There was a moment. The fire condores weren’t actually the biggest or the toughest birds around, but in a flock, they tended to be very confident and aggressive. There was a chance they would have been so hyped up from knocking an eagle out of the sky that they would try for an even larger victory. Then they would all be screwed, but as one, the flock lifted up from the deck, squawking its fury.
“Come on,” the woman said to Teagan, dropping her arms. “Come inside, they’re only going to be fooled for a minute.”
She reached for his arm, and the moment she touched him, a bolt of electricity went through Teagan’s body, lightning that traveled from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. It knocked the breath straight out of his chest, and he thought, looking into a pair of eyes as black as good coffee, that he wouldn’t need to breathe ever again, not so long as he could stay right here, looking at her.
It was her, his true mate, the one meant for him just like he was meant for her, and nothing, nothing else in the world mattered, not even a little. She gave him back look for look, her face solemn but so full of light that he thought that he would never be cold again. He realized with a deep and primal shiver that she was feeling what he was feeling. She needed him just as he needed her, and it didn’t matter that they had never laid eyes on each other before. What mattered was that they were together now and always would be.
“Well, hello, beautiful,” he said, barely aware he was speaking at all.
She opened her mouth – she had a wide, generous mouth with full lips that he longed to bite, God, but she was perhaps the most biteable woman he had ever met, her curves just dying to be touched – and then her eyes went wide with something much different from desire.
“Duck!” she shouted, and without thinking, Teagan lunged forward, grabbing her as he hit the deck. He retained just enough presence of mind to catch himself on his elbows. He didn’t crush her underneath his weight, but it was a near thing, and he barely registered how good she felt before a shadow swooped over them. There was the sharp drag of claws along his back, just grazing his shirt, and then a fire condor soared up again, screaming at being denied its prey.
“Come on!” he said, and he rolled off of her, kneeling up to give her cover. She crawled ahead of him, darting towards the door on all fours with startling speed. He had a moment to admire her curves from this specific angle, and then he was crawling after her as the fire condors sent up a furious clamor, their voices spiraling up into outraged screams.
Slow, too slow,Teagan thought desperately, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the fire condors swooping in at just the right angle, beak open, claws extended–
With a roar, he launched to his feet, grabbing his true mate around the waist and hauling her inside. With his free hand, he slammed the glass door shut behind them. He turned just in time to see the fire condor pull up before it crashed into the window, screaming as it flew upwards. If Teagan didn’t know better, he would think it was cussing them out with its shrill cries. The other fire condors paced around the deck, their crests lifted with agitation, their body language stiff and angry, but they didn’t seem intent on attack any longer.
Well, that was a thing,Teagan thought, and then he turned to his true mate.
Chapter Three
∞∞∞
This is the most good-looking man I have ever seen.
Those were the words that floated up in Ros’s mind when she first rushed out onto the deck with the sheet from the bedroom knotted around her neck. He was probably the best-looking man she had ever seen in real life, tall enough to tower over her, thick through the chest and shoulders and with a profile that seemed taken from Greek statues devoted to male beauty. When he turned to stare at her, Ros almost forgot what she was doing until the damn birds started screaming.
Up until that moment, Ros was certain about what she was going to do. It was simple, it sounded like it was going to work, and it was a damn sight better than simply staying inside and being helpless in the face of a deck full of endangered birds. Then she realized how large the birds themselves were, how sharp their claws, and she faltered until she realized.
He needs me.
And that was why she'd raised her arms like some kind of cut-rate Batman, flapping her makeshift wings as hard as she could and making herself look as fearless as it was possible to look with a sheet around her shoulders.
Wonder of wonders, it had worked, and now she was safely back in the house with the aforementioned handsome guy, who, she was almost certain, had called her beautiful before their mad dash inside. In the sudden stillness of the cabin, they looked each other over, and somehow, there was nothing awkward or strange about it. Somehow, Ros knew that she could look at this man for as long as she liked, and that she didn’t mind him looking at her either.
“That’s really meant for geese,” he said finally, and Ros blinked.
“What?”
“The, ah, flapping act. It’s meant for geese. That usually flips them out enough that they back off and you can get away. You should be more careful with other birds, though, especially ones as dangerous as–”
“Oh right, you’re the rescue guy,” Ros realized belatedly. “I’ll keep that in mind the next time I get attacked by birds. Which, you know. One hopes there never is a next time on getting attacked by murderbirds, but who knows in this day and age?”
“It’s sort of a basic risk of my occupation, but you’re right. One always hopes that this time is the last.”
Ros grinned, but then something about that statement struck her as hysterical, and then she was laughing. She was laughing too loudly and too hard for what the joke deserved, she could tell, but she also couldn’t seem to stop, laughing and laughing until the tears ran down her face.
I sound like a loon,she thought, slightly out of her head.Like one of those birds that used to make travelers think that lakes were haunted.
Fortunately, the man who had dragged her into the house didn’t look particularly haunted, or even alarmed. Instead, he helped her to one of the kitchen chairs, and once he made sure that she wasn’t going to fall out of it, he went to the sink and brought her back a glass of water, setting it next to her hand on the table.
“It’s all right,” he said soothingly, kneeling down in front of her. “It’s all right, just breathe. Just breathe, honey, I’m right here. Come on, breathe with me, okay? In...”
She did as he directed, following his breathing, obscurely grateful when he reminded her to breathe out as well, because she wasn’t sure she would have remembered on her own. She breathed with him, long slow breaths that slowly took the edge off her jangled nerves, and after a half-dozen breaths together, he nodded at the glass of water.
“Want to try some water now?”