Stephanie couldn’t believe it. Hawke hadn’t called her once since he left. Not that she thought he should report in, but she’d worried, and now that feeling intensified. What if he lay dead in an alley somewhere, or in the river? The people after her didn’t play, and while Hawke was an investigator, that didn’t mean he was invincible.
She rose, hands fluttering and mind racing about what to do. “I need to look for him.”
“No, I do,” Toron corrected. “Sienna convinced me you deserved to know what was going on. You can stay here, but I promise I’ll bring him back. I’m taking my two best hunters with me.”
Stephanie eyed the two people behind Toron, one being a woman. She frowned. “If she’s going, I can go too. You probably think—”
“I think Stella is a shifter,” he interrupted.
Sienna smacked his shoulder. “Stop being so mean, Toron. Everybody here is worried about Hawke, not just you.” She faced Stephanie. “Sweetie, you and I can hold down the fort until they come back. Stella don’t play. The female lions are serious hunters. She’ll sniff Hawke out real quick.”
“I’ll bring him back,” Stella said, her tone full of determination.
Stephanie had no choice. She couldn’t force them to let her come along, and she would lose valuable time if she tried making her own arrangements. “Okay, I’ll wait, but if you’re not back here with Hawke within a day, I’m doing things my way.”
Toron grunted. “Understood.”
They pulled out in a couple of vehicles flying down the drive at top speed. Stephanie estimated it would take them five hours to get to New York, less if they floored it and the police didn’t pull them over for speeding. She heaved a sigh, and Sienna slipped a hand in hers. “Come on. Let’s go get some ice cream.”
Stephanie frowned. “I’m not in the mood…” She fell silent, remembering Meechi, and then moved to pull her daughter close. Meechi hadn’t said a word, but Stephanie sensed her little one was just as scared for Hawke. “It’s okay, baby. Come on. Ice cream sounds good.”
Sienna got her son Jamie and the rest of them in her car, and soon they were in the local ice cream shop. For the first time, Stephanie didn’t concern herself with the fact that people who weren’t human surrounded them. She let the normal conversations, the chatter, the laughter, and even young girls getting fresh with boys, bring a bit of calm to her mind. They were like her, she realized. They loved and were sad, worried about work and school. The one difference beyond changing into animals Sienna had told her was that their rate of divorce was almost nonexistent. They only married after they were mated. She didn’t fully understand the meaning of the word, but the sense of an everlasting love touched her. She and Hawke were not mated as far as she knew, and they never would be.
By midmorning the next day, after a sleepless night, Stephanie rushed down the steps toward the front door. They had returned. “Where is he?” she demanded of Toron who had just walked through the door. He held something in his hands in front of him.
“I have him. I’m just picking you up. We’re headed to the doctor’s. Are you ready?”
She squinted at the shadows but nodded. Maybe they dropped Hawke off first and had come back for her. That made sense if he was injured. “Yes, I’m ready. Is he okay?”
“He’s been shot.” Toron’s tone was flat, but she picked up on the strain as well. “I think there’s infection.”
They rushed from the house and piled into the car. Stephanie noticed Toron didn’t drive. He sat in the front seat, still with whatever it was in his arms. She strained to see and thought she heard a squawk like a bird but figured she must be mistaken. Who the hell cared about a bird when Hawke was in trouble?
The doctor’s office crowded with people, but Stella stepped forward and commanded most of them out. Toron led the way into a back room. Sienna took her hand to follow.
“I’ll watch Meechi,” Stella said. Stephanie allowed it. She needed to know.
“Doc, he’s in trouble. I have no idea how long he’s been this way. We sniffed him out in an abandoned building.” Toron turned to Stephanie. “You might as well know the truth now.”
“W-what truth?” she stuttered.
Toron placed the bundle in his arms on the narrow bed, and that’s when she figured it out. The creature he held was a bird, and like a shot of cruel revelation, she knew it was also Hawke.
“A hawk,” she said in a tiny voice. “Ironic.” With her head spinning, she gripped the side of the bed, but she would not collapse on the floor in front of all of them. She had known she and her daughter were outnumbered being the only humans in Sutland, but she’d thought Hawke was the same at least. After all, he had joined Toron’s band of shifters by happenstance on his wanderings after he was abandoned. Now she knew the truth. He was drawn to his own kind—sort of.
“We heal faster in our animal form,” the doctor said, leaning over Hawke, “but I’m not used to dealing with other species. Hawke’s never been sick a day since he came to us. It would be better if he was in his human form.”
“He won’t respond.” Toron paced some steps away from them, and Stephanie thought he looked like a caged lion. “Perry, please do what you can.”
Perry nodded. “Of course. Hm, do you think you can try using your ability on him? He’s not a lion, but he is an official part of the pride. Just maybe it will work.”
“I didn’t think of that.” Toron hurried over and sucked in a deep breath then blew it out. Stephanie wanted to ask what was meant by his “ability” but didn’t want to break his concentration. Whatever he could do to help Hawke was most important.
In silence they all watched, Stephanie with her hands clutched together. Toron laid a hand on Hawke’s feathers and stroked them. “Listen to my voice, old friend, and come back to us. Everything is okay.”
Stephanie started when the other shifters seemed rattled as if something flowed between them. Then a calm settled over them as Toron continued to speak in a low tone. She willed whatever he was doing to work, adding her mental energies such as they were with her eyes shut. When someone gasped, she opened her eyes. Hawke made a sound as if in protest, and then he began to grow. His feathers appeared to fall out, but they didn’t lie on the bed. They dissipated, and his skin turned flesh colored. Without being able to explain how it happened, she stared at her lover lying on the bed, fully human.
A slash of redness marred his right side, and she put a hand to her mouth, knowing it was where he had been shot. On impulse, she clutched Hawke’s hand and sniffed against tears.
“Now let me work on him,” Perry commanded. “Everyone out except his alpha and his mate.”
Stephanie blinked and stared. She glanced around to see if she’d missed any other woman in the room who Hawke might have been involved with, but the only two present were herself and Sienna. Maybe the doctor meant the alpha and the alpha’s mate could stay. Stephanie released Hawke’s hand and started for the door with everyone else, but Sienna dropped her hands on her shoulders and turned her back.
“You stay here. He needs you to pull through,” she whispered in Stephanie’s ear.
A tremor passed through Stephanie, and she licked her lips, but she did remain where she was as the last person shut the door behind them. What felt like hours passed until the doctor straightened and stretched his back.
“I’ve done what I could. We can let his natural healing do the rest.”
Toron spun to face Stephanie and touched her cheek. Then he left the room along with the doctor. No one told her to go, but she didn’t know why. They weren’t “mates” because she wasn’t a shifter.
“Hawke?” she called, taking her time approaching the bed.
He moaned and turned his head toward her. She leaned in close to stroke his hair. Her heart picked up its beat, and exhaustion rolled over her for all the time she spent worrying about him.
“I’m okay, baby.”
She wanted to cry at the hoarseness in his voice.
>
“You’re safe now.”
Stephanie shook her head. “Forget about me. You’re the one in bad shape. They said you were shot. Maybe I should leave so you can rest.” He grabbed her hand when she started to turn away, and he winced in pain. “Hawke! Don’t do that. You’ll hurt yourself.”
“Then stay.” He shut his eyes and took a few shallow breaths. “Don’t leave, Stephanie.”
Why did the use of her name leave her breathless? “Okay, I will.” He seemed to drift off, and she muttered, “For now.”
Stephanie must have fallen asleep because when she opened her eyes, it was to find herself stretched out on a couch with a blanket over her. She didn’t remember moving to it or the furniture even being in the room. The door opened, and Doctor Perry bustled in. She knew him by his long white coat and the humming.
“Oh, you’re awake, little lady. Are you hungry? I ordered Chinese a little while ago, enough for three.”
She yawned and sat up. “Three?”
He strolled over to Hawke and checked his wound. “Yes, sometimes the guys heal faster than I expect, but they always come out of it starving. You do not want to deal with a grumpy lion that’s hurt and starving.”
Stephanie gulped. “But Hawke’s different because he’s not…one of you.”
The man smiled. “He’s one of us. I make no distinctions between species.”
“You make it sound like you’re not racist, but whatever.” She stood up and hurried over to Hawke. He lay asleep, but his breathing appeared to be much more normal, and that gave her some relief. “Thank you for taking care of him.”
“Of course. That’s my job.” The older man, from the inflection in his voice, seemed to be about late fifties early sixties. “I know it’s harder for you being his mate, even if you are human.”
“I’m not his mate.”
Doctor Perry made a noise she couldn’t interpret and shuffled to the door. “Come out when you’re ready to eat.”
Over the next day, Stephanie waited for Hawke’s health to improve. When she was sure it had, and he sat up in bed talking to her a few hours at a time, she knew it was time to go. The tenderness in his touch and in the way he spoke her name did things to her insides, and if she didn’t go now, she might never leave. Rather than run off and tell him nothing, she faced him head on, determination in her bearing.
“I’m sorry, Hawke,” she began, tangling her fingers in the material of a casual dress she had purchased from Sienna’s shop, “but this life isn’t for me. I recognize that you all are good people, and every day I’m less afraid, but…”
“You have to think of Meechi first?” he interjected.
“Yes.” She couldn’t believe how well he took it. Maybe he wanted her to go. The knowledge hurt.
“I love you, Stephanie.”
She gaped. “W-what?”
“I love you, but I understand. I’m not going to hold you back from what you think is best for your life and for your daughter’s.” In some ways, she wanted to argue with him, to tell him he was wrong, even though he said what she needed to hear. He loved her? They hadn’t had a lot of time together, but the truth was she felt the same. She clenched her teeth together, resisting the ache in her chest.
“I love you too,” she managed with her head bowed. “I’m still going to go. Don’t watch over me.”
He started at her words.
“Don’t follow me please.”
He laid a hand atop hers, and without thinking about it before hand, she launched herself into his arms. She felt his wince and begged his forgiveness, but he held onto her. Stephanie shut her eyes and rested her head on Hawke’s chest. The strong beat of his heart gave her peace, but it wasn’t a human heart. Some part of Hawke was an animal. Or was it the other way around?
When she raised her head, he touched his cheek to hers. She brushed her lips over his warm skin and then found his lips. Their tongues curled together, but she didn’t let it go too deep before she pulled away.
She left the small hospital on trembling legs and didn’t look back as she stepped into Sienna’s car. When she arrived at Toron’s house, her things were already packed, and a ride home waiting. Stephanie thanked Toron for hosting her, hugged Sienna, and left with her daughter for home.
Chapter Nine
Four months later…
Things I love to do on Thursday, Stephanie wrote in her journal. Not because she couldn’t do it on any other day. She had chosen these items on this day just because. She ended the Y with a flourish and capped her pen, then glanced around the coffee shop. Every time she did it, a thrill raced over her being at the ability to see every person clearly. Since her eye surgery, she couldn’t get enough of just looking at the world. People probably thought she was a freak with all the staring, but she didn’t care. Let them get annoyed. Let them frown. She would look.
Of course sometimes she wondered if Hawke stood in the crowd, unrecognizable because she had never seen his face clearly. Funny how she could have slept with a man but couldn’t pick him out in a lineup. Sounds slutty.
She would have laughed if thinking of Hawke didn’t bring a bout of depression with it. So she often pushed him from her thoughts, except early on when she first came back from Vermont. She thought she was pregnant, but it turned out to be a false alarm. In one way, it was a good thing because her doctor likely wouldn’t have performed her cornea transplant. Also, she would rather have Hawke be a part of her life because she had accepted him there, not because she felt guilty and wanted him to see his baby. Hawke’s baby. Ugh, get a grip, Stephanie. Think happy thoughts. Think flowers. It’s Thursday.
She drained the last of her coffee and then pushed her chair back and stood up. She left the shop with the ding of a bell over her head and continued down the street. Soon she came upon the fresh flower kiosk she patronized on Thursdays. She bent to take in the fragrance of each vibrant bud and leaned away to study their beauty. Reds, purples, yellows—the roses, lilies, dahlias… She sighed and smiled.
“Back again this week?” the owner asked.
Stephanie chuckled. “Yup, I am. You can’t keep me away. If I say the usual, what will you say?”
The man laughed. “You got me there, Ms. Martin. You’ve bought every flower I have one time or another.”
“Oh all right.” She sighed in mock exasperation. “Let me have an assortment, your choice.”
“Coming right up.”
While she waited for her bundle, Stephanie searched the area around her. No one caught her eye except for the five-foot nothing man with the paunch at the stomach area. He flashed a spacey grin and winked. She raised an eyebrow and offered a half-hearted reply before turning away as fast as she could. After checking her watch, she determined she had three hours until it was time to pick up Meechi from school. They had come to a tentative agreement. Stephanie would pursue fiction writing for a while at home rather than try to get something outside, and Meechi could skip daycare. Stephanie had to set aside a lot of pride in order to accept using more of Meechi’s monthly allowance, but so far they were happy—or as happy as she could be missing Hawke every day.
Stephanie wandered on down the road smelling her flowers and realized she was near the theatre where she’d first met Hawke. On impulse, she turned a corner and darted across the street to the address where the taxi had dropped her that first night. Being early afternoon, the place was closed, and somehow seeing it in clarity didn’t have the same magic as it did then.
She turned away in time to hear a rustle of feathers above her, and she scanned the sky and the tops of the buildings. A small flock of pigeons nestled on the roof of the building next door. Stephanie frowned at them. Enough is enough!
After tugging her cell from her purse, she started to dial a number but changed her mind. Instead, she hailed a cab and jumped into the back seat. Giving the driver the address she knew by heart although she’d never been there, she settled into her seat. No more would she suffer with stupid fears a
nd a morality that didn’t even match the situation. So what Hawke wasn’t human. He wasn’t wholly an animal either. He was a sentient hawk, unique—and wonderful. She ached to be with him, and damn it if he would have her, she would be his mate.
His mate.
Butterflies took flight in her belly, but she tamped them down. In a half hour, she arrived at the office Hawke had once told her he kept for his investigative work. They had ridden past it on a date, and he’d pointed out the building. The street stuck in her mind from that moment even while she didn’t see the details. She would find it one way or another.
She stepped onto the pavement and scanned the two buildings. The one to the left would be her start. In the lobby, no guard watched over the entrance. Instead, a bank of elevators lay to the rear, and two doors on opposite sides led to a couple of offices. She spotted a directory on the wall and headed toward it. As she scanned the board, the elevator dinged, and the doors slid open, but she didn’t look that way. A woman’s heels clicked on the marble floor, and the subtler tap of a man’s step matched it in pace. When the man’s steps halted behind her, and she caught the scent that would never leave her memory, she first went still, and then eased around to face him.
“Hawke.”
“Stephanie.”
He called her name the same time she said his. He smelled incredible, but he looked better. Green eyes. Beautiful, sexy, take off all her clothes and beg to be taken eyes. His straight and narrow nose worked well with the delicious lips and rugged jaw. Oh wow, who knew how cute he was all this time?
Realizing she’d been staring and close to wiping away drool from her chin, she smiled. “How have you been? I’m glad to see you’re on your feet.”
“You see me,” he said in awe, pleasure suffusing his expression.
She cocked her head to the side and put a hand on her hip with a playful attitude. “You didn’t know?”
“You made me promise not to watch over you.”
She pursed her lips, but then she noticed the woman, a beautiful blonde. A stab of jealousy hit her in the chest. Was he with her in that way? Was it too late, and she’d waited too long? Was the woman a shifter? She couldn’t compare to that.
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