Devour

by Shelly Crane

  I stared at him in awe. Really? That’s why he wanted to hide all that? Because he thought I would assume he was lying?

  “Eli-“

  “I didn’t want you to think I had feelings for her still or that I was keeping the bird as some love trinket or reminder.”

  “I wouldn’t-“

  “In all honesty, it just makes me soft to keep it but I couldn’t help it. I’ve had the bird for 21 years now and believe me, I have no love for that bird. It hasn’t spoken a word to me. I’m not sure what that’s about but…” He looked back to me and his eyes pleaded with me. “Please forgive me. I meant to tell you but it just snowballed and then my omission felt like a lie and then you met her and it seemed like it was too late to say anything then; that the evidence was too damning.”

  “Eli, you’re nuts,” I said when I could finally get a word in.

  “What?” he asked, completely confused.

  “You really think that after everything that you said today and everything that happened to us at the park with Angelina that I would think you still have feelings for her?”

  He smirked a ghost of a smile.

  “Well…I just didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “I don’t care who the bird belongs to. It’s really sweet that you saved it, especially since you find it so revolting.”

  He laughed.

  “Really? I thought you were going to throw some human hissy fit over this.”

  “Well, it sucks that you didn’t tell me and it sucks even worse that you think I’d leave you over it or something, but I don’t care. It’s just a bird.”

  “It’s not just a bird,” he told me and took my hand to run this thumb over my wrist over and over. “He’s immortal. You didn’t think to ask me about it?”

  “Honestly, Eli, I’m not sure I can even be surprised anymore at this point,” I answered and was caught off guard by how breathless I sounded.

  I watched him continue to torture my wrist with his slow fluid skimming movements. He seemed completely engrossed in what he was doing. When I could take it now longer and goose bumps spread rapidly up my arm, that seemed to snap him back to the present. He turned his gaze to mine and smiled, in satisfaction as much as happiness.

  He continued to smile as he spoke. “The bird has a spell on it. When Angelina got it in the 1700’s, she was dealing a lot with witches and sorcerers back then.”

  “Witches and sorcerers?” I squeaked. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I’m not the only nightmare out there.”

  “There are other things,” I mused and nodded, breathing through bits and spurts of panic. “Like what?”

  “Well,” he said slowly and pulled my hand to cradle it against his chest, “I’m not going to tell you. I want your dreams to be only good things. Well, and me, of course.”

  “Eli,” I snapped, half because I was scared and half because I didn’t want him to spend the rest of our lives acting like we were opposite sides of the good-vs.-evil spectrum, “stop acting like you’re evil.”

  “I am evil,” he insisted with a slight tightening of his chin. “And no matter how tame you think I am, you’d do well to remember that.”

  “Why?”

  “So when I do wind up doing something in the future that you may not approve of, you won’t be so shocked about it.”

  “Like what you did to that security guard at the club that night?” I asked softly.

  He looked at me sharply before saying, “You noticed that?”

  I nodded.

  “What did you do?”

  “I just persuaded him to let you in.”

  “How?”

  “I’m not without my talents,” he growled in what sounded like frustration before combing his hands through his hair and leaning on his elbows to his knees once more. “I’m sorry. I immediately regretted it once I did it but it was the only way to get you in. And I didn’t know you understood what I’d done for what it was.”

  “You didn’t hurt him,” I said and thought back to that night. “He wasn’t scared, you just persuaded him.”

  “Exactly. Persuading - making people think they want what we want - is another one of our tricks,” he muttered. “It’s so addictive and easy because it’s subtle. It’s so very easy to just plant a seed of what we want in their mind. I hadn’t done it in a long time, but that night I just…I wanted to spend time with you and it just happened,” he admitted and the shame of his words practically coated the air.

  “Eli,” I turned his face to look at me, “I’ll help you. Do you understand?” He shook his head and scrunched his eyebrows. I knelt on the floor in between his knees and put my hands on his legs. “Ok, listen. Once, a long time ago, in my parents’ marriage, my dad was having a hard time at work. We went through a rough patch and almost lost our house. He started drinking. For about a month, my dad was drunk almost every minute of every day when he was laid off from his job. Well, my mom let him try to work through everything but eventually, she had to step in. She went on a rampage, going through the whole house and throwing away every bottle she could find, his cigarettes, everything. He followed her around and yelled at her as she did it, but he never touched her, never forced her to stop. Do you know why?”

  He shook his head a ‘no’.

  “Because he loved her. Because deep down, her wanted her to do it. He needed her help. He wasn’t strong enough to drop the shoe himself, but he was willing to let her do it for him. He trusted her and needed her and she knew it. It was the only time in their marriage where they had problems, and after that, they were practically inseparable. It was kind of gross actually,” I said remembering and smiled. “But my point is that I get it, you’re the protective type, you’re the big bad Devourer.” He cracked his first smile and I felt my held breath release and relax in gratitude for it. “But even though I might need you to save me, a lot, I’ll always be here for you. I’d never let you lose yourself or go back to something you were before. I can save you if I have to and I will fight with everything I have.” I pointed to our wrists where the string held tight. “I think I’ve proven that already.”

  His breaths were loud and laced with strain. I didn’t know why, I thought he’d understand what I was trying to say. Then he pulled me up by my elbows, wrapping his arms around me completely and pressed his mouth to mine. He sighed a long and needed breath that seemed to relax even the tension in the air. I put my arms around his neck, for my own need to be held up as anything else. He was answering me, letting me know that he was grateful. And boy, was he being thorough. His hands pressed me and slid over me in caresses that were meant to show affection and devotion. That was all.

  Once again, I felt safe in every way possible and it made me ache in my chest with gratitude.

  He seemed like this was something he needed more than wanted to do, like he was being pulled to it without a will in it so I let him ravish and devour me for quite a while before he finally pulled back, but not by much.

  With his hand on my cheek and his rough breaths against my neck, he looked down at me almost as if embarrassed by his actions.

  “Sorry,” he said, confirming my thoughts.

  “Why would you be sorry for that?” I whispered and licked my lip to feel it plump and tender from his kisses.

  “I just…I needed to feel the way you feel about me,” he admitted. “Nothing makes me feel more human, more capable of being good, more like I could possibly deserve something like this one day, than when I kiss you…and you kiss me back, completely of your own free will.”

  I sighed. “I need you to stop being so self deprecating,” I said, going for firm and stern but my mind was still reeling from what he said. He laughed and shook his head. “Eli,” I sighed his name, thinking of a way to make him see, “what you said was so…I’ve always wanted someone to feel that way about me. I feel the same way about you. I mean, without the human part,” he laughed again as I kept going, “but I was always a prize; a toy to be par
aded around. When I’m with you, I feel like I know what my parents had was real. They loved each other, no matter what, no matter what demons came into their lives. I’d almost given up that that was possible anymore.”

  “It’s not impossible, CB,” he said softly, sweeping a hand down my arm to twine his fingers with mine. “You’re the best intrusion that has ever invaded my life. I’ll be forever grateful that I found you.”

  I never thought being called an intrusion would make me cry, but I was about to. I nodded to him as it was all I could do and he kissed my fingers. This was so much, so fast. But, gosh, did I need it. Despite what he said about his needing me, I needed him.

  “Now,” he edged, sensing I wanted a subject change to stave off red crying eyes all night, “you have more questions for me, right?”

  “Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Ok, about the bird,” he grunted in annoyance, “you say he’s immortal. Did Angelina buy him that way or did she have him cursed after she bought him.”

  “We’ll never know. She’s not very forthcoming.”

  “But you say you found the bird in a cave in California?”

  “It was my cave,” he said carefully and never removed his eyes from mine.

  “Your cave,” I repeated. “Then how did the bird get there?”

  He sighed and squeezed my fingers a bit, stalling. I quirked a brow at him. He ventured on.

  “Angelina brought the bird with her everywhere. She and Enoch were really relentless in their efforts to find me. Sometimes, it was worth it to exchange amenities for comfort, if it meant that I could not see them for longer.”

  “Ah. So you stayed in caves and places where they wouldn’t think to look for you,” I realized.

  “Yes. But they always found me eventually.”

  “So…”I said, finally getting what he was saying. “Angelina was in the cave with you.”

  Sixteen

  “Yeah,” he answered gruffly and looked up to me. “She left the bird there once when she went to come after me. I went back to the cave after some time and saw that she had abandoned it. She’s never tried to take it back since.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll be honest, you deserve that. I never brought it up before because there was never a reason to, but she would find me and I would pretend with her sometimes.”

  “Pretend what?” I asked and it came out shrill. I cleared my throat.

  “Pretend to be what she wanted,” he confessed. I tensed and his arms around me tightened a bit to keep me there.

  “But you told me you were never with her,” I accused.

  “I wasn’t. Never. I would never lie to you. She’d show up and there was no way to leave unless I bolted and she’d be too close behind. I had to distract her so I could catch her off guard and get a head start. So, sometimes…I would act like I was surrendering. I’d let her kiss me. She was so gullible, she believed that I had caved. She’d let her guard down and when she ran errands or went to feed, I’d run, leaving everything behind.”

  “No wonder she follows you, Eli,” I chastised softly, “after you led her on like that.”

  “I didn’t lead her on. I tried to just leave, I tried to tell her the truth - that there was absolutely no future for us - but she never gave in. I was losing my mind. Can you imagine running from someone for hundreds of years as they chased you and ruined your life over and over again?” He huffed a surprised breath. “I can’t believe you’re taking her side anyway.”

  “I’m not taking her side. I just know how girls think.”

  “Not this girl,” he assured me. “We’re talking about ‘Psycho’ meets ‘The Babysitter’,” he explained, making me snicker. He pulled my face up to look at him closely. “You don’t ever have to worry about her and me. There’s no history there, just bad memories.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “Anyway, it’s not like you had to see it for yourself. Unlike me, I saw you and Tate everywhere and in large quantities if you recall; at lunch, at diners, at your locker, at your house,” he said wryly.

  “Ok, I get it. I have no room to talk.” That sure gave me some perspective. “I was just trying to…with Tate I just…”

  “I know what you were just doing. You were just trying to stop your feelings for me by making out with your boyfriend who you weren’t in love with.”

  “Yes, that’s why I was doing,” I admitted. “I felt guilty for feeling anything for you when I still had a boyfriend.”

  He pulled me closer and whispered into my hair, “And it made me respect you even more for it. Let’s just forget about that. I think it all worked out for the best, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.” I leaned back. “I better get going.”

  “I’ll walk you,” he said and I knew better than to argue.

  As we made our way upstairs and past the living room I stopped at the birds’ cage. He looked at me with a crooked neck. He blinked, I blinked.

  “Cavuto,” I said and it stayed silent. “Cavuto want a cracker?” Still nothing.

  I rolled my eyes and went to leave, hearing Eli chuckle behind me, but we both stopped when we heard from behind us, “Arequipa.”

  “Arawhata?” I asked as we both turned back to the bird.

  “Arequipa,” Eli repeated. “It’s a city in Peru. Angelina must have taken the bird there at some point.”

  “Have you ever been there?”

  “Yeah…about 25 years ago. It’s been a while. But I wasn’t there with her,” he finished quickly.

  “OK, well, let’s-“

  “Clara want a cracker.”

  “What?” I asked and laughed nervously as I glanced at Eli. He looked stunned too. “That bird is pretty chatty. I thought you said he never talked?”

  “Yeah.” He crossed his arms in contemplation. “I haven’t heard him speak since I took him. He must like you. Maybe he just likes pretty girls.”

  I went closer to the cage and crooned to him, “How did you know my name little guy?”

  “Eli told me, idiot.”

  I stilled and glared at the bird. The innocent little feathery beast was perched on his feet from his swing so sweetly, like he didn’t just insult me. I switched my gaze to Eli, who was smothering a laugh in his fist. Very badly I might add.

  “Ah, CB,” he soothed. “I told you she taught it to be foul mouthed.”

  “Ok, fine. Bye, Cavuto, you deviant little thing.”

  “Bye, toots,” the bird sang out.

  Before I could turn and teach that bird a few new choice words, Eli had grabbed me and turned us out the door. He was still fighting a smile as we walked to my house.

  “Not funny,” I muttered. “I can’t even get birds to show me some respect.”

  He pulled me under his arm and said, “I respect you.”

  “Yeah, but you’re only one person. Everyone else thinks I’m a ditz or a tease or, recently, a stupid human.”

  “You are none of those things.” He kissed my temple as we turned into my yard. “I told you, the bird has said way nastier things in the time that I’ve known him.”

  “So,” I thought of some more of the questions I wanted to ask before he was gone. “The Sweet Grass carnival is coming up.”

  “And the dance.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not going to that.”

  “Why? You don’t think I’d want to go?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “There’s got to be a reason,” he asked softly as we reached my porch and turned to face each other.

  “The old me would have loved to have gone. The new me, not so much. The carnival, yes, I’m dying to go. But the dance is just a juvenile and pointless thing that I don’t need nor want to do when there are plenty of other things to round out my education. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m in control of myself.” I smiled up at him.

  “Well, I’m glad then.” His hands coasted up and down my arms. “But I am going to wish I could’ve seen you in a pretty silky dress.”

  “
Well,” I thought, “there’s always prom?”

  “So we’re not ditching all school functions, just the ones you dub as juvenile?”

  “Now you’re getting it,” I jested and poked his stomach. He laughed as he pulled me to him.