I nodded.
“I thought you were pretty as a hot mess, but cleaned up, you are beyond words. Wow, I hope it is me.”
He hoped it was him? What was him?
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Never mind. We have a full day ahead of us.” Crest said.
“You know, I have to get back to work. There’s too much happening right now.”
“Sorry, sweetheart. Trust me when I tell you this takes precedence.”
“But what is this?” I asked.
He simply shook his head. “I know I ask a lot because you do not know me, but I need you to trust me, trust that my brothers and I have your best interests at heart.”
That was a lot to ask because how could these strangers understand what was in my best interest? I needed to decide right now if I was going to argue this out. My brain told me to tell him hell no. That it did no good to trust strangers. People needed to prove themselves before you gave them that. Plus, there was my work. The volcano. I couldn’t find my phone to check in with my boss. It was simply not a good time to be dealing with this—whatever—the guys wanted from me.
My heart, on the other hand, told me I not only should trust them, but that I must. The cons overwhelmingly won out. Despite that, I had to follow my heart. Call it instinct. Which meant for me, there was only one choice.
He held out his hand. I sucked in a long breath… and took it. Again, no pins and needles. His dark brown low ponytail swished as we walked toward the stairs. He wore a dark pair of straight-legged denim, and he wore them well. He also sported a crisp robin’s egg blue button down with the sleeves turned once and a black leather vest layered over top. Yes, much more conservative than his brothers. He looked amazing.
Gah! Why wouldn’t he tell me what was happening here? No Meena—you decided to trust him. Either the secrets or the self-doubt was going to kill me, but I managed to lock the self-doubt down.
Crest whisked me to a coffee shop bakery for our breakfast. Exactly what I needed to absorb the extra alcohol still hanging around in my system, helping to ease my queasy stomach and headache from hell. Although the bright sun I could do without. He handed me off his black sunglasses that he pulled from his shirt pocket, which helped significantly with that problem.
I wore them even inside the coffee shop. Yes, I got stares. So what? They were all used to drinking at altitude. Sue me.
For breakfast he ordered me the moistest piece of banana cake I’d ever tasted in my life and a huge mocha with an extra shot of espresso. He ordered similarly for himself, only with what we’d call an Americano but they called Roc style, instead of mocha.
We got more looks and more approaches. He got more head bows.
“Why do they do that, the head bow?” I ventured to ask at last.
“It’s just something they do,” he answered, not flippantly, but like he didn’t want to get into that why. So I let it go. What choice did I have?
After breakfast, instead of taking the train, he took me on a walking tour of the city. We stopped first at a sculpture garden. Unlike the sculptures in the art museum yesterday, these were made of stone, not marble, and depicted a fierce battle between these people in eagle form and wolves. Snarling, lunging wolves. Like the ones that had attacked me. Just like the ones that had attacked me. It showed the eagles crushing and slashing wolf heads in their strong, razor-sharp talons and wolves ripping out the throats of eagles they’d captured.
It was terrifying. I couldn’t believe their people had chosen to commemorate such a gruesome scene. But as Crest called it “the first great war,” it must have held great significance to his people.
Then he walked me to Fountain Park, which as the name suggested was a huge park, much like Central Park in New York, but filled with fountains in all corners. My favorite fountain had a camera pointed downward toward where the people walked and projected images of them on the water as they walked past or played, making it appear as if their faces rained down. It was incredible.
We stopped at a lunch counter in the center of the park for lunch, where he ordered me a shawarma-style flatbread sandwich. So good. Too good. I ate two of them with a creamy sauce, raw onion and tomato.
“Where do you get such fresh produce? The tomato tastes farm fresh,” I said.
“We trade down the mountain. Several large farms are owned and operated by shifters. Then there are our hydroponic plants. You might have noticed, we are self-contained. Our utility companies produce enough water and electricity to run the entire city.”
Okay, so that was impressive. They changed into birds, however, so I guessed there wasn’t much they couldn’t do.
While I took in the park and the people, Crest switched between holding my hand and slinging his arm around my shoulder. He smiled a lot, though he wasn’t much of a conversationalist no matter how hard I tried to pull him in to conversation.
“Since the city is self-contained, is there, like, a mayor or something? How do you guys keep from going Lord of the Flies around here?”
“Cloud City is the capital of our society. We have cities around the world which are run by regents.”
I waited for him to continue by taking a bite of my sandwich, but he neglected to expound on that.
Finally, I got tired of waiting. “Right.” I swallowed my bite. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Since you won’t explain to me what weird plan you and your brothers have for me, you, at the very least, need to explain to me about life in Cloud City.”
He snickered. “I thought I had been.”
“Really? You have cities around the world run by regents. Does that mean a regent runs Cloud?”
“No.”
“No? See… this is what I’m talking about. If a regent doesn’t run things, who does? Is it someone above the regent?”
“Yes. The king.”
My mouth dropped open. “You guys have an actual king? That’s so freaking cool.” After finishing up my food, I balled the wrapper and tossed it in the trash. “Now I need a drink.” Crest started moving us toward a lemonade stand. As he ordered for us I asked another pertinent question. “How does one become king?”
He looked at me curiously.
“What I mean is, do you have to defeat the last king in battle or are you born into a royal family?”
“Born. There has been one line since the beginning.” The sky began to dim as Crest brought me to stand outside the castle which sat across from the opposite side of the park. Unlike the rest of the city, which looked so modern, this castle appeared positively medieval. A huge wrought-iron fence surrounded the massive building, with an even bigger gate located to the front. Majestic eagle heads had been fashioned to the gate. Spaced on every fifth pointed arrow of the fence, there was an impaled wrought-iron bird head, not eagles, but like those giant turkey buzzards.
Truth be told, it freaked me out.
Even though metal, their beady eyes stared me down. I felt their hatred down to my bones.
“I don’t like those,” I told him, pointing to each of the impaled heads.
“They’re a bit freaky, but you’ll get used to them,” he said to reassure me.
I didn’t think I’d ever ‘get used’ to them. Not to mention, why did I need to? It wasn’t like I planned to stay long enough for that to happen. I had to get back to the volcano. To my job. My life down the mountain. Hopefully by the end of the week at latest.
At the end of the walking tour, he, no kidding, took me to a movie. A human movie—a comedy. One I’d been wanting to see but had been too busy with work to actually see it. They got human movies in Cloud City. How in the world did they manage that?
And they had all the regular movie fare. We gorged on nachos with jalapeños, gooey-liquid nacho cheese, and a ground meat that didn’t taste like beef, but I didn’t question it. Again, I didn’t want to know if I was eating ferret. I ordered a corndog with this spicy mustard for dipping, and a large popcorn with extra butter and yes, chocolate
covered raisins to dump in the large, extra buttery popcorn for that salty-sweet combination. I washed everything down with a diet soda, because hello—calories.
Then he walked me to our theater. He kept shaking his head and chuckling. As we found our seats, I finally asked, “What’s so funny?”
“How are you so small eating all that?”
I never said I’d eat it all. “I just like variety,” I told him.
“Fair enough,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders and then dug a handful of popcorn to shove in his mouth. We sat and ate while we waited for the movie to start. Then we sat and ate while the movie played. Admittedly, we’d bought a lot of food. That might be why, even if shorter, my curves equaled the curves of their women.
At the end of, in my opinion, a very good movie, Crest walked me back to the boarding house while holding my hand. Like his brothers, Crest never made a move on me or tried to press an advantage while we were on our date. And, again, like the past two days with his brothers, he walked me to my room.
He too bent in to kiss me goodnight. Before he made contact, I asked, “Is this part of what you won’t explain? Shadow kissed me. Rogue kissed me. Now you’re going in for a kiss… Is your cousin Barry showing up tomorrow?”
“No. We have no cousin Barry. And yes, if you let me get on with it, I will kiss you goodnight as well. Then the ball is in your court.”
The ball was in my court? What in the heck did that mean? I would’ve asked if it weren’t for his lips finding mine. I wouldn’t call it a surprise attack as he warned me, but I still wasn’t exactly prepared. The man had skills. It was once again, a good kiss. But if I had to choose, it was my least favorite of the three. Not as hot as Rogue’s kiss, and not as tender and meaningful as Shadow’s kiss. It fell somewhere in between, but not enough of either one. Which was a shame because if I hadn’t kissed the other two first, I’d be completely smitten by that kiss.
I bet he had no problem getting the ladies to kiss him. Even if it wasn’t necessarily as good as his brothers’ kisses, I still would’ve gone for more if not for my longing for Shadow. But just as with the past two days, he left me standing in the doorway, watching his retreating back.
Ugh! These men.
The next day no one came to my door. I dressed and walked down to the lobby, as I’d planned to grab some breakfast. That was when I noticed men leaving the rooms of women, like the walk-of-shame kind of leaving. I’d been so distracted by my companions that I never noticed. They’d set me up in some sort of… of bordello.
Were other men going to show up? Were they going to expect sex from me? Had I not been a good enough date for Shadow, Rogue, or Crest to want sex from me? And why did that thought bother me more than the idea of them wanting sex?
There was a woman in the lobby—maybe mid-twenties, tall, shapely, flowing brown hair, and pretty yellow eyes made up expertly with liner, wearing flowy canary-yellow skirt stopping about an inch above her knees, and a short-sleeved, white button-down with golden poppies along with a pair of cute canary-yellow wedges—staring at me. “What?” I asked, probably a little rudely, but I was in the middle of a snit.
“You were with the aerie. How was it?” Her eyes shone starry. If she found me rude, she never acknowledged it.
I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t completely understand what she was talking about. Shadow told me aerie referred to a group of eagles. I’d gone out on dates with three. Did three constitute a group? Anyway, who cared at this point? Not one of them had wanted me. “Um… fine?” I replied instead of giving away all that. How much was considered appropriate in their society.
She laughed. “I am Delta.” She held her hand out for me to shake.
“Meena.” I returned.
“I know who you are. We all know who you are around here. You are a legend within these walls.”
If she only knew. No, no I certainly was not. But again, I wasn’t going to tell her that. Instead, I forced a smile. “That’s great.” Lie. Such a lie.
“It is going to be fun watching this one play out,” she told me. Play out? I needed a manual to understand these people. What exactly came with her version of ‘play out’? She might look sophisticated but she lived in a bordello for crying out loud.
To that, I shook my head and sighed. She laughed again.
“Do you have something to wear to the dance?” she asked.
“Dance? What dance?”
“Oh, no one told you?” A rhetorical question, I supposed, because it was obvious from my answer no one had told me anything about a dance. “To commemorate the first great war.” She said. “Today marks the five hundredth anniversary of the signing of the peace treaty with the wolves. We have lived alongside them for centuries now. Well, up until this year…” She trailed off.
Up till this year? Is that why they’d attacked me on the mountain? Had they seen me with Shadow? Had they mistaken me for one of Shadow’s people?
“I have a pretty dress.” I said. “It’s kind of sexy. Does sexy work for this celebration?” I reckoned this dance was part of trusting Shadow, Rogue and Crest. They had a couple more days to fill me in or I was catching the next bird to fly me back down the mountain.
“Sexy is perfect,” she answered. “It’s held in the heart of the city. They light a giant bonfire and the men dance ceremonial dances around the fire to represent the battles leading up to the treaty. They might seem violent to someone not from here, but the battles were violent. Then it becomes a regular dance with regular dancing. That’s where we come in.”
I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. Did they expect me to go home with one of the men attending the dance? Despite Shadow depositing me here, I wasn’t a prostitute. I’d never been a prostitute. And though I never looked down on a woman for indulging in the practice, I’d never be a prostitute.
As I was about to respectfully decline my invitation, she cut that idea off. “It’s required. Everyone in the city has to at least attend the ceremony. The older folks and many of the mated tend to leave after to hold their own private celebrations.”
Mated? Pretty sure she meant paired-off.
“Okay,” I answered, nothing for it. Between now and tonight I’d have to figure out a way to not end up going home with some random man because I was not going home with some random man.
Delta smiled big and bright and grabbed my elbow. “Have you eaten? We need breakfast.”
Apparently, I’d made a new friend. She dragged me to the diner I’d dined at with Rogue. If I were being honest, she hardly had to drag me. Her exuberance at meeting me and my agreeing to take a meal with her and accompany her to the dance later on effervesced over onto me. I couldn’t help it. Her buoyant attitude even excited me for tonight. But I had to wonder how a woman with such a buoyant attitude had ended up as a prostitute. I just didn’t want to hurt her feelings by asking.
After another greasy spoon breakfast, we strolled, arms linked like the best of girlfriends, back to the—I still considered it a boarding house, even if I knew the truth—boarding house so I could get back to work on those readings and she could go off to do her work. Whatever that was exactly.
Several hours passed with me deep in printouts until the alarm on the clock next to the bed rang loudly. Yes, I’d been smart enough to set the alarm this time. I pulled the dress Rogue had bought me the other day from the closet. Made of a clingy black fabric, it sparkled with fake diamonds sewn throughout the entire dress, what there was of it. Seeing as it was for a child, the hem rested on me probably, hopefully, much shorter than it would have on a child. On me, it hardly cleared the bottom of my butt cheeks. Sleeveless, the thick strap secured at one shoulder swept across the neckline on a bias, leaving the other shoulder bared. And with my voluptuous breasts, it ended up showing a sexy peek of cleavage.
The heels were high for a child. Three-inch heels. I’d never let my girl wear three-inch heels, but apparently someone did because the shop sold them. They were black gladiator b
ooties with straps that buckled halfway up my shins. I pinned my hair in several rosettes along the nape of my neck, but because the outfit was so edgy, Delta, who stopped by shortly after I’d started getting ready, pulled hair through the middle of each rosette and let some fall to the sides so chunks stuck out all over the do.
My makeup—provided by Delta—screamed drama. Smokey, come-hither eyes. Again, with the wet, red lips. She dusted my skin with sparkles to match my dress. The mascara she used made my eyelashes look a mile long. Hell, I’d do me in this getup.
She looked equally as hot with a plunging V-neck in front, secured to the back with thin spaghetti straps, not that there was much of a back to secure to. It plunged even further to almost the dip below the small of her back. The dress was black, like mine. Short like mine. But hers had a slit up each thigh. Her brown mane fell down her back, some ringlets, some thin braids, and some pieces hanging straight. The effect was as dramatic as mine, the same with her makeup.
Though her heels were what I’d consider stripper-height back home, making her tower over me. Even so, the men would still tower over her.
We walked to the city center, as it was rather close to the boarding house. Men’s mouths dropped open. Women ate their hearts out. We looked that good.
Whatever happened, we were in for one hell of a night.
Chapter Six:
A Legend Is Born
The glow from the huge burning pile of wood lit up the sky. The heat warmed me more than I’d been since arriving here, like the heat of the summer sun. No, like the heat coming off of a fresh lava flow.
Tables and chairs had been set around the bonfire, set up like a fine dining restaurant complete with wait staff in crisp white button-downs with black slacks, thin black ties and long, white aprons. They all wore their hair slicked back. Trays carried flutes of sparkling white wine and appetizers.
A regal-looking man at a podium on a platform opposite the bonfire spoke into a microphone. “Welcome to the five hundredth anniversary of the signing of the peace treaty ending The First Great War.” He favored one arm, as if it had been injured pretty severely and he hadn’t fully recovered. He reminded me of the eagle that had been injured the first day I’d met Shadow in bird form.
Flight: The Roc Warriors (Immortal Elements Book 1) Page 6