Silver Unicorn (Silver Shifters Book 3) Read online

  Doris flickered a weird look at Bird, but said, “Oh, they’re always good.”

  They talked about pastry, then moved from that to Joey Hu’s offer to fix Korean barbeque before the next meeting of the writers’ group. Godiva brought over a fresh plate of fragrant goodies, cackling happily. “I hope by Friday I’ll have today’s vid all written out. Wow, this is going to be a good one—I can feel it.”

  “All your books are good,” Bird said loyally.

  “Says she who’s too tender-hearted to read any mysteries but mine,” Godiva retorted with a grin. “Never mind the compliments. Leave that for the paying customers, may they flourish and multiply. Here, I’ve got dibs on that strawberry thing. It looks tempting, and I do believe I am the Olympic champion at falling for temptation. So! What are you all going to read on Friday, hmm? Doris—in your case, what goodies are you going to try on us?”

  Doris said, “I’m still working on my cookbook of ancient recipes. You guinea pigs will be getting traditional moon cakes, which the Chinese have been making for Mid-Autumn Festival for ages. Joey brought the recipe over from his Chinese grandmother.”

  “Sounds delicious,” Bird said. “Now that I’ve got another grandkid on the way, I want to try different types of stories for children, in hopes one might be just what the grandkids will like. I’ve begun one about dolls coming alive in their dollhouse at night—which was something I was convinced mine did while I was asleep, when I was little.”

  Everyone turned to Jen.

  She took her time finishing off her donut as she thought. Sometimes . . . you either explained everything, or said nothing. And these good friends had already done their time listening.

  So she offered them her social smile. “You know I’ve been playing around with fantasy lately. Always liked it when I was a kid. But so far nothing has clicked. I’ll just keep trying.”

  “Okay,” Godiva said. “I know very, very well that if a project is fighting you, there isn’t much you can do except back-burner it. Let me just say I’ve really liked all the beginnings you’ve written. Really compelling, and I’m not much one for fantasy.”

  Bird whispered, “I love them all, too.”

  Doris chimed in, “And I.”

  “Thanks for the support, everybody,” Jen said with heartfelt sincerity. “Whoa. Look at the time. I’ve got my women’s self-defense class starting in twenty minutes. I’d better fly.”

  Godiva said, “You’re teaching karate? I didn’t know that.”

  Rubber chicken. Time for another social smile.

  At least they were getting easier.

  “Kung fu, actually. Though they have a lot in common. Gotta keep myself in stockings and fans, as my Aunt Brigid used to say. Thanks for the pastries. See you later!” Jen walked out, fighting the instinct to turn toward the three masculine voices chatting on the sidewalk a few paces away: Mikhail’s quiet tones, Joey Hu’s warmer voice with a smile in it . . . and that other voice, slightly husky, with a sense of authority ringing through it. Not the blowhard kind. More like this Nikos Demitros knew exactly who he was, and what he was doing. But he still could . . . have fun.

  Like spar on the sidewalk of a beach town with a total stranger.

  Well—she told herself firmly, the way a mature adult widow in her fifties should—if she saw him again, great, and if not, fine. She was free of the weight of grief, free of the iron grip of emotion.

  Free as air.

  What a relief!

  TWO

  NIKOS

  Yes, she said rubber chicken, commented his unicorn.

  She did not say that, Nikos responded testily, annoyed by the laughter shimmering under his unicorn’s melodious inner voice. Why would she say that?

  The laughter intensified. Nikos smelled a trap. It had nothing to do with the fact that Jen had been speaking English. One of Nikos’s powers as a mythic shifter was to understand any language, as long as he was in the presence of the speaker. So comprehension wasn’t the question.

  He was not going to admit that he hadn’t caught the words because he’d been hypnotized by the sound of her voice. He did not intend to be lured down that road. There was already too much at stake. She spoke so quickly that I—

  She said it very clearly, came the loftily calm voice. His unicorn was a simple, direct animal, tranquil except when roused by injustice or cruelty. But neither of those was in question. Instead, his unicorn apparently felt that the time had come for—Nikos refused to even think the word. But we don’t know local slang. Which could mean anything.

  You didn’t hear because you were stunned by the knowledge that at last . . . Here the unicorn resounded like a mighty pipe organ, we have found our mate.

  No.

  Nikos shut his eyes. Not now. Not while he was facing the worst crisis of his life, increased by interlocking responsibilities. Echoes of past loss fueled his resolve: he had to say no and stick to it, before it was too late. If he was forced into an impossible choice between love and duty, it might put others at risk. Mates are for those who have time for a personal life.

  Mates are, was the placid—and maddening—answer.

  His unicorn often reminded Nikos of the sky: vast, powerful, wielder of mythic energies focused entirely on healing. And about as easy to influence as the sky. In vain he tried to reason with his animal, pointing out that with the current threat at home, the only thing more dangerous than having a mate would be for that mate to be human.

  The unicorn remained as silent as a cloudless summer day, instead offering an image of a shimmering chain of gold: the invisible-to-humans mate bond.

  Nikos thought: It’s not real if I say it’s not real.

  The unicorn vanished, leaving ringing silence inside Nikos’s head.

  Nikos drew a deep breath as he forced himself back to the here and now.

  Here: a tiny town in Southern California, where Joey Hu, that sly nine-tail fox, had insisted on the meeting taking place. The imperial dragon knight Mikhail Long was also present.

  Now: a vital mission.

  Nikos Demitros, Kyrios of Vasilikos Alogo—one of the most ancient of the mythic islands—had come to his allies’ call, though the situation at home was rife with tension.

  He’d used the opportunity to bring the two youngest recruits of his hetairoi—his elite guard—who were eager to test their wings and get a taste of the outside world before their first mission.

  They’d flown the last leg of their journey that morning, Nikos using Joey as a beacon on the mythic plane. They’d shifted when they landed and saw what at first glance looked like a fight. Within a heartbeat Nikos had seen that it was no real fight. More like a demonstration or playacting, as neither he nor the girls noticed the cell phone camera. The girls, less experienced, had launched to what they thought was the rescue.

  Nikos called them back—and then came the mistake.

  He knew better than to give in to instinct. He trained his honor guard to keep control at all times, waking and sleeping. As leader and mentor, he expected the highest standard and tightest control from himself. But something in Jen Carlsen’s excellent martial training—her air of cool competence—her sea-colored gaze—all those together, perhaps, had slipped past his control enough for him to let go.

  And it had been fun. No, not just fun. It had been amazing. Exhilarating. A dance of skill. To deny that would be to disrespect her excellence, which would be wrong. Especially as the entire problem lay with himself: he’d clearly enjoyed it too much.

  Rubber chicken. Why did she—

  No.

  He pulled himself together with an effort, relieved when he sensed that only a few seconds had passed. He turned to find his newest, youngest recruits standing side by side, wide-eyed with question.

  “Petra. Cleo,” he said in an effort to be casual. A non-event should not be made into an event. “You’re here to practice your English as well as to learn. Here is some American money.” He extracted some bills from his pocket. “W
hy don’t you get a snack while I consult with Joey and Mikhail?”

  Petra smiled. “This shop, it smells like a bakery,” she said in Greek, with the hungry teenager’s single-focus passion for sweets. “Such very good smells.”

  Cleo examined the bills, her brow furrowed. “What boring money they have here. It’s all the same size and such dull colors. So easy to mix up!”

  “But at least it is not as heavy or noisy as gold coins . . .”

  “English,” Nikos reminded them.

  “Yes sir,” they chorused in English, then whirled around and scampered into the shop. Where he knew Jen Carlsen sat. He could feel her presence there.

  It’s nothing if I say it’s nothing.

  Flat silence from his unicorn.

  Nikos turned his back to the bakery, and faced Joey Hu, who gazed back innocently. Expectantly.

  Nikos could still feel every point on his body where Jen Carlsen had touched. And it had been touches—she was far too skilled to land a blow unintentionally. One shoulder. A patch below the other collarbone. His right bicep. The outside of his left knee when he blocked a kick, The flesh on those points glimmered with inward warmth.

  Control.

  He pinned Joey Hu (who was notorious for mate-matching) with a look, almost a glare, as he said, “You issued the alliance call. I was dealing with significant threats at home. Can you brief me quickly, please?”

  Joey’s smile widened for a moment, but then he answered seriously. “We’re in rather a bind here. The celestial empress has ordered Mikhail to guard an oracle stone that recently emerged in a sea cliff after an earthquake. It’s been hidden for thousands of years. Unfortunately someone is after it—we don’t know who. But the rogue red dragon Long Cang has clashed twice with us over it.”

  Nikos frowned, wrenching his mind away from the warmth of that spot below his collarbone. He could swear he could feel Jen Carlsen’s fingerprint lingering there, as if she had imprinted him with golden dust. Resisting the urge to rub his knuckles hard over the spot to eradicate the . . . call it an itch, he said, “I remember Long Cang. He is quite formidable. I thought he was a Guardian, watching over shifter communities in this area. I didn’t know he went rogue.”

  “He did. We’re on guard against him,” Mikhail said grimly.

  Nikos gave a nod of respect. When usually-mild Mikhail used that tone, Cang had better watch out. Cang might be formidable, but Mikhail, when roused by injustice, was quite dangerous—he and Nikos had fought as defenders together numerous times over the years.

  Joey continued. “Where we need your help is in identifying what type of oracle stone it is. We can’t put together an effective defense until we have some idea why this one is a target, and perhaps who is targeting it. I have so little experience with this type of ancient artifact.”

  Mikhail spoke in his quiet, Chinese-accented voice, “My experience is limited to the oracle stones used as records of mythic shifter communities in days of old. In my brief time with this one, I suspected it might be even older than the petroglyphs in the cave where it is hidden.”

  Nikos turned his way. Oracle stones were usually repositories of spoken and sung records, captured by magic. But the stones could hold anything. Ancient records would be easiest. He could identify the content, turn the matter over to an expert, and be on his way back home. “By all means, let us—”

  He faltered, aware that Jen was moving. He fought every instinct to turn and stare as she exited the bakery. He could feel her, like the shimmer of the sun on water, as she moved around the side of the building to a bicycle in a rack. She rode away, and as the distance between them lengthened, there was the unicorn again. We must find her, the unicorn hummed, in the low chords of a mighty organ.

  She has nothing to do with the present task, much less the evils at home. He slammed the inner door on the unicorn and wrenched his attention back to Joey and Mikhail. “Let us see this cave of yours,” he said. “I’ll summon my two apprentices—”

  He turned his head, to find them running up, paper bags clutched in their fingers. “We brought some for you, kyrios,” Petra said.

  Cleo bounced on her toes, her ringlets jouncing at either side of her round, cheerful face. “We also found out where the female warrior has her training place. And guess what? She teaches women—the one called Doris wrote down the address for us. Can we go, kyrios, can we can we can we?”

  Petra added shyly, “You always tell us we need to observe and experience other styles.”

  Nikos looked from one to the other.

  Cleo said wistfully, “I want another go with her. She was so good, and you made us stop just as we were getting started.”

  Joey had been looking at the slip of paper in Cleo’s hand. “It’s only a couple of blocks from here,” he said helpfully.

  Mikhail added, “We have plenty of extra room should you like to stay. If my wife didn’t already offer. She’s one of the women inside there.”

  Petra turned to him and began carefully enunciating in English, “If she is the one with a face like a sweet apple, yes she did, so kind! She said her name is Bird. In your language, is that not the little feather-beak?”

  Nikos knew a conspiracy when he saw one forming—but at least it was a benign one, unlike the one that Cang Long, former Guardian, seemed to be a part of.

  The problem was, he had not expected to find anything even remotely dangerous in California. Joey had been a valuable ally in dangerous situations, but Nikos mostly knew him in reference to missions involving missing mates and suchlike. Mikhail’s preferred area of study, when he wasn’t fighting as an imperial knight, was ancient texts. Nikos had assumed the problem would be something academic, something easy, but not dangerous. Nikos had accepted out of old loyalty, and had grabbed the chance to give an outing to his newest two recruits.

  He glanced at the girls’ hopeful faces. They were his newest adoptees as well as the youngest of the recruits. They had grown up on rough streets in Morocco and Istanbul respectively before they had been rescued and brought to him. They were proud of what they’d learned so far—justifiably so—but like teenagers the world over, their exuberance tended to overreach their skills. And yet their self-confidence, so new, was still so fragile.

  He could stash them someplace safe and forbid them to move until he made certain there was no danger, and risk watching that self-confidence shatter, or . . . he could take the opportunity presented to him.

  “Very well,” he said. “You two join this martial arts class while I scout the territory with my old friends here, so we can find out more about their ancient artifact. It’ll be good practice for your skills and your English. We’ll meet later and exchange reports.”

  Two pairs of brown eyes, Cleo’s honey-colored, Petra’s dark, considered him, and Nikos could see the girls deciding that whatever the old guys were up to wouldn’t be as interesting as this prospective class. Two grins preceded shouts in English, “Yes, sir!”

  They scampered back to the bakery, and Nikos turned to Mikhail. “Lead the way.”

  At that moment, the street was empty, so Mikhail took that invitation literally. With a whoosh of air he stepped upward and in a flash of light became a silver dragon, eeling with slow grace through the salty ocean breeze.

  Nikos took a step and shifted, rejoicing as he always did when giving himself over to his unicorn. He flung up his head, testing the thousand scents and sounds and vibrations on the wind currents, his eyes and ears sifting those in the real world and his powerful horn those in the mythic realm. He sensed no shifters in animal form needing help or healing in the immediate vicinity. Good. He stretched up his wings and took to the air.

  Mikhail sailed upward, and Nikos followed. The town shrank in size, becoming a patchwork of roofs in lines hugging the coast. Nikos’s powerful wings beat the air, catapulting him skyward, where he began to coast. He glanced down, noticing Joey’s sporty red car racing along the streets, but his unicorn, now ascendant, turned his head
to search the streets—and found her.

  By now Jen was a tiny figure, but Nikos could see every detail, from her sun-kissed blond hair to her sober profile as she parked her bicycle at the side of a building. Then she just stood there, leaning one hand on the wall.

  The urge to close the distance between them was so strong that Nikos wrenched his attention back to Mikhail, who had already begun his downward descent toward the pale sand of the shoreline between the golden palisades and the sparkling sea.

  I can’t let this happen.

  Blue-black locks of silky unicorn mane spilled across Nikos’s eyes as he landed lightly in the sand. He folded his wings, then between one heartbeat and he next shifted back to his human self. Mikhail shifted as well.

  Joey appeared at a run, covering the ground. Mikhail and Joey Hu were regarded as venerable elders in the imperial court—but that didn’t stop them from being active in the field.

  “When Long Cang tried to take the stone,” Mikhail said, “I was able to ward it before he dropped the palisade on the cavern.”

  “And on Mikhail,” Joey put in. “Or tried to.”

  In his characteristic way, Mikhail shifted the subject from his personal danger to the problem at hand. “Though we cannot get inside, we have guarded this area in hopes of catching some of Cang’s followers.”

  Nikos, having lived on an island in a landscape and climate much like this, cast his eye over the huge slabs of disturbed sandstone tumbled down, a rockslide almost reaching the sea. “What do the local humans say?” he asked.

  “They think a recent quake was the cause,” Joey said, rocking back and forth from toe to heel, the very picture of a fox trying to outfox someone.

  Nikos side-eyed him as he nodded. They had earthquakes in the Aegean, too. He turned to Mikhail. “Is there no path within?” The easiest way would be for him to walk or fly inside as his unicorn. The closer he got to the artifact, the easier for him to use his horn to nullify any toxic magic in or around it.