Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
MEDUSA
When she didn’t emerge from my room, I checked and found her curled up in the big hanging chair, her feet tucked up under my robe, fast asleep. Damp tendrils of hair draped over her otherwise bare shoulder.
Crowlie circled above lazily and I paused to study the gorgeous woman sleeping restfully in my home watched over by my old friend.
A feeling too sweet to be lust and too hungry to be friendship swelled within me.
I breathed in deep, reveling in that slight discomfort, the burn and ache of it.
Above Cassandra, a younger bird joined Crowlie’s lazy journey, as they sometimes did.
Cassandra didn’t fear me.
She’d come here to seduce me, she said, and I couldn’t believe she’d spoken in jest. But what if I didn’t want to be seduced today only?
And then a third crow joined the two circling above her, and my stomach clenched.
They looked at me, the curious, clever eyes of fate, circling above the woman I didn’t know and still couldn’t bring myself to step away from.
For just a moment fear had me by the throat.
She slept, unaware of what was unfolding above her.
Our fates were linked now. I hadn’t really needed the crows to tell me, but their confirmation was welcome all the same.
The ground didn’t shake, the heavens didn’t open. They never did, even times like this. I held the strange sweetly hot sensation inside of me and let go of the fear as I ran my eyes over the form of the woman before me.
The face of my future slumbered peacefully, her lips parted ever so slightly. She let out a soft sigh, not dissimilar to the ones she sometimes gave when she was busy or thinking, and the last of the fear evaporated. In its place I felt the familiar old determination set in.
I would make this good, too.
I knew how to build a home. I could fill it with warmth and protect it.
“She stays, then,” I murmured to the black-winged bearers of destiny, holding out my arm.
They all broke formation, diving to land along the offered perch. Softly, I murmured my thanks to the messengers and turned to a project I’d been delaying for far too long already.
I needed a bigger nest.