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Iris sighed, sinking into a kitchen chair with confusion dancing the mambo in circles around her. “Maybe. I do feel like we should talk. I don’t feel great about the way I just…evicted him. Yeah, he messed up, but I’m not perfect either.” She paused. “Do you…happen to know where he is?”
“I do,” said Henry Dale and quickly recited the address.
Once she had the info, she didn’t know what she intended to do until she got upstairs. The normal reaction would be to call him or get in her car.Since when was I normal? My parents are Rain and Fen. I’m extraordinary. I’m fae.Calmly Iris undressedin the main bedroom and folded her clothes; then she opened the window.
She imagined her body getting lighter and smaller, feathers instead of skin, hollow bones, and wings that would ride the wind. Her body was only a suggestion, not the lines that confined her. A chosen shape, not the only one, and then—
She was a hawk. Like Eli. Flying felt so natural that she let out a triumphant shriek and caught the updraft, circling the house.
Then she arrowed in the direction of her heart.
First there was a red-tailed hawk, circling overhead in graceful motions, and then there was a naked woman on Eli’s porch. Not just any woman.
Iris.
He hurriedly dragged her inside without asking a single clarifying question. Her eyes rounded when she spotted Liz, currently sprawled on his couch in comfy clothes. Liz had been sleeping on the sofa, but this probably looked bad.Oh shit. What the…? Why now?
“Uh, hello there. There’s probably an interesting explanation,” Liz said, carefully keeping her gaze on Iris’s face. “I look forward to hearing it after you get dressed.”
He pulled Iris through to his room and quickly found her a T-shirt and jogging pants. Eli turned to close the door as she put the clothes on. “It’s good to see you,” he said.
“Allof me?” The laughter in her voice said she wasn’t upset.
“Okay, admittedly, this isn’t how I would’ve chosen to get you naked the first time.”
“You’ve thought about that, have you?”
“I’m not a saint,” he muttered. “Those dance lessons…”
“You can turn around. So are you crashing on your friend’s couch or what?”
He let out a breath, relieved that she didn’t think he was the kind of person who could go from kissing her to being with someone else at the drop of a hat. “That’s Liz, my lawyer friend. She got worried when I wasn’t responding to her texts.”
“Afraid of you going hawk forever on her?” Iris guessed.
Eli had to smile over how well she knew him. “Yeah, that’s exactly right. And honestly, I’ve told her so much about all of you that she was hoping to meet everyone before she heads back. She’s even talking about moving to St. Claire.”
A soft smile started in Iris’s pretty gray eyes, rounding the corners of her mouth like she was stealing a base. “That’s how awesome you made us all sound, huh?”
“Just the truth, as I saw it.”
“You must be wondering why I chose to come over this way,” she said.
“Iamcurious about the whole turning into a hawk thing.”
“I did that for you. To see if I could. I’d already found out that I’m fae before you left. Well, some fairly critical developments have occurred since then…”
Eli listened as she filled him in; some of this he’d gleaned from Henry Dale and Rowan’s comic, but he wanted Iris’s words too. All of her words, always, every day of his life. At some point, she curled up on the bed while she talked and he sat beside her. And then she closed the distance, ever so slightly, until he felt boldenough to put his arms around her. She let out a gusty, happy sigh, snuggling close as if she’d missed this.
Missedhim.
“That’s incredible,” he said when she finished her account.
“It is. And now we should talk.”
“About us?”
Emphatic nod from Iris. He breathed her in, unable to believe how lucky he felt. He hadn’t needed the grand gesture after all. It felt good to realize he had been right—that he just needed to give her time and space to make up her mind.
