by Zoe Chant
Our mate is not ordinary, Rory’s griffin said. And we need her at our side.
Rory leaned his elbows on the table, putting his head in his hands. I know we do. But it’s not safe. We have to send her away, for her own protection.
NO. His griffin’s denial was instantaneous, and so fierce that his skin prickled, threatening to erupt into fur and feathers. We have invited her into our nest, our pride. To throw her out now would break her heart. We cannot hurt her!
Rory remembered the hitch of old pain in Edith’s soft voice when she’d spoken of how her old crew had rejected her. It was clear how much she wanted to be a wildland firefighter. Ever since she’d agreed to join A-squad, she’d been walking around with a dazed, thunderstruck expression, like someone waiting to wake up from a dream. How could he snatch that away from her?
But if she stayed…she would be in danger.
If there is danger, that is all the more reason to keep her close, his griffin insisted. She will not want to leave us, any more than we would ever leave her in peril. We are mates. Our fates are bound together.
Cold ran down his spine. His griffin had a point. Out of all the places it could have gone, the lightning-creature had struck at Edith’s tower. It had broken its own patterns, attacking even though he himself had been nearby. That couldn’t be coincidence.
And there had been the hare. And the hawk that Callum had spotted. The one that had followed them all the way from Edith’s tower to Thunder Mountain…
“From the way you’re staring into space,” Buck said dryly, “I take it you’re having one of those weird wrestling matches with yourself again.”
Rory pulled himself away from his inner conversation, returning to the outside world. “Chief, these lightning-started fires…has anyone spotted animals acting oddly around them?”
Buck’s habitual frown deepened. He shuffled through his folder. “Any critters that hang around a wildfire tend to end up crispy. But I did notice this one, a few years back.”
BITTEN OR BURNED? screamed the headline. Rory skimmed the article, his sense of unease growing. While it was previously thought that the couple had tragically perished in the wildfire, investigators now say that they were actually killed by an unknown wild animal. They believe that a panicked wolf or coyote must have been fleeing from the blaze, and sought refuge in the house…
Rory pushed the paper away again, feeling sick. “Chief, Edith has to stay.”
“Which one of us was sitting on the Superintendent side of this desk, again?” Buck looked around his own office, affecting surprise. “Oh look. It’s me.”
Rory had only ever pulled the alpha voice on Buck once, and that had been to save the Superintendent’s life. Buck had thanked him, sincerely, and then equally sincerely promised to muzzle him if he ever did it again. He was absolutely certain the chief had not been joking.
Which left him with no option but to tell the truth.
“Chief.” Rory squared his shoulders. “There’s something I need to explain about shifters.”
Chapter 11
“Edith?” Blaise poked her head around the door, frowning as she took in the pristine state of the small bedroom. “If there’s something you don’t like about this bunk, we can swap.”
“No, no.” Edith tried to force a smile onto her face. “The room’s fine.”
In truth, the mattress was too hard and the pine-tar smell was too strong and the view out the tiny window was all wrong…but none of those was the real problem. She hugged her backpack tighter, running the familiar straps through her fingers.
Blaise sat down next to her on the narrow bed. “Then why aren’t you unpacking your stuff?”
She looked down, avoiding the other woman’s kind gaze. “I really need to talk to Rory. Do you think he’ll be back soon?”
“Hard to say. I think he had a lot he needed to discuss with Buck.” Blaise nudged her with an elbow. “But I promise, they aren’t talking about kicking you out into the night.”
“They should be.” Edith stood up abruptly. “I have to go talk to them. I should never have come here in the first place.”
Fenrir, who was occupying most of the floor space in the tiny room, made a deep, rumbling growl. He flopped across her feet. The effect was similar to putting a parking boot on a car.
“See, even Fenrir doesn’t want you to go,” Blaise said, as Edith struggled vainly to extricate her toes from under the dog. She patted the blanket. “Now tell me why you’re having second thoughts. It’s not that jerk Seth, is it?”
“Not directly.” Edith sat down again, since it was clear it would take a backhoe to shift Fenrir. “But he wasn’t wrong. I don’t really belong here.”
“Don’t pay any attention to him. It’s pitiful, really. Just because we’re A-squad while his own is called C, he has to take every opportunity to get into a dick-waving contest with Rory. As though a stupid letter means we’re better than him.” Blaise grinned. “Though we are, of course. And what’s this nonsense about not belonging with us? I though Rory made it perfectly clear how much he—how much we all want you to be here. You seemed to believe him last night.”
Edith bit her lip. “Have you ever been carried away in the heat of a moment, and done something that you would never have done if you’d been thinking clearly, and then realized too late that you’ve destroyed your life?”
“Ouch.” Blaise blew out her breath. “That’s a bit close to home. Yes.”
Edith traced patterns across the top of her backpack. “Rory’s been so kind to me. All of you have. But there’s something I haven’t told you. And when I do, you’re all going to hate me.”
“There is literally nothing you could say to Rory that would make him hate you.” Blaise shook her head ruefully. “If you told him that you ate roasted kittens for breakfast every morning, he would be scouring the internet for recipes within five minutes.”
“But what if, if I was keeping a secret. Not, not anything bad or illegal,” she added hastily. “Just something that made me different. Something that I really should have told him straight away, but…didn’t.”
Blaise leaned back on her hands, staring at the ceiling. She didn’t speak for a long, long moment.
“If you found out Rory was keeping a secret like that,” she said at last. “Would you hate him?”
“No!” The word jumped out of her mouth without conscious thought.
“There you go then.” Blaise shrugged. “And as for the rest of us…we all like you, Edith. There’s only one thing you could do to change that.”
Edith swallowed nervously. “Let the squad down?”
“No.” Blaise looked at her levelly. “Hurt Rory.”
“I would never--“ Edith cut herself off as she heard her own voice echo from the walls. She made herself speak more normally. “I mean, I would never want to hurt him. Not deliberately. ”
“Good.” Blaise’s mouth curled. “Because you do not want to be my enemy.”
Fenrir huffed as if agreeing.
Edith jumped as someone rapped on the front door. Neither Blaise nor Fenrir so much as twitched.
“Speak of the devil.” Blaise raised her voice. “It’s not locked!”
Rory himself came in. He’d swapped his turn out gear for dark jeans and a soft tee that could barely stretch over his biceps. Her bedroom seemed even smaller with his broad, burly form filling her doorway.
“Hey,” he said, smiling at her. “You settling in okay?”
He must have come straight from the shower. His blond hair had darkened to bronze, little beads of water glittering like gems amidst the tousled spikes. She was so mesmerized by the slightly damp, gleaming hollow of his throat, she didn’t realize he’d even spoken until Blaise slid off the bed.
“I’m gonna go…uh, take a walk,” Blaise announced, her gaze flicking from Edith to Rory and back again. “You coming, Fenrir?”
Rory stood aside to let the pair squeeze past. Edith noticed that Blaise caught his eye
for a moment, some private message flickering in the air between the two old friends. A pang of envy shot through her at that easy, silent communication.
Rory looked after Blaise as she exited the cabin, his forehead creasing a little. When he turned back to her though, his warm smile was back again.
“We need to get you some gear,” he said, holding out a hand. “Buck wants the crew practicing with full kit tomorrow. Let’s go see what we can find for you in the storeroom.”
She didn’t need help getting off the bed, but it would be rude to just leave his proffered hand hanging in mid-air. She tried not to show the shiver that raced through her as his fingers folded over hers.
She hadn’t anticipated his strength. A flex of his arm, and she shot up like a rocket, stumbling into him. She caught herself just in time to avoid bumping her nose against his chest, but she did get an excellent close-up view of that delicious dip between his collarbones. She wondered if he would taste as good as he smelled…
What was she thinking? She stepped back so hastily that she tripped. Only the fact that Rory still had hold of her hand stopped her from toppling straight back onto the bed again.
“I’m not really this clumsy!” she blurted out, blushing furiously. “It’s just, just—“
“It’s a small room,” Rory finished for her, looking a little red himself.
She’d actually been about to say, just that you make me go weak at the knees. On retrospect, she was very glad that he’d interrupted.
“Sorry, that was my fault.” Rory let go of her hand at last. “I didn’t mean to yank you around like that. Come on. Let’s go get you kitted up.”
“Uh, yeah.” Edith swallowed hard, trying to get a grip on her surging libido. “Good idea.”
She couldn’t have a serious discussion with Rory while she was tongue-tied with helpless lust, after all. Surely it would be easier to maintain a cool, professional attitude once they were away from her bedroom.
There was nothing sexy about putting clothes on, after all.
Chapter 12
An hour later, and she was seriously wishing they were back in the bedroom.
Rory’s bowed head was level with her groin. Her fingers itched to feel the texture of his tousled hair. She stared straight ahead at the wall, and tried very hard not to breathe in his scent.
“It’s no good. This pair is too short too.” Giving up fiddling with the cuffs of the turn out pants she was trying on, he sat back on his heels. He ran his hand through his hair, making her own hand clench in longing. “You have really long legs.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s a pain. I can never find pants that fit.” She knew she was talking too much, but she couldn’t help it. His proximity unhinged her tongue as well as her mind. “All the kids at school used to call me a stork.”
He frowned, his eyes darkening. “Teenagers are cruel.”
It had actually been back in preschool, when people had only seen her outward differences. Her nicknames later on had been much crueler.
“Well, I am a stork.” If she didn’t move soon, she was going to explode. In a moment of inspiration, she flapped her elbows, making a joke of it. “Awk, awk.”
“A sexy stork,” he said—and flushed. He cleared his throat, turning away to rummage through the shelves lining the walls.
He thought she was sexy?
“Maybe one of the smaller men’s sizes would be a better fit.” He tossed her another pair of pants. “Try these ones.”
As she got changed, she noticed that Rory was carefully keeping his eyes fixed on a shelf of safety helmets. Her stomach sank a little. If he really thought she was sexy, shouldn’t he be trying to steal a peek?
“These are better, I think.” She pinched a roll of extra fabric, wrinkling her nose. “But I’ll need a belt.”
“Try these.” He moved in close, fastening a pair of suspenders to the waistband. She sucked in her breath as his fingertips skimmed over her shoulder blades, adjusting the straps. “There. Move around a bit, let me see if they hold up properly.”
She obligingly squatted down, bending and twisting. The pants were definitely roomy around the waist, but they didn’t threaten to expose her ass.
“Feels good to me.” She straightened, bouncing on her toes. “What do you think?”
He didn’t answer.
“Rory?” She turned—and was caught in the full force of his stare.
Heat rushed over her. For all that she was wearing multiple layers of protecting clothing, she felt utterly naked.
But not exposed. She felt…worshipped.
Just for a second. He blinked, wrenching his gaze away.
“That looks good.” His voice had gone rough and growly. “Take them off now. I mean, uh…” He shook his head sharply, turning on his heel. “Put them with the rest of your stuff. Just got one more thing to find.”
She did so, adding them to her growing pile of gear. Protective jacket, pants, backpack, fire shelter, tools…he’d already found her everything on the standard equipment list. She couldn’t imagine what else he thought she’d need.
He cleared his throat again, still noisily clattering around at the back of the storeroom. “So. Stork, huh? Any other nicknames?”
There were, of course. Her warm glow faded, quenched by cold reality. She couldn’t flirt with him, even if she was almost sure now that he might not entirely object.
For all her nervous prattling, she still hadn’t told him the truth about herself. Every time she tried, she found herself babbling about something else instead. Like stupid childhood nicknames.
“What was your childhood nickname?” she asked.
And there she went, racing away down the slightest diversion. Maybe if she just kept talking long enough, she wouldn’t have to tell him. Surely he had to have worked it out by now?
If he found her conversational topics odd, he didn’t show it. He cast one of those wry, crooked smiles at her over his shoulder.
“Buttbrain,” he said, totally without rancor. “At least, that’s what my twin called me. Still does, sometimes.”
“You have a twin?” Her brain fused and melted at the thought of two of him. “Are you identical? Is he a firefighter too?”
“Yes, no, no.” He pulled out a crumpled garment, shook his head, and stuffed it back into a box again. “We look pretty similar, but people don’t tend to get us confused. Not like Callum and his brothers. They are identical. All three of them.”
“Wow.” She had a sudden terrifying vision of three identical, glowering red-heads. “It must be nice, growing up with someone just like you.”
“Don’t ever say that to Callum.” His mouth quirked. “Though you should definitely suggest that to my twin. I want to see the look on Ross’s face.”
“Oh, does he live near here?”
He snorted. “Nope. He flatly refuses to even come out to visit. I think he’s suspicious I might somehow forcibly recruit him onto the squad. He lives back in England, in Brighton. It’s a city on the south coast.”
Now she was really confused. “Then why would I ever be in a position to be able to say anything to his face?”
He hesitated. “Uh…just a figure of speech. Do you have siblings?”
“No. Thankfully.”
He cast her an odd look. “Why thankfully?”
She shrugged. “I’m not great with people. Even my own parents found me difficult. I guess a brother or a sister would have found me equally baffling. It’s bad enough being the odd one out when there are only three of you in a family.”
“That sounds very lonely,” he said, softly.
She turned away from the deep, gentle gold depths of his eyes. “It’s all I’ve ever known. I’m used to it.”
He was silent for a moment. She concentrated on folding her new turn outs, aligning the seams precisely.
“Edith.”
She jumped, startled by the unexpected closeness of his voice. She whipped round to discover him standing just behind her, a
t-shirt in his hands. For such a big man, he was as soft-footed as a cat.
“Last night I told you this squad is like a family.” He held out the garment. “I meant it. You aren’t alone anymore.”
She looked down at the folded t-shirt.
THUNDER MOUNTAIN HOTSHOTS.
She shoved her hands into her pockets, where they couldn’t betray her longing. “Rory, I—”
“You still feel like you don’t belong. Like you’re different.” He balanced the crew t-shirt on one hand, taking her arm with the other. Gently but irresistibly, he drew her hands out of her pockets. “Edith, the rest of the squad, we’re…we’ve known each other since childhood. That’s all. Just give it time, and you will fit in here. I promise.”
She was caught in his eyes like a fly in amber. Words fell from her head. The only one that remained was yes.
Yes, to anything he suggested. Yes, to him.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“That’s all I ask.” He handed her the shirt. “Try this on.”
He turned his back, giving her privacy. She shuddered and gasped, the rest of the world coming back like a slap of cold water.
Slowly, she pulled the crew t-shirt over her head. She couldn’t think of an excuse to avoid trying it on. And, if she was honest with herself, she wanted to try it on. Just once.
Just for one more minute, she wanted to pretend. That she could be a hotshot, someone that Rory could respect. Maybe even someone that he could call sexy.
“There.” Rory had turned round again. His mouth curved in a smile so purely happy that she wanted to cry. “See? A perfect fit.”
It didn’t feel like a perfect fit. It felt itchy and uncomfortable, like her own lies. She twitched her shoulders.
“Hang on, the label’s sticking out.” He put one hand on her shoulder, the other curving around the back of her neck. “Hold still.”
