Petra’s dark eyes sparkled with pleasure, then dimmed. “I am very, very glad she is your mate. Though I still don’t quite understand about mates. Maybe because I was alone so much before I came to Vasilikos Alogo, and I did not understand everything Bryony told me about mates. But . . . will Ms. Jen come live with us?”
Petra looked hopeful. Nikos hid the sharp pang within him, and responded as soothingly as possible, Things have changed so fast that questions like that have to wait a little longer. How about getting to know her? Not as a martial arts instructor, but as a new shifter?
“I will do that. And when I tell Cleo, I know she’ll want to help,” Petra said, and hopped up the low brick stairs to the terrace to where Cleo had reappeared with Doris.
Nikos watched her run to Cleo and start talking earnestly. He caught a few Greek words before a stir in the air and a familiar scent caused his ears to flick toward the pathway leading to the road below: Joey’s fox scent carried on the wind.
A few seconds later Joey streaked up past the roses, shifting mid-stride, so that he entered the terrace as a man. His first stop was by Doris. They kissed, and a longing jolted Nikos: when would he be able to greet Jen with a kiss whenever they saw one another, so natural and unthinking?
Soon. Our mate knows us now, his unicorn whispered, rousing long enough for that, then sinking down again.
Joey turned to Nikos, then ran down to the garden. “Still can’t shift?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “We’ve got the strongest among us on guard, though I don’t think Cang will be back until he can come in force. The problem that disturbs me is that Keraunos has been sighted.”
Nikos said on the mythic plane, He was sent to target me.
His gaze arrowed to Jen, and from her to the girls, as they chattered with Jen, who was still looking a little dazed. He needed to get home. Draw Keraunos after him. Face him on his own territory, and keep him well away from vulnerable people here.
Jen is first.
It was an instinctive thought, but Joey was listening. We can protect her.
Every instinct in Nikos wanted to protest that. It was for him to protect and defend his mate, but here he was, frozen in his unicorn. Even his horn, sensitive as it was to qi currents on the mythic plane, seemed shrouded in a mist of depletion. He wasn’t certain he could heal a bee sting right now.
Joey went to report to Mikhail, leaving Nikos watching longingly as Cleo and Petra took Jen aside to talk. At first the girls were a little shy, but as he watched, Jen’s manner, calm sea-green gaze, and lovely smile set them at ease. “Really,” she exclaimed. “An island of winged shifters? I think that’s the coolest thing in the world!”
“Not everybody has wings,” Petra said quickly, but Nikos could see from all the way across the garden and the terrace how proud she was.
“We have plenty of humans,” Cleo added. “Lots of them are my friends! And there are other kinds of shifters.”
“Tell me more!”
From there the girls became more natural, Cleo talking as fast as she could, with Petra occasionally putting in a quiet word. Jen turned from one to the other, her obvious interest in them making the girls blossom under her attention.
Cleo was the first to shift into her hippogriff, her front half a golden eagle, her back half a pony with coat and tail a warm golden brown. Cleo’s wings shaded from dark at the shoulder out to a cream color at the tips. Niko’s heart swelled as Jen reacted not with horror, but with wonder as Cleo pranced in a circle on the terrace. When Cleo let out an eagle’s shriek, Jen clapped her hands.
Cleo shifted back, and to Nikos’s surprise and delight, shy, wary Petra then shifted to her wind horse, a beautiful coffee-colored mare with a small head on an arched neck. She didn’t open her wings—a leap and she’d be in the air like a rocket, being one of the fastest of all the winged shifters. But though she stayed still, her qi glimmered like captured sunlight above her back, between her wings.
Jen exclaimed softly. Nikos couldn’t hear what she said, but he saw the admiration shining in her face. Petra shifted back—no surprise, as the terrace was designed for two-legged beings. She was smiling.
Then Bird came out from the kitchen and called them all in for a meal.
Nikos stayed where he was. Things might change very soon—no, they would, sooner than later—but at present he could let others keep watch.
The shadows had lengthened when Jen reappeared, the girls pressed close to either side. Jen’s smile was still bright, even tender as she listened to them. As Petra’s thin, graceful hands gestured, Nikos caught a few stray words that he would have thought impossible until now. Petra never talked about her past—not until she really trusted someone. It had taken well over a year among the hetairoi before she would even admit where she had come from.
He felt more than saw the frequent looks Jen cast his way, but she kept her attention on the girls, until at last they rushed back into the house, Cleo calling over her shoulder, “We’ll be right back!”
As soon as they were gone, Jen ran down the steps into the garden, and came straight to Nikos. “Is it all right?” she asked, holding out her hand to his forehead. “Is it weird if I pet you?”
I love your touch, he responded, leaning into her hand.
“Good! Because I’ve been wanting to do this what feels like forever, though I know it’s only been a couple hours or so.” As she spoke, she ran her hands through his mane. “Just as silky as I thought.” She kept stroking his mane.
Nikos’s unicorn chuckled to himself, as he preened.
“I know it’s probably weird to talk out loud, but I still can’t get used to that telepathy yet. My thoughts bounce all over the place. I never actually realized how messy my mind is inside, always ramming around between several things at once, including the stuff that would definitely be oversharing, like, I can hold it a little longer, but no more tea until I pee. Uh . . .”
“Rubber chicken?” he thought tenderly.