“Not to mythic shifters,” Mikhail said with a dragonish smile. “I want Keraunos to see me.”
And between one breath and another, he surged into the air, elongating into a magnificent silver dragon. Jen’s breath caught. He was far more formidable than Long Cang—and she rejoiced to see it.
She drank the rest of her coffee and finished her eggs and bacon. Bird waved her off of helping to clean up, so she ran down the garden to Nikos. She badl
y wanted him to be a man again while she was a woman—all she’d gotten so far was one kiss! But if she couldn’t have the man, at least she could admire the magnificent unicorn that was his other nature.
He trotted to meet her, and she grinned. “It’s so good to be able to talk again. Yes, I know there’s that other kind. And I promise to try to get used to it. First, if I wasn’t here, you’d be taking Cleo and Petra back to your island, right?”
But you are here. And I would never change that, came his rich inner voice, resonant with conviction. She realized that it was impossible to lie effectively this way. Oh, maybe some could, but . . .
She shook her head, dispelling that useless trail of thought, and said, “But you’re waiting on me, right?”
Yes. It was simply, even tranquilly said, and again she felt the resonance of truth. How strong his love was, even though they were just beginning to know each other.
“Well, I had time to think last night, while the girls and I were flying around. They kept talking about ‘home’ with that special note in their voices. It’s a note that I’ve heard, and I recognize, but I don’t use it because I never felt it. For years and years I was globe-trotting too much. Yes, I know we bought the house. I love this town. I love my friends here. But I realized last night that my house isn’t my home. It had been the closest thing to it. Sort of. It was ‘our home’ but there is no ‘our’ anymore. Does that make sense?”
His response was very careful. Are you saying that you are willing to visit Vasilikos Alogo, even knowing that there might be trouble?
“I’m saying I want to. I still have my old go-bag in the closet, left over from years of habit. I could be packed in five minutes—all I need to add are a toothbrush, my ID, and my laptop. I could walk away from the rest. Though I’ll probably put my little plant outside and pay the neighbor kid to water so everything doesn’t die.”
Every time I think you cannot surprise me, you do, came his voice, the intensity of his love making her giddy.
“But I know what has to come next, which is how to get there. I’d assumed we’d need to book flights to the closest airport, then take a boat, until the girls admitted last night that you flew here from Europe. I think I could do that. So far flying seems to use the same energy as running, and I can run for miles. But it still took you some time. So I want to try something first.”
With that, she turned away before he could stop her. She knew that the Transfer Gate worked. Both times she’d not just wanted to be somewhere else, she’d thought herself there. Once to him, once to her living room, an instinct that had turned out to be a bad idea. Her house was no longer a retreat. That is, it wasn’t for someone who had become a phoenix as well as a person.
And she was not about to give up being a phoenix.
She’d tried transferring while in her phoenix, but it hadn’t worked, maybe for the same reason that her phoenix did not talk to her. She didn’t seem capable of anything besides . . . being a phoenix. That was okay, right now. It was morning, Jen-the-human was rested and full of energy.
So before she could second-guess herself, she turned toward the gazebo in the middle of the terrace, a space she knew very well after eating countless meals there. She got it firmly in her mind, gave a little hop, and . . . a slight jolt, a little disorientation, and she was there.
She’d done it.
She drew in a shaky breath, turned, and shot a triumphant grin at Nikos in the garden—to find him right up against the wall, ears flat. She didn’t have to see those to sense his worry. She executed a triumphant two-step, and laughed as she sensed his own inner laughter.
She vaulted over the low wall. It was crazy, how good she felt—like she’d gotten back her thirty-something stamina. She put her hand to the flat space between his eyes, scritching a little as she said quickly, “I remembered everything you said. It works. I have to have quiet, to concentrate, to see myself there. It’s like taking a step without actually moving. I can do it!”
She felt his lingering concern as a kind of voiceless hum. I’ve never heard of a Transfer Gate becoming a power. I don’t want to risk your being endangered by it.
Jen said, “I don’t mind experimenting in small ways. Nothing hurt after I did it.”
She felt him hesitate, not wanting to start an argument. So she waited, not wanting to make it an argument—their first.
Her instinct was right. His unicorn’s inner hum deepened as his voice whispered in her head, It’s your power, and your choice. But I can’t curb my concern.
“I respect that. And concern is only one of the thoughts crashing around inside me. I’m paying it enough attention to try these little experiments first,” she murmured, standing on her tiptoes and pressing her forehead against his. She reached up to stroke his mane as she said, “Even when I was a brash college student winning competitions right and left, I never expected to pick up a weapon and take on a horde of real henchmen out for blood.”
Footsteps behind her broke her attention from Nikos. She turned to find Joey approaching, his face almost unrecognizable without his characteristic smile. “Mikhail has spotted Keraunos roaming the perimeter,” he reported abruptly. “He went to ground when he saw Mikhail.”
Nikos’s thought came fast, He’ll be back. We had to expect that. I need to get the girls away as soon as possible. As well as not bring danger to the people here.
Jen immediately understood. The easiest way to corner Nikos would be to capture someone important to him, and force him trade a life for a life—it had to be Number One in the Villains’ Playbook.
She felt his inner laugh, and realized she’d shared the thought.
Jen, do you think you could reach a place you’ve never seen, if I show you a photo? That’s how the celestial Transfer Gate works: the knight who tends it uses photos. That’s how I got home the one time I experienced that kind of transfer.