by Chant, Zoe
He kissed her, and his hardness pressed against her in a way that drove her wild all over again. She lifted herself to him, and he thrust into her with a strength and control that made her gasp. They moved together like one body, seeking not only pleasure but a communion of hearts. And then harder, wilder, fiercer, until they came together in a burst of ecstasy like love made into white-hot light.
“I always thought ‘I felt fireworks’ was just a saying,” Dali murmured at the end.
Merlin kissed her, his mouth hot and sweet and loving. “I felt them too.”
CHAPTER 14
A crash from the living room sent Merlin rocketing out of bed, adrenaline surging through his veins. Dali was also scrambling to her feet. She glanced in dismay at her prosthetic hand, which she’d taken off before they’d gone to sleep and placed on a table, then grabbed an elephant-shaped bronze bookend with her right hand.
Merlin put his finger to his lips and gestured to her to stay where she was. He took a split second to decide whether he wanted to confront the intruder with a dinosaur or with a gun.
Me me me, said his raptor, pushing to take control. I’m much more intimidating!
But it was another consideration that made the decision. Merlin had a lot of faith in Carter’s alarm system. The fact that it hadn’t gone off suggested that whoever had gotten in was also a technical genius... or had used magic. If they were a tech genius, they probably had a better gun, but he bet they didn’t have a velociraptor. If they’d used magic—say, if they were a wizard-scientist—they could probably make his gun melt or turn to stone or something, but a raptor would be harder to deal with.
Just slightly bigger than man-size, Merlin told his raptor. So we can fit through the door.
As usual, his raptor had different ideas. Just as Merlin triggered the shift, it gleefully exclaimed, Tiny! We’ll sneak up on our enemy and chomp his ankle before he even sees us!
Merlin was abruptly much closer to the floor. In fact, his head was now level with Dali’s ankle.
Merlin and his raptor fought an inner battle, with Merlin shoving his size upward and the raptor stubbornly pushing it down. He shot up to horse height, then down to French poodle, then down to mouse, and finally achieved his original goal of slightly bigger than man-height.
He glanced back at Dali. She was pressing her hand to her mouth to suppress any audible laughter, but he could see it dancing in her eyes.
There was another crash from the living room, this time closer to the bedroom, followed by a strange buzzing sound. That sobered them both up in a hurry.
Merlin threw open the door and darted into the living room, betting on his speed and the intruder’s shock at being attacked by a dinosaur to win the fight.
The intruder wasn’t human.
Merlin skidded to a stop. An animal the size of a Saint Bernard was bumbling around his living room, bumping into furniture. It had very fluffy fur—bright blue fluffy fur—and a pair of dragonfly wings which were far too small for it to fly with, though they were beating rapidly enough to produce a buzzing sound.
A bugbear, Merlin thought. He’d never seen one, but he’d heard about them. What in the world was it doing in his living room?
The bugbear had its head stuck in one of the flying kitten traps. As he watched, incredulous, it walked straight into a small table and bowled it over. It sat down in a plaintive attitude and pawed at the trap. Its oversized paw failed to get the trap off, but succeeded in knocking a pillow off the sofa.
I need to be human to get the trap off, Merlin told his raptor. That creature is—
A friend! His raptor was bouncing up and down. Yes, yes, set it free and then we’ll play!
Merlin returned to his human form with no trouble at all.
“It’s safe, Dali,” he called. “It’s just a bugbear!”
He approached the bugbear slowly and cautiously, talking soothingly. “It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll just get that trap off your head, and then you can be on your way.”
The bugbear swung its head toward him, knocking over a chair. But it didn’t make any angry or fearful moves. Merlin unsnapped the catch, then lifted the kitten trap off the bugbear’s head. Like its body, its head was something like a bear’s and something like a dog’s. It had huge, mournful-looking brown eyes, like a basset hound’s.
The bugbear gazed up at Merlin with what he could swear was gratitude, then reared up on its hind legs. As Merlin started to jump back, the bugbear’s immense paws landed on his shoulders. They both went over backward, knocking over another table. The next thing Merlin knew, he was lying on his back on the carpet with the bugbear licking his face.
The sound of Dali’s laughter rose up. He looked up at her wryly. “Are you going to stand there and laugh at me, or are you—yecch!” The bugbear chose that moment to lick Merlin on the lips. Shielding his mouth with his hand, he said, “Or are you going to help me up?”
Still laughing, Dali extended a hand. Merlin took it and hauled himself into a sitting position. The bugbear gazed up at him mournfully, climbed into his lap, then attempted to climb further up.
That was when the penny dropped.
“Did you come here for me?” Merlin asked.
The bugbear made another determined attempt to climb on to Merlin’s shoulder. When that failed, it snuffled at his hair, shoved its cold nose into his neck, stuck its tongue in his ear, and finally gave a huge sigh and rested its head on Merlin’s shoulder.
Merlin was enchanted. He stroked the bugbear’s fluffy blue fur and scratched behind its bear-like ears. The bugbear flopped over on its back on the floor, with all four legs splayed out like a dead bug. Merlin rubbed its—his—furry belly. The bugbear’s stumpy tail wagged vigorously as he gave little snuffling grunts, like a bear eating a jar of honey.
“He’s yours, all right,” Dali said. “No regrets over not having something tiny and adorable to sit on your shoulder?”
“Why would I? He’s plenty adorable, and he tries to sit on my shoulder. Not his fault he’s too big!”
The bugbear looked up at Merlin with his perpetually sad eyes and licked his hand.
“What a good bugbear,” Merlin said, giving his ears a tug. “Best bugbear! Let me give you a name... A name to strike fear into the hearts of your enemies!”
The bugbear rolled over, got up, and began shambling around the room. His tiny dragonfly wings fluttered delicately as he nosed at everything. A stack of books on a chair fell down with a crash.
“Yes,” Dali said dryly. “You give him a name fit for that very dignified and terrifying creature.”
Merlin laughed. His heart was so filled with joy, he felt like it might burst. Every book he’d ever read as a kid about a boy and his dog or a boy and his bear or even a boy and his horse came rushing back to him. Gentle Ben, Big Red, The Black Stallion.
Now he was a man and his bugbear. It wasn’t exactly what he’d imagined.
It was even better.
“Blue?”
The bugbear’s wings buzzed rapidly as he lifted his head. He trotted to Merlin and sat down at his feet, looking up expectantly with his big mournful eyes.
Merlin stroked his furry head. “Your name is Blue.”
Blue seemed satisfied with this. He turned away from Merlin and shoved his nose between Dali’s knees.
She gave him a pat on the head. He licked her hand. To Blue, she said, “Hello, cutie.” To Merlin, she said, “Congratulations, you caught a magical pet. I thought you said they were all little, though.”
Merlin couldn’t stop grinning as he gazed down at Blue. “The ones I saw were. But I didn’t see all of them. You couldn’t see into the cages, so we were just unlocking them as fast as we could. Then we got ambushed and they all disappeared, including the ones that were still in their cages at the time.”
To Blue, he said, “Like you!” To Dali, he said, “Actually, Ransom did say I should build bigger traps. But I thought he was just messing with me. I
should apologize.” To Blue, he said, “When I bring you in to the office so you can meet the team!” To Dali, he said, “We have to go in this morning anyway so I can report to Roland.”
Dali gave Blue a doubtful glance. “Merlin, he’s huge. How are you going to get him to the office without everyone seeing him? Would he even fit into your car?”
“He’ll fit,” Merlin assured her. “He’s not as big as he looks, he’s just furry. If he was wetted down, he’d only be about the size of a German shepherd.”
His raptor broke in impatiently. I want to play with him! Now, now, now!
“But first, I should make sure Blue’s used to my raptor.”
Dali punched his shoulder. “You mean you want to roll around on the floor with him as a velociraptor. Admit it.”
“I admit it,” Merlin said, grinning.
Before he could shift, a buzzing filled the room. It was similar to the buzz of Blue’s wings, but came from above. Cloud swooped down and landed on Dali’s shoulder. Blue looked up at her hopefully, wagging his stub of a tail and buzzing his wings, which were only slightly larger than hers. The gray kitten folded her wings, arched her back, and hissed at the bugbear.
“Stop that, Cloud,” said Dali. “Hey, how did she get in here? Did you leave a window open, Merlin?”
Merlin shook his head. “I think magical creatures can get in anywhere they want. Last year we kept getting one in our office, no matter what sort of security system Carter set up. When we found them in the lab, their cages weren’t just locked, they were locked with shiftsilver. It’s a kind of metal that stops magical shifters from changing form or doing magic. And I guess it stops magical animals from escaping. Or getting in, probably. Though I don’t know why anyone would want to keep them out.”
“Maybe they’re not all as harmless as yours.”
Merlin shrugged. “Mom always said that if you leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone. Normally they’re very shy, so you rarely encounter them. I never saw one in my life till we rescued the ones at the lab.”
Cloud launched off Dali’s shoulder, swooped low, and swatted Blue across the nose.
“Hey!” Dali exclaimed. “That’s not nice!”
Cloud flew away with Blue galumphing after her. From his expression, he’d taken that as an invitation to play.
Now! Merlin’s raptor demanded.
Merlin didn’t try to control his size, but simply shifted. He was unsurprised to find himself the exact size of a bugbear.
Everyone thinks my size control is terrible, Merlin thought. But my raptor has perfect control of his size. It’s my control of him that’s terrible.
But that gloomy thought quickly vanished as Blue leaped at him. Merlin and Blue went rolling over and over on the floor together as Cloud darted in and out, swatting them, and Dali cracked up watching them.
Too bad she can’t shift, his raptor remarked.
Merlin felt his face crack into a fanged grin. So what?
He pounced on Dali, careful not to use his claws. She wrestled back, then was buried under fur as Blue leaped on top of them both. They rolled around on the carpet, grappling and laughing, while Cloud kept up her guerilla-style aerial attacks.
They broke apart when Dali’s phone rang. She extricated herself from the pile on the floor to answer it. “Hello?”
Tirzah’s panicky voice came over loud and clear, even though she wasn’t on speakerphone. “I can’t find Cloud! I went in this morning and—”
“It’s fine, Tirzah. Cloud’s with me. She showed up this morning...” Dali pointed to Blue and made a questioning expression. Merlin shook his head. He wanted to surprise everyone with his wonderful pet. “Anyway, I’ll see you soon. We’re about to come to the office.”
Merlin shifted back to human form, after a brief bobble in which he became a velociraptor the size of a turkey.
Dali hung up. She glanced at Blue, who had flopped down on the sofa. It wasn’t quite wide enough for him, and he was sliding off it in slow motion. “Are you sure you want to bring him to the office? Even if he fits in the car, you still need to get him out of the house. Wouldn’t it be safer to leave him here?”
Merlin was dying to show off Blue to his team. But when he tried to think of a better reason, one immediately came to mind. “We’re going to the circus after the office, and we can’t have Blue and Cloud trailing after us there. They’ll be a huge distraction. And now that we know they can follow us, we probably shouldn’t leave them alone because they might get bored or lonely. But at the office, they’ll have people to keep them company.”
“Good idea. I don’t want Cloud flying around looking for me.” Dali whistled, and Cloud flew down and landed on her shoulder. “Do Pete and Tirzah’s flying kittens stay put because they’re keeping each other company?”
“Probably, but they also bring them to the office a lot. They keep them out of the tech room because Carter has a lot of fragile, expensive stuff in there. But they’ve been trained to become invisible to everyone who doesn’t already know about them—”
“What?”
Merlin nodded. “The west coast office of Protection, Inc. figured it out. Apparently all magical animals can do it. But it takes a month or so to teach them, like any other kind of training.”
Dali scritched Cloud behind the ears. “Just wait till I train you and take you out in public. Any necklace-stealing pigeons will get the surprise of a lifetime!”
Merlin chuckled. “Shower together first?”
“Absolutely.”
They shut the bathroom door firmly against any rampaging winged pets, and Merlin removed the bandage on his head.
Dali let out a startled breath. “You told me, but it’s another thing to actually see it.”
He glanced in the mirror. The cuts on his face and head were no more than pink lines, as if they had been made a week ago rather than the day before. His bruises were visible but had faded from black to a faint purple.
“If I’d been a shifter during the bombing...” Dali began, then swallowed. “Do I want to know?”
“Yes, I think so.” When she gestured for him to go on, he said, “You’d have recovered faster. But that’s all. Serious injuries still leave scars. And even shifters can’t re-grow lost limbs. No, I’m wrong. There’s one way they can. A lizard shifter who loses their tail can re-grow that. In their lizard form, I mean.”
Dali’s wistful expression vanished as she burst out laughing. “I would hope in their lizard form!”
“Oh, I don’t know. Imagine what kind of trapeze acts you could do with a prehensile tail.”
She gave his butt a playful smack. “I’m glad you don’t have a tail.”
They got in the shower together. Merlin could hardly believe his luck as he helped Dali shampoo her hair and soap her back. This strong, honest, courageous, absolutely gorgeous, incredibly sexy woman was dallying with him.
The streaming water turned her hair to liquid silk. It reminded him of the night before, when it had come undone and flowed over her back. Stroking it, he asked, “Do you ever wear it down?”
“Sometimes. Maybe I will today. You can roll the roof down and I’ll let the wind blow it around and we can both pretend we’re in a Bruce Springsteen song.”
He could have replied, but he was too busy kissing her. He could never get enough of her—the soft heat of her lips, the bounty of her breasts, the elegance of her neck, the curve of her belly, the smoothness of her unmarked skin, the strength and courage marked out in her scars. It was all her, just as the food she’d cooked for him had been her.
He lifted her up, because she’d enjoyed that the night before. She let out a delighted gasp, then said, “You’re not going to slip and break both our necks, are you?”
“Never,” Merlin promised. “I’m an acrobat, remember? I can walk a tightrope. And I can stand on a shower floor.”
He’d have put her down if she still seemed nervous, but all tension left her body at his words. Her trust in him lit a
fire in his body and heart. She bent forward to kiss him, and her hair made a silken curtain around them. He shifted his weight, still holding her up, and slid inside her. The fire within him blazed up, higher and hotter, so intense that it would have been unbearable if it hadn’t been so perfect and ecstatic and right. Afterward, they clung to each other, and let the water wash them clean and new.
While Dali put on her hand, Merlin selected his T-shirt for the day. In honor of Blue, he chose a blue one with an image of a T-rex reading a book and the caption THESAURUS REX.
“Do you own any clothing without dinosaur jokes?” Dali inquired.
Merlin grinned. “Everything that’s more than six months old.”
“Mind if I borrow some? The clothes I wore yesterday are all covered in sweat and blood and sawdust.”
“My clothes are your clothes,” Merlin said immediately, opening his closet and drawers. “I don’t know what you can do for pants, though.”
Dali pulled out a pair of his blue jeans and held them up. “They’ll work. You’re taller, but I’m broader in the hips and that’ll take up the slack.”
She wriggled into his jeans, belted them, and rolled up the bottoms. Then, after poking through his non-dinosaur shirts, she selected a plain black one that hung down to her hips like a tunic. “Well? Do I look all right, or is it Walk of Shame time?”
Seeing Dali wearing his clothes was incredibly sexy and almost painfully intimate; he’d been lonely for so long that her presence made him feel raw and vulnerable, like he’d immersed frostbitten hands in warm water. But when he thought of saying so, he was seized by the conviction that he’d be tempting fate, and she’d somehow be taken from him.
He put on a bright smile and said, “More like Walk of Sexiness. Help yourself to my wardrobe any time.”
In the living room, Cloud was perched on the back of the sofa and hissing at Blue, who had slid almost entirely off the sofa except for his left rear leg. He looked vaguely perplexed by this situation.
“How are you getting him into the car?” Dali asked. “He’s awfully conspicuous.”
