by Zoe Chant
Chapter 26
Andrea flew like a shot, straining her wings to go as high as she could, and then tumbled acrobatically back down among the puffy, sunset-stained clouds. Green Valley was just a series of lines and squares below her, familiar rooftops fading into the greater patchwork of the fields around it and the wild forests that wrinkled over the hills.
For a long while, the sheer joy of flight drove everything else from her mind.
But finally, she tired, and settled into an easy glide just over the treetops.
Despite herself, Shaun slipped back into her mind.
What they had, their thing, was simply unsustainable.
She had made the classic mistake of wrapping her heart up with her body, and giving both of them to Shaun.
He’d wanted the one, which was admittedly gratifying, but had eschewed the other, leaving Andrea with a strange, empty aching hole where her heart had been.
Would something more have happened if Trevor hadn’t needed his father’s undivided affection?
Andrea couldn’t bring herself to resent the little boy. She would have been happy for Trevor to rediscover his father even if she hadn’t fallen for him herself, and she loved that the stability of a loving parent was having such a positive effect on him.
Her hawk was as heartbroken as she was, still sadly convinced that Shaun was destined to be theirs, but uncertain how to resolve that with the emotional distance lying between them.
Neither of them was paying the slightest attention as the sun sank below the horizon, turning the sky deep violet.
Neither of them heard the silent wings of the owl above them, or was aware of its presence until it was close enough that the backdraft of its wings fluttered her feathers as it struck, driving wicked claws deep into her.
Andrea shrieked in agony, twisted, and dived, shaking loose from the bigger bird and tearing herself off its claws by sheer force of will.
As fast as she could, she was diving away, the owl snatching at her tail feathers.
She was smaller and more maneuverable, but the owl was stronger and faster. It could also see in the dark and wasn’t injured.
I’m not your prey! Andrea tried to insist, flapping frantically, but the owl didn’t appear to hear her.
She rolled to the side as the owl dove at her again, claws scratching at her angled wing.
Pain burned through her wing, and her breath was coming short and hot. The initial strike had slowed her more than she had realized, and when she zigged, the owl met her with outstretched claws and a cry of triumph as it closed around her.
It wasn’t the best grab, mostly one of her legs and a good portion of her tail, but Andrea failed to roll out of the grip this time.
The lights of Green Valley were below them, and Andrea could see her yard from here, all green shadows and safety. She didn’t have to get far, if she could get away again.
It would serve you right if I shifted now and we both fell out of the sky, Andrea thought fiercely, but she knew they were too high; the fall would kill her as surely as the owl would, and there was not enough time to shift back before she hit the ground.
The owl was beating its broad wings, hauling her back from her goal. Andrea fought desperately, pecking and beating her agile wings. The owl struggled to keep them aloft, and they dipped lower. Andrea rolled free again, flying like an arrow in the direction of her house for a short distance until the owl inevitably caught her again.
Chapter 27
Shaun tucked Trevor back into bed after the third trip to the bathroom and the second drink and the seventeenth hug at least, and tried not to gnash his teeth too obviously.
A glance at the hall clock confirmed that he had certainly missed Andrea’s return from the diner.
Not that he had a clue what he was going to say. Was he going to break things off completely? Tell her his dilemma and see if she had sage child advice that could fix everything? Make some transparent excuse to get her into his house and out of her clothes and pretend he could keep doing this forever?
He hurried down the stairs as quickly and quietly as he could anyway.
To his surprise, Andrea’s porchlight was still on, though she usually turned it off when she came home. None of the interior lights were on, either.
Shaun went out and stood on his own porch, looking over at hers as if he could will her to come home.
Green Valley apparently had no kind of nightlife, and by ten o’clock, the whole place was reduced to quiet insects and night birds. He could hear the far-off highway if the wind was right, and there was a dog barking several blocks away. Someone yelled and it fell silent.
There was a strange cry from above, and Shaun looked up to see a dark shape — no, two of them — struggling in the sky on a collision course for his house.
He watched in fascination as the larger bird beat broad, silent wings, clearly trying to subdue its prey, which was not at all done fighting. The smaller bird was clawing and beating wings at what looked like an owl, and feathers from both of them were flying off in flurries like snow.
It was like a moment from a National Geographic special and Shaun reached for his phone before he realized that it was too dark to capture any of it. His tiger’s night vision was the only reason he could see it at all.
The smaller bird was clearly wounded and overpowered, so Shaun found himself cheering silently for it as it managed to twist away and drunkenly drop several stories towards him. It was a small hawk, he realized and the larger bird, a huge owl, was on it again just before it could get to the ground. It screamed as the claws closed on it again.
That was it for the hawk, he thought, wondering if he could scare the owl off and get the smaller bird to some kind of bird rehab in time.
Do it, his tiger flared unexpectedly at him. Now!
He dashed down the porch steps at the urgency of the command, and picked up a landscaping rock, hurling it without thinking at the owl.
It struck true and the owl gave a cry of pain and tumbled away, releasing the hawk.
Then, to his utter astonishment, the hawk shifted into a girl — no, into Andrea! — and fell out of the sky.
She landed on her feet but fell at once to her knees, and from there toppled onto her face.
Shaun was frozen for only a moment, then he was racing across the dark lawn to where Andrea lay. The owl, which had been hovering overhead, fled.
“No, no, no,” he said as he reached her and rolled her carefully over.
She was naked, and slick where he touched her. Bleeding. She was bleeding from everything. It was dark and colorless in the unlit night, over her chest, down her arms, on her legs.
“No, no, no,” he repeated, gathering her into his arms. He couldn’t do anything for her out here.
Her eyes opened, glinting in the darkness. “Wrong yard,” she said, coughing wetly. “Sorry,” she whispered, and her eyes screwed shut in pain as Shaun lifted her up and carried her up the steps.
In the light of the house, it was even worse: the blood was bright red and everywhere.
He laid Andrea gently onto the couch, not caring if she ruined the horrible thing. Pressure. He needed to put pressure on the wounds.
He collected a handful of kitchen towels and hurried back to find her sitting up.
“Lie back,” he insisted. “You should not be sitting.”
“It’s... not as bad as it looks,” she said, voice tight with the lie. “I... heal fast.”
To be fair, the bleeding did seem to have slowed remarkably. But she was ghost white, and when she tried to stand, failed miserably.
“Down,” Shaun commanded, and she sank obediently back into the terrible throw pillows.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “I heal really fast. I’m a...”
“A shifter,” Shaun finished for her with a growl. “I know how fast a shifter can heal, and I know you need to lie down a little longer at least.”
Her eyes widened in sudden understanding. “Of course you
do,” she said with a hiccup of pained laughter. “I’m so stupid.”
“The jury’s still out,” Shaun told her lightly, pressing a towel into the puncture wound on her collarbone that appeared to be the worst. It was hard to tell, as covered as she was in bloody scratches and gouges.
Chapter 28
Andrea let Shaun clean her up, too weak to stop him, and felt unspeakably foolish.
Of course he was a shifter, with that powerful physique and that unsettling silvery gaze.
She’d been so busy trying to handle her own body’s reaction to him that she hadn’t thought too hard about his animal magnetism being an actual animal feature. He was graceful like a cat, and had the confidence of a predator.
“What are you?” she had to ask.
“Tiger,” he answered gruffly. “Not that I’ve had a chance to shift since we came here, of course. I don’t have the kind of form that can flit around the neighborhood looking inconspicuous.”
Andrea hissed as he used a damp towel to wipe the worst of the blood from her arm. That would be where the owl had raked her wing. The few places that were still oozing blood he rinsed with hydrogen peroxide and put bandages over — tape over gauze in some places, superhero bandaids over the most minor. She knew that spectacularly colorful bruises would join the tapestry before tomorrow.
“Did you know that I was—”
“No.”
Andrea wondered if she imagined that he sounded short. Was he angry that she’d kept the secret from him?
Then she remembered that he’d kept the same secret from her, and would have punched him if it didn’t hurt so badly to lift her arms.
“Let me get you a shirt,” Shaun said.
“I don’t want to bleed all over your clothes,” Andrea said. She grimaced. “Or your couch, or your floor.” The whole place looked like a murder scene.
“I’ll get it cleaned before Trevor gets up in the morning.” Shaun found a shirt in the laundry room and helped her button it over herself. It was colorful, and loose enough that it didn’t chafe over her raw wounds.
“Hydrogen peroxide,” Andrea said, as she let Shaun roll up the comically long sleeves for her.
He paused. “Did I miss a spot?”
“Oh, no! I’m fine. It’s just that hydrogen peroxide gets blood out of fabric. Test it first, of course, but it lifts most bloodstains without harming couches and rugs.”
Shaun gave a gruff chuckle, switching sleeves. “You know the weirdest things!”
“I am a font of useful information,” Andrea told him wryly. She was already starting to feel her energy return. She was undeniably tired, and in seventeen kinds of miserable pain, but she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to die now.
She hadn’t been so sure of that when her feet had touched the ground.
Shaun gave her sleeve a final roll and fussed over it an unnecessary moment without looking at her.
“Shaun?” Andrea had to ask. “When we met, the first time, did you... are you... have you ever heard about mates?”
“Fairy tales,” Shaun said dismissively. He looked straight into her eyes then, and his gaze was so deliberate and direct that Andrea couldn’t disbelieve him.
“Of course,” Andrea said, glad she had an excuse for sounding faint.
She couldn’t bear to look into his eyes and see his indifference, so she looked away, and found herself looking at a stack of moving boxes, folded flat and leaning against the wall.
Her chest felt too tight for her lungs.
They hadn’t spoken about his plan to move back to the city with Trevor at the end of the semester since their first meeting, but when it didn’t come up again, Andrea had simply assumed that Shaun had changed his mind. That she had changed his mind.
Because she loved him.
Because he loved her.
Because they were mates.
But of course the idea of mates was just foolishness. Of course it was all just a ridiculous fantasy. A ridiculous fantasy that Andrea hadn’t wanted to believe in... but now that the hope of it was removed, she felt like someone had taken away something she hadn’t realized was dear to her.
Inside her, her hawk gave a keen of pain more intense than any of her wounds.
Chapter 29
It took every ounce of Shaun’s self-control to hold Andrea’s gaze, and he was glad when she finally looked away so he could breathe again.
He had only watched one heart break before — Trevor’s when Harriette had abandoned him.
But he had never caused one to shatter himself.
This was the kindest way, he tried to convince himself.
He didn’t want to leave lingering hopes or unmeant promises. He wasn’t going to string her along for a decade or more, waiting for Trevor to grow up. She deserved the freedom to find happiness elsewhere.
Inside, his tiger yowled in protest.
He wanted to kiss away all the pain in her face, to cradle her in his arms and take it all back, but he remembered his promise to Trevor and instead, he started collecting up the blood-soaked towels to start a load of laundry.
Andrea cleared her throat and stood carefully, swaying only slightly. “I should get back to my house,” she said.
“Are you okay to do that?” Shaun asked, glad his arms were full of towels so he didn’t try to catch her.
“I’m fine,” Andrea said firmly. She gave a little sound that might have been an attempt at a laugh. “I guess I was lucky this happened before a weekend. I’ll be back up to speed by Monday for preschool.”
“What about the diner?” Shaun asked, because it was a conversational sort of thing to do.
Andrea grimaced as she tested the range of motion in her arm. “I could tell Gran I lost an argument with a lawnmower, but I think I’ll go with the flu.” She coughed dramatically and winced as it clearly caused more pain than she had anticipated. “Painful cough, aching limbs. Delirium. Wouldn’t want any customers catching it.”
“Can I do anything for you?”
To Shaun’s own ears it sounded cold and uninviting, and Andrea drew herself up and matched him with her own chilly, “No, I don’t need any more help.”
She thawed enough to add sincerely. “Thank you for... this. For everything.”
Her gesture encompassed the bandaging, and the cleaning, and Shaun wondered if it didn’t also included all the places that they had made love in the living room over the past few weeks.
She limped to the door and turned. “Goodbye, Shaun,” she said firmly.
Shaun recognized that she knew.
She knew that this goodbye was a real goodbye.
And then she was gone, taking half his heart.
Chapter 30
Andrea was glad it was the weekend for more than one reason.
She spent a long sleepless night, in too much pain to find rest in any position, and wept her pillow wet for entirely different reasons.
In the morning, she made a pitiful call to Gran’s Grit, her voice so rough from crying that she knew it would be convincing. Old George accepted her excuses with a total of three words in response, and she hung up to weep in the shower as the last of the dried blood swirled down the drain.
She had finally started to believe her hawk, that she and Shaun were mates. That if she was patient, they were meant to be together. Really together, not just the desperate, hungry lovemaking that happened irregularly when it was possible with perfect discretion. If she couldn’t have him yet, she at least had some hope that someday she would.
She had convinced herself that he would stay in Green Valley, that someday they would truly be together, that he loved her.
But now she knew for sure that he was leaving at the end of the semester, and that it would be forever.
Even if they could be great together, Shaun thought mates were fairy tales.
He was probably right.
She would have to be an idiot to believe anything else, and she cried helplessly when she realized that she had bee
n that idiot.
When her hot water in the shower finally ran out, she dried off and surveyed herself in the mirror.
The damage from the owl had reduced to scabs, raw and angry red from the shower, but no longer bleeding. The worst of them still made her flinch in pain, and her suspicion that she would be bruised spectacularly had been correct.
It had been a closer encounter than Andrea liked to admit.
And part of her wished the owl had simply finished its work.
She left her towel on the bathroom floor and spent the day fitfully napping and crying on her couch. She went to the refrigerator several times and identified nothing edible, so she ate nothing.
When darkness fell, she curled on the living room floor with her laptop and stared at the screen until it went to sleep, then bent her head in defeat.
Andrea woke with her muscles screaming in pain because of her awkward sleeping position on the floor, but her head and her heart were numb.
She stretched and shook herself, metaphorically and physically, and went to the kitchen for a pain pill and a glass of water. She opened the fridge and mechanically made herself a pile of fluffy eggs with cheese and toast.
After she ate it all, bite after automatic bite, she took an efficient shower and hung her towel on the rack, then stared at her reflection.
The bruises were fading, and the scratches and punctures looked more like recent scars than fresh wounds. But she looked... grim.
You’ll scare little children with that face, she scolded herself, and she made herself smile until it was halfway convincing.
If her eyes still had dark circles under them, it was nothing a little careful makeup wouldn’t hide. Maybe she could blame the red eyes on allergies.
She dressed, washed her dishes, and started a load of laundry, opening all the curtains in the house that didn’t face the neighbor as she worked.
Shaun, she reminded herself. Your neighbor, Shaun, whom you will inevitably have to face again.