Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

" Y ou," Penny rasped, quite a long nap later, "have got a serious 'lady in the streets, sex fiend in the sheets' thing going on here. I did not expect that."

Ashley, who was astonishingly comfortable to sleep on, made a small, almost embarrassed sound. "Too much?"

"Jesus, no, it was incredible, just not what I imagined." Penny squished around enough to steal a kiss, then, seeing Ashley's blush, kissed her jaw, too. "I loved it. I've never really been with a dom woman before. I've only dated women who are into the whole 'short and bossy' thing. I didn't know I had it in me. It's good," she promised. "It's incredible."

Ashley shivered. "Okay. I don't usually come on that strong, I'm—" She shook her head. "I'm too big, too tall, too strong. I don't want to scare anybody. But I like to take charge."

"In everything," Penny said with a grin. "And you're good at it. And it seems to me like your fated mate is the perfect person to come on strong with. Fate must mean we're compatible, right? God," she added, distracted by her own thoughts. "Yeah, read me the phone book and then do that to me. I'm all in." She stole another kiss, then sighed contentedly. "I could stay here forever."

Ashley laughed quietly. "I thought we were going to come up with something better to read than a phone book. And yeah, I could too, except I think I might already be late for work."

"No. No way. Really? You?" Penny looked for a clock, then laughed and nuzzled at Ashley again. "I'm a bad influence. Letting your inner dom out and then making you late for work. But maybe you could use being a little less responsible? Just a little bit," she promised. "Let your hair down a bit and relax. Just a tiny bit."

Ashley, sounding offended, said, "I'm not uptight, am I?"

"No," Penny said, surprised. "Just dedicated to the task at hand." She shivered all over. "For the record, I'm a huge fan of being dedicated to this kind of task. But if you're late to work maybe we should shower. And I should try to get your clothes back from wherever missing shifter clothes go."

Ashley blinked, then laughed, and, sheepishly, said, "I forgot that's why we got naked in the first place."

Penny, firmly, said, "That is not why we got naked. It was just a really good excuse."

Ashley laughed again and pulled her up for a kiss, murmuring, "It was. And yes, shower. Together?"

"That will not get you to work anything like on time. Absolutely." Penny climbed off the couch and pulled Ashley up as well, and they managed to get through a shower without too much delay. Ashley dried her hair while Penny sat and concentrated on shifting to a partridge and then back again with the clothes she'd lost, but several tries netted her absolutely nothing.

"It's okay," Ashley said. "The dress was panic-levels of important. My skirt and shirt are not."

Penny wailed, "But!" and her partridge, startled, said, Butts?

Do partridges even know what butts are? Penny demanded.

The bird gazed at her with a distant, confused expression, then began scratching around in the landscape of Penny's mind like it was looking for bugs.

Maybe, Penny thought helplessly, it had thought she'd said 'bugs' to begin with. She dragged her brain away from bugs and said, "But your clothes," to Ashley, who came over to steal a kiss.

"It's honestly fine. I'm going to drive you back to your hotel so you can put your own clothes on, and then bring you to the pub so you can get your van, which is probably frozen solid, and after you've thawed it you can bring Karina's dress back to her and that'll be one thing less that you have to worry about."

"Do I have anything else to worry about? Besides finding your clothes?"

"Just Christmas Eve with five thousand Torbens," Ashley promised.

"Oh, that. It'll be fine." Penny grimaced, then widened her eyes. "But oh, wait. Are we telling them? Can I tell Gwen, at least? And she'll tell Bill, but will Bill tell anybody?"

"Not if Gwen tells him not to," Ashley said, sounding almost like she believed it. "But it's up to you, in general. If you want to tell them, we can. They'll be thrilled. But if you want to have some more time to come to terms with being a shifter yourself, that's also incredibly understandable and totally okay."

Penny held her breath a moment, then nodded. "Let's start with Gwen and Bill. See how that goes. I'll think about the other Torben hordes after that. T-horde-bens?"

Ashley laughed. "T-horde-bens, yeah. T-hordens. I like it."

Even one Torben, Penny decided a couple of hours later, was enough of a horde.

It wasn't Bill's fault he was about six and a half feet tall. Six eight with the pompadour. But it did make him a pretty credible horde, even all by himself. Particularly in winter gear, which everybody was wearing in Colorado at this time of year, bulking them all out. It was just that Bill didn't need any extra bulk to be very large, so he looked a bit like a bear walking on his hind feet when he came into the ice cream parlor where Penny was waiting for him and Gwen.

He is a bear on hind feet, her partridge pointed out, which was possibly the most sensible thing it had said so far. But we can be bigger than him, it added smugly. I can be big. Want to see how bi ? —

NO!!!

The partridge looked deeply offended and sank into the depths of Penny's mind with a sense of injured, sullen pride. Penny, trying to ignore it, waved Bill and Gwen down, and curled her hands around the mug of really excellent coffee she'd already picked up from the counter. Gwen bounced over to drop into the seat across from her. "I was going to say, you know it's nine degrees out, right? What are you doing inviting us to meet you at an ice cream shop?"

"I figured it wouldn't be busy. I was wrong!" It was a cozy little cafe with linoleum floors, walls painted with bright splashes of color, and booths that could fit anywhere from two to ten. There were a startling number of people there for the Saturday afternoon before Christmas. An even more startling percentage of them were actually eating ice cream, although they were also still all bundled against the cold, which made it even funnier. "But I wanted to talk to you away from the pub."

Gwen, who was pretty pale to begin with, paled rather dramatically. "Oh my God. You're not leaving the band, are you?"

Penny gaped at her. "No!"

"Oh, thank God." Gwen slumped so far in her seat that she nearly slid out of it. "Okay, God! Don't scare me like that!"

"I didn't! You came up with that entirely on your own! You scared yourself!"

The damned partridge fluttered up in Penny's mind in an absolute panic, wings and feathers going everywhere. RUN! RUN AWAY! It put on a burst of speed, by partridge standards, and raced across whatever space it existed in within Penny, wings still flapping, although it didn't take off.

It took everything Penny had to stay still in her chair. What is wrong with you?!?

THERE'S SOMETHING SCARY!

Bewildered, Penny looked around the ice cream parlor. Bear-sized Bill, ordering ice cream and coffee at the counter, was the scariest thing in the cafe, and he was about as scary as a teddy bear. There's nothing scary at all?

THE LADY IS SCARED!

"She—" Penny strangled the sound. Gwen scared herself by imagining things! Just like you're doing!

No! I'm scared because she is! The partridge sent a garbled idea of 'if the human is scared there must be a reason for a small bird to be scared,' followed by I DON'T HAVE TO BE SMALL!

Penny said, "No!" out loud this time, startling Gwen, who looked embarrassed.

"I heard you the first time. I don't know why I just decided you were quitting. That would be the worst."

"No, I—oh, God. I can't do this twice. Let's wait for Bill."

Gwen's eyes popped. "Oh my God. Are you pregnant ?"

EGGS! WHERE ARE THE EGGS?!?! The partridge, apparently distracted from random fears, began scrabbling around in search of, Penny guessed, a nest. Eggs. Maybe chicks. She was so distracted by it that she could only say, "No," much less strenuously than before. Absently, even.

Gwen looks suspicious. "Are you sure? That should have gotten a way stronger reaction than 'are you quitting the band.'"

Chicks, the partridge said decisively, as if remembering. Humans have chicks, not eggs. Where are the chicks? Single-minded worry sent it scrambling around Penny's mind again, looking for chicks.

Penny groaned. I don't have any chicks. Go to sleep. Aloud, she said, "Yes. I mean, no. I mean, yes, I'm certain I'm not pregnant, and you're right, my reactions are all off, and—oh, thank God, Bill."

The big man lumbered over and sat, giving Penny first a pleasant nod of greeting, then suddenly going still and staring at her like he'd never seen her before. Penny understood perfectly: she could sense that he was a shifter, somehow. It was almost as if she could see a glow around him, although she couldn't. Or feel an unusual warmth from him, maybe. That was closer, although still not exactly right. She just knew , basically, and it didn't make any sense.

"Penny?" Bill asked cautiously. "Are you, um, feeling all right?"

"Fine, yes, thank you."

We could be dying, the partridge said in sepulchral tones. The bear probably senses it. Its eyes widened. It's going to eat us. We're easy prey. RUN AWAY!!!

Penny whispered, "Oh my God, " and tried very, very hard to ignore the bird. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about," she said to Bill, and then, taking a deep breath, turned her gaze to Gwen and dropped her voice. "So I found out last night that I'm a shifter."

I can do that! the bird yelled in Penny's head. Let's show her!

"A—like Bill?" Gwen whispered, stunned.

Not like Bill! Like a bird! I can do that! Let's show her!

Oh look, Penny said inside her head, Wonder Woman's jet is right over there. Go admire it.

The partridge, to her huge relief, ran off in search of the jet. Maybe that would keep it busy for a while. "Not exactly like Bill," Penny admitted in a mumble. "I turn into a partridge."

"A p—" Gwen stopped on the popping sound of the p and swallowed. "Like your last name?"

"A horrible irony," Penny muttered. "I talked to some other shifters earlier today and they said I probably suppressed the ability for my own safety, because no one around me was one. Apparently it happens sometimes. Not often. They said it takes a huge amount of willpower."

Gwen's eyebrows rose. "Well, that describes you if it describes anybody I know."

The jet is gone! What's a jet? Where did it go?

A jet is a thing that flies through the air like a bird, Penny replied. It's around here somewhere. Go look.

The partridge ran off again, now with a vague bird-like image in its mind. Penny very carefully didn't think about how Wonder Woman's jet was, in fact, invisible and therefore impossible to find. Gwen put her hands out across the table, and Penny sank hers into them, grateful for the connection. "So I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you…"

Bill was squinting at her. "How did you figure it out, at this late stage? Did you shift for some reason?"

Penny gave him a nervous smile. "Well, see, Ashley showed me her bear?—"

I CAN DO THAT!

Penny struggled not to let the wretched partridge shift in the middle of the cafe, blurting, "and my partridge thought 'I can do that,' and then it did, and everything's been kind of insane since."

I can do that! Let me show them! You can do that! We can do it! Bees do it! Bears do it! Let's do it! We'll fall in love!

Penny, helplessly, whispered, Those aren't even the right lyrics, and the partridge gazed at her in bewilderment.

What's a lyric ?

Bill's face lit up. "There's only one reason I know that shifters usually tell true humans—or people we think are true humans—about our animals. Penny, is Ashley your mate?"

Gwen rolled her eyes so hard Penny was surprised they didn't plop out of her head and land on the table. "Your true love, " she muttered, although it was obviously meant affectionately. "I'm sorry, I just cannot take this 'mate' thing seriously. But does that mean she is your true love?"

Where? Where's our true love? Our mate should be watching the eggs. Sitting on them. Oh no, where are the chicks? The partridge gasped. Maybe they're in the jet. The jet flies like a bird. Maybe it lays eggs. Partridge eggs! It tore off looking for the jet again.

Penny clutched her head and nodded, trying both to be happy and to cope with the bird in her brain. "She is and it's wonderful and I'm thrilled but oh my god , guys, I don't think I suppressed my shifter abilities for safety. Or at least, not because I was afraid someone would find me out. I think I suppressed them because this bird is as dumb as a box of rocks , and if I let it loose in public it would walk out into traffic and get us both killed."

IS THE JET IN TRAFFIC? WITH THE CHICKS? WHAT'S TRAFFIC ?

"Oh." Bill's eyes widened enormously. "Oh dear. That bad? I know non-predator shifter species can be…" He hesitated. "Flighty."

I can fly!!! The partridge ran like hell across the landscape of Penny's mine, launched itself into the air, and flapped along for several feet, just above the ground, before landing in a rolling thump. Oooh, maybe the eggs are here!

Penny gave a hollow laugh and described the bird's antics while Gwen sucked her cheeks in and tried hard not to laugh. "We've got to go somewhere that you can show me," she whispered. "Oh my God, Pen, this is amazing."

"Actually, that's a pretty good idea," Bill said. "Usually shifters get all this out of their systems before they can even remember, but since you came to it so late, you might just need to spend a while shifting back and forth a lot and letting the partridge run around."

"Are you telling me that because I've started shifting so late, I've got a bird too young to understand object permanence?"

Bill's eyes sparkled. "Yeah, maybe. I think you and Gwen should go out to—oh, I know. Uncle Jeff and Aunt Holly. They live up in the mountains. You can shift there without anybody seeing you. Ashley will bring you up."

"Ashley is insanely busy with work for the next seventy-two hours," Penny objected.

"I'll cover for her." Bill looked happy. "This is more important. And if you've got it under control by the family reunion, you can tell everybody there!"

"You want me to tell like nine hundred people at once?" Penny asked faintly. "That sounds terrifying."

"We're very nice," Bill promised. "Just large. Let me go cover for Ashley, and I promise, it's all going to be fine."