"I have faith in you," Jordan said, maybe a bit stupidly, but Kayla's beautiful, bright, movie-star smile flashed again, and it was all worth it.
"I have faith in you, too."
"Could I…may I see the owl again? Now that I'm not going to fall over a second time?"
"Sure." Kayla scooted back and shifted.
It was exactly like before: the woman disappeared and somehow an owl magically took her place. There was no movie-style transition between forms, or any awkwardness about it at all. Nopoof, no feathers flying, no nothing, just a woman, then an owl. Jordan, awe-struck, started to reach out to touch her, then pulled his hand back, abruptly aware he was going to pet this big shifter bird like it was a dog. Kayla stretched a wing toward him, inviting the touch. The interior of her wing was astonishingly, unexpectedly white, without any of the markings visible on the outside. Jordan turned his hand over to brush his knuckles against the soft feathers there, then against her belly.
She bounced, and he was almost certain it had tickled. "Sorry! Holy crap, look at your feet!"
Kayla blinked those huge golden eyes at her, and with a laugh, he recognized that slow blink from her human form. But then she extended one of her feet as if examining it, and Jordan's attention was drawn back down to it. The talons were gorgeous shining black, and the incredibly long fine feathers around them looked enormously like fur. Jordan made a fist, comparing thesize of her foot to his hand, and whistled. "You have huge feet. I would not want those talons digging into me."
"That's nothing," Kayla said, shifting back to human. "You should see me in my largest form. As it is I'm about twice the size of a true snowy owl."
"You get bigger?" Jordan asked in astonishment. "And…smaller?"
"It's harder to match a regular snowy owl. Let me try." Kayla shifted again, and this time wasmuchsmaller, maybe two and a half or three feet tall instead of four, but she was shaking her head as she became human again. "That's still too big, but it's hard to get down to size. Like I said, bird shifters run big, even for shifters who are big anyway. I think it has something to do with the conversion of mass, like there's a point at which even the magic goes 'look, I just can't deal with this.'"
"Sure," Jordan said, amused. "Yes. Of course. Obviously. Where do your clothes go?"
Kayla stared at him, then laughed. "They come with us. Icanshift in and out of them, but it's much more of a bother, and also you don't want to suddenly be stuck somewhere without your clothes. Hard to explain to the set manager or the costuming director why you're suddenly naked and where your clothes went."
"That's…" Jordan shook his head helplessly. "That's magical."
"It is. Literally." Kayla spoke with a smile, then glanced down the hallway as a truly pathetic whine emitted from the bathroom. "How do you think Barney would take the whole shifter thing?"
"I have no idea. Do you want to try introducing your owl to him?"
Kayla tilted her head in a way that Jordan could now see echoed the owl. "Well, Iamsure I can keep him from trying toeat me. He outweighs me, but I'm a lot taller than he is. I'll go into the living room," she suggested. "You bring him out, and we'll see."
Chapter 13
If it bites me, can I eat it?Kayla's owl asked hopefully as she went into the living room.
She muffled a laugh.No. I don't think Barney will bite you, though. I think he might run away.
The owl considered that, then fluffed its feathers with satisfaction.I'm much scarier than a dog.
Kayla wanted to argue, but in fact, the owlwasscarier than any dog she'd ever met, if for no other reason than it could be much, much larger than even the biggest dog breeds. She still wouldn't want to tangle with a mastiff or any other big war dogs, because her bird bones were a lot more delicate than their big mouths, but she was fairly confident Barney was smart enough to not pick a fight with a four foot tall owl.
The living room wasn't really well set up for a bird to roam freely in. She called, "Is it okay if I move the coffee table aside for the moment?" and Jordan's chuckle reached her.
"Yeah, that's fine. Let me know when you're ready for me to loose the hound."
"Just a second!" Kayla pushed the coffee table toward the television stand, skidding her toe over the dent the table left inthe carpet, like she could rub it out. Another quick study of the living room left her more confident everybody would fit, now. "'Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war!'" She shifted as soon as she'd spoken, then squatted down to await Barney.
He emerged straining at his leash and dragging Jordan behind. "I thought it'd be better if he wasn't running free," Jordan said, leaning back against the dog's eager weight. Barney's nose was sniffing like crazy, but he stopped dead the second he actually laid eyes on Kayla.
She could basically see the Border Collie running through every possible encounter he'd ever had withanything, trying to match it up with the gigantic snowy owl he was now facing. She could also essentially see the dog land on 'what thehell?' before he gave an extremely cautious growl without taking even one single step farther forward.
"It's okay, boy," Jordan said encouragingly. "It's just Kayla."
Barney gave Jordan a sharp look that strongly suggested the dog thought the human needed to get his head checked. Kayla chortled, which, in owl form, came out as a series of softly huffinghoo-hoos, which made Barney look back at her and growl cautiously again.
Kayla's owl narrowed its eyes, both inside her mind and in their physical body.I'll teach it to growl at me. MURDER!
We are not murdering the dog,Kayla replied, amused, and shifted back to human so the owl didn't get carried away.
