by Zoe Chant
Then he launched himself out of the plane.
“What the actual fuck?” Connie breathed in disbelief.
Instinctively, she wheeled the Spitfire over on one wingtip, trying to follow his falling figure. She caught the barest glimpse of him as he plummeted toward the distant waves—and then the Spitfire lurched sickeningly.
To Connie's horror, the strange corrosion she seen earlier was spreading further, Swiss-cheese holes appearing in the surface of the Spitfire's left wing. It was as if invisible acid was eating away at the metal. With a clunk, the left flap pinwheeled away, the control lever going dead in her hand.
The plane yawed, tipping to the left. Connie fought to steady it, desperately trying to keep the plane level with only half the controls operational.
Out of nowhere, rain pattered across the cockpit. Instantly, pits appeared in the glass, obstructing her view. Through the warped cockpit, she saw more holes appearing in the nose of the plane, eating into the engine housing.
The Spitfire's engine coughed, twice, and died.
“No!” Connie shouted, as if she could keep the plane in the air through sheer willpower.
She knew this plane inside and out. She'd worked on every part of it with her own two hands. Now she used that encyclopedic knowledge, drawing on every trick she knew as the Spitfire fell like a dying star.
Screaming defiance, Connie leveled out the wings, stopping the plane's sickening spin. But it was still falling like a stone, nose-first, straight down. If the plane hit the sea like that, it would be like slamming into solid rock. The Spitfire would explode into a million pieces.
Connie inched the plane's nose up, fighting gravity tooth and nail. Agonizingly slowly, the plane responded, straightening up.
If I can just straighten it out… skim across the water like a skipping stone...
Even as she wrestled with the controls, she knew it was futile. Even hitting the water belly-first rather than nose-first, the plane would still sink—in one piece, perhaps, but it was still doomed.
The only sensible thing to do was to hit the eject button. To abandon the plane, and save herself.
NO!
The hungry sea rushed up, eager to swallow both her and the Spitfire in one mouthful. Closing her eyes, Connie prepared to die with her plane.
Glass shards cascaded over her as the cockpit exploded. Connie had only the briefest impression of something huge and black lunging at her, before it grabbed her by the collar of her flight suit. With a powerful tug, it yanked her straight out of the cockpit.
Connie's feet swinging sickeningly over empty air. The… thing had her by the scruff of the neck. Her flight suit cut into her armpits, constraining her as she tried futilely to see what had grabbed her. She dangled as helpless as a kitten carried by its mother.
Then it dropped her.
Screaming, Connie flailed helplessly as she plummeted toward the sea. She only fell for a moment, though, before landing solidly on a broad, warm back. Sobbing in terror, Connie clutched at the horse's gleaming black neck.
Wait a second.
…A horse?
Connie raised her face, unable to believe the evidence of her senses. Yet she was, undeniably, sitting on a horse. A winged horse. It had magnificent, iridescent blue-black feathers, like an enormous raven. Its long mane whipped at her face as it flew steadily onwards.
I've died, Connie thought blankly. I've crashed and burned and now I'm dead. And a big winged horse is carrying me up to Heaven.
“Are you an angel?” she asked the horse, her voice quavering uncontrollably.
The horse curved its neck, one intelligent black eye looking back at her. It let out an unmistakably amused snort.
And suddenly, impossibly, Connie knew exactly what it was. Or rather, who it was.
“Chase?”
The horse nickered, tossing its head in a nod.
It was too much. The inexplicable disaster, the crash, Chase turning into a winged horse… her overloaded brain simply gave up, refusing to try to make sense of any of it.
Connie put her cheek against Chase's warm, black neck, closed her eyes, and let him carry her away from it all.
#
If Connie had been capable of being surprised anymore, she would have been startled by how fast Chase's broad wings carried them back to Brighton. It took less time to get back than it had taken to fly out in the Spitfire. Soon they were once again soaring over the beach and promenade—but this time, no one squinted upward at them, pointing and waving. Pedestrians carried on about their business without even an upward glance as the winged horse's shadow swept over them.
Connie was beyond wondering about everyone's curious incuriosity to the impossibility soaring over their heads. Her mind and body had both gone numb. Only one thought repeated in her head, over and over, inescapably.
I lost my mother's plane.
I lost my mother's plane.
Chase descended in a tight spiral, centered on a tall, elegant apartment block. The building's large, flat roof was beautifully planted with lush rosebushes around a vibrant green lawn. Chase landed so gently, Connie barely felt his hooves touch down on the grass.
The pegasus went down on one knee, stretching out one wing like a ramp. When she didn't move, he bent his neck to look back at her again, the dark eye warm and concerned. He nickered, very softly. His velvet-soft nose nudged her limp foot.
Connie slid gracelessly off his back. Her knees couldn't support her. She would have collapsed in a heap, but suddenly Chase's strong arms were around her.
“It's okay, Connie,” he said softly. “I've got you. It's going to be okay.”
“It is not.” Abruptly, irrationally furious, Connie shoved futilely at his hard chest. “It's not okay, Chase! Nothing is ever going to be okay, ever again! I crashed, and I lost my plane, and, and, and you're a fucking horse!”
“Pegasus,” Chase corrected.
“Do not dare argue zoology with me! Or, or mythology, or whatever fucking field of study is fucking relevant here!” Connie pounded her fist against his shoulder. He didn't flinch. “You should have told me, Chase! I crashed and, and all this time you're some sort of shapeshifter, and you should have told me!”
“I know,” Chase said quietly. He kept holding her, no matter how she scratched at him. “I'm sorry.”
“You should have told me,” she snarled at him. Hot tears burned her eyes. “You lied. You're a fucking liar and I hate you and I never want to see you again.”
Then she collapsed against Chase's chest, burying her face in his flight suit as she cried.
He let her sob, just gently cradling her as her tears soaked his chest. She could feel the rapid beat of his heart, strong and reassuring.
When she'd cried herself out, he put a finger under her chin, tipping her face up. His steady black eyes met hers.
“It's not lost, Connie,” he said, with utter certainty. “We are going to get your plane back. Trust me.”
Connie shook her head. “It's gone. I lost my mother's plane, Chase. The only thing I had left of her, and I destroyed it.”
“You saved it.” Chase took hold of her shoulders, making her face him square on. “I saw it sinking as I carried you away. It went down in one piece. We will get it back.”
“How?” Connie's mind shied away from estimating the cost of any recovery mission. “It's at the bottom of the sea. It'll be impossible to recover.”
One corner of Chase's mouth quirked. “Connie, you just saw me turn into a pegasus. Are you seriously going to argue with me about what's possible?”
She had to admit, he had a point.
She sniffed, swiping the back of her hand across her dripping nose. “Why didn't you tell me? About the pegasus thing, I mean.”
Chase let out his breath in a long sigh. “I wasn't allowed to. The rule in my family is that we're only allowed to reveal what we truly are to our mate after marriage.”
“So that's why you kept proposing. There really was a
secret you weren't allowed to tell me.” Connie paused, blinking. “Wait. Your family? Are you all… whatever you are?”
“Shifters. We're called shifters. And no, not my whole family. My mom's side of the family are all ordinary humans. But me, my cousin Killian, and my dad are all pegasi. My uncle was too, but he died when I was little.”
“So there's three of you.” Connie's mind reeled at the thought of there being other people who could do what Chase did. “Three shifters.”
“Um. You should probably be sitting down for this bit.” Gently, Chase sank down on the grass, drawing her down with him. “There are a lot more shifters than that. There's a whole hidden society of us.”
Connie stared at him. “A whole society of people who turn into pegasus…es?”
“Pegasi. And no, of course not.” Just as Connie started to relax, he added, “The vast majority of shifters are just ordinary animals—bears, wolves, lions, that sort of thing. Pegasi are very rare. Even rarer than dragons.”
“Dragons,” Connie echoed faintly.
“Ah, well, yes.” Chase raked a hand through his hair, frowning. “I should probably tell you about those sooner rather than later, seeing as how one was responsible for crashing your plane. Well, I think technically it was a wyvern, but you said you didn't want to get into comparative mythical zoology, so let's just call it a dragon for now. Particularly since I can hardly believe it was really a wyvern. I thought they were just a story. Like leprechauns or unicorns.”
“Oh, good,” Connie said, unable to control the hysterical edge to her voice. “Everything is back to normal. You've gone back to talking a mile a minute without making the slightest bit of sense.”
“I'm still trying to make sense of it myself.” Chase fell silent for a moment, his eyebrows drawing together in thought. “Connie, do your hands feel cold?”
Connie blinked at the apparent non sequitur, then realized that she was shivering. “All of me feels cold.”
Chase swore under his breath. “I'm an idiot. You're going into shock. Hold on a second, I need to talk to someone.”
She expected him to pull out his phone, but instead he just stared off into the distance, his eyes going unfocused. After a moment, he nodded.
“Right,” he said. Before she knew what was happening, he'd scooped her up, without any apparent effort. “Hugh— he's our paramedic—says you need to lie down and warm up. Let's get you inside.”
There were so many questions to ask—how he could have a conversation with someone who wasn't even there, how she could have failed to see a dragon attacking her plane, where the hypothetical dragon could have come from in the first place—but abruptly, she was just too tired. She leaned her head against Chase's shoulder, closing her eyes.
“Here we are,” she heard him say, and then she was sinking into a deep, soft bed. She didn't resist as he pulled off her shoes and draped a thick down comforter over her. “Feeling any better?”
“Still cold,” Connie managed to get out, through her chattering teeth.
The bed dipped as he slid under the cover next to her. He curled around her, fitting his long, lean body against the curves of her back. Pressed against his warm torso, Connie's shivers finally started to ease. She burrowed her head under the covers, like a little kid hiding from monsters in the dark. Just for a moment, all she wanted to do was pretend that none of it had ever happened.
As her own shivers subsided, Connie became aware that Chase was shaking, ever so slightly.
“Hey,” she said. “Are you okay?”
“I thought I'd lost you. I was fighting off the wyvern, and then I saw the plane going down, and I didn't think I was going to get to you in time…” He tightened his grip on her, burying his face in her hair. “Oh God, Connie, I nearly lost you.”
She rolled over in his arms, their faces only inches away from each other. She could tell he was trying to control his expression, but his black eyes were raw and vulnerable. For all his strength and uncanny powers, it was clear that the mere thought of losing her struck him to the heart.
“But you didn't lose me.” Connie put her hand on the side of his face, feeling how warm he was, how alive. “I'm here. We're both here.”
Overcome by a sudden, powerful need, she leaned in and kissed him. He crushed her against his strong body, his mouth devouring hers desperately, as if he couldn't bear to ever let her go again.
She had a deep, instinctive desire to reaffirm life in the most basic of ways after her brush with death. Connie fumbled with the zip of his flight suit, jerking it open. The heat of his skin was the only thing that could drive away the ice in her soul.
She slid her palm down his muscled abs, and under the waistband of his boxers. He was hard already, so thick she could barely get her hand around him. Her pussy throbbed, desperate to be filled, as she worked him fast and urgently.
He knew exactly what she wanted. His powerful hands ripped her own flight suit off, the tough material tearing as easily as damp tissue paper. He gathered her breasts in his hands, pinching and teasing her erect nipples through the lace cups of her bra with delicious roughness. His mouth was hard on hers, demanding, taking.
She squeezed her fist around his cock, feeling the contrast of the velvet-soft skin over the iron-hard shaft. He growled low in his throat, his hips jerking involuntarily. Breaking off from the kiss for a moment, he grabbed her buttocks, lifting her up and spreading her wide.
He didn't even bother to tear off her panties. The wide head of his cock shoved the thin silk to one side, pushing deep into her wet folds with a single powerful thrust. His thick shaft impaled her to her core, stretching her with a pleasure so intense it was almost painful.
Unlike last time, he gave her no time to adjust to his overwhelming size. He thrust savagely, uncontrollably into her. Connie arched her back, clenching around his demanding cock with equal passion, overwhelmed by sensation. It was exactly what she needed, to lose herself utterly, even if only for a moment.
“Never again,” Chase snarled, his fingers digging into her hips almost hard enough to bruise. “Never losing you. Never. Mine. Mine!”
Yes! Connie's soul sang back, echoing his fierce possessiveness. Every fiber of her being yearned to tell him yes, yes!
She was his, and he was hers, and nothing would ever separate them.
Yes.
Yet there was still a bit of her that held back. After a lifetime of having to be the cautious one, there was always a cold-eyed part of her mind that dispassionately evaluated every situation.
That sensible inner voice whispered that it didn't matter how urgent his body was on hers now, how fervently he gasped promises. In a day or two, someone else would catch his eye. It would be someone else's ear he whispered into, someone else's body he strained against.
When Chase gasped “Mine!” she knew he meant it… for now.
But if she replied yes, she would mean it forever.
Connie bit down hard on Chase's shoulder, stifling the words that wanted to rise in her throat, even as ecstasy swept her away.
CHAPTER TEN
“So,” Chase said softly into Connie's ear, some time later. “Constance West, will you marry me?”
Connie raised her head from his shoulder to give him a quizzical look. “I already know you're a shifter. I thought you only needed me to marry you so that you'd be allowed to tell me the truth.”
“That was one reason.” Chase traced the soft curves of her bare arm, wanting to memorize every inch of her beautiful body. “But mostly, I just really, really want to marry you. So? Will you?”
Connie blew out an exasperated breath. Without answering, she rolled out of the bed, searching the floor for her discarded clothes.
From a flat-out refusal, to a hesitation before refusing, to no answer. Definite progress!
Connie scowled at him. “What are you grinning about?”
Chase attempted to school his face into an appropriately somber expression, without much success. “Not
hing. Just admiring the view.”
Connie shot him a glare, then held up her ripped flight suit. “This is completely ruined. What am I going to wear?”
Chase slid out of bed himself. “You can borrow something of mine. This way.”
“Chase, you're about a foot taller than me, not to mention a completely different shape,” Connie said dubiously as he led her into his walk-in closet. “I really don't think that you're going to have anything that will fit me.”
“Um.” Chase slid hangers of shirts and suits aside, revealing the very back corner of the closet. “Actually, I do.”
Connie blinked for a moment at the row of women's clothes. Every one was immaculate and unworn, and every one was exactly her size.
Then she groaned, rolling her eyes. “Of course you have a closet full of dresses. Heaven forbid one of your many one-night stands should have to do the Walk of Shame in last night's outfit.”
“No, of course not!” Chase said indignantly. “I bought them for you. Or, well, because they reminded me of you. Sometimes I'd see something, and think Connie would like that, or That could have been made for Connie. And then I'd have to buy it. Because it was a way of showing myself that I hadn't given up hope. That one day I'd find you again, and give you these clothes, and see you in them.”
“I don't know whether that's incredibly sweet or incredibly creepy.” Connie sighed, and started to flick through hangers. “But I can't deny that it's convenient. I notice, by the way, that you mainly appear to have been reminded of me by lingerie.”
“What can I say?” Chase grinned unrepentantly at her. “I'm an optimist.”
“Chase, people who buy lottery tickets are optimists,” Connie retorted as she selected a leaf-green, silk summer dress that perfectly matched the shade of her eyes. “People who go around acting as if they've already won the lottery are delusional.”
Chase started getting dressed himself. “What about people who've won the lottery, but then drop the ticket, so they end up walking around backward peering at the ground, and everyone thinks they're crazy, but actually they're just taking entirely logical steps to try to recover what they lost?”