At the front door of the cabin, he paused one last time, taking in Ros’s face. Her dark hair was tied back, and she had changed into a pair of jeans and one of his own flannel shirts. He wished he could put her in heat-resistant Kevlar, but if he could do that, he could have wished for the fire condors to be back where they belonged, and they wouldn’t have had to worry about any of this.
“Why do you look so excited?” he had to ask, and she gave him a full-out grin.
“Wrangling rogue spreadsheets and hunting missing payments is all well and good, but how many people can say they helped handle an invasion of murderbirds?”
Her smile shifted to something more wry.
“And I can handle this. So many things have been happening lately that have made me feel like my life’s totally out of control, my job, my apartment, Richie –“
“The fucking clown?” Teagan couldn’t help saying.
“Don’t you start, you don’t even know him. But yeah, and Richie. But this? This I can do. I know I can.”
He probably should have told her to be careful, that she could back out of this if she wanted to, but as he looked down into her shining face, he realized one startling thing.
He didn’t want to.
Teagan had always thought that when he found his true mate, he would be, maybe not ready, but at least a little prepared. He was prepared to be protective, to spend his whole life making sure that she came to no harm, that her enemies became his enemies. He was prepared to keep her safe, and now he realized that while that was still true, it wasn’t everything.
Of course he wanted to keep Ros safe, but this woman, this gorgeous woman who was practically bouncing from foot to foot to get started, was never going to be content to simply eat dinner at home every night and watch some television.
No, she was his true mate,histrue mate, and that meant that she felt the same thing he did, that low burning need to do what needed to be done, even if, and perhapsespeciallyif, there was a chance that things could go very wrong.
All of this flashed through his mind in a moment, and it took his breath away. If he had a ring, he would have gone down on one knee to offer it to her. If there weren’t a flock of fire condors ready to set the woods on fire, he would have dragged her back to bed.
“What is it?” Ros asked.
Instead, he didn’t have a ring, and they had to get this show on the road, so he did the next best thing.
Teagan pulled Ros into his arms and kissed her with everything he was feeling, every fierce and gentle and wild and wondering thing. She tasted like the future, and he belonged to her.
“I love you,” he whispered, and then he stepped back.
The world shifted as he went into his eagle form, everything impossibly vivid and bold, and he managed one quick, searing look at Ros as he turned. A strand of dark hair had come loose from her ponytail, her cheeks were flushed, and her red, red mouth was parted in surprise.
It took everything he had not to return to her, but there was work to be done, and the sooner they finished with this, the sooner he could take her in his arms and make sure she knew everything that was in his heart.
Chapter Twelve
∞∞∞
The kiss took Ros’s breath away. The words gave it back.
I love you.
They rang in her head, and for a moment, all she could do was stand on the front porch and marvel at them, their truth, their beauty, and the fact that beyond a shadow of a doubt, they were for her. Then she heard the fire condors start to cry out, and she went back through the house towards the deck.
Later. Later, when we have figured out this bird situation, we can talk about not dropping bombshells and running off to go herd fire condors.
And she could say it back.
It sunk into her that she loved him, and she would give anything in the world to tell him right now, but there was no time for it right this moment. Instead, she went back to the deck to find her erstwhile beloved harassing the fire condors.
His presence had unsettled the birds, which were currently all on the lawn. Their snake-like heads followed every graceful turn he made, and they paid absolutely no attention to her at all as she slowly descended the steps, coming down to the lawn with the trap in her hands. To her relief, Junior was at the edge of the group, and she sidled up a little closer.
When Teagan saw that she was in place, he dipped lower than he had before, practically coming down level with the two largest birds, screaming like a tornado siren as he did so. Even to Ros’s human ears, it sounded like a challenge, and the two matriarchs screamed back, spreading their wings and taking to the air.
At the same moment, Ros stamped her feet on the ground as Teagan had showed her, and just before the flock took off to chase after the eagle, Junior turned his head to her with a whistle. There was no doubt about it now that she could see him more clearly – the bird was besotted, and that meant this plan had a chance in hell of working.