by Zoe Chant
He knew what Olly would do.
He cleared his throat. “How did you know…”
“That you’d shifted for the first time?” Andrew beamed at him and tapped himself on the chest. “Felt it. Right in here. Been having flashes on and off for the last few months, and then earlier today—whoosh! Never felt anything like it. Guess this is what fatherhood is really like, huh?”
Don’t react to that, Jackson told himself. “You said I’m your first fledgling,” he went on, and Andrew raised both hands.
“Not for want of trying, don’t get me wrong!”
“You’re saying I’ve got half-siblings out there?” Jackson’s mind was already running ahead. If his father had other children but none of them had turned out to be pegasus shifters, did that mean they’d all been shifters already? Had he… fledged?... because he’d started off an ordinary human?
Or had his pegasus always been waiting inside him?
Don’t ask me, his pegasus said brightly. I don’t remember anything from before this morning!
“No, no. No other kids. Can you imagine?” Andrew scoffed. “I mean, no lack of trying.” He winked.
That was his dad, all right, making the same joke until he managed to get a laugh. Jackson refused to play along; he grimaced and rubbed his stubble. “But how can I be a shifter at all?”
Andrew blew out his cheeks. “Straight to the big one, huh?”
“It doesn’t make sense. Until this morning, I was human. No telepathy, no enhanced senses, no… pegasus. Or anything else. I don’t remember you biting me to turn me into a shifter like what happens with hellhounds, so how is this possible?”
“Well. See, the thing is…” Andrew leaned forward conspiratorially. Then one of his eyes twitched and he rubbed his hands together feverishly.
“Say, you don’t have a drink around here by any chance?”
There was the rest of the chocolate cocktail from last night, and he’d bought a six-pack for if Olly wanted to stay in another evening, but—
“No,” Jackson said firmly.
“Ah, well. I gotta say this would be easier with a drink in my hand, but… hoo. Okay.” Andrew gestured. “Thing is, no one knows how this really works, do they?” He paused, but Jackson stayed silent. “This whole shifter business. Oh, folks talk big about genetics, but they’re basically making it up. How can magic be explained by something as normal as that? No, kiddo. People like you and me, we’re special. Chosen. And when it comes to mythic shifters like yours truly, the animal only comes to the truly worthy.”
Jackson’s limbs felt heavy. “You came all this way to tell me I’m unworthy,” he said flatly.
Andrew’s eyes gleamed. “Not anymore.” Something approaching a fond smile appeared on his lips. “I thought my pegasus had it wrong at first. Good things take time and you’ve stretched that almost to its limits. But here you are. Fashionably late. My first fledgling.”
He raised his hand as though he was holding a glass. “And I’m here to teach you what that means.”
Andrew looked at him as though he expected Jackson to be pleased. Nothing could be further than the truth. He still didn’t know why he was suddenly a shifter. Whatever Andrew said, it wasn’t—couldn’t be—anything to do with being worthy. He couldn’t let himself believe that.
But there was something worse than that.
He loved Olly. He’d loved her since long before last Christmas and all the way through the last miserable year and he loved her now.
He couldn’t lose her. But if he wasn’t careful, he was going to. For the first time he truly understood what Olly had gone through last Christmas. Why she’d looked at him with such horror… and why only last night, she’d been so keen to get out of town without anyone seeing her. Without her seeing anyone else.
Because if he was a shifter then somewhere out there was his mate.
He straightened his shoulders. He’d made Olly a promise. All but given her a ring. They were engaged, and he was going to marry her, and no shifter magic was going to change that.
23
Olly
This is wonderful! Olly’s owl wailed as she flew over the tops of the trees, heading for home. Wonderful!
No, it’s terrible! Olly snapped. How can this be happening?
Her owl was beating its wings frantically and almost flew straight into a branch. Olly tried to wrestle control back and almost crashed again.
Get a hold of yourself! she shouted at it.
Something wonderful! her owl wailed. I mean, something terrible! Oh, no, this is even worse than before! I thought it was Jackson, I thought you’d be happy, this is awful! But it’s also…
A sense-vision appeared in Olly’s mind. The heavy beat of huge wings. The crunch of snow beneath hooves. The hiss of sunlight over shimmering feathers and the spark-crackle of awareness: there he is, mine, wonderful, mine!
No, she thought. That can’t be—
We have to get away! Don’t we? Yes! Away, and forget all about him, and then you can be happy!
Her owl was frantic. Olly was caught between the impulse to soothe it—which normally made it prickly, but at least distracted it from whatever was freaking it out—and freaking out herself.
There was no denying what had just happened. Her owl had identified her mate.
Wings. Hooves. There was only one shifter in town who matched that description, and if she’d had any doubts, the fact that her owl had exploded with blissful recognition the moment he’d landed outside made it clear.
Meaghan had said there was a pegasus shifter in town. And Jackson had recognized him.
Her mate was Jackson’s father. Her fiancé’s father.
This can’t be happening.
It isn’t! It’s not going to! I won’t let— Her owl’s voice fractured into a symphony of images and feelings. Too much. Olly didn’t have time to filter through them before her owl snatched them back under control and replaced them with a single shriek of determination. I won’t let this ruin your happiness!
We can think our way out of this, Olly told it, hoping her internal voice sounded more confident than she felt. Not that that would help. Her owl could feel how she felt, every sickening lurch of horror. We can… somehow… there must be a way around this!
Yes, her owl agreed, we just have to never see…
The sensory cocktail of the pegasus’s presence burst into her mind again and her owl wailed.
But he’s so wonderful, it cried.
Before Olly could reply, another voice sang out in her head.
*Olls? That you? Thank Christmas. We’re overrun down here.*
*Uncle Bob?*
*No, Santa Claus. Who’d you think? Look, I know you’re—* His psychic voice crackled like a bad radio reception and Olly thought she heard-felt the echo of a sneeze. *We could really use your help at the Express if you’re done love-birding for the day.*
Done love-birding? She swallowed hard. If Bob knew what she was—no. She couldn’t tell him. *I’ll be there at once.*
No! We have to hide away—think—
Her owl tried to wheel around to fly up to the most remote part of the valley, but Olly caught the turn and pointed her beak towards the Puppy Express.
Shimmer-feather-gleaming-hooves-sky-wing-wind-wonder-mine—
Olly and her owl shrieked in unison. Her owl was right. It was wonderful-terrible.
And the wonderful just made it more terrible.
We won’t get any information from up there, she told her owl, even as her whole body felt it was shaking apart beneath her owl’s feathers. At least if we’re close… maybe we can get enough information to figure out how to fix this.
Olly had made plenty of bad decisions in her life.
This was one of the worst.
Jackson’s cottage was a good mile and a half up the valley from the Puppy Express building, but even with that distance the sparkle-sparkle-yay of her mate’s presence was a constant prickle at the edges of her attention. Her
mate. Jackson’s father!
At least it was only recognition. The mate bond hadn’t formed. At least, she thought it hadn’t. She was sure you had to sleep together for that. So, all she had to do was never set eyes on the pegasus shifter again.
Her future father-in-law.
Does the universe hate me? She sized up the next group of customers as they came inside, checking whether they had the appropriate gear for the trail and mentally cross-referencing it against the Puppy Express rental supplies. I had it all figured out. I knew this was a risk, but… now? And him?
Jackson’s father. Until this Christmas, all she’d known about him was a big fat nothing. An informative nothing. He’d left a gap in Jackson’s life, even if Jackson didn’t like to admit it. And this Christmas, she’d added to that nothing the fact that he’d crash-landed in the middle of Jasper’s party, drunk out of his skull! And he was meant to be her mate?
At least she didn’t need to watch out for other strangers anymore. She could do her shift at the Puppy Express without worrying about some tourist driving up and sending her world upside down. It wasn’t like she was going to bump into another mate. But that was the thinnest of silver linings.
Silver, just like the pegasus’s wings.
Ugh, she and her owl thought in unison, and then her owl added, guiltily: But so shiny…
“The universe is an asshole,” she muttered darkly.
“Er… excuse me?”
Olly blinked. A woman was standing in front of her. Yeek! her owl shrieked as Olly’s brain caught up with her eyes. She snuck up on us!
No, she didn’t, I was just… distracted. Olly pushed down the urge to duck behind the counter.
“We’ve got a booking…”
The woman looked nervous, and Olly didn’t blame her. She was with two teenaged boys who, Olly suspected from long experience, were exactly the wrong age to enjoy a Puppy Express ride. Too old to think it was fun and too young to think it was ironic—or have circled back around to letting themselves have fun without worrying about being cool.
By the harried expression on the woman’s face, she was starting to suspect the same thing.
Olly shook her head and reminded herself to smile. The tense expression on the other woman’s face eased and she pushed a lock of faded blonde hair off her face.
“Belgrave family?” The name sounded familiar—then again, it had been there on the screen in front of her all morning. She picked up the windproof jackets she’d been partway through sorting before her thoughts got away with her.
“Yes, we’re—oh, we don’t need those.” Mrs. Belgrave paused. “That is, we’ve already been skating and we were snug as anything—”
“You’d be surprised how chilly it can get when you’re sitting on a sled compared to skating around.”
“Why don’t you give us wetsuits instead?” The voice was belligerent and male; one of the teen boys. She glanced up at him, then gave him a harder look as he kept talking: “Yeah, this guy at the place we’re staying won’t stop going on about it. Says it’s really unsafe and there aren’t any fences and he just, like, fell through the ice.”
“He keeps complaining about that stupid ring! He told me what it cost, it’s not even that much.”
The ring! Olly bit back a very customer-service-unfriendly groan. She’d forgotten it again. It was back at the cottage… where Andrew was.
She could call Jackson on the shop phone and ask him to bring it over, but then he might bring Andrew with him. She swallowed. Better not.
“If it’s really unsafe, maybe it will be fun after all.”
The two teens grinned at each other. Were they twins? Olly wondered. They looked alike, except while the first one was belligerent, the second was just scornful.
“Vance, Anders…” Mrs. Belgrave groaned, but Olly just shrugged.
“Sure, it is unsafe, if you’re dumb enough to jump around on ice half an inch thick and be surprised when you fall in the water.” There—she had it. A flicker of animal behind the boys’ eyes. But what? “Are either of you that dumb?”
“No!”
Olly hid a victorious smile. The teenagers were definitely shifters. Something feline—with a hint of feathers. And now she remembered where she’d heard the name Belgrave before, and the glimpse of the woman who’d given Jackson a ride to the Puppy Express the other day. His father’s PA.
*Are you Delphine’s family?* she asked, broadcasting the question to all three of them. Surprise flickered cat-like in their eyes as the boys crowded in front of their mother.
*Oh! Excuse me. I didn’t expect… oh, boys, really.* Mrs. Belgrave patted them out of the way. “We were meant to meet my daughter Delphine here. Have you seen her? Blonde hair, about your age?”
“She hasn’t been in, sorry.” Olly glanced at the security cam feed in the corner of her screen.
“Oh…”
Vance-or-Anders jutted his chin out. “If she’s not here, why can’t we go stalk tourists in the woods instead?”
“Yeah, she’s the one who wanted to do this stupid—”
Olly cleared her throat. “Actually, this might be her now,” she said as the door swung open.
“Sorry I’m late!”
Delphine hurried in, her cheeks pink with cold. She flashed her mother a warm smile and then groaned theatrically at her brothers, hands on her hips. “Well, look who the cat dragged in. Neither of you managed to fall off the mountain yet? I’m disappointed.”
“Mum, she called you a cat!”
“Kids, don’t pick fights. Grown-up kids included, Delphy.” Mrs. Belgrave fiddled with her purse and added silently: *We’re winged lion shifters. And you are… I mean, I’m assuming you must be a shifter of some sort?*
Olly blinked. She couldn’t tell? *Snowy owl,* she explained.
*Oh, how lovely.*
“I can’t believe you all made it here on such short notice!” Delphine said, smiling brightly. Almost too brightly, Olly thought. “You know I have to work all the way through to New Year’s, I thought you’d be going back to the UK for the holiday.”
“Same,” one of her brothers grumbled.
Her mother elbowed him gently. “When you said you had to work for Christmas—well I thought it was such a shame. We hardly get to see you these days! And this place is so... so…”
“Boring.”
“Relaxing.” Mrs. Belgrave sighed. “It’s a nice change from our usual family Christmases. So much quieter.”
Vance-or-Anders groaned and she smiled fondly at him.
“Even if poor Delphine’s boss dragged her along on his vacation.” Mrs. Belgrave clicked her tongue. “Really, darling, I don’t know why you put up with it.”
“You should fight him,” Vance-or-Anders declared. *Or we could!*
The other one joined in. *Yeah! We could totally take him. He’s just a measly pegasus and we’re lions!*
*SKY LIONS! Attacking from above!*
“You work for Jackson’s dad, right?” Olly asked Delphine.
“Oh! Er, yes? I’m his PA.” Delphine’s eyebrows shot up. She already looked nervous—now she looked dazed, too. “Do you know Jackson?”
“Yeah.” Olly tried to sound casual, but her owl was intensely focused on the other woman. “I don’t suppose you know what your boss’s plans are today? I know he, uh, went to see Jackson this morning.”
“His calendar’s booked out for the whole day,” Delphine said. “Family time.”
“Which means we get a chance to see each other too,” Mrs. Belgrave added.
So they’ll both be together all day. I won’t be able to talk to Jackson without seeing his father, too. Olly swallowed hard.
“We’d better get you started on that, then,” she said, doing her best to sound chirpy. She handed over the windproof parkas. “We’ve got you booked in for the Polar Adventure, is that right?”
“I’m going to throw myself in the lake,” Vance-or-Anders whispered conspiratorially.
&nb
sp; “This one doesn’t go past the lake.” Just to be on the safe side, she added: “And although the trails are private, we’re not completely isolated up here. There are vacation cabins all around the valley, so don’t be surprised if some random hikers or skiers pop up out of nowhere.”
“Aw!” Both boys turned to their mother. “Come on, Mum, what’s the point in being in the middle of nowhere if we can’t even—”
*Someone’s coming,* Olly said telepathically, seeing movement on the security feed.
Both boys fell silent just as the bell above the door rang again. Olly was relieved. Even the terrible fate of not being able to shift on vacation wasn’t enough to make them forget to keep the existence of shifters safe from outsiders, it seemed.
She waved to the group that had just arrived. “I’ll be with you in a moment! Okay, so, here’s the map with all the routes on it. Manu—” She concentrated and called the hellhound shifter in from outside. “—Manu here is going to take you around the tracks today. Hey, Manu!”
The teenagers still looked fidgety, so she sent the whole group a final, secret message: *Manu is a hellhound shifter. Have you ever met one of those before?*
The change in the winged lion shifter teenagers was instant. “Woah,” one of them whispered, and the other added: “Cool!” Their mother gave Olly a grateful look, but Delphine didn’t react.
That’s them sorted, Olly thought. Hopefully they’ll be too distracted trying to impress another super-magical shifter to cause trouble. She caught Delphine’s eye as Manu herded them all out to meet their dog team.
What she found in Delphine’s quick glance wasn’t what she’d expected. It wasn’t what was there, as much as what wasn’t. Her family might be all winged lion shifters, but there was no animal hiding behind Delphine’s eyes.
Huh, she thought. She isn’t a shifter? She ran over the conversation in her head again. Olly had included her in her telepathic speech, and Delphine hadn’t reacted. She’d thought that meant the other woman didn’t have anything to say, but maybe she just hadn’t heard her at all.