Chapter Two
Libras crave companionship
The screen page before her could have been written in Arabic for all she could comprehend. Things couldn’t be going worse. It appeared they couldn’t get her client out before evening. The flight she had hoped to get on had been canceled. So, even if she could have gotten there, she would have been stuck in the airport. Her gram had called three times, demanding she get her arse on a plane immediately in order to arrive in Ireland not a second after sundown, their time. And, to top it off, although she had found her mate, he showed no signs of being interested in anything more than a one-night stand. Although it had been the most amazing night of her life.
She had heard that when the mating fire hit, nothing could contain the need to be with one’s mate. Never in her life had she taken a man to bed so quickly. Not that they had made it to a bed. Unless you counted the bed of his truck, from which she currently sported a good-sized bruise on her right hip. Archer had been close to desperate as he made love to her as the sun rose over the horizon, but his warmth had chilled as he dropped her off in front of her building.
“Perhaps when I get back from Ireland…”
“Stop. I’m lousy at relationships, worse at long distance ones.” He’d reached for her, but she’d flinched. “I don’t know when or if I’ll be back in this area again.”
Her heart ached, and she found it impossible to breathe. “I see.”
“It’s not—”
“You can stop. I don’t need to hear it.” She climbed out of the truck before he could. And although the pain grew with every step away she took, the rational side of her said it was for the best. Although she had heard of humans mating with shifters, how the hell would it have worked with her? She had gone without a mate for seventy years. She would go without again. Perhaps the fates would have mercy on her and grant her another. When she was inside the building, with dark glass to hide her from the outside world, she’d allowed herself a final glance back.
Archer had leaned against his truck, hands fisted at his sides, staring at the building. Twice, he’d made a move toward the door then turned back. Then he’d climbed behind the wheel and hit the dashboard. He had played the cool asshole to make her walk away, but why? Finally, he drove off, leaving her more confused than before.
Thankful for the shower in the office bathroom and the change of clothes she kept at work in case of all-nighter court preps, she prepared to face the day. Coffee in hand, hair up in a tight bun, and her makeup applied, it could be like any other day. Only, it wasn’t.
“Teagan, you got a second?” Jeffrey asked from the doorway.
“Come on in.” She wasn’t getting anything done anyway. “You look very serious. Whatever is the matter?”
He closed the door behind him before crossing the room. “So, I chatted with Leonidas at great length, last night. Early this morning, he sent a team of sentinels to the Hill of Tara.”
“Jeffrey, I told you that information in confidence.”
“My prime has known where the Libras’ stronghold is for years. I told him nothing and confirmed nothing. In fact, he asked me nothing except for your plans.” He took out his phone and scrolled through some messages. “Leonidas said the five lions he sent have all reported back that the hill is crawling with Foniás.”
“How could they tell?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a beta or a sentinel. But the twins said they took a tour, and there were three on that one bus alone.”
“Three?”
“Three.” He shook his head slowly. “The twins, Liam and Silas, have agreed to meet you when you land. They can offer you some protection. My prime has already been in touch with yours. She is in agreement it is too dangerous for you to travel and is okay with the Leos escorting you until you reach the safe zone.”
“Why would he do this for me?”
“Because I asked him to.”
This stumped her. The ravens would have debated the idea of helping anyone and, in the end, her grandmother would have denied the assistance. “Just like that?”
“Leonidas is a good man. He takes his role as pride protector very seriously. And you are family to me and Sheila; that makes you part of my pride.”
“In turn, part of his?”
“Exactly. Leos are nothing if not loyal and protective.”
“You can tell the twins they can stand down for a bit. It doesn’t look like I’ll be making the trip home over the next few days.”
“Then you need to stay in your house. You have wards there, I assume.”
“Of course. But, if I’m here, I am going to work. I’m not going to let the Foniás scare me into hiding.”
“You mean like they do every year, sending you running for Ireland?”
She gnawed her lips. “There has to be a way to tell if someone is a slayer or not.”
“The only thing I know about is a tattoo they all have. But, unless they have their shirts off, that isn’t likely to be of any help—”
“What kind of tattoo?”
He shrugged “Something with all the Zodiac signs.”
“Circular and on the left shoulder blade…” The room spun a little.
“That’s the rumor. You don’t look so good.”
“I don’t feel so good. The tattoo is about the size of a small dessert plate. And it’s extremely intricate.”
“Holy hell, you’ve seen it.”
She nodded, afraid if she spoke, she might cry or, worse, lose what little lunch she’d eaten. Ah hell. Why would the fates give her a Foniás as a mate? What had she done to so offend them? And how would or could she tell anyone about it? With good reason, her people feared and loathed the slayers. They killed shifters for no reason other than because they existed.
“If I brought in a sketch artist, could you describe it to them? I think Leo would find the exact design helpful in protecting our people.”
She nodded, putting her head on her desk. Ten minutes later, Jeffrey returned to the office. At his heels was a middle-aged Korean woman with pencils and a sketch pad. She closed her eyes and focused her memory on the tattoo.
“Ready when you are, Ms. Rees,” the other woman said.
“Elaine, right?” She opened her eyes and offered a smile to the other woman who sat with her pad and pencil ready.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“The tattoo is situated on the left shoulder, basically over the heart. It’s four circles, the small one in the center about the size of a baseball. The next is the size of a saucer.”
“Like this?” The woman flipped the page so she could see it.
Teagan nodded. “Yes. The largest is the size of a small dinner plate with the next one about an inch smaller.”
Over the next hour, they worked, with her retelling and correcting until they had it almost perfect. “What is it?” Jeffrey asked.
“Something is off. Something about the Libra sign.” She closed her eyes and went through the moments. Then she remembered thinking the early morning sunlight had hit the tattoo oddly. The tattoo seemed to have a slight glow. No, not the tattoo, only Libra. “Libra rising.”
“Excuse me?” Jeffrey looked from her to Elaine.
“Libra had a bit of orange-red tint around the edges.” She continued for Elaine’s benefit then, when the woman handed her the sketch, she thanked her. Jeffrey ushered her out, closing the door behind her. “Officially, Libra’s reign starts at sunset, but we moved into Libra when the sun rose. The tattoo glowed bright on Libra. The symbol of Virgo had faded. I would bet this evening Libra will be in full flaming glow and Virgo will be black, like the other signs.”
“Virgo waning, Libra rising.”
“Exactly.”
“So.” He stared at her. “You saw this tattoo this morning and last night?”
“What?”
“You spent the evening with a Foniás?” He narrowed his gaze. “With his shirt off?”
“I didn’t know what he was. He certainly didn’t know what I was.”
“Who is he?”
“Some bounty hunter.” Why was she so reluctant to tell him Archer’s name?
“You spent the night with a bounty hunter? That doesn’t sound like you.”
“He’s my mate.”
Jeffrey paused before falling into the nearest seat. “Repeat that?”
“I found my mate. I knew he wasn’t a shifter, but I thought he was human. He certainly didn’t seem to have the visceral reaction to me I had to him.”
“The mating fire?”
“Yes.” She would be damned if she would be embarrassed by what her kind accepted as a rite of passage.
“This sucks, Teagan.” Jeffrey got up and moved to the window. “This adds a level of danger we didn’t have before. Does he know where you live?”
She shook her head. “Only what I do and where I work.”
“I know you want to work, but what if he comes by to see you? I mean, we know so little of these slayers. How do we know they don’t have mates, too? That he won’t be back tonight, waiting for you to get off work? By then, he will know what you are.”
“He isn’t coming back.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he doesn’t do relationships.” She was pretty sure that last line came off a bit more snarky than she intended.
“Yes, well, I’m sure as the days go by, the fates will make him realize this isn’t a choice he gets to make.”
“So, I’m supposed to spend one month a year hiding from him and the other eleven hiding what I am? How the hell would this even work?”
“I’ve no idea.” Jeffrey placed a reassuring hand over hers. “I only know the fates usually know what they are doing. Or so we should hope.”
“This makes no sense.”
“No more than my prime being mated to a human did? But, perhaps there is a method to the madness. The prime’s mate cannot be hunted by the Foniás, so their children will be safe as well.”
“She’s human?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” He shrugged as if it made no difference. Yet she felt the rug had been yanked out from under her. “By the end of the month, we’ll all stop thinking of her as anything but our queen. How are you feeling?”
“What do you mean?”
“When the mating fire hits the lions, the need to be with the mate intimately becomes overwhelming. It burns deep within.”
“Yeah, that happened last night.”
“It doesn’t end with one bout of lovemaking.”
“Perhaps ravens aren’t as amorous as lions.”
“Is that what you truly believe, or are you hoping to fool yourself into believing it will be as simple as walking away?” Jeffrey stood up. “I don’t pretend to understand the shock it must be to discover your mate is Foniás, but I do know mates are rare. You shouldn’t give up. Go to Ireland for the month. When you get back, track down your bounty hunter and go from there.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He offered her a warm smile, picked up the sketch, and headed for the door. “I’m going to scan this and send it to Leonidas.”
She nodded, placing her head in her hands. Jeffrey had hit the nail far too close to the head for her liking. Already, her skin burned with a desire to find her mate. But self-preservation was a strong deterrent. If there was one thing she wanted, it was to live.
The phone rang, pulling her from her musings. “Rees.”
“Hello, Ms. Rees. This is Judge Peel’s paralegal. He would like to meet with you and the DA about the Austin case. Can you clear your afternoon?”
“I can. What time would you like me in his office?”
“He has a meeting with Judge Tooey at two. So, if you can be here by two thirty, that would be helpful.”
They signed off. Finally, something good was coming of this day. Perhaps her client would be released this evening, leaving her free to find a flight to Dublin. With the guidance of the Leo twins, she might even make it to safe haven no worse for wear. She would take Jeffrey’s advice and deal with Archer when she returned. Until then, she would deal with what must be done. At least that’s what she told herself until she exited her office building at one forty-five, and it all went to shit.
She sensed his presence long before she saw him. His truck sat across the street. She ignored it and started up the block to the courthouse. The Foniás couldn’t sense her as a shifter yet, apparently, but she sensed him as her mate. And he was following her. She turned at the steps of the courthouse. “What the hell do you want?”
With both hands up, he took a step back. “I only…”
“What? Hoped for another quick lay? Perhaps between the buildings or in the ladies’ room?”
“No.” He lowered his hands, forcing them into his pockets. “I wanted to apologize for being an ass.”
“Why?”
“Why am I apologizing, or why was I being an ass?”
“The first. At this point I don’t care why you were an ass.”
He moved from one foot to the other. “Because I hurt you. It’s been eating me up ever since.”
“It doesn’t matter. It was a one-night stand. Sex was great, but I hope to be in Ireland by the weekend, and you don’t do relationships, so what else is there to say.”
“I want to call you when you get back.”
And, for a second, she might have caved, but then he hissed and rubbed at his shoulder. “You okay?”
“I took your advice and had my tattoo touched up.”
I’ll just bet you did. Anger started in the pit of her stomach. How many of her people had this man murdered? How many of Jeffrey’s? “I have a meeting. If you’re ever in town, you know where I work.” Note to self: find a new job.
He gave a slight bow, but instead of backing away, he strolled toward her and pulled her into a deep kiss. The blaze of fire threatened to consume them both and the courthouse to boot. He pulled back and stepped away. “Safe travels, Teagan.”
Why me? She rushed into the ladies’ room and doused her face with cold water, praying to ease the desire he had stoked with one damned kiss.
Four hours later, she closed the door to the cab and sent her client home a free man. The sun had set, and she faced, for the first time in her life, a drive home during the reign of Libra. Climbing into her car, she kept a lookout for anyone, anything out of the ordinary. Jeffrey said she wouldn’t be able to sense a Foniás, but perhaps if she could see them coming?
She was halfway home when a tire blew. She maneuvered her small hatchback to the shoulder and hopped out, engaging her phone flashlight app. She took in the damage then called for help. “Jeffrey, I have a flat.”
“Leave the damned car and get home now.”
“I’ll head to the airport directly and hope to go standby.” Earlier that week, she’d placed an emergency bag in a locker at the bus station near the airport, just in case. It included a passport, spare phone, cash, and a change of clothing. Most shifters found having a long life increasingly difficult in an age of technology. A number of shifters in positions to create legal documents allowed her family to have multiple identities and passports.
“Thank the goddess. Call me when you have your ticketing information, and I’ll inform Liam and Silas you’ll be on that flight.”
“I’ll be on standby. Might not even get a seat.”
“I’ll get you on that flight.”
She didn’t ask how, but she had heard his prime could coerce people with his voice. “I’ll call when I land.”
“Stop talking and get the hell out of there. I’ll find your car in the morning and take it to your house.”
Placing her purse and files in the trunk, she made a quick survey of the area before calling on her spirit. Throwing her arms back, she cawed and, with a rush of wind, the feathers formed, and she transformed into her raven. Taking to flight, she soared, caught between the need to feel the wind under her wings, as the Libra moon bathed her in power and concern for the dangers of the night.
Her highway lay within sight, but she heard the shot too late.
Archer heard the shot and clutched his chest at a tightness in the area of his heart, as if the bullet had passed through him. Pulling his truck to the side of the road, he leapt out and raced through the field.
He had become aware of the Libra raven a mile before hearing the gun go off. But he had no reason to believe this Libra to be anything other than a shifter living their life. No unusual killings had been reported, and none of his kind should have been hunting in the area. This, after all, was part of his territory. But one was close.
Coming through the tree line, he saw the Foniás looking through the brush for his kill. The raven lived but was injured. He had to get to the shifter before the hunter did.
“Come out and play, Libra.” The deep voice of Aetolos, one of the most vicious of his kind, filled the air. Aetolos killed with no care for whom or what he hurt. Archer had always believed the man would kill humans, if he thought he could do it without repercussion.
Although Archer couldn’t kill one of his kind, knocking them out had never been off the books. Picking up a rock, Archer moved in behind the larger slayer.
“Shift, half-breed. I would rather watch your soul leave through your human eyes.”
The raven cawed in pain. The sound sent something odd through Archer, tore at his heart and rankled his soul. As the other man leaned over, Archer brought the rock down with all his strength. Aetolos froze for a second before going down like a tree trunk. Archer removed his jacket and wrapped it around the raven. The inky stickiness of its blood covered its wings. “Easy. I’m not going to hurt you, little one. I need to get you to safety.”
The bird cawed again before its head fell back. It trembled, and he just managed to remove the coat and get it to the ground before the raven shifted, changing back and forth between forms. The shifter was gravely hurt if unable to hold a shape. Finally, the shaking stopped, and he stepped forward. A sense of foreboding fell around him. Reaching down, he moved the black hair from the female’s face.
“Teagan.” He lifted her naked form into his arms. He didn’t know how long Aetolos would remain unconscious, and he needed to get her to safety. The closest of his safe houses lay an hour away, but he had to try. When he got her to his truck, he wrapped the wound as best he could, using the few items from his makeshift first aid kit. The sterile pads he had were doing very little to stop the bleeding. Buckled in and covered in a blanket, he knew he had done all the field dressing he could. His truck would offer some safety. Once again he was grateful for the shaman who’d warded his truck to prevent anyone from seeing what was inside, allowing him to transport shifters injured or in danger. Before he could get Teagan the help she needed, he would make sure the slayer couldn’t follow anytime soon.
Grabbing zip ties from his tool chest, he raced back to tie the unconscious man to a tree and left the rifle leaning against a no trespassing or hunting sign a couple of yards away. Hopefully, the big oaf would think a local got the drop on him. Their kind might be able to hunt a shifter during their sign with their eyes closed, but humans were harder to track so Aetolos would be hard-pressed to know whether a human had attacked him or another Foniás.
When he returned to the truck, he found Teagan in raven form in a pile of blankets. Bleeding again. “Sweetheart, stick with me. I need to get you somewhere safe.”
She wasn’t the first shifter he’d rescued. But she was the first one he cared about more than in a simply rescuer way. When she had been shot, he’d felt it through his heart. She must have moved into a healing rest, her heartbeat slow but steady. The body systems slowed down, allowing all the energy to be focused on the wound. He called a local vet friend of his whom he trusted to meet him at the house.
The one-bedroom cottage came into sight as he pulled from the main road to an unmarked dirt road. To anyone else, the house would appear deserted. The charms he’d set made most humans feel ill as they grew close to it, preventing unwanted visitors. He had houses similar to this all over the country. He used to have a few in Europe, but back around the Second World War, he’d shifted most of his attention to the states.
He had no more than laid her bird form in the center of the single bed when he heard tires kicking up gravel. Casting one more glance at Teagan, he went outside to spare her their conversation—in case she could hear anything at all.
“I came as quickly as I could.” Dr. Portwenn climbed out of the Suburban Archer suspected she’d had since she was a teen in the 1970s. She pushed her long, wiry gray hair behind an ear. “You were very vague on the phone, Archer. I mean vaguer than usual.”
He reached around her and picked up her medical bag from the passenger seat. “Thank you for coming.”
“Of course I came. I never quite know what you’re going to bring me.” She stopped on the porch. “What sort of creature am I dealing with today?”
“A raven.”
“Just a raven?”
The word just could never adequately describe Teagan. “She is a shifter. Shot by a hunter.”
“Oh dear. Poor thing.” She opened the door and moved to the small bed in the corner. “She’s still bleeding.”
“I tried to wrap it best I could.”
“You did very well.” She lifted Teagan with gentle hands. “What is the chance of her changing back to her human self?”
“At the moment, not much. She is in the healing sleep. Once she is healed, she will shift then sleep for a few more hours.”
“Will these bandages cause a problem?”
“I would assume she would rip them, but perhaps.”
“I recommend we watch over her for the next few hours. When we’re sure the bleeding has stopped, we remove the bandages. But, when she becomes human again, we’ll need to re-stabilize her arm.”
“What do you recommend?”
“I don’t see a bullet. Is it possible she would have it in her human form?”
Fair enough question. He shook his head. “She was shot in raven form, so I think the bullet must have passed through.”
“It grazed her chest. There is some blood seeping in that area through the bandages. I guess we won’t know the damage until she turns. I would think that the wound would get larger as her body does.” The last statement was spoken more to herself than to him.
He hated not knowing what the damage was. The black feathers hid blood well. “We will strap her to the bed. That will prevent movement and hopefully help her heal.”
“Do the birds heal as quickly as the bull did?” she asked, referring to the Taurus shifter he had asked her to help heal a few years back.
“I don’t know.” Though he was over two thousand years old, he didn’t have all the answers. He had enough time to scour all the web sites on the World Wide Web, and still he wouldn’t have the information he would need tonight. His interactions with the shifters had been limited. He had saved a few, killed more than he had saved, apprehended more than he could count, and ignored most. But carrying on a conversation that would give him information? That was rare.
Once he had come into contact with the Leo prime, Leonidas. Archer had bowed in respect and joined the prime for a cup of coffee. Leonidas either had balls of steel or a need to test his mortality because had he been any other slayer, the prime might have met his end. Even in the time of Leo, he hadn’t hesitated to approach a slayer.
“Some of us only hunt the shifters who are a danger to humans,” Archer had offered.
Golden eyes bored into him. “You are one of those.”
“I am. You and most of your kind have nothing to fear from me.”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking all of my kind deserve your generosity,” Leonidas had admitted.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking I give it freely.”
“How can we tell between your kind and the senseless killers?”
“You can’t.”
The Leo rose with a grace of a king, lowered his head, and murmured, “I thank you for protecting the humans and those of my kind too weak to take care of themselves.”
How the Leo prime knew he had saved a family of lions, he had no idea but wasn’t going to question it, either. As the other man walked away, three lions had stepped out of the shadows and followed him. They hadn’t needed to let him see them. He’d sensed them there. But, perhaps, they wanted him to know they, too, were unafraid.
“Archer, you look exhausted. I’ll take the first shift. You get some sleep.” The doctor pulled a tablet from her bag.
Sleep? He hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before. Why the hell wasn’t Teagan in her sanctuary for the month? “As she has the only bed, I’m going to rest in the hammock on the porch. Yell if you need me.” He preferred to be outside, anyway.
She turned on her reading device and shooed him off. Before climbing into his hammock, he walked the outside of the house, placing wards to guard against any Foniás sensing her presence, his main concern the slayer he’d left bound to a tree. But, if there was one in the area, there might be others. At one time, there had been over a thousand of their kind. They had dwindled to less than five hundred. Five hundred to cover the Earth might not seem like a lot but, he still managed to come across them regularly. Ireland would be swarming with his kind, now. More than a quarter of their number would be on the Emerald Isle. Just as they swarmed over Greece during Leo, Hawaii during Aquarius, and Spain during Taurus.
They went to where the shifters were likely to run on the chance of catching one or two who hadn’t made it to sanctuary—a place where the slayers would be hard-pressed to find and, even if they did, could not enter easily. Some shifters managed to mask their identity, very few, and those he knew of had all been Leo. Confident he had protected Teagan, he climbed into his hammock and stared at the sky until sleep overtook him.