Page 5 of Deck the Skulls

“It’s not important,” Zan said, waving his hand dismissively. “We need to find her, and my nose isn’t working right now. Can you track her down? Take your owl form and look for her aura?”

With a determined scowl, Anatoly nodded. “I’ll find her, but I can’t use thrall on her.”

“I know, but maybe you could give her a little persuasion without using full thrall,” he suggested.

Making a future flock member obey with thrall was one of the few taboos among vampires. The only time they considered it appropriate was to save a flock member's life. This situation wasn’t life threatening, but to Zan, it felt dire.

“Zan!” Anatoly admonished.

“Fine!” Zan said, giving Anatoly a little shove back into the bar. “Tell her I was joking. Offer her money, or a car, or whatever it takes to get her back here!”

Anatoly let Zan guide him out the back of the bar to the narrow alley where there was enough privacy for the vampire to shift into his bird form.

“Don’t watch,” Anatoly said once they were out there.

“I’ve seen you do this before, it’s not a big deal. Hurry up. If she gets into a car, we might lose her forever!”

Anatoly grumbled but closed his eyes and focused. Unlike born shifters, who had an animal half to guide them when they were in their shifted form, vampires had to learn everything from scratch. Not only did they have to painstakingly learn how to mold their magic into a shift, but also how to use their animal bodies. Nothing came naturally to shifted vampires, and some never succeeded at controlling their animal form.

Anatoly was one of those vampires. He’d spent decades learning to shift into a great horned owl, but got frustrated that once he was shifted, he spent a lot more time crashing than flying. He was so frustrated, he never learned to shift into anything else or bother practicing in his owl form often.

As Zan watched, Anatoly shifted into a massive owl, and he swore he’d make the vampire practice more in the future. The moment the shift was done, the owl staggered a little and flapped his wings, upsetting his balance and almost nose-diving into a pile of trash.

“You’re really shit at this,” Zan muttered, picking Anatoly up. The owl glared at him, and he felt the vampire's embarrassment through their link. “Yeah, I know. Sorry. Do you want me to give you an assist?”

He felt Anatoly’s approval of the suggestion. Bunching his muscles, Zan launched the owl high into the air. Zan held his breath, watching Anatoly flutter his wings and barely miss an electrical line.

When the vampire was finally flying with appropriate coordination and cleared the top of the nearby building, Zansighed with relief. A fall or hitting a powerline wouldn’t kill Anatoly, but it might ground him, and they’d lose the human.

The one advantage Anatoly had over natural-born shifters was that his clothes shifted with him. It would make it easier to talk to the human when he found her.

“Rissa,” Zan murmured as he headed back into Sanguine and out the front door, ignoring the few customers. They could drink the bar dry if they wanted to; all that mattered was finding the human. “Please come back to us.”

***

Anatoly

It took so much concentration to fly that he almost missed seeing Rissa’s bright aura. Finding her surprisingly far from the bar, he flapped hard to catch up.

When the human first walked into the bar, he’d been surprised. He’d paid for some expensive wards to keep humans out. Unless they were accompanied by a magical creature, they didn’t even see the sign for the bar. He’d planned to ignore her until she went away; Sanguine was no place for a human alone. Then he’d really looked at her and saw her iridescent aura and felt a pull. The same pull he’d experienced when he first met Zan.

She was meant to be his.

Zan should’ve been instantly attracted and joined in the kiss instead of getting upset. He’d have to find out what that was all about later, but right now their focus was on getting Rissa and her strong right hook back.

When Rissa got angry and drew back her hand, he’d expected a slap, instead he got punched. She packed a lot of power in that move, and although his nose would be healed by the time he shifted back to his human form, having it broken had hurt enough to slow him down.

Between his sluggish reactions, and Zan’s inability to recognize Rissa as theirs, the whole situation had deteriorated quickly. Anatoly wasn't above kidnapping Rissa, but that would make it harder to gain her trust. He needed to use all his charm to talk her into giving them another chance.

Too bad Zan was the charming one.

Gliding lower, he saw her enter a parking lot. Her car must be here somewhere. He hated how dark the lot was. It’d be easy for someone to prey on her here.

Diving between a van and a truck, he tried to land but ended up tumbling head over tail feathers. Once he finished rolling, he focused on shifting, then had to lay on the ground and re-orientate himself. Sitting up, he winced. He’d put a dent in the van, but the owners might not even be able to tell considering how many dents were already there. At least his dent was the smallest.

Getting to his feet, he tried to brush the dirt and dust off his clothes as he stepped out from between the two vehicles. He heard the telltale beep of a car being remotely unlocked and used his preternatural speed to get to Rissa before she could get in the vehicle.

Not wanting to startle her, he put himself on the other side of the car. “Please, can we talk?”