by A. R. Cooper
Damn, this was the most amazing dream ever. Too bad I was dead and couldn’t tell Jacqui about this guy. She’d be so envious that I’d scored such a hottie.
***
I awoke to drool on my cheek and, pushing up, I rubbed it off with one hand. My eyes felt swollen as if I’d been crying. Where was I?
It was dark, with only a pale light glowing from a huge doorway, as if I was in a cave or something. That’s weird, I thought, the sun should be coming from my window… then my hand brushed a body—a very male body. I shuffled backward, my back hitting a rock wall behind me.
“You’re awake.”
The rising sun barely lit the cave entrance, but I saw his black wings ruffle as he stood and sent me scrambling further into the cave. Was I dead?
“Who are you? Where am I?” The questions scraped out over my raw throat. Last night, or maybe was it longer ago, came flashing back. Was this the gargoyle that had saved me? Someone who could fly? Right, get ahold of yourself, Bethany.
“I am Amar. We’re in the mountains; it was the closest I could find to shelter.”
“Umm … what about a house?”
He chuckled and I wondered if he always made people feel warm inside when he laughed. “I have no house.”
“Great, I’m going mad.” I dusted myself off. “Well, thank you for rescuing me, but I’m going home now.” Mom was going to kill me for not checking in. Oh, and Jacqui too. I climbed to my feet and tried to flip the broken spaghetti strap over my shoulder. No good.
He blocked my path and I frowned. Just who was this guy? And how did I survive falling off a building? I remembered our kiss and wondered if I dreamed it, or if I really had kissed him. “You cannot go home. They will look for you there.”
“Who are they?” Yup. I was talking to an escapee from the psychiatric ward, who was wearing what had to be fake wings. But how had I escaped the fall? It must have been that drug they’d shot me up with … and I must have hit my head. My skull ached enough for that possibility to be true. This guy’s some kind of guard, I decided, watching over me. He’s going to make me think he’s on my side so they can—what? Why did they even want me? An eighteen-year-old who swam well and was good at puzzles, but average in other things. I didn’t even have a date for prom yet.
Maybe I could humor him until I could get out of this place. I knew Ms. Moor and her thugs were after me, but not why.
Why these people were after me was the question I had no answers to. My dad might know. If I met him, I’d tell him next time to text crazy people want to kill you, leave school.
Nah, I’d have dismissed that text too.
I glanced back at the winged guy. Now that my mind was not as blurry as it had been from the drug, in the light, I saw he looked like a cross between Tyler Posey and a younger Tyler Hoechlin.
His hair was a darker brown than mine, almost black. Not as dark as the midnight shade of his wings. The muscles carved through his skin made all the guys in school seem like rubber dolls.
What was he wearing? A loincloth from animal fur. It made me giddy inside. Holy cow that was all he was wearing?
I jerked my stare back to his face. His eyes looked greenish-brown from here, but I remembered how they’d looked an inch away from mine: green with bits of brown and gold streaking through them. I shivered and forced myself to focus on something else.
His black wings moved slightly.
Before I could think, I blurted out, “Are those real?”
Of course not. They had to be an elaborate costume or some kind of trick. If they were real, which my mind refused to acknowledge, then maybe I needed to check-in with the ward myself.
“My wings are real. Would you like to touch them?”
How could an innocent question sound so sinful? Even though they did look soft, I wanted away from him. I wanted to go back home and forget all this. Well, maybe not the kiss.
“No thanks.” I swallowed and fought the urge to fan myself. “Do you work for Ms. Moor and her … men?” Please say no.
“I don’t know what they call themselves in this century, but they are the Blood Spirits. They hunt our kind and have nearly made us extinct.”
“Right.” I shuffled closer to the cave opening. Beyond the guard guy, there were mountains or caves. Where were we? Haven, Texas was flat, except for the man-made bridges and overpasses. Maybe it was some abandoned building for rock climbers. “Spirits of Blood. Got it.”
“No.” He moved and his feathers rustled. “Spirits of Blood would have drunk you dry, rather than merely tasting to confirm your shifter blood.”
How did he know about that? And shifter blood? I’d never turned during a full moon or any moon. I was human and shifters, werewolves, didn’t exist. “Look, this has been nice. Thank you again for helping me or whatever. I don’t really remember since I hit my head, but thanks. I’m no shifter. The moon doesn’t change me into a werewolf. You can believe whatever you like, but I’m leaving.”
“Shifters could be any animal, not just wolves. I must remove the poisons before it spreads more. I didn’t want to do it while you were sleeping, without telling you first.”
“What? No, whatever Ms. Moor shot me with is out of my system now.” I frowned when he didn’t nod. “Flushed away.”
“Not the tainted venom on the blade she used to cut you.” He pointed to my injured finger, but I refused to look at it.
Later, when I wasn’t trapped in a cave with a weirdo, then I’d check it out and go to the doctor if needed. He took a step toward me with his brow furrowed in concentration.
Now my legs felt like liquid. He was going to do something to me; did I escape one nightmare to fall into another? I feigned going to the back of the cave. When he followed, I tore past him and outside.
My breath hitched. Dozens of snowcapped purple and blue peaks greeted me. We were in the freaking mountains! How?!
I scrambled down the slope’s edge, and pebbles careened below me. A bird flew in front of the sun, its shadow flickering. I winced, thinking it was him.
I was continuing my headlong downward climb when I slipped. Pebbles and rocks rained down below me as I fought for purchase. Suddenly he was there and hoisted me up until my face was tucked under his chin. I gaped at his black wings, which were spread out like a condor. No longer did he have the gargoyle’s face as he had when he had first caught me last night; now he had a human face with stubble that brushed my forehead. His eyes now appearing grey-green stared at me and I lost all thought. He could be a model, I glanced down his naked chest, then my eyes snapped back to his. Correction, an underwear model.
He flew me back inside the cave. My legs gave out from underneath me, and I collapsed onto my butt.
He was real. His wings were freaking real! An angel? But didn’t they have white wings? Maybe he was a demon.
“I will not hurt you. You have rescued me from eons of time trapped in stone.” He ran a hand through his dark curls and I wondered if they were as soft as they looked.
Stop it. Here was a creature of good or evil before me, and I was drooling all over again.
“Your finger. The poisons are already spreading from your cut. Only your shifter blood is keeping it at bay for now. If you were fully human, it would already be in rampant in your entire bloodstream and it would kill you.”
I gasped when I saw black lines spiraling around my pinky finger. “Get it out of me.”
He pulled an obsidian blade from his loincloth.
I plastered myself against the cave wall. He was working for Ms. Moor. He had to be. For a few seconds, I’d thought he had truly had saved me. But he was just a guard. One sent to torment me. I started to pant as I looked around for a weapon or rock.
“This will hurt for a moment, then you’ll grow a new one… if I’m right about what kind of shifter you are.”
“Grow! What the hell are you talking about?” Whatever this guy was, he was still crazy. He reached for me. I kneed him in the groin and ran.
Something streaked across my vision, then Amar’s hand closed around my wrist. I kicked and punched. I twisted and slipped from his grasp. I dashed for the cave opening, but he tackled me. I fell with a grunt.
Not that anyone could hear me, but I screamed anyway. He grabbed my ankle and dragged me back into the cave. I clawed at the dirt for purchase, but dirt caked under my nails. His weight on my back granted me little movement.
I tucked the finger Ms. Moor had cut against my chest. When he maneuvered to yank my arm out, I punched him in the groin and he twisted away. I raced to the cave opening. Within seconds, he snagged my elbow and I fell. The cave rocks bit into my knee.
Suddenly, he wrapped his legs around mine, pinning them down. Then with his upper arm, he locked my left arm until only the finger he wanted was loose. I slapped him hard across the face, but he didn’t even blink. I punched him and my knuckles burned. Still he didn’t move but just looked at me with hazel eyes full of sorrow.
I was pinned, but so was he. Then he shifted until my arm was tucked under his shoulder so he could grasp my flailing hand in his free hand. Then, I was stuck. His other hand held the blade.
“Sorry,” he whispered, and the blade sliced through my skin and bone in one hard swipe. He severed my pinky finger!
It was bad. Thick blood squirted everywhere. The ground started spinning. I was going to puke. On the ground was my finger, staring up at me. He let go and I crumbled, dry heaving.
“You sick bastard!” I screamed as my injury throbbed.
He reached out to me and I scrambled away as I cradled my hand to me. Blood already soaked my dress.
“Close your eyes and concentrate. Think about healing.”
“Lunatic! I can’t heal and grow a finger back! Give it to me and take me to the hospital, they can reattach it.” Can’t they?
“The poisons will find their way back into your body if you reattach your finger. See?”
My severed finger twitched, then seized and turned to ash.
“What the hell…” My stub itched. I’d heard of people who’d lost a limb but still felt like it was there … phantom limb syndrome. I was feeling it now, and it was super itchy. I didn’t want to scratch and infect my wound. And I had to get away from this crazy person—no matter how handsome he was.
I hunched over, carrying my bleeding hand. “I have to go now. Thanks for, err, saving me and my…” I couldn’t thank him for chopping off my finger. It had to be a trick. Somehow he had made me think the finger had disintegrated before my eyes. The ache along my nerves told me that him taking my finger and the blood were both very real.
“Call me Amar. And you are?”
I didn’t want him to know my name or where I lived. What if he cut off another body part to match? Maybe he was a sick pervert and would cut me into pieces until there was nothing left. I would not give him the satisfaction of seeing me whimpering in a corner. All of me would fight until I was dead.
He gestured to my injury, and I glared at him. I would have to wrap it in something soon to stop the bleeding, but even though he was only in a loincloth, I wasn’t losing the dress and going naked. And with all the blood, I’d have to buy Jacqui a new one and it would cost me a year’s allowance or more. I tore off a ribbon from the bottom of the dress and wrapped my bleeding finger stub inside. Then I stood and faced him. Somehow I would make him pay.
“Your finger is fine now.”
“It’s gone,” I snapped.
He strode toward me and my hands rose up to ward him off.
What? My finger. It was back. I unwrapped it to make sure, and it was there. Nail and all. Maybe this guy was a magician and had tricked me, but it had felt so real. “How did you do that?”
“It wasn’t me. It was you. You are a shifter, and an octopus if I had my guess.”
“Guess? You chopped off my finger, but you weren’t certain?!”
“The finger was tainted. It had to come off or it would have spread. To your hand, your arm, all of you, until you twisted into the agony you saw your finger go through before it died. Either way, you are safer now without it. I smell the ocean on you, even though we are miles from it. So an octopus.”
“Like Doc Ock on Spiderman? Ewww, can’t I shift into something cool like a tiger?” This had to be some bizarre dream. But the agony of my finger being chopped off was real enough.
He laughed and this time, the sound made me clench my jaw. He was after something. All men had their own agendas.
“It is rare that a person shifts into the animal. No, now they mostly take the benefits and some of the weaknesses of that animal. In my time, shifters were common and yes, they did transform into all kinds of animals. You have the ability of regrown limbs, as does an octopus.”
“You hacked off my finger and you weren’t even sure it would work?” my shriek echoed off the cave walls.
He smiled a lopsided grin. One that made me think he’d been spoiled as a child. “When we wrestled, it was like you had extra limbs. It was a guess, yes, but an educated one.” He shrugged like hacking off fingers was an everyday occurrence. “But it had to come off or it would have spread through you until your entire body was poisoned, then withered and turned to ash. And it’s more painful that you can imagine.”
“Yeah, I get it. Turn to ash equals bad.” I was an octopus? What else could I do? “So can I squirt ink? Ewww.” Maybe this was all some crazy dream. I’d wake up and Jacqueline would say I’d kept her up all night moaning and stuff. I still didn’t believe exactly what this dude was saying.
“Doubtful. You can probably swim exceptionally well and either hold your breath for a long time or breathe underwater.”
“Cool.” I didn’t tell him I might have already done that when Ms. Moor and the goons were after me and I’d hidden in the pool. So it was because I was a shifter that I did so well in swimming?
“And you have another animal shifter in you.”
His words caught me off-guard, and I scuttled back a step. “I don’t think so.” What would he do to test for another shifter? “My mom’s human, so I guess I only got my dad’s. Speaking of him, why didn’t he hang around and teach me all this stuff? It might have helped me get away from that Moor-woman.”
“No doubt he was an octopus; it is against their nature, especially the males, to raise or hang around, as you say, with their offspring. Every shifter has two animals. One that is hereditary and one that is… like a spirit animal. In my time, shifters had three: one from each parent and then their totem animal.”
Whatever. I was just happy to have my finger back. “It’s been nice talking all this mumbo-jumbo with you, but I have to get home.”
“Call me Amar.”
“Fine. I’m Bethany or Beth.” I looked out over the mountains. How the heck was I getting home? “Um, would you fly me home from here?”
Chapter Eight
“Bethany.” The deep sound of his voice saying my name made me shiver. Not in the way Mom yelled at me to pick up my dirty clothes, but in the way a boy who made your brain liquefy said it. “I’ve told you, the Blood Spirits know who you are. They will wait at your mother’s home and any of your friends’ homes until they track you down.”
I raised an eyebrow at that last remark. “Didn’t they scream just before you caught me out of the sky?” I had never wished anyone dead before, but Hooknose and Tattoo guy I’d make an exception for. Truthfully, I just wanted this nightmare to end. Leave me in peace.
“I didn’t have time with you plunging through the air to fight them for but a moment. Even though I was encased in stone, I heard and saw everything that happened before you touched me. Your friend was the golden-haired girl in the crimson dress, yes?”
I didn’t like how he described Jacqui. Jealousy paced inside my chest like a wild animal. “Is she in danger too?”
“Perhaps. If you try to contact her, she will be. They will use her as bait when your mother doesn’t work.”
“Most likely, when they know you cannot be tempted, they will leave your mother and friend alone… or give them a quick death. It’s better than the alternative.”
My breath hitched. “What could be worse than death? Torture?”
“The Blood Spirits can drain someone’s life away, leaving an empty shell. One that they control. The person looks and sounds like they always have, but there is an emptiness in their eyes.”
I flopped down on the ground. Was this guy for real? Or was I still tripping on that drug Ms. Moor had shot me with? I brushed off the tattered edge of the black dress, which was covered in blood and dirt. “So what do we do now? I have to know my mom and Jacqueline are okay. I can’t just disappear without a word.”
He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Did your father leave you?”
“That’s not any of your business.” I crossed my arms over my chest. How I hated this topic. Once, I forgot it was ‘bring your dad to school day’ for some career show-and-tell thing in eighth grade. I feigned a fever, even scrounged up a penny to put under my tongue like Jacqui said always worked for her when the nurse took her temperature. All I got was a lecture on skipping. I was in eighth grade and when my teacher asked where Dad was; I’d mumbled an excuse while everyone had turned and stared. She’d asked what he did for a living. The lies flowed easily then; they stuck in my throat now.
“Your father must have left to protect you both.” Amar nodded.
I shot to my feet. “You don’t know a thing about him or us. He left when he found out my mom was pregnant. It was nothing to do with protecting us. It was cowardly and selfish.” Then after no word, nothing, he’d sent that cryptic text. Thanks, Dad.