Shifter's Storm

by Carol Van Natta

  Without warning, Dauro’s magical senses lit up.

  Kelvin jumped like he’d been bitten. “What was that?

  “Magic locator spell.” So much for hiding. Shifter magic might be bound up in the ability to shift, but it was still magic.

  The helicopter continued its slow flight over the road, then picked up speed and altitude.

  “It’s coming back around,” said Kelvin.

  “Let’s stay hidden. No sense giving away more information than we have to.” And no sense using his own warrior magic to shield his and Kelvin’s signatures, either. The runaway horses had already stolen the barn door.

  The noisy helicopter flew by again, even more slowly, but no locator spell this time.

  Dauro waited with Kelvin until the helicopter sounds disappeared before jogging back to join the others.

  “Plan B,” announced Chantal as she stood on the cab of the truck, fists on her hips. “Free the truck and drive like a bat out of hell for the shore.”

  “Does it even work?” Yipkash’s tone matched her skeptical expression as she eyed the metal behemoth.

  “Worth a try,” said Chantal. “We’ll give it ten minutes, then go for Plan C.”

  “Which is?” asked Nibi, who was already headed toward the truck.

  Chantal jumped into the truck bed. “Run like hell for the shore.”

  Rosinette sat on the ground. “This is my failure. I should have been hiding us all.” She opened the book. “Nessireth lied all the time, but she bragged often about war spells she acquired after her ex-tribe tried to steal her demesne. I will look for them.”

  From experience, Dauro knew Rosinette could not be argued from her self-assumed guilt, regardless of her innocence. He caught Kelvin’s eye and pointed back up the road. “You are the sentry. Howl like a wolf if you see or hear trouble.”

  Kelvin nodded once and turned without argument.

  Dauro’s respect for the boy grew. He’d make a fine warrior someday, if he wanted. Or not. Modern life held a dizzying array of opportunities.

  With shifter strength fueled by desperation, they quickly freed the truck from the tangled trees and pushed it onto the road.

  Dauro wanted to throw the nasty, half-empty gasoline can as far as he could, but the others wouldn’t let him. If the stuff was that bad for living things and started wildfires, why did humans even use it?

  He moved to stand on the road edge next to where Rosinette sat, still reading. Chantal climbed up the truck’s front and stuck her head under the open hood. Nibi sat in the cab behind the wheel. At Chantal’s signal, Nibi leaned forward and did something.

  The shriek from the truck was worse than the new smells, which at least weren’t turning his stomach anymore. He put his hands over his ears.

  Chantal stood up. “Starter’s half stripped. Try again.”

  After several squealing protests, the engine finally caught and ran on its own.

  Dauro dropped his hands. He’d just have to get used to how clusterfucking cacophonous the real world was.

  Chantal slammed the hood closed and jumped down. She grinned and crossed to him. “Let’s rock and roll, handsome. Bring the bookish wyvern and climb on in.” She wiped her smudged palm on her pants, then held her hand out to him.

  His hand slipped into hers and he stepped in close before his common sense could intervene.

  “You are amaz…” The first full noseful of her scent stunned him like a lightning bolt. No word in any of the languages in his head encompassed his feelings. The flush of desire. The depth of wonder. The sense of rightness, like coming home.

  Her pupils dilated as her breath caught. “So are you.” Her hand rose to touch his neck, then slid up to his jaw and ear. “I never dreamed–”

  A loud whistle pierced his fog. Nibi waved urgently at them. “Let’s go!”

  Chantal cupped his face with both hands and fixed him with an intent look. “To be continued.”

  All he could do was nod as she let him go and stepped back.

  Kelvin was climbing into the cab. Rayapkhal and Yipkash were dragging fallen branches into the truck bed for camouflage. Dauro moved to help them, but Chantal continued to command his attention.

  “Rosinette.” Chantal crouched in front of the sea wyvern’s slender human form. “Time to go.”

  Rosinette blinked like she was surprised to see the world. “Sorry?”

  Chantal laughed. “Bribe a shifter with food, but bribe a wyvern with a book.” She stood and pointed a thumb toward the truck. “Let’s go for a ride.”

  Rosinette closed the book and rose to her feet with smooth grace. “With pleasure.”

  Chantal climbed into the cab, where Nibi and Kelvin made room so she could get behind the wheel and slam the door.

  Dauro didn’t know about the pleasure part, because the back of the truck was loud and smelly, but he really liked the going fast part. Sloths didn’t do fast.

  Rosinette, seated across from him, clutched the book with eyes closed. Subtle magic from her tickled his senses.

  Surprisingly, Yipkash moved to sit beside him instead of her mate. “If… no, when we get free and go back to Greece, Raya and I want you to know our land home is open to you for as long as you need. Once our children are born, we must live in the sea until their first shift.”

  In odd moments, Dauro had been worrying about his future. Yipkash’s offer gave him an option he’d never imagined. “That’s very generous.”

  “Your love for all of us made Sunscar less surly and Nessireth’s heartlessness bearable. It’s the least we can do.” She nudged his shoulder with hers with a smirk. “It’s near a resort. Bring the leopard. She likes you.”

  He shook his head. “I am a relic. She has a life.”

  Yipkash laughed. “So did I. Marine biologist. Meeting and mating Rayapkhal changed the direction of my life’s current for the better.” She nudged him again. “My advice, which you didn’t ask for but I’m giving anyway. Talk to her. She shepherds all of us, but her gaze starts and ends with you.”

  “I will.” He had nothing to offer her but his heart, but it was hers for the taking.

  10

  Chantal gripped the steering wheel as another bottom-scraping rut sent Nibi and Kelvin bouncing into each other.

  “Whoever planned these roads should be eaten for lunch,” groused Nibi, rubbing the elbow she’d cracked against the passenger door’s window that wouldn’t roll down. The driver’s side window refused to roll up.

  “The former sugar factory or military engineers, take your pick.” Chantal wanted to bite whoever cut the damned seatbelts off in the cab. “Kelvin, what’s the battery percentage?”

  A cord stretched from the cigarette lighter to the satellite radio in his hands.

  “Twelve.”

  “Good. Try now. Put it on speaker like I showed you.” She had to slow for the switchback turn Nibi had complained about, but kept her foot hovering over the accelerator. Thank the goddess for automatic transmissions.

  Her focus was fraying in a hundred directions just when she needed to concentrate. Enemies in helicopters—probably. Flamingos looking for her—maybe. A balky truck and a road trying to kill her—absolutely. A sexy, spicy man whose scent sent her spark gauge way past red—

  “Kitty One to Base,” said Kelvin into the radio.

  “Rock!” shouted Nibi.

  Chantal was already slamming on the brake and guiding the drift from the wheel. Bald tires made the fishtailing slide around the obstacle easier to achieve, but harder on her tumbling passengers. “Sorry!”

  “You’re a maniac!” Nibi’s grin belied her complaint. “Where did you learn to drive?”

  “My dad’s an independent trucker. I was driving mountain roads before my first shift.”

  A flare of wyvern magic came from behind the cab.

  Chantal narrowed her attention to the road and the map in her head. So far, they hadn’t run into any other traffic, but that would change the closer they got to
the beach. She could already smell the salt in the air.

  A burst of static came from the radio. “Base to Kitty One. We were about to send a team for you. It would have been sooner, but we had visitors land with three big trucks on the north shore.” Leticia’s calm tone relieved one of Chantal’s worries. “You sound different, and the GPS is still wonky. Are you okay?”

  “I’m Hippo One, Kitty One’s assistant,” said Kelvin proudly. “She wants you to meet us at Brown Duck Beach.”

  Chantal accelerated on the straightest stretch of road she’d seen yet. “What visitors?”

  “Wizards and shifter hunters loaded for big game. They weren’t after us, so we spied on them. They opened a portal near Monte Pirata and disappeared. Shouldn’t have been possible.”

  Chantal hunched to look under the crack in the windshield. “The portal goes to an anchored fairy demesne. We just escaped from there an hour ago.”

  “Who is ‘we’? The two people you found?”

  The truck labored noisily up the small incline. She raised her voice. “Me and six shifters who escaped from the collector’s demesne.”

  Leticia swore a vicious oath in Spanish. “Meaning the hunters might be after you.”

  “Yeah, probably. The fairies might send giant animated stone statues, too.” Chantal slowed for the blind curve and the upcoming intersection. “I think they’re already looking.”

  More wyvern magic flared from behind her. Up front, a familiar shadow appeared on the road.

  The yellow and black helicopter had found them.

  Or should have. Instead, it hovered a moment then flew slowly west, away from them. She hoped it was because Rosinette’s magic hid the truck and its dust cloud.

  Chantal flared a little magic of her own, giving her a magical view of the topography and a sense of the safest direction to the ocean. A trick she’d learned from her mother.

  “We aren’t prepared for hunters, but we aren’t without resources,” said Leticia. “Someone will meet you at the beach.”

  “One more thing,” said Chantal. “Call the Kotoyeesinay Sheriff’s Department. Tell them I said we need fairy portal and demesne specialists as fast as we can get them. The demesne is dying. If it fails, it’ll put Hurricane Chantal to shame.”

  “Will do.” The call ended with another burst of static.

  “The hurricane that shook the demesne was named Chantal?” Nibi made a rude sound. “The Powers are in a meddling mood.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Her magic nudged her. She reached over her head to slap the naked metal roof twice. “Hide!” she shouted. “Traffic!”

  By the time a music-blaring, garishly-painted tourist Jeep rolled by on the paved road, Chantal was alone in the old truck loaded with deadfall branches. Just another uninteresting local with a load for the debris pile.

  The second the Jeep rounded the curve, she turned right onto the asphalt, then left onto the narrow dirt road that headed south.

  Picking up as much speed as she dared, she leaned in toward her seatmates to avoid branches of the high shrubs that threatened to break off the side mirror. She slapped the roof again. “Hang on!”

  The road dropped down into a muddy creek bed. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and gunned the engine, willing the truck to find traction and get them up onto the road again.

  Two jaw-clenching moments later, they made it, barely, flinging mud and loose branches from their tires.

  After disentangling herself from Kelvin, Nibi patted the cracked vinyl of the front console. “Good girl!”

  A thought struck Chantal. “Nibi, Kelvin, can you swim shifted in salt water?”

  “My aunt took me to the beach in Mexico last year,” said Kelvin. “I float. Sort of.”

  “Never tried,” said Nibi. “My sister did, though, and she’s still alive. Or she was when Nessireth’s hunters caught me in 1958.”

  “We’ll find her.” Chantal spared a brief glance at Kelvin. “Your aunt, too.” She would make it her personal mission, if she had to. That horrid, greedy fairy had cost them so much.

  Without warning, the brush cover ended. So did the road. A couple hundred feet of dark, rock-and-sand beach lay between them and the ocean.

  She braked to a stop before the truck got stuck in softer sand the recent storm surges may have deposited. That was the hazard she imagined, anyway. She’d never been so close to that much water all in one place, except in the boat ride to the island. And never in a truck older than she was with bald tires and no damn seatbelts.

  Nibi put fingers to her lips and whistled loud enough to make Chantal’s ears ring. “Pool’s open!” She piled out of the passenger door and began a quick march toward the water.

  She was soon followed by Yipkash and Rayapkhal, half-trotting in almost perfect synchrony. They seemed so perfect for each other.

  “Here’s your radio.” Kelvin held it out to her. “Can I wait to go with Dauro? He’s big and strong.”

  Chantal couldn’t disagree with that. The fairy demesne may have suppressed his magic and his sense of smell, but it hadn’t prevented him from staying in shape. His muscles had muscles. “Good idea.” She disconnected the cord and put it in her belt pouch, then holstered the radio.

  She’d been so intent on getting the aquatic shifters to the aqua that she realized she didn’t have a plan for herself. “Plan D.”

  Dauro’s divine scent hit her the moment before his head appeared at her side window. “What’s Plan D?” He stepped back and opened her door.

  His clothes made him look like a doctor in hospital scrubs. An enticingly sexy, very lickable doctor. Her inner leopard recommended pouncing immediately, before their prize got away.

  “Wait for the flamingos.” She pointed toward the land finger to the east, where the beach continued. “Tell any gawking tourists not to believe their lying eyes if they think they see unusual animals in the water.”

  Dauro moved closer, commanding her attention, steeping her in his scent. “I will wait with you.”

  She inhaled slowly, savoring the uniquely mossy, earthy, complexly minty notes that were better than anything in the world, even catnip. Hormones flooded her breasts and belly with heat. Golden threads of shifter-mate magic danced in her peripheral vision. She forced herself to look away before she did something insanely ill-timed.

  “I’ll wait, too.” Kelvin crossed his arms stubbornly.

  Rosinette’s voice came from behind them in the back of the truck. “I will stay to defend you and the book.”

  Chantal blew out a noisy breath and caught Dauro’s eye again. “I want you here more than anything. You make me feel safe. But if the statues come, Rosinette can fly out of reach, and they don’t want me. Only the deep water can save you and Kelvin.”

  Dauro nodded. “We will swim if they come.” His jaw tightened. “My sloth would shred me if I left you to face the hunters alone.”

  That was fair, considering that’s how her leopard was feeling about him. “Okay. Plan E, it is.” She turned the truck engine off.

  Out on the beach, three lines of footsteps led to where Nibi and the capricorns were already knee-deep in the water, confidently moving through the waves. Yipkash and Rayapkhal dove in and vanished. Nibi pushed forward until she was chest-deep, then submerged and disappeared.

  “Rosinette,” said Dauro, “can you unmake the clothes you gave Nibi, Yip, and Raya? They’re piled at the water’s edge.”

  Wyvern magic flared. Not only did the clothes disintegrate into loose piles of branches, but the footprints in the sand vanished. No one hid better than wyverns.

  Dauro called his thanks, then leaned his elbow on the open door’s window ledge and focused on her.

  Goddess, but he was sexy. Wild hair she wanted to plunge her fingers into. Smooth skinned, except for scar lines she’d seen glimpses of on his arms, now partially hidden by the tunic’s short sleeves. Her skin heated.

  It was hard to drag her focus back to their situation. “I’m no magical wyve
rn or battle mage, but I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.” Chantal reached into her shirt to pull out the grass bag of treasures. “Anything in here that can help us?” She looked at Kelvin, who shrugged, then at Dauro.

  He squinted one eye. “I don’t know what the bracelet and the charm do. The wishbone has stolen alpha power. The chain loop dries things, but I don’t know the spell.”

  “I do. I will teach you.” Rosinette’s musical voice was much easier to hear without the engine running. “Put the chain near whatever you want dried, name the target, then sing this.” Wyvern magic flared. Music and words wormed into Chantal’s brain like a catchy tune.

  Chantal pulled the chain out of the bag and handed it to Dauro.

  He wrapped it three times around his wrist. “Rosinette, you are a marvel.”

  “I do what I can.” More wyvern magic flared. “The bracelet and charm go together. Each can be activated with a key phrase to find the other.”

  Chantal emptied the rest of the bag onto her lap. “Since Ice Age shifters like Dauro are immune to alphas, I’ll keep the wishbone, in case the hunters try to make me submit. Kelvin, you wear the bracelet, but give Dauro the charm. That way, you can find each other if there’s trouble.”

  Kelvin took the bracelet and opened its clasp. “What are the magic words?”

  “Whatever words you say as you separate the bracelet and the charm,” said Rosinette. “I suggest avoiding common phrases.”

  “What happens if we shift?” asked Dauro.

  After a moment of silence, Rosinette answered, “The book doesn’t say.”

  Chantal shook her head “Better assume it’ll break, then. Maybe that’s why Nessireth tossed it.”

  Kelvin frowned, then closed the clasp and gave the bracelet back to her. “I don’t have a place to keep it.”

  Chantal nodded. “It’s yours for later, then.” She slid it into the zippered part of her upper chest pocket. At her inner leopard’s urging, she put the empty woven grass bag in her outer pocket instead of dropping it. Her cat’s instincts were more often right than not.