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"Detective Dodd offered to drive you home, if you'd like?"

"I don't know where those guys went, and I just wanted to make sure you got there safely," Will said. "If you prefer to take your car, I can follow behind you?"

I looked down at my shaking hands and the keys jangling between my fingers. If holding shears to a dog right now was a bad idea, trying to operate a vehicle while I was this upset was a disaster waiting to happen. But accepting a ride from a man I barely knew didn't seem like that much better an option.

"I-I don't want to keep you from work." I couldn't meet his eyes. My social anxiety battled with my overall anxiety, which kept company with the bone-rattling fear the strangers had stirred up. It was a war I was destined to lose.

"I'd be keeping a citizen of Lowery's Crossing safe, which is exactly what I'm supposed to do," Will assured me. I risked a quick glance up at him and saw nothing but honest concern in his bright blue eyes. I'd forgotten that his twin sister was Camille, from Buns 'n' Roses, until that moment. I didn't know Will, but I knew Camille well enough and knew he'd been by her side supporting her through every step of coming out and transitioning. Surely that meant I could trust him to drive me home?

"I… I guess if it's not too much trouble? I probably shouldn't be driving."

"I'll come by later or tomorrow and we can come get your car," Lain offered, nipping my last concern in the bud.

I nodded, too tired to do anything but agree at this point. Lain gave me a quick hug, promising to take care of the salon, then I left with Detective Dodd, just hoping he didn't use the ride to interrogate me.

Chapter 14

Typhon

Three days of recovery and rest had the beast chewing at the reins to break free, impatience eating away at him. We'd never stopped to rest, not as far back as I could remember. That wasn't actually very long, but even I was chafing under the restrictions.

We promised Quinn that we would wait.

The beast grumbled, fed up with my attempts to calm him. He will think we're weak.

No, he won't. Our human told us we needed to rest, or we won't fly again.

That brought an abrupt end to the beast's complaints. He remembered flying, wings straining as we fled, escaping from… somewhere. We flew until our wings burned, and we landed in the woods by the mountains. I only remembered bits and pieces of our first days free, the beast in full control as we stalked the trees. I remembered the smell of the skin-changers on the wind, igniting some instinct that didn't seem to belong to either of us, yet it overrode everything else, compelling the beast to find the scent, to track it down and eliminate it.

There were flashes of a human running through the trees, then a cliff. The human fell, but we glided easily to the bottom of the ravine. Instead of a human, though, a gangly coyote waited for us. It found a safe haven, and we were forced to wait. The sun rose and fell and rose again, and still the coyote stayed hidden. Then the scent of more skin-changers came, and we left our prey to search for it.

Everything went hazy for me there, and the next distinct memory was the feeling of bullets sinking into our skin, then teeth mangling our wing. Too many hunters, too many skin-changers, and we had to flee. That alien urge to hunt, to kill, tried to take over, but the beast's survival instincts were stronger, and we fled until we found Quinn.

Ours.

We are the protectors. We should be with him.

If we went to town with him, we would be found. The hunters would come for us.

We would destroy them. The beast's smug superiority came through even in our thoughts.

Not like this, we won't. And what if they come for him?

His vicious growl reverberated across the yard at the thought of anyone hurting the human we'd claimed.

Exactly. So we have to heal so we can protect our Quinn.

The beast didn't like it, but our need to protect Quinn was strong enough to quell his complaints.

At least we weren't confined to the deck. The bullet wounds in our legs still hurt, but we could walk if we went slowly. Walking without jostling our injured wing was more difficult, but not impossible. A few slow laps around the yard helped ease the boredom of inactivity, at least for awhile. We'd done it enough that the mule no longer brayed in fear when we walked past, unfortunately, but the chickens still ran from us, which soothed the beast's ego a bit.

The big dog, Romulus, watched us the entire time, lying in front of the back door as if protecting the house from us. He didn't fear us. He just watched, resting his head on his paws with his ears straight up as we paced. The beast didn't mind Romulus, strangely enough. He seemed to approve of the dog's protectiveness of Quinn. Anyone who defended our human was safe with us.

Tires on gravel caught everyone's attention.

Quinn is home. The beast's pleasure was palpable, but something felt wrong.

It's too early. He doesn't come home until later.