WingSpan (Taken on the Wing Book 1) (5 page)

He dabs a wet-wipe along her chin and all the way to her ear before grabbing another for his arm.

“It’s okay,” he rolls her to the side and cleans her hip with a third.

“No, I bit my tongue,” she feels a slice in the edge of it. The condom is gone and his pants are back up so she frowns though his apparent modesty is endearing. Shadow covers her mouth with both hands as she yawns and Talon chuckles. A handful of plastic wrapped jerky appears before her and she yawns again before making a face. He doesn’t seem to notice as he tears one open and half of it disappears.

“Um, no thanks.”

He stops chewing. If she was standing she’d collapse. At first she thought it was her orgasms making her tingly but it’s plain old fashioned fatigue.

Then he pulls out a can and offers it to her. Fish by the looks of it and he seems pleased to have a back-up snack to offer, weird as it is. Shadow shakes her head.

“Sex doesn’t make you want meat?”

“No.”

Yawn. If she wasn’t half asleep his assumption would border on bizarre.

“Even really good sex?”

“Even the best. I’m a vegetarian,” she explains and grabs his elbow in alarm as he coughs like he’s choking.

“Seriously?”

“Uh huh,” she mumbles, losing the ability to speak.

“You have to go anywhere?”

Shadow thinks about drunken Jenn waiting by the motorcycle to buy a bottle of vodka. How long was it? It couldn’t have been any more than half an hour. Half an hour of intense reconnection with another human being and every destination she had ahead of her has disappeared. A new direction waits to greet her at Terry’s apartment. It’s too much to step from her black hole of despair and she’s grateful for her savior.

“Nowhere.”

“Then stay here,
Arlette
,” he whispers. “You’re not riding off like this.”

Shadow doesn’t know what an ‘Arlette’ is but the soft accent he slips into when he says it is intriguing. When she gets home she’ll look it up to see where his parents are from, guessing it’s what his father called his mother. He says it like a man would say ‘lover.’

“I don’t have to be anywhere until eight tonight,” he reaches around behind her and unhooks the bra. She stays sitting but only because he holds her.

“Who hurt you,” Talon asks and Shadow opens her eyes to see he’s looking at her damaged leg. She doesn’t want him feeling sorry for her or asking too many questions.

“Please tell me,” he tries again. She can’t feel his fingers run down the long dead scar left when they opened her leg up to bolt the bone back together.

“I took a tumble on my bike,” she admits, leaving out everything she’d left outside; everything he promised to protect her from and had.

“I got back on,” she finishes as proudly as she can and for a moment she sees her pain echoed in his eyes.

“You’re stronger now because of it,” he insists. “It doesn’t always feel that way. But you’re stronger.”

He believes it.

“Stronger,” he whispers again.

“Yes,” Shadow agrees, feeling strength blossom inside.

She sniffs then pulls her lips tight across her teeth as she sobs, crying for the second time today. Talon lifts her, kicking the blankets clear and lowers her to the pillow as he watches her eyes wet. His fingers hold her cheeks as he kisses her eyes; kissing her tears away with his lips, his tongue. Talon takes every last one as she gives in to the deepest exhaustion.

Chapter Four

Talon watches his mate sleep.

His little rogue hasn’t moved in hours since she has no choice but to sleep it off. Food would have restored the energy mating took but she seemed content in his arms as he accepted her offering of tears.

Shadow’s deep slumber is a good thing. What started as a flash headache that blinded him with pain every few minutes spread over the next two hours until he spent half of every two minutes in agony. She breathed softly at his side, peacefully riding it out, as he bucked and moaned. Within another hour the sensation lessened, feeling more like breaking bones than crushing, until he only feels it every five minutes and more like the end of a day of combat training in Master Sky’s gym.

He feels good during the breaks in the pain. Sated and relaxed, he checks her face for stray hair and even though he doesn’t see any he goes through the motions of pushing them away. There’s time to think between episodes albeit briefly.

It’s not the exchange of saliva which has him twisted in knots or she’d feel it too. The only other thing they shared were her tears but then why doesn’t she hurt?

Her tears are already inside her, smart guy.

Yeah, that would be it.

Talon stretches through the next round of aching and sighs. It feels good now, no arguing that. She stirs at his side and he watches eagerly for her to wake. He’d hoped to talk: to find out where she lived, when he can see her again, when she expected to be in season but there’s been nothing except pain and sleep. When her season comes she’ll track him down anyway. If she made an eyrie her home he’d pay her a visit but she’s a rogue with a job and a very human life like he has. Setting up house would be a screwy thing to do right away. They don’t know each other at all though there is time to become close; centuries in fact.

A patch of tiny white feathers grows like a flush between her breasts. Talon’s breath catches as it spreads south, narrowing to a fine line before becoming coarse white hairs just below her navel and mixing with the short brown tuft peeking out from under the tiny piece of blue lace. They fade to red bumps on her skin and are gone in seconds.

White? Every gryphon he’s ever seen is some flavour of brown.

Her small hand strokes his cheek and he looks into her pale brown eyes. She’s caught him looking so he rewards her with a soft kiss.

“Thirsty,” she whispers. Her throat sounds dry and for good reason. Even though he spent a few minutes turning his rig around to keep the sun out and the windows are open it’s warm. He could have run the engine and the air conditioning but the heat inside eased his own aching so he didn’t. She doesn’t seem to mind waking up uncovered.

“Got it,” he clambers over her to the fridge and cracks open a bottle. She drinks greedily and it spills from the corners of her mouth and down her chin making her shiver. He has another ready when the first is finished.

“Better?”

Shadow nods as she returns the second empty to him.

“Thank you,” she tells him. “Not just for the water.”

Her head is high. She sits cross-legged on his bed wearing nothing but the little blue panties she never took off. He feels her pride. The pain she felt earlier has ebbed.

“Ouch,” she reaches around to feel his mark like she’s surprised it’s there. Then she pushes up his sleeve to see hers. It’s red and swollen. Over the next few weeks it will heal to an unobtrusive rough circle of white scars. The lasting marks from the ritual of exchange will only swell and become sensitive again when they’re on the wing. For now, the bites are the only human sign they’re mated.

Shadow puts her fingers under his chin and this time he doesn’t move to stop her. She’s claimed him and it’s her right to praise him whenever she damn well feels. Talon stays still as a weak echo of the ache in his bones passes. As she pushes his chin higher her lips find a place on his throat and his pride is nearly overwhelming; pride in her and in himself. Them.

“I don’t have the words to explain what today has done for me,” she whispers as she nips her way higher. Then with the most devious look in her eye she moves to her mark and licks.

Talon groans, damn near instantly hard again. His little female, naked before him
demanding
another round.

What’s a gryphon to do when she asks so nicely? Talon shoves her to the mattress, burying himself in her delighted laughter.

Terry’s sofa used to be comfortable or at least Jenn thinks it’s the real reason she spends every night on it. It’s more comfortable in fact than his ten thousand dollar king sized bed which sits as he left it two years before. For the past hour she’s tossed and turned, watching the reflection of the setting sun in the dark screen of his big TV.

After their hurried parting Jenn rode north. She wanted to linger but Talon had just enough time to check his rig over and pick up a load in Victoria before catching the last ferry to the mainland. No exchange of phone numbers or real names. Jenn still feels too messed inside to take a chance on any more than what she and Talon shared through the afternoon. Now she’s jacked up with restless energy from their second encounter, a total opposite to the exhausted sleep following the first one.

“Damn,” she mutters as she tosses the light blanket aside. “No more putting it off, Jenn.”

There’s no answer from the empty room.

The small kitchen on her right is opposite the cabinet that holds Terry’s treasures. Front and center is the 1951 World Series baseball signed by DiMaggio himself. She never got a chance to give it to Terry and it survived the wreck quite intact. She knows the story behind every piece on display.

The one bedroom apartment was her haven before he died and she spent more time there than her own cramped quarters; the place she felt his protective presence even when she was there alone. She’d given up on that feeling ever coming back and its absence tonight is no different.

It’s hers and he’s gone.

The dryer goes silent so she opens the accordion door in the hall and gets folding but quickly closes it, determined not to let excuses keep her from moving forward. Talon’s emotional gift got her started but he’s not with her and the next step is hers alone.

The vacuum marks stop just past the bathroom door. Terry’s footprints leading to his bedroom are the only thing which has disturbed the thick pile. She feels strange approaching his room wearing nothing but a t-shirt and panties. Out of habit she makes a quick courtesy knock on his door like she used to, warning him to cover up because she’s coming in. There’s no grunted greeting so she opens the door all the way.

The light switch is up but the room is dark. He’d left it on and it took nearly six months for the eco bulb to finally burn out. The emotional impact of losing Terry’s light was nearly her last day on Earth. The tailspin it put her in found her on the floor two days later covered in vomit and half digested pills. She has no recollection of the light going out but its absence as she recovered alone from her overdose was the only thing which would have pushed her so far.

Jenn walks around the foot of the bed and past the window to turn on his lamp. No surprises in here. The bed is as she remembered from the last morning. His crookedly capped deodorant is tossed in the center with half a dozen others. Terry was somewhat obsessed with how he smelled and Jenn laughs, remembering his care in his appearance didn’t extend to regular brushings of his wild blonde hair. The accidental dredlocks were nearly comical and she’d corner him in front of the TV with a hockey game like a little kid and his cartoons to brush them out.

The memories don’t hurt as much as she expects though they are far from painless.

Other things mixed up in the mess of blankets are the books he was reading, a dead iPad he used instead of a computer, a couple of girly magazines and an old shirt Jenn outgrew when they were twelve. The floor is clear and the clothes in his dresser are neat but what she joked was his ‘nest’ is as messy as his hair.