Conall
I watch the woman in the cottage as she locks every window and door. At least she has some sense.
The sun sets, and the last bit of light outside the cottage disappears. Clouds cover the sky. Only the lighthouse beam sweeps across the darkness now and then. I don't need light to see, anyway.
My hound's eyes cut through the dark like wiping fog from glass.
Suddenly, the cottage glows in shades of gray and green.
I see every window latch she turned. Through the loft, I spot her outline as she stands at the front window, watching the street below, hoping to catch whatever she thought she saw by the gate.
She won't find anything. She's looking with human eyes.
Her movement through the unfamiliar space is careful and efficient until she stops again in front of the window.
The lighthouse beam sweeps over the cottage and lights up her face for a moment that stretches longer than physically possible. I see the freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks, her set jaw, and her eyes searching the dark.
I shake myself. I'm here to do one job. A job I didn't ask for, handed to me by a witch who didn't care what I wanted.
The loft light turns off.
A whistle drags my gaze from her window to the edge of the bluff. Too close.
As I pass the front of her cottage, my reflection catches in her dark windows.
My second form is human enough to pass from a distance.
But in the light of day, my hair is just this side of green to be truly black, my ears are a little too pointed to exist outside a Lord of the Rings film, and my tail has to stay tucked inside my pants.
Far less disguisable is my true form—my first form.
Only a little of it slips free right now, not enough to snap the clothes off my body, only to maim the whistler sneaking up on the human’s cottage.
Facial muscles snap and stretch. My nose and mouth meld together, elongating into something more canine than human.
My ears lengthen. My chest expands. My hands crack as claws slice through my fingertips.
My skin shifts to a mottled shade of green.
The whistle comes closer, and I lunge.
Once the sound dies and the danger passes, I turn back. Laz’s orders. Stay in our most human form. Hide everything we can. The old witch summoned this unknown kin. This human. We can’t know for what purpose, or what magic she used to do it. To protect us all, we have to wait and see.
A snarl slips free before I can stop it. This girl, this woman, this little menace has already cost me more than she could ever imagine. I resent her, yet something in her pulls at me anyway, sharp and unwanted. I still have to protect her. My freedom depends on it.