by Zoe Chant
“Well,” Jen said. She was now half a breath from running out the door, jumping onto her bike, and riding as fast as she could to Bird’s house to see Nikos for herself. “I thank you for filling me in on the ‘there’s more,’ and thank you for saving the best for last.”
“Yeah. . . . about that,” Doris said. “We’re still not quite done with the story.”
Bird said, “What exactly do you remember at the end?”
Jen frowned. “Not much. I got bit, then hit by lightning.”
“You got hit by lightning,” Doris said. “What does that usually do?”
“If you survive it, your nervous system gets scrambled. Is that why I feel kind of . . . oh, like I woke up an inch shorter, or taller?”
“You pretty much died,” Bird whispered. “Your heart stopped for a few seconds.”
Doris added quickly, “We’re not saying that the EMTs couldn’t have jump-started you, because that happens. People do survive electrocution. But Nikos was right there, and he did the only thing he knew how to do.”
“Which was to turn you into a shifter,” Bird finished.
“WHAT?”
Jen looked down at herself. Still human. She’d seen herself in the bathroom mirror. Definitely herself—and not even any bruises. She’d expected to see lots of those.
She turned a death stare up to Doris and Bird. “Don’t tell me I was a slug, or something really gross—”
“Phoenix,” Bird said quickly. “You were . . . are . . . I think . . . a phoenix.”
“A phoenix? But . . . that’s awesome,” Jen gasped. “Okay, maybe this is me being twelve years old again, but I always wanted to fly. All my life. It was another of those things I didn’t dare tell Robert because he simply didn’t understand fantasy. He didn’t even understand fiction. His entire life was dedicated to being a crusader for serious causes, which made my fantasies seem really, well, self-indulgent. So . . . I can fly?”
“We don’t know. Nobody does. Turning a human into a shifter is rare,” Doris said. “The guys don’t know if you’ll ever shift again. Or if you’ll be able to control it. Or fly. All the stuff they did instinctively when really little.”
Bird’s eyes rounded. “Nikos poured half of himself into you, which is another reason he’s up at my house. He’s pretty wiped out.”
Doris collected the teacups and carried them to the sink, then turned around. “The thing is, you were unconscious when you shifted back from phoenix to human. At the same time, while he was trying to stand up, he shifted from human to unicorn. Not on purpose, unlike usual. So . . .”
“The dishes can wait,” Jen said, her mind filled with the image of Nikos worn out, maybe worried about her. “Let’s g—”
“—oh?”
As if a giant hand had swatted her, she lurched forward and fell with a splat onto wet grass. She rolled over, dizzy and disoriented, then froze when she saw the most beautiful stallion ever born. A winged stallion.
No. He was a black and silver-touched winged unicorn.
FOURTEEN
NIKOS
After that sudden shift when the sun first appeared, Nikos couldn’t shift back. Nor could he fly.
Joey had to carry Jen after all, as Nikos paced beside him. Doris pulled up, wheeled Jen to her car, then drove off with her.
Nikos had to rely on his mythic state to keep him invisible, as he barely had enough strength left to trot the few miles to Bird’s and Mikhail’s house on the palisade. The journey seemed endless, made worse by the questions and worries he had no answers for.
But at last he reached the house, to discover that at least Petra and Cleo were still with their new friend. Before she left to help Doris, Bird assured him the girls would be sleeping half the day, after being up watching TV, chattering, and eating through the entire night.
At Mikhail’s encouragement, Nikos wandered through the garden, munching fresh clover and then standing in the sun, resting as horse-related creatures do, as he slowly began to recover some strength. He knew that Jen was alive, and that she would be in good hands with Doris and Bird. Right now, they were the best ones to answer the questions she was bound to waken with.
He longed to see her, but had to wait until she was ready, especially as he still couldn’t shift.
As a unicorn, his time sense measured the day by the sun’s movement rather than clocks. The sun had jumped higher on its southern arc when abruptly he sensed Jen’s nearness.
His head came up, and he turned on his hind legs. There, lying in the grass, was Jen.
She scrambled to her feet, ran toward him, then skidded to a stop. “Nikos?” she asked, wide-eyed. “Is that really . . . you?”
He tossed his head, trying to reach her on the mythic plane. But she didn’t seem to hear him. He pawed the ground with a forefoot, and huffed as he watched her gazing at him from tail to horn tip.
“Oh, you’re so beautiful,” she breathed.
He pawed the ground again.
“Is it okay if I ask things?” she asked in that breathless voice. “Like, can I see your wings?”
He stretched them out.
Her eyes widened, reflecting the sunlight, as she exclaimed, “Oh, wow, that’s got to be nearly twenty-five feet wingtip to wingtip. You’re so, so gorgeous!” Then she reddened adorably, and added in haste, “As a man, too. Everything! It’s just . . . I don’t even know what’s real anymore.” She took a step toward him, reaching out.
He sensed her question and closed the distance, lowering his head. She threw her arms around his neck, and hugged him. “You’re so wonderful . . . so amazing,” she kept murmuring into his mane. “I don’t even know where to start.”
I’d like to start with how much I love you, he thought.
She jerked her head away and blinked up at him. “Did I just hear you? How is that possible? I know you didn’t actually talk. But it was your voice, I know it.”
It seems we can talk on the mythic plane as long as we touch, he replied. Her arms were still around his neck. Try it.
But I can’t . . . can you hear me? Her voice was like a shout on the mythic plane.
I can hear you.
She dropped her arms and backed away, looking excitedly up at him. “So telepathy is a thing? Doris and Bird didn’t tell me that!” After a few seconds, she exclaimed, “Oh!” And flung her arms tightly around his neck again.
Mind-speech varies from shifter to shifter, he repeated, and then—very carefully—How did you get here so quickly?
Once again she dropped her arms and backed away, looking startled. Then she covered her face with her hands. “I—I don’t know. So much has happened. So much is new. I still think I’m dreaming. But I said to Bird and Doris, let’s go to your house, because I had this sudden need to see you. Or I began to say it, and here I was.”
He stared back, stunned. Then he had seen it! The oracle stone really had passed through her. Only it was apparently no longer intact. The Transfer Gate that he’d sensed inside the protective barrier of the oracle stone had transferred itself from the stone . . . into Jen.
Was that even possible? But it seemed to have happened.
She was thinking along a parallel track—that veered sharply. He felt the change ripple through her emotions before she lifted her head and looked earnestly into his face. “Sooooo . . . mates. Doris and Bird gave me the basics. And it explains so much, but so little.” She lifted her hands away, turned in a slow circle as she gazed out over the roses nodding in the breeze, then came back. “I thought I was moving way too fast, but they say it was the same for you.”
Faster, he admitted. Though at first I fought it. Not because of you, he added quickly.
And once again, she was right there with him. “I get it. I think. It was your responsibilities—the tour with the girls. Then this oracle stone thing. And that stuff about a hit man being sent after you—what the heck is that all about?”
I’ll tell you everything, he promised. But first it’s importan
t that we understand each other.
“I feel like we’re on the same wavelength,” she said, peering into his eyes. “Though a part of me thinks it’s wishful thinking. We’re so different. Different lives, different everything.”
But I think we are parallel in a lot of ways. I was never married, but I matched up far too young. In retrospect I think I was in love with the idea of being in love—and of course, being young, we were enthusiastic in bed . . . He paused—and there was not even a whiff of jealousy or pouting on her part.
She chuckled. “I remember those days! But what happened?”
It ended very, very badly. Badly enough to make me more cautious, and finally, it was just easier to avoid getting into relationships altogether.
She turned an anxious look at him. “I hope when you say badly . . .”
No lives were lost, he said quickly, sensing her ready to grieve on his behalf—she knew plenty about grief. And her innate generosity was ready to share it with him. He went on, We were both young, and she had expectations that I hadn’t realized. She ended up blaming me, and finally she left me.
“If you thought it was the real deal, no wonder you were cautious. I would have been, too,” she said. “But with you it’s been different from Day One. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and wanting to know what you’d say, or think, or just look like, and, well, when Doris and Bird told me how much of yourself you surrendered to save me, suddenly I just had to know how you were, and here we are.”
She gave him a dubious look. “I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t know what to call it except a magic spell. Are there, like, magic words to control it? Like abracadabra, only real? I don’t want to say the wrong thing, and turn into a cactus, or find myself on the moon or something.” She waited—then once again lunged at him, hugging his head and neck as she listened for his answer.
I think if you just touch me, we have enough connection for the purpose of communication, he said, shaping the words carefully so he would not overwhelm her with everything he was feeling and thinking. Not that I mind the hugs.
“You’re snickering,” she accused, cocking an eye at him. “I can feel it.” Then she slid a hand up his neck to his forehead below his horn. “But go right ahead and laugh.”
If I’m laughing it’s because I am so happy. You could be angry with me, or panicking, both of which I would completely understand.
Maybe I’m a little in shock. This time she shaped the words in her mind. This mental talk is very weird. And what if I’m thinking about . . . stuff nobody really wants to share? I have to stop touching you, right?
That will work for now. But you’ll get used to this method of speech. Sharing thoughts and not sharing them is like any other conscious action. As for magic words, you can use the word ‘magic’ if you like, or ‘energy.’ In my training, I learned the word ‘qi.’
Tchee?
That’s close enough. What I think happened is that the Transfer Gate in the oracle stone is now a part of you. We’d thought there was only one in the world.
“Really? And I managed to swallow the second one?”
Yes.
“Okay, so now I see why Long Cang and his minions are after it,” Jen said. “If there’s supposed to be only one. But if a thing like that is inside me . . . I think . . . I might have to sit down. And not blip anywhere funky,” she added under her breath.
She walked carefully, hands held away from her sides, as if she walked on eggs. She headed toward a stone bench, and plopped down on it with a sigh of relief. Nikos trotted after her.
Voices reached them from the house, and Bird and Doris appeared together, both pale and anxious. “There you are! Thank goodness!” Bird said, dropping into one of the terrace chairs and fanning herself with her hand.
Doris crossed the terrace. “You suddenly winked out. Like TVs in the old days. We thought . . . well, never mind what we thought. Then Bird had the idea you might somehow end up with Nikos.”
Jen wiped her hands across her eyes. “Sorry. Sorry! I think I left my brains back in my kitchen. I’m so sorry I scared you—”
“Okay. But how did you do it?” Doris asked.
“I don’t know! Nikos thinks the transfer thingie in the oracle stone got into me. I’d like to get it out before that gang of nogoodniks starts coming after me.”
The worry that had been lurking beneath the surface of Nikos’s thoughts flared up, but he dared not reach for either Mikhail or Joey on the mythic plane. He could trust the mate bond to keep his and Jen’s communication just between them, but he wasn’t skilled the way Joey was in shutting everyone out except one person when communicating at a distance.
Once again he tried to shift, usually an internal impulse no different than getting up from a chair to cross a room. But nothing happened, other than a deep throb of pain. He was still physically depleted to a dangerous degree.
Mikhail emerged from the kitchen and joined them. His expression tightened to reflect the alarm Nikos was feeling as Bird filled him in on what had happened.
Jen turned an anxious face to him. “I can get rid of it, can’t I?”
“I don’t know,” Mikhail said slowly. “I don’t know if it will stay in you, though logically, what can enter can also leave.”
“Can I tell it to go away?”
Mikhail held out his hands in a mild shrug. “As Nikos told you, this is very new for us all. And as for Long Cang chasing after you, you must remember the last time he saw you, he left you for dead after Keraunos bit you. Cang and his people saw what the rest of us saw, how the oracle stone hesitated once it emerged into this dimension. Then it dropped to the ground to return to its ward in the collapsed cavern. They don’t know—none of us did—that it’s now just an empty shell. My suggestion is that you remain here, inside my wards, for now. If you decide to experiment, stay within range of the property. None of Cang’s watchers can get in.”
Jen’s eyes widened, then narrowed in that fearless look of interest that Nikos loved about her. “Experiment! I didn’t think of that. But it really could be useful, right? As long as I don’t suddenly start bopping around like a ping pong ball.”
Nikos reached for Mikhail on the mythic plane, a wordless touch that Mikhail understood immediately. He leaped down the shallow brick steps into the garden, and came to Nikos, who shared the thought: Jen still can’t hear me without physical contact.
At the same time, Jen was explaining her sudden transfer to Doris and Bird. “ . . . and before I could finish the sentence, I was here.” She mimed falling down. “Splat. Right on the grass in front of Nikos.”
“It sounds like you focused on him,” Doris said.
Mikhail said, “Can you reproduce the transfer? Try crossing this terrace to the other side.” He moved his hand from one side to the other.
“Okay,” Jen said. “As long as I don’t leave behind my spleen or a toe or something if I do it wrong, I’m game.” She blinked, frowned at the stone bench on the other side of the terrace . . .
Nothing.
She leaned forward, eyes narrowed.
Nothing.
She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists, but nothing happened.
“Maybe that was it?” she said, turning toward Nikos. “One shot was all I got? Or maybe I only get to reach you.” And he heard her clearly on the mythic plane, I can live with that.
He wasn’t certain if she’d intended that, or if her skills were still ahead of her awareness of them. He sent back the thought, So can I, but she didn’t react. And so he regretfully closed the mental door against her, until she had more control over that form of communication. He was not going to betray the growing trust between them by inadvertently trespassing on her privacy.
Jen plopped down onto one of the stone benches. “I guess I’m a little disappointed. Weird, isn’t it? I wake up to a whole new world, but I want to whine about the things I can’t do.”
“Whine away,” Doris said. “Though that’s not really whining.
I think if it’d happened to me, I’d still be in my room climbing the walls.”
Bird said, “It’s past noon. Who’s ready for a late lunch? I have lots of leftovers from yesterday, and can warm them up in a jiffy—”
“Me, me, me!” Cleo appeared at the head of the pathway, bouncing happily. “We’re back! We took the bus again! It was so fun! I love the bus, so full of interesting people!”
“Did you enjoy your party?” Bird asked.
“Yes!” Cleo began chattering about the films the hostess had picked for the overnight, and the delicious foods they’d eaten—tacos! churros! nachos!—as Petra sidestepped and came toward Nikos. “Kyrios,” she asked in Greek. “Why are you in shifter form?”
He tossed his head in a beckoning motion, inviting her to touch his forehead—she, too, was still tentative at communication on the mythic plane, though she knew how to reach him in an emergency. As Cleo followed Bird and Doris into the house, talking a mile a minute, Nikos filled Petra in on all that had happened.
At the end, she turned her serious, wondering gaze toward Jen, who was talking to Mikhail. Nikos caught words like oracle stone and ward. Jen was getting a lifetime of shifter education in a morning. Pride surged through him, intensifying his love. Trust Jen to go right along with everything that had happened. Oh, they had so much still to share!
But Petra was speaking. “What can we do?”
Help her out, Nikos responded. We still don’t know if she’ll be able to shift. But if she does, she’ll need guidance at first. I can’t think of anyone better than the two of you.
Petra’s dark eyes sparkled with pleasure, then dimmed. “I am very, very glad she is your mate. Though I still don’t quite understand about mates. Maybe because I was alone so much before I came to Vasilikos Alogo, and I did not understand everything Bryony told me about mates. But . . . will Ms. Jen come live with us?”
Petra looked hopeful. Nikos hid the sharp pang within him, and responded as soothingly as possible, Things have changed so fast that questions like that have to wait a little longer. How about getting to know her? Not as a martial arts instructor, but as a new shifter?
