The eagle, still heading toward us, shrieked out a loud scream like I had never, ever heard from an eagle before.
"That doesn't sound like an eagle. That's the call of a red-tailed hawk," I said slowly. Uncle Mike and I had done some bird watching back in the day.
The eagle was still headed straight for us.
"Should we run?"
"I'm not running."
"But the eagle—"
"It's not an eagle."
I backed up, preparing to run away from the not-eagle-that-sure-looked-like-an-eagle who seemed to be heading straight toward my face. "Jack. What do you mean, it's not an eagle? Also, wait! That bird is the size of a pony! That's not a normal eagle!"
"It's not an eagle at all. It's aScot."
"A Scottish what?" I tried to remember any Scottish birds that looked like eagles and hung out in Florida but came up empty. "There's a Scottish crossbill, but it's only found in Scotland."
Jack glanced at me, eyes widening. "Tess, you know the strangest facts."
"Yeah," I said modestly. "I read a lot. I kick butt on trivia night."
"Not a Scottishbird," he growled, still watching the eagle, which suddenly swerved, smoothly changing its flight path to soar left of where we stood and to the roof over Jack's back porch, where it landed, settled its feathers, and then stared at us. "A lying, backstabbing, treacherous Scottishthief."
He caught my hand in his to stop me when I took a step toward the porch, shaking his head. "Trust me, you don't want to get any closer."
A shimmer of light and magic, very similar to the one that surrounded Jack when he shifted shape, formed around the eagle and, moments later, a very large—and very naked—man sat on the roof in its place.
My mouth fell open, but I couldn't think of any words that could fit the situation. Jack said a stream of them, but they sounded like very bad words in a language I didn't know.
And the eagle—now man—laughed at us both.
"Jack, Jack, Jack. That's not very nice, and it's not true, either." The eagle man winked at me. "When I stabbed you, it wasn't in yourback."
3
Tess
"YoustabbedJack?" I made sure I was only looking at the naked eagle shifter's eyes, but my own narrowed. "You might want to just fly right back on out of here, bird man."
The man flipped long, black hair back out of his face and laughed down at me, amusement shining in his dark blue eyes. He was ruggedly handsome, like a guy you'd see on one of those outdoor shows on the Discovery channel. Or maybe he could host his own show:
Naked and Definitely Not Afraid
"Leave, Mackenzie. Now," Jack said, glints of amber fire in his green eyes.
Oh, boy. When the tiger's eyes started showing through, somebody was in trouble. A man who'd previously stabbed Jack would seem to be number one on the list.
"I can jump down right now, if you're sure your lady can handle all this awesomeness. Wouldn't want her to make any unfortunate comparisons, would we now?" Mackenzie's Scottish accent almost charmed me into not realizing he was threatening to hop down off the roof stark naked. And looking at naked strangers probably wasn't something I should do right after church. Seemed wrong, somehow.
I threw my hands in the air when Jack just stood there glaring at the man, saying nothing, and then I sighed and ran into the house to grab some of Jack's clothes for him to wear. But when I came back out with a pair of jeans and an old flannel shirt, Mackenzie was already dressed in jeans, sneakers, and aGlenmorangiesweatshirt, standing a safe-ish five feet away from Jack.
I put the clothes down on a chair on the porch and walked over to Jack, figuring that asking where he got the clothes was beyond the realms of shifter etiquette. "So, are you going to introduce me?"
"No," Jack said. "He was just leaving."
"Logan Mackenzie at your service, beautiful lady," the man said, grinning at me with a look of purely wicked flirtation on his face. He was maybe six feet tall or a little less, closer to my five eight than Jack's six four, and he was all long lines and muscle, like Jack. Maybe all shifters were like that? From the hard work of all that shifting? I'd have to ask Jack about it later.
