Up With The Crows

by Zoe Parker

  “How do you become one again?” And as I ask it a part of me is a little sad that Tavin might not be here one day. The persona, because I know that’s what it is now, that is Tavin smiles at me, and I see now that it’s Vale looking out of those eyes at me.

  It always has been.

  “That one is easy,” Vale says, pulling my attention back to the main him—that’s so weird to think that. His smile is wide and pointy, putting a sexual edge to all those teeth, and like he’s announcing the next president, he says, “I fuck you.”

  “Oh, that’s all. A bit of stabby and grabby… and somehow my vagina sucks all those people in and spits out a whole you. Yep. That sounds fantastic,” I mutter as the room starts to spin—the black spots hovering on the outer circle of my vision crowd in. The lightheadedness hits me like a truck, and the last thing I see is Vale’s surprised face as his hands lift to catch me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry.

  John Webster

  The voices break into the black abyss of unconsciousness first, the cold cloth on my forehead second. Athena and Vale are talking above me, which means I’m on the ground. My head and most of my upper body are cradled on something firm and warm, probably a lap. That’s the one nice result of this problem. I can’t believe that I straight up fainted. I’m not sure whether to be embarrassed or relieved. Hell, maybe I should thank him for keeping me from faceplanting on the floor or perhaps I should kick him in the balls for saying he has to fuck me to fix himself.

  Don’t get me wrong, part of me is completely digging that bit of it. The idea of him touching me on my neglected lady-parts makes those very same spots pay close attention to how close he is to me right now, but I’m not the Vale processor.

  “She’s awake and thinking something asinine if that goofy smile on her face is any indication,” Athena says drily.

  “Hey, back off bird. I’ll pluck you and make a hemorrhoid pillow out of your feathers,” I grumble opening one eye to glare at her. I’m not ready to get up yet, my back and head are on Vale’s lap, and it’s a comfortable place that I’m not quite ready to vacate. It feels real and stable in a totally fucked up moment.

  For a few minutes I can pretend that this is an entirely normal situation, I fainted, and a great looking man is treating me kindly. Yeah, that works out well. My eyes pop open and are immediately captured by Vale’s. He smiles and I’m not sure whether I should run or hand him my bra, in defeat.

  When his eyes lighten even more and dance with that intensity that makes my skin feel too tight, the bra decision is a close one.

  “I’ve had many reactions to the option of sex with me before, but never has someone fainted. I’m flattered,” he teases.

  “And arrogant,” I add.

  “That’s a given, beautiful.”

  Frowning, I blurt out, “Why do you call me beautiful? Is that like you saying, sweetie or honey?”

  The smile remains, but it turns a bit more serious. “You are the first woman I’ve ever called beautiful.” Looking at the slight frown between his eyes, I’m trying to decide who’s more surprised, him or me?

  “Why do you say it?”

  His finger traces the bridge of my nose then moves down to trace my bottom lip and in a move too fast for me to follow I’m lifted to my feet and find myself standing face to face with him. He takes a step forward, and I take one backward and then he’s walking me back until I bump against the cold, stone wall.

  He doesn’t stop there. Oh no, he keeps going until he’s flush against me. Resting his forehead against mine, he leans to the side enough to slide his hand along the outside of my leg and to lift it at the knee to wrap it around his hip. He repeats this with the other one, and I find myself pinned against the wall with a warm, hard man between my legs. He’s completely supporting me with his hands on my ass. Yes, my ass.

  I like it.

  “When I saw you the first time, it was like seeing the sun peeking into the utter darkness of this place. Drawn to it, I crawled out of the hole of pity I’d dug myself and basked in the warmth of that light. Then you smiled,” he kisses my chin, then my cheek. “You smiled, and something inside of me awoke, in that moment I knew what it was to feel truly alive.” He kisses the tip of my nose and then the other cheek. “When I tasted you, my soul unfurled and touched yours, full of want and greed and lust that burns so hot between us it eclipses the stars.”

  Breathlessly I say, “Those are some pretty words, hotstuff.” Ugh, I sound like I ran up five flights of stairs, after eating an entire cake. Wait, did I seriously call him hotstuff?

  Graceful, Mel. Epically so, you’ll talk his shirt right off with that sexy phrasing.

  “I will not be denied, Mel. I will never be denied when it comes to you. I will fuck you until I feel completely whole, I will lose myself in your body as many times as it takes to tie us together so irrevocably that for a time, we lose ourselves in each other. We will be one and anything that stands in my way will be torn through with prejudice I have not shown since creation,” he says with such calm that if I hadn’t been looking into the fervent emotion lighting his eyes like headlights, I’d have thought him a liar.

  When I take a breath, it hitches and before I can take another his hot mouth on mine takes away any words that I would’ve managed to sputter out. Letting the emotion, the heat of the moment take me I grab the back of his head and meet him with as much passion as he’s giving me. Only stopping when I know that continuing will end up with us doing something that will start a chain reaction that I’m not strong enough to deal with, not yet. There’s too much I don’t know.

  Pushing at him I pull away to breathe air not saturated with the taste of him. He releases my ass and lets me slowly slide down his body to stand on my wobbling foal legs. He doesn’t step away, but he takes his hands from me, giving me that space I need so desperately to get my brain working again.

  Staring into his flushed face and glowing eyes I feel this absolute sense of destiny closing its tentacles around me in a tight fist, so tight that there’s no escape for me—no matter how hard I fight it. Somehow this man plays a massive part in it. And for a solid ten seconds, I fucking hate it. No one wants to be told that they have to do something. We’re all forever rebellious children.

  “Tell me everything or you get nothing from me. There’ll be no more secrets or any of that alpha male bullshit where you omit things to “protect” me. It’s straight up, or not at all. There are no exceptions to this.” I try to cross my arms and look serious, but his mouth is still slightly parted, and I can see the sheen of moisture on his bottom lip from our kiss. Which makes me pose in such a way that I look like I’m awkwardly holding my boobs up.

  The knowledge that I affected him in such a way gives me cool tingles on my skin. I did this to him. Me. In my ugly uniform and my sloppy hair. My complete lack of makeup and the only splash of color on my face being the Eye-of-Odd and the dark circles under my eyes. As I bask in that fact, I go over what he said in my scattered brain. The feminist in me wants to demand he release me and stomp off in a huff, the horny woman in me though—she loves it and the thought of someone wanting me that much—gives me more power than anything else in my mind.

  Damnit.

  Carefully, and rather clumsily, I extract myself from in between him and the wall. I manage to not run to the podium holding the book, but it’s a near thing. I’m pretty sure I jogged a little, it was fast enough that there’s a smirk on his handsome face.

  “As you wish.” It takes me a few seconds to realize what he did.

  “Did you make a Princess Bride reference?”

  “I’ve been here 10 years, not a hundred, Mel.”

  “Now, get to talking.” I slip the amulet over my head without thinking about it. Tucking it in my shirt, I feel it warm against my skin. This is mine, I know it is, and even if it weren’t—I can blame the bird.

  “Not that I want to interrupt this thrill
ing romantic dance you two are doing… she does need to know,” Athena says from her perch atop the cage.

  Leaning my elbow next to the book I distractedly look through it while waiting for him to talk. He agreed and if I’ve learned nothing else about him—besides the fact that he kisses like a god—it’d be that he always does what he says.

  “As you’ve gathered there are multiple dimensions or realms as some call them.” I nod, and he continues, “I’m from this realm.”

  “Earth?” I ask.

  “No, this realm that you’re standing in.” He points at the floor.

  “Yeah, Earth.” I look up at him, and he’s looking at me like I did something wrong. “What?”

  “Holy shit, you think you’re still on Earth?” he demands. “Do you also think you’re from that dirty realm?”

  Gah, a lot of hate there for my home. “I was born there Vale, that’s why.”

  “The Path Keeper could’ve only been born here,” he points again at the floor, “in the Path. I’m not sure what you’ve been told, but someone’s lied to you.” This gets my full attention. “There are only two creatures ever born in the Path. It’s Keeper and the Nothing King. I’m looking at the Keeper, and I am the Nothing. So, tell me what your father—the former Path Keeper—told you about him leaving us to become trapped in this shit hole?” The intensity is back on his face but not the good kind from before.

  Wait, my Father? “I don’t understand. I know nothing about my sperm donor. Mom says that he was a war hero who died overseas.” Vale, being Vale shakes his head and ruins every carefully crafted fantasy about my missing parent.

  His voice gentles as he says, “Your father Gabriel was the former Path Keeper. He was supposed to guard this place and keep this,” he waves his hand around the room, “Safe from what shit has befallen it. But when the worthless bastards that imprison us here came, he didn’t return from one of his trips away.” The angry light in his eyes dims, and he continues, “This was once a haven for World-Walkers like us—a place to come and safely rest or even live. Once upon a time, I could protect them from those that use World-Walkers for their abilities. A Path Keeper is the only one who can keep the Path open, uncorrupted. Gabriel knew this and still chose his own life over all of the ones here.” He pauses and studies my face then when he makes his decision, finishes with, “Do you know anything about him at all?”

  I swallow the misplaced hurt that those words cause, as the glass world that I never believed in but wanted to crumbles around me. “No,” I croak out unsure of what else to say about the man I never met, that left my poor mother to fend for a child alone in a time when it was much more difficult for a single mother to exist. She did it, I had a good childhood, albeit an alternative one, but still good.

  Giving it to me broke her.

  “So, what,” I clear my throat of the tears that are burning in the back of it, “What do I do to make things right?”

  “You accepted things rather easily and quickly, Mel. Are you sure you don’t still thinking you’re in a delusion?” Athena asks hopping back down onto the podium. I mull over the answer in my head, do I?

  Am I truly ready to accept that this is all fact? That there are magical creatures all around me, hundreds of other worlds, that my Father was a coward? Other than the initial doubt and the occasional feeling of surrealistic shit, I’ve been pretty accepting.

  I called my therapist and questioned her for a solid hour—that I paid $200 dollars for—I’ve ruled out everything else, my therapist told me—although, I left out the seeing thing’s parts—that I have absolutely no symptoms of a psychotic break or a schizophrenic episode. At least, other than the seeing shit.

  No mania, no ideas of grandeur, no violence.

  “I’ve ruled out everything else, which leaves the only option being that this is reality. If it’s not? Well, I guess I’ve had a blast?” Athena laughs and brushes her head against my hand.

  I turn back to Vale. I’ll deal with all this news about my… father, later. Right now, I need to deal with the more important task at hand. How do I save all these people?

  “What’s the first thing we need to do?” I ask, drawing on inner strength to ignore the stupid hot tears that managed to leak out.

  “Start taking the Path back, a piece at a time,” Vale says softly, wiping his thumb under each of my eyes.

  “Then what?”

  His smile is all teeth and absolute satisfaction as he says, “We kill the intruders.”

  “With what? Bedpans and sheets?” I can’t help but ask.

  There isn’t exactly an arsenal of guns laying around anywhere. And from what I’ve seen the guards have swords and these cattle prod looking things that can take any of the inhabitants down in one or two zaps. With the exception of Vale and Tav—wait, Vale version 2.0.

  “If necessary, do not discount the lethality of anyone trapped in this place, Mel. Including you.”

  This makes me laugh. Yeah, sure I can bend a few fingers and probably break a kneecap or two, but there is nothing in my incredibly limited set of skills that I can call lethal.

  “See, that’s the human part of you thinking.” He wiggles his fingers me. “You are the one this place breathes for. Make it remember, I’m sure the uncontrolled parts have called out for you.”

  I think back to the walls breathing, maybe he’s right. It’s too much of a coincidence to ignore. He did say the place breathes for me. I’m not the shiniest apple on the tree, but I do have moments of clarity, and this is one of them.

  “First, we teach you to talk to the Path, and then we start strengthening up the prisoners here.”

  “What happens once we do?” I ask.

  Leaning down he softly kisses me but pulls away before it can deepen into anything more than a brief meeting of lips.

  “I get to bury my teeth in your skin.”

  Well, I called that, didn’t I?

  To Be Continued…

  Early 2019

  The 2nd book in the Unsylum Series will be released,

  “As The Crow Flies”

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank everyone who had a hand in getting this bad boy out there. My Admin team, Brandy Reece, Neva Perkins (sorry you died in this one), Natasha Nicholson. Without those three ladies I’d never get anything done.

  I want to thank my street team for getting everything out into the world for you. You ladies make a huge difference in book-land for me, thank you!

  Lumpytots, yes babe, you. Thank you for always standing by me. You make me calm, you make me food, you make me happy.

  Most of all, thank you—whoever you are, for reading this mess.

  About the Author

  Zoe is the type of person that thinks that writing about herself in third person is giggle worthy. She also laughs at those T-REX costumes that flap about when you run. Zoe has a hard time writing about normal things and has a soft spot for the antihero and the monster in the closet. For all we know they're lonely and trying to make friends. They're just doing it badly. She also likes pickles and peanut butter, yuck.

  Writing is something that's kept her on the legal side of sane and she'll only stop when she's dead. As a child it was her solace, a comfort in a very dark time and as an adult... she uses writing as an excuse to watch romance movies---for research purposes!---Join her in the worlds of monsters and mayhem.

  And a good quote from her:

  "A monster a day keeps the doctor away, wait, is that a monster a day keeps the mail man away? *shrug* It's keeping someone away. *serious face* Never stop believing in the magical things of this world, its all around us. I do believe in Fairies, do you? (Just don't think you're Mary Poppins and jump off the roof. You're not and the ground hurts.)"

  Also by Zoe Parker

  Elusion, Book One in the Facets of Feyrie Series

  Ascension, Book Two in the Facets of Feyrie Series

  Deception, Book Three in the Facets of Feyrie Series

  Book Four,
Obliteration, coming early 2019!

  Also by Zoe Parker

  Cadence of Ciar, Book One in the Fate Caller Series (an RH series)

  Book Two, Rhythm of Rime, coming early 2019!

  Anthologies

  Shifting Destiny, a multi-genre shifter themed anthology