by A. Mashburn
The combination of the excitement below and the danger they’d escaped dulled the effect of her scent. Yet, Nicoli couldn’t help but notice how her body felt cradled in his arms or how her plump lips were begging to be kissed—shit Nic, get ahold of yourself; she’s fucking unconscious, you prick.
Nicoli touched down near the park and spotted a giant weeping willow next to the river. Its leaves grazed the ground covering the depths partially, so freshwater ran under the canvas of the tree. After so long, without being able to stretch his wings, they were sore. He groaned and rolled his shoulders as he parted the swaying branches. He looked to the beautiful creature in his arms and grunted, thinking about the predicament he now found himself in.
So much for staying in the shadows. He knew he had a choice and as he looked at her now, he knew if he had faced this same situation a thousand times over, leaving Gretchen to the mercy of his brothers would have never been an option, ever.
Nicoli laid her upon the ground under the willow tree and knew what he had to do. Hell, why not, he thought while he leaned down and placed his head in the crook of her neck. “I’m breaking all the rules for you anyway, why not just one more, eh?” he murmured into her ear.
He sat near her and arranged her in his lap. He folded his wings around her and watched as the edges began to shimmer. He began to hum the song her mother would sing to them as children. He had hoped that it might bring her comfort as it did him, even if she couldn’t consciously remember why. Sure enough, as the melody left him, the crease between her brows eased.
He focused on the space between them and watched as she began to absorb the waves of healing energy he was willing into her body. Her skin began to return to a healthy color and the wounds began to knit together. His eyes raked down her body and he noticed that claw marks on her abdomen were knitting themselves back together on her side. He realized in that moment Genesis, her wolf, was closer to the surface than he had initially thought; close enough to where her claws had torn the delicate skin on her stomach.
“Truly a sight to behold, colm álainn,” he murmured as he brushed her hair out of her face. He resisted the urge to heal her completely because he knew when she woke and found herself in this state, there would need to be some kind of explanation where the blood on her clothing came from. “I wish I could do more, Aingeal.”
We can, Xander perked up. We can stay closer to her, become her friend, maybe more? he asked, hopefully.
As her weight shifted in his arms and her head found the spot on his chest above where his heart was, he sighed and allowed her to rest before he had to take her home. In the solitude of the night and the relative safety that the willow branches provided them, he gave himself and Xander this moment to just hold her close as they’d both been longing to do for so long. Their shared body relaxed beneath her weight and immediately a sense of peace settled over their soul like a warm blanket. Nicoli smiled as Xander's deep rumble of approval rose from his chest.
Time passed and as he laid back with his woman in his arms, he peered up through the trees and watched as the darkness of the night sky began to brighten. His heart ached at the thought of leaving her again but sighed, knowing he’d prolonged the inevitable long enough. Xander whimpered in their mind as Nicoli adjusted her in his arms, relaxed his wings and prepared for flight.
As he steeled his heart and his mind, he felt her lithe body stiffen. He looked down at her and—shit—her golden eyes looked up at him filled with terror and as her mouth opened, “Sleep,” he commanded, placing his fingers to her temples before the impending scream could escape her lungs. Her terror-filled eyes fogged over and closed as she drifted back into unconsciousness.
Fuck, just fuck, he thought as he lifted her into the air once more and took her home.
Nicoli landed on the balcony of her apartment and lifted the windowpane. Standing in the room with her in his arms he walked to the bed, pulled back the covers and laid her in it. He took off her shoes and placed them by the closet neatly. As much of a neat freak as she was, he knew she wouldn’t have liked to be in her bed with dirt and blood, but it wasn’t like he was going to wash her or change her.
Xander perked up at that line of thinking. Nope, he thought, that is where I draw the line. To see her naked surely would’ve been his undoing. He covered her and as he did, he brushed the hair from her face.
Damn, she is beautiful. As exhaustion began to take hold, he sat at the edge of the bed and wondered what would have happened if his brothers weren’t such treacherous assholes. He glanced at Gretchen and sighed as he stood. The familiar feeling of loss surged through him at the thought of leaving her and of the confusion she would have when she woke. But she was safe, that’s all that mattered for now. He caressed her jawline and leaned down to kiss the corner of her lips, then put his forehead to hers, breathing in her scent.
A knock on the door echoed through the room and he stood with one last glance in Gretchen’s direction before exiting the way he entered, without a sound.
Chapter Three
“Gretchen,” Mo yelled through the bedroom door as she knocked.
Gretchen felt a cool breeze float across her skin as Mo’s voice woke her from her slumber. She sighed and snuggled deeper into the cozy blankets and wondered what the hell her best friend was yelling about.
“Damn it, woman, get your ass up,” Mo was pounding on the door now.
“Ugh,” Gretchen moaned. “Go away, Mo—I’m sick.”
Gretchen heard the door open and Mo flicked on the offending light. Gretchen groaned loudly and pulled the blanket over her head. She heard Mo’s footsteps approach the bed as she tried to pull the blanket away from Gretchen’s cocooned body.
“Seriously, leave me the hell alone,” Gretchen demanded. She felt the bed dip as Mo sat near her. Mo placed a hand on her friend’s leg and Gretchen flinched from the contact. “Good God, I feel like hell,” Gretchen muttered aloud.
“Gretch, what happened last night?” Mo asked tentatively. “Why weren’t you answering your phone? Jeremy has been calling all morning trying to find you. He said something about an episode at the restaurant and you disappeared and haven’t answered his calls since.”
Gretchen peeked out of her blanket and looked at her beautiful best friend, who had worry shining in her bright almond-shaped brown eyes. “I’m okay, I promise. I don’t know what happened exactly, I just hurt everywhere. Can we just talk about this later?”
“Well, let’s get you up and showered; maybe it’ll help. I will go warm you up some soup,” Mo offered as she got up off the bed.
With another groan, Gretchen rolled over and climbed out of bed.
“What in the actual fuck, Gretchen?” Mo shrieked.
Gretchen stood and a wave of dizziness crashed through her. She attempted to steady herself on the corner of the bedroom vanity and barely registered the screeches of her friend behind her. Once she felt steady enough to move, she glanced at the mirror which reflected the image of a woman with her face bruised, dress torn and scorching red marks across her abdomen as though an animal had attacked her. The sporadic dried blood was the topping on the heaping pile of what the fuck, that stared back at her.
Mo gently touched Gretchen's face as she turned it towards her and looked into her eyes. “Go ahead and shower and we will talk about this after.” Mo suggested, in a too-even tone.
Gretchen walked numbly to the bathroom and turned the handles to adjust the temperature of the water, undressed, and stepped in. Steam rose around her as she tried to retrace her steps from the night before. How did I get home, and what in the hell happened?
First, there was a giant black hole where her memory was supposed to be from her childhood and now, she couldn’t even remember anything after she collapsed in the restaurant's alley. The gaping holes in her memory were going to drive her mad. She laid her head on the wall in defeat as she washed her body, paying particular attention to her more private parts. Her muscles ached, but on the upside
, her migraine was gone, and there was no tenderness between her legs. She let out a relieved sigh as she watched the blood and grime wash down the drain.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood under the steady stream when something came to her. Just a flash of the most hauntingly beautiful aquamarine eyes she’d ever seen. The unearthly orbs were encased by thick lashes that belonged to a man, with wings? No, that must have been a dream, she tried to convince herself.
She stepped out of the shower and dried off then she stood and inspected herself in the mirror. Her eyes were golden, not her normal fluctuating hazel but liquid gold. What the—. She was so entrapped by the glowing pools that she didn’t hear the door open.
“You okay, Gretch?” Mo asked as she knocked on the door.
There was no answer on the other side, so Mo opened the door to see a stunned Gretchen staring into the mirror.
She touched her friend’s shoulder, “Gretchen?”
Gretchen shook herself free from the mirror, closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. She looked in the mirror again as she said, “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” No more gold, just her regular mixture of honey, green and blue.
“About last night,” Gretchen started. “I had a panic attack, my migraine got worse, and I just couldn’t stand the intolerable game of verbal volleyball that Jeremy and his parents were playing; I had to leave. I let my anxiety get the best of me and I left without an actual goodbye. The pain got so bad that I passed out and hit my face on the concrete in the alleyway and I must have fallen on something to make the scratches on my side. I’m not hurt, and it must not have been too bad because it’s just a little bit of discoloration.” She knew she was scrambling to find an explanation that would make sense to her friend but the fact was none of this made sense. In the mirror in the bedroom the marks looked atrocious and now they were already fading.
Mo gave a half-hearted smile. “Breathe, woman—I see that you’re okay, but when I first pulled off that blanket—” She stopped and shook her head. “Well, it’s a wonder what a long shower can do for you. By the way, Jeremy is still calling and he’s kind of pissed now.”
Gretchen groaned and leaned against the door. “I totally fucked up last night, Mo, but wanna know what the worst part is? I don’t feel guilty at all. I didn’t feel like going to begin with and I’ve been putting off meeting his parents for a while. I know he’s a good guy, so I talked myself into doing something I knew I didn’t want to do and, if I’m really honest with myself, I don’t think he’s the right one for me. I mean, I was sitting there listening to him drone on about my accomplishments and you would think I would be proud, but no—it felt more like he was describing some inanimate object he plucked off the shelf to show off for a while. It made me feel sick.”
Mo looked at her friend with a half-smile, “It’s about time you figured that out.”
“Wait, you agree with me?” Gretchen asked, shocked.
“How long have I been telling you that he’s not good enough for you? I keep telling you to go with your gut and you’ll know the right answer. You kept pushing for it to work and it wasn’t my place to convince you otherwise. Sometimes, you’ve just got to figure out things on your own. Now,” she said, rubbing her hands together like an evil villain, “how are we going to get rid of him? Should we send him a telegram, maybe a dancing crew?”
Gretchen laughed aloud at that and shook her head. “I think I just have to face the music. But first things first, I’ve got to find my phone.”
Mo called Gretchen’s phone repeatedly until Gretchen was able to trace the faint sound back to the window of her room where she saw it on the balcony table. Weird.
Gretchen went out and grabbed the phone from the balcony and called Jeremy on speaker. Mo watched her silently as she stood there and listened to Jeremy lecture her like a disapproving parent. Mo watched as the color drained from her friend’s face as he mentioned her parents or lack thereof and tried to convince her that he was just trying to help her because she was never taught to manage these things. As he continued, Mo intently observed every emotion cross Gretchen’s face.
Ahhhhh, there it is, anger, Mo thought to herself with a grin. Anger soon turned into fury and Gretchen’s gaze began to glow. Pleased, Mo smiled and watched as her friend came alive before her very eyes. The faint line on her cheek, faded into a distant memory. That’s my girl.
After Nicoli returned to his apartment and caught a couple of hours of sleep, he woke with the sound of blood pounding in his ears as his heart raced frantically in his chest. An anger that was not his own rose within him. He sat up in bed and noticed that his claws had dug into the mattress and his teeth elongated. He rose from the mattress, stretched and walked to the fire escape. Gretchen, he thought as he climbed the steps towards the roof.
From his higher rooftop, he was able to spot her as she paced the balcony of her flat. He strained his ears to hear, but she was too far away for him to gain anything more than the tone in which she was yelling at someone.
He jumped to the next roof, hid behind the entrance door and peered around the corner; boy, was she magnificent. The wind swirled around her body; her fiery red hair matched the heat that blazed in her eyes like an inferno as she laid into someone on the phone.
“No,” she yelled. “That’s enough, Jeremy. I know it was inexcusable for me to leave the way I did after making the arrangements for me to meet your parents. I know all my faults that you so kindly mentioned. I know better than anyone what my past entails, or doesn’t, for that matter. How dare you?” She took a deep breath as she tried to calm down.
After a moment she continued, “I felt guilty about leaving, I really did. Maybe I could have handled it better, but I didn’t. One thing I do know though is that instead of understanding my anxiety, you’ve done nothing but talk down to me and berate me to the point I feel alienated. You threw my past in my face and expect me to believe the ruse you try to put on like you were genuinely trying to help? Get off your high horse; if you cared even a little bit, your opening line would have consisted of asking me if I was okay, not filled with accusations and suggestions on how I can be a better person.”
Man, Nicoli mused, he's so lucky she is just a pup, or she may have reached through time and space to rip that guy's heart out. All Nicoli could do was grin as Jeremy started to sputter on the other line.
“Stop,” she roared, “stop making excuses. You know as well as I do, our relationship was on its last leg, and you tried to save it by what? Pinning the blame on the fact I grew up in and out of foster care? Like I don’t know what is right and is wrong? God, you are such a narcissistic, patronizing asshat.” She took a deep breath, and Nicoli knew she wasn’t finished with him just yet. “I finally decide to concede to your request and meet your parents and instead of letting them actually meet me, you take over the conversation and start listing off all my accomplishments like you’re talking about some fucking racehorse and all the prizes it’s won. I’m a fucking human being Jeremy, I have worked hard for everything I have and I did it all on my own. I do not need someone in my life who can’t accept me for who I am on the inside.” Nicoli could feel the rage emitting from her body.
She was so close to the edge of the balcony, as she leaned forward, her ample breasts pressed together. The cool breeze swept over her which caused her nipples to pebble and poke at the thin fabric of her top. His mouth went dry as a desert and tunnel vision began to obscure his peripheral. He felt heat prickling across his body as the urge to jump the distance, pin her against the wall and fuck her until her legs gave out crashed through him. He took one step forward before he regained control of his body.
“I do want you for you, Gretchen. Why would you think that I didn’t?” he heard the jackass say through the phone.
“Want was never the issue, Jeremy, respect and consideration on the other hand are. And how can you possibly want me for me when you haven’t even tried to get to know me?”
“Don’t be s
illy,” Jeremy insisted. “I do know you. How could I not know you when we’ve been together for a year?”
“What’s my favorite animal?” she asked.
“What?” Jeremy asked, caught off guard.
“I said, what’s my favorite animal, Jeremy? It's a simple question.”
Nicoli raised his eyebrow, as he heard Jeremy’s response. “A horse, Gretchen. We went to the ranch last month and you loved the painted one.” Nicoli smirked because he knew that was false.
She laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “My favorite animal is a black wolf, Jeremy. It was the blonde waitress with the dancer’s body who liked the painted horse, not me. If you think back, you might remember the fact that I said that I didn’t like the place because the horses weren’t allowed to roam free. They were constantly kept in the stables and I thought it was cruel when they whipped them to get them to do what they wanted. No animal should be treated like that.”
Jeremy was silent for a moment, “Gretchen, I—”
“I’m done, Jeremy,” Nicoli heard Gretchen cut him off. The tone in her voice had changed, the fire was out, but her tone was short, final. Her eyes landed on the building he was on. Her head cocked to the side and Nicoli mirrored her stance as he realized she saw him.
Fuck.
Nicoli heard the asshole try to say something, but Gretchen cut him off, “I wish you the best, I truly do.” She didn’t wait for a response as she hung up the phone. She had Nicoli locked in her crosshairs as though she were trying to make sense out of what she was seeing. None of the fear that was in her eyes the night before was present; curiosity, though and if he wasn’t mistaken, a bit of heat as well.