How It Is

by T. S. Joyce

  “Coraaaaa,” Gwen sang from the barn. She popped out of the open sliding door with a little bundle of something in her hands. She held up a tiny baby piglet like Rafiki had held up baby Simba in The Lion King. “Today you are a new mother. I’ve named this piglet Peter Pancakes, and she is your baby.”

  Okay, the piglet was a little black and white one, and pretty cute, and probably couldn’t charge her with the epic razor-sharp tusks that wild boars had. The little thing weighed maybe a couple of pounds and probably couldn’t kill her.

  Krome’s eye twitched.

  “I’ll probably be fine,” Cora assured him with a grin. She might be drunk and covered in piglet shit when he picked her up after winning the challenge, but probably mostly fine.

  “You can’t hurt her,” Krome said. “I saw what your mates did for you in the war. They stopped you from ending us. I know it was to save your bears, but it works here too. She’s human. Don’t hurt her.”

  Aux shook his head, and some of the fire left his eyes. “You crows never took the time to figure us out. That was always your problem. Not ours. She’s safe here.”

  Aux strode for the house. Krome turned to Cora and pulled her against his chest. His heart was drumming hard and fast against her cheek. She didn’t want him to leave. She just wanted to hold onto this moment for always, when they were both safe and together.

  Krome leaned down and kissed her hard, then eased back and gripped her neck as he searched her eyes. “You be tough. Call my name if you need me.”

  Cora nodded and then he was gone. He reappeared near his truck, and all around her was a fog of smoke.

  “Krome?” she called out, staggering forward a step. She didn’t know what she wanted to say, only that she didn’t want to say goodbye like that.

  His lips curved up slightly. “I will.”

  He was answering all of her questions. All of her pleas.

  Come back to me.

  I will.

  Fight like hell.

  I will.

  Tell me the second it’s over.

  I will.

  He turned, got into his truck, and left. She watched him until his truck disappeared into the trees. Cora’s lip trembled and her eyes filled with burning tears. She felt hollow inside.

  “He’ll be fine,” Aux said from the porch behind her.

  “You don’t understand,” she said low. “We don’t know if he can even fly yet.”

  When she turned around, Aux was studying her. “Why the coup? Why is his second challenging him?”

  “Because every chance he had to end your line, he didn’t. And sometimes he didn’t end your line because he couldn’t.” She hoped he understood. There were times when Krome had chosen not to hurt them, and that had caused cracks in his Murder. “And when I came along, I think it was the last straw.” Cora shrugged up her shoulders. “I’m human. Krome wasn’t supposed to choose a human.”

  “That’s not weakness,” Aux murmured. “Can you feel it? Can you feel the difference in him? I can. He’s stronger. That’s because of you. It’s a bond. It’s real, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “You and him?”

  That damn tear spilled onto her cheek, and she brushed it away quickly. She’d never been through so many waves of emotions in a week. Miserably, she nodded. “I just found him, and this doesn’t feel fair.”

  “And today will be hard because you will be worried, but time will fix it.” He twitched his chin toward the barn where Gwen was leaning against it, cradling the piglet against her chest and watching them. “She’ll keep your mind off it as best as she can.”

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For not turning me away. You could’ve. You probably hate the crows.”

  Aux shook his head. “Not anymore. My brothers do, but not me. I read the journals of their history, and ours. I don’t like them, sure, but I understand why they’ve made the choices they did. There was never a good guy and a bad guy in this war.” His eyes looked a hundred years old as he said, “There were just two sides doing the best they could with what they had.”

  Gwen meandered toward them with the piglet tucked into the inside flap of her coat. “I think you should let her read it.”

  Cora didn’t understand the loaded look that passed between Aux and Gwen.

  “Read what?”

  Aux nodded. “I’ll get them.”

  “We’ll be in the guest room,” Gwen called after him as she offered the piglet to Cora.

  “Oh, no, no, no thank you. I’ll just look at him from here.”

  “Peter Pancakes a girl and she’s your daughter.” The instant Gwen set the little critter against Cora’s chest, a squeal wrenched out of that tiny body that startled the pants off Cora.

  “Come on,” Gwen said, marching up the stairs. “Let’s get you some clothes with less bloodstains on them.”

  Cora stood there holding the little screaming pig out in front of her.

  These were her bodyguards. A bear shifter who, a few days ago, had been at war with the man she boned, his pig-loving tequila-shooting girlfriend, and Peter Pancakes.

  She pulled the noisy thing to her chest and patted its tiny hiney in comfort as she made her way up the stairs behind Gweneth Smithers.

  She was just going to have to trust Krome.

  Gwen had three outfits picked out by the time Cora found her in the bedroom off the living area. The clothes were laid neatly across the bed.

  “I don’t know your style yet, so just pick whatever you want,” Gwen said, rummaging through another drawer.

  Cora adjusted the oinking piglet into one hand and ran her finger down the nylon blue skirt closest to her. “Is this the costume from Pretty Woman?”

  “I have the wig too if you want to go all out.”

  Cora was worried to death for Krome right now, but she couldn’t help the snicker that worked its way up her throat. Gwen had given her the hooker option, a neon orange romper and snow boots, ripped up jeans with holes up the thighs, a few sweaters, a t-shirt that was two sizes too big, and a unicorn onesie.

  She chose the ripped-up jeans and a burgundy sweater that hung off her shoulder, changed in the bathroom, and came back to a tray of snacks laid out on the coffee table in the living room.

  “Aux made us snacks.”

  The tray was like one of those fancy charcuterie boards but it had cheese crackers, mini corn dogs, cheese sticks, fruit roll-ups, gummy worms, and canned margaritas.

  “I didn’t know if you like yours with ice,” Aux said from where he was setting two glasses of ice by the snack board. He looked nervous.

  “Oh, and here.” He pulled a journal off the end table and handed it to Cora. “I’ll be outside working on the tractor while you two do your girl shit.”

  “Thank you so much!” she called as Aux made his escape outside.

  Gwen looked after him with a soft smile on her lips. “He’s pretty special.”

  “And sweet,” she said, cradling Peter Pancakes closer to her chest. The piglet was starting to go to sleep. The journal hung from Cora’s other hand, and when she moved, a photograph fell out of the pages.

  With a frown, Cora knelt down and picked it up. It was an old black and white photograph of a young crow on a tree branch. Familiarity washed over her like a tsunami and she gasped.

  It was a picture of Atlas.

  Chills rippled up her arms. “What is this?”

  “Read the back,” Gwen said, taking Peter Pancakes from her grasp. Journal in hand, Cora sank into the couch cushions and flipped the picture over.

  Krome’s first flight.

  What? No.

  She studied the crow again. It was a pied crow but it didn’t have the normal chest piece. Usually, the white chest plate was symmetrical on both sides, but Atlas had only had half of a white chest shield on the right side.

  She’d never seen another pied crow like it, until now.

  Atlas. Her Atlas. This looked li
ke her Atlas, but it was her Krome?

  Stunned, she blinked back tears as a dozen memories of Atlas bombarded her.

  She’d found him again. Kind of.

  Cora set the picture beside her and opened the journal to an entry in the middle.

  …looks so much like his mother. I feel like the luckiest man in the world when I look at their faces, but I know they aren’t safe. No one is safe until the bears are stopped. So many have died and the ones that remain have started hunting us. I guess I understand. They feel hunted too. It feels like it will never end, but I want it to, desperately. For Krome. Someday he will lead a Murder. I know he will. He has it in him. I want him to build crows into a family, not train War Birds. I want his life to be better. I want there to be less pain. I want him to be happy. I’m tired. I feel old and creaky and my wings are stiff from all the battles with these damn bears. Sometimes I think if I didn’t have Mercy and Krome, I would’ve turned into something awful…

  This felt too intimate to read, and guilt unfurled inside of her chest. “Is it okay that I’m reading this?” she asked Gwen.

  “Krome made sure we found them, along with Ellsie Bane’s journal. I think he wanted us to understand both sides.” Gwen reached forward and turned the page over. “I think he wanted to humanize the Crow Blooded to us.”

  Pictures were taped to the tattered paper. One was of a woman holding a baby, her neck curved gracefully as she smiled down at the child’s face. The next was of a man with his arms reaching out to a little boy in the branches of a tree, waiting to catch him with a big smile on his scarred face. Another was of a dark-haired boy with raven-black eyes, blowing out the candles of a birthday cake that had the number four on it. The next made her heart sad. It was a picture of the little boy sitting on the front porch, as if he was waiting for someone to come home. The next page had different handwriting. The words were written in a pretty cursive lettering instead of the block letters from before. Just six words written directly on the middle line of the page.

  …I think it’s just us now…

  Cora flipped through the next few entries, and it was Krome’s mom’s writing from then on.

  Slowly, she thumbed her way back to the four pictures taped to the page, and ran her fingertip along the edge of the one of Krome waiting for his dad to come home. God, she knew that feeling.

  She began reading the first entry from Mercy.

  …I hate the bears, but not for any reason my people would understand. Not because they took my mate from me. Not because of our history with them, or the losses we have suffered in the battles with their kind. I hate them for what they will take from my son. He has, by no fault of his, inherited two unfortunate things. One, he has the grit that my mate was born with. He has that dominance, that will to fight. He’s good at it. He has those leadership qualities that will serve him well as king someday. And two, he has inherited a chip on his shoulder, carved out by the death of his father at the paws of Cyrus Bane. How can he ever lead a life outside of this war? It doesn’t matter what I want for him, Fate has her own plans for his life. I watch him, and I watch the pieces come together, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t stop any of it. Someday, the bears will take my son from me too. Not because they want to, but because he will have no choice but to push them into it. Krome is made to be a king, but to remain king, he will have to continue the war.

  War is the only thing we know…

  Cora closed the journal and gripped the edges. Geez. It was illuminating seeing it from his mother’s point of view. It made Cora understand better.

  “You look overwhelmed,” Gwen said, handing her a canned margarita and Peter Pancakes.

  Cora accepted both and just sat there, cuddling the cold can and piglet, staring at the journal on her lap.

  “I remember how it was,” Gwen told her. “It’s a lot. You go from having your normal, everyday, human problems, and then discover there is this entire hidden society with fighting, and struggling with an animal, and managing a hierarchy that doesn’t make sense to us. But you know? The good parts are really, really good.”

  “How did you get used to it all?”

  “Time. It just takes time.”

  “Gwen?” Aux called from outside. His voice rang through the house and had a note of warning in it.

  Her demeanor changed in an instant as she sat straight up on the other side of the couch, alarm in her eyes. “Yeah?” she called back.

  “Grab the shotgun.”

  Gwen was up in a flash, sprinting for a rack of guns hanging on the wall. Cora bolted to the door and threw it open

  “Oh my gosh,” Cora murmured as she looked up at the sky.

  Caw, caw, caw.

  Caw, caw.

  Caw, caw, caw.

  The sound of the crows was deafening. Their wings cluttered the sky and blotted out the sun.

  It wasn’t time yet. Right? It wasn’t time for Krome’s challenge. And they shouldn’t be here.

  This was supposed to be a safe haven.

  “Get back inside,” Gwen told her as she knelt down on the living room and fumbled with a box of shotgun shells. The gun cradled in her arms looked enormous. On the front lawn, Aux spoke quickly into his phone too low for her to hear, and then ran for them.

  “Cora, come inside!” Gwen yelled.

  It wasn’t fair. These people had taken her in to give her sanctuary, and now the Murder would come after them?

  No. No, no, no.

  She bolted for Gwen, dropped to her knees, and handed Gwen two of the spilled shells as Aux slammed the door closed behind them.

  Cora was caught in-between. Right in the middle of a storm that had been built around her and for what? Because of the coup? Because she was human? She hadn’t asked for any of this! But she damn-sure couldn’t stand by while the Murder attacked the people Krome had trusted her with.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she murmured, and wished to hell she was as confident as she sounded.

  “Get downstairs,” Aux called over the deafening crash of breaking glass.

  The windows all shattered inward as the crows slammed into them like torpedoes.

  “Don’t change!” Gwen pleaded as they scrambled for a door near the kitchen.

  Something hit Cora hard in the back, and another crow landed on Gwen.

  Cora screamed as they were covered. They couldn’t get to the basement. Couldn’t get to the door.

  “Don’t change!” Gwen screamed. “Aux! You can’t kill them!”

  Cora couldn’t see. Talons clawed and scratched at her, and beaks slashed and pecked at her face. She flailed frantically, but there were too many.

  A roar filled the room and shook the floors beneath her, and Cora gasped in terror as she felt the weight of a monstrous power.

  The Banes weren’t supposed to kill or they would lose control of their animals. Gwen was screaming and the sound of a shotgun blast deafened Cora.

  Talons gripped her arms and yanked her backwards so fast she lost her breath. Cold air blasted against her as she was pulled through the broken front window and out into the sky.

  Out of desperation, Cora screamed, “Krome!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Krome hated being away from her. Hated it down to every fiber of his being, but he had work to do. He had blood to shed. He had a throne to defend, so he could offer her the seat beside him.

  Until this was settled, she was safest away from him.

  He’d repeated that in his mind a dozen times, but it still left a bitter taste in his mouth.

  Two o’clock.

  The time in his truck had seemed to glow brighter with every minute that ticked by. Two hours to batten down the hatches.

  Above his house, storm clouds roiled. Fitting for the backdrop of today. Open up the clouds for all he cared. Rain or shine, didn’t matter to him. All that mattered was that Laken would fall today.

  To a man like Krome, loyalty was everything. Betrayal was unforgiveable. He’d kept a calm fa
çade for Cora, because he hadn’t wanted to scare her, but the devil in him wanted at Laken. He thirsted for this fight. Ached to put him in his place.

  Laken questioning his role as king in front of the Murder would undermine his power. He would have to be swift about punishments and remind his crows how he got here. It wasn’t by vote. It was by violence.

  When he’d said Cora didn’t understand what he was. It wasn’t that she couldn’t understand. She was a very smart woman. She just hadn’t seen what he was capable of yet.

  He shoved his door open and shut it behind him. Two hours. He strode for his house as the wind kicked up, and the first drops of rain pattered on the snowy slush around him. His boots crunched through the frozen yard, and as he almost reached his porch, a strange feeling came over him.

  It was the feeling of being watched. The sensation of being hunted.

  He froze, then turned his face and reached for the woods with his heightened peripheral vision.

  Nothing moved, but something was there.

  He could sense it.

  Inside of him, the crow coiled, ready to rip out of him.

  Something huge fell from the sky and slammed into the ground behind him, and Krome hunched down defensively.