Celebrate Read Online Free PDF Page B

about anything else?”
    “That’s why you lied to Mr. Hamilton about the day I was born, sir?” Ori asked, cautiously. “So we could spend my birthday together.”
    Raynard’s smile turned slightly rueful. “Most days, I have no issue with the nest requiring some of your time, but there are some occasions when I have no intention of sharing you. When I want you all to myself—that’s what I’ll have. Master’s prerogative.”
    Unable to think of anything else to say, Ori resorted to an always acceptable, “Yes, sir.”
    “Good. Now, go and get dressed before you freeze.”
    “I’m not cold, sir,” Ori promised, not at all inclined to move from within Raynard’s embrace.
    “Yes, you are, you just can’t feel it because you’ve just shifted.” Raynard sat up and pulled himself to his feet.
    Ori quickly scrambled up to follow him.
    As they both headed up the bank toward the bench, Ori ran his eyes up and down Raynard’s naked body and grinned. Even muddy and damp, his master was as perfect as ever.
    Raynard nodded to the little lantern as they reached the bench. “Make a wish, fledgling.”
    It wasn’t a fancy cake. It was one candle, not twenty-two. They weren’t at a party. There weren’t hundreds of people there who wanted to give him lots of presents.
    Raynard opened the little glass door on the lantern.
    Ori smiled. Alone with his master, naked, muddy, and well screwed—they both knew that was far more to his taste than any of the fuss the nest had arranged.
    Ori knelt down alongside his master’s feet.
    He had to think for a moment before he could make a wish. The one he’d made at the nest had already come true, now that everything was once more settled between him and his master. But there was no rule against wishing that things could stay just as they were forever, was there? Ori closed his eyes and blew out the candle.
    Silence fell over them as they dried the worst of the muddy lake water from their bodies and got dressed. But it wasn’t like the silences of the past two weeks. There was nothing unspoken or misunderstood hanging in the air around them.
    Ori looked out over the lake, trying to picture how they had looked flying together. It hadn’t been something he’d even known that he wanted, let alone asked for. For that matter, it wasn’t something his master had offered him for his birthday. Raynard’s presents never came with wrapping paper or question marks, they came with orders—just the way Ori preferred.
    “Time to go home, fledgling.”
    Ori turned around and smiled up at Raynard. Birthdays might come and go, but going home with his master—that would always be something to celebrate.

Also in the Avian Shifter Series
    Duck!
     
    Raised among humans, Ori Jones only discovered he was an avian shifter six months ago. Unable to complete a full shift until he reaches his avian maturity, he still can’t be sure of his exact species.
     
    But with species comes rank, and rank is everything to the avians. When a partial shift allows the elders to announce that they believe Ori to be a rather ugly little duckling, he drops straight to the bottom rung of their hierarchy.
     
    Life isn’t easy for Ori until he comes to the attention of a high ranking hawk shifter. Then the only question is, is Ori really a duck—and what will his new master think when the truth eventually comes out?
    Magpie
     
    Everet has found his perfect place in the nest. As a raven, he’s ideally suited to his new role in the nest’s security flock. Some of the jobs it entails have been far more enjoyable than others, but when he’s called to retrieve a magpie, who’s got himself into trouble in a local human club, it becomes a truly life changing experience.
     
    Magpie shifters have always been looked down on by other avians. Just as attracted to shiny things in their human bodies as they are in their avian forms, everyone knows they’ll do anything for money—and they’re not above stealing what