by Zoe Chant
You’ve never even met her. He didn’t know why he was trying to reason with it. The moment his pegasus had sensed the other shifter—and how it had managed that he had no idea—it had started acting like a cartoon character with hearts coming out of its eyes.
I don’t need to. Can’t you tell how wonderful she is already?
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Jackson growled out loud, forgetting he still had his phone clamped against his ear.
The sudden silence on the other end made his blood turn to ice.
“Olly, I—”
“Hm?” She sounded breathless. Or like she was trying not to let her feelings out. He’d gotten this all wrong—and it was about to get worse.
Why are we running away? The bloody thing was confused now. Like a puppy that had turned around and lost sight of its own tail. Jackson ground his teeth.
Because there’s no way in hell I’m going to talk to Olly if there’s any chance Delphine Belgrave is going to show up.
But why?
Because you won’t be able to hide how you feel about her, and I don’t want Olly to see that! He was running now. Not towards the cottage—he couldn’t bear that. Or back towards the Puppy Express. Off the trail, deeper into the frozen forest. Unfindable.
Except the goddamn fairy-light explosion in his head that had to be Delphine Belgrave was getting closer.
But—
*I can’t break her heart again, damn you!*
He didn’t realize he’d spoken telepathically out loud until Olly’s voice filled his head.
*Jackson?!*
Her voice was the morning sun and the warmth of fire at midnight. He stumbled and turned around.
Olly burst through the trees. Her cheeks were red with exertion and her eyes were bright with joy or frustration or some typical combination of the two, perfect for her. All of the breath left Jackson’s body in a gasp that was her name.
“Olly…”
Recognition crackled between them. And not only them.
It’s her! his pegasus cried, its voice like a choir of angels.
Olly’s eyes widened. “You’re—”
*It’s him!*
Olly smiled wider than he’d ever seen her smile before. His heart lifted. And then—
“Oh, no,” he tried to shout, but couldn’t, because his pegasus was taking form in a shower of glimmering lights.
Olly shrieked—or her owl did. She leaped into the air and shifted in one smooth movement, snow-white wings beating the air. His pegasus craned its head, watching her flight.
And she dive-bombed him.
*Fly with me!* It wasn’t Olly’s voice. And it wasn’t talking to him.
His pegasus pranced on the spot. Marvelous! it caroled, and cantered itself airborne as the owl swooped around for another attack. She’s so graceful—so powerful!
*What a creature!* It had to be Olly’s owl. Her animal’s voice, in his head.
Jackson would have been rocked by the realization that he was hearing Olly’s owl, but that would have meant he’d already gotten over the big one. The sudden kick to the brain that made all his dreams come true.
His mind felt like it’d been left behind on the frozen ground as his pegasus and Olly’s owl wheeled up above the treetops, into the darkening sky. The owl shrieked with predatory delight and dived at him again. This time, his pegasus was ready. It slipped sideways, turning the dodge into a dance that took them both soaring high in the mountains.
Jackson let it fly. His heart was flying, too, caught up in a wonder he’d never thought possible.
He was a shifter. He was a different person than he’d been the day before, but the important things stayed the same. He was in love with Olly Lockey, and now that his pegasus had fledged, some final piece of the puzzle that was their relationship had fallen into place.
Olly was his mate.
And he was hers.
A question brushed up against his mind, a psychic signature that tasted like snow and warmed him like a winter bonfire.
*Is it really you, Jackson?*
*It is,* he reassured her, and now he knew why telepathy came to him so easily. It was so he could speak to her.
*But when—how—since when are you—?*
He laughed, inside his head and hers and his pegasus let out a gleeful whinny that should have embarrassed him but didn’t. *Since today.*
*And you’re really—?*
*Yours.*
The word hung between them, bright and pure as the moon in the sky.
Then Olly launched herself towards him.
His pegasus flared its wings and the two of them tumbled wing over hoof over claw through the air. Jackson only knew they’d hit the tree line again when he hit the trees. Snow and frozen branches exploded under his wings and he barely had time to think This is a bad idea before Olly landed on his neck, sunk her claws in, and shifted.
The force of her shift pulled at him so hard he forgot he had wings. He hit snow so deep the world around him disappeared. He just had time to realize he was human again and his pegasus had made a cave when it landed, driving and packing the snow with its wings, when Olly landed on top of him. Her fingers dug into his chest the same way her claws had and she was beautifully, gloriously naked. The moonlight pouring in from above caressed her skin and filtered through her hair, making the frozen cave feel like a hidden grotto.
He was sprawled on his back with his mate on top of him, naked and shining in the moonlight. Even in his wildest fantasies, he wouldn’t have let himself imagine this. “Oh God!” she cried out. “Why are you still dressed? How are you still—no.” Her eyes shone with wondrous curiosity. “You’re my mate.”
“And you’re mine.” There was no doubt in his mind or his heart. Wildest fantasies? He felt as though he was dreaming, but no dream could be this rich with detail. Their breath puffed in clouds of vapor, mingling in the air. Olly smelled like sweat and starlight. Her skin prickled with goosebumps.
Not a dream. He took off his coat and wrapped it around her, and her eyes shone with more than just reflected moonlight.
“This is what I was missing last year? I never imagined it would be like this. So… certain.” Olly brushed her fingertips along his jaw and his skin thrilled at her touch. Amazement danced in her eyes. “But why now, and not…”
“I’m a shifter now,” Jackson said. His voice caught. “A different person.”
“No, you’re not,” Olly’s fingernails pressed into his skin. She pulled her hand away with an annoyed hiss. “Stop it, owl!”
Her eyes flicked sideways as she listened to her owl.
You’re not a different person, his pegasus mused. I mean, I don’t think you are? I’ve only known you for today. But I feel like me, and you feel like you, and together, we’re…
“My owl…” Olly groaned. “You’re telling me this now?” she added in an undertone, and shook her head. “It says last time, it really was surprised that the mate bond didn’t form, and now it thinks it’s because you weren’t ready.”
“I hadn’t fledged.” Jackson couldn’t keep a hint of bitterness from his voice, but Olly looked delighted.
“Is that what you’re calling it? Fledging! Like when I got my first wing feathers.” She wriggled her shoulders as though she was remembering what it felt like to have wings, and to fly for the first time. “I’m so relieved.”
Jackson was thrown. “What?”
“Because…” She touched his face again. “I already love you. And now you’re a shifter, and you’re going to be my mate, and everything is perfect.”
“Going to be?”
Olly’s eyes flashed with unbridled desire. “We’ve recognized each other as mates. There’s still one more step before the mate bond forms for real.” For a moment Jackson thought she was going to tear his clothes off right there in the snow cave.
For a moment, he would have let her, and damn the fact they’d both end up with important bits frozen off.
Then Olly laughed with delight as glee overtook the need in her eyes. “How? How are you a shifter? I might as well just ask! I want to know everything about this, right now. I don’t want to wait around and try to figure it out on my own. You’re too important.”
Jackson shook his head. He didn’t know what she was talking about, but as for her question… “I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?”
“Well, how are you a shifter?”
She gaped at him. Then she laughed, bright and clear as a bell. “I don’t know! But I am, and you are, and this is…” The sharp glee on her face softened. “Maybe fate is on our side after all.”
Warmth rose inside him. He grinned sheepishly. “It took its goddamn time.”
She laughed again, and kept laughing as he pulled the hood of his coat over her head and tucked it more closely around her. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t want you to freeze,” he murmured, his voice like sandpaper. She shivered against him. “And if you keep laughing like that with the coat falling open, I’m going to do something stupid that ends up in us both freezing.”
She bared her teeth in a cheeky grin. “That’d be a poor way to start out happily ever after, wouldn’t it?”
“Happily ever after.” He pulled her close and crushed his lips against hers, pouring all his relief and wonder into the kiss. She made a soft, urgent noise that made him wish he’d let his clothes dissolve as he shifted. “I thought my pegasus appearing would take my happy ever after away from me, not make it even better. Now I think your owl didn’t recognize me before because my pegasus wasn’t here to recognize it back.”
Olly’s eyes were wide. “Can it really be that simple? That we had to wait for you to fledge? But you didn’t have any idea that was even an option—and I’ve never heard of any shifter than manifests so late. If you hadn’t come back, we might never have…”
Her arms tightened around him. “I don’t want to even think about that.”
I almost didn’t come back. If I’d told Jasper to go to hell with his paperwork—
“But I did. And now everything has changed in a way I never thought possible. My world’s gone upside down because that was the only way to turn it the right side up.” He gazed into her eyes. “You’re my mate.”
“Not quite yet.” Olly wriggled against him, shamelessly teasing. “There’s still one thing we need to do about that, remember.”
Jackson went hard instantly.
“Exactly how long are you planning to keep me trapped in this snow cave for?” he asked gruffly.
She pinned him with happy eyes. “Do you have somewhere better in mind for me to trap you?”
Jackson’s chest swelled. “The cabin’s not too far away…”
A shimmer of light and she was in owl form. She flew up onto the mouth of the snow cavern, tested the snow, and folded her wings. *Are you coming?*
He retrieved his coat from where she’d dropped it and slipped into his pegasus’s shape, knocking snow around as he leaped lightly into the air.
*How do you do that?* she wondered. *You sort of fold your clothes away as you shift— No, you can tell me later. Right now…*
29
Olly
He’s so magnificent! her owl crooned. Those wings—that mane! So grand! So elegant!
Olly laughed, and must have let Jackson hear her, because she felt the careful brush of his mind against hers. *What’s funny?* he asked.
*My owl going gooey over your pegasus.*
She heard what could only be a mental throat-clearing. *If that’s what we’re talking about… my guy thinks your owl is pretty incredible, too.*
*Magnificent?*
*Glorious.*
*Hmm… you’re also very elegant.*
*And you’re—* He broke off with a groan that dissolved into helpless laughter. *As graceful as the wind, beautiful and white as the moon… with claws.*
*The moon with claws.* If Olly’s owl hadn’t been busy flying, it would have preened at that. *I like it.*
They landed on the cottage roof together: she lightly, he stumbling, clumsy on his hooves like a newborn. He laughed at himself and she laughed, too, and then they were both human and clambering down to a window, breaking into their new home after all. Straight into the bedroom.
“You’re still dressed,” she cried out in disgust, tearing at his clothes.
“You’re not.” His hands found her waist, her breasts, the curve of her hips, getting in the way of her stripping him down. “And freezing.”
“Warm me up.”
It was a challenge and a wish he couldn’t refuse.
He dragged his coat around her and she moaned as the fur lining slithered against her soft skin. He wrapped her tight, teasing, and laughed as she growled and tried to fight her way out.
He caught her complaints in a kiss. “I don’t want you to freeze.”
“I’m a shifter. We don’t freeze.”
“Your feet must not be shifters, then.”
“You—”
He picked her up and carried her, still wrapped in his coat, to the bed. When he put her down she didn’t give him even a second to catch his breath. She climbed on top of him, pulling his shirt off so roughly that buttons pinged around the room.
He grumbled at her, a tease that deepened to a moan of appreciation as she kissed him.
“What are you complaining about?” she murmured into his lips.
“I thought one of the benefits of being able to shift with my clothes was keeping them in one piece.”
“Not around me.” She kissed him again, hard and hot, her hands swiftly undoing or shredding what was left of his clothes.
“I’ll remember that.”
She ran her hands down his chest and over his abs. Her nails drifted across his ribs, making him gasp, and then she dug her fingertips into his glutes and ground herself against him. His hips bucked and she groaned.
“Do that again!”
He rolled his hips again, driving his cock hard between her thighs. She moaned deep in her throat and opened her legs.
She was slick and wet and ready, and Jackson’s gasp as he felt that made her shiver deep inside.
“Olly, wait.” There was an echo of gravel in his voice that made her pause.
She met his eyes. Her mind reached out to his, as gentle as a kiss, and felt his hesitation. *I’m not guessing, this time,* she reassured him.
*I know.*
*We’re doing this over. The right way, this time.*
*I know.*
Frustration hummed along the edges of her desire. Every beat of her heart was a drum of longing, of need.
*It’s going to be different.*
*I know.* He cupped her face in his hands. “That’s why I want to say this first.”
She slid down close to him and he wrapped her in his arms. Her heartbeat was a baby bird, fluttering too fast for her chest.
He took one of her hands in his. “I love you,” he said.
“I know,” she whispered back, feeling as though she was missing something.
“I love you now. Without the mate bond fully formed. I know we’re not guessing this time, in fact given how much my pegasus is shouting at me I think our chances of this working out are pretty high, but I want you to know, before everything changes… You would still be the only one I wanted, even without this.”
Sunlight filled Olly’s veins. “And you’d be the only one I wanted,” she replied. “Even if we had to live in the middle of nowhere and never see anyone else ever again, I’d want that, and you, more than anything else in the world. My Jackson.” She grinned at him. “Mine. With or without the mate bond.”
“With or without,” he agreed, and kissed her. “Want to get started on ‘with’?”
30
Jackson
“Yes!”
He pulled her on top of him, holding her in his arms and his heart, his mind…
Olly gasped. “Did you feel—” she be
gan, and then, her voice carrying with it a warmth that twined around the deepest parts of his soul: *When you touch me, it feels like… I know we can send emotion telepathically but this is more than that, this is…*
*…Right,* Jackson completed for her. He kissed her and then buried his face in her tumbling hair, unable to stop himself from smiling. Even now, pressed naked against him, his wonderful Olly couldn’t stop herself from trying to figure things out.
*Hey! I heard that. Felt it. Something.* She nuzzled against him.
*You’re overthinking.*
*For me, this is just thinking.* Her eyes danced. *And I’m thinking…*
She wrapped her legs around him and lowered herself slowly. Jackson groaned, need thrumming through every inch of his body. *You’re going to have to do the thinking for both of us in that case.*
She laughed, kissed him, and eased him inside her.
Jackson swore under his breath as he pushed into her. Sex was one thing—a great thing, sure—but this was Olly, his Olly, and this was more than just physical. More than it had been last night or last year.
Longing, bright and fierce, sprang into his mind. It thrummed in his head, his veins, across his skin. His and Olly’s both.
He met her eyes and they were shining. “I love you,” she whispered. “You feel that, right?”
This was what they’d both been searching for all those months ago. A certainty that burned in their hearts and sank deep into their bones.
“God, Olly,” he gasped. “I never stopped loving you. And I never will.”
Her breath stuttered against his neck as he buried his cock deep inside her. Her back arched and the extra pressure urged him to thrust up. Her breath caught and Jackson felt an echo of it in his own lungs.
Her fingernails scrabbled against his chest. He picked her hands up and kissed them, one by one, then wrapped her arms around his shoulders and rolled on top of her.
“Tell me I’m not dreaming.” His voice was so gravelly he was surprised she understood him.
She grinned. Her teeth flashed white in the moonlight streaming in through the bedroom window.
And she ghosted one cold foot along the inside of his calf.