The popping ice began to slow, and they outpaced the destruction as the mist thinned. Zach saw the chopper right where he’d left it on the ice field—military-grade but unmarked. It had special dispensation to fly, and he’d have no trouble, so long as he didn’t draw attention.
They bolted for it, legs pumping, bodies low and long. A lion could run up to fifty miles per hour. When this desperate, it was probably closer to sixty.
Once they were close enough, Zach shifted and yanked open the cockpit door. He had to get the engine going. Fast. He’d not been out here long, so it should still be reasonably warm. The engine started, and the blades began turning. He grabbed a duffle bag and opened it before tossing clothes around like confetti. Shirt for you. Pants for me. Unisize rubberized booties. Easier to pack and better than being barefoot when in his two-legged shape. People had a thing about toes showing, especially in cold climates.
A steam whistle popped through the ice as the devastation neared.
Zach barked, “Buckle up, we’re leaving!” Without checking to make sure they were secured, he thrust them into the air. Not a moment too soon.
A fissure opened below them, and even rising quickly, the hot gust heated them something fierce. He banked away from it. As they got clear of the steam and into the fresher air, he noticed it. A scent that didn’t belong.
But he couldn’t worry about that yet. The cataclysm had spread. Cracks appeared ahead of them, hissing steam and forcing him higher and higher. He moved them away, following the coordinates back to the place where he’d borrowed their ride.
With the danger easing, Nora exclaimed, “Holy shit, Zach. I can’t believe you came in a chopper.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t my first choice,” he admitted, keeping an eye on his gauges. His first thought when he realized that he’d have to infiltrate the Arctic was actually a snowmobile. A chopper wasn’t exactly ideal, given the cold conditions. And they weren’t meant for long flights in these types of temperatures. However, given that he didn’t know who or what he might be bringing back—or the urgency of the mission—he opted for something a little bigger and faster.
“Glad you found us.”
“Only found you by a fluke. I was actually following some of those human mercenaries again.” They’d been causing some problems in their desperate attempt to get their hands on a treasure of late. The humans didn’t get it, but neither did the good Pride.
“Do you think Svetlana made it out with the box?” Nora asked.
“Maybe. Depends if they got out fast enough.” After all, they’d made it.
Peter finally joined the conversation. “Shouldn’t we be discussing the fact that the box turned me into a lion?”
“I don’t know why you’re surprised. The book did, after all, say that might happen.”
Peter’s voice held wry amusement as he said, “Doesn’t mean I believed it would actually happen.” He could be excused for the attitude given he’d woken up that morning as a man, and was now a shapeshifting lion. Wouldn’t that fuck with some people in the Pride?
“It happened, and now we need to worry about it happening again if Svetlana chooses to use it.”
“Use it to do what? Turn people into were—animals? Why?” Peter asked, sounding baffled as to why anyone would choose that.
“Don’t you know why?” Nora cajoled. “Admit it, you feel more powerful. You can see better. Hear better. The human you never could have outraced the volcano.”
“I won’t deny that it feels good.”
“Only good?” Nora teased.
“Okay, more,” he admitted with a chuckle. “But that kind of magic…there’s no way the box can consistently do it. It’s got to have some sort of battery or quota.”
“What if it doesn’t? What if Svetlana and her grandmother did escape, and they begin selling its use?”
“How is more of us a bad thing?” Zach asked.
“The stories show the magic going two ways. What if it can unmake shifters, too?”
An ominous thought that overshadowed Zach’s concern over the possible stowaway.
As he flew, Nora explained to Peter what being a shifter meant. The rules. The advantages. The disadvantages. Zach didn’t say a word when Nora told Peter he’d have to make a once-a-year vet appointment for his shots and anal gland squeeze.
Not true, but something the older teens liked to tease the younger ones with. A rite of passage for many. Peter was just older than most.
When he began complaining about all the rules, Nora offered to play the world’s tiniest violin.
To which Peter laughed and said, “Don’t you dare.”
Their flirting was both cute and annoying at once. Zach did his best to ignore it as well as the occasional kissing noises. When they started, he focused on the flight and tried to figure out the scent that didn’t belong.
Definitely hadn’t been there on his trip over. He could only imagine it—they—had stowed away in the storage area where he’d tossed some equipment in case things went sideways in the Russian Arctic—which they had, and in spectacular fashion. It turned out two other groups were also looking for the artifact they sought, and in comedic timing, they’d all ended up in the underground cave at the same time.
Which made him wonder. “Who got to the cave first?”
“We did,” Nora announced. “Then those bloody humans. Then Svetlana and her grandma.”
“You forgot the yeti,” Peter muttered.
“The what?” Zach asked.
“When we first arrived in the cave, we encountered a rare Russian yeti. Beautiful creature. Soft with silvery white-gray fur. I called her Fluffy.”
“I don’t think there is such a thing as Russian yeti.”
“Thank you. That’s what I told her,” Peter exclaimed.
“Then what was it?” Nora huffed.
“Sasquatch,” Peter said.
“Isn’t that the same thing?” Zach remarked.
“No.” Nora sounded firm on that point.
“Pretty sure it and bigfoot are all the same thing.”
“Yetis have white fur.”
“So do some tigers. They’re still in the same family.”
The argument kept going, and yet there was a playfulness to it. Nora, Zach’s sometimes mission partner, had found her mate.
The hormones rolling off her and Peter were distracting, and rather than have them go at it in the back seat when things got a little too wet and fleshy, Zach interrupted by asking questions about their journey to the cave as they’d gone in different directions—Nora following an old riddle that’d taken her through a hidden tunnel system, Zach following the humans hunting them.
He was never gladder than when he could finally land and dump them off. He hoped he never acted so dumb. The only thing that should ever get such a lovey-dovey stare was blue-cooked steak drizzled with garlic butter. There were only two things Zach loved in life: food and his cat.
The moment they landed, he basically told Nora and Peter to fuck off, but nicely, offering them the use of his rental. He’d hire a taxi to take him to the hotel after he was done with his paperwork. At least, that’s what he told them.