Silver Unicorn (Silver Shifters Book 3) Read online

  He reached up and brushed his fingers lightly over her wing as she flew close to him. He said, “In ancient times humans went to Kos to be healed. Or to Ikara for their medicinal honey. Shifters came here, to our mineral springs. It’s the qi that helps the mythic shifters.” He puffed out a short sigh. “Nothing here is a miracle cure, and we don’t make any such claim. But there are situations where the waters do help.”

  And you are also part of the cure, in unicorn form?

  “Yes. Though my unicorn’s healing power is strongest with issues relating to qi, I can be more effective than the waters in severe cases, especially trauma caused by attack through mythic powers. I can’t suddenly heal a broken leg. All I can do is send qi into the cells, encouraging them toward growth and renewal. A slow process, though faster than just leaving the person on their own.”

  So you can heal mythic shifters attacked by something like Keraunos’s lightning? The thought came as she swooped overhead, then turned to regard him. At the mention of Keraunos’s name, the rich shimmer that seemed to be a part of her feathers dimmed in a subtle ripple.

  “Yes,” he said. And forced himself to the truth. “Speaking of. I expect he’ll turn up fairly soon. If you want to return to California, I completely understand, and I support such a decision.”

  Her bright, crystalline laugh rang through his mind again. I deeply appreciate how you always offer me choices. That is ten times hotter than the worn-out compliments of flirting, at least for me.

  He suppressed what Jen’s inner voice saying the word ‘hotter’ did to him. He had to wait. They had to wait. “It’s the only way I know how to be.” One more lap. He put on some speed.

  Though she sailed up and outward in a slow, elegant circle, her voice on the mythic plane was more intimate than a whisper in his ear. To answer your question, we’re in this together, that’s my understanding of how being a mate works. As for Keraunos, well, he won’t take me by surprise again. Which brings me to his boss. Tell me about this Medusa, so I don’t walk into HER without prep.

  Medusa.

  Nikos mentally kicked himself. Too little sleep and the sheer euphoria of having Jen with him, even if they couldn’t touch, and his usual guards had dropped. Anyone who wanted to watch his progress up the mountain would surely note the glowing golden phoenix flying around him.

  And here was Jen, quick as always. You truly don’t have to keep me in a safety deposit box. I know I made a stupid start to this new life by managing to get my head wrapped in a bag, but that was part inattention and part ignorance. I’m paying attention now, and I’m working on the ignorance.

  Nikos headed up the last stretch at a spring, timing his words with his breathing. “I think you know that Medusa is a gorgon. I don’t know if she can kill directly eye to eye. There are claims she’s caused deaths by suicide. What she does is attack her victims’ deepest emotions. Failure, shame, regret. She magnifies them until the victim is paralyzed. Never let her meet your eyes.”

  He felt Jen’s shiver, and under that, a quick glimpse of a vaguely familiar man lying on a floor. But the glimpse lasted less than a second, and then it was shoved down deep. He sensed long habit.

  Behind his own mental shield—kept up so he wouldn’t hurt her with his own deepest worries—he wondered if he’d just seen Robert’s death.

  He forced himself to go on. “As for what she’s after. Easy answer: this island. At the center is our medicinal springs. For centuries—longer—we’ve run the infirmary on a donation basis. We take in any who need help, and the wealthy know that. Many are generous. We are economically sound—very sound. And yet the super-rich always think they have to be richer. Medusa was raised by a plutocrat. He buys and sells companies. Countries, even. All to amass more billions. She wants to build her own empire. She came to me a few years back and proposed we team up as a couple. I’d run the clinic, and she’d build it into her idea of a money-making business.”

  What, put gigantic luxury hotels in, bring in fancy labels, and charge a hundred bucks every time you turn around?

  “That, and bottle and sell the mineral water. Though I explained to her that the qi dissipates completely if the water isn’t running freely. Her bottled water would be nothing more than high quality mineral water. Her response was yes, but the fools out there won’t know that.”

  So she thinks desperate people are suckers? Wow, that does sound like she was raised by a plutocrat.

  “The problem is, I believe I’m the first man to ever say no to her. Now it’s become personal. As if she must prove that she can get what she wants by whatever means. It’s the only way to get respect from her peers.”

  Respect until they go after each other, Jen responded as Nikos topped the last bit and began his cool-down walk along the terrace outside the hall.

  His step faltered when Jen swooped and dove, banked sharply then shot skyward before drifting around the aerie’s tower, and then gently gliding in to land beside him. He couldn’t help grinning foolishly. “I could watch you forever.”

  Her sapphire eyes cocked toward him as she let out that trill of laughter like a fall of crystal. Then a more serious thought, Is Medusa tied up with Long Cang, or did Keraunos follow you and it was rotten coincidence that brought him to the landslide just when . . . no. I remember distinctly that Cang threatened me with Keraunos. He knew Keraunos was there. I don’t think I told you that, what with everything else that’s happened.

  Nikos stopped dead, possibilities running through his mind, each worse than the last. “That’s the most disturbing news in several days of close calls, because it makes me wonder who is behind Long Cang, and how long their reach is. I’d better let Joey Hu know . . .”

  He had just stepped onto the mosaic leading to the hall when Ava the eagle-shifter dropped out of the sky and shifted at the last second, her feet touching down as she said breathlessly, “The boat from Crete just arrived. Keraunos is on the yacht.”

  EIGHTEEN

  JEN

  Jen mentally grounded herself. She had all the rest of the island to enjoy—but she would stay well away from the harbor, and that yacht where the creepy-sounding Medusa lurked, now in company with the even creepier Keraunos. Plus assorted evil minions. Oh, she and also had to avoid the stinky sulfuric valley—which for some reason she itched to see.

  It was late at night when Jen sensed Nikos winding up some last instructions before he retreated to the aerie for the night.

  She was tired. She sensed that he was as well, but it was a satisfied tired, the kind you get after a hard day of work. Jen zipped between pillars, practicing precision flying. It felt so good to get more control over her phoenix, the wind, the air . . . and it also kept her mind off the lure of that valley with its glowing heat far below the surface.

  She didn’t know why it attracted her, but Nikos had said to stay away, so she would. This was his turf. He knew the dangers. She had been a phoenix for less than a week. Her phoenix still didn’t talk to her—she was more like a presence, and even that sometimes felt like her imagination.

  She thought about the hetairoi as she finished one last circuit of the towers. Some of them were friendly, some a little wary, but all were polite. With that inner sense she was beginning to trust (though sometimes she was afraid she was just projecting) she wondered if the wary ones were having trust issues because of rough pasts.

  She already knew a lot about Cleo, so bubbly and sweet. She’d had a terrible childhood, but her personality was sunny. She liked people. She wanted friends—and when she made one, it was clear to Jen that Cleo thought friendship better than presents, better even, she said earnestly one morning, than riding a bus. Within hours after their return, she’d been eager to visit her shifter and human friends in the harbor to tell them about her grand tour.

  Petra was much quieter, but Jen sensed that she was that way with everyone. She was a forward-looking person, her past staying in the past. Life now was good, and took up all her attention.

 
Each one so different, so interesting. Jen wanted to get to know them, in order to . . .

  What?

  The future was still a big question mark. One Jen refused to think about now. Too early, and too late at the same time: too early in a totally different turn in her life, but too late in a long day.

  As those not on night duty began drifting off to bed, Jen felt like one giant yawn. Her sense of time was still out of whack due to the time change of her transfer. What did you even call that? Not jet lag if there’s no jet!

  Transfer . . . she realized she could go back to California to get more of her stuff, but she had to time it just right, when there was sunlight at both ends, or risk waiting hours until she could transfer back as a human. That weird Transfer Gate inside her simply didn’t work when she was a phoenix. She flew up to the aerie, and past Nikos’s open windows. His room was lit. She could see him sitting cross-legged on his bed, hands on his knees, eyes closed. He had to be talking on the mythic plane to Joey.

  Was there mythic contact etiquette? She knew she could reach him, but she was afraid if she did, his focus would turn to her and he would lose the contact. Better to wait.

  She flew between the arches, and landed on the long, beautiful patterned mosaic of the corridor. The pebbles felt odd beneath her claws. She hopped awkwardly into her room. She’d already discovered that she hated sleeping on the bed as a phoenix. It was too flat, and too hard to walk on.

  She was eyeing the furniture, wondering if her talons would scratch up anything she perched on, when a knock came, and there stood Nikos in the open door, his shirt loose over his dark trousers.

  Delight flooded through her.

  “I’ve brought Joey up to date,” he said, leaning in the doorway. “Nothing has changed in California—Cang’s people are still watching Joey’s people. Stalking each other.” He shot her a crooked smile. “Time to catch up on lost sleep. I wish . . .” He held out a hand.

  I wish, too. Can I come anyway?

  His smile broadened to a real one, if a little rueful. “Please.”

  And so she spent the night in his room, perched on a sword rack that he dragged in and put right next to his bed.

  She listened contentedly to his breathing as her mind drifted on a cloud of happiness at having him so near. One of these days, she thought drowsily, we will be able to kiss.

  And share that bed.

  On that thought she tucked her head under her wing . . . and woke as her body began the shift. This time she knew instantly what was happening—it felt like a thousand bee feet tapped over her body. She leaned over from the perch and in human form dropped neatly onto Nikos’s bed. She wasn’t anywhere near the expertise with which the other shifters made the transition between one step and another, but hey, improvement!

  She sighed, taking in the empty bed. She caught his scent on the pillow, and shivered with desire. Thwarted desire. He’d already left—and she sensed him in his unicorn, down at the hall with the hetairoi.

  The desire simmered as she went to his wardrobe, as he’d invited her to do. He didn’t have a million clothes, but what he had was fine. Her eyes were drawn to the coat he’d mentioned once. It was a long black military coat of the sort he would look very good in. She touched the sleeve of a linen shirt, then moved down to shelves where she saw neatly folded workout clothes.

  She picked out a black T-shirt and gray pants, showered, and pulled on his clothes. They were clean, of course, and smelled only of sun-dried fabric, but the fact that he’d worn them made her body under her skin flash with heat. So near, and yet so far.

  She took a moment to breathe out the craving, and regain her calm. Not yet. But it would happen—she could feel his own desire, a match for hers.

  By the time she ran down the frescoed corridors and mosaic-decorated stairs to the hall, breakfast was almost over. Everyone rose to greet her.

  “Please don’t do that,” she said, and to the staff person who came up, “Toast and coffee is fine.”

  She caught a shy smile from Lindy, the gentle pegasus-shifter, and went over to sit with her, but she chose a chair opposite Ezios, one of the wary hetairoi. His shoulders were tight, his gaze otherwhere. She’d seen him flying the day before—he was a steel-feathered minokawa in his shifter form, a ferocious warrior, Petra had said. In human form Ezios was long and lanky, wearing his hair in a braid down his back. He had a sensitive mouth, and Jen—listening hard on the mythic plane—caught an echo of memory, a little boy thrown out of an otter-shifter family, bewildered and alone.

  “What’s the schedule?” she asked.

  “Weapons practice after breakfast, then trade between patrol and school, or whatever else is part of your day watch schedule,” Lindy said softly. “Except for those with a free day.”

  Bryony put in, “Though until we’re rid of Medusa and the rest of them, no one but mythic shifters can spend their free day down at the harbor.”

  Rastus the cockatrice shrugged. “Keraunos would be crazy to come ashore. Unless they want to go to war.”

  “Bring it,” Calix growled.

  Bryony grinned fiercely. “That’s what I say. But the boss says, we’re not making the first move. Too many vulnerable civilians. So we wait, and watch. Oh yes, and practice defense drills, twice a day. Added to weapons practice.”

  General groans rose, but it sounded to Jen like no one was surprised. “What’s defense drill?”

  Bryony had just taken a huge bite, so Petra said softly, “We have several. One is to cut off the castle from the paths. Staff deals with anyone who got inside the perimeter, flyers deal with those outside. We all have stations.”

  Jen didn’t have one—because no one, including her, knew what her future was to be. She knew she wanted to be with Nikos, but did she want to live the rest of her life here?

  Now was not the time. So she said, “Weapons practice! I’m very much in the mood for that. Tell me your favorite weapons?” When she looked around, she made sure to meet Ezios’s eyes before moving on.

  “Archery,” Lindy said. “It’s very meditative.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” Jen responded.

  “Spear,” Dru the peryton admitted. “What can I say? I like flash.”

  “A spear is definitely flashy,” Jen said. “I kind of like them myself.”

  She glanced toward Ezios, and caught his gaze, which immediately dropped. But then he said, “Fighting fan.” Color rose under his bronze skin.

  “Fighting fan is the most amazing of all the forms to watch,” Jen said. “It take grace and precision—and when done right it looks so good you forget how lethal the moves are.”

  Ezios didn’t say anything more, but Jen thought she saw a little of the tension ease from his shoulders. Instinct prompted her not to push it, and so she turned her attention back to the others, who were eager to speak.

  Amazing, how a tiny sign like that—a slight easing of tension whose cause she didn’t even know—could give her more of a sense of victory than winning a trophy ever could, she was thinking as she followed the others out to the training court.

  For weapons work she chose sword, and put in a couple of hard hours. After lunch, she was drawn as if by a magnet to the infirmary, where the natural springs bubbled up in pools and tiny waterfalls. She intended to offer her help, hoping secretly that there might be little kids to entertain, or even babies.

  The split level infirmary was amazing. With her phoenix’s sense she could tell how the warmth worked up through cracks between massive slabs of stone millennia old. The result was a lovely area filled with the plash of water. Native plants grew everywhere, with citrus predominant, lending their heady aromas to the atmosphere. Ancient statues, some crumbled by weather and old quakes, blended with newer decorations, all from Greek mythology.

  Nikos was right. The sulfur smell was all but gone. Two of the pools still had ancient mosaics from long ago, one depicting silver dolphins leaping, and the other, blue monkeys playing among hanging gardens. Th
e idea of this being turned into polished steel and glass modernization aimed at big spenders made her stomach churn.

  She found Nikos in a secluded grove of thick olive trees, where he stood next to a patient sitting in a chair, eyes closed. Nikos’s head bowed, so that his horn just touched the person’s forehead. It was a peaceful scene, but Jen could feel on the mythic plane how Nikos guided a thin stream of pearly qi into the reddish, pain-throbbing aura of the patient.

  She backed away soundlessly, and soon was put to work washing out the shallow ceramic drinking vessels called kylixes that seemed to be part of age-old ritual here.

  The shadows were lengthening when the infirmary staff saw the last patient down the hill. Jen’s stomach gnawed with hunger—she didn’t know what to eat while in her phoenix form, so she waited for her human nights for meals.

  A bell rang, recalling everyone to the hall. Jen followed, seized by a fierce wish that she could sit down with Nikos. Share a meal. Such simple things, yet totally impossible.

  Suddenly Nikos’s focus was there, at what she’d begun thinking of as her mental outer door. He never trespassed inside without her conscious invitation, and she was getting the hang of doing the same for him. She slowed down, so she could concentrate on the mental exchange.

  Her sense of ease made a sharp left turn when Nikos’s thought came, Medusa is making her opening move.

  “Keraunos?” Jen whispered, an echo of remembered pain flashing through her.

  No—he seems to be hiding below on the yacht. For now. While I was busy up here with all these sick shifters she brought, all day her agents moved through the harbor and the other two fishing villages trying to buy property—offering insane amounts of money.

  “Did anyone listen to her offer?” she asked.

  Two—both newcomers to the island. They’ll discover what everyone already knows: all real estate deals go through me. That law’s been on the books since the days of bronze swords and sandals.