by H. A. Wills
I wince when I frown at her in confusion, but I’m too tired to ask questions. With everything I have left in me, I crawl toward the window, claw myself up to the sill, and tumble out the other side.
“I meant using the doors that open up to the balcony in the next room, but that works,” she mutters, more neatly climbing out of the window. “This way.”
It’s earlier than I thought, the sky still pink with the setting sun, which explains why I’m so weak. The silver nitrate is still going to take hours to work its way out of my system. With sucking wet coughs, I crawl the few feet after her to a boom lift waiting on the edge of the balcony that surrounds the first floor of the house. A lot of the pack work in various fields of construction; this whole village was built with pack hands, and that means access to large pieces of construction equipment.
“Here we go,” she huffs, kneeling down and hooking her arms underneath mine. “On the count of three, you’re going to stand up. Once we’re inside, you can lean on me for support on the way down. I swear to god, if you fall out of that damn metal box after I had to flirt my ass off to get this lift here, I’ll never forgive you.”
“Okay,” I mumble back.
She sighs, then on three, we get me to my feet. Again the ground spins, and I lean so heavily on Sam that we more topple into the box than walk onto it.
“You’re so fucking heavy,” she groans, stretching to close the gate, then flips the switch for us to descend.
I close my eyes because the world won’t stop moving and mumble into Sam’s shoulder, “I’m sorry.”
“I know you are,” she whispers back, sad and resigned, her arms encircled my waist trying to support me. “Doesn’t change anything.”
“Didn’t want to hurt you,” I insist between heaving breaths. Now that I’m outside, I can smell the hints of smoke that cling to her hair and skin.
“Still did,” she replies with a wistful sigh.
We’re quiet the rest of the way down, and when we reach the bottom, there’s a shifter I’ve seen around school, but like a lot of the pack, have never talked to.
“I swear to God, you got big brass ones, Samantha,” he blurts, quickly moving to help us both out of the box.
“Just what a lady loves to hear,” she mutters. “And it’s Sam. No one calls me Samantha.”
“I know,” he croaks, his voice cracking, as I’m shifted between the two of them, one arm around each of their shoulders, and dragged down the Alpha’s property toward the street. “I just thought… maybe I could, you know… be different.”
Ah fuck. Come on. I’m literally near death. Please don’t make me listen to this.
“Thinking you’re getting a little ahead of yourself,” she counters, equal parts of strain and impatience in her voice. “I said a movie, maybe burgers after. Nowhere near pet names.”
“Your real name is a pet name?” the dumbass snorts.
God damn it. Leave me here. I’ll crawl to the fucking gates.
“Listen…” she snarls, but is interrupted when I start to lose consciousness again and fall forward. They steady me, and Sam hisses, “Don’t fucking pass out on me now.”
They get me to my car, Sam digs through my pockets for my keys, then leans me against the car with dumbass propping me up. She opens the hatchback, shoves down the back seat, and then pops back out to help me inside.
“He looks really bad,” he comments, as I lie dry heaving and dizzy in the back of my Tahoe.
“Oh really? I hadn’t noticed,” she growls, closing the trunk door.
There’s mumbled, hushed words that if I didn’t feel like I was dying, I’d normally be able to make out.
The driver’s side door opens, and I hear dumbass say, “I just don’t get why you’re doing all this. Risking all this for him? He abandoned you.”
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Sam answers and slams the door in his face.
The last thing I hear is the engine roaring to life before I pass out again.
∞∞∞
“... I don’t know. Before he partially shifted, his mouth was all black. Could that have something to do with it?” Sam says, real terror in her voice, dragging me back to consciousness. “All I know is he can’t fully shift, and he’s not getting better.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Kaleb comforts, his deep made-for-radio voice unmistakable. “We’ll take care of him.”
I can feel a cool breeze against my bare chest. Cracking my one good eye, I can see the hatchback door is open, and Donovan and Kaleb’s black truck is idling a few feet away.
“Sounds like silver nitrate,” D comments, the Tahoe shaking as he climbs inside. “Kaleb’s parents will know what to do. Now come help me carry him. Fucker weighs a damn ton.”
Relieved that I’ll be taken to someone who knows what to do, my mind drifts and lands on the person whose taken up permanent resident in my thoughts. I have to protect her.
I reach up and grab Donovan’s shirt, the fabric wrapping around my fist, and murmur, “Don’t tell Callie.”
“Welcome back, man,” he replies with his normal level of asshole cockiness. “Now you can help get your bitch ass to my truck.”
Shaking my fist, I repeat, “Don’t. Tell. Callie.”
“Seriously, she’s all he can think about? This all happened because of her,” Sam utters, tears in her voice.
She doesn’t understand. She can’t understand.
“Alright. Alright, I won’t tell her,” Donovan grumbles, pulling me to a seated position. “Fuck, you’re a mess.”
Everything is blurry and spinning, but I have enough energy to flip him off.
“Love you too, Con,” he snorts.
“Why don’t you want Callie to know?” Kaleb questions, standing at the bumper and shifting my legs so they hang outside.
With Donovan’s help, I shimmy to the edge, and my feet rest on the ground. Taking Kaleb’s hand, I explain in punctuated grunts, “Callie. Alpha. Rage.”
“Boom,” D supplies, wrapping my free arm over his shoulders. Again with the help of multiple people, I’m back on my feet.
“Callie is our friend. One whose trust we’re still earning,” Kaleb reminds, while we shuffle toward the truck, like we can’t all remember the details of her abuse that she shared this morning. “We can’t keep things from her because we’re worried she’ll get angry.”
“Oh but you can’t upset the witch,” Sam sneers from behind us. “She might just off herself. Pathetic.”
Despite the fact I can barely walk, a low, warning growl vibrates in my throat. We stop moving, and tension turns my friends to marble.
“Because you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about and you did us a solid today, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Donovan warns, the gravel in his voice adding to the menace of his words.
“I know she’s a witch. That means she’s an entitled, selfish, bitch,” she fires back, digging herself into a deeper hole.
“Sam, stop talking!” Kaleb barks, the unfiltered anger scaring her into silence.
The guys heft my weak body up into the passenger seat that’s been pushed all the way back and all the way down.
Before Kaleb can close the door, Sam marches up, hands fisted at her sides and hisses, “You know what? Fuck you both. He killed someone today because of her. He’s beat to shit and nearly died because of her. So make sure he takes a bath when he’s done fucking her. Because the next time he comes back stinking of witch, I’m not saving his fucking ass again!”
She spins around, marches back to my car, climbs inside, and drives away with a dust cloud following her screeching tires.
“You see, that’s why I don’t do relationships,” Donovan comments, shaking his head. “All exes seem crazy as shit.”
Kaleb, sitting behind the driver’s seat, reaches over me to close the door. “Not all relationships end badly,” he lectures, bent like a pretzel because guys his size were not meant to sit in the back seat of t
rucks.
“Oh yeah, they could end like yours,” Donovan taunts, starting the engine. “Does she know you guys are broken up? Pretty sure she's still planning the wedding.”
“Just drive,” Kaleb sighs, and I drift back out of consciousness to the familiar sounds of their bickering.
Chapter 15
Kaleb
I land soft-footed on Callie’s balcony, masked by the twilight of the dark indigo sky. I’m not totally sure why I’m here. That’s a lie. I know why I’m here, I just don’t know if it’s the right thing to do.
Visions of Connor bent over, puking his guts up, while my mother did her best to soothe him are burned into my mind. Her hands running softly over his back, careful of every laceration. Holding him every time he collapsed back in exhaustion, rocking him gently as she sang a Spanish lullaby. The same one she would sing to Donovan when he first came to stay with us and couldn’t sleep through the night.
Callie sits in the middle of her bed, legs crossed in front of her, hunched over a book with ragged pages and what looks like handwritten words. She chews on her lip, and her fingers hover over the page like she wants to feel the marks against her fingertips but is too scared to damage what she’s reading.
I lift my hand to knock on the glass door but something holds me back. Instead, I flatten it against the wooden frame.
She should know. We claim she’s one of us. We tell her she can trust us. But as soon as it comes to something that might upset her, we close ranks. Even Felix has managed to pop in quickly to check on Connor.
He’s fine now. With the silver nitrate out of his system, he was able to shift about an hour ago and is currently resting in my room. When he fell asleep, I knew I needed to get out of the house. I just wanted a little air. Some time to think, but here I am outside her door.
Sorry, Con. She has a right to know.
Determined, I knock on the wooden frame, careful not to rattle the glass.
Callie startles at the sound, then seeing me at the window, her eyes widen in surprise. She quickly closes her book, placing it on her nightstand, and hurries to open the door.
“Is everything okay?” she asks while her gaze flits from my face to my bare chest to the large wings on my back.
The truth sits on my tongue, demanding to be spoken, but when I notice the dark purple smudges under her eyes, the bracing hunch of her posture, the tight press of her lips, I remember this morning. Her breaking under the continued weight of her past, and I can’t do it. I hope she can forgive me, but I can’t lay another burden on her shoulders. Not today.
“I came to check on you,” I lie, my smile gentle.
An answering wan smile spreads across her lips, and she sighs, tugging on a piece of her hair. “I’m surviving. I got a whole new fancy book to study. It’s…” her gaze softens and her eyes take on a glossy sheen. “It’s my mother’s grimoire.”
She fidgets, her arms dropping to her sides, then on her hips, then crossed over her chest, and she stammers, “Would you like to come in and look at it… with me? Or, you know, there’s Agata’s journal if you’d prefer. That’s her name… I mean the Volkov spirit witch who…” she groans. “You know what I mean.”
I laugh. My first instinct is to accept immediately, excited to finally see a real witch’s grimoire and touched that she’d want to share something so precious with me, but there’s an itch that runs down my skin. The desire to be more to her than what I am to the others.
It’s too late with the guys. They’ll only ever see me as the stick-in-the-mud, know-it-all peering up from my giant books so I can warn that whatever they’re about to do is dangerous, stupid, or both.
But with Callie, it can be different. I can be different. Figure out what I am under this false facade of perfection. I want her to know the real me… whoever that is.
Start with what you do know.
“Yes, I definitely want to see them, but first I want to show you something,” I answer, my heart picking up speed at the thought of what I’m about to do.
“Oh?” she replies, her fine blonde brows furrowing.
My smile turns into a playful smirk and I murmur, “Do you trust me?”
Nerves dance in my stomach, realizing too late that my question reaches further than this one excursion.
“Of course, I do,” she answers, quirking her head to one side.
She grins with genuine warmth, her eyes crinkling in the corners. I like looking into her eyes that can shift from the color of water over river stones to the deep grey of an approaching storm. So much of who she is lives within their depths.
“Then go grab a sweater and put on your boots. You’ll need them,” I instruct, staying out on the balcony.
Callie does a kind of mock salute, then heads over to her closet, retrieving her favorite red sweater and her old black boots.
When she’s finished, she walks back over, and bouncing on her toes, asks, “Now what?”
“Now, put your arms around my neck and your legs around my waist,” I direct, my heartbeat pulsing so hard I can feel it in my fingertips, and I hope I’m not crossing any lines. She did this earlier with Connor, but she was upset then… and I’m not Connor.
“Oh, um, okay,” she replies, her eyes widening, and a blush stains her cheeks. “Do I get to find out why, or does that ruin the surprise?”
I lean down and whisper in her ear, “I’m going to take you flying.”
“Oh my god!” she squeals, immediately wrapping her arms around my neck.
Chuckling, I grab the back of her thighs and help her up so she can put her legs around my waist. I’ve never done something like this before, but she’s so light, I’m not too worried about carrying her.
Like she can read my mind, she warns, “You better not drop me. I like the idea of flying. Falling not so much.”
“I’m not going to drop you,” I assure, holding her tight against me to emphasize my promise.
While she adjusts herself to make sure she has a good grip, her fingers brush against where my wings meet my back, and a tingling shiver runs down my spine. I like the feeling of her hands stroking my feathers, but I worry not in the way I should. I know I’d never let any of the guys touch them so casually.
Focus.
Taking a fortifying breath, with my lips right next to her ear, I ask, “Ready?”
“Wait.”
She reaches into the back pocket of her jeans, pulls out her phone, then in an awkward twist, puts it in my back pocket. My stomach tightens as her hand grazes the waistband of my jeans.
“No way my phone would survive flying with girl pockets,” she snickers, her breath warm against my neck. “Now I’m ready.”
“Glad I could help with that,” I comment, stepping up onto one of the metal chairs, then to the metal table, bracing one foot on the balcony railing. Then, I tease, “You don’t get airsick, right?”
“Don’t think so, but I’ve never flown nephilim. Just in case, sorry in advance,” she answers, laughter evident in her husky voice.
Her good humor bolsters me. It feels like all of our interactions have been so serious and complicated, whereas this is fun. I can be fun.
Bending at the knees, I leap out, Callie squealing and giggling as I make my way up to open skies. For any that may be able to see us through the dense forest below, we’re no more than a speck of grey in the dark. A lone bird looking for a place to settle for the night.
“This is amazing!” she cries over the roar of the wind.
“Just wait,” I yell back with a grin.
After several strong flaps of my wings, I shoot straight up in the air, then arching my back, I drop us into a slow backward loop.
“Holy shit!” she squeaks, as we barrel toward the tree line below, before finishing the turn and once again soar right side up.
For a while, I switch from easy, sedate gliding on the winds, then when Callie looks recovered, to spinning, diving, and free falls in the air. She whoops and gasps with each new
move I show off, not once displaying any fear. Since the moment I met her, I’ve wanted to earn her trust, and in this moment, as we play among the clouds, I feel like I truly have it. I tighten my already firm grip around her, ensuring she knows she’ll always be safe in my arms.
Despite the cool night, sweat from exertion collects on my skin. I realize we should probably land soon, but I didn’t have any destination in mind when we started. Looking out, a breathy laugh escapes my lips, because we’re within an easy glide to a cliff face that looks down onto the town below. The place I go to when I want to be alone to think.
I once again arch my back, but this time it’s to shift us vertical so that I can soften our descent and land on my feet. My breathing is labored, each breath ruffling her hair that is now a wind-blown halo around her head, and there’s a dull ache in my shoulder blades. It’s been a very long time since I’ve flown this long, and this… creatively.
“Wow,” she whispers in awe. “That was… I don’t know how to describe it. There’s nothing like it.” She pulls back far enough to look into my eyes, hers twinkling with excitement. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
With one arm under her to make sure she doesn’t slip, I use the other to tuck some of her hair behind her ear and smile. “You’re welcome. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
Callie grins, the expression taking over her entire face. “I really did.”
For too long I stare into her eyes, content to get lost in them and all they have to tell me. Her gaze drops, another blush settling across her cheeks, and I become too aware of the feel of her in my arms, the trapped body heat between us, and the way our breaths have synced, each inhalation pressing us tighter together.
I clear my throat, lean down, and gently place her on her feet.
Turning to look out at the skyline, she puts her hands behind her back, her fingers twisting together. “Where are we?”
I take a step away, flattening my wings tight against my back, and smile gently at her. The one designed to put people at ease.