How It Is

by T. S. Joyce

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It does if you want me to try and save his wings,” she snapped.

  Laken snarled his lip up. No one had ever looked at her with so much hatred before, but fuck it. Her protective instincts were kicked up after watching this winged man hurt that much.

  “Grizzly bear.”

  “He was attacked by a grizzly?” she asked, searching the wings for tears or cuts from claws.

  “The grizzly was in his human form when he got ahold of Krome’s wings.”

  Cora stared at him. Just looked over her shoulder and stared. Ten minutes ago none of that word combination would’ve made a lick of sense, but now? Bird-men existed, so why not bear-men too? Why the heck not? This was a nightmare.

  “I want to live,” she told him.

  “Yeah, we’re all aware. You said that like eight times already.”

  “I will try to help him if you swear to let me live. If all of you swear. On your lives, on the lives of your wives and children.”

  Lake huffed a dark breath. “There are no wives.”

  “Swear it on your lives. On each other’s lives. On your king’s life. I will try to help, but I want to go home in one piece and forget this ever happened. Do you understand?”

  Laken nodded.

  “Say it.”

  He snarled his lip up again, and his face contorted with anger. “I swear it on my king’s life.”

  She waited three breaths before she nodded and stood, made her way to the desk and searched for something to write on. “Do you have access to sedatives? Morphine? Medical supplies?”

  “We can get you anything you need.”

  She wasn’t about to ask how they would get it. They were mother-freaking kidnappers. Their moral compasses probably all pointed south. “Don’t hurt anyone when you get the supplies. Don’t make noise when you do it. I don’t want any attention on this. Let everyone go back to their peaceful lives and just live confused as to how the equipment and meds disappeared,” she said as she scribbled her needs onto a piece of ruled notebook paper on the desk. “We need a sterile room.”

  “He can’t get an infection.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s why we need a medical room.”

  “No, I mean he physically can’t get an infection. Infections don’t affect shifters. Also, you should know, he is a fast healer and this happened three days ago.”

  She stopped writing and locked her arms against the desk, looked over at him. “Will his bones already be fused incorrectly?”

  Laken’s Adam’s apple dipped low as he swallowed. He offered her a nod.

  Jesus. A hollowness unfurled in her stomach, and for a few moments, she thought she would retch. “I’ll have to re-break them, then.” Bird bones were fine and filled with hollow spaces like a sponge so they could be light enough for flight. She’d only had to re-break bones a few times in her five years as an avian surgeon, and each time had taken its toll on her caring soul.

  That little admission also changed the type of medicine she needed. “How will he be affected by sedation?”

  “He’s like one of the crows you treat,” Laken said. “Just a really fuckin’ big one.”

  He was a crow. Cora slid another look to the limp man on the floor. His shoulders lifted and fell with a ragged breath. Of course he was a crow. Everything happened for a reason, and she had a special connection with crows. She would pick that apart later when her mind was clearer and her adrenaline was done pounding through her.

  Cora ripped off the sheet of paper and handed it to Laken. “Do you need me to explain what any of that is?”

  He took his time and read each line, and then shook his head. “We will figure it out.” Abruptly he turned and left the room, and as she moved to follow, he slammed the door.

  Cora bolted to the door and tried the handle, but he’d already locked it. Shit. She banged on it but no one answered.

  She didn’t want to be left alone in here with him—with Krome. That’s what he’d called the crow-man.

  She sat on the very edge of the bed and clasped her hands in her lap.

  The blood on her wrists and hands was dry now. The zip-ties had cut into her skin, but not too deeply. It was a stark reminder that she was at the mercy of these animals.

  Cora looked up and watched the movement that Krome’s haggard breathing caused in his shoulders. He wasn’t well. Laken has sworn on his life, and that kept her hope alive.

  “I need you to live,” she told Krome softly.

  If Krome lived, then so would she.

  Chapter Two

  “What did you give me?” Krome asked, his words slurring slightly.

  Cora dipped her chicken nugget in the little barbecue sauce container and took another bite. “Morphine,” she said around the delicious snack.

  He closed his eyes and grimaced. “Makes my head fuzzy. I don’t like it.”

  “Yeah well, you might have a fuzzy head, but your wings probably feel better.”

  “Where did you get morphine?” he asked. “Did you come with your fuckin’ doctor bag? Ready to save the world?” Okay, the bird-man was kind of cute with his gravelly voice, slow words, and sexyman frown marring his features.

  Cora took another bite from where she sat on the floor beside him. “I don’t care about saving the world, Krome. I care about saving the birds I can.”

  His dark eyebrows drew down. He looked so grumpy with his cheek all smushed against the floor like that. “Why?” he asked.

  “Because I like birds better than people?”

  He snorted. “Couldn’t stick with your own kind, could you?”

  She didn’t know what that meant, and he was probably going to say some much weirder stuff on the way to the urgent care clinic to do his X-rays, so she let it slide and pushed the little cardboard carton of nuggets closer to him. “Would you like a snack?”

  “No. Not hungry.”

  “Well good, because you have surgery soon anyways. You can’t have anything in your stomach. How long has it been since you ate?” she asked, dipping another delectable meat treasure into the sauce.

  “Before I got hurt.”

  So three days. “That’s good decision making.”

  He glared at her. His eyes weren’t so scary when they were half-glazed over like this.

  “Where did you get that?” he asked.

  “The bandages?” she asked, lifting her wrists in the air. “Bron brought me a first aid kit. Or do you mean the food? Bron had mercy on my soul and went through the nearest drive-thru. I crave nuggets when I’m stressed. Plus, I skipped lunch at the clinic. I had a surgery on a snowy owl’s foot. His name is Odin. He’s one of my senior birds and has been having problems with it for a while. Did you know feet are important to birds, too? Almost as important as wings. Also did you know your friends are capable of stealing supplies at an alarming rate? They are already building a make-shift surgery center in the game room. They let me see it. There’s a ping pong table in there. I always wanted a ping pong table.”

  “You talk a lot.”

  “Only to birds. If you were a human, I would probably be shy and awkward.”

  “I’m not a bird. I’m one of the Crow Blooded.”

  “Well, that sounds way more majestic than what I’ve been calling you.”

  He winced and sat up slowly. His wings stayed limp behind him, and he swayed. “What do you call me?”

  “Bird-man.”

  He blinked slowly at her. He really was handsome, if one ignored the pallid skin, demon eyes, injury-sweat, and the scowl that looked so natural on his face. Other than that though, his muscles were nice and the tattoos had been done in good taste. She hadn’t a clue what any of them meant, but he’d hired a good artist for them. He had good style, too. His necklace was cool. It was a silver crow skull pendant that hung down in the center of that perfect line between his pecs.

  “I have a tattoo, too,” she bragged.

  “Yeah? Let me guess,” he grumbled
in that hoarse voice. “Tramp stamp you got on some Cabo spring break trip with your sorority sisters.”

  Cora offered him a scowl now. His judgmental observations made him less handsome. “Never mind.”

  “Good. I don’t want to talk anymore. I don’t know what I’m saying. Everything’s just coming out.”

  Aaaah, morphine must be like truth serum to him then. Interesting.

  “Do you like my hair like this?” she asked. “I just got it cut and had highlights put in the other day. My office staff is used to me with long hair and they don’t like it as much.”

  He studied her face and hair and said, “I think it’s sexy. You have the face shape for shorter hair.” He grunted in pain as he leaned back against the wall. “You can leave now.”

  She was still dealing with the butterflies in her stomach. It had been a long time since a man had called her sexy. “I wish I could leave. Laken has decided we are to be roommates until you’re better.” She smiled brightly. “I like sleeping on the left side of the bed.”

  He rolled his head back and swallowed dryly. “Can’t sleep in the bed anyways. I sink into the mattress and the wings…” He closed his eyes. “The wings…”

  “Hurt?”

  “Are you going to take them off?” he asked.

  Cora froze mid-bite. This was the part that she hadn’t learned—bedside manner. She didn’t ever have to quell human fears before surgery. She talked to the animals in a different way. She swallowed the bite and set down the rest of the food, drew one of her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on it. “Maybe.”

  “You probably think I’m weak.”

  “No, I don’t think anything about you. I don’t know you well enough.”

  “Weak because I want to be put down.”

  She hugged her bent leg. “It’s not my business to judge you.”

  “Do you know what’s worse than the pain?” His words were slurring a little more now.

  “What?” she asked.

  Krome opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. “The thought of never flying again.”

  Six words.

  Six words had never done more damage to her heart. Had never sliced through her like that. She’d never heard heartbreak in a man’s tone until now.

  She couldn’t even imagine that kind of loss for a member of the class Aves. She’d watched suffering in her career. Watched what happened to birds when she couldn’t save their wings. When she couldn’t give them the sky. They lived an okay life, but part of them slowly withered.

  “We’re taking you to an urgent care in town. Your people can do a lot, but they can’t get an X-ray machine here. I need X-rays. Then I’ll know what I can do for your wings.”

  “If you can’t save them, will you make me a promise?”

  “I’m not going to kill you.”

  The corners of his eyes tightened. “Fine. If you can’t save them, don’t take them.”

  The food was creating a concrete lump in her stomach. He wanted the broken wings to tote around for all his life. What kind of life could he possibly have if he had to look at the flightless appendages every time he saw his reflection in the mirror? But then again, what kind of life could he have if his reflection didn’t have them? “I’ll do my best.”

  He was quiet for a minute before he mumbled, “What tattoo do you have?”

  She considered not showing him. “I’ve never been to Cabo, was never invited on a spring break and I was too busy with veterinary school to be in a sorority. Just so you know.” She lifted the hem of her purple scrubs shirt and turned to the side so he could see the trio of tiny birds flying across her ribs.

  His brow drew down slightly. “Crows? Why?”

  “They were my friends.” She let her shirt fall and picked up the food wrappers, then shoved them all into the paper bag her meal had come in. “When I was a kid, I couldn’t talk to other people for a while.”

  “Why not?”

  She shook her head slowly, unwilling to dig too deep into that. Long story short was best. “I saw something bad happen and then I just didn’t talk for a long time after that. My mom homeschooled me after I fell too far behind, and I needed some time to just breathe away from people, I guess. I was lost in my head. I would make up a life in my head and pretend I was part of that one to escape the one I had. That was how I coped. But one day I heard this noise outside my window. I was supposed to be doing math, but there was this flapping sound. I got up and looked outside my window, and there was a crow flopping around on the ground right by my room. He was hurt. Couldn’t fly. My mom was busy, so I went outside and put some raspberries beside him. And later a little bowl of water. I watched him the whole day, trying to figure out how to help. I was scared the neighborhood cat was going to eat him, so after my mom went to bed that night, I snuck outside and put a blanket over him and I brought him inside. Had him in a cardboard box for a day before I got the nuts to tell my mom what was living in my closet. She hated him at first. Hated everything about the noises he made and the way he looked and the idea of him in our home. She hated him until she didn’t anymore.”

  “What changed?”

  Cora shrugged up a shoulder. “He got me talking again.”

  The first hint of a smile curved the very corners of Krome’s lips. “What was his name?”

  “Atlas.”

  “Atlas,” he repeated softly. He lifted his hand and gestured to her tattoo. “What about the other two?”

  “Well, my mom heard me talking to Atlas, and the next day, she loaded me and my crow into our station wagon, and she drove to a veterinarian. We learned that someone had shot Atlas in the wing and he would never fly again. I asked if they could do surgery on it, and the vet said there weren’t very many people in the world that could save a gunshot bird’s wings. So my mom asked every question she could about caring for a crow, and then afterward, we went and checked out every book on bird care she could find in the library. I brought Atlas everywhere with us. I guess my mom and I got a reputation as the weird-ass bird people in town, because someone left another injured crow on our doorstep one morning a few months later.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Her name was Audrina.”

  Another smile ghosted Krome’s lips.

  “The third crow came a year after Atlas. He wasn’t hurt. He came on his own. I think he was attracted to the aviary we’d built for Atlas and Audrina. He would sit on the same branch in a live oak tree in our yard, and watch me with my crows. I set out snacks for him, and after a few weeks, I found the first one.”

  Krome’s smile got bigger. “The first present?”

  Oooh, he knew. Curious, she asked, “Do the Crow Blooded have the urge to give presents to the people they care about, too?”

  He gave a single nod, and nothing else.

  “My third crow stayed wild. He never lost his flight, so I never had to doctor him. His name was Ruger. He would leave me paperclips and shiny pieces of glass and little trinkets he found. He would put them on my windowsill sometimes, but mostly he would leave them by where I fed him. Anyway, I got comfortable spending my time with the crows, and eventually people would bring me other types of injured birds. My mom supported it. She turned into a bird lover too, but I think it just happened like that because she was relieved something had opened me back up to talking. I healed because of them.”

  “When was the moment?” he asked.

  “What moment?”

  “The moment you decided to become an avian surgeon?”

  That was an easy answer. “The moment that veterinarian said we couldn’t save Atlas’s wings.”

  Chapter Three

  Chills rippled across Krome’s arms.

  The moment that veterinarian said we couldn’t save Atlas’s wings.

  Cora had his attention now. He’d never found humans interesting in general, but this one was different. She was good. He could tell from the care she took with creatures that were in need.

 
He wanted to hear every memory she possessed of Atlas, and Audrina, and Ruger. He wanted to ask what she’d seen that made her stop talking as a child. He wanted to know about her mother, and where her father had been in this story, and he wanted to know what her life was like now. Did she still care for birds at her home? Or just at the clinic she worked at?

  His head was fuzzy though, as if a slow-rolling fog had seeped across his brain to make the edges of every thought blurry.

  His body hurt, but not like before. Now it was a dull pain he could manage.

  She was pretty. How hadn’t he noticed that before he’d passed out? Sure, her figure was hidden in a pair of purple medical scrubs, but he could see the very inside of her collar bone through the v-neck, and olive-toned skin. Her eyes were hazel, and she had a smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose that showed just under the makeup she wore. Her hair was a dark brown, and straight as a board down to her collar bones. Her cheeks were rosy, and her eyes bright and intelligent. After her initial fear of him, she’d grown better at holding his gaze. Brave little creature. And curious. She watched every single move he made. She would’ve made a good Crow Blooded herself.

  He was existing in this loaded moment right now, wanting to ask a hundred more questions that would make this human make sense to him, but the words stayed frozen in his throat while she studied his face.

  It was the human who spoke first. “I’m Cora Peterson. You might already know that. Your people seem to know everything about me.”

  Cora. Pretty name. She had three letters from the word “crow” in her name. Had she realized that? His body felt so strange. Like he was floating, almost. “Where are you from?”

  “Boise.”

  Great. His dumbass second and third in the Murder, Laken and Bron, had kidnapped this woman across state lines. Not like they cared much for human laws and consequences.

  “I’m from right here,” he told her.

  “Where is here?”

  He parted his lips to answer, but the door swung open behind her, and she startled hard. In a rush, she scooted right next to him, careful not to touch his wings. Huh. She felt safer next to him than over there, behind the bed.