unfinished.
How to explain all this to his son, without what the younger generations now called TMI?
But Alejo said, “Sorry, Dad. I think that came out wrong. It’s just that I don’t like seeing her aging. It makes her seem fragile. I don’t want her to be fragile, I want her to be here, with us, so we can catch up on all the lost time. I want to protect her. Bring her here where it’s safe.”
“Your mother has been successfully fending for herself all those years her hair was turning white. And you should see the protectors she’s got.” Rigo had to laugh.
Alejo smiled, but it was twisted.
Rigo sighed. “I don’t know for sure, but I suspect the mate bond, though so faint I couldn’t trace it for years, was still strong enough to reach her at least a little. She’s white-haired, but she’s more energetic than a lot of fifty-somethings I’ve encountered. Anyway I can guarantee this, if she comes back to me, to us, we’ll have plenty of time to be a family again—”
His phone bleeped at him again. Joey Hu. “Gotta run, hijo.”
“Long Cang business? Right. Keep me posted,” Alejo said, and rang off.
Rigo switched over, and Joey said, “Everything go all right last night?”
“Better than I expected,” Rigo said.
“Excellent. Listen, there’s news. We’re meeting at Mikhail and Bird’s to figure out our next move. I’ve texted you the directions, if you’d like to join us.”
It wasn’t far.
Rigo parked below the enormous property at the address Joey had given him. He had not expected a mansion on a princely property. Though it was not as large as his ranch, he knew land in California was crazy expensive. Had he misread the directions? He got out of the car and took to the air to do a flyover to doublecheck.
He spotted them outside the large house. The mild ocean climate really lent itself to living in one’s garden almost year round. As he spiraled down, he admired that garden—but when he spotted a small, white-haired figure among the humans on a terrace, everything left his mind but Godiva.
She was there.
Shifter etiquette, he’d learned, meant taking whatever form the rest of the company was in, unless invited to do differently. He had flown invisible, out of habit. He knew that all three of the other mythic shifters sensed him, but the human women didn’t, so he alighted and shifted at the outskirts of the property, and approached politely from the public pathway, the way a stranger would.
Mikhail himself came to greet him and lead him to that terrace, where a chair was empty—opposite Godiva, who sat between Doris and Bird.
All his attention arrowed to Godiva. She looked up.
She smiled.
If was a brief flicker of a smile, like a candle in a breeze. But it was there. He’d seen it.
Relief—joy—surprise, all warred inside him. He was peripherally aware of the attention of the others, who had seen that smile, too.
The atmosphere, polite on the surface, seemed to ease a degree, then Joey Hu said, “Thanks for joining us, Rigo. I take it you’ve nothing to report?”
“Right.” Rigo accepted a cup of fresh coffee, and remembered that he’d forgotten breakfast. “I just got back from flying the coast toward the north. The only dragon I sensed was Mikhail here, flying southward.”
“Nothing to be seen in that direction,” Mikhail said.
Joey nodded. “My friend and colleague Anne, a swift shifter, has a son among our volunteers. Caleb is part of a sports team that also includes one of Long Cang’s new recruits. In locker room talk after a game, Caleb overheard the recruit complaining to another young man about their boss. He heard the word ‘Cang’ and something about promises, but so far all they’d gotten was a lot of hassle and ass-kicking.”
At that, Nikos, holding hands with Jen, grinned.
Jen said, “Might that ass-kicking have happened at the Oracle Stone site when we fought them off?”
“Caleb thought so,” Joey said. “He was one of the late arrivals that morning, so none of Cang’s people saw him before they retreated to lick their wounds. Anyway, he noted the complainers, struck up a conversation at the next game, and discovered the guy is a braggart. He’s also eager to recruit. It sounds like Long Cang is having a tough time hanging onto his minions.”
Some grim smiles met this news.
Joey went on, “So Caleb let himself be recruited, and now he’s our eyes and ears. These minions are not even remotely near Long Cang’s inner circle,