Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

“ A rchie!” Paige yelped. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I saw him!” Archie jabbed an outraged finger at Conleth. “He was giving you the look!”

The only look Conleth had at the moment was sheer horror. He stared at Archie, mouth ajar.

“Sorry about this.” Paige gave the camp manager a desperate smile before turning to her brother. Grabbing his arm, she dropped her voice to a low hiss. “Archie, you can’t interrupt while I’m working. Go back to your friends.”

“But you promised, Paige!” Archie said, way too loudly. “You promised that if any shifter tried something funny, you’d tell me straight away. And he was doing the thing . With his eyes .”

Paige was painfully aware that if anyone had been doing something inappropriate with their eyes, it had been her. “Archie, Mr. Tiernach-West is the camp manager.”

Archie glowered over his shoulder at Conleth. “I know who he is.”

“Then you know he’s a very important man, ” Paige said through gritted teeth. “It’s part of his job to meet all new staff. He was saying hello, that’s all.”

“That’s not what he was doing!” Archie clenched his fists, face contorting in frustration. “You’re not listening to me, Paige! I know I get stuff wrong all the time, but I’m not wrong about this. He’s got the mating fever!”

Conleth’s eyebrows shot up. “Mating fever?”

For once, Paige wished Archie would turn into a bear. At least then he wouldn’t be able to talk.

She forced a laugh. “Kids say the darndest things. Come on, Archie. We’ve taken up enough of Mr. Tiernach-West’s time.”

“Stop treating me like I’m just a stupid little kid!” Archie twisted out of her grip, rounding on Conleth. “And you stay away from my sister!”

For a moment, Conleth continued to do an excellent impression of a clubbed halibut. Then he blinked, all controlled charm once more. He shot her a wry, sympathetic glance over Archie’s head before turning his attention to her brother.

“There’s no need to make a scene, Archie,” Conleth said in patient, reasonable tones. “Now, let’s all take a deep breath and?—”

And that was as far as he got, before Archie did what he inevitably did in any stressful situation, and turned into a bear.

“Archie!” Paige tried to grab him by the scruff of the neck, but only got a handful of shredded t-shirt. “Stop that and shift back this instant!”

Archie was clearly not about to turn human anytime soon. Shaking off the last remnants of clothing, the bear snarled at Conleth, fur bristling all down its back.

They were starting to attract attention, Paige realized. All around the square, conversations were dying out as other staff turned curious eyes in their direction.

A cold thread of real fear cut through her embarrassment. If people realized Archie had lost control over his bear—and that she hadn’t been able to stop him—they could both get into trouble.

“Archie,” she pleaded, throat tight with apprehension. “Archie, please, you have to calm down. Right now.”

Conleth appeared to have realized the issue too. He shot her a swift, piercing look, then glanced around at their growing audience.

“Right,” he said under his breath. “New plan. Archie!”

The bear growled, lips wrinkling back from sharp teeth.

Conleth straightened his jacket, looking remarkably composed for a man metaphorically poking a very real bear. “Catch me if you can.”

With that, he took off at top speed.

Backward.

Paige’s mouth dropped open. Archie, unfortunately, didn’t share her astonishment. Letting out a roar, he chased after the retreating manager.

Conleth easily stayed ahead of the enraged bear, threading his way neatly around startled counselors as though he had eyes in the back of his head. In a matter of seconds, he’d drawn Archie around a corner and out of sight.

Paige blessed the camp manager’s quick thinking. She broke into a run, pelting after the pair.

“Sorry!” she called as she dodged through the gawking crowd. “No need to worry, we’re just, uh, playing a game. Excuse me, coming through!”

Conleth clearly knew what he was doing. Paige trusted he would lead Archie somewhere more private. Then she’d be able to calm her brother down.

And then, once he was human again, she could strangle him.

“Archie!” she called, lungs burning. Conleth had easily outpaced her brother, but bears could run a lot faster than humans. “ Archie! ”

Running backward through a crowded camp while being pursued by a justifiably furious bear were not the ideal conditions in which to formulate a plan.

But if there was one thing Conleth was good at, it was thinking fast.

Within two steps, he had the glimmering of an idea. After five, he had a plan. By the time he’d drawn Archie away from the central square, he’d refined it, considered several potential contingency scenarios, and was ready to act.

Timing was key. He was only going to get one shot at this.

Conleth sped up a fraction, opening the gap between himself and Archie. Making sure the bear could see where he’d gone, he ducked behind a cabin.

Pegasus abilities tended to be hereditary. His father, somewhat unusually, possessed three distinct powers, though none particularly strongly. He’d passed them down to his sons in varying proportions.

One power—the ability to track people down—Conleth had never been able to do at all. And his ability to sense living creatures was embarrassingly limited compared to most pegasi.

But the third talent… that one was a different matter.

Now , he told his pegasus.

And the whole world stopped.

Dust motes glittered in the suddenly still, heavy air. Sounds distorted, going long and low, as if underwater. A bird hung in the sky overhead, wings barely moving.

In reality, of course, time hadn’t slowed.

He’d just sped up.

Moving at what seemed to him to be no more than a brisk walk, Conleth headed back to the central square. He dodged around staff members, leaving a slow churn of disturbance in his wake as people looked around with sloth-like reflexes. When he was moving this fast, even shifter senses could only register him as a brief blur, gone too quickly to process.

He found Leonie in the dining hall, frozen in conversation with some of the other staff members. Conleth plucked the head counselor’s ever-present clipboard from her unresisting hands. He skimmed through the pages, searching for what he needed.

There .

Taking a pen from his pocket, he made a few quick, precise corrections. As Leonie’s expression gradually shifted to stretched, open-mouthed surprise, he added a note in the margin:

CODE M.

OFFICE, 10 MIN.

PLAY ALONG

Conleth didn’t bother wasting time signing it. Leonie was well aware of his power. Her eyebrows were drawing down, and her lips were definitely halfway through the first syllable of his name.

He inserted the clipboard into her still-outstretched fingers, though this was possibly unwise. He was fairly sure she was going to beat him over the head with it at the first opportunity.

No time to worry about that now. Even he couldn’t keep up this rate of speed for long, and there was going to be absolute hell to pay when he reached the end of his strength. He had to keep moving.

Out of the dining hall, and across to the office. Fortunately, Zephyr wasn’t there at the moment. It would have been awkward to have to unceremoniously pitch the camp director out of a window.

Zephyr’s substantial oak desk occupied the prime position in the room. He glanced at his own smaller, note-covered work station, and cursed under his breath. Repressing a twinge of regret, he swept the whole chaotic mass of documents and memos into the trash. He’d just have to hope he remembered to sort them out later.

He transferred his laptop to Zephyr’s desk, flipping the screen open. Bringing up the camp employment records, he entered a search query.

“Come on, come on,” he muttered, fingers tapping impatiently against the desk. At his current rate of speed, even his cutting-edge computer seemed agonizingly slow. “Come on. ”

At last the screen refreshed, displaying the information he needed. His fingers flew over the keyboard, making edits. He could feel himself starting to slow, his pegasus’s strength flagging.

There .

Slamming the laptop shut, Conleth dashed back across the camp. Archie had rounded the corner of the cabin by now, and was starting to sniff around in slow-motion confusion. Time to get back in position.

He was coming to the very limit of his strength, but he spent a few precious subjective moments to run a hand through his hair and straighten his jacket. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the crash?—

And, too late, realized his plan had a single, significant flaw.

“Oh, bollocks ,” he said out loud.

Time snapped back to normal. The world hit him like a brick to the back of his head. Everything was abruptly too bright, too loud, too much?—

And he was face-to-face with a very, very angry bear.