Mikhail drew Bird away as dust began to gout out the collapsing entrance. Mikhail closed Bird in his arms, ignoring the burns all down his back. Her body trembled in his arms, her eyes wide and shocked as she took in the mythic creatures. So she could see them, without him having to draw her into the mythic realm.
Joey’s thought came, Your mate has strengths that you have yet to discover. So does she.
His laughter rippled across the mythic plane—and then golden light flashed across the sky and the empress’s qilin dove down from cloud-walking.
The messenger shifted into her human form and addressed Mikhail in Mandarin. “The empress sent me to inquire if you need assistance.”
“You may take charge of these.” Mikhail indicated Liza and Horace, still prisoners of the male and female pair of Pi Xiu. “The Oracle Stone is buried again, but I placed a ward around it. Tell her I will report in person, as soon as I see to my mate.”
The qilin-shifter was young, new to her position as messenger. Her eyes rounded, and then she pinked. “Congratulations, and double-happiness.” She shifted in a shower of stars, and turned to deal with the prisoners.
Mikhail slowly, painfully moved away, longing to shift himself. But his strength was at a dangerously low ebb as he fought the pain of those burns. Shifter healing was fast, but it wasn’t instantaneous. It would be a while before he could shift and carry Bird safely. But he wanted his mate comfortable, and safe, right now.
She stood looking dazed, shivering violently.
The burns were agony as he put his arm around Bird. He said to Joey, “Can you drive us back to Bird’s cottage?”
“I would be honored.” Joey saluted insouciantly.
Mikhail took Bird’s hand and paced beside her as they walked up the path toward the old lot. Her hand was still trembling, but she paced along determinedly. “I’m so glad it’s over,” she whispered presently.
Joey glanced back, meeting Mikhail’s eyes in question. Mikhail shook his head slightly: no, it wasn’t over. But he would explain later.
They neared the top of the palisade to discover that half of the abandoned parking lot was now huge slabs of broken concrete above sinkholes where the caverns below had collapsed. Dust hung in the air above it, nearly obscuring the crowd that had gathered beyond the chain link fence. Half of them were busy shooting the destruction with their cellphone cameras.
The town police had arrived, and were in the midst of driving the crowd back, one with a bullhorn. “Please step away from the fence, and disperse! This area is now fully off limits—another landslide could occur at any moment! Trespassers would be instantly arrested!”
Bird ducked at the top of the pathway. “We’re going to be in trouble.”
“Let me handle this,” Joey said, assuming a self-important air. “In my official capacity as representative of the university. While I babble about archaeology at the good officers of the law, you two slip around that way to my car.” He headed into the dust, yelling, “There you are! It’s a mess down there! I was nearly killed!”
The police converged on him, followed by the crowd.
Unnoticed, Mikhail and Bird picked their way alongside the fence, Bird looking at Mikhail every few seconds in growing concern. “Mikhail? Those burns look horrible. Should we go to the hospital?”
“Give me a few hours, and the worst of it will heal adequately.” He hated to see that stricken look in her eyes.
But she didn’t argue, or plead. She just slid her sandy, clammy fingers into his, filling him with the sweetness of her unconditional love. And it was unconditional. She had tolerated more mayhem during these past days than he had thought any human, and few mythic shifters, would ever choose to bear.
They reached the spot Joey had parked his car.
Bird stopped and let out a hiss of outrage. “Look at that!”
After a battle with a renegade dragon, an attack by swarms of lava wyrms, and nearly being buried in a collapsing cavern, Mikhail braced himself to face . . .
A parking ticket.
Bird glared at the offending bit of paper stuck through the windshield wiper of Joey’s car as if it was a thousand-tentacled kraken.
Mikhail was nearly giddy with suppressed laughter as Bird muttered about the flagrant unfairness of giving out parking tickets during an earthquake.
Joey walked up. “There you are.” Then his gaze followed theirs. “A ticket? What an anticlimax. I wonder if I can argue this in court?”
“I’ll pay for it, whatever it costs,” Mikhail said, as he and Bird climbed into the back seat.
Joey laughed. “I think I can handle a parking ticket. Let’s get you two back.” He started the car. “ Everybody hates a know-it-all, but I did tell you to be careful of Cang.”
“I didn’t understand your reasoning. I thought it was mere dislike,” Mikhail admitted. “You’re so much more sensitive to the emotional spectrum in the mythic realm than I am. I should have listened.”