Her heart caught in her throat when he came flying at her. She normally stepped aside so he could land in the beanbag and slide across the floor for his NASCAR finish.
She just stood there.
His orange eyes blazed in surprise. He angled away, circled the room and came back to her open arms, tucking his wings as he landed.
She pulled him in close, hugging him, hurting and happy at the same time.
Feenix patted her face and pressed his nose into the curve of her throat.
She shook with the effort of holding back a sob that she couldn’t let free. Her insides were shredding with hurt. Storm had to be alive.
If he was, where was he?
He’d found her in South America.
He’d found her near where she lived.
Feenix said, “Mine.”
Her heart was sandwiched between misery and joy. “You’re mine, too, baby.”
Her gargoyle lifted his head and chortled with delight. “Mith me?”
“More than you’ll ever know.” She gave him a kiss on his scaly forehead and lowered him to the floor. “Let me grab a shower and we’ll watch reruns.”
Anything that felt normal.
The shower helped, and so did fresh clothes. She put Storm’s windbreaker back on before climbing into bed with a bowl of popcorn for her and a handful of lug nuts for Feenix.
Feenix puttered around the room, flapping his wings every time he reached the count of ten. He even counted in order, ending with nine and then ten once she explained he could count either horn as nine or ten.
She opened her laptop and booted up her email. The minute she started tapping on keys, Feenix flapped his wings rapidly, lifting up in the air.
He flew over the end of the bed and settled next to her, where he’d left his pet alligator earlier.“Nathcar!”He gave her a toothy smile worth any deal she’d had to make with Macha.
She tweaked his toe and got the deepest giggling sound she’d ever heard. “We’ll watch the NASCAR rerun as soon as I finish a couple emails. Okay?”
He clapped his hands. “Ithe cream.”
That counted as yes from Feenix.
Turning back to her laptop, she scanned through the usual notices from VIPER before she found the ones that mattered. Her email service was protected by some uber-security operation run throughwww.Beladors.com, which meant no spam. She opened the first one from Quinn that had come in yesterday:
The morgue believes you are on a leave of
absence. You may return at your leisure.
She hated that her first thought was to question if he had done that out of his usual sincere concern for her . . . or out of guilt if he really did talk to Kizira about her. She could use a couple days to sort things out in her head.
She needed some Feenix time.
When Tzader had contacted her telepathically on her way home, he’d told her to check her email for a message from him, which they’d discuss tomorrow after she got some rest. She found Tzader’s email that said:
Quinn encountered a threat to Brina during
Conlan O’Meary’s mind probe so we took him
into temporary custody. Conlan disappeared
