AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chunks of muck shot everywhere. It was like putting the vehicle in the spin cycle. Kit ducked. It was a natural instinct, but he didn’t run. He’d seen this too many times to be anything more than exhausted by it.
The brake lights kicked on. Yordan was trying to slow down. It didn’t work, of course. All around the vehicle, people were putting their hands up in the air. It looked like the motor pool was in a stickup. Even Kit put up his hands in surrender because that was the point.
The only way to stop the spinning was to give up total control. There was nothing Yordan could do to slow the vehicle down. In fact, any attempt to move the wheel or—God forbid—cut the engine, would result in the van becoming a spintop they’d once clocked at 400 rpm, which was enough to make an ice skater hurl.
Fortunately, Yordan was no fool. He threw up his hands, and the car started slowing down. Kit caught his gaze every time the van came around. He knew it was an illusion. There was no way Yordan was seeing anyone in the nauseating spin, but Kit couldn’t shake the feeling that Yordan was looking straight at him.
So when the van started to slow down enough that a normal man would think of putting his hands back on the wheel, Kit dropped his clipboard and jammed his hands in the air. “Up! Up! Up!”
That was the last fairy trick. If you tried to reassert yourself before the vehicle came to a full and complete stop, then the thing would speed up for another half hour, and nothing would stop it. Not counter spells, no amount of brute force, nothing. The driver had to be patient until the thing was at a dead stop.
If he or she touched the wheel too early again, that would be a disaster that required medical. The last guy who had been stubborn survived only because he passed out. God willing, Yordan wasn’t that stubborn. But just in case, Kit had everyone hold their hands up high as a message.
The van spun around again, nearly stopped, and Kit was horrified to see Yordan’s arms start to lower. Kit cried out a sharp command in as powerful a voice as he could manage.
“Hands up!”
Yordan’s gaze locked on his, and his arms snapped high enough to press into the roof of the van.
“Stay!”
He saw Yordan’s face tighten. No one liked the insulting dog command, but every puppy knew the word and respected it. In a paranormal world, sometimes freezing was your best option. And so, Yordan froze, hands pressed upward, while the van finally stopped with an audible groan.
“Two minutes!” Kit bellowed, keeping his eyes trained on Yordan. “Stay!”
Back when this fairy game had started, they’d made the mistake of opening the van door too soon. That hadn’t been good for anyone, so Kit had decided on a two-minute wait time for everything to turn off. It had been long enough so far, but one never knew for sure.
He waited, his arms still stretched upward, while the seconds ticked by. And then, once it was done, he slowly crept forward to the van.
“Don’t move until I open the door,” he instructed. “Pop the seat belt as fast as you can, then we’re both going to dive free. Understand?” He pointed to where a pad was being placed to catch them.
Yordan nodded in a quick, curt jerk of his chin.
This was the part that Kit didn’t trust to anyone else. If the van started spinning again, he would have to dive inside or risk being thrown across the lot into any number of hard or pointy things. His particular “issue” when he shifted made him the best candidate to manage the maneuver without massive debilitation. Sometimes the reflexes of a cat were an advantage, even in a roomful of dogs.
Especially in a roomful of dogs.
He locked eyes with Yordan and said, “One, two, three.” Then he pulled open the van door while Yordan unbuckled with a speed that impressed Kit. Yordan uncoiled from the seat belt with a fluidity surprising in so big a man, then wrapped his free arm around Kit.
That wasn’t at all what Kit expected. People usually just jumped and were surprised when Kit was suddenly not in the way. No one had ever thought ahead to wrap an arm around him such that they sprang together. No one but Yordan.
He felt the man’s powerful arm snap around his waist and the press of his biceps as he locked Kit in tight. It was a smart position from which to launch off a moving vehicle, but it was too late. Kit was already mid-shift. Kit had a brief impression of glorious muscles, and then he was a fraction of his former size.
He insta-shifted as he leaped free. He felt himself sail through the air in his feline form. He might look like a goofball as he flew, but small and safe was better than huge and in the way. Unfortunately, Yordan was suddenly gripping an empty dress shirt. Kit had a moment to see the man’s eyes widen in shock as he frantically tried to reorient himself mid-leap. Yordan had been expecting to manage the weight of two adult men. Instead, he pushed himself and empty air hard enough to land at the very far edge of the mat.
Nothing he could do about it now. Kit had already landed on four kitty paws, rolled because that was the curse of this body, then tumbled to a stop. An instant later, he was back upright in his human body, naked but less embarrassed than he would be to wander around in his animal body.
Meanwhile, Yordan landed with a heavy thud with Kit’s dress clothes flopping heavily on his face. Wow. The man had apparently twisted in the air, planning to land on his back with Kit on top. A heroic move and one that made Kit regret shifting. That would have been a fantasy-come-true to lie, even for a moment, on top of the big guy.
Yordan pulled the clothes off his face with a hard jerk, his gaze efficient as he took in the whole building, from the other workers calmly going back to work, the van no longer moving, to naked Kit leaning down to grab his clothes.
“Where’d you go?” Yordan demanded.
“I shifted,” he responded. “Easier for you to get out with me clear.”
Yordan grunted as he glared at the van. With Yordan now free, the thing was back under normal physics, and the nearest worker jumped in to drive it to the corner where it would be checked and cleaned.
“What the fuck was that?” Yordan asked, then before Kit could answer, he held up his hand. “Let me guess. Fairies.” He spat out the word with a full measure of disgust.
