Page 30 of Shifter’s Thunder

Two full days and long nights of intense and deeply satisfying amorous congress with him should have left her sated. Instead, she was tempted to help him remove the sweatpants again. It was more than just a welcome return of physical desire after years of celibacy enforced by demesne magic. She desired only him. He’d captured her interest from the first moment, and no one else could compare.

For the moment, she was content to let him plan future meals. Feeding her seemed to make him happy, but she needed to learn how to cook with appliances, especially the noisy, plate-spinning microwave. However, she drew the line at the tempestuous coffee machine that hissed and grumbled like a caged fire elemental.

From all that she’d gathered, living off the land and the sea as a dragon would be nearly impossible in the modern world. There were too many ordinary humans with phones that could take videos for her to hide, even with her dragon’s concealing magic. According to the refugee hyena-shifter children, she would soon need a main gig and a side-hustle, which seemed to be the confusing modern names for free servants and itinerant street traders. Her experience in repairing small artifacts, mixing paints and preparing canvases for successful portraitists, or applying finishes to hand-hewn furniture seemed worthless in a world where it was cheaper to replace, buy from a store, or build with plastic. But she could do manual labor while she learned new skills.

Outside the large front window, the world remained an unrelieved landscape of white. The continent-spanning storm Tanner had described was finally tapering off, leaving behind a sullen slate-colored sky and a few lazy, drifting snowflakes. The evergreen trees bowed low under the heavy burden of the snow. Earlier, Tanner had mentioned he was glad he’d left his “Sheriff-mobile” in town, or they would have needed hours to clear his steep driveway, even if she’d shifted to her dragon form to tackle the drifts.

The cushion beside her dipped, and Tanner slid into the chair, wrapping a warm arm around her shoulders to pull her close. He smelled of soap from his shower and his own unique scent of feathers. “Do you like Art Deco?”

“I liked the name of the book.” Avelunne leaned into his solid strength. “The deceptively simple style is intriguing.”

They sat in easy silence for a few minutes, Tanner idly stroking her arm while she turned the pages. It was domestic. It was comforting. No past, no future, just the present.

A shrill, ear-piercing noise shattered the peace. Tanner was up and moving before Avelunne could even flinch, crossing the room in three long strides to snatch his phone from its stand on the kitchen counter.

“Tanner. Go.” His entire demeanor shifted from lover to lawman in the blink of an eye. He listened intently, nodding twice. “Hold them both. Get Denise and the witch on call.” He glanced at the wall clock. “I’ll be there in twelve.”

He hung up and turned to her, already moving toward the door where his uniform lay. “Sorry, duty calls. There’s been a stabbing at the casino.”

Avelunne watched him spring into action, impressed by his practiced, efficient movements as he transformed into a uniformed sheriff. Four minutes later, he stood in front of her, wearing winter gear and carrying a pre-packed duffel bag. “I’ll text you later.” He gave her a scorching kiss, then left by the front door and launched as a thunderbird from the heavy porch railing.

In the sudden, heavy silence of the cabin, Avelunne closed the book and put it back on the shelf where she found it. The cabin felt lifeless without him.

He’d called her “mate” more than once in the heights of passion. If she agreed to let him claim her, he would be binding himself to her and would want her to stay. But his abrupt departure just now was a pointed reminder that she would always be the mistress, and Kotoyeesinay his wife. His duty was a bone-deep imperative she could never compete with, nor could she ask him to change.

She should move on while her heart was more or less still intact. The urge to leave flared like pressure in her lungs, but she made herself sit and think instead. Her old, bad habit of fleeing to avoid pain, or even the anticipation of pain, had not made her happier or safer. Or brought friends who would miss her. She’d spent centuries imagining and longing for what she didn’t have instead of cherishing what she did. She remembered the rapturous look on Tanner’s face when he saw and embraced his cousins in the pen. No one had ever looked at her like that, and she keenly felt the lack.

Here and now in Kotoyeesinay, she had people who liked her and who she liked back. In an odd way, they were her hoard. She had a safe place to be a dragon. They were part of a whole, colorful community that didn’t care about her ancestry.

And she had Tanner. Even if she couldn’t have all of him, the parts she did have were fulfilling. Perhaps they could compromise. The idea of exploring the world’s wonders yet having a home to return to was a different kind of song she hadn’t let herself hear until now. I’ll be home for Christmas, you can count on me… She didn’t know what was right for her, or for him, or for them together.

Act in haste, regret at leisure. For now, she would stay. She would keep herself busy at the Transition Center, coloring with the traumatized children and helping Tinsel achieve her vision of placing a fairy light on every roof and branch in the valley. The town could have the Sheriff during working hours, but the other hours would be hers. She would enjoy the here-and-now.

A slow smile touched her lips as she looked around the empty but beautiful cabin that still smelled of him. If she got lucky, she could enjoy pleasure with him on every sturdy-enough place in his home. Desire bloomed in her core, smothering her doubts as she imagined the possibilities of some inappropriate places, too.

Chapter 15

Tanner saved a file and opened the next. According to Tanner’s staff and the city workers, the gigantic storm left Kotoyeesinay buried under nearly eight feet of powder in some drifts. Kotoyeesinay didn’t have snowplows, but it did have magic. The trouble was, digging out wasn’t just a matter of clearing streets and helping neighbors get their front doors open, but a logistical issue of where to put the tons of excess snow. Everywhere for two hundred miles already had too much. It wasn’t as if they could just open a fairy portal and dump it in some drought-stricken wilderness that desperately needed the moisture. Humans would notice.

Fortunately, other, cleverer minds were working on that. To be perfectly honest, all he wanted to do was go back home with Avelunne. He’d found himself counting down the minutes. One more report to finish and one more meeting, and he’d be free.

He turned his attention back to the report of the casino stabbing from two days ago, trying to summon the focus that usually served him so well. The incident itself was straightforward, but messy. A high-roller human gambler at the Change of Fortune caught another player cheating and stabbed her hand to prove it. The player was illusion-wearing fairy who had to be spell-stunned to stop her from hanging the human by his toes from the nearest chandelier. Diplomatic Deputy Sheriff Shiloh kept the human contained until the witch on call could teleport in and smooth away inconvenient memories. Meanwhile, Tanner dealt with getting medical treatment and restraining spells for the wounded but vengeful fairy. Pendragor portaled to the casino to take her to the town’s null-magic detention demesne to cool off and wait for adjudication. That left Tanner to talk to the casino’s security chief about how they let the problem happen in the first place. He understood that the storm made them short-handed, but letting a fairy get away with cheating a normal human not only put the casino at risk, but the whole town. They were lucky other humans hadn’t been around to notice when a middle-aged, well-dressed Black woman turned into a snarling, green-skinned, winged, sharp-toothed fairy. The casino executive manager promised to improve their procedures.

When he’d left Avelunne so quickly, he’d promised to text her, but his job had reeled him in and swallowed him whole. He only remembered the promise when he’d escorted Denise back to the Transition Center just before dinnertime, and had been astonished to see Avelunne there. It brought him up hard against his assumptions and expectations. He’d imagined she’d stay safely at home, forgetting she had wings and a will of her own. She was a shining beacon of energy, standing in the center of the dining hall, surrounded by a chaotic whirlwind of paper, paint, and chattering children.

From what he could tell, she’d organized the refugee children — including the Ice Age shifter teenagers they’d pulled from the labs — into a crafting battalion for Tinsel. They were making holiday decorations with a fervor that looked more like they were preparing for war rather than Christmas. When she had looked around and spotted him, the smile on her face was so bright it seemed to melt the snow off his boots.

It was no use pretending they weren’t in a relationship. To any shifter with a nose, their scents were all over each other. She’d walked toward him, and he’d met her halfway to pull her in for a hug and an apologetic kiss.

“Sorry for not texting you. Let me make it up to you with dinner. Blue Fairy is open and serving, or we can take it back to the cabin.” Their telepathic connection was as easy as touching her.

“Cabin,” she’d replied instantly, her thoughts laced with hunger that had nothing to do with food. “Definitely the cabin.”

Eating the meal happened much later, after they’d indulged in making love in the shower and the bed. They’d laughed and fed each other at midnight. Reheated white lasagna had never tasted better.

Last night had been similar, with the added bonus of no emergency callouts. He wanted her all the time. All she had to do was breathe, and he was hard. It wasn’t just the physical pleasure, though that was addictive enough to ruin him for anyone else. It was the mystery of her. He had fallen in love with the flash of lightning and the artist’s outlook, but he wanted to know the woman who danced to unheard music when she read the titles on his bookshelves, and the possessive dragon who curled around his protective thunderbird while they slept. He wanted to map every inch of her history and discover the colors of her dreams.

Voices echoing from the station lobby snapped his attention front and center. Any more thoughts about Avelunne would have to wait, or his pants would become uncomfortably tight. He closed the file that he hadn’t touched and took a deep, centering breath, ordering his body to stand down. It was often a losing battle. Her lightning was in his blood.