Silver Unicorn (Silver Shifters Book 3)

by Zoe Chant

  Meet me up at the aerie? he asked. Do you remember where it is?

  Jen pointed toward the tallest of the towers. Nikos tossed his head, mane flying, then leaped into the sky.

  Jen jogged up about four levels of marble stairs, until she reached a wing that overlooked both the harbor below, and the mountain behind. There were broad balconies off all the arched doors and windows—to give flying shifters easy access, she realized.

  Nikos trotted through one of these archways, and met her in a broad hall with a mosaic floor depicting ocean waves. Ancient murals had been painted down one wall in a style that reminded Jen of Minoan art.

  My room is through there, Nikos said, tossing his head again. My study beyond it. The library is directly below. Over there are the rest of the rooms. Pick anywhere you like.

  “What I really want,” she said, “is for us to be human at the same time.”

  He came toward her, lowering his head, and whuffed gently against her shoulder. She leaned her cheek against his head, reached up and ran her hands through his mane. I, too, he said. But until then, I want you to be comfortable.

  “Anywhere is fine,” she said, closing her eyes. Suddenly she was very tired—then she remembered that back in California, it was late at night.

  Take the room next to mine? he asked. You are welcome to any of my clothes, until we can bring yours.

  “You’re very gallant,” she whispered into his neck. “I wish. . . I want . . .”

  Wordlessly, she felt the hum of his unicorn. “Your unicorn talks to you,” she murmured. “I can hear him. He’s you and not you. I wish my phoenix would talk to me.”

  He is my unicorn self, came Nikos’s warm thought, and then came that distinct, deeper voice, Nikos and not-Nikos, She will rise when she is ready. She is still new.

  With the voice came a sense of reassurance. Jen sighed, and let him go.

  He stepped back. Sleep, came his thought. And then he flew off, until he was a speck against the bright Mediterranean sun.

  The room he’d pointed out was huge, with a medieval wardrobe at one side, and Renaissance trunks at the other. The bed was enormous, complete with a canopy, but when she poked it, she discovered a modern mattress and clean fine-weave cotton sheets. Through an adjacent door, she saw an up-to-date bathroom with a tile shower. Fresh towels in the cupboard, and drawers full of brand-new toiletries.

  Soon, clean and refreshed, she slid under the sheets, and slept.

  SEVENTEEN

  NIKOS

  Our mate is home, his unicorn trumpeted. Everything is complete.

  Everything is NOT complete, Nikos shot back. I’m still you when I could be in that bed with her right now, making things complete my way!

  His unicorn remained perfectly serene. Our mate still has half of us, as is right and true. Her phoenix will rise, and we will regain our ability to shift. You will see.

  In the meantime, I can’t be at Jen’s side all the time. I know as soon as Medusa finds out about her—and she will—she’ll be slithering around trying to get at Jen somewhere I can’t be. I hate that.

  We shall be vigilant, the unicorn responded, still maddeningly serene.

  Nikos knew very well that at least half of his ire was due to frustration. He was impatient to close the deal, make Jen his, and surrender himself to her. Make it real.

  But the unicorn wasn’t wrong. And one way to help Jen understand what the stakes were was to make sure his most trusted people were up to speed.

  He figured they’d be done with their meal by now. He flew down to the training field, and trotted down the corridor to the great hall. As he went, he tried to see the flowering shrubs in their pots, the mosaics, the murals as Jen would see them. She’d been sincere in her admiration, but would she like it here enough to regard it as home? He had not forgotten what she’d said about never having a home. That austere little shoebox of a house had been imposed on her as a home by her crusader husband. Nikos hated the thought of imposing his own home on her. He knew she liked beautiful things, as did he, but was it enough for her to choose it?

  He entered the hall. The hetairoi stopped eating, and turned his way. Because he could not use speech, the quicker among them closed their eyes, listening on the mythic plane. Those who still had trouble accessing it took hands with the more experienced.

  Nikos said, My mate is asleep. Shifting back to her phoenix will probably waken her. I will have more to say when I regain human form. Until then: watch Medusa’s tourists, but don’t interact.

  Nobody disagreed. They all knew that Medusa was amusing herself currently by playing a long game. On the surface, there was the shifter alliance. That yacht was full of shifters, brought to the island either to consult at the clinic, or to enjoy the town, the beach, and the mountains, in whatever form they chose. But everyone knew there were spies among them.

  Even sending Keraunos after him was part of the game. Medusa didn’t want Nikos dead. Yet. She’d wanted him back, and on the defensive. Ready to “negotiate”—which to her, meant accepting her terms.

  Everyone departed to their day’s activities. Cleo and Petra, no longer students but now fully accepted members of the team, went off to their assigned duties. Nikos watched them go, reflecting that this was the last grand tour, at least for some years yet. He’d taken all the hetairoi to visit a destination they chose, single and in pairs, over the years. Two had been lucky enough to find their mates on their tours. One had stayed, and one had left.

  As Nikos exited the hall, he reflected that Joey had been around for both those instances. He remembered thinking after he received Joey’s call that maybe Petra or even Cleo would find her mate on their brief visit in California—he had bet on Petra, thinking Cleo still too young emotionally.

  Surprise.

  Laughing inside, he took off for another cruise.

  The hours passed quickly.

  He met the hetairoi back in the same hall just before sunset.

  “Medusa sat out all day on the deck of that oversized boat, like the Queen of the Nile,” Bryony stated in disgust. “Wearing mirror shades.”

  “Yesterday she was buying clothes,” Iliana the nue said, a little of her tiger face momentarily flashing snarling teeth. “As if she can’t buy more fashionable stuff in Athens, or even Paris.”

  “She’s playing with us, boss,” Dru the antlered peryton said, looking somber.

  In the western sea, the last bit of the sun vanished. Abruptly Nikos shifted back to human. He felt Jen waken, startled, up in the aerie, then curl up to finish her sleep.

  He turned to his hetairoi, who formed a half-circle around him. “Let the gorgon play. As long as she’s not attacking anyone, we’ll go on with our lives, ” he said. “Beginning with dinner now.”

  Enticing smells wafted out, and they stampeded into the hall to eat. Nikos joined them, and caught up on everyone’s personal news.

  At the end of the meal, he addressed them as a group. “I want to remind you all that nothing is to be said, or even thought, about Transfer Gates. As far as you all know, the four of us took a private plane back, landed elsewhere, and flew ourselves to the island.”

  Cleo said earnestly, “Which we actually do!”

  “That’s correct.” Nikos shot her an encouraging smile—he knew she was trying with all her might to be an adult member of the hetairoi. He flicked a hand toward his forehead. “Those shifters Medusa brought for care are in genuine need, whatever the rest of her tourists are up to. I’ll be spending some time at the infirmary.”

  “So we continue to keep our distance, but watch them, boss?” Mateo asked, powerful arms crossed.

  “Until they try something, yes.”

  A clangor of bells from the church down in the harbor echoed up the mountain. Everyone had grown up hearing those bells, so they’d adapted their watch changes to them. The day watch dispersed to their evening, and the night watch shifted one by one to go on duty.

  Calix, the winged bull, leaped out over
the low wall outside the hall and arrowed down the mountain, wings spread. Ava, the eagle shifter, soared up to watch from above as she drifted on the air currents. Orelle the boibhre shifted to her cormorant form to fly along the coast. And finally, Rastus the cockatrice shot down like a night-colored comet toward the sea, where he would circle over the harbor, with Medusa’s yacht at the center.

  Nikos, stuck in human form, headed for the archway and began to jog down the narrow switchbacks carved into the side of the mountain by untold generations of donkey and goat hooves as well as human feet. This jog was something he and the hetairoi did once a week as part of their training. A night run would feel good.

  Each level brought him closer to the lights of the harbor, casting their warm glow over the jumble of tile roofs and archways with their climbing roses and bougainvillea. The smell of citrus was everywhere, with a homey undertone of the fresh-pressed olive oil that everyone cooked with or ate cold. How he loved his home!

  Would Jen?

  Before he jogged the last lap into the harbor, he paused to locate her. She’d woken, and was flying with Petra and Iliana the nue, the tiger-faced nightbird shifter, high over the sloping bowl of the valley that formed the ancient caldera of the island’s great volcano. He sensed Jen marveling over the fact that the two mountains she’d thought she’d seen were what remained of a single mountain, one mighty slope with the castle along it, and the opposite one, which formed the north end of the island, far too steep for habitations. The only living things besides the wind-gnarled olive trees perched along the cracks in crags, and the shrubs and wildflowers in season, were the little goats leaping from rock to rock.

  Jen was having fun. His own heart lifted at her delight in flying. She became aware of him, and shared her delight in the gleaming jewels of the villages along the coast, and the necklace of starry diamonds above them in the sky.

  Her thought met his, golden with warmth, There’s so much light pollution above Southern California that it’s only when you get away that you appreciate just how beautiful the sky is at night!

  Enjoy your flight, he sent back.

  Nikos jogged the rest of the way down, turning toward one of the labyrinth of twisted paths and alleys that formed the town. Ancient Greek harbor towns had all been built in deliberately confusing twists and turns to discourage pirates, back in the bad old days. There wasn’t a single straight or flat street on the entire island.

  He leaped down tiled steps, and turned to a house built into the rock, with a lutier’s sign swinging over a turn in the path. He knocked twice, waited, then knocked twice again, a signal that brought someone immediately to open the door.

  “Kyrios! You’re back,” a stout girl with long braids exclaimed. “Welcome! Granny’s up in the workroom. Do you want coffee and fruit?”

  “No, no, I just ate. I’ll join her.”

  Grandmother Demi repaired musical instruments of all kinds, but was known for rebuilding ancient violins. She was Nikos’s human agent in the harbor—nothing went on without her knowing almost as soon as it happened. Being a human, she had no powers, but what she did have was wisdom and experience. Also, a large family. She, her three sisters, their daughters, and their granddaughters worked everywhere from the dock to the fancy hotel perched on a low promontory overlooking the far end of the harbor. Grandmother Demi’s family network was faster than the phone lines when it came to news.

  Nikos climbed up the narrow stairs to Grandmother Demi’s workroom, where she sat at her workbench, bent over the fragile wood of a viola. Nikos watched hair-thin peels of wood curl as she said, “You’re back. Good. We think most of those tourists off that gorgon’s yacht are genuine, but not all of them.”

  “We suspected as much.”

  “They’ve been oiling up the locals, but we know their type. Human, shifter, doesn’t matter, that crowd of hers is all rotten with too much money and no morals.” Grandmother Demi made a spitting motion to one side, still working smoothly on the viola. “As of today, a few of them started working on Athena over at the inn. Also Georg at his taverna and Ionas’s hotel on the water. They’re offering them huge sums to sell.”

  “So whatever she’s up to is beginning,” he said.

  “Maybe,” Grandmother Demi responded. “Like I said, they’ve been throwing money around ever since they pulled in. Treating locals to meals, buying rounds. Shopping. Chatting everyone up.”

  “I’m told Medusa has only left the yacht once.”

  “Yesterday. Buying spree, no sign of snake-hair, sunglasses on. Making nice-nice. As if we’ve forgotten the trouble she caused last time she was here.”

  Nikos said, “She sent a hit man to chase me back. Now that I’m here, I expect she’ll soon make whatever move she’s planning.”

  “An assassin? This I did not know.”

  “Showed up in California. He’s a raiju, a lightning wolf. Notorious in the east. Blond, will probably be bundled up against the sun.”

  Grandmother Demi shot him an assessing look from gleaming olive-dark eyes, without missing a stroke. “You will not be surprised to hear that Medusa treats the help like they are somewhere between robots and slaves. I think a judicious bribe here and there, plus an invitation for an extended vacation on one of the other islands, might be arranged. Then I can put my people in to take their place.”

  “That might be dangerous, if she has any suspicion,” Nikos said. “I don’t like putting anyone in Medusa’s power who can’t fly or swim away.”

  “Pah!” Grandmother Demi waved her tool in dismissal. “She only hires humans, because she thinks they are stupid. She’d never bother to suspect humans.”

  “If you think it will work,” he said, “talk to Flavia at the bank. She’ll give you whatever you need, and she’ll keep it discreet.”

  “Flavia. Yes. That one, she can be trusted.”

  “Thank you,” Nikos said, and rose to go.

  Grandmother Demi shot him another look, stopping him mid-turn. “What happened this time?”

  He laughed. “This time?”

  She retorted, “You have not aged a day since I first met you as a girl, and my grandmother whispered the same about you to me before she died. Three sets of youngsters I’ve seen you adopt and train, over these many years. You take them all around the world, give them a name, a home, a skill. Everything a father gives a child. But you never had one of your own. Tonight, you come in here, and though you look the same as you ever did, I can feel a difference. Like your heart has come alive.”

  As a rule he never discussed his personal life—what little of one he’d had over the years since his wild youth. But trust went two ways. “I found my mate,” he said.

  Though she was human, Grandmother Demi knew all about shifters—everyone on the island did. She looked up at last, and set aside her tools. “I am very happy to hear that,” she said slowly, her chin coming down an inch in a way so full of dignity it was like a formal bow. “Is she one of us, or one of you?”

  “Both, as it happens.”

  “Then there is a story!”

  “Yes. She can tell you when you meet her.”

  Grandmother Demi smiled, and picked up her tool again. “When will that be?”

  “I hope after we’re rid of Medusa and whatever trouble she’s bringing. By night Jen is a phoenix—she’s very new to shifting. Oh, and by day I’m my other self, for now.”

  “Night and day, the two of you? That is part of the story, I take it?” Grandmother Demi asked. “Ah. You gave her half of yourself?”

  “I did.” He went to the door. “Chairete, Grandmother.”

  “Chairete, Kyrios.” When she said the age-old blessing, she meant it.

  He let himself out rather than disturb the rest of the family, and began the slow jog up the steep mountain.

  He’d reached the second turn when his mind lit up with the golden warmth of Jen’s focus. A few seconds later, there she was, banking gracefully as she swept a slow circle overhead.


  Everything is so beautiful, she said happily.

  “No more beautiful than you,” he responded as she curved around, then tried to hover, flapping her wings. “Does that sound smarmy?” he added, glancing over his shoulder, half-laughing and half-horrified. “It sounded smarmy when I said it, but not in my head. I just realized I’m out of practice at courtship.”

  Jen’s thought came back, light with laughter. You can’t be any more than I am. I’m beginning to love this new form, so no, not smarmy. Especially coming from you, because I feel the truth with your words. Someone else? Maybe not so much.

  Nikos tried a macho growl. “If anyone else tries to court you, I’ll have something to say to that.”

  Jen’s laughter was like wind chimes of silver. “Oh, so will I, and probably with a flying side-kick in case they don’t get the clue.

  He watched with intense pleasure as she dove down the adjacent crag, then flew upward. Her thought came, Hovering is HARD! Like treading water with weights. I do better riding the currents. Especially the warm ones, down in the valley. I really want to go exploring there, but Iliana said to stay away, that that area is unstable below the hot springs.

  “Toxic gases,” Nikos warned, as he made the turn upward into the sixth zigzag. “Absolutely off-limits. It’s been marked off by barbed wire for over a century—even animals don’t go there. Young shifters are taught from their first flight to stay well above the valley. This island is actually a not-quite-extinct volcano. We think the mineral springs are heated by leftover veins of lava.”

  Mineral springs? As in sulfurous hot springs? came her thought, along with a vivid image of her holding her nose.

  “The sulfur stench is part of the toxic gases at the bottom of the gorge,” Nikos puffed, keeping his pace steady. “But the springs filter out the impurities by the time they reach where my ancestors built the infirmary. Not only is the water infused with healing minerals, but there is a very thin stream of qi running through it as well.”

  I remember reading about islands devoted to medicine in ancient days, she said, banking close to him.