by Cassi Carver
She walked into the bathroom and threw the wadded clothes in the trashcan, then looked herself over in the mirror. Halfway down her spine, a black bruise darkened her skin. If she were human, she’d be paralyzed right now or maybe even dead. Anger made the hairs on her arms prick and the tips of her fingers itch. This wasn’t what she needed. She needed to relax.
Once the tub was full, she lit a votive and placed it on the sink, then she turned off the light and stepped into the bath, releasing a long, blissful sigh as the warm water covered her skin. She washed her hair and massaged her scalp, feeling her fatigued body beginning to relax. After dunking her head to rinse away the lather, her muscles finally gave way, and her head slumped against the side of the tub.
He cries for you. His moans shatter the dark sky. Come to him. Save him. He’s balanced at the edge of a great precipice. Don’t let him fall.
Come, Kara.
Kara awoke with a jerk, her arms flailing in the cold water. The faint smell of burned-out candle filled the air. She shivered and rubbed her eyes with wet hands. How long had she been asleep, and what had woken her up?
The muffled cry of a newborn baby rang through the walls. It had to be another bad dream. She’d had so many of those in the past few months, she wondered if she would ever sleep peacefully again.
She splashed water on her face, then groped on the counter for the towel she’d placed there. It was so damn dark, she couldn’t see a thing. She pulled the plug and rose to her feet, instantly chilled by the cool air on her frigid skin. The sound of the water draining mixed with a low whine of misery coming from somewhere outside. Goose bumps broke out over every inch of her skin, but she wrapped the towel tightly around her and tiptoed out the bathroom door and into the master bedroom, her dripping hair leaving a path of glistening drops in her wake.
The keening intensified, coming from the other side of her balcony window, but now that she was awake, it didn’t sound so much like a baby. She stopped in front of the doors, and it was all she could do not to close her eyes when she pulled back the curtains. The quick movement of the fabric and her frightened gasp startled the white cat huddled against the railing of the balcony. He met her eyes through the glass, his ears pinned back.
“Pibby!” She threw open the doors and was just about to bound through when reality hit. She lived on the tenth floor. There was no way Mr. Pibb, missing six long months, could have made it up to her apartment.
He meowed in greeting and loped to the boundary between the doors and her room. Pausing at the threshold, he raised his voice in a high-pitched staccato, telling her in his familiar way that he was hungry. He looked thin and his normally fluffy white fur was matted.
Her heart lurched with a fierce need to nurture and protect her fur-baby. Only common sense held her back from snatching him up in her arms and burying her face in his coat.
“Where have you been?” she asked, dropping to her knees to see him better. “Do you know how long I looked for you? Months.” She was beginning to think he hadn’t escaped when Abbey’s house had caught fire. Could this pitiful fur ball really be her Mr. Pibb?
“Come on, baby.” She held her hands out to him, coaxing him to enter. “Come here, sweet boy.”
Kara shivered when he pawed at the invisible barrier between her room and the dark night beyond. The wards shouldn’t keep out a cat. Especially not a cat returning home.
When she dropped from her knees to her rump and scooted away from the balcony, Pibby let out an irritated yowl. Pick me up, he seemed to be saying to her. “I don’t know what you are, but you aren’t my cat,” she said finally.
She kicked her foot out and caught the edge of the door, slowly closing one side with her toe. The cat’s lips peeled back in an angry hiss, white canines bared. And then suddenly, to Kara’s horror, he started to ripple and expand, as though he had multiplying rodents skittering under his fur, and as he grew, his fur fell away and tan skin replaced it.
Kara blinked, and her mouth fell open. Tan skin, black shiny hair, cold obsidian eyes. Julian. It looked just like him. If the black-wing could get through these wards, she was a dead woman.
She stared at his hulking form from her low perch on the carpet. “What do you want?”
He cracked his neck side to side, then ran his tongue over his fangs. “I want to come inside.”
Kara clutched the towel tighter around her. “No way in hell.”
“You know me.”
He didn’t have a scrap of cloth covering him, and even through her fear, memories of her lover kindled. She forced her gaze away from the perfection of his groin and his strong, heavily muscled thighs. “I thought I did, but it was another one of your tricks.”
He opened his mouth wide and snarled like a caged lion. “You know me! You said you did. I am Julian.” Even through the rough command of his words, she heard the question there.
“You don’t sound like Julian.”
“Then why did you tell me I was? Who’s the one playing a nasty trick?”
She was so confused, she felt as if she were observing a conversation between two people in a language she hadn’t yet mastered. “Where’s Mr. Pibb?”
“Who is Mr. Pibb?”
“My cat, asshole! What did you do to my cat?”
“Ah, the one in the picture.” He inclined his head toward Kara’s nightstand. “I am not your cat’s keeper.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the framed image of her white kitty. Could this black-wing really take a different shape from one glance at a photo? “Why are you doing this?”
He hunched on the balls of his feet and pressed his nose to the barrier, his heavy man parts hanging between his spread thighs. “Do you know me?”
Her mind whirled. Panic and confusion spiraled down from her brain and filtered into her blood. She started to shake. “You look like someone I knew.” As if the bastard hadn’t planned it, taking Julian’s form just like he’d taken Mr. Pibb’s.
“But I’m not him?”
Kara laughed, just a quick burst of affronted sound. “Wouldn’t you know?”
His tan cheeks went ruddy, and his fingers sprouted onyx claws. “Laughing at me may be the last thing you do,” he hissed, but under his anger she saw his desperation.
Maybe antagonizing an Aniliáre wasn’t the wisest thing to do in a bath towel with only a thin layer of magic separating the two of them. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean any disrespect. I’m truly asking. Do you know who you are?”
He rose to his feet and tilted his chin high, looking down on her with disdain. “I am a god trapped in a land of chattel.”
This guy was soooo not her Julian. “And do you have a name, besides god?”
His fangs lengthened as he growled low, his naked chest tight with fury. “You may call me my lord.”
Kara rolled her eyes and rose to her feet. “Do you have a flippin’ name?”
“No!” he bellowed, thrusting his face close to the threshold. The force of his declaration shook her walls like an earthquake.
She tamped down the dread welling up from her stomach and steeled her spine. “So you’re saying you don’t know who you are.”
His eyes burned red. “You said you knew me. You welcomed me into your arms. Are you both a liar and a whore?”
She caught herself before the terse reply on her tongue exited her mouth. Every detail of his features was exactly like Julian’s. The way he talked was different, but his voice still had the same seductive timbre she remembered, even when he was being an ass.
No. No. No. This couldn’t be him. This was an Aniliáre playing at amnesia so she would feel sorry for him and let him in, just like he’d done with her cat. Aiden had seen Julian’s decomposing body. This wasn’t Julian, just someone playing a part.
She ignored his outburst. “Let’s pretend for a moment I buy the fact that you don’t know your own name. Where did you come from?”
He paused a long time as if he wasn’t going to answer, then finally
he said, “From the earth.”
Kara’s breath seeped from her lungs and her shoulders sagged. But his words didn’t mean anything. Anyone with black wings would know about the tale of the Shadow Rising. “And what do you remember?”
“I was born the day I came from the earth. I have no memories before that time.”
“How long ago was that? Do you remember exactly where you came from? Any landmarks? What have you been doing since then—besides attacking innocent warriors?”
He widened his stance. “Who are you to question me?”
“I’m the one who’s trying to help you.”
The corner of his lip curled slightly, and he met her eyes with a direct stare. “If you want to help me, invite me in.”
She should. She should invite him in. It could be Julian. Only Julian could assuage the ache in her bones. He could give her ecstasy that had no equal. She pulled open the other balcony door, so both sides stood wide for him.
“Julian…will you co—” She clutched her head in both hands and whimpered. “Get. Out. Of. My. Head.”
He stepped close and placed one large palm against the barrier. “I won’t hurt you, Kara. Invite me into your home. Don’t make me come by force.”
“No.” She squinted in his direction, her gaze skimming the tops of his feet, unwilling to meet his eyes. She dug deep for everything Jaxon had taught her about resisting Demiáre soothing, but she didn’t know if it would be enough. This was no Demiáre.
His other hand came to the barrier, and she felt his power lashing out, saw it spark blue where it met the ward. The ward rippled like the surface of the sea as the black-wing’s anger filled the air. He opened his mouth again, and the force of his roar blew Kara’s wet hair back. She stumbled, unable to stand under the strength of his power.
The books on her bedside and the sculptures on her dresser flew into the air and crashed against the wall. The sheets on her bed billowed like sails, until they pulled from the bed and spun in the corner of the room like a tiny tornado had touched down.
“Stop!” She fell to the carpet and huddled against the bare mattress, forcing herself to glance up at him instead of hiding her eyes from the debris-ridden air.
His voice was so loud, her eardrums felt in danger of rupturing. She was just about to cover her head, when with a final thrust of his power, the shimmering blue ward snapped from existence.
The room fell silent in an instant, the objects blowing around dropping to the cluttered floor. The black-wing flexed his hands and walked over the threshold. “You could have chosen differently.”
Kara reached under her mattress and pulled out the dagger she had hidden there. She knew she couldn’t win, but she planned to go down with a fight. She jumped to her feet and thrust the dagger between them. “You just won’t take no for an answer, will you?”
He barely glanced at the blade, just lifted his hand in the air and sucked it from her grip, as if he’d willed it to come to him. “Be still,” he growled.
She was so fucked.
To her surprise, he didn’t immediately gut her. He wandered around her room instead, picking through her things with childlike curiosity. He dropped the knife, then grabbed her pillow from the floor and brought it to his nose. “This smells like you.”
She couldn’t move. She briefly considered flinging herself over the railing, thinking that might be a better death than what he had planned for her, but she knew with his speed and agility, he could catch her before she passed the third floor. “Um…yeah. That’s my pillow.”
He stripped the linen from the pillow, tossed the pillow into the heap of sheets and blankets and held up the pillowcase. “I’m taking it. It’s mine now.” His voice was a rough command, as though he were calling for the world powers to bow down before him.
“Sure,” she croaked, forcing her dry throat to swallow.
He folded the pillowcase and set it on the end of the bed. “What food do you have here?”
“Food?”
“Yes,” he said impatiently.
“What kind do you want?”
“Human food. I haven’t eaten, and I think I need to.”
“You’re not sure?” It was the wrong question to ask. He turned back and snarled in challenge. “I, uh, don’t have much. I was going to go to the store. How about mac and cheese?”
“Yes. Give it to me.”
He followed her out the bedroom door, and Kara was shocked to see the rest of the house in perfect order—almost as shocked as she was by the fact no neighbors were pounding on her door asking if she was all right after the hurricane that had just blown through.
The black-wing sat at her kitchen table and sprawled his legs apart while Kara filled a pot with hot water from the tap. She lit the stove with trembling fingers and took out three boxes of macaroni from the cupboard. “It’ll be a few minutes.”
“Hurry.”
She couldn’t believe it. She was being held captive by a nude Aniliáre who had no qualms about rubbing his bare ass on her breakfast chairs. She took out a jug of milk and some butter from the refrigerator to make the sauce.
“What’s that?” he asked.
She held up the jug. “This?”
He frowned and rose to his feet. “Yes.”
“Milk.”
He walked to the kitchen counter and extended his hand. “Give it to me.”
Without a word, Kara handed him the jug. With the claws poking from his fingertips, he shredded the top of the plastic bottle, then held it to his lips as he gulped and gulped. Milk ran down his chin, onto his chest and the floor under his feet. Shit. That was going to reek when it spoiled if she couldn’t get it out of the rug.
A tiny bubble of laughter burst from her lips. What did a ruined rug matter when she was going to be dead soon? She stuffed back her laughter, thinking of how he might take offense again, but he didn’t seem to care about anything but the white liquid he was guzzling.
Kara watched in wide-eyed shock as he drained the entire gallon of milk. When he was finished, he threw the container down and used the back of his hand to wipe his damp face. “What else do you have?”
Holy shit. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bag of carrots. “Do you want them peeled?”
He ripped the bag from her grip and shoved one long carrot in his mouth. He chewed quickly at first, then slowed, his ravenous expression turning into a disgusted grimace. “No. Not this.”
He flung the bag so hard, it dented the paneling on her cupboard and sent the carrots flying in all directions like little projectiles.
Kara put her hands out. “Calm down, Mr. Black-wing. I’ll find something.” She emptied the pasta into the pot, then turned to inspect the contents of the freezer.
“Julian,” he said.
“What?” She stood with a package of frozen steaks in her hand. “What did you say?”
“I want you to call me Julian.”
“Okay…Julian.” She’d call him whatever the hell he wanted if it got her out of this alive.
He stepped close to her and took the frozen package from her hands. “I’ll eat this.”
“It’s frozen. I have to defros—” The words died in her throat when his cupped palms lit up, burning the plastic cover from around the steaks. Steam rose from the meat. Juicy blood trailed down his forearms as the solid block went floppy in his hands.
He bit into the raw meat and growled. “This. Yes.”
It was half-disgusting, half-enthralling, watching him tear off thick hunks of flesh, devouring the slab of steak with his sharp fangs fully extended. While he finished the second one, Kara drained the macaroni. She didn’t have any milk left, so she just poured the noodles back in the pot and added the butter and cheese powder.
“You still want to try this?” She pointed to the stove. Her knees felt weak and even she could smell the bitter tang of fear oozing out in her sweat, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of showing anything in her expression but contempt.
Kara would have snickered if the whole damn thing hadn’t been so bizarre. “I put it in a bowl and wait for it to cool down.”
“Ah.” He rubbed a fist over his distended stomach. “I’ve had enough.”
She wet a dishtowel and wrung out the water, then tossed it to him. “Here. For the…” She made a face and gestured to his sticky chest and bloody arms.
He frowned, seeming to ponder the merit of the towel, then he wiped it over his skin and threw it down. “I will rest now. Come.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the master bedroom. From the other side of the room, he lifted his hand and the balcony doors slammed shut. She felt the ward springing back to life, first the blue flame, then a stronger surge of energy wafted up from the floor, covering the blue light in smoky, undulating shadows.
When he pulled her down on the bare mattress beside him, her heart thrashed against her ribs. “I’ll just grab you a pillow and blanket,” she said, quickly scooting off the bed and darting around the other side. She picked up the pillow he’d discarded and some blankets and shoved them at his head. “Here you go. I nap on the floor. That’s where I sleep best. It has to do with my bad back. You know…firm surface and all.”
He reached the foot of the bed and grabbed the folded pillowcase he’d claimed as his own, then he caught Kara’s hand again in a tight grip and yanked her down beside him.
Just stay calm, she told herself. Don’t let him see you’re scared, and for heaven’s sake, try not to inhale his scent.
He spooned into her from behind, draped the limp pillowcase over his shoulder and rested his chin on the top of her head. “Stay here. I’ll deal with you when I wake.”
His grip on her was unyielding. She didn’t have an inch to wiggle away. “Sure thing.”
His breath stirred her hair. “You smell right.”
