Page 24 of Twi-Flight
“Eggward! The office!” I yell over my shoulder. He’s fast, but I don’t wait for a response as I grab the closest weapon shaped object, a shovel, and run for the office door.
I slam the door open, and find a figure standing behind my desk, he’s holding Alice in his arms, and she’s scolding him furiously.
“Mina?” A surprisingly familiar voice asks.
“Jace?” I say, finally piecing together what I’m seeing. “What are you doing?”
“Where is it?” He demands.
Alice makes a lot of noise between us.
“Put her down.” The voice behind me is dark, terrifying, but instantly recognizable. My man, my chicken.
“Eggward!” I say, clutching my shovel in an almost menacing way.
“Get out of the way, Mina.” His voice is deadly quiet.
I turn to fully look at him.
That’s when Jace lunges toward me.
The world is all a blur. Eggward shoves me back into the wall, putting himself between me and Jace.
And then Jace isn’t himself anymore. His face is longer, his hair redder, he has a tail, or six tails. He’s a fox, as tall as a man, but with sharp white teeth and fur covering his body.
I spot Alice beneath the desk and she makes a terrified noise. Jace and Eggward are a blur of fur and feathers.
There are gnashing teeth, squawking, and feathers flying in every direction. The scream I want to release is caught in my throat. I can’t let anything happen to Eggward, not now, when I’ve just realized what we could have together.
“Get out of here Mina!” The yell comes from the middle of the violent ball. But I can’t just leave him here.
“No, no, I love you! I’m not leaving without you!” I yell back, there must be something that I can do.
Admitting that I love him is the wrong thing though, because Eggward’s gaze catches on mine for a split moment. Jace, finally gets a solid punch in. Eggward flies back, slamming into the desk.
I take no hesitation. I swing my shovel into Jace’s face, slamming it square into his foxy snout. The shifter barely stumbles. Instead he smiles at me, his lips peeling back to reveal sharp white teeth.
“Stay away from her.” Eggward wipes a trickle of blood from his nose as he climbs to his feet.
“Then give it back,” the fox demands.
“I don’t have anything that belongs to you,” Eggward snarks.
“It was here! In your nest!” Jace growls. “The first time I delivered groceries. Alice said she’d hide it for me, and she said that you took it from her.”
Eggward and Jace are both panting, staring at each other.
“What did you hide?” I ask, tentatively putting my body physically between them.
“He knows what he took.” Jace’s eyes flick between me and Eggward. I see the way his expression melts when he realizes. “You’re fucking him.”
My face gets hot, but I don’t say anything.
“You’ve been harassing me and my chickens for months now.”
“Because you are an untrustworthy thief.” Jace jabs a finger in Eggward’s direction.
“What did it look like?” I interrupt, looking for the solid middle ground.
