How It Is

by T. S. Joyce

  Laken and Bron strode in, and behind them, in the hallway, Krome could see some of his other crows, Donovan, Trent, and Archer.

  “We will only have a few minutes to get the X-rays and get out of there,” Laken told Cora. “We can only disable the main cameras for eight minutes before the back-ups will come on, and we can’t get past those firewalls.”

  “Eight minutes. Okay.” Cora glanced at him, and her eyes had fear in them. From what? Laken? Bron?

  Krome slid his glare to Laken. “Cora is to be treated better.”

  “We haven’t harmed her.”

  “She smells scared.”

  “Well, she’s a human and humans scare easier than—”

  “Laken!” He let his fury into the word, and his second choked on his excuses. “You’ve taken her from her home. While she’s in our care, she will be treated well. Comfortable clothes, better food, and privacy if she wants it.”

  “Yes, King,” Laken said low.

  Bron stepped forward. “The van is ready to transport you.”

  Cora stood and made her way to the desk. There were rows of medicine vials and needles lined up on it and she chose one, unwrapped a sterile syringe and filled it from a vial, then knelt down in front of him. There was apology in her eyes. “This will make you feel strange for a while, but it’ll help the pain.”

  Krome looked around the room at his men staring at him. He didn’t trust humans. He only trusted crows, but Cora was different. Atlas had made her different. He had changed her insides.

  He nodded and held his arms still as she administered the medicine.

  “Let’s move him quick,” she told the guys. “As little jostling him as you are able. Laken and Bron, get on either side of him, and you boys out there, open the doors and keep the path clear.” She turned to Krome and leveled him with those pretty green-brown eyes. “Thirty seconds, okay?”

  His head was swirling more already. The edges of his vision blurred and the colors all mixed together like an abstract watercolor painting. The only thing in focus now was Cora, and her pretty eyes. One of her pupils was slightly larger than the other. Did she know how pretty she was?

  His body left the ground, and the pain buckled him inward. Thirty seconds, she’d said. He believed her. Trusted her. She helped crows.

  Twenty-five. Her voice rattled in his mind.

  Twenty.

  God, it hurt. Everything hurt. He needed to change so badly. Changing would make the pain in his muscles go away.

  “Ten.”

  Pretty voice. She sounded like one of those clear-toned church bells.

  The frigid air outside blasted across his bare chest. Where was she? Everything was so blurry now. Cora?

  “I’m here,” she whispered, as if she’d read his thoughts.

  He bit back a yell as he was settled into the back of the van. It smelled like her fear in here, too. He didn’t like it.

  She’d been scared and he didn’t like it. Hated it.

  Cora?

  Everything was dark. His body wasn’t working right. So tired.

  “You did so good,” she whispered. She was close.

  Her hand touched his arm, and he reached for her.

  “Go to sleep. You’re safe,” she told him.

  He’d never trusted a human before.

  But he trusted this one.

  Atlas had made this one different.

  Chapter Four

  Krome wasn’t completely asleep.

  Cora stared at where he held onto her hand. He was supposed to be completely unconscious, but his grip on her hand was so powerful. How strong were these…these…Crow Blooded men?

  “We’re here,” Laken murmured as he pulled into a back alleyway of the urgent care. The lights were all turned off except for the sign on the building.

  A voice came from a walkie talkie he’d set in the cupholder between him and Bron up front.

  “You have forty-five seconds to get him inside the building past that door camera. The alarm won’t trip. The code is 101069.”

  Cora snorted. Sixty-nine. Nice.

  Could Krome hear her? He wasn’t supposed to. She’d given him enough meds to fell an elephant, but Laken had explained he would burn through medicine at a different rate than she was used to.

  “We’re taking you in now. Just stay relaxed. I’ll have pictures of your wings soon.”

  This was B&E. This was B&E! She was about to commit breaking-and-entering with a bunch of kidnapper half-animal criminals! She’d never broken the law before. She was a straight-and-narrow kinda gal who always minded the rules, and now she was committing crimes.

  Krome groaned in pain, and she squeezed his hand. “Forty-five seconds.”

  Laken parked and the boys yanked open the swinging back doors, and pulled Krome out smoothly. Cora ran in front of them, not gracefully because she was turning into a mother-freaking felon and her nerves were ramped up, and made it to the keypad by the back door. 101069. A green light flashed and there was the sound of a lock clicking.

  Score! She was the best felon in the world!

  She shoved the door open for the boys to bring Krome in and…the alarm deafened her.

  Oh God, she was the worst felon.

  She hunched her shoulders and locked eyes with Laken, who looked as startled as she felt.

  “What did you do?” he demanded.

  “Punched in the number and opened the door, like they said on the radio! It’s not my fault you delinquents didn’t disarm the alarm.”

  “Uuuuuuh,” a voice crackled over the walkie talkie clipped to Bron’s belt. “You have four minutes until the cops are there. Better get a move on.”

  “I’m going to fucking throttle you, Donovan,” Bron griped into the radio.

  “Not if you go to jail, asshole,” came the reply.

  The mention of jail sure got Cora’s legs moving fast. Four minutes. Shit on a stick, that wasn’t very much time.

  “X-rays,” she muttered clicking on her flashlight, and bolting down the hall. She found the right room at the third door and ushered the boys inside. Krome’s legs and wings were dragging the floor. God, his wings were probably a sight to behold before they’d been destroyed.

  Cora went on autopilot flipping switches, turning lights on, warming up machines. Krome screamed when she stretched his left wing out over the flat, cold surface of the X-ray table, but it couldn’t be helped. There was no time for gentle. She had to take four pictures of each wing because they were so big.

  She took the pictures of his left wing fast, and then of his right wing, but it would take her extra time to pull the film.

  “Come on,” Laken demanded as she worked.

  Her fingers were fumbling, trying to figure out the unfamiliar equipment. She wasn’t used to machines and film this big.

  “I hear sirens,” Bron murmured, placing himself under Krome’s left arm.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Cora pointed out in a shaking voice as she worked.

  “One minute!” Donovan said over the radio.

  “Fuck,” Laken cursed. “Bron, get Krome to the van and leave.”

  “He said to take care of her. We can’t leave her.”

  “I’m not! I’ll get her out of here. Get Krome clear of this.”

  Bron nodded and bolted for the door, dragging Krome at his side. They disappeared into the hallway as she pulled the film on the last one and slapped it up onto the light board to make sure she’d gotten good pictures.

  “We gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go,” Laken chanted.

  Geez, his bones were a mess. “It’s good enough.”

  She sprinted for the door behind him, the X-ray pictures flapping in her hands, but when they looked at the back door, police lights were flashing and cops were filing in.

  “Shit.” Laken shoved her the opposite way down the hall. It was a dead end this way. Laken grabbed her arm, pushed her into a room, picked up a chair, and hurled it through a big window with a tremendous crash. C
ora screamed and shielded her face with her arms, and then something awful happened. Something awful and confusing.

  Laken said, “Hold onto the pictures,” and then a pair of cold talons gripped her arm. Cora was yanked upward and her feet left the ground as her body was catapulted through the window.

  She gripped the X-rays harder as her stomach dipped to her toes, and a scream clogged her throat as she opened her eyes. Trees were blasting by her face. A branch slashed at her and she closed her eyes again in a flinch at the sudden pain.

  And then it was done.

  As suddenly as she’d been lifted into the air, she was dropped to the earth again. Her sneakers hit asphalt, and Laken was a man again, fully clothed and waving down the van that was speeding down the street directly for them.

  Bron slammed on his brakes and Laken yanked her into the open back doors. Before he’d even closed them again, they were off, speeding down the road as the sound of sirens faded away behind them.

  “You got them?” Bron asked in a frantic voice.

  Chest heaving, Cora looked down at her death grip on the X-ray pictures. They were crumpled on the edge where she held them, but were all right. “Y-yes. We got them.”

  Laken and Bron both huffed sighs of relief as she looked over at Krome. He was laying on his side, his wings crushed against the wall of the van. His eyes were open and his gaze was on her. Hoarsely, he said, “You did good.”

  Cora melted back against the wall of the van and rolled her eyes closed as she waited for her heart to stop trying to eject itself from her body. “So did you.”

  A gentle touch brushed her ankle. When she opened her eyes she saw it was Krome’s hand, gripping her right above her sneaker. “You flew,” he said.

  “I always wondered what it would feel like.”

  “And?”

  “I never want to do that again.”

  Krome huffed out a pained laugh, winced, and curled in on himself.

  “You burn medicine off very fast, mister,” she said softly.

  And then she did something that surprised even her. She rested her hand on his head and scratched his scalp gently.

  He wasn’t alone. She wanted him to know he wasn’t alone.

  She hadn’t been able to give Atlas the sky back, but she was going to do her best to do better for Krome.

  Chapter Five

  Crow people existed.

  Crow people really existed. Crow shifters? Crow Blooded. Winged sexy men.

  They existed.

  This was all fine and dandy when Cora’s adrenaline had been jacked up to the roof, but she was lying in Krome’s bed, watching his sleeping figure, wondering what the hell kind of dream she’d landed in.

  Today she’d been kidnapped, thought she was going to be murdered, found out flying people existed, committed a crime, was kind of a badass at figuring out new equipment during that crime, got carried through the sky by a crow, ate a roast beef sandwich and cubed potatoes Bron cooked because Krome yelled at him for feeding her fast food, and now she was lying here in the dim light of the desk lamp, pondering what was wrong with her that made her form a crush on a crow-man.

  He was lying on his side on the hard ground, his arm stretched up, his cheek resting on his bicep, his shattered wings behind him.

  In a few hours, she would operate on him, and she was one hundred percent sure it was going to be traumatizing for them both.

  “You’re supposed to be sleeping.” His voice cracked on the last slurred word.

  “So are you.”

  He cracked open those pure black eyes as she slipped out of bed and dragged a pillow along with her. “I know you are most comfortable on the floor right now, but you can at least manage a pillow. I can’t sleep if you are just resting on your arm. It’ll go numb.”

  “Will you go to sleep if I accept the damn pillow? I need you to be rested.”

  “So I don’t accidentally sever an artery in the morning or something?” she asked.

  He frowned.

  “Right. Bad joke. I definitely probably won’t do that. I have steady hands.” She lifted one up to show him but made it tremble on purpose.

  He got even frownier.

  “’Nother joke. Laugh out loud.”

  He groaned while she giggled at herself and her hilariousness. She propped his head up gently and settled the pillow under his cheek.

  “What did you see?”

  “On the X-rays? Lots of brokenness, topped with more brokenness. Bear shifters must be very strong. Next time try to flap away faster, mmmmkay?”

  “No, what did you see when you were a kid?”

  Oh. Her chipper mood faded away in an instant. “Party foul. I would rather talk about anything else in the world.”

  “Did someone die?”

  Cora plopped down on her butt next to him and sighed. “You’re like a dog on a bone, aren’t you, Krome?”

  He gave a little crooked smile. She bet he was stunning when he wasn’t hurt. God, he was stunning even when he was hurt.

  “If I tell you, can we not talk about it anymore. I mean…ever? It doesn’t help to talk about it. Just brings up something I can’t change.”

  “Deal.”

  “And also…”

  “Jesus woman, all you do is negotiate.”

  “Also you have to tell me what happened to your wings.”

  “Some asshole crushed them in his hands. You already knew that.”

  “Not good enough, I want to know the reason why someone would do something so awful to you.”

  He was even hot when he was glaring. “Fine.”

  She chewed on the corner of her lip for a few seconds, contemplating on what to tell him. “Yes, someone died. They died protecting me.”

  “Who was it?” he asked.

  She sighed and leaned back against the side of the bed. “My dad.”

  “Fuck,” Krome murmured.

  “Yeah. Every Friday, after he picked me up from school, we would go to the same gas station for snacks. It was our tradition. He always gave me three dollars and let me get whatever I wanted with it. Usually, we got these fried burritos together. They were his favorite, and I wanted to be just like him.” She stopped for a moment because her voice shook. “It’s been so long and it’s still right there. It’s like it happened yesterday, you know?”

  He nodded like he understood, but nobody could possibly understand what it had really been like.

  “Two men came into the gas station and robbed the place. They killed the cashier, and then everyone else in there. Except for me. My dad threw his body over mine. Told me not to move. I felt every bullet that hit him. Felt him fade away. He died hugging me.” She inhaled a shaky breath and drew her shoulders up to her ears, fought back the burning sensation in her eyes. “And I didn’t say a word for three years after that. I didn’t know how. I didn’t have a voice anymore. Those men had stolen it from me.”

  “And Atlas brought it back.”

  She nodded.

  Krome made a tick sound behind his teeth. “I’m sorry.”

  She’d heard that so often, anytime her dad was mentioned. ‘I’m sorry’ had never made sense to her. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but the men who had come in there to kill, and they were now spending life sentences behind bars.

  But when Krome had said it, there was infinite feeling behind his words. Understanding. He looked right through to her soul with his black eyes when he’d uttered those two words.

  “Me, too,” she whispered. “I really miss him.”

  “The man who crushed my wings is named Moore Bane. He’s the son of Cyrus Bane. Moore is the son of the man who killed my father,” Krome said. “Moore doesn’t even know his father killed mine.”

  Cora’s breath froze in her lungs at the unfairness. “Why did he hurt you?”

  “War,” Krome answered her simply.

  “You were at war because your dad was killed?”

  “We have always been at war. It’s always been bear shifters
on one side and the Crow Blooded on the other. Bears are killers. They can’t help it. They are born with grizzlies inside of them and their human sides are always too weak to control them once they’ve killed.”

  “They kill people?”

  “Yes. A millennium ago, my ancestors made a blood pact to protect human life from the bears, but where we have the numbers, they have brutal strength. And that strength grows in power once they kill, and once they find a mate.”

  “And they killed your father with that power?” she whispered in horror.

  He moved to sit up and grimaced at the pain.

  “We don’t have to talk anymore if you don’t want,” she told him. “You need rest.”

  “I can’t sleep anyway. Plus talking keeps my mind on something other than the pain.” He cleared the hoarseness from his throat. “One generation ago, we almost had the bear shifters extinct. My father was king of the Murder here, and they’d hunted the bears to almost nothing after the existing ones lost control of their animals one-by-one. They killed so many people, and it was our chance to make a run at ending their line. I was born into that war.” He squeezed his hand around the silver pendant that hung from his necklace. The crow skull. “I was four when my father’s Murder of War Birds had whittled it down to two remaining bears. They were a breeding pair, and we had rules. We couldn’t take their lives until they took life. Other than prey, these two had zero kills. They were different. They were trying. The female got pregnant and we watched the pair as she grew. The male, Cyrus Bane, grew more protective with each passing day of her pregnancy. He was antsy. He hunted more. He needed to kill prey more. We could see it, the change in him as his mate grew the next generation. I remember being little and sitting on my father’s lap at the War Bird meetings. They wanted to end the line but that last rule hung over their heads. The Banes hadn’t taken a life yet, but they would. So would their sons. They would have twins or triplets like all of their kind did, and the risk would be that the line would recover. They could change human women into bear shifters with a bite. They could change men with a bite. They could grow huge clans again. And now it’s different. It’s not like the old days when bear shifters were just legends and rumors. Whole villages would be ravaged, but no one had pictures back then. No one had video, or cell phones they could whip out of their pockets and gather proof. Now is a different time. The day the three sons of Bane were born, my father made the call to end the line. Fuck the rules. He was desperate to end the war once and for all.”