Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
The second my brain came back online from a state that I could only explain as an out-of-body experience, I was met with more thoughts than I could process at once.
Everything had happened so fucking fast. After experiencing a spike of adrenaline that stemmed from being startled awake, it had left me slightly disoriented once I realized I wasn’t in life-threatening danger.
Fuck. What had been wrong with me? Corbin broke enough boundaries to be worthy of a brief mention in a crime documentary.
Invaded my home without invitation—my private safe haven.
It was classic breaking and entering. Although, since I hadn’t budged from my current position where I lay beneath him, I couldn’t confirm that any breaking had occurred when he entered my home.
Then, he had stared me down while I was sleeping. I wasn’t sure if that counted as stalking or just creepy, but it still fit my assessment of being documentary-worthy.
Things from there escalated quickly, far quicker than any other intimate encounter I’d had with previous guys. Hell, I’d only known Corbin for a day. Yet, despite the situation, something in me had tossed all caution into the wind.
However, there was no denying that we had this unexplainable connection. I couldn’t even call it a bond; it was something more than that. There was this piece of him that was my exhale of surrender, and in turn, I was his inhale of survival. Our bodies relied on each other to breathe.
My purrs eventually quieted, and my fingers stroked over the back of Corbin’s neck while we lay there in blissful silence. Neither of us rushed to break it.
After a particularly strong gust of wind that rattled my bedroom window, he finally spoke.
“Your heartbeat mirrors the rhythm of my wings beating when I take flight,” he murmured against my chest.
The words were poetic, but with an underlying conviction that made them seem like fact.
Lifting my head, I looked at him with uncertainty that I had heard him correctly. “Hm?” My brain was still fogged over from how he had wrung every drop of pleasure from my body.
His arms squeezed around my waist. The movement felt almost childlike, like it was a means of reassuring himself that I hadn’t disappeared.
Not this time. Maybe not next time either, or the time after that.
He rolled off me onto his side and propped himself up on an elbow, his hair still astray in whichever direction it pleased.
Tenderly, Corbin reached out and pushed a few locks of hair behind my ear. His expression grew contemplative and serious.
“I will always keep your secret safe, Harlow. I hope you know that.”
Something in his golden eyes remained soft, bordering on adoration or maybe even loyalty in its rawest form.
I nodded, watching for every minute shift in his demeanor. Before he had managed to fuck me in ways that even had my inner kitty cat mewling, I had questioned his intentions. Had questioned what incentive he might have to protect my secret.
“Corbin, I appreciate that more than you know. Outside of my sister, nobody else knew before today,” I explained, needing him to know just how precious this piece of me was to keep guarded.
His lips quirked up into a smile, one that held the weight of an appreciation for discretion.
“I wanted to tell you earlier…” he began, but then trailed off with an unspoken ‘but’ hanging between us.
Giving him some time to gather his thoughts, I finally reached out and wrapped my hand around his forearm, lightly squeezing it.
Part of me wasn’t sure that I wanted to know what he hadn’t yet told me, worst-case scenarios flooding my head. The other, more naturally curious side of me was more than interested in this particular piece of the bigger puzzle that Corbin was.
He exhaled in preparation for whatever confession he was going to make. “I can shift. Just like you… just like Bale. I become a crow when I change my form.”
My jaw dropped enough for him to take notice with a faint smirk, his knuckle tapping underneath my chin to nudge it back up so I didn’t look like a fish out of water.
After his admission sank in, I thought back to all the times I had seen a crow yesterday. Immediately, I bolted upright, turning to stare at him wide-eyed.
“Were you…?”
Corbin chuckled. It was rich and unapologetic before his hand fell to cover where mine pressed into the mattress.
“Call it due diligence on Falston’s newest resident.”
I sat there letting it all soak in for a moment before I made a sound between a laugh and a scoff of disbelief.
“Didn’t realize crows made a habit of stalking,” I said in a tone dangerously close to chiding.
Jackass actually flashed a smile wrapped in charm and pride.
“Crows have a habit of a lot of things.” His thumb brushed over my knuckles.
Now that his secret had also come to light, there was a noticeable ease in his shoulders. The burden visibly gone.
In one smooth movement, his arm wrapped around my middle, and he pulled me down on top of him as he rolled onto his back. My legs naturally straddled his waist while our bodies pressed against each other.
His hand swept back the curtain of my hair hanging down around us.
“The thing about crows, Harlow, is we mate for life. Once I leave my mark inside you, that’s it for me. You could run off to be with a traveling sideshow man, but I’d never find another mate. It’ll only ever be you.”
The sheer magnitude of the consequences of our actions settled like lead in my chest. Run off to find someone else? It left a bitter taste in my throat, a reaction that surprised me.
My hands settled on his shoulders as I met his eyes, noticing all the flecks of deeper gold in the amber pools.
“Let’s just hope you chose wisely, then, if you’re stuck with me,” I teased.
He laughed and brought his mouth to mine, capturing my lips in a lingering kiss filled with genuine affection. Pulling back, he smiled.
“If I didn’t? Tonight was still worth it.”
Fuck if this man didn’t know how to wield words like a carefully crafted weapon designed to melt my heart into my soul.
I laid my head down, pressing my face against the side of his neck, getting comfortable just feeling his bare skin against mine. His fingers lazily stroked my hair as we just let ourselves be in this moment together.
Time drifted away until a thought occurred to me.
“What about Bale?”
His hand drifted over my shoulder, squeezing it. “What about him?”
I wasn’t sure how to voice the complex situation that surrounded Corbin’s best friend, rendering me hesitant in case I stumbled over my words.
“He’s…” I began.
“A walking contradiction?” He finished my thought.
I laughed quietly and nodded. “Something like that. At the very least.”
Corbin’s other hand, not currently trailing along my side, waved in the air dismissively. “He’s a fucking pain in the ass.”
“I can’t get a handle on whether he hates me or is just a perpetual flirt with a severe case of a self-inflated ego.”
That got a startling laugh out of Corbin so loud that it shook the bed, his hold on me tightening.
His thumb swiped away invisible tears of laughter from underneath his eyes. “Shit, I’d pay money to see you say that to his face.”
“It’d cost you a pretty penny,” I quipped.
Feeling Corbin’s chest rise with a hefty inhale, he held it a second before slowly releasing it with renewed composure.
“There’s a lot to Bale that’s best left unpacked. We both have our baggage, but Bale? He carries his with the weight of one too many souls.”
Finally, he shifted to look down at me, tipping my chin with his fingers so I could meet his gaze for what came next.
“He thinks no one sees what’s underneath his stitches and seams. However, the truth is that it’s not what’s underneath them. It’s what they’re made of.”
He leaned over and pressed a kiss to my forehead. The gesture came as naturally as if it had been done a thousand times prior. Then, he continued to shed more light on Bale.
“He doesn’t hate you. He reserves that particular emotion for a very select few.
As for us?” He shrugged indifferently. “Bale is aware of my feelings for you. He’s just being a bastard about admitting anything that doesn’t involve self-deprecation and contempt for people who try to see the man behind the curtain. ”
Corbin grinned and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And that includes how certain kitty-cats make him feel like he’s made of more than just a bunch of straw.”
Hearing him suggest that Bale had feelings for me underneath all that infuriating snark and emotional whiplash sent a conflicted shiver down my spine.
If Corbin noticed the slight shudder, he didn’t say anything. Gave me the space to allow the gears in my head to turn with this fresh insight on his best friend.
Recalling my initial assessment during my dance with Bale, that he didn’t even let Corbin see all of him, I reevaluated my stance. It was with sudden clarity that I was certain that Bale was just blind to his true self.
If a blind man tells you he’s blind while using a white cane to find his way, how many people question the man? In this case, I wasn’t questioning the man; Bale was figuratively blind to his true self, that much I knew. I questioned the cane he relied on to guide his path.
Use of fear as a means of obstacle avoidance. Well, I refused to be avoided just because he didn’t want to find his way.
About the time I surfaced from my reeling thoughts, I shifted my head to look at Corbin. His eyes were shut, and his breathing had slowed. The sight warmed something inside my chest at how he looked particularly boyish when his features were slack with slumber.
I curled up on top of him, nuzzling his neck and breathing in his scent deeply. A quiet purr rolled through my vocal cords, a sign of my contentment.
There were still so many things I needed to know.
Not just about Corbin and Bale, but about this town.
What were the odds that it was home to two shifters in such a tiny population of people?
I had lived in a massive metropolitan city before moving here and hadn’t once found someone who was more than ordinary.
Something prickled at my spirit, telling me that a little prowling was in order if I wanted to get some answers. With day two of the festival looming hours away, I would see to it that I put my curiosity and instinct to good use.
Mrs. Sampson at the library had discouraged me from digging through the town archives, noting that it was a pastime better suited for grey-haired widows and men who valued the scent of prehistoric dust.
However, I recalled a table set up for library cards at the festival last night. If she were otherwise busy tending to activities in the courtyard, I could do a little exploration in the basement of the library.
I’d rather be surrounded by books with discolored pages and faded ink than bobbing for apples anyway.
Stretching languidly in Corbin’s arms, the last thing that crossed my mind before my own exhaustion caught up with me was my Aunt Laurel’s obscure words of wisdom.
We see crows as harbingers of death and messengers of ill omens, but I’ve never met a crow who harms a shadow. Be a shadow wrapped in fur and silk, and fate’s golden threads will bind you tightly to those worthy of all your secrets.
It seemed fate had its sewing needle out and was ready to patch me up in places where only the shadows could reach.