The Hellhound's Un-Christmas Miracle - Zoe Chant Page 0,77
as she explored it further, or whether she’d like Fleance’s family and they’d like her, and she had a lot of wanderlust left, but…
*Maybe,* she agreed, and darted back to the road in time to see the worry on Fleance’s face melt into delight.
A few minutes later, her nose wasn’t the only thing that was tickling.
The wool on the back of her neck was prickling, as though someone was looking at her. Her hellsheep spun around several times, yelling HAH!, but there was no one there.
*Do you sense anyone around?* she asked Fleance, who was a hundred meters or so back down the road.
He paused before answering, and she could feel the care he put into checking their surroundings. *…Nothing close,* he said at last.
*Further up the mountain? Or behind us?* But that didn’t make sense. If she could feel someone watching her, they must be close, not so far up or down the mountain that Fleance couldn’t clearly sense them. Unless…
She looked up. Something flickered in the sky far above the treetops.
*Is that a bird?*
Fleance pulled over and craned his neck out the car window. “That’s not a bird,” he called over to her, just as the creature’s wings flared out and caught the late-afternoon sun.
Fleance
Fleance swore as he saw the flying creature’s wings glitter like black diamonds. “What the hell is he doing flying so far down the mountain?” he muttered to himself and reached out telepathically. Hopefully the kid wasn’t too far away…
*Cole,* he began warningly, just as Sheena’s voice exploded in his head.
*It’s a DRAGON!* she yelled. *I can’t believe it! A real dragon!*
“A real dumbass kid of a dragon,” Fleance grumbled. “Where are his parents? What are Hank and Opal thinking, letting him—”
He cut himself off, fully aware that it likely wasn’t a case of the Heartwells ‘letting’ their son fly out of the safe zone so much as a case of them turning their backs for the split second necessary for Cole to decide to stretch his wings.
Cole swooped closer, then canted his wings so he was hovering above the treetops. *Oh, darn, you spotted me!* he cried.
*A blind mole could spot you flying out in the open like that,* Fleance told him, and then realized Cole wasn’t angling his descent towards him. He was heading for the bursts of movement and shimmery flames where Sheena’s hellsheep was doing as poor a job of staying hidden as the dragonling was.
*Hey, Cole…* Fleance began. The last thing he wanted was the kid freaking out when he realized he was about to land in front of a stranger.
*WHEEE!*
Another voice chimed like a bell in his head, and Fleance’s chest seized up. Oh, God. Cole wasn’t the only rogue dragonling flying down the mountain: his little cousin, Ruby, was here as well, her brilliant red wings shining like her namesake as she did loops in the air.
Oh, God, Fleance thought. His hellhound was paralyzed inside him. Both of them?
He couldn’t fight the feeling that everything was about to go terribly wrong. Sheena was a stranger, of a shifter type no one in Pine Valley had ever seen before. Anyone who saw her wouldn’t see the sweet, infuriating woman he’d fallen for so suddenly and completely—they’d see a giant sheep with smoke pouring from her woolen coat, who was literally sneezing fire.
And the other thing they would see was him.
Not Fleance, who’d run into a burning building to save a woman he’d just met. Not the Fleance who’d stayed by that woman’s side as she defeated the most evil man he’d ever known, and who had finally found a pack and a place for himself that felt right.
They would see Flea. Hopeless Flea. Dangerous Flea. Flea who set fires, and hurt people, not saved them. Flea who couldn’t control his hellhound when faced with people who were breaking the rules…
…and two dragonlings taking a joyride down the mountain definitely counted as breaking the rules.
He could see it all unrolling, scene by scene. Cole and Ruby startled by Sheena. Him trying to reassure them, and it only getting worse, because of course the Heartwells would have warned their children away from him. And if any of the adults turned up…
His mouth went dry as his psychic senses pricked, alerting him to several shifter presences right at the edge of his awareness.
*Sheena,* he began, his voice halting, *it might be best to shift back for this.*
*Oh, no, really? I’m not sure my hellsheep bothered to bring my clothes with me