Duck! (Avian Shifters Book 1) (3 page)

“Raynard’s taking you with him?” Everet asked as they headed down a white washed corridor behind the kitchens.

Ori nodded. “He’s offered me a position in his house, sir.” He opened the door to a store cupboard at the end of the corridor. The clothes he’d been wearing when he arrived at the nest had been tossed in there, but there was no sign of them now.

He rifled through what was there, trying to find something that might fit. It wasn’t easy. The clothes were a jumble of bits and pieces and there was no order to the way they’d been stored.

He felt Everet’s eyes run up and down his back and guessed he should just be grateful that he wasn’t going to be led out of the nest just wearing the tiny black shorts.

A pair of dark blue jeans that looked about the right size finally emerged from the chaos. Ori discovered a light green T-shirt a few minutes later. There was no sign of anything resembling a coat or underwear. Once he’d unearthed a battered pair of trainers from the very back of the disordered space, his wardrobe seemed to be as complete as it was destined to become.

The shorts were part of the uniform that marked him out as a servant belonging to club. He didn’t belong to the club anymore. He belonged to Raynard. Ori took off the shorts.

Everet remained in the doorway. Ori kept his back to him, hoping that he wouldn’t notice that the idea of becoming Raynard’s personal servant was already having an effect on him.

His cock was half hard at the very thought of servicing Raynard the way he had so many of the men in the nest. At the same time, his stomach re-knotted itself with nerves. Taking a deep breath, Ori pulled on the jeans.

It had been months since he’d worn anything more than those miniscule shorts. The crumpled denim tubes felt strange around his legs. The material in the T-shirt was softer, but Ori still shrugged uncomfortably as the garment settled around him, clinging and suffocating every time he moved.

The trainers were a size too big. Ori wasn’t sure if that made them more or less comfortable now that his feet had become accustomed to being bare all day. Laces tied, Ori rose to his full height, such as it was. With the image of the hawk fresh in his mind, he felt far too small to be of any use to anyone.

“Raynard’s not a bad guy; he’s better than most of the birds of prey. Do as he tells you, and you’ll be fine,” Everet offered.

Ori nodded, wrapping the hope Everet’s words gave him around him as best he could. “Thank you, sir.”

As he heard the raven step back, Ori forced himself to turn and walk out of the little storeroom too. Long before he was ready for it, he found himself back in Mr. Hamilton’s office, once more standing to one side of the door as he waited for the other men to recognise his presence.

If Mr. Hamilton had seen him return, he made no mention of it. Ori had no idea if Raynard had sensed anyone enter the room behind him.

The birds of prey stood up and shook hands. Raynard turned around. He didn’t look surprised to see him. Ori got the distinct impression that there was very little that escaped the hawk’s attention, even if he didn’t choose to turn around and stare at it.

Raynard walked out of the room without a word, leaving Ori to trail along behind him, scurrying to keep up with the taller man’s longer stride as best he could. They were out of the building and standing in the car park before Ori had quite caught up with events. He hesitated as the chill winter air whipped against him.

Closing his eyes, he relished the way the sunlight caressed his face. It had been months since he felt the sun on him. When he looked up, the world above him seemed impossibly big; the wide expanse of sky above him was both immense and terrifying. He instinctively took a half-step back toward the safety of the building.

“When was the last time you left the nest?”

Ori turned his eyes toward the hawk. Raynard stood next to a sleek black sports car, keys already in his hand. Ori blinked at him, unable to make his mind work quickly.

“A few months, sir.” That was no excuse for keeping Raynard waiting. Standing on the threshold to the outside world, he waited to be told if he had displeased Raynard so badly he’d be sent back before he had even truly left.

“Come here.”

Ori stepped forward. Eyes lowered, he stood before his new employer, waiting for his verdict.

“Get in.”

Raynard nodded to the passenger side door. Ori obeyed, fumbling his way into the seat and pulling the door closed after him. The hawk moved around the car and slid behind the wheel, folding his tall frame into the low-slung space as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

A moment later, the engine roared into action. Without another glance at his new servant, Raynard drove them both away from the nest.

Chapter Two

Frederick Raynard changed gears as the car escaped the worst of the traffic in the centre of the city and made its way into a quieter, less built up part of town. The office blocks gradually faded away in favour of the kind of houses the men who owned those office blocks tended to live in.

His newly acquired servant sat silently by his side. Every so often, Raynard felt Ori glance at him, but the duckling didn’t go so far as to speak without being spoken to. Raynard wasn’t sure if that could be taken as a sign that he’d been trained for silent service, or if the poor little sod was just as nervous as hell.

Raynard mentally shook his head at himself. The last thing he needed was an untrained servant on top of everything else, but there was nothing to be done about it now. He was stuck with him for at least the next six months.

Still, the boy couldn’t have been left at the nest—not when he’d have remained a sitting duck to the other men’s cruelty. A sitting duck… Raynard held back a sigh as he turned a corner.

He had to wonder if Hamilton’s control over the other avians was failing.
He’s never made any complaints about his treatment here
. Raynard revved the engine a little more forcefully than he intended as the eagle’s words replayed inside his head. Ori probably hadn’t complained about the fact that he’d not been let out of the nest for months, either.

“Do you have a family?” Raynard asked.

Ori glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, but quickly dropped his gaze. “I had foster families, sir.”

Raynard filed that fact away, in amongst the jumble of business dealings that had recently taken over his world. If nothing else, it explained why Ori couldn’t be certain of the species he’d shift into when he came of age, and why they were relying on the elders’ best guess based on a partial shift.

“Have you kept in contact with any of them?”

Ori shook his head. “No, sir.”

Raynard glanced at Ori as they stopped at a junction but he made no further comment. There was no point confusing the boy, making him think his employer was going to be his new best friend. A few minutes later, they pulled into the curved drive in front of Raynard Lodge.

Unfolding himself from within the tight confines of the car, Raynard looked up at the building. The expression on the duckling’s face as he did the same might have been funny in other circumstances. Awe and horror filled Ori’s eyes as he peered up at the dilapidated gothic monstrosity. He was probably regretting accepting a place in Raynard’s house already—and he hadn’t even seen inside the damn thing yet.

Raynard strode up to the front door. He twisted the heavy iron key back and forth in the lock until he chanced on the right combination of wrist actions to make the bloody contraption cooperate with his inclination to enter what was to be his new home now that he was required to take his uncle’s place in the Anderson Nest’s hierarchy.

Raynard went in, but Ori hesitated halfway over the threshold.

“There may be a servants’ entrance somewhere,” Raynard informed him. “But from what I’ve seen of my uncle’s organisational skills, it would take a search team weeks to find the key to it.”

Ori stepped inside and attempted to close the front door behind him—with very little success. Reaching over Ori’s shoulder, Raynard pushed high up on the edge of the door, forcing it into its frame.

It slammed with a bang. Ori jumped. Springing away from the door, he backed straight into Raynard.

A hawk’s reaction time was far faster than a duckling’s. Steadying them fell to Raynard. Grabbing Ori’s shoulder with one hand, Raynard slid his other arm around Ori’s waist and pulled him in safely against his body.

There wasn’t much of Ori that Raynard hadn’t already inspected. The skimpy black shorts hadn’t hidden a lot from those he was serving. Still, seeing something, and having it pressed intimately against him, were two very different things.

The duckling froze, not even drawing a breath as they stood in the gloom of the hallway. It had been far too long since Raynard had made time to bring another man close and enjoy what his body could offer.

Ori wouldn’t say no.

Raynard closed his eyes for a moment. Ori wouldn’t have said no to the crows in the kitchen or any other man in the nest either. Raynard forced himself to step back and put some distance between them before he forgot why he’d brought the boy home with him in the first place.

Turning his back on his new servant, he looked around the hallway. The place didn’t need one servant—it needed an army of them—which was rather what he’d had intended to hire when he went to the nest.

Raynard looked over his shoulder and found Ori watching him very carefully from a position just to the left of the door. He dropped his eyes as Raynard glanced toward him.

“Do you have any questions?”

Ori swallowed rapidly before he attempted to speak. Even then, his words were softly spoken. “How may I serve you, sir?”

Raynard considered the question carefully. The response had probably been taught to him by rote, but there was a hint of true submission in his tone of voice. He wasn’t just asking because he’d been taught to—he was asking because he really wanted to know.

Ori’s attention dropped to the floor. Raynard’s followed it. The tiles had probably been magnificent once upon a time. They might be again, when the dust was cleared away.

“It’s late,” Raynard decided. “We’ll discuss your duties tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

If the rooms Raynard had already investigated were anything to go by, it would probably take them an hour or more to find the servants’ quarters and discover what sort of state they were in. By that time, Raynard was sure they’d both be more than ready for bed—for their
separate
beds, Raynard reminded himself.

“Follow me.” Without looking over his shoulder to see if his order was being obeyed, Raynard set off toward a door he was reasonably confident led below stairs. The sound of his footsteps actually changed as he left the little pathway his previous footfalls had left in the dust.

He’d made one path to the master bedroom and another to his late uncle’s study. The rest of the house hadn’t really changed since he arrived a few weeks before.

The little door was tucked away almost out of sight, under the arch of the stairs. Lowering his head to avoid the treads overhead, Raynard pulled it open and groped around in the darkness for a light switch. A bare bulb flickered to life a third of the way down the stairs. Another guttered and promptly died another third of the way down.

As Raynard made his way into an even darker gloom than that which filled the main part of the house, he heard Ori descending a few steps behind him. He could only guess that the younger man was wondering what the hell he’d got himself into.

Reaching the bottom of the flight, Raynard made his way along a dismal, flagstone paved corridor. The kitchen, when they emerged into it, was little better. Everything was still draped in dustsheets after the previous servants closed up this part of the house. The curtains were drawn halfway across the window. There was barely enough light to make out the outlines of the larger items of furniture.

“There should be some sort of butler’s quarters somewhere,” Raynard said, nodding to one of the corridors leading off the kitchen.

Ori dutifully approached the first door and tried it. Peeking inside, he closed it before moving on to the next one, then the next one.

Working his way along the corridor to the other side of the kitchen, Raynard discovered room after room which would have bustled with dozens of staff when the house was in its heyday, but which now lay abandoned. Finally, he heard Ori call out.

“I think I might have found it, sir.”

Raynard strode back into the kitchen and looked around the room. Ori had found the room, now all Raynard had to do was track down the damn duckling. He stood silently in the middle of the kitchen, but Ori made no sound.

“Ori?”

“Yes, sir?”

Raynard strode toward the sound of Ori’s voice. Third time lucky, he found an open door that revealed another open door, and finally Ori standing in the middle of yet another shrouded room. One of the dustsheets had been pulled back to reveal the edge of a bed.

“Have to tie a ball of string to you before I let you out of my sight,” Raynard muttered to himself.

Ori blinked at him as their eyes chanced to meet.

“Damn place is a maze,” Raynard bit out. He reached for one of the other dustsheets, but found Ori there before him. The little fledgling was obviously eager to make a good first impression. Raynard stepped back into the doorway and watched as Ori carefully removed and folded each huge expanse of fabric.

The room had obviously been furnished with the cast offs from the main part of the house—apparently around the time when deep carving and dark wood had just stopped being the latest fashion.

Raynard looked around the room. It would do. A glance toward Ori found him looking more than a little sceptical. Raynard pushed that aside. He was only a fledgling after all—it couldn’t be easy for him having been raised with no understanding of what kind of man his species would lead him to be.

As he stared at Ori, Raynard found himself trying to imagine what it must be like, not knowing who he really was, what his place in the world should be. When Ori failed to speak of his own volition, Raynard saw little choice but to nudge him on. “Ori?”

“I don’t need all this, sir. I could just…” He looked back to the kitchen as if he’d have been content to find some draughty little corner and curl up on the flagstone floor, as if that was what the nest had taught him to expect.

Raynard shook his head. There was no such thing as too soon to start showing the boy how he should have been treated at the nest. But at the same time, it was difficult to believe that Ori was in any condition to take anything in at that late hour. “We’ll discuss the details tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ori looked to his bed. Raynard followed his gaze then quickly looked away, before the sight of it gave him ideas that had no place in his mind. “Get some sleep.”

“Yes, sir.”

Raynard forced himself to turn away. He was out in the kitchen before he heard the boy speak again.

“You asked if I had any questions, sir?”

Raynard turned back to him and nodded his permission to ask.

“What would you like for breakfast, sir?”

Raynard looked around the kitchen. It would be far easier to summon up a ghost than a meal in there. “We’ll dig out some coffee in the morning,” he promised. Then, they’d go and get some real food. He might not have brought the boy into the kind of house he’d have liked to be able to provide to anyone he took under his protection, but at least he could see to it that he was well fed.

As he climbed the last of the stairs to the master bedroom, Raynard pushed his hand through his hair, disordering the brown waves. A suitcase stood open on the ancient chest in the corner of the room. The bed was in the same crumpled mess as he’d left it that morning. Apart from that, it was still very much his uncle’s domain.

He’d have to do something about that. Raynard muttered a few well-chosen curses under his breath; he’d been saying as much since he stepped into the damn house. He draped his clothes over the back of the chair by the dressing table as he stripped them off, then strode across to the bed. Collapsing naked against the sheets, he felt his exhaustion in every muscle.

Putting his uncle’s financial and business affairs in order wasn’t hard physical work, but it was mentally draining. Inheriting such a mess was an embarrassment in itself. Going from place to place and trying to piece together what his cantankerous old relative had been involved with was a special brand of torture. Having to admit his ignorance of what were now his own business deals over and over again was worse than a whipping.

And he hadn’t had time to shift in what felt like forever. As he closed his eyes, he waited to see the wide, blue expanse of sky materialise in his mind just as it did every night, reminding him that no shifter could ignore the other side of himself forever.

No blue skies appeared, just a pair of brown eyes, staring back at him with that perfect look of submission. Ori’s mottled brown hair was a mess, as if someone had taken a firm grip on the strands at some point, and they’d never quite settled into place since.

As Raynard’s mind’s eye drew back, his attention trailed down the fledgling’s frame, and his body started to react to the sight. His hand had been resting idly against his stomach, now it slid down toward his cock.

Flight wasn’t the only thing he hadn’t had time for. Raynard opened his eyes, but the temptation to set that right didn’t ease. A glance up at the shadow hanging to the right hand side of the bed, and it doubled twice over.

The bell pull’s cables led down to the servant’s quarters. Ori wasn’t stupid. When he heard the bell, he’d realise he was being summoned and follow the paths in the dust like a good servant. He’d soon find his way to Raynard’s room, to his bed.

Raynard closed his eyes. The image of Ori couldn’t compare to having the actual man there, but if it was all he could permit himself without turning into something as contemptible as the bastards at the nest then…