Shifter's Destiny

by Anna Leonard

  Well, that answered a question she hadn’t thought to ask. Unicorns needed to shave. Now that she thought about it, there had been a faint shadow of beard at the end of his muzzle in his other form, too.

  It took her a few tries to get the words out, her mouth was so dry, but she finally managed. “What time is it?”

  “Almost five—” he paused “—a.m.”

  She sat up fast at that, the cover falling off her shoulders, and Maggie made an incoherent protest, waking up more slowly.

  “Wha’s wrong?” she asked her sister, her voice thick and groggy, not really alarmed.

  “Nothing, Maggie,” Josh said. “It’s all right.” To her, he said, “I know it wasn’t the plan. But you two needed the sleep. You were exhausted. And nobody came by at all, not even slowing down as they drove past. We’re all right.”

  She didn’t doubt that he had sat there, all afternoon and through the night, watching out for them. Still, the lost time made her pulse race: who knew what had happened while they slept?

  “I moved your clothing into the bathroom,” he said, still not moving, just watching her. “Go, shower. You have time.”

  No. She didn’t. She really didn’t. Elizabeth didn’t know what was fueling her certainty, but she wasn’t going to question it, not now. Not when it had kept them free and ahead of Ray’s men, so far.

  And yet, Josh was right. For now, they were safe. She had time to catch her breath, take a longer shower than she’d allowed herself the night before, time to figure out what they were going to do rather than merely keeping half a step ahead.

  Shower, maybe some breakfast, and then she could think about the next step.

  * * *

  The hot water hitting her scalp calmed her nerves somewhat, and she could feel her body waking up, supporting what he had said: the difference in how she felt this morning, after a full night of sleep in a real bed, was significant. Hopefully Maggie would feel as alert and awake this morning, the nightmares of the night before forgotten.

  Her own nightmare still lingered, and she tried to reconstruct it, as much from habit as anything else. The blue sky and sense of peace...the momentary safety they had found here? The gray arms, the clawed hands... She shuddered even under the hot water. Her brain was giving form to the uncertainty, that was all. No arms were going to reach down from the sky to grab her. Even with everything else that had happened, that was...silly.

  She soaped up her body and rinsed, then she lathered shampoo into her hair. The shortness of it took her by surprise—there was so much less of it to wash, now, and the weight difference still threw her—then she lathered up again, just for the ability to do it. After the past few days she would never take hot water and shampoo for granted, not ever.

  The events they’d gone through seemed distant, now, under the pounding curtain of hot water. Had she really fought, physically, with Jordan? Slept outside under the trees, without a tent? Kissed a man she barely knew—a man who wasn’t even human?

  Sliding the washcloth over her skin, she thought about Josh. The motion wasn’t sexual, at least not at first. But the sense of peace that had filled her while she slept, and the memory of his gaze on her as she woke, warm and intent, slowly changed her thoughts from innocent to...less innocent. The roughness of the cloth became the calloused feel of his palm, the scratchy stubble of his cheek. It had been too long since she’d felt someone else’s touch—a year, since before her parents fell ill and the care and protection of her sister became her burden alone.

  His kiss had been fierce, hot, sudden. Would he have a gentle touch as a lover? Or would he be more forceful, more aggressive? She could sense both sides in him, gentle and fierce. She had seen both aspects...would passion bring the stallion to the fore? Would he coax a response from her, slow and sweet, or demand it, up against the tiles, the water pouring down over them both....

  Oh.

  The sensation of his mouth on hers was as real as if it were happening again, then she felt those lips slide down her neck, nibbling at her shoulder, as she swept the cloth down, over her breasts until the nipples ached, they were so swollen. Would he suckle there, like that? Her head tilted back, and her body arched, as though offering herself to the not-quite-phantom lover, and—

  “Libby?” The door opened, and a wave of cold air entered the bathroom ahead of her sister. “Libby, I gotta pee.”

  Elizabeth dropped the washcloth, flustered, and then sighed. “Just don’t flush until I’m done,” she warned her sister. Although, she admitted to herself, a blast of cold water might be exactly what she needed. How did just the thought of him wipe everything—every worry, every fear—out of her head? Her hormones hadn’t controlled her brain since she was nineteen.

  She rinsed the last of the shampoo from her hair, and turned the water off. Maggie, at the sink washing her hands, leaned over to flush the toilet, and then handed one of the towels to her around the shower curtain.

  “Did you leave me any hot water?”

  “No.”

  * * *

  She got dressed quickly, putting on her old jeans that had been airing out overnight, and topping them with the new sweatshirt. The newly short strands startled her again, when she instinctively tried to finger comb it out, and ran out of strands far too early.

  “This is going to take some getting used to,” she muttered, then looked at herself in the mirror, having to wipe the steam away with an edge of her towel. Her eyes looked larger, her chin more prominent, and her skin had a flush that she was pretty sure was more than just the heat from the shower.

  “Baby, you want breakfast?”

  A gagging noise was her answer: Maggie had stopped eating breakfast a few months ago, and Elizabeth had worried about it until she noticed that her sister was still eating normally the rest of the day. Apparently it was just in the morning that she couldn’t stomach the idea.

  When she came out into the main room, Josh wasn’t there. The door was closed, and his pack was still on the floor next to his chair, so after the first flutter of panic, she didn’t let his absence stress her. “He probably had to pee and couldn’t wait for us to be done,” she said out loud.

  Going to her own pack, she reached in and rummaged through it until her fingers closed on the soft leather of her address book. It was a thin notebook, barely the size of her palm: she didn’t know many people outside of the Community, and she had never needed to write down the addresses or phone numbers of people she saw every day, could walk to their house if she needed to speak to them. The leather cover was worn—she had owned it since she was Maggie’s age, a birthday present from Cody—and it opened to the page she wanted, almost as though by magic, but more likely because she had been opening it to that page for two weeks since the dreams had turned more urgent, checking and rechecking obsessively to make sure that it was still there.

  Under the D heading: Dolan, Margaret. The woman Maggie was named for. An old family friend, someone who knew the Community but was no longer part of it. Someone who had known and loved their parents. There were three phone numbers printed there, added over the years, but no address.

  “Do it,” she told herself. “Now, before you chicken out, or someone finds us or...” She ran out of possibilities, but didn’t make a move toward the phone. “Do it now, before Maggie gets out of the shower.”

  That was incentive enough to get her moving. If this... If Margaret didn’t answer, if the phone numbers were wrong or if she refused to help them—Maggie didn’t need to know.

  The first number rang seven times, then eight, before Elizabeth gave up on it. The second went to a voice-mail message saying that Meg Dolan was out of the office, please leave a message. Elizabeth hesitated, and then hung up the phone. No messages. She had to do this person-to-person.

  She dialed the third number with fingers that trembled slightly on t
he buttons. The door opened, and she looked up, started, but it was only Josh. His hair was wet, so she assumed he had gone to find his own shower as well as a toilet. She held up a finger when he opened his mouth to say something, asking him to wait. She wasn’t sure she could focus on a conversation with him without forgetting what she had planned to say if someone picked up the phone.

  One ring. Two. Three. She was starting to panic, wondering what she was going to do, if she would have to leave a message, when the ringing stopped, and a man’s voice answered.

  “Hello?”

  It was a deep voice, sleepy and confused, and Elizabeth felt a sudden pang of guilt—she had forgotten it was still so early in the morning.

  “I’m sorry,” she said into the phone. “I’m trying to reach Margaret Dolan?”

  “Meg? Right. Who may I say is calling?”

  “I... It’s Libby. Libby Sweet. Sean and Deborah’s daughter Elizabeth.”

  She waited while the man tried to place the name and connection, then she heard the rustling of cloth—sheets?—and his voice, lower now, away from the mouthpiece. “Meg? Honey, wake up. There’s a girl on the phone for you, says her name is Libby? Libby Sweet?”

  There was a clutter, and then a woman’s voice in Elizabeth’s ear, sleepy but excited-sounding. “Elizabeth? Little girl, is that you? Oh, but not so little anymore! How is everyone? Why are you calling at this hour? Libby, what’s wrong, what happened?”

  If she let them start, the tears would overwhelm her. Elizabeth choked them back, pressing her fist to her mouth in an effort to keep sound from escaping until she could get control back.

  “It’s...it’s a long story. I’m sorry to call you so early, but...Meg, we need help. Maggie and me. We need your help.”

  “Libby...your parents? Deb...”

  Elizabeth could hear the awareness in the other woman’s voice even as she asked the question.

  “They’re gone. I’m sorry, I... Last year...we had a flu virus, a bad one. They died within a week of each other.”

  “Oh, God. God rest their souls. And you need my help. Absolutely. What can I do?”

  “We need a place to stay. Just for a little while.”

  “You’ve left the Community?” Meg sounded surprised but not terribly so, as though she’d expected something of the sort, eventually.

  “We...needed some time away.” That was all she was willing to say right now, all she was willing to admit to herself right now. The idea of never going home, even a home that had suddenly turned dangerous and unfamiliar, was too much for her to handle right then.

  A warm hand came down on her shoulder, and Elizabeth shivered, the touch almost too much for her right now, triggering warm memories of her shower fantasy.

  He seemed to realize that, somehow, because the hand lifted, and he retreated to the other side of the room. Meg was giving her directions on how to get to her home; Elizabeth had remembered correctly and it was only a few miles from where they were. Dimly, while she was reaching for the pad of paper and cheap motel pen on the nightstand, she heard Maggie come out of the bathroom, and Josh say something to her sister in a low voice. Maggie came to sit on the floor at Elizabeth’s feet, her hair—still long and damp—hanging down her back. She had a comb in her hand that she used to clear out any remaining snarls, then started braiding it while Elizabeth got the rest of the directions.

  “Yes. Yes, we’ll be there soon. Lunchtime, for certain. Yes. Thank you. I can’t wait to see you, too.”

  Elizabeth hung up the phone and, unable to look at her sister right then, instead raised her gaze to where Josh leaned against the door. He was wearing a faded pair of blue jeans this morning, she noticed now, and a navy blue shirt that set off his tanned complexion and drew her gaze to the muscles cording his forearms.

  It made sense, she supposed; he was probably solid muscle in this form as well as the other. The thought made her skin warm, so she looked up, away from his body, as though that would keep her from thinking about it. His hair was dried already, the color of corn silk, and once again she could sense the echoes of his unicorn-self over his features.

  He looked worried, and she smiled to reassure him. “It’s okay. Meg and her husband are thrilled, and have offered us a place to stay for as long as we need.”

  “Do I know them?” Maggie asked.

  “No, baby, she left when you were too young to remember. But you were named for her. This is Aunt Meg.”

  “Oh!”

  Maggie’s entire knowledge of the woman was a card on her birthday, and the occasional present, but that was enough.

  “She doesn’t know what’s going on?” Josh asked quietly.

  “No.” Elizabeth shook her head. “No. I... There was no way to tell her, over the phone, and...and maybe she won’t need to know. Maybe Ray’s given up.”

  She could tell from Josh’s expression that he didn’t think it was going to be that simple. Neither did she.

  * * *

  The neighborhood Meg directed them to was a quiet little cul-de-sac in a pretty neighborhood the next town over. Maggie had wanted Josh to change forms and have them ride there, but both Elizabeth and Josh pointed out that riding a unicorn through a suburban neighborhood wasn’t quite the same as traveling through a state-owned forest, and might attract just a few stares. Maggie sulked for a little while, but finally agreed. By the time they got there on foot, though, Elizabeth wished they’d been able to ride—or could have rented a car. Or even bicycles. They had taken it as slowly as possible, but even wearing sneakers her soles and toes were aching, and she suspected Maggie was feeling it even worse, from the quiet, pinched expression on her sister’s face. The younger girl had stopped making comments or trying to crack jokes almost ten minutes before, and her shoulders were drooping, despite the long rest.

  Even Josh seemed to be feeling it. His stride was still long and easy, but he was quiet, too, and Elizabeth thought that he took every step more and more reluctantly. But why? Once they were safe with Meg and her husband, he would be free to leave. She got the distinct feeling that he couldn’t wait to shake their dust off his heels...or hooves.

  She wondered, suddenly, where he had been going when they met him, why he had been camping in that wooded bower, what journey he was on, where he came from...all the sort of things you’d learn about someone you met while traveling—assuming you weren’t so focused on not being caught, or your sister’s health, or...

  Libby stopped to realize that she hadn’t worried about her sister’s health since... Since they met Josh. Unicorns...could they heal, too? She had a vague memory of something about their horns, but she had never been into fantasy as a child, and couldn’t remember anything more. She thought about asking Josh, but the Mustang’s face was so grim and distant, she couldn’t find the words.

  “That’s it,” she said instead.

  “It” was the end house on the cul-de-sac; a two-story building made up of a center hall and two one-story wings on either side, neatly tended landscaping on either slide of a curved slate path that led from the driveway to the front door.

  “And this is where I leave you,” Josh said.

  Even though it was expected, the words sent a pang of regret through Elizabeth. “I don’t even know how to begin to thank you—” she started to say, and he cut her off brusquely.

  “Then don’t.”

  Elizabeth was taken aback by the return of his rudeness, but was distracted by the front door opening, and the appearance of a woman on the front porch. She was tall, with short gray hair sleekly styled around her head, wearing jeans and a bright pink sweater.

  “Libby?” the woman asked, her tone incredulous. “Oh, God, Libby—and is that little Maggie?”

  “Aunt Meg?” Maggie asked her sister in a cautious tone.

  “Aunt Meg,” Elizabeth conf
irmed, her legs carrying her across the lawn and into Meg’s strong hug, completely forgetting, for a moment, the presence of their companion.

  By the time she extricated herself, Maggie getting the same bear-hug treatment from the older woman, and turned back to look—he was gone.

  * * *

  Watching Elizabeth race across the lawn and into the woman’s embrace, her sister following, Josh felt an odd twinge, almost of regret. They had filled his life so completely, it was hard to believe that three days ago he had not known of their existence.

  The twinge was quickly swamped by the reemergence of the rut, as though it had merely been waiting for him to divest himself of his herd obligation before forcing him forward again.

  Find a mate, the hot itching thing in his rib cage told him. Find a mate or be forever trapped...forever alone.

  Mustang touched two fingers to his forelock in salute to the girls and their new home, and walked away. By the time he had reached the end of the street, the urge to shift overwhelmed him, even in the middle of this suburban tract, and he dropped his pack and let his muscles surge, melting and reforming with the burning ache that always accompanied the shift.

  The four-legged form felt right, felt more solid and comfortable than his two-legged self, and part of him worried about that. He had told Elizabeth the truth: he was a man, not a horse, and while both sides were his true self, he had always been man first. Now...he wasn’t so sure.

  The sound of his hooves on the pavement made him uneasy, and he stepped delicately onto the grassy lawn, comforted by the softer, springier surface. He needed to get back to the forest, to somewhere less populated.... But how was he to find a mate there? Contrary to his recent experience, one didn’t find young women wandering in the woods.

  A muffled noise made his ears twitch backward and his tail flick once. Before his brain could process the sound, he was pivoting on his back hooves, leaving divots in the unlucky lawn, and racing—not away from the dangerous noise, but toward it. Back toward the house where he had just left Elizabeth and Maggie.