by Zoe Chant
A chance!
This was his moment to strike, before the monster could summon the lightning again. Rory had no idea what sort of creature his unknown adversary might be, but he would bet his tail feathers that it needed time to build up a charge.
Of course, if he was wrong, his tail feathers would literally be toast.
He powered back toward the tower, cutting through the smoke like a knife. But his lion body and eagle wings were built for strength, not speed. Though he strained every muscle, his adversary was faster.
The smoke-shrouded creature spread its wings to full extent, shadowing the mountain. The massive pinions swept down with a sound like a thunderclap. Rory had to fight against a gust of wind as the creature shot upward.
*What was that?* Wystan exclaimed telepathically, echoed by a territorial snarl from Fenrir.
*I have no idea.* Rory slowed to a glide, watching the vast silhouette arc across the sky, trailing storm clouds. *But whatever it was, at least it’s thought better about sticking around.*
In the space of a few breaths, the unnatural winds around the lookout tower quieted. In their absence, the forest fire calmed as well. Thick plumes of smoke still rose from smoldering undergrowth, but at least the wind was no longer whipping flames into a frenzy and tossing embers about like confetti. A lot of the forest floor was already burned to black, all available fuel consumed by the abnormally fast blaze.
Reluctantly, Rory turned his attention away from his retreating opponent and onto the more immediate problem. Balancing on the breeze, he scanned the forest with a practiced eye, assessing the situation. To his relief, the flames hadn’t yet reached the tower.
In fact, they couldn’t reach it.
His beak dropped open in surprise. A fireline protected the structure. It was hastily dug and a bit narrow, but effective. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought that one of his own crew had cut it.
He opened his mind to his squad as he swooped down. *It’s safe. You can all come up here now.*
*How very kind of you, boss.* Rory winced at Blaise’s acid tone. She was clearly smarting from his use of the alpha voice on her. *What’s the situation?*
*Under control.* He landed to inspect the fireline more closely. The flames on the far side were dying away, blocked from reaching any further fuel.
Even though the lookout tower didn’t seem to be in any immediate risk from the fire, Rory still had a sense of unease. Instinct screamed that there was something wrong here.
He glanced up at the lookout tower. He’d seen the fire watcher run into it at the start of the brief fight, but there was no sign of activity now. All the storm shutters were closed.
His griffin clawed at his soul. Danger! Hurry!
The platform was too narrow for his griffin form. Shifting back into human form, he took the stairs up to the platform two at a time. As a mythic shifter, his gear came with him when he transformed—which was handy, since if he’d turned up on the fire watcher’s porch buck-naked, he would have had some explaining to do.
Just as he got to the top, a muffled shriek came from behind the closed door.
He didn’t hesitate. The door might have been designed to be bear-proof, but it definitely wasn’t shifter-proof. His first charge smashed it off its hinges. He kicked apart the shattered remains, stepping over the threshold.
The inside of the tower was as dark as a tomb. Rory squinted, his sensitive eyes struggling to adjust to the sudden change. “Hello? Are you-?”
And that was as far as he got, before a furry missile hit him square in the chest.
He barely managed to get his arm up in time to protect his throat. Razor-sharp teeth sank deep into the sleeve of his protective jacket.
Too startled even to shift, Rory leaped backward. Catching his heel on the splintered wreckage of the door, he stumbled, put a foot down onto thin air, and had a long, drawn out second to fully appreciate how much this was going to suck.
He fell down the stairs.
All of them.
With a snarling, slavering thing trying to savage him, Rory couldn’t do anything to arrest his bruising descent. The best he could manage was a semi-controlled slide, careening down the switchback stairs like a human toboggan. His attacker rode him down the entire way, emitting muffled screeches around its mouthful of jacket.
*Everything still under control, boss?* Blaise inquired.
*No!* he managed to get out, as he crashed down the last few feet. *Under attack!*
*Seriously?* At least Blaise had been jolted out of her snit. *By what?*
Still flat on his back, Rory managed to haul the rabid creature away from his throat long enough to get a glimpse at it. *A rabbit!*
The mental silence was deafening.
*Confirm that?* Blaise said after a moment.
*Yes, I damn well confirm it!* It was very definitely a rabbit, albeit one apparently sent straight from hell. Its back legs kicked his abdomen with the force of a pair of jackhammers.
*Birdcat needs assistance with this prey?* Fenrir said, with only a hint of snideness.
For a moment, Rory was strongly tempted to say no. He was never going to hear the end of this.
*Would you please,* he gritted out, as the bunny did its level best to chew through his safety gear, *be so kind as to get this thing off me?*
A burst of delighted barking erupted nearby. The rabbit froze on Rory’s chest, cocking its ears. It released his sleeve at last, gifting him with a last parting kick to the balls as it bounded off. With a flash of white tail, it streaked away.
Fenrir trotted up, ears pricked and tongue lolling out in a doggy smirk. *If that was an alpha challenge, Birdcat just lost.*
Rory groaned, allowing his head to fall back with a thump. Every inch of his body hurt. “To be fair, the stairs did most of the damage.”
“Don’t try to move! I’ll be right there!”
It was the voice of an angel, floating down from high in the sky. A pair of battered workboots clattered down the stairs, upside-down from his perspective. Fenrir let out a low, rumbling growl, rising to straddle his chest protectively.
“No,” the woman told the hellhound, very firmly. “He needs help. Let me see.”
Without a trace of fear or hesitation, she shoved Fenrir’s muzzle aside. The hellhound’s snarl tapered off into a bemused whine. Fenrir backed off, giving way to the woman.
She knelt next to Rory, her hands hovering just over his body as though she was afraid to touch him. The sun made a halo around her head, backlighting her so that he couldn’t make out her face. But just the line of her neck, the slant of her shoulders, even the cute curves of her ears…he was instantly gripped by the firm conviction that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
Rory blinked. Do I have a concussion?
“You probably have a concussion,” the woman said, echoing his thought. “How far did you fall? When I saw you lying at the bottom of the stairs, I thought you were dead. Oh, the fire! I have to get you away—but you might have broken something—I shouldn’t move you—but the fire!”
“I’m fine,” Rory said, despite all evidence to the contrary. He put a touch of alpha power into his voice, warm and reassuring. “No need to panic. We’re safe from the fire here. Everything’s going to be fine.”
He’d only meant to soothe her, but to his surprise the attempt backfired. She jerked, her shoulders stiffening.
“I’m not panicking,” she said. “I just…don’t know what to do first.”
“How about helping me up?” This time, he was careful not to use his power. Trying a friendly smile, he held out one hand.
She flinched again, as though he’d offered her a live spider. For some reason, that small, quickly stifled movement felt like she’d punched him in the gut. He didn’t want her to recoil from him. He wanted her to lean into his touch, greedily demand his caresses, naked skin pressing against skin…
Right. He definitely had a concussion.
; He would have dropped his hand, but he honestly wasn’t sure whether he could get up without assistance.
Just as he was about to ask Fenrir to help haul him up, the woman’s back straightened. Taking a deep breath as though steeling herself, she grabbed hold of his wrist with both hands.
Even through his fire resistant gloves, he could feel the heat of her touch. A strange thrill crackled through him like lightning, wiping away the aches of his bruises.
Only for a moment, though. He couldn’t help grimacing as she tugged him to his feet.
“Anything broken?” she asked anxiously.
“Just my pride.” He rubbed his hip, wincing. “And I think my dignity is permanently sprained.”
“Um…do you mean you aren’t hurt?” The woman sounded uncertain.
“I’ll live.” He glanced at her wryly, still investigating his bruises. “Though I can’t say this has been the best day of my life.“
He saw her properly for the first time.
“Oh,” he said, staring into the eyes of his one true mate. “Wait.”
Chapter 3
Edith froze, transfixed. Normally meeting people’s eyes felt itchy, like ants crawling on her skin.
But his eyes…
It was like stepping out of an air-conditioned building into a hammer-blow of midsummer heat. His golden gaze fell on her soft as sunlight, but penetrated to the marrow of her bones. Every inch of her craved more. She was a plant finally breaching an icy blanket of snow and stretching, yearning, for the sun. She wanted to strip off every stitch of clothing and bask in that dizzying warmth.
She was staring at him.
And she’d forgotten to count hippopotamuses.
Edith wrenched her eyes away, mortification sweeping over her. Normally she was scrupulously careful to maintain eye contact for three seconds—counting one-hippopotamus-two-hippopotamus-three-hippopotamus—before looking away and counting again. It was just as unacceptable to stare at people as to never meet their eyes.
No one seemed to have taught the firefighter that social rule. Even with her own gaze fixed on his battered boots, she could still feel the force of his amber-gold eyes like a spotlight on her.
“Oh,” he said again, his voice dropping to a deep, husky rumble that echoed through her bones. “Yes.”
One-hippopotamus-two-hippopotamus-three-hippopotamus.
Ingrained habit tugged her head up again, although she felt like a deer turning toward an onrushing truck. She tracked slowly up his body, unable to help lingering even though she knew it was rude. Baggy, shapeless Nomex pants, equipment belt slung low over his hips. A heavy protective jacket in the same fire-resistant material, the original bright yellow color faded to dirty beige with ingrained soot. Turn outs made anyone look bulky, but he filled out the uniform in a way that left no doubt that there was a lot of muscle under there. Even bruised and battered, he exuded power.
She had to look up to see his face—she was by no means short, but he was still a good four inches taller than her. She didn’t dare make eye contact again, in case she never broke free, so she focused on his mouth instead. He had a strong, square jaw dusted with tawny stubble. With his build, and the dirt and sweat streaking his face, he should have appeared rough and dangerous.
But that rugged face was split by the widest grin Edith had ever seen. For all his unmistakable masculine strength, he looked like a kid who had just discovered it was Christmas and Halloween and the first day of summer vacation, all at the same time.
Edith was pretty certain that this was not an appropriate reaction to falling down twenty feet of stairs.
More likely, she was completely misinterpreting his expression. Even though his whole face shouted pure, unalloyed delight to her, doubtless she was missing some obvious-to-everyone-else twist of the lip or eyebrow which turned This is the best day ever into I am in hideous pain. After all, he’d literally just said that this wasn’t his best day ever.
Listen to his words, not his face, Edith decided. She’d long since learned that was the best course when trying to interact with people.
“We need to get you medical attention,” she said. “Can you walk? Here, lean on me.”
He didn’t move. His smile stretched even wider. He was still staring at her with total, unnerving attention, but he didn’t seem to be taking in a word she was saying.
“You’re everything I ever dreamed,” he said. “And more.”
Edith blinked at him, thrown as much by his accent as the non-sequitur. He definitely wasn’t American. The way he rolled his rs was as rich and heady as hot whiskey.
The tips of her fingers tingled, making her aware that she was still holding his wrist. Blushing, she tried to let go, but he twisted around, catching her hand again. His gloved fingers tightened around hers.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
It was a perfectly normal question, she told herself. This was a perfectly normal conversation. Why was her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth?
“E-Edith,” she managed to get out. “What’s yours?”
He let out his breath in a sigh that was practically a purr. “Edith.”
This seemed unlikely.
“No, I’m Edith,” she said, taking care to enunciate clearly. “Edith Stone. And you are?”
“Yours.” He shook himself, seeming to come back to his senses a little. “I mean, Rory. I’m Rory MacCormick.”
Edith was beginning to suspect that this was not, in fact, a perfectly normal conversation. She was also starting to wonder just how hard he’d hit his head.
“Nice to meet you, Rory.” She glanced around for help. “Where’s the rest of your team?”
He made a vague gesture in the direction of the dog…if it was a dog. Now that Edith had a chance to examine it properly, she wasn’t entirely sure. It looked more like an unholy cross between a grizzly bear and a wolf. It had shaggy, jet-black fur, upright pointed ears, and startlingly bright eyes—copper-orange with crimson flecks.
It wore a reflective yellow harness with THUNDER MOUNTAIN HOTSHOTS emblazoned on the side, along with a logo of a mountain peak crowned with two lightning bolts. Edith had never heard of a dog trained to support wildland firefighters before, but she couldn’t imagine a crew taking a mascot to an actual fire. It had to be some kind of service animal. From the size of those powerful jaws, she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that it fetched and carried whole trees.
The dog’s heavy head cocked to one side. Its muzzle moved back and forth between Edith and Rory, rather like a spectator at a tennis match. Catching her eye, it held her gaze for a moment, then turned to pointedly look in the direction of the smoldering ground fire. One ear tilted back at her.
Don’t know what’s going on here, she could almost hear it saying. But isn’t that more important?
“Right,” Edith said, turning back to Rory. He was still grinning at her. “We need to get out of here, and get you proper medical treatment. Where’s, um, the rest of your team? And your transport? You can’t have just dropped from the sky.”
He opened his mouth, paused, and shut it again. He rubbed at the back of his neck, his gaze sliding away from her at last. “Ah. Well. Actually.”
Whatever he’d been about to say was interrupted by the appearance of a truck, kicking up clouds of dust as it screamed up the dirt track that led to her lookout tower. The chunky, ungainly vehicle looked rather like the love-child of a tank and a school bus. It was bright yellow, just like the dog’s harness, and had the same logo painted on the side: THUNDER MOUNTAIN HOTSHOTS.
The truck pulled up at the base of the tower. Four figures piled out, running up in a confusion of overlapping voices. Edith flinched, caught in a storm of yellow uniforms and unfamiliar faces, unable to process the sudden arrivals.
“Hey. Hey!” Rory held up his hands, quieting the babble. “I’m fine. Start unloading the gear. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
“Not until I’ve checked you out,” one of the me
n said firmly. His short, white-blond hair momentarily confused Edith into thinking he had to be old, but his handsome face was young and unlined. “What happened?”
“Yes, tell us,” said a towering black man, grinning. “In great and excruciating detail, so that we recount the glorious tale again and again. A rabbit, I believe you said?”
Rory shot him a glare before turning to one of the remaining firefighters. “Blaise, take this comedian and put him to work, okay? We need to get this fire safely ringed.”
The short, curvy woman nodded. She had burnished hazelnut skin and tight-curled hair, cropped close to her elegant head. Edith envied her air of calm confidence. “On it, boss. Cal, Joe, with me. Wystan, don’t let Rory do anything stupid. Again.”
“Not sure how I’m supposed to do that, short of knocking him out and sitting on him,” the white-haired man remarked wryly as the other firefighters headed back to the truck. He glanced over at Edith, his graceful hands busy taking Rory’s pulse. “Hello, by the way.”
Edith knew that she was supposed to reply, but she was still reeling from the sudden onslaught of strangers. Words lay like stones on her tongue.
She struggled to spit one out. “H-hi.”
“Edith, this is Wystan,” Rory said. “And this is Fenrir.”
Edith spent a second looking around for another firefighter before realizing that Rory meant the dog. It caught her eye, and its thick, plumed tail thumped against the ground in a lazy wag.
“Wys, Fen, this is Edith Stone,” Rory continued, as if it wasn’t at all odd to be formally introducing someone to a dog. “She’s—”
He cut himself off, for no reason that Edith could discern. His mouth stretched in that broad, slightly silly grin again. “That is, she’s the fire watcher here.”
Wystan flung her a distracted smile, still busy checking Rory’s injuries. From his swift, sure movements, he was obviously a trained paramedic. “Nice to meet you, Edith. Who else is here?”
“No one,” Edith said, uncertain why he was asking. “Just me.”