. . . and the next thing she knew, she was falling.
She flung out her wings—but hands flailed helplessly as she dropped onto the chaise lounge. The empty chaise lounge.
Where was Nikos?
She rose on one elbow and found him back in unicorn form, grazing in the garden. His head came up, and the early morning sunlight shone in his eyes as he looked across at her.
She cleared her throat, and sat up carefully. She felt too long, as if someone had stretched her like taffy, until her mind settled back into its familiar sense of her human body.
A rustle and a step from the kitchen door brought her around. She had to get used to the limits of human sight again.
Bird appeared, carrying tea. “You’re you again! Good morning. I have oatmeal on the stove, and eggs ready to be fixed any way you like. Mikhail said he has plenty of workout clothes for you to borrow while you put yours through the wash. They feel it wouldn’t be a good idea to go back to your place for more.”
It was cheerfully said, but the fact that Jen couldn’t just jog home brought back all the weird stuff again: oracle stone, assassins, threats.
Well, if that was a part of having a mate (not to mention having a bird inside you), then it was time to suck it up and deal. “Thanks,” she said.
Bird’s house had plenty of bathrooms. A hot shower and a clean T-shirt and drawstring trousers, with her familiar suede jacket pulled on over the borrowed clothes, did a lot to restore Jen to normal. Bird served breakfast at the terrace gazebo so that Nikos in unicorn form could hear them. While Jen was inside, Joey had arrived. He sat at the table with Mikhail and Bird.
Jen nodded good morning.
“How are you feeling today?” Joey asked.
“Great,” Jen said. “Actually, really great. I realize I probably shouldn’t run home, but I could use a five mile jog and then a workout.”
Mikhail turned his austere face toward her. “It is as before. Cang and his followers believe you are dead.”
Joey said easily, “Cang’s gang right now doesn’t have enough interest in you to follow up to make certain of it, and it helps that some of them were arrested speeding up the freeway toward Los Angeles the other morning. They’ve got other things on their minds. We’d like to keep it that way.”
It didn’t take much to realize how easy it would be to discover she’d survived, if Cang’s minions were curious enough. A question at Linette’s about the tall blond woman at the writer’s group would reveal her name. From there it would be easy to close in on the studio or even her house, endangering her perfectly innocent neighbors.
She nodded. “But I can’t hole up here forever.” Then she added, “Wait. That’s not a solution anyway. There’s still that lightning-guy after Nikos. And those bozos after that oracle stone, right?”
“Joey and I will deal with the oracle stone,” Mikhail said. “We know it’s empty now—that what they want is actually inside you. We need to conceal that fact as long as we can. Ideally, forever. So we’ll carry on guarding the landslide as if it were still there, until the celestial empress sends help.”
Jen said, “Can’t that help come through the Transfer Gate? The other one, I mean.”
Mikhail said, “There is a limit to how often they can be used, and how much can be carried. Living beings transfer better than non-living material, but even then, the qi begins to overheat.”
“Right,” Jen remembered. “Nikos told me that.”
Joey smiled. “I have enthusiastic volunteers who think it’s hilarious to let Cang’s spies spy on them guarding an empty site. A couple of my shifter students offered to sneak around now and then, exchanging code words and notes, to give the spies something to watch.”
Jen grinned. “More power to them.” Then she turned to Nikos, his horn gleaming in the morning light, his black coat shining with rich silver highlights. “I know what you’re all saying but not saying. You need to take the girls home before that assassin does something terrible.”
Joey and Mikhail exchanged glances, as Bird looked worried. Joey said, “Leave the oracle stone to us. You and Nikos need to figure out your next step. Of course we’ll help in any way we can.”
“Got it,” Jen said. She looked toward Nikos, not sure if the question she was feeling was from him, or just her imagination. This mate telepathy was the weirdest thing so far.
No, she thought. No, that would be the Transfer Gate.
And she knew what she needed to do.
But first: finish breakfast.
Mikhail got up from the table. “I’m going to fly the perimeter of the property.”
“Invisible?” Bird asked. “I hope?”