LUKE
Luke drifted awake,drowsy and comfortable, to the sight of gray early morning light and the feeling of a warm Inga snuggled against him.
The previous day came back in bits and pieces as he woke up. They were in the guest bedroom in Inga’s family home. He felt a few twinges and aches, but for the most part, shifter healing seemed to have taken care of his bruises and sore places from yesterday.
I’m a shifter now.
But he no longer minded it. He felt complete. Somewhere deep inside him, there was a sense of a presence he had never been aware of before, something deep and instinctive and old. But it didn’t feel foreign to him anymore. It was, as Inga had said, a part of him.
He rolled over carefully, not wanting to disturb her. Inga was sleeping deeply with her golden hair, most of it pulled out of its braid, spilling over the pillow. Her face was slack, lips parted.
And as he looked at her sleeping there with his arm over her, a wave of some profound emotion rolled through him. It was fondness and love and protectiveness, and it was also somethingmore, something there was no name for.
And he thought,Oh.
That .... that was whatfated matesfelt like.
He must have made a noise, because Inga’s dark blonde lashes flickered and a peek of her summer-sky eyes appeared. Then her eyes flew open, and she gazed at him. Luke couldn’t stop looking at her. There was a faint ring of gold around her pupils, striking in the clear blue of her eyes.
“Luke,” she whispered. “Is this ...”
He brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “You feel it too?”
“I do.” She leaned in and pressed her face into the crook of his neck. “I do.”
Getting out of bed was very definitely not an immediate process. Once they were up and showered, it was still very early, and rain continued to fall, lashing the big windows in the living room. There was a note on the counter. Inga leaned over to read it. “Dad says he’s out with the investigators checking out the ship.”
The ship was still anchored just outside the harbor, visible from the window.
“He also says they’re going to want to interview us again,” Inga said, folding up the note.
“Wonderful. Good time to get out of town.”
“Aren’t we not supposed to do that?”
They had been told to stick around until the investigation wrapped up and preliminary charges had been filed. Having law enforcement all over Westerly Cove was definitely making the local shifters nervous, and it also meant that Luke and Inga had been telling a carefully curated version of their story that left out shifters, ghost bears, gargoyles, and teleporting dogs. (Which was to say, most of it.) Inga claimed that she’d been hit with a tranquilizer dart meant for animals and had only fuzzy memories of anything else. Luke had stuck to the part aboutbeing drafted into a private mercenary army he couldn’t leave, but left out the shifter aspect.
There were no survivors of the helicopter crash or the powerboat, therefore no witnesses to try to explain that they had been attacked by flying gargoyles. The rescued researchers had been medivac’d to St. Johns for treatment. If they’d had anything to say about gargoyles or shifters, Luke hadn’t heard about it.
The townspeople obviously must have seen a few things, but no one was talking. And no one had seen or heard from Brockton. Luke thought his guess was probably right that Brockton had been on the helicopter.
“So what do you want to do?” Luke asked. “If we stay here, we can probably expect to be interviewed shortly.”
“Actually, I was thinking about going up and talking to Mace.”
“I’m here for it.”
Inga grabbed a couple of rolls from a basket on the counter, and shrugged into a raincoat. Luke had a vivid mental flash of Inga wearing nothing but a raincoat, and found himself somewhat regretting that her long legs were covered in jeans this time. He borrowed a rain poncho and boots from the considerable array of gear just inside the front door.
The rain was still lightly falling as they went out. Rogue came running up from the direction of the harbor. The dog was soaking wet and his paws were covered with sand. Looking down over the edge of the dock that adjoined the Nilsson family residence, Luke saw that the tarp in Nita’s boat was partly pulled back and there were some signs of damp fur and feathers. It looked like Rogue had been playing with the griffins—well, Lukehopedit was only playing, but then he saw one of the babies hop out and scamper across the bottom of the boat, and decided they were fine.
He nearly stumbled across a gargoyle at the foot of the pier. Although they were everywhere in town, he didn’t remember one being there.
“Oh, my goodness,” Inga said. “They’ve moved.”
“Which ones?”
“Most of them, I think.” She pointed at the roof of a building whose sign declared it to be the Westerly Inn. A middle-aged woman was standing in front of it with her hands on her hips, also looking up at the roof. “There used to be several up there. Good morning, Heddy!”
