’s not important then there’s nothing wrong with me seeing what he sent, is there?
She opened the message. It was only a single line:
Sorry about today.
Her skin felt electric. What specifically? she wrote back.
I feel like I should say “everything”.
She snorted. Everything? He couldn’t be blamed for her owl refusing to acknowledge him, and then her freaking out when she finally did see him. Or whatever or whoever had crashed the party, or her using it as a distraction while she fled like a terrified bunny rabbit after Jackson got the jump on her.