She must be up to something—that was the only explanation. Ben would simply have to find out what.
Meanwhile, his ongoing task was to keep Rhianne safe.
“We never did finish your Shifter training.” Ben glanced toward the veranda.
The house was very quiet. It creaked a little, as though settling itself after having so many feet tramping through it.
Rhianne’s gaze held heat. “I know. Because something else happened to interrupt the session.”
Her smile stoked the fires inside him. Ben recalled the graceful way they’d practiced push hands, the dance that they’d created with it, and how it had led into an even greater dance.
“True. But you know, we should keep training.”
Rhianne’s eyes lit with amusement. “What am I going to do with you?”
Ben pretended to think about this. “I have a few ideas.”
Rhianne laughed. As Ben began to pull her to him, his phone buzzed. Stifling impatience, he flipped it open.
“Damn. Millie’s texting me already.”
Rhianne gathered close. The text message blurred as Ben’s blood seared with her nearness.
Being inside Rhianne had been incredible. Ben wanted to go there again and never come out. Mating frenzy, he figured. It was catching, and Ben was happy to succumb.
“She wants to meet,” Ben announced. “Says she has some important information for me.”
“Oh.” Rhianne’s breath wafted on his cheek.
“At City Park. Interesting choice—it’s very public. I can go see what she means while you sit tight.”
Rhianne’s brows drew down. “If sit tight means I stay here and you go alone, I say no. The first thing she tried to do was kill you.”
Ben closed his phone and slid it into his pocket then turned to press a kiss to her cheek. “No, sweetheart. She first tried to attack you. She didn’t realize who I was.”
“Uh huh.” Rhiannon didn’t soften. “As soon as she did realize who you were, she tried to kill you. And you want to go meet her by yourself? Why not take along someone who has a word of power at her disposal, who might perhaps be able to turn into an eagle and assist you? Or, let me go instead of you. I can find out what she really wants before I let her near you again.”
Her protectiveness warmed spaces inside Ben that had been cold a long time. He’d never let her go alone, but it was sweet that she offered.
“I want you here, safe, where the house can protect you.”
Rhianne assumed a stubborn expression. “Tiger told me that whenever I was with you, I’d be safe. No matter where you happened to be. Also that I was supposed to look after you.”
“Tiger says a lot of indecipherable things.”
Her eyes hardened. “His words seemed very clear to me.”
Ben scowled as he pondered his choices. He really did want to know what Millie had to say. Even though he didn’t trust her an inch, he wanted to trust her. And that was even worse, because then he couldn’t trust himself.
He also did not want to leave Rhianne behind. What if she went outside the house’s boundaries, unaware of exactly where those were? Or what if Ivor succeeded in breeching the house? What kind of damage could he do to Rhianne before the house stopped him, if it could? Ivor had already been strong enough to reach through the ley lines and attack them.
“Tell you what,” he said. “We’ll both go. We’ll stand like twenty feet from Millie and hear her out. But we need to be careful, because goblins can be tricky.” He huffed a laugh. “Trust me. I know this. After that, we can go see Lily again and find out if she has any deets about the danger she sees and what we can do about it.”
They argued further, but it felt good to argue with Rhianne. Like they were intimate enough to have arguments.
In the end, they left the house together and Ben guided Rhianne out the back door to the shed where he’d left his motorcycle.
Ben liked the feeling of Rhianne wrapped around him as they rode into the city. He was soon weaving through the familiar streets of New Orleans to City Park, on the north side of town near Lake Pontchartrain for the meeting.
Millie was already there. She waited for them under a tall, ancient live oak—an innocuous woman in her blouse and pedal pushers, her glasses firmly perched on her nose, her handbag clutched in two hands.
Other inhabitants of the park looked askance at Ben with his tattoos and scruffy jeans hurrying toward this woman. When they saw that Millie waited calmly, without fear, the walkers strolled on.
Ben halted within shouting distance from her, Rhianne at his side. “Okay, we’re here,” he called to Millie. “What do you want to talk about?”
“I know who you are.”
“Yeah, I know. We discussed this. I’m the one you blame for destroying our people. You tried to attack me. Not something I would forget.”
“Not only that,” Millie said. “I did some research after I left you and I know who you will be.” She pointed at Rhianne. “You are more confusing.”
Ben started toward Millie. He couldn’t stop himself, despite his own admonitions about caution. “You need to explain. Everything.”
Millie didn’t move. Ben heard Rhianne behind him, her growl of annoyance that he wasn’t being more careful.
Ben halted in mid-stride, every danger signal in him flaring to life. Under his boot, the earth trembled.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ben demanded
At the same moment, a fissure abruptly split between him and Millie, one about five feet wide and who the hell knew how deep, like a mouth that wanted to swallow Ben whole.
Ben flailed as his feet slipped and slithered on the edge. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Rhianne’s strong hands closed around him. “Stop it,” she shouted at Millie.
Millie, clutching her bag tighter, backed away from the abyss. “This isn’t my doing.”
The crevice in the earth widened as though annoyed it hadn’t seized Ben in its first gulp.
The ground broke away under his feet. Rhianne’s grip on Ben slipped, and she screamed as gravity wrenched Ben from her, and he slid into the yawning gap.
* * *
Rhianne’s screams made her throat raw. Ben’s hands caught the edge of the hole, fingers clawing at the grass. He let his hands and arms change to those of the goblin, but even then he couldn’t pull himself out.
Rhianne caught his arms, holding on as hard as she could. A quick glance up showed Rhianne that Millie had turned and was running away.
“Wait,” Rhianne yelled. “Help me.”
Millie never turned back. She continued to run far faster than her appearance would suggest she could, faded under the trees, and was gone.
The sudden abyss was mystical, Rhianne knew, but it was also very real. A stink of evil wafted from the chasm as though many dead things were trying to escape from the earth.
Ben’s large fingers made furrows in the grass. Rhianne clung tighter, but when she started sliding toward the hole herself, Ben pried her hands away.
“No,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Run.”
“I won’t leave you,” Rhianne yelled.
“If you don’t we’ll both go down. Get out of here.” Mud and roots poured into the hole, battering at him, trying to take him with them.
Passersby in the park gathered, some frozen in fascinated horror, others yelling for people to keep away or find some rope. Someone shouted at Rhianne to get back.
She sprang to her feet, not to obey, but because her skin was burning. Her heart pounded scalding blood through her body, and her limbs ached and throbbed.
She couldn’t control what was happening to her, and this time, she didn’t want to.
Rhianne yanked off her T-shirt and then her jeans and underwear, her shoes toppling somewhere in the grass. She felt the wild thing inside her call, and realized the screeching cry came from her own throat.
There were plenty of people staring at her, but Rhianne couldn’t worry about
them or halt the change. Her arms spread of their own accord as feathers burst across them, her fingers segueing into primary feathers. Her vision changed, becoming blurred around the edges but sharply focused in the center.
A rush of wind buoyed her, and with it came the lift of freedom. She wanted to catch the updraft and glide away, soaring higher and higher, far from the troubles of her life.
Her terror for Ben kept her grounded. Onlookers were trying to reach him, but the crumbling earth wouldn’t let them near.
Rhianne leapt, and her wings caught her. She wafted upward, high into the humid air. Clouds seemed to part for the wind, and she danced on it.
She became aware of nothing but herself and the sky, Ben barely visible now in the gap of the earth.
Rhianne didn’t know how to fly, but the eagle did, as Ben had said it would. Her wings took over, and she glided on a thermal, pivoting back to the very spot in which Ben struggled. Then she dove.
Ben was shouting but she couldn’t understand the words. The hole was closing on him, Ben being dragged slowly down, down into the devouring ground.
Rhianne righted herself, wings unfurling to their maximum to slow her descent. She spread her talons just as the earth began to pile around Ben’s head, filling his open mouth.
She closed her claws on Ben’s shoulders and yanked him from the belly of the earth.
Ben coughed then yelled as Rhianne lifted him into the air. She tried to keep her grip gentle, aware that her talons could dig right through him.
Ben’s curses in several languages assured her he was alive. Rhianne’s trajectory took her from the park and across the lake, blue and vast.
Beneath her came Ben’s voice. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. If you drop me now, I can’t swim. Fuck!”
Rhianne circled and headed landward, feeling a call to the place from which she’d departed. They flew over the dark blue waters that reflected the clouds and the endless sky and toward the green of the park beyond.
The park and its trees flashed beneath them. The fissure in the earth had filled in as though, deprived of its meal, it had decided to close its mouth and sulk.
Rhianne spied her clothes scattered across the grass, and the tree under which Millie had stood, though Millie was long gone.
She also saw plenty of people watching, gaping as she brought Ben to the ground. She released him when his feet touched down, then she furled her wings and landed beside him with a gentle bump.
The watchers held up phones like Millie’s, peering at them as though they held the wisdom of the universe.
Ben, shaking, brushed himself off. His shirt was shredded, and blood streaked his skin, but by their scent, Rhianne could tell the wounds weren’t deep.
Ben took in the gawkers and all the phones pointed toward him and Rhianne.
“Shit,” he muttered. “Now we’re going to have Shifter Bureau on us.”
Chapter Sixteen
Ben was amazed how quickly Shifter Bureau responded. Not two minutes after Rhianne had finished rescuing him from the hungry earth, sirens sounded.
It wasn’t unusual to hear sirens in this city, but police vehicles hurtling straight into the park as far as the paved roads let them was rarer. When they could approach no closer, at least two dozen patrolmen slammed out of cars and SUVs and headed for Ben and Rhianne.
Any other time Ben would have been amused at the number of New Orleans residents who suddenly turned and melted into the shadows at the sight of the cops. Under the circumstances, Ben wanted to join them, but he doubted he’d evade the police while rushing off with a giant eagle.
Rhianne fluffed out her feathers, indifferent to the mob flowing toward them. She rubbed her beak against one wing as though polishing off the dirt she’d acquired as she’d rescued Ben.
“Better change back,” Ben said to her.
Rhianne cocked her head, beautiful golden red feathers ruffling in the breeze, and fixed a very intelligent, brown-black eye on him.
“Seriously,” Ben said. “They’ll have tranqs.”
Rhianne only gazed at him, then she studied the sky as though contemplating launching herself into it and getting the hell out of here. Ben wouldn’t blame her if she did.
The police surrounded them, guns drawn.
Ben, no stranger to this routine, lifted his hands. “Take it easy. Don’t scare her.” He deliberately stepped in front of Rhianne.
He wasn’t sure what good his gallant gesture would do, because any bullet would go right through him and into her.
The police didn’t move. Ben and Rhianne didn’t move. Ben wondered how long they could keep this up. A few minutes? Half an hour? Maybe a day before somebody decided they were bored and started to shoot?
One of the men, of course, brought up a tranq gun.
“There’s no need for that,” Ben said. “She’s perfectly tame.”
Rhianne bent her head to Ben, her lethal beak open. Ben sensed Rhianne somewhere behind her dark eyes, the beautiful woman he was falling in love with. Mostly what he saw was the wildness of a creature containing itself so it wouldn’t hurt him.
“Change back,” he whispered.
Rhianne scrutinized him a moment as though trying to figure out where she knew him from.
Ben thought he wasn’t getting through, but then the air seemed to glisten. The eagle’s feathers shrank, its arms came down, and the bird vanished, leaving Rhianne standing in its place.
Her glorious hair flowed around her, covering her body from the lurid stares of the watchers and the police.
A black van had joined the police vehicles. Four men in suits emerged from it, two carrying tranq rifles.
“Get ready,” Ben said. “Here they come.”
“Who comes?” Rhianne’s voice was a touch hoarse as though she had trouble transitioning from the eagle’s cries to human speech.
“Shifter Bureau. They’re a big network that regulates Shifters in this country and all over the world.”
“Regulates?” Rhianne repeated.
“You know, oppresses them, keeps them under lock and key so they don’t hurt anybody.”
“I wasn’t going to hurt anybody,” Rhianne said, puzzled.
“Yeah, well, they usually don’t believe that. Plus, you’re not wearing a Collar. Crap. I should have asked Dimitri to send me a fake one on the QT.”
“But I’m not Shifter,” Rhianne pointed out.
“I know that. You know that. But I don’t think Shifter Bureau is gonna buy it. You change into an animal—ergo, you’re a Shifter.”
Rhianne watched the cautiously approaching men in bewilderment. “What do they want?”
Ben shrugged. “To lock you away, interrogate you, try to figure you out. At least these days, they don’t immediately dissect you and see what you’re made of.”
Rhianne gaped at him. “They do that?”
“Used to,” Ben answered hurriedly. “Like I said. These are civilized times. I think you’d better put your clothes on, though, while you have the chance. Once they reach us they might just try to chain you up and take you away without giving you the dignity of getting dressed.”
Rhianne listened in disbelief. “I thought hoch alfar were bad.”
“Yeah, Shifter Bureau could give the hoch alfar lessons about being sons of bitches.”
Rhianne stooped to gather up her clothes and quickly slipped them on.
The Shifter Bureau agents positioned themselves one on each compass point around Rhianne and Ben, tranq rifles at the ready.
“Name?” one of them said.
The agent looked at Ben, not Rhianne. He obviously assumed Ben was human, which to him meant superior to a Shifter, the only one of the pair worth addressing.
“Ben Gardner.” That was the name Ben was using, anyway. “Why don’t you call Danielson, your Shifter liaison?”
“He’s the Texas liaison,” the man, who apparently was the Bureau officer in charge, said. “This is Louisiana.”
“Yeah, but he can vouch
. This is Rhianne. Just ask him.”
Ben was taking a gamble here. Walker Danielson possibly knew nothing at all about Rhianne’s shifting ability. But Jaycee, who was loyalty itself to Kendrick, might have examined her conscience and decided to confide what happened with Rhianne to him. Kendrick wasn’t in Dylan’s pocket, but he could have mentioned it to trusted people, like Walker, who was mated with a Shifter and a military liaison to Shifter Bureau.
Even if Walker didn’t yet know about Rhianne, he’d probably received an alert about an unknown eagle Shifter in New Orleans, and he’d know, via Dylan, that Ben was hosting Rhianne at the haunted house. Dylan worked closely with Walker and wired him in on most of his schemes.
Walker was also smart and could think on his feet. He trusted Ben … more or less. Ben had to risk it.
“Just call him,” he told the Bureau man.
Rhianne folded her arms and gave the four closing in on them an imperious stare worthy of her mother. “What do you want?”
“We need you to come with us, ma’am,” the leader said.
“Come with you where? And why? Who are you?”
The lofty commands of a Tuil Erdannan made the four men hesitate, but only for a moment. They were used to dealing with arrogant Shifters.
“We’re just going to talk to you, ma’am,” the leader said. He likely thought he sounded reasonable. “I’m asking you to please come with us without argument. We’d hate to have to tranq you, but we will. My men are very good shots.”
“I see.” Rhianne continued to regard them with a haughty stare. “Very well. I assume my advocate may accompany me.”
The leader switched his gaze to Ben, surprised at the reference. Ben looked exactly like what he was—an ex-con who’d just been rolling around in the dirt.
“Sure,” the leader said. His sneer told them what kind of “advocate” he considered Ben to be.
Idiot. These guys had no idea who they were messing with.
The Bureau men loaded Ben and Rhianne into a luxurious SUV with plush seats, cool air conditioning, and a rack for bottles of water. Not that the Bureau guys offered any water to their captives. At least they didn’t bring out the cages, Ben thought.
The Last Warrior: Shifters Unbound Book 13 Page 17
