Lion And The Falcon (Furry United Coalition) (20 page)

Forget her guarding him. Nolan needed to keep a close eye on
her
. He wouldn’t let anyone, former patient or not, hurt his woman. He would, however, keep those thoughts to himself. Somehow, he doubted she would agree with his assessment that she needed protecting. Clarice believed herself invincible, but if the sewer taught him anything it was that while tough and competent with weapons, when it came down to a battle where brute force was involved, her slight weight and avian heritage put her at a disadvantage.

It seemed to take forever before a cleanup crew arrived, headed by his favorite bear, Mason. The agent whistled as he walked in. “Geez, doc. What the heck did you do to this guy to deserve this?
Did you probe him rectally one too many times with latex gloves?”

“I tried to help
him.”

“I take it Lester didn’t appreciate it.”

“You think?”

“Testy, testy. Did someone not get his nap today?”

No, but he wouldn’t give the bear the satisfaction of admitting it. “Shouldn’t you be doing something more constructive than taking jabs at my sleeping habits?”

“Probably, but bugging you is more fun.”

“I wonder what Miranda would think if she knew you were kicking a poor lion while he’s down.” Nolan smiled evilly, knowing how Mason feared his pregnant sister-in-law.

“Now that’s just mean. Do you know I have to carry around a baggie of carrot muffins in case I run into her? She’s freaking nuts these days. Jessie keeps assuring me it’s the pregnancy hormones. I hope so
, otherwise, once she pops that kid out and goes back to being able to shift into her killer bunny, I might have to move. I’m thinking Alaska.”

Nolan chuckled. “As if Jessie will let you guys relocate.”

“My swan princess loves me,” Mason asserted. Once the most carefree of bachelors, the bear took to married life with gusto, even if he and his father-in-law, the swan king, didn’t entirely get along.

“And how is her father?”

“No comment,” Mason mumbled.

The FUC agents
the bear had brought with him scurried around the place, tagging and bagging items. Nolan couldn’t figure out why they bothered. The stuff was junk.

“What’s next?” Tired, Nolan’s shoulders slumped. What an annoying end to such a promising evening.

“For tonight? Nothing. We’ll have the lab run some tests to be certain of the psycho’s identity and send some sniffers out on his trail. You’re free to leave and find a place to nap because there’s no way you can stay here tonight. Probably not for a few nights. You should go stay with your mom.”

“I knew you had it out for me, Mason, but that’s cruel
, even for you.”

The bear snickered. “Man, is your mother going to cough up a hairball when she hears about this.”

“I’d prefer if we kept this under wraps for as long as possible. The last thing I need is for her to sedate me and to wake up in a padded room for my own protection.” Again. Rousing a lioness’s protective side never boded well.

“She wouldn’t?”

“You don’t know her very well then. Trust me, when it comes to her one and only baby boy, nothing is too much.”

“I’ll do my best to keep this quiet, but she’s gonna find out. If I were you, I’d go into hiding now. Bring the bird with you for company and protection.”

“Actually, I think you should go to your mother’s,” Clarice said out of the blue from right behind him.

“Are you insane?” Hmm, probably not his best choice of words given he still planned to try and salvage part of this evening.

“I’m perfectly sane, thank you. And obviously thinking far more clearly than you, sleep deprived one. Given what’s happened, and how the psycho got in, your mother is probably your best protection.”

“No better than you.”
Or me.
He could take care of himself.

“Except I won’t be with you. I’m going after this mutant.”

“Not alone you’re not,” he growled.

“Oh yes, I am,” she snapped. “Or have you forgotten this is what I do?”

“It’s late and you need to rest.”

“I’m not tired. And I want to tackle this while the trail is fresh.”

“I forbid it.”

He didn’t need to hear Mason’s
“Ooh” to know he said the wrong thing.

“Forbid?” Her brow arched. “You don’t own me and you’re not my superior. I’ll do whatever I damned well please to hunt this killer down.”

“Clarice.” He went to touch her, but she spun out of reach, her long stride taking her into his bedroom. Nolan followed on her heels, trying to stop her. “It’s dark. You won’t see anything.”

“We’re in the city. If he’s on foot, he might not have gotten far. I might be able to spot him from the air.”

The air? She intended to fly? Didn’t she grasp the danger? What if someone shot at her? Or she smacked into a window, like thousands of birds did every year?

But Clarice wasn’t listening to reason. Ignoring the mess in his room, she ran to his sliding glass doors, shedding clothing as she jogged. He caught a glimpse of toned, pale flesh before she molted, feathers sprouting from her skin. With a leap, she
cleared the railing and was airborne. Arms extended, she hung suspended for a moment, and his heart stopped. Then her wings burst into existence, and with a flap that sent a breeze to ruffle his hair, she halted her descent.

She made a magnificent falcon. Sleek in build, and much larger than her non
-sentient counterparts, her feathers covered her in a striated blend of gray and brown. She bore the same rapier gaze, which she swept over him for a moment before she swooped off into the dark sky, leaving him clutching the railing, his frustrated roar echoing into the night.

The lingering vibration of Nolan’s roar tingled her skin. In that sound, she heard his frustration, his anger, his fear—
for me
. But she didn’t turn back.

She realized the chan
ces of her finding Lester were slim to none. Short of spotting him on a rooftop, there were too many streets with nooks, crannies, and other obstacles for her to perform a proper aerial search, especially at night. Although, maybe she’d get lucky and catch the psycho on a rooftop.

I really need to stop lying to myself.

The real reason she dove off the balcony had little to do with hunting down the mutant and more to do with her, or more specifically, one golden-haired doctor. If it hadn’t been for the break-in at his condo, Clarice would have slept with Nolan. Less sleep than doing the wicked, wild, naked, and sweaty, six ways from Sunday. Something about the man got her motor running. Made her forget her task to guard him—or herself. All it took? One touch or look from him and she was ready to tear off his clothes.

It frightened her how little control she seemed to have around him. How easily he’d
tunneled through the wall she armored her emotions with. How he consumed her thoughts. Even now, when she should have paid attention to her surroundings and kept her keen eyes on the lookout for Lester, she instead floated aimlessly on the updrafts, her mind whirling with thoughts of
him
.

He wasn’t far off the mark when he lamented the ruin of their evening. She regretted the missed opportunity
, too. Sure, she understood they didn’t have a future together. Their relationship—if you could call their frantic need for each other a relationshi
p—
would only last as long as this case did, but she couldn’t deny that a teensy tiny part of her wondered what it would be like to belong to man like Nolan. To wake up every day to his smile and tousled, golden hair. What would it be like to belong to his boisterous family whose cracks about ways to baste her made her feel more at home than if they’d treated her with polite respect?

She knew what her sergeant would have said. “You’re a weak, bird
-brained fool, Clarice. He’s a bloody lion. Lions eat falcons like you for breakfast.” Mmm, did they ever eat.

Distracted by Nolan’s version of eating, she faltered in her flight, her altitude dipping and brin
ging her precariously close to a mirrored window sky rise. Oops. She flapped her wings and skimmed by, the rush of air momentarily clearing her thoughts.

What should she do?
She didn’t exactly have any close friends to talk to. Ever since she’d graduated and joined the ASS agency, she’d never stayed in one place long enough to develop friendships. Never had an interest, letting her job consume her time and her life. Oddly enough, she thought of Miranda, the crazy pregnant rabbit, and knew what she’d say. “Go for it! Boink the lion until he roars.”

Oh
, great bird in the sky, as if she should listen to the advice of a woodland creature, especially of the variety she’d eaten in the past. Still, though, if she were totally honest with herself, she wanted to have sex with Nolan. Wanted to claw at his back, peck at his skin, and just get naked and wild. The only thing holding her back?
Me
.

I’m the one in the way, not the difference in our species, or his mother, or anything else.
And for what? She wasn’t a virgin. She had no expectation of things going any further. She’d soon leave and wouldn’t have to face him every day or deal with his rejection, or worse, indifference. Why not give into the passion? So long as she kept her heart out of it, who would get hurt? No one. And maybe once she let him have his wicked way, the ridiculous ideas floating through her head would stop. And he’d stop putting them there with his ridiculous flirting.

Playing hard
-to-get only made him chase her more ardently. Give him what he wanted, which in turn gave her what she wanted, and they could part ways. Easy.

Or course, she’d no sooner decided that and turned around to head back
when she saw the scurrying shape on a flat roof. Probably nothing—a human out for a smoke, an animal looking for shelter. Or a pair of escapees dragging an inert body between them.

With a flutter of wings, she alighted on the edge of a building just across from where she saw movement. Still as a stone gargoyle, she assessed the situation.

Furry and bushy-tailed, if much larger and more muscled than normal, it seemed she’d found the squirrely patients. The question was did the body they lugged between them live or not? If not, then the smart thing to do, given she had no weapons other than her claws and beak, was to call for help. The form stirred.

Alive.
Oh, great big steaming pile of pigeon poop.
She mentally cursed as she reassessed her options. If she went for aid, the human would probably end up dead before the cavalry arrived. Alone, though, against two mutant squirrels?

Did she really have a choice?

Besides, she knew a doctor to patch her up.

With a hunting scream that sent mice fleeing,
but only caused the giant squirrels to cock their heads, she dove off her perch toward her targets. Lucky her, only one stood its ground while the other scurried to hide. Bad for her, his size wasn’t the only thing bigger than normal about him.

Now those are what I call nutcrackers.

At the last moment in her dive, she reared back and let her clawed feet strike first, her talons ripping into fur and knocking her opponent back. He chittered in rage as he flailed, his claws scoring scratches along her legs. With a powerful leap, she bounded up, and then slammed back down, her beak tearing into him as she ducked and weaved, avoiding his overly large teeth. Thankfully, squirrels weren’t natural born predators so his fighting ability consisted mostly of snapping teeth and grasping paws. But, it didn’t mean he didn’t land some blows, some hard enough to bruise later.

Things got a little concerning when his partner, the until now forgotten female, decided to join the fray. She leapt on to Clarice’s back with a screech.
Unable to shake her off, Clarice did the only thing she could think of. She fell off the edge of the roof. Despite her animal shape, the squirrel let out an all-too-human scream as they plunged, not far, because her mate grabbed her by the tail. As the female squirrel dangled, Clarice broke free and with a few strokes of her wings, which thankfully remained intact if minus a few feathers, took to the air to reassess her foes.

The male squirrel did his best to heave the female back to safety.
But the human they’d abducted took that moment to regain consciousness and, his eyes wide with fear, shoved at the male’s back. Down went the furry duo. Clarice winced at the splat they made on the pavement below.

Two more psychos down.

Before the human—who almost ended up as dinner—could spot her, Clarice dropped behind him and rapped him on the head. It wouldn’t do for him to call the authorities before FUC had a chance to clean up. She almost felt bad for the time he’d probably spend in the psych ward when he regained consciousness and regaled rescuers with a tale about giant mutant squirrels. But, concealment was more important than protecting a human from a few days in a padded room.

The situation more or less contained, she
winged away from the scene, taking note of the location first. While her injuries didn’t appear life threatening, she did need some help. However, not knowing the city proved a disadvantage. Homing in on the only place she really knew, she flew back to her kitty’s condo.