All but Human

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  They’d had a rough day and Ladon had been cross with the kid earlier. Letting him talk was the least Ladon could do.

  “How’d you do it, huh?” Gavin blinked again.

  “Do what?” Though Ladon knew. He was about to be treated to a drunken pity festival and a likely extended comparison between a normal’s life and his own.

  I would prefer to check the yard. At this point, whatever critter made the noise had probably moved on. They needed to check, though.

  “Is it because you have superpowers?” Gavin stared at his feet.

  Ladon inched toward the door. “We frighten most women.”

  Yes, Dragon signed. Rysa is unusual. She is not afraid of us. The beast dropped his head low. Her presence helps us to forget our burdens.

  Gavin chortled and leaned against the counter once again. “Seriously?” He shook his head. “That has got to be the best damned pick-up line in the whole world-wide universe.”

  Drunk or not, Ladon felt his patience with the kid pour out onto the floor and spread into a very thin sheen. “Perhaps, Gavin, women prefer men who show sincerity and emotional respect.”

  Gavin shook as if Ladon had just slapped him across the face. “Oh, man, geez. I’m sorry!” He reached out to Dragon but pulled back his hand. “I am… sorry. Wow.”

  Ladon walked toward the back door. “Stay inside.”

  Dragon rolled through the door first. He dropped into full mimic as he entered the mudroom, and complete invisibility as he crossed the threshold into the backyard.

  I hear only crickets and automobiles, the beast pushed.

  Ladon pulled the flashlight off its grip next to the door but left the shotgun. Best not to frighten the neighbors.

  Outside, a cool evening breeze rustled the tall grasses in the plantings between the house and the garage. On the property line, next to the fence, the branches of the big oak tree swayed. The breeze picked up dust from the alley and it brushed gritty against Ladon’s nose and eyes.

  A neighbor’s porch light blazed, throwing a sweep of cold halogen light into the alley. Shadows crept around the base of the garage and under Daisy’s parked sedan. The difference stood out in high contrast against the night’s backdrop.

  Someone laughed a few houses away. Off in the distance, a dog barked. Ladon wondered if perhaps he should send the kid to drunken-stumble upstairs and fetch Ragnar.

  Nothing was out here. But the vigilance pushed and he had to dance the perimeter or it would prod at him all night.

  The screen door smacked against the house and the kid flew into the yard.

  “I didn’t mean… you know…” He almost tripped when he stepped off the stoop. “I’m not that drunk.” He chuckled. “Won’t be legal until next month, anyway.” His hands made a poorly constructed birthday sign.

  Ladon rolled his eyes. “Go. Inside.”

  “Why?” Gavin took a deep breath and walked surprisingly straight when he approached Ladon. “You need to teach me how to deal with super-villains in real time, not just the hand-to-hand stuff, since I’m up to my eyeballs in this shit now.” He waved a flat hand in front of his face.

  “Tell you what, we’ll start tomorrow, in the daylight. When you’re sober.” Maybe Ladon would teach him how to assess the tactical assets and liabilities of an area. Daisy’s yard was full of places an unfriendly could hide.

  “Do all wireless connections cause you problems? What about AM/FM radios? I’m going to buy Dragon a new tablet tomorrow.” The kid leaned around Ladon. “He needs more memory.” He rubbed his head. “This compulsion you have to check the perimeter isn’t healthy, you know.”

  Ladon rubbed his face, mimicking the kid. Whatever had been out here was long gone by now but he still needed to finish his task no matter how the kid babbled. “Please go inside.”

  Gavin waved his hands around, again drunk babble-signing. “The people at Praesagio will help. They’re always offering help.” Ladon made out edge, healthy, and mind.

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You know that, right? You’re only human.” Gavin snorted. “Superhuman.”

  “Can we talk about this later?” Ladon had promised he’d behave better with the kid, but checking his annoyance was taking more effort than he wished to give it.

  “I think I’m in love with Daisy.” Gavin’s arms crossed over his chest, making a clear sign for love.

  Ladon’s focus on the perimeter popped like a bubble and the needs of the moment flooded back in. This location should not cause him stress, nor should this kid. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re figuring this out now?”

  “Not all of us have superhero relationship powers, you know.” The kid stared at his feet.

  Neither do you, Human, Dragon pushed from inside the garage. Clear in here.

  Gavin opened and closed his mouth. “Most of the women I date end up being boring, you know? Few common interests. No intellectual curiosity. Some of them seemed to think that because I’m pre-med all I need is ego-stroking because that’s what all doctors want, right? But Daisy’s different. And hot.”

  Gavin grunted and signed beautiful. “Are all Shifter women that hot? Because she’s smokin’ hot.”

  What was Ladon supposed to say? He didn’t have insight into Daisy’s mind, though he did agree that she was beautiful. Not as beautiful as Rysa, but beautiful. “I’m checking the alley.”

  Just a small check, to get it out of the way.

  “What should I do?”

  The kid looked so forlorn Ladon almost felt sorry for him. “First, you do not tell her how you feel in the state you are in now.” He could, at least, give him that advice.

  “Why?” Gavin blinked and pouted like a five-year-old. “It’ll give me the cover of wine if she slaps me across the face.”

  Ladon had to admit the kid had a point.

  Dragon ambled out of the garage with a crumpled paper bag he must have pulled from the van.

  What’s that? Ladon pushed.

  Rysa asked me to bring in a few items. The beast kept moving right past both Ladon and Gavin.

  When? She’s asleep.

  She is awake and practicing pushing images to me. The beast sauntered toward the house.

  Gavin perked up and pointed at the bag as it floated by in the air, carried in the mouth of the invisible beast. “What’s Dragon have?”

  They could barely move around inside the garage. How did you get into the van?

  I am a dragon. He opened the back door.

  Both dogs burst into the yard and immediately ran up to the men, Radar to Gavin and Ragnar to Ladon. Neither dog seemed to think a threat loomed in the backyard. They wagged their tails and asked for attention, and some of Ladon’s need to be vigilant subsided.

  Daisy stepped to the side to allow Dragon to enter the mudroom, then leaned against the door frame with her arms crossed over her chest. “What are you two doing out here?”

  Ladon pointed over his shoulder. “We heard a noise.”

  Daisy shook her head. “Your window faces the front of the house, not the back.”

  Gavin leaned toward Ladon. “See? Intellectual curiosity,” he whispered.

  Ladon pressed on his forehead and nodded toward the kid. “He distracted me.”

  A huge smile brightened Daisy’s face and eyes as she stepped out onto the stoop. “He does that.”

  The kid looked as if he’d just won best in show. Ladon shook his head.

  “You probably heard Miss Kitty. She’s a stray and I think she’s pregnant but I can’t get close enough to her to check.” Daisy stepped off the stoop and walked toward the men.

  A calling scent Ladon didn’t recognize filled the backyard. He sniffed, more curious than moved by it, but the dogs obviously understood. They fanned out, sniffing at the grasses, in what appeared to be a search and rescue pattern.

  “I can’t even get close enough to calling-scent her. Poor thing. It’s going to be cold soon and she’ll have a litter to take care of.” She blin
ked, wide-eyed, as if the plight of a pregnant cat perfectly summed up the ills of the world.

  Gavin wrapped his arm around her waist. “We’ll get her before it snows, right Ladon?”

  Come in, Human, flowed from inside the house.

  Why did he feel he needed to come out into the dark? Why did he leave Rysa’s side? Knowing that she was awake and waiting for him pulled him back into the house. “I’m going in.” Nodding once, Ladon handed the flashlight to Daisy, and left the kids on their own.

  Rysa rolled over when Ladon walked up the stairs. “Did you bring them in?”

  The streetlight out front of the house cast a long, hazy strip of light over her chest. When she stretched, the blanket pulled off her luscious breasts and gave Ladon an excellent view of her tightening nipples.

  The beast ambled over to his mattress and flopped down next to her. Yes, he signed. I left them on the kitchen counter.

  Smiling, Ladon stripped off his shirt. “Now I know why you asked me to stop at that pharmacy.” Most of his discomfort had melted away when he realized what Dragon had brought into the house, and he’d found it difficult not to laugh as he and the beast had passed through the kitchen.

  Rysa extended her arms. “You don’t have to go outside every time you hear a noise, even if Dragon is running an errand for me.”

  No, he didn’t. But he wasn’t about to let another morpher like Vivicus near his family again.

  Rysa stroked the shaved side of his head. “Do you want a healing?”

  He didn’t like the pressure that sent him down the stairs. But she looked tired. She’d said something about an upcoming test and not feeling as if she’d studied enough.

  But he didn’t like the compulsion that had sent him into the yard. It also made her unhappy.

  When he nodded yes, she kissed his temple, curled her protective arms around his head, and leaned against his side, doing her best to cover her fatigue with a small, flat smile.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Daisy had walked into the kitchen shortly after the men went outside. She’d been in the mudroom when Gavin asked Ladon what he should do. She heard his confession about boring women and about how he thought she was smokin’ hot.

  And his “I think I’m in love with Daisy.”

  He wasn’t in love with her. They’d known each other long enough but they weren’t in a relationship and real love took time, unless you were a godling.

  She stood in the shadows of her mudroom watching the guy who, if she wasn’t leaving, she would have dated. And most likely would have spent the past five months in a torrid, wonderful, brilliant relationship with. So she wasn’t surprised.

  He was smart enough to deal with her life, both the demands of her veterinary training and the pushes and pulls of her Shifter heritage. She trusted him. And when she let herself think about it, she felt all the way to her bones just how damned sexy he was.

  Ladon walked away, to join Dragon in the house. Her boys sniffed around, but she knew Miss Kitty probably ran off the moment she heard humans. So Daisy was out here, in the shadows of her backyard, standing next to a gorgeous man who had his arm around her waist and who smelled of popcorn, wine, love, and frustrated sexual attraction.

  She leaned against his side.

  Gavin responded immediately, curling his fingers over her hip and pulling her closer. “I think I’m too inebriated to walk home.” He lived six blocks away, in a house he shared with other undergrads.

  He leaned his forehead against her head, behind her ear, and inhaled deeply as if the scent of her hair was all the sustenance he needed.

  “When I leave for my father’s animal operations, I’m going to be taking on a hefty job. A long distance relationship won’t work.” It wouldn’t. She’d likely be living in the barn and working sixty-hour weeks.

  “I know.” Gently, he kissed her hair, his lips dancing not far from her earlobe.

  “When you start med school, you’ll have less time than me.” Learning to human doctor took just as much rigor as learning to animal doctor, and a lot more time.

  “I haven’t started the application process yet.” His kisses moved to the edge of her ear.

  Daisy allowed herself this moment with a man who made her feel safe and appreciated for her whole person, not just her Shifter abilities or her looks.

  She’d kept an emotional space between them, not allowing herself to love him for the short time they had. When she wanted to linger in a hug, to breathe in his wonderful scents, or text him an I’m thinking about you note or ask him to stay later, she kicked it away. Every time he brought her a sweet gift that made her smile, she refused to allow herself to touch him.

  “I don’t want to go through the heartbreak of ending a relationship with you,” she whispered. “It’s going to kill me.”

  His body hummed. His lips pressed against her cheek and he shifted his footing to pull her flush with his front. He pulled back his chest enough they could see each other clearly, but he pressed his solid and now blazingly obvious erection against her pubic bone.

  “We’ll make it work.” He nodded toward the house. “Rysa will help. Your dad owns a private plane. Hell, at this point he owns an entire fleet. We’ll live on the damned thing on the weekends. I want to try. I can’t not try. You’re—”

  Her mouth met his with more force than she’d meant to use. With more need and desire and a torrent of emotions that she’d bottled up a long time ago because they were distracting and didn’t help her get her degree and her license to practice and she was a Shifter so she had decades to find the right guy.

  But maybe the right guy was right here, with her now.

  “You are incredible.” His hand snaked under her top and his fingers danced over her hip. “I don’t want to go home tonight.”

  She stepped back. Quickly, she called the boys. They ran by, both heading toward the house, and stopped by the door, waiting.

  “Come inside.” She tugged on Gavin’s hand.

  He stayed close enough he made moving difficult, and she grinned and kissed him again. He tasted of the wine, but also of his natural scents, but mostly the clean, organic soap with the hints of sandalwood that she’d given him two months ago. The little bar should be gone by now and she suspected it was—he also smelled of traces of ylang ylang.

  “Did you buy more of that soap I gave you?” He must have gotten more of the same brand, but from a different batch.

  A grin pressed against her cheek. “You noticed.” He kissed along her jawline, his lips moving slowly and leaving a wonderful trail of heat along her skin.

  “Of course I noticed.”

  He bought more soap.

  She stopped at the door, her back pressed against the screen and Gavin’s hands roaming over her body the way she’d imagine a starving man would touch a feast—amazed, reverent, and so hungry he could eat the china.

  She’d been with horny men before, but Gavin smelled different—felt different. His beautiful eyes sparkled. A warm, wonderful hum rose from his throat. He kissed every visible patch of skin on her neck and cheek and he smiled the entire time.

  “I know every man you meet tells you that you’re beautiful.” He stroked her cheek. “It’s—”

  She locked her arms around his neck. “If you start with the poetry, you’ll sound like Ladon.”

  He snickered and dropped his head to her shoulder.

  Daisy slapped her hand along the door until she found the handle. She fumbled it open and pushed Gavin back long enough to swing it wide. The dogs bounded through and into the kitchen, and she pulled Gavin into the mudroom.

  He backed her against the opposite wall of the mudroom. “So noted.”

  They rolled toward the door to the kitchen.

  Gavin cupped the curve of her backside and squeezed. Another low, husky moan vibrated against the skin of her neck. “You are incredible.”

  His hand moved around her hip and he rubbed his thumb across the denim covering the V between her
legs.

  Shit, she thought. It’d been so long since she’d been with a man, she didn’t have any birth control in the house. “Do you have condoms?” She kissed his cheek. “In your backpack, maybe?”

  He groaned and dropped his head to her shoulder. His hands rested on her hips, not grabbing or moving. “No.”

  His muscles felt like coiled springs ready to snap. One of them would have to go out to the pharmacy and both of them had too much wine in their systems to drive right now.

  She pulled him toward the kitchen door. They’d have to wait. “There’s a… procedure a healer can do. My dad says he knows how to do it but it’s harder on enthrallers for some reason and there are stories of it going wrong and causing permanent damage and maybe I should just get—”

  Gavin cupped her bottom and pointed at the island counter.

  When she came down with the dogs, Brother-Dragon had twisted by her with a paper bag in his mouth. She hadn’t thought anything of it.

  But seeing the box of condoms and the bottle of lube sitting on her kitchen counter made her, for the first time in her life, happy that she knew a Fate.

  Daisy curled tight against Gavin. “This is embarrassing. It’s embarrassing, right? We should be embarrassed.”

  Gavin chuckled again. “I’ll only be embarrassed if they’re those special order kind where you send in measurements. Rysa does not need to be Fate-seeing that.”

  Laughter bubbled up. How could one man make her feel so happy and cherished at the same time?

  She tugged on his t-shirt as he leaned toward the countertop and the condoms.

  “Variety pack,” he drawled. “Looks like we get to keep some privacy.”

  He dropped the box when she yanked his shirt up over his head. The neckband caught on his chin and snapped over his nose but he smiled and kissed her so hard their teeth banged against each other.

  He wore tailored t-shirts, the kind cut for wiry, athletic men, and she’d long been aware of his lean, inverted triangle shape. But she’d never seen the chiseled lines of his chest and abdomen before.