by Charlie Hart
“Regardless, I have more rules,” she says. “Are you ready for them?”
We nod, taking off our boxers and stepping toward her.
“No jealousy,” she says. “Between any of us. No judgment. No secrets.” She pauses, hands on the waistband of her panties. “And I need you to all accept one thing.”
“What?” Arrow asks, listening carefully.
“My love.”
I smile, my heart fucking growing ten times in size. It’s what I dreamed to hear, what I hoped. I want Lark to feel all the love we can possibly bestow. I know I told her I loved her, but I know it is how all of us feel. When we flew together tonight, it was clear.
All for one. One for all.
“You mean it?” Brecken asks.
She nods. “With all my heart.”
“And you’re not just saying it because you want us to fuck you?” North asks.
“That might be a part of it,” she says with a slight smile.
“Well good, because I love you too, Lark,” Brecken says, walking toward her, naked. He steps into the nest and wraps his arms around her. “I love you so damn much.”
“And it’s not just because I look sexy with wings?” she asks.
He shakes his head. “Nope,” he laughs. “It’s because you have such a nice tail.”
Their shoulders shake as they laugh, and then he steps away, which means something, considering it’s Brecken. He’s taking all of her but he’s willing to share.
North moves to the nest and lifts her chin with his finger, looking into her eyes. “I love you, Lark, and I can’t believe I ever thought we stood a chance of denying ourselves one another.”
He kisses her passionately. Her body melts against his chest as their mouths open in a deep and heartfelt kiss.
I swear to God, everyone’s cocks are growing hard watching her stand here, naked and bare, heart open and willingly offering it to us.
Arrow walks to her, lacing his fingers with hers. Their foreheads press together, and the moment feels intimate and I feel honored to be standing here, sharing it with them.
“I know today was the lowest of lows,” he tells her. “And our love will never replace the love of your mother, but I hope it can be a salve on your broken heart.”
He kisses her then, so softly it’s as if it barely happens, yet the commitment wrapped around them is intense and real. “I love you, Lark,” he says.
“I love you, too,” she whispers.
Then Vaughn clears his throat. “Uh,” he starts, and then runs a hand through his hair. “Lark, uh, you know I’m bad with speeches.”
“I don’t need a speech,” she tells him. “I just need you.”
“Good,” he tells her, stepping toward her, and picking her up off the ground. “Because you’re all I need too.”
He kisses her, and her legs wrap around his torso, and her ass looks so fucking good like that. I can’t help but run a hand up and down my shaft, my growing cock alive with desire.
“I love you, Lark,” Vaughn tells her, setting her down on the floor once more.
“I love you more,” she tells him. She licks her lips, looking at us all, greedily, with hunger. With want.
“I know this day has been so long, but please,” she says. “Don’t make me beg for what I need.”
My arms reach around her, guiding her to the blankets beneath us, then running my hands all over her perfect body, needing to press myself into her warm and wanting pussy.
I try and steady my breath as I take her in, with her hawks around her, in this nest, our love for her so real, so deep, so true.
“I love you,” I say again as her hand wraps around my cock, knowing what I need.
Her. Now. Forever.
Always.
Gaia brought us to her, but love is keeping us together.
29
Lark
Apparently, I missed about five thousand phone calls last night. I had left my phone at the theater last night, and then last night happened.
All of last night happened.
My thighs are jelly and I need a shower to wash off... everything.
And now, it’s five a.m., and Mark is at my house with a box of donuts.
“You don’t have to do it,” he says.
“Could you really cancel?” I ask.
He runs a hand over his jaw. “I mean, your mother died twelve hours ago.”
“I think I’m still in shock,” I tell him.
“Can I come in?” he asks.
Behind me I hear the guys moving around, stirring, and getting dressed. “Uh, sure,” I say, leading him past the living room and through the hall to the kitchen.
But Brecken is already there, making coffee.
“Uh, hey,” he says to Mark, nodding.
Mark frowns. “Were you here last night?” he asks him.
I raise my eyebrows. “That’s not really your business.”
“Your mother would have a fit,” he says as Sawyer and Arrow walk in the kitchen.
“I’m starved,” Sawyer says, reaching for an apple fritter from the donuts Mark has set on the table.
“Guess I should have brought more,” he says as Vaughn and North come in half dressed. “I’m not even going to ask.”
“Good. Because I doubt I’d have given you an answer you’d like to hear.”
Mark’s brows crease. “What’s gotten into you, Lark?”
Mark’s known me since I was a young performer, just learning about acrobatics. He knows how eccentric my mother was, but he never judged, never pressed. He looked for talent and he saw it in me.
“I’m not what you think,” I tell him, wanting to admit the one thing that has been on my mind since Remedy told me about our heritage last night. “I can only do what I do on stage because of this ring and some sort of magic I was born with.”
I hold it up to him and leans in, looking at the ring.
Running a hand over his jaw, Mark pushes his lips forward in thought. “Honey, I don’t care if your mom used some voodoo magic on you, if you drank a potion or cast a spell, I just care about what you can do, not why you can do it.”
“But doesn’t it change everything? I don’t deserve the show. I don’t deserve any of this.”
“Deserve?” Mark bats the air with his hand, sighing. Reaching for a mug he pours himself coffee as if done with the talk.
“Look,” he says, turning back to me. “Show business is just like life. No one deserves a damn thing. But sometimes you’re lucky. You meet the right person when you are nine years old, like you did when we met. Or you happen to have a mother who is a witch, and who gives you a magic ring. Do you deserve a mother who loved you with all that she was? No. Look at these men,” Mark says pointing to my hawks.
“They grew up in a group home, without a family,” he says. “Pulled up their bootstraps and managed to catch a big break. Did they not deserve a mother like you had? Of course they did.”
I swallow, trying to follow.
“Look, Lark,” he says. “There’s an old saying: fortune favors the brave. I figure that’s the best I can do. Be brave, and hope it goes in my favor. Take a chance, a risk. Use what I got and make the best of it. But no one deserves a Vegas show. So, if you have it, don’t waste it. Don’t second guess as to why. Just go all in, with all that you are.”
“You don’t think less of me?”
“I think all the magic in the world doesn’t change the fact you are the hardest working woman on this strip. You fought for your show. You don’t do anything halfway. You go all in: heart, mind, soul.”
“If people knew, they would think I didn’t earn this,” I say. It’s a relief to admit to him my deepest fears.
“Why do you care what people think? Forget them and own it. Own who you are. What you were made to be. You may think a ring makes you special, but Lark, you were made to fly.”
I wrap my arms around him and cry into his arms. It’s such a comfort to have him erase my worries. “Tha
nk you,” I say. “For believing in me.”
“Your mom would have had the right words for an opening day pep talk.” He shakes his head. “I hope it didn’t get too wordy there at the end.”
“You did good,” I tell him. Running my fingers under my eyes to wipe away the tears, I exhale.
“So, what do you think about tonight?” Arrow asks.
I look around my mother’s kitchen, at my hawks–my cast mates–and Mark, the casting director who has always had my back.
Letting them down is not an option. Besides, this performance can be a tribute to the woman who always believed in me. I may not have done anything to earn her love, but I had it.
And this show tonight will be my gift to her.
I don’t know what will come next. I’m not sure what it means to embrace all of me, the woman I was made to be–but I can step on stage.
Smiling, I pull back my shoulders. “I think the show must go on.”
30
Brecken
The theater is pitch dark. The orchestra is in place. We’re backstage in our costumes. Everything is set.
I can’t believe how brave Lark is being. It’s not that she has set aside her sorrow, it’s like she has wrapped her heart around it, her sadness transforming to love, and she won’t be stopped tonight. She looks stronger than I’ve ever seen her.
More beautiful, too.
“Lark,” I say, slipping into her dressing room. “Look at you.”
“Insane, right?” She spins around, her skirt twirling. It’s gorgeous, a white gown fit for a princess. Her dark hair is piled high on her head, with ringlets pinned in place. A diamond encrusted tiara sits upon her head.
“Insane. But also, kinda perfect.”
She takes a deep breath, then drops her shoulders. “Speaking of insane. Last night was kinda nuts.”
I smile, stepping toward her, setting a hand on her waist. “There were a lot of nuts.”
That makes her face flush bright red.
I lean in so close I could kiss her, but wanting to be on my best behavior.
“What? Not even little kiss?” she asks, those wide eyes of hers searing mine.
I shake my head. “Can’t ruin your makeup.”
She laughs, rolling her eyes playfully.
“Hey, remember back when we started rehearsals, and Melanie told us the plot of the show? The princess in the tower, the men who came to save her, how I was the bad guy, and how you got locked in the cage?”
She nods, obviously. We’ve rehearsed this show hundreds of times.
“Anyway,” I say. “You asked Melanie how you got out of the cage, and she told you the hero came and saved you and you asked who the hero was.”
“What about that?”
“You seemed sad when she told you the heroes were the men. I always wanted to ask, who did you want the hero to be? Who did you want to save the princess from the birdcage?”
Lark, dips her chin, then raises her eyes. “I guess I was kind of hoping she would save herself.”
I run my hands over her arms, staring at her. “You can, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe not in tonight’s show, but in life. I mean, we’re here for you, as your hawks, but maybe you’re bigger than us. More than us.”
“I don’t know what that means exactly,” she admits.
“I just mean, don’t let us hold you back from your destiny. We can fly with you, but you can fly first.”
“Why do you see me as more than I see myself?”
“Because, Lark, you’re the girl who can fly.”
She sighs and wraps her arms around my waist. “Are you nervous?” I whisper in her ear.
“No,” she says, but her voice is so soft, and I know she’s holding something back. “I’m ready for the show. Melanie did an amazing job preparing us for it.”
“Then what is it?”
“I’m having a hard time understanding everything that happened last night is all.”
My eyes narrow, my heart suddenly tight. “You didn’t mean what you said?”
Her face looks pained. “No, no, not that. I love you. You can’t get out of this already.”
“I’m not getting out of anything,” I tell her. “What about last night then?”
“About Remedy. Her story. Our story. Do you think it is true?”
I take a deep breath, not sure if this is the right time for this talk. “I don’t want my opinions to influence you, Lark. You’re your own woman. And I don’t want to change that.”
“Tell me what you think. Please. Usually, I would ask my mom to weigh in, but she’s gone. I need to know what you think.”
“Well, I think it’s true.” I look down at her. “You saw what she did in the desert. She shifted, put out a fire. Has a ring an awful lot like yours. And she isn’t on the eagle’s side. She sent him away.”
“What if that was a part of their game? To lure me in?”
“Here’s what I think. You ready for it?”
She runs a hand over her neck. “I’m ready.”
“I think you got your answers. The ones you keep saying you want. And you don’t like them. You want the truth to be something it isn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“The story isn’t a happy one. Angry fathers trying to take down their daughters? Hunting them for dead? That isn’t the father-daughter story anyone wants to hear. So, I get it. Why play a role in that?” I pause for effect. “But what if that isn’t the whole story.”
“What do you mean?”
“What if the story needs you. What if it isn’t about a father and his daughter, instead it’s about a mother and her child?”
She shakes her head, tears welling up in her eyes. “But I already have a mother. I don’t need to find another one.”
I take her hands because this is the part I didn’t want to say. I don’t want to burden her; to put things on her shoulders that weigh her down. Still, she asked, so I will answer.
“You say you aren’t special, that you just have a magic ring. But you are special, Lark. You have something in your heart the rest of us hawks don’t. Your mother’s love.”
“I don’t know what Remedy even wants me to do,” she says. “She came barging into my life and I don’t even understand what she expects–”
“She wants your help. She wants her sisters to come together and then see if Gaia will give you more information.”
“But one of our sisters is already dead,” she says.
I hold her cheek, trying not to get lost in her eyes. “Lark, if you are truly the daughter of Zeus, if Remedy is the daughter of Ares, and Harlow is the daughter of Poseidon, that means your other sister was the daughter of a Greek god too.
“It means you’re goddesses, or demi-gods, or something powerful. You can fly. Remedy uses her hands and kills fire. She said Harlow is a siren who can calm the fucking sea. You don’t know for sure what happened to your other sister. But maybe she isn’t dead...”
“I don’t want to hold on to false hope,” Lark says.
“Maybe it isn’t false.” I shrug as the sound system directs us to take our places. “Maybe it’s just complicated.”
She closes her eyes, her hand on my wrist, holding it in place, against her cheek. “It’s all too complicated.”
“Not all of it,” I say, kissing her even though I shouldn’t. “This, what we share, it isn’t complicated.”
She bites her bottom lip, holding back a laugh. “Did you just say a relationship between one woman and five hawk shifters isn’t complicated?”
I kiss her again. “Okay, good point. Maybe a little complicated. But it also means you have five men in your corner.”
“All for one.”
“One for all.”
Our eyes close as we hold on to one another, not ready for the moment to end.
Melanie sticks her head in the dressing room. I kiss Lark one more time before Melanie pipes up.
; “Okay, lovebirds, it’s show time!”
31
Lark
The show starts, and I open my heart, as wide as I can, giving it all that I’ve got.
For Mom.
Mark was right. I do have something special and isn’t about the ring or magic in my veins.
It’s the love in my heart.
Halfway through the show, I do a costume change, slipping off the ball gown and changing into my bird’s wings, I smile, thinking how this show mirrors my own life. Five men swept into my life.
But they aren’t locking me in a birdcage. Before the show, Brecken, the show’s villain, reminded me that I can be as free as I want. Fly as high as I want.
I believe him.
I climb a ladder backstage, positioning myself for my sweeping entrance with the white dove wings on my back. It’s the moment when thousands of white feathers are meant to be released into the audience. Then I pause.
Someone in the front row catches my eye.
It’s startling, seeing someone whose face matches your own.
His body is twice the size of any man I’ve ever seen, and we can’t be more opposite in terms of appearance. I am small and he is all power, all strength–but his eyes pierce mine.
I know those eyes.
They are mine.
He knows I know.
He’s the eagle in human form.
I’m supposed to leap from the top of the ladder the moment the orchestra starts up again but I’m frozen in place. Last night this man came after me in the sky–shooting bolts of lightning at me, trying to kill me.
I’m not ready to die. Not now.
Not like this.
I look down, searching for one of my hawks to meet my gaze, wanting them to understand. But the stage lights are blindingly bright, and the complicated set of tree branches obscure my view. In this scene, I leap from the ladder and fly from branch to branch, until I eventually land in Vaughn’s arms.
An extra second passes. The two, then three. I have to jump before I start freaking the stage crew out.
Everyone is counting on me to make my entrance, so I do. Clinging to the idea that this man – who, according to Remedy is actual Zeus–won’t cause a scene. By, you know, trying to kill me.
