by Jaya Moon
He panted into my ear as his hips ground against me in a circular motion and his cock pressed deep inside. And in our minds, we rose in an ever-tightening spiral, riding a thermal above the patchwork world below us. Faster and faster until we burst through clouds into the beautiful blue sky above.
Tallow’s orgasm flowed into me as my body surged and quaked with my own. He cried out my name so loudly I was sure everyone at the Eyrie heard.
10
I lay with my head on Tallow’s heart, listening to its steady beat as he stroked my back. The sun had set and the light of dusk faded. The sound of voices beyond the sanctuary of Tallow’s nest grew louder.
“They’re gathering outside,” he said. “I have to go.”
I didn’t want him to go. It had taken us so long to get to this place, finally together after all the anger and pain. If he left now, would that be the end of the peace between us? I’d like to think it wouldn’t be, but how could I be sure?
“I want to stay here with you,” he said, reading my thoughts. “But I have to be there.”
“The glade?” If I kept him talking he’d stay longer.
He hummed in reply.
“Your mother said it’s a place you go to connect with kin who have died, but she didn’t say anything else.”
He turned to look at me. “You spoke to my mother?”
“Yes. She’s nice.”
His eyes were bright in the dull light. I’m not sure I’d ever seen him look so happy, but a heaviness creeped into my heart and urged me to tell him who else I’d spoken to. I didn’t want to break the spell we were under, but he’d find out sooner or later.
“You were right about your father.”
His body tensed slightly, and the light went out of his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“I spoke to him earlier today too.”
Tallow sat upright, pulling himself from me. I followed him, grabbed at his arms and searched his eyes, hoping my expression reassured him.
“Hear me out before you get angry. As I said, you were right. He tried to convince me to help the kin. Actually, he tried to make me believe you’re all doomed without my help.”
I knew Tallow had begun to battle his instinct to keep me safe and at the same time was trying to swallow his anger, but fury made the muscles in his body tighten. “Help? How?”
“Rescue Savannah Dacore, the mountain lion cub in Lucien’s penthouse.” I watched a deep crease form on Tallow’s forehead as I explained everything that had happened at the Council of Kin, and then narrow as I relayed how his father had implied I would put others at risk, like Mox, if I didn’t help. When I got to the part where Dore had told me my stalling would cost lives, his whole face filled with fury. “Then Berron said they wouldn’t let me stay here or protect me from the Fallen if I didn’t help.”
“I’ll kill him.” Tallow shot to his feet at the side of the bed. “I’ll kill both of them.”
I grabbed his wrist. “No. No. Tallow. Don’t. It’s okay. I don’t want Savannah trapped with Lucien, and I admit it makes me conflicted, but—” I wanted to tell him how part of me believed saving Savannah might make all the complications we faced come to an end. But any hint I’d considered helping Dore would most likely end up with Tallow either angry at me or on the warpath with his father and Berron. “—I think they’re just calling my bluff. There must be some other way to get her out without me. They won’t give up, will they.” I stated it like fact even though I didn’t know it was.
“They’ll have to find another way.” He looked down on me, his whole body shaking with the rage he was trying desperately to contain. “I’ll protect you from them, from the Fallen, from everyone and everything.” He sat next to me on the edge of the bed, the effort not to immediately act on his anger revealed in the clenching of his fists. “We’ll leave. Go somewhere no one can find us.”
“I can’t make you do that.” Leave all that he knew? Leave his family? I understood he didn’t want to be around his father, but his mother and sister?
“You wouldn’t be making me do anything. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I was born my father’s heir. Destined to become head of the Council of Kin. Never given a choice. But I don’t want that. I don’t want any of it. So we’ll go.”
“Go where?” I couldn’t help believing this was all a flight of fancy. Him and me running off to live happily ever after? I knew it wouldn’t be as simple as that, and for more reasons than the obvious ones.
“I don’t know.” He raked his fingers through his hair.
Laughter and the voices of those assembled outside, full of excitement, were getting louder. Among it all, I heard Fe calling Tallow’s name. It drew his attention.
“I have to go. I don’t want to. And I don’t want to be anywhere near my father, but right now this can’t be all about him. If I could explain the importance of the glade I would. I’m not going there to please him, and I’ll be back before you know it.” His eyes explored mine before he leaned in and kissed me gently on the lips. “We’ll talk about this later.” He kissed me again. “Just promise me you’ll stay with Mox when I’m gone.”
Mox. My face flushed at the thought of him. From the moment I’d begun to follow Tallow, any thoughts of Mox had evaporated. With the mention of his name, my feelings for him rose again. Why hadn’t Tallow spoken to me about what Mox and I had done two days ago or asked me what was going on between us? When Tallow and I had been with each other he’d given me his all with no hint he had concerns there was another man in my life, especially not his best friend. And I had given Tallow all of me when we were together like I had no feelings for anyone else in the world except him. What was I doing? Was I selfish being with Tallow, letting him talk about us running away together, while in the next breath I remembered how good it felt to be with Mox?
“I promise.” I hardly heard myself utter the words.
He ran his hand along one of my breasts and up to my cheek, cupping it there, and I leaned into it. “Better get going.”
Tallow dressed in robes he pulled out from beneath the bed. When I got up, he swept me into his arms and kissed me. I wanted to grab his hands so we could fly again.
“Later, later,” he said to himself and me while his cock rose against my stomach.
When he smiled, his eyes were bright. At that moment I remembered the Tallow I’d first met. The man who spoke to me when I’d first woken to him on my apartment floor. He’d been different before the reality of his world and all the complications that came with it had tried to erase that first unexpected connection we’d had.
He picked up my robe, sash, and gloves, handed them to me and watched as I dressed, his eyes flitting across my body, lingering over places that made him smile and unconsciously draw his tongue across his lips. After I finished, he retrieved my mask and placed it over my face.
“You look beautiful as an owl.”
He reached under the bed and retrieved a mask of his own. When he put it on, I realized it was almost the same as mine—a tawny owl.
“Your mother said you wear the mask of the animal you would be if you had a choice. So why a tawny owl? That’s not exactly being creative,” I jested.
He smiled, although I saw the hint of concern in the furrow of his brow. “Would you prefer me to be something else?”
“No.”
“I’m glad. Because this is who I am. I can’t and don’t want to be anything else.”
Tallow and I made our way toward the crowd of kin gathered outside the front of the lodge. Soon it would be too dark, at least for me, to see. Lamps had been hung from the eaves as well as in the branches of the trees, pooling an iridescent green light on the ground. As I got close to one, I realized they held luminescent fungi.
Seeing how many kin were there and how close some of them were to Tallow’s nest, I had to fight back a desire to hide in embarrassment. “They’ll have heard us,” I whispered.
“Possibly.
” He smiled. “We’re kin. That kind of thing is natural.”
“But I’m human. Will they be okay with you doing that kind of thing with me?”
He reached out and took my hand, now shielded by my gloves.
“I don’t care what they think. All I care about is what you think.”
“Meghan!” Fe’s voice announced her approach even before I saw her. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” She bounded over to me and took my other hand.
“I’ve been talking to your brother—” I began.
“Yes, didn’t you hear them?” Mox strolled up to us with a broad grin. “They were talking really, really loud.”
I was glad my mask hid my face. If it was red before, it now glowed like embers of a fire.
Mox nodded at Tallow. I wondered what would come next. In my world, if one male had moved in on another male’s woman, the guys would probably punch the living daylights out of each other. Not Mox and Tallow. They clasped arms, each saying, “Brother,” to the other before they embraced. It wasn’t the usual slap-on-the-back manly affair. They were really holding each other. I knew they were close, but their display of affection toward one another was touching. And unexpected. Confusing, even. That Mox wasn’t angry at what I’d done with Tallow left a weight in my stomach, heavy like a stone. I wished I knew what he thought at that moment.
“Come on, Tallow.” Fe grabbed her brother’s arm. “You can talk to Meghan and stinky skunk later.” She flashed her teeth at Mox, and he lunged, trying to tickle her. “Come on,” she spluttered through excited giggles.
“Give me a second, Fe.” Tallow turned to me. “Stay with Mox. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Not flying all night?” Mox asked.
“Only for a while.” Tallow’s eyes locked with mine. “I’ve already flown once tonight.”
“Come ooooooooooon,” Fe called, beginning to move through the kin, who didn’t bow to her like they had to Tallow earlier in the evening, but they made a path for her, maybe because she was Dore’s daughter. Probably because they knew she’d barge through them if they didn’t get out of her way.
Tallow squeezed my hand, gave me a lingering look, and smiled. I liked this Tallow.
As I smiled back, he let go of me and followed his sister.
Mox and I stood side by side and watched him walk away.
“I’m glad you two have sorted that out,” he said quietly.
I sneaked a look at him from the corner of my eye to see if his expression revealed anything, but with his mask on all I saw were his eyes still watching Tallow and his mouth in a faint smile like he didn’t have a trouble in the world.
My emotions pulled in different directions: happiness at what Tallow and I now shared, sadness that Mox and I might be over. “So you’ve got no problem with him and me?” I knew I didn’t have the right to probe him. I guessed he’d decided I’d made up my mind. The problem was, despite how guilty I felt about it, I hadn’t.
“I’m all for you two sorting things out. To be honest, it’s uncomfortable being around two people determined to hate each other so hard when it’s obvious that’s not how they feel.” He didn’t say it with any meanness—he was just stating facts.
I should have let it go, but I needed to know. “And where do you fit into all this?”
His mouth curved upward. “Exquisitely comfortably, I thought. Didn’t you think I was a good fit?”
I snort-laughed, glad for his sexual innuendo. He still seemed like the same old Mox, but was he? I wished I knew him better so I could tell if he always joked his way through everything. Maybe beneath his jests his emotions were different. Maybe he was upset. Should I tell him I hadn’t chosen? Perhaps I should have told Tallow that?
A baritone voice boomed through the chatter. “Kin! Come! Hear me!” Dore, still masked as a lion, strode through the large doors of the lodge as he called out. At his side Tareese stepped wearing a brightly feathered bird mask. Tallow and Fe came and stood at her side under the lodge’s eaves, each illuminated by one of the fungi lamps hanging above their heads.
“We welcome you all to the Eyrie. Our home is your home, and we are blessed by the tread of your paw, hoof, and foot, the slither of your scale, and by the breath of your wings. In times such as these, it is important we still gather. The Fallen may think they can tear apart our world, that we run from them with every beat of our hearts. But here, tonight, we prove them wrong. We gather as we have done for eons. We stand in defiance of them, and we will do so until the end of time. So now come, my kin. Follow me.”
I expected some kind of hoorah from those assembled. Dore’s speech, although short, captivated everyone. His voice strained with an authority none could ignore, and his words made me think no matter what the Fallen did to try to eradicate the kin they wouldn’t succeed. Instead, silence filled the Eyrie as Dore held out his hand to Tareese. She took it and they began toward the stairs at the side of the lodge, the ones that led to the private residence Tareese had taken me to hours before. They moved so quietly that if I had closed my eyes I wouldn’t have known anyone was there.
“So what are we going to do?” I whispered to Mox as I watched Tallow and Fe and then the assembled kin slowly disappear from sight.
“Follow them, of course,” he whispered back with a wicked grin and a glint of mischief in his eyes.
“We can’t do that!” Tallow wasn’t the only one who had made it clear whatever happened at the glade wasn’t for human eyes.
“Don’t you want to know what they do down there?”
I wouldn’t be human if I weren’t curious, but I wasn’t curious enough to upset Tallow—or Dore—by intruding on what I had begun to suspect was something sacred.
“It’s like nothing you’ll ever see again in your life,” Mox coaxed.
“You’ve been?”
“Several times. After the first I couldn’t stay away. I try to find a reason to be here on this night every couple of years so I can sneak down and watch. We can hide in the trees. They won’t even know we’re there.”
It wasn’t something Mox had the right to show me, but I wanted to go. I wanted to know about Tallow’s world because that meant I’d know more about him. Besides, what would Mox and I do if we stayed where we were? I’d want to press him, try to find out how he felt about me, and what if he told me we were now going to be in some kind of platonic, flirty relationship because I’d chosen his best friend over him? I didn’t know if I wanted to face that. “Okay. But if we get caught I’m going to say you forced me.”
Mox huffed a laugh. “As though I could force you to do anything, Megs.”
As the last of the kin rounded the corner of the lodge, Mox took my hand, and we began after them. “Be as quiet as you can.”
We went along the front of the lodge, to the stairs, down them, and past the door to the private residence below. Beyond it the forest stretched out before us. At first I could hardly see a thing, and if any of the kin were close I couldn’t hear them. The only sounds were the rustle of leaves stirring in a faint breeze and the far-off call of a bird lamenting the end of the day. However, as my vision slowly adjusted to the dim light, the kin revealed themselves to me—dark shadows moving so gracefully it didn’t even look like their feet touched the ground. Mox held my hand tight and guided me through the understory. It wasn’t dense, and with my bare feet I picked out different vegetation. Sometimes I felt moss as soft as velvet, other times it was slick as though we were walking through damp leaves. Mox stubbed his toe on something at some stage and muffled a grunt of pain. I expected one of the kin, their hearing most likely acute, to turn around, grab us, and haul us back up the slope to the Eyrie like we were naughty children, but they were in a world of their own, moving forward and never looking back.
After about half an hour the trees began to open up, and when we came to the fringe of the forest Mox stopped.
A vast open space, lush with grass, stretched out in front of us. In contrast to the d
arkness of the forest we’d made our way through, the light of the night sky was bright with pinpricks of stars and a fine fingernail moon. I looked around for Tallow and finally saw him at the other side of what must have been the glade, facing in our direction. For a second I worried his eyes were focused on us, but he seemed caught up in the moment with his attention fixed on the other kin.
The kin slowly drifted into a wide circle. When the final few took their places, Dore crossed to the center. A couple joined hands before grasping the hands of those beside them. The joining continued around the circle, not randomly but one after the other as though they were links in a chain slowly reconnecting. The moment the last two hands joined, the eyes of every shifter flared—bright shining yellows, oranges, browns, blues, and greens.
I gasped in surprise, and Mox squeezed my hand tightly. “It gets better.”
Dore lifted his arms out at his sides, palms upward, and raised his head toward the stars. I waited, expecting him to say something rousing like he had up at the lodge, but everyone, including him, remained deathly silent.
Something caught my eye. In the trees beyond the glade winked a single small blue light. It pulsed on and off. Another followed it, and another. Gradually the dark forest filled with what looked like thousands of blue winking Christmas lights.
“Fireflies?” Is that what they were? They appeared in summer, but fireflies were yellow, not blue.
“No,” Mox replied full of astonishment. “Souls.”
Souls?
The winking progressed into a pulsing as the light of what Mox had called souls synchronized their glow. Like a heartbeat of the forest, they illuminated everything with their iridescence, then plunged the world back into darkness before glowing once again, over and over.
When they flooded out of the forest, flying in an intricate pattern like a large wisp of smoke, the kin lifted their faces to the sky, watching the whip of light move over their heads. It snaked back to the edge of the forest before changing direction, flicking like a cat’s tail toward the center of the glade and billowed up above the clearing.
