Before he even opened his mouth, it hit her. With the threat of imminent death lifted from her shoulders, the underlying reality hit home. There was no happy ending for them here.
The supernatural ravens camped outside the cabin weren’t going to simply fly off to their next victim, leaving her and Khail to live happily ever after. She’d fallen in love with an almost four hundred year old winged shifter of death—one who couldn’t even leave this cabin in the form of a man. Had she really thought they could play at being normal people?
“It’s time for me to leave you, moya kisa.”
Bridget’s throat closed and she had to fight to get air in and out of her lungs. It was too soon. Too sudden. She wasn’t ready. “No…no…”
It was all she could get out. Everything else bottlenecked in her throat. She had just allowed herself to love this man. She wanted more time. She wanted always.
“They will torture us as long as I stay, Bridget. Though the touch of the Unkind won’t kill you, they can hurt you. And they will try to use me to hurt you because I must be punished for my betrayal. I can’t let that happen.”
She shook her head until she could speak again. “What betrayal? It’s not your fault I didn’t die.”
“My betrayal was in falling in love with you, moya kisa.”
Her heart ached in her chest, and she clutched his hands. “Just stay in here, then. Just stay in here where they can’t get to you.”
“You know that’s not possible. As long as I’m in here, you can’t go out there. You can’t live that way. They would hurt you and then take me anyway. And I can’t stand their voices in my head any longer. I’m afraid I’ll go mad. I have to go.”
He turned and left her bedroom, and Bridget cried out. This couldn’t be happening. “Not yet! Don’t go yet! Please, Khail, don’t leave me.”
At the front door he turned to face her. “It will only prolong the pain if I stay. Within minutes this will all be behind you, Bridget. You’ll be free, and I want that for you.”
“Just a little more time,” she pleaded.
“It won’t be enough. There isn’t enough time in all eternity for us to prepare to let go.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, a brutal kiss from the depths of his soul. Bridget wrapped her arms around his neck, unwilling to let it end, but he pushed her away. “There is one thing I’d have you never forget, moya kisa. For the rest of your life remember that you have been loved as truly and as fiercely as a man can love a woman.”
Then Khail opened the door and Bridget grabbed for him, but he shifted. Tail feathers tickled the tips of her fingers before the world exploded in a tornado of black wings and razor-sharp beaks and talons.
“No!” she screamed, waving her hands and trying to drive them away from her already falling raven. She stumbled down the steps of the porch as they dragged him through the dirt.
The flock ignored her, as if killing her had never been their objective at all. She tried to crawl to him, ignoring the cuts she received as she shoved birds out of the way.
There was blood. So much blood. The flock was tearing Khail’s flesh from his bones, and the gore rose in Bridget’s throat. They were going to kill him.
“Stop!” she cried as black bodies swarmed in a violent frenzy, obscuring her view. “He’s been punished enough. He has suffered enough!”
A raven flapped in her face, determined to drive her back onto the porch. She grabbed at it, trying to rip its feathers from its body. “Fuck you! He’s mine. He is mine!”
The bird finally retreated, and she screamed as a bloody pulp was lifted into the air in front of her, impaled on the talons of a particularly large raven.
As quickly as the Unkind had come, they were gone. The air was still, the woods silent, and the sky a clear and brilliant blue.
Bridget sobbed until she gagged, a cluster of bloody feathers clenched in her fist. She lay uncaring in the dirt, her tears making tiny mud puddles.
A bird—an average, everyday bird—called out cheerfully, and Bridget screamed. It was a raw, primal scream ripped from the very depths of her soul.
“Why? Why did you give my life back to me? To watch me suffer? To get off on my pain? This is a gift? Well, I don’t want it. Do you hear me? I don’t want your fucking gift!”
She rolled up to her knees, her tear-stained face turned to the sky. “Take it back. Take me back if you can’t give him to me.”
There was no response. Only the happy chirping of tiny, benign forest birds. Bridget covered her ears and sobbed some more.
The next three days passed in a brutal fog of tears and rage. Bridget had nothing with which to distract herself from her emotions. She didn’t own a television and she didn’t have the concentration for reading. Nor did she have the heart to work. The thought of sketching Khail’s face and the hellish place that owned his soul was beyond her ability to cope.
Several times she had picked up her pencils, only to find her mind flooded with images of Khail not as the antagonist of the series, but as her lover. As the man who had stolen her heart. As the wounded bird ripped apart by his own Unkind.
It occurred to her she would have to force herself to draw again. Her livelihood depended upon it. But she didn’t believe she would ever be able to illustrate for that series again.
She showered. She put food in her mouth and chewed and swallowed. Made coffee, drank it, and then made more. She even brushed her hair. But her heart was in none of it. She just didn’t care any more.
Bridget would survive. She knew that. Horrors were overcome, strength was renewed, contentment was found. But she was so damn tired of simply surviving the cycle. Contentment didn’t do it for her anymore. She wanted to be happy.
She’d laughed once. Torturing herself with memories of their lovemaking, she’d thought of the loud and fierce Cossack voice he’d used to amuse her. It had made her laugh again to think of it, but her amusement had soon faded to more tears.
On the fourth morning, Bridget got out of bed determined to take a walk. She wasn’t nearly ready to put the pain of her loss behind her—she didn’t think she’d ever be able to this time—but she needed to reconnect with the life she’d made for herself. The life that had been enough for her before Khail flew through her door.
Bridget embraced the chill of the spring morning, letting it revive her senses and bring color to her cheeks. She was too worn out and weak from lack of sleep to match her usual brisk pace, but she wandered down the path that doubled as a sorry excuse for a driveway on her bimonthly trips into town.
Trying her best to block out the happy twittering of the birds, she concentrated instead on the solitary beauty that had first drawn her to this place. Flowers were blooming. Lush green leaves had returned to the deciduous trees. She wished Khail could see it.
She was almost to the brook when she saw a flash of movement through the trees and around the bend. She froze—it was too tall to be an animal and moving too fast. It was a man.
He came around the bend, stopping when he realized she was standing there. Convinced her mind was playing cruel tricks on her, Bridget simply stood there, waiting, as he started walking again. He looked the same—right down to his lack of clothing—but he was smiling when he reached her. He cupped his palm to her face and then—with his warm hand against her cool cheek, she knew he was real.
And he was in the form of a man. He had said they couldn’t do that—that they were only men inside the dwelling of the chosen ones. Yet here he stood, in the middle of her driveway. It just wasn’t possible.
“Khail?” Her voice was little more than a whisper, so afraid was she he was merely a mirage conjured by her tortured mind.
“I have served my penance, moya kisa. The gods have gifted my life back to me.”
Gifted, as she had been. She who was now immune to the random death meted out by the Unkind.
“What does that mean?” Life had taught her not to give hope wings, but it swelled nonetheless.
�
��It means I can gorge myself on roast mutton and try one of those Caramel Macchiato things and make love to you day and night for the rest of our lives. It took time for my body to grow accustomed to being mortal again—an excruciating process—but I am here now, and I’m no longer of the Unkind.”
“They lifted the curse? So you’re like me now? Immune to them?” She hardly dared believe it, and she felt a need to have the specifics. This was truly a gift worth keeping.
“I have done my penance and the gods deemed me worthy of the gift—and they heard your pleas as well. Sometimes things are not as random as they appear. I was always meant to find you, and I am free to grow old with you, moya kisa. I am forgiven.”
He barely got the words out before she was in his arms. She clung to him, reveling in the strength of his arms as they held her close to his chest. His naked chest.
“We need to buy you some clothes.” She giggled. “Eventually.”
Khail tipped her chin up and kissed her—a soft, warm welcome home kiss that washed the pain and sadness of their lives away like a cleansing spring rain. “I love you, Bridget Sawyer.”
“And I love you. As truly and as fiercely as a woman can love a man.”
He lifted her right off her feet and swung her around, hugging her almost too tightly. She laughed, and he laughed with her, their shared joy ringing through the woods.
She closed her eyes and nuzzled her face against his neck. “Thank you,” she whispered.
From far away came the faint answering call of a single raven.
About the Author
Shannon Stacey married her Prince Charming in 1993, and is the proud mother of a future Nobel Prize for Science-winning bookworm and an adrenaline junkie with a flair for drama. She lives in New England, where her two favorite activities are trying to stay warm and writing stories of happily ever after.
You can contact Shannon or sign up for her newsletter through her website: www.shannonstacey.com.
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TALONS
A collection of five stories taking you to the height of passion
Talons: King of Prey
© 2006 Mandy M. Roth
In a place where realms combine and portals open passages to the unknown, a prophecy speaks of fertility being restored to his people through the taking of King Kabril’s mate.
The prophecy neglects to mention she lacks something vital to his kind—wings. Kabril, King of the Buteos Regalis has no interest in taking a human mate. His kind believes humans are dirty, vile creatures who rely on machines to lift them into the air. The last place he wants to go in search of his mate is Earth, but he’s left no choice.
Never did he expect to find love on a planet with one moon, people who lack wings and a stubborn vixen who makes his heart soar. When he does, he fears the truth about who and what he truly is will steal it away. Little does he know his enemies fully intend on doing the taking.
Talons: Firebird
© 2006 Jaycee Clark
Legend has it firebirds bring both good fortune and destruction, Reen has become an expert at both…
Reen is an expert at destruction and annihilation. She’s a Hunter, an elite, one of their best assassins, she’s also a legendary firebird—a creature of lore. Staker, a member of the Falcon order, is her soul mate from a bloody past she desperately tries to forget, but one that haunts her every moment. The two are thrown together in a desperate search for missing women.
The Collector is a man who loves the hunt, preying on the unusual, on the special—all to keep these women for his own
use. The Collector favors shifters, the rarer the better. He traps them, keeps them, and turns them into his own private collectables.
Staker doesn’t want Reen to be a part of this dangerous mission, but she has other plans. Unfortunately, so does the Collector…
Talons: Caged Desire
© 2006 Sydney Somers
He’s trapped…she’s suspicious—to earn his freedom all he has to do is win her trust.
Locked in a cage for almost fifty years ago, Logan has had nothing but time to plot his revenge on those who wrongfully condemned him to spend eternity in the deepest regions of a South American rainforest. But with one look at the alluring vampire who holds his freedom in her hands, revenge becomes the farthest thing from his mind.
Eve Blake is puzzled by the wooden crate delivered to her door. Even stranger is the large golden eagle inside. It doesn’t take her long to realize the majestic creature is far more than he appears. Finding a man in the cage previously containing the feathered animal gives Eve every reason to suspect the shifter was locked away for a reason.
Can she trust him when he promises not to harm her if she releases him? Or will her decision cost both of them more than they bargained for?
Talons: Seize the Hunter
© 2006 Michelle M Pillow
Fate is giving her the one man she'd never want for her very own.
Princess Ari of the planet Falconia knows it’s her time to marry and has picked out several suitable men in her mind—none of which are Falcoan Army Commander, Rurik of the Fifth. The man tormented her as a child, causing her untold humiliations. But there is really no need to worry about such a match. Shifters cannot rule and Rurik is a natural born falcon shifter.
Trusting destiny, Ari sips from the Marriage Chalice, sealing her future. But things don’t go as planned. It would seem fate is giving her to the man she despises. How can she find happiness with the one man she could never want for her very own?
TALONS: KISS ME DEADLY
Shannon Stacey
Death is a collective–an unkindness of supernatural ravens with the power to take the form of men and to decide which humans live and which humans die with a mere touch.
When Khail lays his fatal touch on his next victim and she doesn’t die, he’s faced with a human immune to his deadly power who has seen him shift form–and he’s able to have physical contact with a woman for the first time in centuries.
Falling for a shapeshifting messenger of Death wasn’t on Bridget Sawyer’s agenda, but things are about to get even more complicated. The Unkind is determined to claim her.
eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
2932 Ross Clark Circle, #384
Dothan, AL 36301
Talons: Kiss Me Deadly
Copyright © 2006 by Shannon Stacey
Cover by Anne Cain
ISBN: 1-59998-246-3
www.samhainpublishing.com
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: October 2006
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