Free Highland Shapeshifter by Clover Autrey

unconcerned with keeping refuse from piling close to their doorways.
    Col landed upon the overhang of a window sill as the car rolled to a stop and the woman stepped out.
    Looking around warily, she ducked into the shadowed recesses between two close buildings. Col flew over the top to follow her, bristling at the men lounging along the alley walls who whistled and called out to her, waggling fingers in gestures Col had little trouble interpreting. He banked lower, ready to give the ruffians a lesson in the proper treatment of women.
    The little Fae’s eyes flared with annoyance and she flashed a hand gesture of her own. Col hovered, flapping gusts of air beneath him, mesmerized by the turn of emotions playing across her face.
    One of the men pushed off from the wall, stalking toward her. The woman’s gaze speared him, large violet eyes widened fractionally and again that searing connection winged across the space separating them as though they were the only two people in the world.
    Col dropped low to intervene when a meaty ogre burst through the open door at the end of the alley, shouting and the bludgers scattered.
    Col flew into the shadows, alighting on the metal grating of an iron stairway that climbed the side of the building.
    “Where’s my shifter?” the ogre bellowed.
    Col’s heart gave a jolt in recognition. ‘Twas the gruff voice of one of his captors while he’d been incapacitated beneath the haze of the vile potion.
    “Not your shifter. And not your concern.” The woman craned her neck back, a waif antagonizing a mountain of unforgiving muscle. He felt a smile try to form if he had a mouth instead of a beak. She pulled out a wad of the thin paper that served as currency. “Bought and paid for. He belongs to me now so you don’t need to worry about his whereabouts.”
    She slapped the paper into the ogre’s wide palm.
    Col’s head went reeling. She purchased him? Like a bauble at market? Had his entire abduction been caused by this one slip of a girl? Why was everyone in this century out to see him harmed?
    She poked the ogre’s chest. “I trust my money’s good enough to keep your gums from flapping. Buyer confidentiality and all that.”
    The ogre placed a beefy paw over his heart. “Pix, you wound me.” His eyes narrowed. “You don’t have to worry about them. Those little bikers tried to steal from me. ME! They show their faces around here again…” He didn’t finish the statement, didn’t need to with how his eyes glittered.
    The lass’s features relaxed, stirring all sorts of unwanted feelings inside of Col. “Thanks, Starch. So we’re good?”
    The bulbous head nodded. “I take care of my loyal customers, Pix. Don’t doubt me on that.” His lips lengthened in a sardonic grin and the woman nodded, turning to go.
    She took a different route than the way she came, turning around corners and twisting into thin alleyways barely wide enough for one person.
    Flying above, Col kept her in sight until she ducked beneath a low awning and didn’t emerge from the other end. He swooped lower, but couldn’t find her. She must have entered the building.
    He dropped out of the sky the last few feet as a man and stalked beneath the green canvas overhang she’d ducked beneath. There was a door, chained and locked from the outside. Unless she’d used some form of magic, she couldn’t have gone in there and then re-chained the doorway from within.
    His gaze roamed across every crack and crate leaning against the dirty walls. He couldn’t search for long, not in the state of undress shifting left him in. Anyone could come upon him.
    Turning, he scrubbed a hand down his face. “What kind of magic is this?”
    “The hide in a corner kind.” She came out of the shadows where she had tucked her slight form beneath the crate and the door, covering her bright tresses beneath a cowl attached to her blouse. So simple. He felt like a fool.
    He was most assuredly grinning like a fool as well, but