The young woman also derived immense pleasure in riling him every chance she could. It was as if she enjoyed his ire.
Maybe she did.
Right now, his body viewed her as a viable bed partner. A woman to sink deep into and lose himself.
Not his niece’s best friend. That was simply unacceptable. She was not an option at all.
No way.
No how.
Yet his cock didn’t seem to agree with his head. Neither did the rest of him, which tightened with the fierce need to fly to her, whisk her away, and take her to a cave in the mountains, as legends of old told of how bird-shifter males used to do when they found their mates.
Mate?
Lisa was not his mate.
She couldn’t be.
For one, she was human.
For two, she was Lisa—he’d known her for a few years. He’d surely have figured out by now if she was something more to him than his niece’s friend. Wouldn’t he?
The fierce compulsion to go to her was too much for him to take. It didn’t matter that he was a trained soldier and warrior. Nothing could have prepared him for the reaction he was suddenly having to Lisa.
He stumbled and fell to one knee, the intense demand to go to the young woman beating at him from within. He shook his head and fought against the bizarre urges coursing through his veins. He dug deep, in search of his willpower.
It was virtually nonexistent.
He was behaving as if he’d barely seen twenty full cycles under his belt. In truth, he’d seen hundreds. Far too many to be this out of control over any woman—human or not.
“Pull it together.” He wiped his hand over his face to remove some sweat. “Fly home. You have no reason to be here.”
While the words came out, his body didn’t obey. It remained in place, watching as Lisa got into her sports car, put the top down, and then sped out of the long drive. From his vantage point, he would be able to see her driving some distance. He could still recall two years prior, when she’d shown up in his driveway in the convertible, having only just gotten her driver’s license, wanting Gardelle to permit Sabrina to go riding about the town with her.
He, of course, had said no.
Lisa had then spent the day at his home, making rather obvious comments about him and his “ruling with an iron fist” and “dictator-like behavior.” She was nothing if not dramatic.
She was also breathtakingly beautiful.
And far too young for him.
Her long blonde hair blew about wildly but she didn’t seem to care. She also didn’t seem to mind driving with the top down at night. The woman drove horribly. Worse than Gardelle had years ago when he’d first learned to do so. She also went far faster than the posted legal limits, swerving and just narrowly missing going off the road.
Did the woman have a death wish?
The roads in the area tended to have steep drop-offs. If she lost control of the vehicle for even a second, she could plummet to her death.
The idea of such a thing occurring made him break out in a cold sweat. There was the smallest of pinches in his back before his wings burst free from him. He wasted no time taking flight and following Lisa as she drove in the direction of his home. He stayed high in the air, hoping the darkness blanketed him from view.
Lisa turned down a road that led to town, rather than his house, and he followed. She pulled into a petrol station and parked near a pump. Her cell phone rang, and she grabbed it from her bag on the passenger seat.
“Hey, babes, yes. I’m headed to your place right now. I need to fill up first,” Lisa said, the very sound of her voice making Gardelle’s body respond more.
What the hell was wrong with him? His body went from not working to going into overdrive—all over the wrong woman. Did it not understand this one was too young and off limits?
He circled high above the petrol station, observing Lisa below as she spoke on the phone.
“Sabrina, you need to stop trying to mother me. I have one of those and she does fine on her own. In fact, she called me not even an hour ago, lecturing me on not already being at your house. I know she and my dad don’t like the fact they have to be gone this weekend, but I really do not need her guilt making her call me every few hours. Ohmygod, she wanted to have a cake and an entire event planner sent over to your place for me. I had to talk her down from that. I told her you were making me a cake and we were having a small, private party.”
Gardelle watched as Lisa got out of her car and began to fill it with fuel while talking on the phone to his niece.
Movement from the far edge of the petrol station caught his eye. There was a human male there, in the shadows, wearing black from head to toe.
The man simply stood at the edge of the station, his face hidden beneath a hooded sweatshirt. Gardelle clenched his fists, his focus remaining on the man. There was something about the human that set Gardelle on edge. Evil radiated from the man, making the air reek of it. He was up to no good. That much was clear.
Lisa continued to talk on the phone as she finished putting fuel in her car. “Craving anything that’s terrible for you but oh so yummy? I can get some candy for us while I’m here. I could try to buy beer. I have a fake ID with me.” She grunted. “You are no fun. So what if your uncle were to catch us drinking? Maybe he could have one and loosen up. He’s sexy but, man, is he uptight.”
She laughed, and the sound hit Gardelle right in the gut, making need slam through him. He had to fight to stay in the air. Cursed Magaious, the woman was going to make him plummet to his death before the night was out.
“Okay, let me go stock us up on junk food. Your uncle is going to give me that disapproving look he likes to give me,” said Lisa with a half-smile. “Even when he’s scowling at me, he’s still hot. Seriously, Sabrina, your uncle is like an eleven out of ten. I really wish he’d walk around the house without a shirt on or something. You can tell he’s ripped.”
Gardelle had little time to think about what she’d said as she made her way into the petrol station and the human male came forth from the shadows.
The man ran quickly to Lisa’s vehicle and leapt over the side, into the backseat. There was a high chance Lisa would never see him when she returned to the car.
Fury consumed Gardelle as he dove at the male. His wings flapped as he reached out, snatching hold of the man’s arm, and ripping him from the vehicle.
The man screamed but Gardelle ignored the sound, flying quickly in the direction of the cliffs once more. Once he reached them, he threw the man, letting him hit the ground as Gardelle landed with ease on his feet.
He stalked towards the man, who rolled and looked up at Gardelle with nothing short of terror on his face.
“W-what are you?” the man managed, the smell of piss filling the air.
It was then Gardelle realized the man had wet himself.
“I am your worst nightmare,” said Gardelle, his voice barely above a whisper. He had faced down fierce warriors in his time. The human male did not frighten him. “Tell me what you planned to do to the female.”
He already had a fairly good idea but wanted to hear the male acknowledge as much.
As the man’s plan fell from his lips, Gardelle shut off. What he’d planned to do to Lisa had been vile and, from the sounds of his confession, she would not have been the man’s first victim.
The man would never lay a finger on Lisa or any other woman ever again. Gardelle would see to that. He let talons emerge from the tips of his fingers. He knew the sight he presented to the sick human and he took great comfort in the man’s fear.
“Now. You die,” said Gardelle, his tone flat, his mission clear. “And it will not be fast. It will be painful and slow.”
He attacked the man with a rage that he could not explain. One he didn’t want to attempt to cage. True to his word, he made sure the man suffered before he ended him. Hiding his body was easy enough, considering Gardelle could fly to places not easily accessed by humans.
When he finished, he flew in the direction of his home. He spotted Lisa’s sports car in the drive and let out a breath he’d not realized he’d been holding.
She was safe.
Good.
Gardelle landed on the balcony outside of his bedroom, drew his wings into himself, and entered through the double doors. The second he stepped inside, he caught scent of Lisa. She always smelled like lacine berries and the flower dormiturus, which were both native to the bird realm and not something found in the human one.
Dormiturus was favored by the healers from home. It had various medicinal purposes. He’d known several of his soldiers who had begun to suffer from nightmares after battles. Healers often gave the men a mixture of dormiturus and something else to help them be dream free.
Whatever helped his men was fine by him.
Lacine berries were similar to strawberries. Though they were known to be an aphrodisiac. He wasn’t sure if strawberries helped or hurt one’s sex drive, since he’d not exactly had a sex drive to speak of for years.
Until now.
He inhaled Lisa’s scent once more and groaned, his hand going over his clothed cock. Blessed Epopisdeus, the young woman had otherworldly powers. That was the only explanation for it.
He groaned and went straight for his master bathroom shower. He washed away any specks of blood from the man who would have harmed Lisa if given a chance. Partway through the shower, Gardelle found himself turning off the hot water and showering only in cold, in hopes it would help to alleviate his hard-on.
Chapter Three
Accipitridae Realm, Present Day…
“Guard the portal to the human realm!” shouted Gardelle of the Hawks to his men, not that they needed such a command. They knew what was at stake. The risk their enemy posed to humans. The destruction the vulture shifters were capable of.
When Gardelle and his men had learned the portal was under siege, and that several of the enemy had already made it through, they’d responded and sounded the alarms. They’d been unable to pursue the vultures who had already passed through the portal, but they’d been successful in preventing any more from crossing the threshold.
That was at least something.
Shifters from the Vulture Kingdom were currently doing their best to breach the portal again and gain access to the human realm. That could not be allowed.
They were soulless monsters.
Men without honor.
Without respect for tradition and with no regard for women, children, or human life. They treated their own women, what few there were, like cattle. If information that was coming in was true, the vultures intended to steal human females for breeding experiments and pleasure. They’d been doing so for decades, unbeknownst to the rest of the bird realm.
The very idea twisted Gardelle’s gut.
While he had no great love for the human realm, after having been forced to raise his niece in secret there for twenty years, he didn’t want to see any of its inhabitants fall victim to the carcass-feeding deviants of the vulture clans. Besides, the human realm had enough problems all on its own. It didn’t need bird-shifter issues bleeding over into it as well. Evil guys who could shift into giant vultures really would be the icing on the cake.
No.
That would simply never do.
His thoughts went to Lisa. To the woman who had consumed his thoughts sexually for nearly seven years now.
He was fairly sure Lisa, the one human who both annoyed him beyond measure and made his dick harder than it had ever been, was part demon. She had to be. How else could one explain her lure. Her temper. Her voluptuous figure. Her wanton behavior. The fact it was her image he thought of when he found himself stroking his cock late at night, alone in his bed. It was her body he imagined when reaching culmination.
She was the reason he continued to travel to the human realm at least once a month. He simply needed to look in on her, to know she was safe and well. And that she was staying out of trouble.
She was a temptress.
A she-devil.
A human.
They were to be protected at all costs.
In the last few weeks, the vultures had made multiple attempts to access the portals located within the royal hawks’ territory. From Gardelle’s understanding, it was still limited to merely the hawks’ portals, but he was sure they’d soon attempt to gain entry to others throughout the large realm.
A group of eagle shifters, who had spent the last few weeks fighting alongside the hawks, landed close to Gardelle’s men. Each warrior wore leather trews and boots that were native to the realm. Each had a back scabbard and a sword. Some had daggers on their sides as well.
The eagle shifters’ wings made them easy to identify and set them apart from hawk shifters such as Gardelle. The men drew their wings into their bodies quickly, each pulling their swords from their scabbards and then lunging at the enemy.
The sight was amusing to him, because the eagle-shifter males who were fighting alongside Gardelle’s men all had long blond hair, where the hawk males all had brown or black hair. Some wore it up, some wore it down, and each stood in a way that said they believed themselves better than all around them—including Gardelle and his men.
Eagles were full of themselves like that. In their minds, they were better than the rest of the bird realm. Gardelle didn’t agree but he welcomed their assistance, so they could be as conceited as they wanted to be so long as they killed vultures. They could hash out who was the superior shifter race later, once they’d all made sure the vultures were no longer a threat to anyone.
Alok, the captain of the unit of eagle soldiers, made short work of a vulture and then turned to help his twin, Rydel. Multiples were quite common in Accipitridae. Technically, each shifter had at least a small bit of magik. It’s what allowed them to change shapes. Gardelle strongly suspected this magik had a lot to do with the birth rates and the number of babies born to a mother at one time.
“Brother,” yelled Rydel at the same moment Alok bent, going low. Rydel swung his sword high, cutting the throat of the enemy.
Alok stood, nodded to Rydel, and then leapt back into the fight. “This is for our parents,” he shouted, stabbing another of the vultures.
Gardelle knew little of the brothers’ past. But he did know a vulture raiding party had decimated their village some twenty-five years ago, killing all within and burning it to the ground. The soldiers who had resided there had been off on a mission, not there to protect the village. None had thought it required protection. All had been wrong. The vultures had come in numbers too great for the eagle males there to stand against. Many lives were lost that day.
The eagles knew that should the Hawk Kingdom fall to the vultures, the Kingdom of Eagles would be next. The owls were keenly aware of as much as well. Though often thought of as merely scholars, the owls had a small yet effective army. They too had come to the aid of the hawks in their hour of need. The ravens had even sent word they would rally troops, should the need arise. The doves had reached out as well. When the realm’s peace-loving version of hippies decided to join a war, it was serious.
Each kingdom fully understood the ramifications would be devastating should the hawks fall to the vultures. That simply could not be allowed to happen. And while this battle was one of many, each victory meant something. Each loss meant something worse. It meant the vultures were winning.
“Not on my watch,” said Gardelle as he spun, bringing his sword up just in time to block a strike from the enemy. His body was honed, that of a warrior. Hours upon hours were spent each day training, staying in peak physical form. As a soldier, it was necessary. He’d been doing as much for so many centuries that he couldn’t imagine life any other way. It was engrained in him.
Gardelle’s opponent, a warrior from the Vulture Kingdom, snarled as he tried but failed to get his leg positioned behind Gardelle’s. The move would have left Gardelle tripping and at the mercy of the man’s blade, had it
been successful.
It was not.
Gardelle had seen the move too many times to count in the past. This was hardly his first battle. Life as a male bird shifter came with its fair share of conflicts. Unlike humans, his people didn’t use guns or automatic weapons. Those were something cowards hid behind. A shifter male would never be caught dead with one. Swords, daggers, crossbows, and hand-to-hand combat were all preferred to his kind. Though he had little in the way of doubt that the vultures would take the easier road of human weaponry before too long if permitted to go unchecked.
It was their way.
Cowards.
He spun and elbowed the enemy in the stomach, enough to knock the wind from him. The vulture came up with a roar, and in his haze of rage he tried to skewer Gardelle on the end of his sword. The attempt wasn’t a success, nor was it a failure. While the man did manage to slice open Gardelle’s arm, he did not run him through.
A bite of pain moved over Gardelle, but he ignored it, focusing instead on his opponent.
“We will wipe your kind from the kingdom,” spat the man. “We will eradicate you all and rule this realm!”
There had been a time Gardelle would have thought such a proclamation ridiculous. A wild tale told by a drunkard in a tavern, much like fishermen spun lies of their catches. With all that had come to light recently, as far as how the vultures had been secretly increasing their numbers for decades by way of human technologies and advancements as well as by force, he wasn’t so sure the vulture was wrong.
Lazar, mate to Sabrina and rightful king of the falcons, descended from above, followed closely by hawk shifters: Aeson, Keonae, Rossi, and Sachin.
Anyone looking at the men would be hard-pressed to guess that Sachin was no relation to the others, as they all, save Lazar, looked much alike. In fact, two, Aeson and Keonae, were identical. They were triplets, the third being the king of the hawks himself, Kabril. Rossi was their baby brother, and still four other brothers remained, none of which were currently living within the kingdom.
“Having fun without us?” asked Keonae, who had only recently returned to the realm after having spent decades living among humans. Far longer than Gardelle even.
Under His Wing (King of Prey Book 7) Page 2