by Zoe Chant
“So you’re telling me Pol just… magics up electricity for the town?” Jacqueline was still trying to get her head around it.
“Something like that, the idiot.”
“What happens if he moves away?”
“That’s why I call him an idiot.” Arlo huffed out a breath and smiled. “Nah. He’s an ass, but he’s reliable. I doubt you’ll have any more problems over in Dunston now he knows what was happening.”
“Shame.” Jacqueline caught Arlo’s eye and grinned. “Watching the mayor chase after his car like it was a runaway dog was the highlight of my week. Until now, I mean.”
“Now?” There was a strange light in Arlo’s eyes.
“All of this.” Jacqueline gestured to the street and the surrounding buildings.
Hideaway Cove looked like one of the touristy towns along the coast. The houses and shopfronts lining the main street were all old-fashioned, with painted shutters and carved curlicues on the eaves. It could have come straight off a postcard.
The main street—and it looked like there was only one—was wide, and a broad promenade stretched along its side, next to the water. Concrete steps led down to a sandy beach, and a small building partway down advertised ice cream.
Kenna and Dylan were walking slightly ahead of Jacqueline and Arlo. Every few steps one of them would rush forward to look at something and then dart back and exchange excited whispers with the other. Tally was human shaped again and had been convinced to wear an oversized t-shirt like a dress. She kept running between them and Jacqueline and Arlo, laughing to herself.
“All of this,” Jacqueline repeated. “And all of you. Seals. Wolves. Dragons. I don’t think anything’s going to top this.”
“Arlo!”
A tall man with golden-brown hair strode up to them. Arlo waved him over.
“Harrison! Jacqueline, meet Harrison. Hideaway’s mayor. Harrison, this is Jacqueline March.”
“Pleasure.” Harrison held out a hand and Jacqueline shook it. “My fiancée, Lainie—oh. Well, she’s the one over there, on her phone.”
Jacqueline looked past him to a short, blonde woman whose attention was locked onto her phone. As she watched, the woman sighed and put it away.
Harrison cocked an eyebrow at the kids. “And who are all of you?”
Jacqueline stood back as Arlo made the rest of the introductions. Harrison frowned as Arlo told him they were looking for the Sweets.
“Aren’t they out of town this weekend? Lainie—” He called the woman over. “Didn’t a little bird tell you the Sweets were away this weekend?”
“Jools said they were off at a bridge tournament or something,” Lainie said.
“Playing against humans?” Harrison seemed surprised. “Ahh. Winning against humans. Securing Hideaway’s safety from the human scourge by beating them at cards. Cunning.”
“Feeding into their gossip networks, more like. How else are they meant to keep up with everyone else’s secrets?”
“It’s just a game,” Arlo protested. “You’re acting like it’s some sort of secret warfare.”
“To hear my coworker talk about it, bridge is secret warfare,” Jacqueline said. “She spends most of the workday trying to plot how to beat this one other couple who keep taking out the pairs championships.”
Lainie and Harrison exchanged a look.
“Maybe they’re coming around, if they’re happy to play against humans,” Lainie suggested. “Slowly.”
“Or maybe they’re looking for fresh territory to chew on, now that people in Hideaway are starting to see through them.” Harrison’s voice was dry.
Jacqueline frowned. Everyone was keeping a light tone, but there was an undercurrent of something she couldn’t quite get hold of going on under the conversation.
Lainie caught her eye and grimaced. “Anyway. If anyone’s got a spy network, it’s me. I think Jools sees herself as my personal James Bond. Letting me know when the coast is clear.”
She put one hand over her midsection, and Harrison bent to kiss the top of her head.
“What do you want them for, anyway?” Harrison put an arm around Lainie’s waist and pulled her close. It was an oddly protective gesture, given they were only talking about Arlo’s foster parents, Jacqueline thought.
“The kids need somewhere to live until their pack leader gets here,” Arlo replied. “The Sweets—”
“—have that going for them at least,” Lainie said as Harrison’s face darkened. He looked at her in surprise and she shrugged. “You kids are shifters, aren’t you?”
Kenna and Dylan nodded. Tally joined in a moment later, copying her older siblings.
“Then I’m sure the Sweets would move heaven and earth to look after you,” Lainie said dryly. “Regardless of what they think of the rest of us.”
“Right.” Something in Arlo’s tone made Jacqueline look at him. There was a strange expression on his face. Discomforted and lost.
“Well, they’re not here, anyway,” Harrison said. He raised his eyebrows at the kids. “What do you want to do? We can put you up in the bed-and-breakfast—wait.”
He frowned, and so did Arlo. Jacqueline connected the dots. Someone must have telepathically said something—and from the tense expressions on Kenna and Dylan’s faces, it was one of them, and they hadn’t meant to be heard.
“You know, this whole telepathy things seems like more trouble than it’s worth,” she joked, trying to break the tension. Lainie raised her eyebrows at her.
“No argument there,” she said, and Jacqueline shot her a grateful smile for picking up the end of the tension-breaking stick. “I had to practically re-teach Harrison here to use a phone after we got together. Speaking of which, hon, don’t you need to send out the red alert that another—dramatic gasp—human is walking the streets?” She winked at Jacqueline.
She must be human, too, Jacqueline thought.
Harrison shook his head. “I think the cat’s out of the bag already, sweetheart. I might be wrong, but I do get the feeling this woman might already know about shifters. But that doesn’t solve the problem of the Sweets not being here the one weekend they could make themselves useful.”
“Hey,” said Arlo in a warning tone. “They’re still my parents.”
“Sure, but you have to admit…”
“We could stay with you on the boat,” Dylan blurted out, and Kenna punched him. “Hey!”
Arlo paused. “That’s…”
His eyes slid sideways to meet Jacqueline’s. For some reason her cheeks felt hot.
“Why don’t you set up camp with us for the night,” Harrison interjected. Lainie’s eyes lit up.
“Yes! That’s a great idea. We’ve got all these rooms no one is using.”
Jacqueline expected Kenna, at least, to protest, but both children agreed. Tally nodded happily, too, and Arlo and Harrison winced in the way she’d come to recognize as evidence that the smallest shifter in their little group had the largest telepathic voice.
Lainie clapped her hands together. “Well, why waste time? We’ve got the Land Rover, so let’s all trundle up the hill now and get you three settled in. And some lunch. I don’t know about the rest of you but all this early morning strolling has left me starving.”
“Up the hill?” Dylan asked, and Lainie gave him a conspiratorial wink.
“That’s right. Didn’t I say? We live next to the lighthouse.”
12
Arlo
There wasn’t room in the Land Rover for all of them; Arlo and Harrison decided to walk. Harrison didn’t even wait for Lainie to start the engine before he started to interrogate Arlo.
*So. Jacqueline.*
*Yes.* Arlo gritted his teeth. *Did Pol tell you?*
*Pol? I haven’t seen him all day. I just have eyes in my head, is all.*
Arlo groaned. *That obvious?*
*You might as well be singing and dancing.*
Arlo thrust his hands deep in his pockets and didn’t reply.
&nbs
p; Harrison frowned. *Why aren’t you singing and dancing?*
*Do I have to tell you?*
*She’s human. It shouldn’t matter.* Harrison strode in front of Arlo and stopped, arms crossed. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”
Arlo knew what he meant, and the knowledge tasted bitter. When Harrison first met his human mate, Lainie, Arlo had behaved like an ass. He’d fully bought the Sweets’ line that Hideaway Cove could only be a sanctuary for shifters if they didn’t let any humans settle there. He’d been afraid to lose the one place he’d been able to call home. And now?
Did he know better, now, or was he just afraid in a different way?
*Doesn’t matter anyway,* he said. *Look at me. I’m not the sort of man a woman like that would want to date.*
“Huh! Is that what you think?” Harrison clapped him on the back and pulled his shirt off over his head. “Come on. A run’ll clear your head.”
He kicked his pants off and shifted. Harrison’s griffin form was almost as magnificent as Pol’s dragon, but the effect was slightly spoiled by him pecking around to pick up his discarded clothes.
Arlo shucked off his own clothes and shifted. His wolf stretched its legs, snapping its jaws as it shook off his human anxieties.
He nosed his clothes into a bundle and picked them up in his jaws.
*Race you,* Harrison laughed, and took off. His wings flashed in the sunlight and Arlo caught a swell of amazement from the Land Rover.
*Flying’s cheating!* he called back. *Try running on those mismatched legs and see how far you get!*
By the time he got to the house at the top of the hill, Arlo was panting and, if not happy, then at least at some sort of equilibrium. He nosed through the front door and made his way to the guest shower.
“You need a change of clothes?” Harrison called from elsewhere in the house when he’d finished washing.
“These are—” fine, he’d about to say, then he actually looked at the clothes he’d brought up. His shirt was so faded even he couldn’t remember what color it had once been, his pants had scuffs on the knees, and there were distinctly wolf-bite-shaped drool marks over everything. “Uh. Thanks.”
“You know, you can’t rely on a human to pick up on the mate bond straight away. You’re going to have to rely on your good old-fashioned charm and good looks.” Harrison tossed a bundle of clothes into the bathroom.
Arlo sighed. “That’s what I’m worried about.”
Showered, dressed, and full of dread, Arlo found Harrison on the deck outside. Harrison was laying out lunch on a picnic table overlooking the cove.
Arlo couldn’t help but whistle. “This is just for lunch?”
“We do a lot of entertaining these days, what with me being the mayor and Lainie trying to steal allies off the Sweets,” Harrison said frankly. “We count you among the already stolen, by the way.”
“Sure.” He wandered over to the table and reached for a bowl of brightly colored prawn crackers. An eagle-like screech stopped him.
“Sorry about that.” Harrison cleared his throat. “Those are Lainie’s. I won’t kill you if you eat them, but she might. We have to order them in special.”
“Message received.” Arlo pulled his hand back as the Land Rover pulled up on the other side of the house. His wolf pricked its ears up. She’s here!
Arlo smoothed down his shirt nervously and Harrison snorted at him. Footsteps clattered as the others entered the house.
“Showers are through there, lunch is—oh, God. Lunch. Harrison, can you show them around? I need to eat.”
Lainie descended on the lunch table like a seagull who’d just discovered the world’s biggest bowl of fries. She hugged the bowl of prawn crackers to her stomach and sat down with a sigh. “I should have invested in these instead of land…” She closed her eyes and popped a cracker in her mouth. “Mmm.”
Arlo sat down awkwardly opposite her.
“How’s that going?” he asked.
Lainie cracked an eye open. “Not fantastic,” she said. “Are you sure there isn’t a secret all-shifter newsletter for real estate?”
“Not that anyone’s told me about,” Arlo replied.
“Guh.” Lainie groaned. “Well, we’ve sold enough sections and basic builds to make back our investment, at least. But I really want to branch out with shifter-y designs, you know? The architect I’ve got working on the subdivision has all these great ideas…”
Lainie had inherited half the hill they were sitting on from her grandparents, who’d settled in Hideaway decades ago. Since she moved to town, she and Harrison had been developing the land, adding more—and more modern—houses to Hideaway’s stock.
Arlo frowned. “If you can’t find enough shifters to move in,” he began, and Lainie froze.
“You too?” she asked.
“I didn’t mean—”
Lainie sighed and popped another prawn cracker in her mouth. “I’m not selling to humans. Shifter and shifter-adjacent only. You can tell Dorothy that. Should make her happy.”
“I wasn’t—”
“It’s okay, Arlo. I know. You’re in a tough situation.” She waved his protestations away. “Let’s just eat lunch, and I want to hear more about these kids you picked up out of nowhere.”
Arlo sighed. Lainie was the best person he could talk to about Jacqueline—but he still didn’t know her well enough to know how to make the conversational leap.
“They’re amazing,” he said instead. “I wish I was half as smart at their ages. They made it all the way here without being picked up by human authorities—but they don’t have to do that anymore. Shifters look after their own.”
Again, that little twinge of wrongness. Lainie’s lip twisted.
“They sure do,” she murmured blandly. “Lemonade?”
The door opened, and Arlo was already leaping to his feet before Jacqueline’s voice floated out over the patio.
“Is this the right place?”
She was standing in the doorway. He opened his mouth to usher her to the lunch table, but no words came out.
Yesterday, soaked through and out of her depth, she’d been stunning. This morning, salty tangled hair and all, she’d been the most beautiful person he could imagine. But now?
Her hair shone in a mass of curls. Her eyes seemed brighter, somehow, and the soft t-shirt and jeans she was wearing caressed her figure.
Her cheeks went pink as she met his gaze, and then her eyes slipped past him to Lainie.
“Harrison lent me some of your clothes, I hope you don’t mind,” she said.
Lainie quickly reassured her, and then the others all appeared behind her. Jacqueline rode a tide of hungry shifters to the picnic table and ended up sitting beside Arlo.
“Dig in, everyone,” Harrison announced, and for a few minutes there was nothing but the sound of happy eating.
Arlo felt Lainie’s eyes on him. Even knowing he was being watched, he couldn’t help stealing glances at Jacqueline. When she reached for the salt, he handed it to her. When her lemonade ran low, he refilled it before she’d even noticed she needed more.
Lainie narrowed her eyes.
“So what’s the next step?” Harrison said once everyone had eaten their fill and was caught up on how three orphan shifters had turned up on their doorstep.
Kenna and Dylan exchanged a glance, and then:
*We should tell them—*
*Shh! They’ll hear!*
Dylan winced, and Arlo wondered what it was that he’d been about to tell Kenna they needed to say.
Kenna was fiddling with the edge of her napkin. “We still don’t know where Eric is,” she said, and Jacqueline nodded.
“If I can borrow a phone, I’ll call in at work and ask my boss to put the word out,” she said.
“Go ahead. And I’ll put the word out here. Someone might have heard something. If your friend does find his way here, we’ll get you all back together ASAP,” Harrison said.
“But apart from that…” Ke
nna tore little pieces off the napkin.
“Well, waiting around here doesn’t sound like much fun,” Lainie declared. “Why don’t we all go back into town? If you’re going to be staying here you might as well get to know your way around.”
Arlo remembered Kenna’s hesitancy about meeting new shifters earlier. “Or we can stay here. It’s up to you.”
“No! I mean, you don’t need to hang around with us,” Kenna said. “You and Ms. March can—um, I mean…”
“I’d like to see more of the town, too,” Jacqueline said. “Er—if that’s okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Lainie stared hard at Arlo. “We’ll just clean up here—”
“We’ll help!” chimed in Kenna and Dylan. Tally cooed and waved her fork around.
There’s something weird going on there, Arlo thought, watching them file through to the kitchen. One minute they’re upset because I can’t put them all up in the Hometide, the next they’re telling us not to wait around?
He sighed and shook his head. The most likely explanation was “they’re kids”, with a chaser of “and they’ve been through a hell of a lot, so cut them some slack”. But his wolf was worrying over them like a dog who’d lost its bone.
They just need some stability. And to be sure the rug isn’t going to be ripped away from under their feet again. Ma and Pa Sweets will give them that, until Eric decides to show his face.
His neck prickled again. Somehow, that still felt wrong. And not just because he doubted this Eric fellow was ever going to show up.
He gathered up a handful of dishes and followed after the kids. Lainie waited until the kids had gone back to get another load, then cornered him.
“You and Jacqueline?” she asked. He’d have had to pretend to be an idiot not to get her meaning.
He nodded.
“And you haven’t actually told her yet, of course.” Lainie blew her bangs out of her face. “Be nice.”
“I am nice!”
“Sure. I know that. But it takes a while to get past the crusty exterior to your nice squishy insides.” She folded her arms. “I’m serious, Arlo. It’s better now than when I first got here, but I won’t lie, it’s hard. Hideaway Cove is a sanctuary but if you’re her mate then your job is to be her sanctuary. And you’re a bit too close to the sharks for that to be easy.”