She didn’t ask what he meant by ‘deal with’. Fleance dabbed stinging antiseptic on the scratch on her leg, and carefully wrapped a bandage over it.
*That’s that,* he murmured. *I think… I think you’ll be all right.*
*Like I said, I’ve had worse,* Sheena began, and pinched her lips together before she could say anything else that might reinforce the impression that she couldn’t leave the house without breaking herself in some way.
Arson. Hellhounds. Invisibility powers. Forget traveling the world; this was more adventure than she’d thought possible, here on her own doorstep. What did those old Tourism NZ ads say? Don’t leave home until you’ve seen the country? And here she was.
The ad hadn’t said anything about getting savaged by a magical shifter before you leave the country, but Sheena’s sheep had always had trouble following instructions.
She swung her legs into the footwell as Fleance tidied away the first-aid kit and got in the driver’s side. The scratch across her ribs was fine, but her leg ached like a bastard.
The pain was more frustrating than anything else. Another reminder that she was physically more pathetic than literally everyone else she knew. She’d injured herself before. She’d been bitten before, and a bite from a fellow sheep shifter had a lot of crunch damage. The monstrous hellhound had barely sliced into her leg at all. And here she was, wincing over a nibble that didn’t even need stitches.
It’s not even as bad as when I tried to run through that barbed-wire fence, she said to her sheep. Remember?
There was no reply. Sheena held her breath.
All her life, even before she first shifted into her sheep form, her sheep had been there. Tucked away in the very heart of her being. Frolicking or dicking around, usually. Now, it was…
Stop hiding! she said suddenly. I know you’re still there, so come out and talk to me!
She dove deeper into her own heart, hunting for the cotton-wool fluff of her sheep. It had to be there somewhere. It had to be. It couldn’t—
She saw a flicker of something just out of each and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, concentrating fiercely on it.
A flicker of black-and-white woolliness.
There you are, she thought, relieved. What are you doing?
Her sheep twitched its ears at her, but she got the feeling it hadn’t actually listened to her. It was as intently focused on her injury as she was.
It probably hurts so much because I’m embarrassed about it, Sheena thought, to herself since her sheep was off in its own world. I thought I could help, but instead I just got in the way.
Shh, her sheep muttered. I’m concentrating.
You’re concentrating? On what?
Shh!
Jeez Louise, all right…
Sheena blinked and focused on the outside world again. Not on her leg. She’d whinged about that enough, even if all the whinging had been inside her own head.
Fleance turned on the engine and glanced her way. “Are you all right?”
His voice brushed against her like heat from a home fire. Sheena blinked.
“Oh, fine. Box of birds.”
“A box of…” Fleance’s face creased with confusion.
“I mean I’m… fine. No worries.” Americans understood ‘no worries’, didn’t they?
She shivered as Fleance put the car in reverse and bumped along the uneven farm road. This Parker character had set fire to everything her aunts had worked so hard for and from what she’d gathered, he’d wanted them to be here to watch.
But why? Who would do something like that? An evil son of a bitch, obviously, but that didn’t answer the why. What does Parker get out of destroying their dreams?
At least Fiona and Rena were safe. They must be, she decided, given how angry Parker had been about not seeing them. Sheena clung to that thought as Fleance drove back onto the motorway.
My aunts are safe, and I have him. My mate.
Her leg still hurt, but it was fine.
Her sheep was still uncharacteristically quiet.
Sheen squeezed her eyes shut. It’s fine.
* * *
Fleance drove as though the devil was on their heels. Which was closer to true than Sheena was comfortable with. She wanted to know more about who Parker was and why he had attacked her aunts, but Fleance didn’t say anything until they were in the city.
She didn’t remember much of Rotorua itself from the last time she’d traveled there: only a handful of impressions, like photos in an album. The smell. The way steam rose up from the earth and the lake. The Tudor-style Rotorua Museum, like something imported straight from England. And, outside of the city itself, the thermal wonderland of Whakarewarewa, with its geysers, brightly colored silica pools, and bubbling mud.
And the pit she’d fallen into. That wasn’t so much like a photo memory, as it was a memory backed up on the reg by the actual photo of it her mum had kept.
Some things had changed. The museum was closed—surrounded by temporary fencing to keep people away from the façade, an earthquake-proofing safeguard she’d seen in almost every town she’d been through on her way to Auckland. So much of the country’s infrastructure had been built without regard for the fact they were bang on a massive fault line.
The hotels were all running full steam, though. Literally. Some had steam hissing from water features in the forecourt, or from the private spas that dug into hot-water bores on the property.
After cruising the streets cursing at No Vacancy signs, Fleance pulled up outside a lakefront hotel. His eyebrows pulled together. “Will this work?” he asked.
“Will it work?” Apart from staying with relatives, Sheena had been planning on bunking at hostels, here and overseas. Hotels hadn’t featured in her plans. Hotels with lakefront views and an on-site spa? Not even on the horizon.
She slapped her pockets, remembering too late that they weren’t her pockets. “Shit. My wallet—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Fleance’s smile was barely there, but his eyes were warm. “Letting my credit card take a beating is the least I can do. I’m more worried
