No. No time for biceps. Don’t look.
She looked. She loved biceps.
She really should go. Please turn around. Let me out.
He pulled off his shirt.
Dee gaped, frozen to the spot. It was like watching a theater curtain rise, only this one exposed the most incredible torso she’d ever seen: taut pecs and cut abs and a dusting of mahogany hair that curled at his throat and trailed right down to his waistband and beyond, and oh, God, he even wore a silver medal, the chain glinting against his tan skin.
Hadn’t she seen that this morning? When he smiled at her in that brief, tantalizing flash of fantasy in the dust? Dreaming about painting was one thing. But dreaming about painting him…
She had to close her eyes. She had to turn around. He had no idea what disaster he was courting just by shucking his shirt. He reached up to pull the silver chain over his head and dropped it on the nightstand, and Dee almost groaned out loud.
Was he humming or was she? She couldn’t tell. She just knew she should move. She should fly away, right now, no matter the cost. The danger certainly couldn’t be greater than what would happen if she shifted right on top of his chifforobe. Because the way her body was reacting to him, even her owl body, she just wasn’t sure it wouldn’t happen.
Concentrate on something else. He was out to get her parents. Not enough. Something else. Xan. He could be from Xan. She had to….
She forgot what she had to. He was unsnapping his jeans. She held her breath, terrified that if she so much as gasped, she’d start chirping like a car alarm. Her tiny heart was thundering. Her feathers had suddenly grown too heavy and hot for her skin. Warnings shrilled in her head.
Any other time, she’d already be seeing green fog. But she’d never become this aroused when she was already shifted. She had no idea what would happen. Would she changeagain? Would she change back into herself? Maybe she’d simply explode. She could just imagine owl feathers showering down from that chifforobe like fireworks.
Well, it couldn’t be any worse than what usually happened. She could just imagine what Danny James’s reaction would be when his mother appeared crouched on the top of his chifforobe wearing nothing more than a blush.
As for her, she might as well just kill herself and be done with it.
It didn’t seem to matter. Even at the real risk to life, limb, and both their psyches, she simply couldn’t look away. She couldn’t think of anything but how breathtaking he was, how he made her want things she’d never allowed herself to want. Her very cells were glowing hot, a core meltdown that presaged disaster of monumental proportions. Her energy was coagulating, gathering to change, and she was trapped in a room with the man who’d come to investigate her.
Please…
She was terrified she was already sparkling. The green fog clogged up inside of her, stealing her breath. And still he didn’t leave. Instead he pulled a file from his briefcase. She saw him bend over it and just closed her eyes.
I wonder what you look like now,’ he said suddenly. And what you’re going to end up telling me about those bloodsucking charlatans you call parents.’
Dee’s eyes snapped open to see him looking at an old magazine article of her in her Darling Dee-Dee dress. It saved her. His words sent a chill straight through to her talons.
Danny James tapped the picture. ‘Ready or not, Deirdre Dolores Fortune, here I come.’
Then he sauntered on into the bathroom, never once noticing that he had an owl on his furniture. Dee shot him a scathing look. Then she wasted a moment yearning for that file. It was too late, though. She had to leave. Dee barely made it out the window and next door to Pete Semple’s toolshed before the green fog enveloped her.
Lizzie stood in the open doorway, staring out in the bright morning sun as her sister disappeared into the sky in search of her prey. Dee made a lovely owl, she thought absently, all brown feathers and piercing eyes.
‘Should I follow her?’ Mare said, sounding exasperated. ‘You know, in case she ends up naked in a tree someplace, and I have to kick that Danny guy’s ass? After which she’ll bitch at me because I’m not going to college?’
Lizzie shook her head. ‘I’m not taking sides on that. You know she works hard at that bank for us and-’
‘Right.’ Mare went down the porch steps. ‘Gotta run before I go to work. If I see our sister naked, I’ll beat up anybody who’s looking at her, no matter what she says.’
The wind blew like a whisper, and Lizzie looked up. Did you hear that?’
‘Hear what?’ Mare frowned at the breeze. ‘I didn’t hear anything. Back in an hour. Thanks for the muffins.’
She pushed off, hitting a full run before she was through the front gate, and Lizzie breathed a silent sigh of relief as her youngest sister disappeared down the road. Time to herself, a quiet house, and no more fights. She could even finish her cup of tea before she retreated to her workshop. She was about to close the door when she felt a shiver run down her spine.
It wasn’t a particularly unpleasant shiver. Not a sense of danger, or impending doom. But something was definitely off, and she turned back to the kitchen slowly, and then had to stifle her instinctive scream.
He was leaning against the kitchen counter, and for a moment she couldn’t see him clearly. He was a mass of changing colors – swirls of vivid brightness dancing, and then everything settled down, like a camera coming into focus, and it was only a man standing there, a tall man in a dark suit and blond hair, watching her.
The back door to the house was still closed and locked with a chair full of unread newspapers in front of it, and Lizzie had been standing in the only other door, watching her sisters take off. That door was still open behind her back, and she ought to run for it, fast. She was a chicken and she knew it, but the one thing stronger than her fear of confrontation was her curiosity.
‘How did you get in here?’ Dumb. She should have asked him who he was.
‘Doesn’t your sister know better than to turn into an owl in the middle of the day? Owls are nocturnal – if someone notices, there are bound to be questions, even in this town. Especially in this town.’ His voice was deep, mesmerizing, and just slightly annoyed.
She stared at him. He hadn’t been there when Dee shifted, and even if he’d seen it he wouldn’t have believed it. ‘What do you mean, especially in this town?’
One of the bunnies hopped across his foot, and he leaned down and picked it up, a soft, tiny creature in his elegant hands. She watched, mesmerized, as he stroked it, the long fingers caressing the fur lightly before he set it down on the table, where it lay in silver splendor, a fork once more.
‘Who the hell are you?’ she said, finally asking the right question.
He moved into the light, and she could see him quite clearly. Elegant, with long golden hair, dark eyes, impeccably dressed, with a silver stud in one ear. A little on the thin side – he was too well dressed for Mare, and Dee didn’t like blonds. He was probably in his early thirties, though there was something almost ageless about him.
‘Either your worst nightmare or your salvation,’ he said. ‘It’s up to you.’
She didn’t like men in suits, she didn’t like men who just showed up in her kitchen, no matter how gorgeous they were, and she definitely didn’t like his lack of answers. ‘I’m getting out of here,’ she said, turning to make a run for it.
The door in the hall slammed shut, followed by the very audible click of the lock.
‘I don’t think so,’ the stranger said. ‘You’ve been causing too much trouble, and I intend to put a stop to it. There’s nothing worse than amateurs messing with the laws of mutability. The repercussions can screw things up on a global level, and it can’t be ignored any longer.’