Silver Unicorn (Silver Shifters Book 3) Read online

  “Stalemate,” Joey said. “He saw the oracle stone return to the ground, and flew off, leaving his minions. Keraunos slunk away.”

  “Thank you,” Nikos said. “I saw you running defense.”

  “I wish I’d gotten my jaws into him,” Joey said. “I would have left him far away from this world.” He smiled down at Jen. “You saved her. I didn’t think humans could survive Keraunos. But she’s not entirely human, is she. Did you know about that? She’s beautiful!”

  “I didn’t. Her phoenix has been dormant for generations.”

  “I wonder what happened to cause that,” Joey murmured. “The rarer shifter families are usually so careful to preserve their heritage.”

  Nikos was too tired to speculate at that moment. He gave his head a single shake, and Joey said, “Ann followed Cang to see if she could track him to his lair.”

  Nikos began to smile, then a thought occurred. He was so exhausted it seemed to come from far away. “She can’t shift into the mythic plane?”

  “No,” Joey said with a sigh of regret. “But she might get a vector on his direction before he notices he’s being tailed.” He gave Nikos a serious look. “I watched you draining your life force. That’s one of the reasons why I’m here. No, don’t protest. I’m not about to argue with your decision. I would have done the same if it were my mate lying there. What I want to know is, have you ever forced a shift before?”

  “Not forced,” Nikos said quickly. He would never force his mate to do anything.

  “Right.” Joey raised a hand, palm out. “Wrong word. Not sure what’s the correct one. It’s so very rare to be able to bring out a dormant shifter trait, especially a mythic one, that we don’t really have a term, do we?”

  “No. And no, I’ve never done it before.” Nikos drew in a long, tired breath. “Touch and go there,” he admitted, his voice hoarse. But I’d try it again in a heartbeat. Though he was incapable at this moment of doing much more than sitting there, he smiled down at Jen’s glorious new form. She resembled a large swan in shape, but with a sharper beak The long sweep of her wings and tail feathers shimmered ruddy red-gold in the fading starlight.

  Joey said, “Her regeneration seems to have healed the bites Keraunos left on her, and her poor hands. Despite Cang’s best efforts.”

  “He and I are going to have a talk about that,” Nikos promised in a growl. “Zip-ties might be involved.”

  Joey laughed, then peered toward the pale blue light in the east. It was almost dawn, Nikos discovered: between pulling up the oracle stone and the healing, the night had passed.

  Joey said, very tentatively, “You realize she might not be able to shift back.”

  “I thought of that,” Nikos admitted. “My unicorn would probably want to know what would be so terrible about life as a golden phoenix.”

  “He’d have a point.” Joey took a deep breath. “Though she didn’t ask for it. Another problem I feel I ought to raise. You might not be able to shift, depending on how much you depleted yourself.”

  Nikos reached instinctively for his unicorn.

  No answer.

  This was not the pretense of a vault that he and his unicorn had developed over the years, while Nikos had learned to cope with all the conflicts in his life. He had compartmentalized his life out of sheer necessity. Nikos the ruler. Nikos the teacher. Nikos the healer. Nikos the defender. Way, way down the list, the tiniest box, was Nikos the man, with all a man’s wishes, desires, needs. Hopes. Those had been his last priority—the ones his unicorn focused on most.

  He drew in a deep, unsteady breath, so very weary. But it had been the right thing to do to save her. Jen was alive. Would she answer, when she discovered what he had done? Yes, came a very weak whisper from his unicorn. Yes. Jen the phoenix, who loved the entire world, would understand . . .

  But would they have a life together?

  Don’t borrow trouble, came a slightly more distinct thought. Nikos opened his eyes. “My unicorn is in there. Though not much more than a shadow.”

  Joey bowed his head. “He—and you—surrendered a great deal. The fact that you sense your unicorn is a good sign, I think.”

  Nikos dared to let himself hope that much. Right now, the important thing was that Jen breathed. She lived. Her wounds had healed.

  “Let’s get her to her house before the city wakes up,” Joey said. “Cang’s gang is gone, but I don’t know for how long. They’re not going to give up easily.”

  Nikos had actually forgotten the oracle stone. About that, he wanted to say—but he was too tired.

  Anyway, Joey was talking again. “Doris is almost here. She has Jen’s purse with her keys, and they have extra wheelchairs at her synagogue. I asked her to borrow one for Jen, as those are easier to fold into her trunk and maneuver around than ambulance beds. I can carry her,” Joey offered.

  “I will.” Nikos flushed at how short the words came out sounding. But Joey’s smile said he understood.

  Nikos got to his feet, then he swayed. “Heh. Maybe I’ll take you up on that offer after all. . .”

  At that moment, the sun lipped the horizon, lighting the treetops—and two things happened simultaneously.

  Jen shifted to her human form, lying there curled up in the rubble, still unconscious. Because phoenixes were mythic shifters, she was still wearing her clothes from last night, dust imprinted all over the fringed suede jacket.

  At the same moment, Nikos shifted to his unicorn, his flanks shivering, feet planted wide, head low.

  He could not shift back.

  THIRTEEN

  JEN

  I want to bust that Long Cang in the chops . . .

  Jen opened her eyes to find Bird and Doris hovering over her. Their anxious faces broke into relieved smiles.

  Jen grimaced. “Did I say that out loud?”

  “That’s okay,” Doris said, as Bird nodded firmly. “There isn’t anyone here who wouldn’t agree a thousand percent.”

  Memory began to trickle back—mixing with incredibly vivid dreams. “Nikos?” Jen asked, rising on her elbows. Was he really there, making some weird pearly glowing thing come out of the earth, or was that just her crazy dream?

  “He’s fine,” Bird said, her gaze sliding away.

  Jen saw that sideways glance, and alarm zapped her. “Bird, what’s wrong? Did he get hurt?”

  “He’s fine,” Bird said quickly. “Just a bit worn out.”

  “Worn out? By what? Wait. How much of that was real?” Jen sat all the way up. She was lightheaded for a few seconds, but a deep breath took care of that. She flexed her hands. They didn’t hurt. She turned her right hand over. A faint pinkish line remained where those zip-ties had cut into her skin.

  And that . . . that wolf thing that had bitten her! She jerked her wrist close to her face, spotting pinkish dots that might have been bite scars. But they were far too faint. Those teeth had sunk deep, and the pain had been acrid, burning—

  A wolf thing covered with lightning.

  Dragon.

  Her head throbbed briefly, and she pressed her hands to her temples as if to keep her skull from shattering into a zillion smoking pieces. “How did I get here? To my bed? Wait. Neither of you was there—oh, I don’t even know where to start!”

  Bird said, “We can answer pretty much all the questions you have.”

  “First, is Nikos really all right?”

  Both women nodded firmly.

  Jen’s heart sank, and she pushed back on the sick disappointment. Where was he? No, that was the wrong question. The man was not tied to her heel. There was no rational reason to expect him to be here—

  Doris said, “Nikos would be here if he could. The reason he isn’t, well, let’s go back to the beginning, because this is going to be weird. And before we begin, I want you to know that I apologize with everything in me for holding out. Some secrets were not ours to tell.”

  “Oh yes,” Bird said softly, her big eyes luminous. “I held out longer.”

&nb
sp; Jen said, “Dragon. Did I or did I not hallucinate that?”

  Doris blinked, frowning. “Okay, I didn’t actually see what happened. As you know. But if you saw a huge red dragon, yes, that was real. I have seen Long Cang in dragon form. Just not last night.”

  “Whoa.” Jen’s breath whooshed out. “Whoa.”

  “And . . . that glowing thing. Like a pearl with its own light inside. Only bigger, baseball-size. It floated in the air, like a sci-fi movie. But it was Nikos who made it come out of the ground. And then . . . he threw it. It hit me right here.” Jen touched her breastbone. “And it went through me—not like a bullet. More like when you pour cold water over yourself on a hot day after a long run. Except I felt it inside me, somehow. It was cold, but it didn’t hurt. But everything else hurt, then—” She shook her head. “I don’t remember anything, except what felt like being hit by lightning. Right after that blue lightning-wolf thing bit me.”

  Bird and Doris exchanged glances, and Bird said, “I think they might want to talk to you about the oracle stone. But we can answer the other questions—”

  “Wait a minute. What they? Who is ‘they’?”

  “Mikhail, Joey, and Nikos,” Doris said.

  “I knew they were all friends,” Jen said. “Is there something else?”

  “Let’s begin with the fact that all three are shifters,” Doris said.

  “Shifters?”

  Jen listened in growing amazement as Doris gave her a matter-of-fact definition of shifters. Amazement, but not disbelief. Because Jen had a vivid memory of Long Cang becoming a dragon in a blink of an eye, and that creepy blonde guy in black turning into a wolf as he lunged at her, a second before his long wolfish teeth snapped on her wrist.

  These were horrible people. That they could turn into animals seemed even more horrible. But . . . kindly, austere Mikhail, another dragon?

  Joey Hu, a fox?

  And Nikos . . . a winged unicorn?

  Her mind whirled with questions. The first one out was the easiest. “Is he a beautiful unicorn?” Then she winced at how stupid that sounded.

  “He’s gorgeous,” Doris stated firmly. “Black all over, blue-black, with silver threading his mane, wings, and tail, and tipping the edges of his hair. When he moves there are highlights like pewter along the curve of his muscles. It’s amazing.”

  “I want to see that,” Jen whispered.

  “You will. Right now he’s in that form, which is why he’s at my house,” Bird said. “He could be here—mythic shifters can go invisible if they want to, to humans—but your rooms are a bit cramped for a horse, even without a horn.”

  Jen looked around her ten-by-twelve bedroom, which was crowded with only the double bed, the tiny nightstand, and the chest of drawers. She’d seen horse stalls that were bigger. A laugh escaped her. “Yeah. But . . . didn’t you say they can change back and forth?”

  “He can’t right now,” Doris said.

  “There’s more,” Bird added.

  Jen put out her hands. “More? Is everybody a shifter except me? What’s going on?”

  Doris said quickly, “This is all relatively new to me, too. I didn’t know a thing before I met Joey. I saw my first shifters up at the grandpa house that time when Joey and his twin niece and nephew ended up with us when we got snowed in. I just didn’t tell you that they are shifters. My finding out was, um, memorable.”

  “You have to tell her about the zombies,” Bird whispered. “I always thought she’d love that part.”

  “ZOMBIES???”

  “No zombies.” Both Bird and Doris vigorously shook their heads.

  Bird patted the air as she said, “Not real. But a funny story.”

  “I could use a funny story,” Jen admitted. She felt fine, but . . . odd, was the only way to explain it. “How about after I get a shower, and something to eat? I feel really grimy.”

  “I brought some of Linette’s pastries, fresh-baked,” Bird said. “Oh, before I forget. The guys all stampeded out of the reading last night—right in the middle of Godiva’s pages. We had to lie. We said they shared a snack before dinner that disagreed with them.”

  “Okay,” Jen said. “Got it. Intestinal emergency. I take it Godiva isn’t in on the secret?”

  “No.” There was no mistaking the remorse in Doris and Bird’s faces. “It’s not our secret to tell,” Bird said. “Though we trust her, she’d just have to keep it—and be a part of the danger from bad shifters like Cang.”

  Doris added, “And you know that the farther secrets get away from the main person, the easier it is to tell just one more friend, or relative, or lover. We both promised we had to stop with us. Bird hasn’t even told her kids.”

  “There’s no reason for them to know,” Bird said with regret.

  “Okay. But you were hinting that there’s more,” Jen said.

  Doris held out a hand. “Jen, why don’t you get that shower and some food into you first. You’ve just been whammied with a whole lot of new stuff. Think it out under the water. We’ll be here. I’m going to make up some really good gold leaf tea.”

  “Breaking out the heavy artillery, eh?” Jen asked as she got out of bed. “Okay. I really want out of these clothes after sleeping in them all night—and crap! I’ve got a class to teach in . . . forty minutes—”

  “You’ve got the day off,” Bird said. “I stopped by the studio after I bought the pastries. Master Reynaldo already heard the food poisoning story, which somehow got turned into gastrointestinal mega-death. When I said you might have a touch of it, he said really fast to take your time recovering. His wife would cover your classes. Nobody wants to risk catching it in case it’s actually a virus.”

  Jen wasn’t surprised about the speed or the exaggeration of the rumor mill. Master Reynaldo’s niece was one of the young adult writers in the writing group, and tended to love drama.

  Jen let out a sigh. She was just as glad to have the day off. As she stood up, again, she felt . . . strange. Not bad. But like her body didn’t quite fit together the way it always had.

  “Definitely a shower,” she muttered.

  She walked into the bathroom and took a long look into the mirror. To her surprise, the face staring back at her looked perfectly fine. She had never worn makeup in her life, and her haircuts tended to be picked for ease of care, so she wasn’t in the habit of checking the mirror much. But if anything, she looked better than she remembered. Like she’d had a week’s R&R. No, more like a year’s. Her hands didn’t even hurt.

  Okay, she could definitely live with that! She showered in record time, pulled on her Sunday T-shirt and lounging pants, then padded barefoot into the kitchen, which was full of enticing smells.

  Doris and Bird sat at her tiny table, but as she entered, Doris got up. “I’ll serve. You sit.”

  Jen sat.

  A delicious apple tart and two cups of tea later, she said, “I’m clean, I’ve eaten. You said there’s more. Like?”

  Doris had begun preparing more tea. Over her shoulder, she said, “Bird and I talked it over, and we think it’s best if we start at the beginning.”

  “I already know that much. I was taking out the trash when that jackwagon Long Cang grabbed me. I’m just glad it was me, and not Angelique.”

  “Okay, but you don’t know why Long Cang grabbed you. . .”

  And out it all came—Mikhail’s discovery of the oracle stone, and Cang’s various attempts to grab it. “Nikos says he’s not 100% sure what the stone does, that is, what’s stored inside it.”

  “Kind of like a mythical thumb drive?” Jen asked.

  Bird brightened. “That’s it exactly!”

  Doris went on, “They have to have it to find out what’s in it. Anyway, I brought your purse from the bakery, Bird and I came to get you, brought you here, and put you to bed. That’s the general gist.”

  Jen sat back. “Wow, and a lot of those students of Joey’s are shifters? I got the feeling he was their den mother. Now I know why. Um, beside
s his great cooking. So that’s pretty much it? I want to see Joey and Mikhail turn into animals. Not that I don’t believe you, it’s just . . .” Jen shrugged.

  “That’s almost it,” Doris said. “Here’s where it all gets personal.”

  “Mates,” Bird said. “Mikhail and I are mates. Joey and Doris are mates. It’s more than a lover and friend. Shifters—when they find their mate, it’s for life.” She pointed to herself, then Doris, then went on to explain what they’d learned.

  Jen had thought she’d pretty much topped out the Amaze-o-Meter. But this news went way beyond—and yet it, out of all of it, made the most sense. Nothing about the oracle stone, even about the existence of shifters, came near to explaining why, after just a few days, she felt so very right about Nikos.

  “With humans it’s slower,” Bird said quickly. “And it’s not like you’re forced into it. You could still say no—”

  Jen went straight to what mattered. “So what you’re saying is, he feels about me the way I do about him?” She was pretty sure she already knew that, but it felt really good to get it confirmed.

  “Yes,” Bird and Doris said together.

  “The truth is, I think I fell in love with him when we first scrapped outside the bakery. If that makes me sound like a walking cliche, I can live with that. It also feels like I’ve known him forever. That I can say anything to him. I never felt that way with Robert. In the beginning, I was too young and inexperienced—it wasn’t his fault, it was me trying to be what he wanted me to be. Which became habit.”

  “We were programmed to do that, back in those days,” Bird said. “Be good, be what the man wants, and that’s the recipe for a happy marriage.” She looked sour, an expression so rare for her that it looked odd on her face. “And you all know what fun my first marriage was.”

  Doris nodded. “Whenever I felt sorry for myself for missing out all those years, I thought of Bird’s ex, and I was okay with having been the town’s oldest wallflower. Until I met Joey. And then, yes, it was pretty much instant. Not that my head realized it. I had baggage, so much baggage, but my heart knew it.”