Chapter 13
D eclan was a dinosaur.
That was all Tara could think for a few seconds: that this had to be what dinosaurs had been like. Fifteen feet tall, with clawed feet large enough to crush the unwary and a beak that could pierce armor, all wrapped in the most incredible, vibrant, beautiful colors she could possibly imagine. It took everything she had to pretend he was just a normal peacock.
And then he changed color .
With a shudder that seemed to come from his bones, the massive bird's unbelievable plumage turned a heavy, icy white, so deep there were glacier blues and pale purples buried in the depths of its layered feathers. It looked like a ghost; it looked, Tara thought, like a god.
She wasn't at all surprised when Colette fainted. Tara felt a bit woozy herself. The unbelievably huge peacock was clearly taken entirely off guard, although Tara thought she could see the Declan part of the peacock in the surprise, followed by what struck her as an extreme, triumphant smugness on the bird's part. It didn't shriek again, which was good: the sound had been huge enough to rattle her eardrums, and she could already hear people running and shouting as they approached this part of the garden. But it did look to her for approval, and after making sure the camera's wifi was off and the pictures would not automatically be uploaded to the internet, Tara lifted her camera and took as many pictures of Declan as she could in a few seconds.
Then she whispered, "You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, but you'd better change back," and got her feet to move, which was a little more difficult than usual. She took a few steps to kneel next to Colette, checking on her. The designer had no obvious injuries from her collapse—she'd fallen straight down in a surprisingly graceful drop—and was breathing steadily. She'd just had the shock of her life.
Which was fair. Tara had nearly had the shock of her life. Gorgeous men shifting into peacocks was one thing. Shifting into fifteen-foot-tall peacocks was something else. Turning into a peacock god was a whole 'nother level, and once Tara was sure Colette was all right, she glanced up to make sure Declan was still, like… real.
And shrieked, surprised laughter slamming through her. "Declan! Your hair! Oh my God!"
"My hair?" He put his hands in it, as if that would tell him what was wrong. "It's still there, right?" he asked, even though he could obviously feel it.
"Yes, but—!" Tara sprang to her feet and took a picture before turning the camera to him so he could see himself in the viewfinder.
Every hair on his head, including his eyebrows, had turned as snowy white as the peacock had been. The contrast with his vividly green eyes was breathtaking, even shocking, and Tara rather liked it, but Declan himself yowled in dismay and clutched his hands into his hair again. "What happened?!"
"You—this did!" She scrolled back to show him a photograph of the massive white peacock, and watched him go as pale as the bird. Tara breathed, "Holy crap. You didn't know you could do that, did you?"
"No, I…" He squeezed his head again, fingers in his hair and eyes huge with shock. "Oh my God. Am I old?"
"No. No." Tara laughed breathlessly and slung her camera around to her side so she could hug him hard, trying to reassure him. "No, you're just you with white hair. But I think you should shift and see if it goes back to normal before Colette wakes up, because we don't want her to put you together with the pea—oop!"
He shifted as she spoke, which felt odd: his peacock self was much smaller than his human self—at least usually—and he sort of slithered right out of her arms. The peacock standing in front of her was the same one she'd gotten used to: blue and green and beautiful, rather than unspeakably huge and mythic. Then he shifted back, his gaze locked on hers. "My hair?"
"Is black again," she assured him with another breathless laugh. "Wow. Wow. I didn't know you could do that. Any of that."
"I knew about the size thing—" Declan winced, mumbled, "you don't want to know what the bird just said," and went on with, "—but not that I could turn white? That's, I have to sit with that like!"
Tara, unable to stop a sudden giggle, guessed, "It said it knew I'd like a big cock, didn't it?" and at Declan's look of sheer mortified dismay, was certain she was right. Then Colette groaned and both of them crouched beside her as her eyes fluttered open.
Her gaze went beyond them at first, then came back to Tara. "You saw it, didn't you? The peacock god? It was here." She clutched at Declan's arm in a frantic gesture. "Did you see it?"
"I did not," Declan said with great aplomb.
Tara couldn't look at him for fear of bursting into laughter. Technically he was right, after all. "I didn't see any gods, Colette," she said carefully, and the designer's panicked attention came back to her.
"You had to have seen it. It was ten meters tall and white. It saw into my soul ," Colette said in despair. "And it condemned what it saw there, with a scream like thunder. You saw it," she said again. "You had to have seen it."
"There were no gods here," Tara said again, still carefully, then nearly jumped out of her skin as a scream as unholy, and almost as loud as Declan's dinosaur roar had been, sounded from not all that far away. She and Declan both twisted toward it, and Colette sat up with a frantic expression.
Half a dozen peacocks were facing off, tail feathers up, beaks agape as they shrieked at each other again. Tara had no idea when they'd been released from the enclosure, but then, she hadn't heard any children around recently, so maybe they'd been out for a while. And she supposed if anything would conveniently draw them right here, it was that truly horrifying scream Declan had given a few minutes ago.
And then one of the peacocks caught Tara's eye and, she swore to God, winked at her before screeching again and making all the others start caterwauling too. Tara said, "Oh," and smiled at Colette. "That's probably what you heard."
"No. No, it was a giant peacock," Colette insisted. "A god . You have to believe me! You have to! I won't ever bother them again," she promised. "I'll work with synthetics. I'll give money to conservation foundations. I'm sorry. Just don't let it ever see me again."
Tara, almost feeling bad about it, said, "I'm going to keep an eye on you, you know. If you don't keep your promises…"
"I will!" Colette wailed. "I will, I swear it! Please, I just don't want it to ever see me again…!" She climbed to her feet, clumsy with nerves, and fled down a pathway, away from the voices converging on the clearing. The peacocks were still screeching at each other, and by the time the approaching people got closer, most of the panic had faded from their calls. The first person Tara saw, in fact, was an older man in an estate uniform who was chuckling as he reached them.
"I've never heard them go on like that," he called above the cacophony. "I'll tell you the truth, from farther away it sounded like one massive bird!"
"That would be a really big bird," Tara called back, smiling. "Sorry, I'm afraid it's somehow my fault. I was taking pictures and then there was all this fuss."
"Nah, love, it's all grand. Unless they hurt you?" There were quite a few people joining the employee, their faces filled with mild concern now, instead of the genuine alarm from moments earlier.
Tara shook her head and stood to spread her arms and spin, showing that she was unharmed. "Just surprised at all the noise. Peacocks don't look like they sound like that, you know?"
Several people, including Declan, laughed. "It's true," he said. "They look like they should have incredibly beautiful singing voices, not ungodly screams from the depths of hell. But here now, that wouldn't be fair, would it? For them to get the full package?"
He got the brief distant look that meant his peacock had some commentary, then suppressed a laugh but couldn't quite bring himself to look at Tara. She was willing to bet anything the bird had somehow misinterpreted 'the full package.'
Fortunately, nobody else noticed—why would they?—and people were chatting, starting to leave again, or admiring the peacocks, who had suddenly calmed down. After a while, even the birds had left, all except two, who waited patiently for the humans to disperse, then suddenly shifted from brilliantly-colored peacocks into a couple of cheerful-looking white guys. The one who'd winked at Tara said, "Have you got her sorted, then? Sorry we couldn't get here faster. Peacocks are crap fliers, you know."
Declan laughed. "I do know. We have to drive, just like true humans. Seamus, Brian, this is Tara, my fff—" He dragged it out so long Tara was certain he'd been about to say something else instead of finishing with an awkward, "—fffriend. Visiting from America. Friend."
Seamus-who-had-winked gave her a pleasant nod, saying, "Grand to meet you. Hope we'll see more of you," while Brian waved a greeting.
"Nice to meet you too, and I hope so too. Although I don't know." Tara grinned. "I thought Ireland was supposed to be all pastoral farmlands and leprechauns and instead it's greedy fashion designers and shapeshifting peacocks. I've got to adjust my expectations, or flee the country to try to rebuild my illusions."
All three men said, "Adjust," with considerable enthusiasm, which left Declan looking a bit embarrassed and the other two obviously laughing at him. "All right then," Seamus said. "Have ye any more need of us? I think we only swooped in to explain away all the noise, anyway."
Tara and Declan exchanged glances before she said, "I think we're okay, honestly. I think she actually believes a peacock god came to earth to scold her, and she seems to have taken it to heart. I really am going to keep an eye on her design business and if she seems to backslide we'll get the police involved, but it's probably better to not have her trying to convince anyone she saw a fifteen-foot-tall white peacock, huh?"
Brian said, " White ?" incredulously, and Declan spread his hands.
"I've talents I didn't even know about! I'd say I'll show you sometime but I honestly don't know if I can do it again. My peacock was showing off."
Seamus gave Tara an unexpectedly blinding grin, said, "I wonder why," to Declan, then caught Brian's hand and walked off with him, leaving Tara to raise her eyebrows at Declan.
"What? They're mates." He paused. "I mean, they're together, not just friends."
Tara cast a startled look after the other shifters, then laughed as she looked back at Declan. "No, that's not what I was raising my eyebrows about. Why'd he say 'I wonder why?' like that?"
"Aaaah, because…" Declan groaned. "It's hard to explain?"
"It can't possibly be harder to explain than how you turned into a fifteen foot tall bird. I mean, you said bird shifters got bigger and other shifters couldn't but holy moly, Declan. Explain! While we walk," Tara added with a smile. "Because we've gotten rid of the problem designer and I want to see the rest of the castle grounds while I'm not chasing a flock of peacocks around, and then we need to get out of here before that groundskeeper starts to wonder if I've left a peacock in my car." She slipped her hand into Declan's and felt a warm rush of happiness rise through her as he lifted it to kiss her knuckles before they fell into step together.
"I've no idea why we birds can take it to an extreme, honestly. We're kind of nightmare monsters, I think."
"You're dinosaurs," Tara said firmly, remembering how that had been her absolute first thought. "Honestly, you should have seen yourself. You weren't exactly a T-Rex, but you were really super dinosaur-like. Even your scream sounded more like a roar, from a throat that big."
Declan's eyes widened before he blinked down at her a few times. "I wonder if that's it? Is it the magic reaching back to when we were big? Although not all dinosaurs were big," he said almost mournfully.
"Well, whether your direct dinosaur ancestors were or not, you certainly are. And you've never turned white before?"
"That was all the bird." Declan's eyes widened again. "I'd no idea it could do that. I sort of feel like I sprained something. And it's exhausted ."
"Well, please tell it that it was very impressive and extremely effective and that hopefully it never has to do anything like that again."
"I will when it wakes up," Declan promised.
"And the rest of it? What else is hard to explain?"
"Ah." Declan drew to a stop underneath a tree that was just beginning to bloom with soft pink blossoms. "You know how I just said Bri and Seamus were mates?" At Tara's nod, he went on. "It's a little old-fashioned, or maybe just a little not-human, but it's what shifters call the people we're meant to be with. They're our mates, and fate brings us together with them."
"Oh, that sounds nice," Tara said wistfully. "Sort of love at first sight-y? That's—no, never mind." She could feel heat building in her cheeks, and wasn't surprised when Declan made an encouraging, inquisitive noise. "I don't want to sound like I'm throwing myself at you out of desperation or anything, but I have to admit that's kind of how I felt when we met. I know we've only known each other two days, but I'm afraid I just sort of…fell. Don't worry," she added hastily. "I'll be gone in a couple of weeks and I'm sure I'll, you know, move on with my life and have fond memories of the gorgeous Irish man who got away."
"What if he didn't get away?" Declan's smile was very soft and inviting. Hope greater than anything Tara even knew she could feel sprang up inside her, taking her breath away as his green eyes searched hers, offering promises she was afraid to even imagine. "It's how I felt, too, Tara. When we met, I knew. All I want to do is convince you to stay with me in Ireland forever, not chase evil designers around. I have my peacock's instinct for this on my side, so I know . I know we're meant to be together. If you want to take some time to think about it?—"
Tara stood on her toes, threw her arms around Declan's neck, and kissed him passionately. "I don't need any more time at all," she finally promised against his mouth. "If this is fate, then sign me up. I want it all, Declan. I want a magical forever, starting right now."
"Right now? Here? In the Blarney Castle grounds?" Declan looked up, smiling, and called, "Hello? Have we a priest nearby? Will someone come here and marry me to this woman right now?" When no one answered, he grinned down at her. "I can promise you forever, starting right now, but we might have to wait a day or two for the paperwork. Can you live with that?"
"Of course. I mean, you also promised to show me all the best bits of Ireland that I can fit in in two weeks."
Declan's voice dropped into a much deeper octave. "If I'm to show you the very best bits of Ireland that you can fit in, we'd best go back home sooner rather than later."
"That," Tara purred happily, "sounds like an excellent place to start."