When we got outside, my pickup was nowhere to be seen.
Looks like dad decided to leave it at the school.
I was glad to have an excuse not to drive my truck to take Laney home.
An excuse to fly, for the first time in months.
A chance to try out the new wings that Laney had woven for me.
“Come on.” I swept my wings out to the side and waited.
Laney didn’t bring out her own wings, though. I blinked at her.
“Don’t worry.” Her voice was soft. “I can feel them. They’re still there. I just might not be able to use them for a while. Not until I’ve recovered.”
I felt a long, slow smile spread across my face. “Can I fly you home, then?”
Her grin was answer enough. I swept her up into my arms and smiled again—and for the first time in months, the expression of happiness on my face was genuine.
I slid us into the ether.
These wings were different from the ones I had been born with. The differences between the originals and the … transplants, I guess? … were small, but palpable. The airflow around these wings was different, and I could feel the cold of the ethereal against the membranes that showed through the fibers that Laney had used to weave them. The bones that attached to my back were somehow thicker and denser, so the wings were, overall, heavier.
But they worked.
Oh, glory be, they worked.
Stretching my wings—my wings—out to either side, I reveled in the feel of the muscles stretching to accommodate the renewed, now unaccustomed, motion.
My back was going to ache tomorrow, in the best way.
Right now, though, I didn’t care.
“Hang on,” I said.
When Laney tightened her arms around my neck, I bent my knees, drew in my wings and took a deep breath. In one motion, I exploded upwards, using my leg muscles to jump as I swept my wings out and down to push the air down and back to propel us up. Even expelling the air from my lungs added to the upward momentum.
Then I was flying.
It was every bit as glorious as I remembered.
Better than my dreams.
And it was real.
Every so often, I would catch a glimpse of my wings and do a double-take as the intricate pattern of dark membrane and silver strands caught my attention. It didn’t take me long to get used to it, though, and soon enough I was ignoring my own wings in favor of taking in the patchwork landscape beneath us.
It had been too long.
I had known I was miserable.
But I hadn’t fully realized how being earth-bound had eaten away at my soul.
Without my wings, I had felt tied to the mundane world. I could still slip into the ethereal, but it was like having one foot pinned to the floor with an iron spike—the pain of moving was too great, so it was easier to stay motionless, to stay out of the ethereal.
Limiting myself only to the human world had damaged me more than I had realized. As I lifted into the air, I could feel my lungs expanding and the air of the ether filling me up. Healing me.
Saving me.
I wondered if anyone else had ever experienced this, ever realized that they needed the ether to be whole.
Then again, maybe this was just a result of getting my wings back. Maybe Laney’s touch had healed my soul, the same way it had healed my body. I couldn’t feel the sickness any longer, so that was at least a start.
I glanced down at the girl in my arms. She was staring up into the night sky at the muffled stars, shining as if through a sheer curtain. Her mouth was open in joyous laughter, but the wind whipped the sound away before it came to me.
By all rights, carrying her in my arms as I flew should have tired me. But like the People, Laney’s physiology seemed to change in the ether, becoming lighter, as if she were designed to fly here.
Because she was. She might be nala, but she was also one of us.
Flying in the mortal world was more difficult.
Everything in the mortal world was more difficult.
For a moment, I wondered why we ever left the ether.
The question had never occurred to me before. We used the ether, moved in and out of it often, slipping from one dimension to the other with varying degrees of ease, but I had never even considered why we didn’t choose to live the bulk of our lives there.
Right now, I would have been happy to stay on this side of the veil between worlds. The side without school, or parents, or a not-quite-girlfriend who could wield a dangerous power that everyone seemed to think was the key to saving my entire race.
But for now, I would take flight.
Epilogue
Josh
In my dream, I am stranded on the ground while all around me, winged People—the demon-fairies of Fairy, Texas—soar into the sky without me.
In my dream, I am broken. Destroyed. Flightless.
When I wake, tears wet my cheeks, and I cannot return to sleep.
So instead, I send one text, then quietly leave the house and make my way to the Hamiltons’ place, where I wait for Laney to join me outside.
Somehow, I’m not surprised when she brings Kayla with her. And I’m even less surprised when Mason is waiting for us when we step through to the ether.
Without a word, we all lift off into the star-studded Texas sky.
Laney
As we fly through the ethereal night, I glance around me, at Josh as he swoops around me in great, laughing loops, at Mason, grinning his brilliant white smile and flying sedately for Kayla’s sake, and at Kayla, her arms wrapped tightly around Mason’s neck as she holds on for all she’s worth, her hair streaming behind her, head thrown back and her mouth open wide in joyous laughter.
Yeah, I might be a monster.
But I’m a monster with friends.
With family.
With a boyfriend.
With people who love me.
And it’s better than any dream.
For Readers
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Acknowledgments
There are always more people to thank in the creation of a book than can ever be fully named, and I’m always worried I’m going to forget someone! If you should be here and you’re not, please know you’re in my heart. But here goes: Special thanks to Melanie Karsak for setting up the BIC fairy tale boxed set; I might never have gotten around to finishing this story otherwise! To Kim for being the most amazing beta reader in the world. To my family, for love and support above and beyond anything humanly reasonable. To Lateia and Erin for continued WD plans and reminders of what’s really important. To Deb for reminders not to hide. To all the Blazing Indies: y’all keep my steady. To the Stewart siblings for making me laugh and keeping me sane-ish. And always, most of all, to Isabel, with all my heart. I love you all.
About the Author
Margo Bond Collins is addicted to coffee (mmm...caffeine) and SF/F television, especially Supernatural (mmm...Winchesters). She writes paranormal and contemporary romance, urban fantasy, and paranormal mystery. She lives in Texas with her daughter and several spoiled pets. Although she teaches college-level English courses online, writing fiction is her first love. She enjoys reading urban fantasy and paranormal fiction of any genre and spends most of her free time daydreaming about heroes, vampires, ghosts, werewolves, and the women who love (and sometimes fight) them.
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