24. Fly Away Little Bird
I flee like I’m being hunted, like something’s breathing down my neck, chasing me through the storm-ravaged forest. But the reality that I’m leaving Orion behind is so much worse. And then what happened with Benoit?—
Guilt squeezes my chest to the point I can barely breathe.
That’s why I’m doing this. That’s why I’m running. I refuse to die when Benoit gave his life for me, making his sacrifice go in vain.
I hope Orion didn’t sacrifice himself for me too.
I can’t die. I can’t die. I can’t die.
Runrunrunrun.
Blood pounds in my ears louder than the thunder cracking overhead.
Rain lashes my face, mixing with tears. One cheek still stings from that Wilde bastard’s slap, the other burns with shame for running instead of fighting.
But I made a promise, so I grit my teeth and harness my frustration and turn it into determination.
No matter how hard I try to navigate the forest like Orion taught me, fear and hate make me reckless.
I slip and stumble through mud and underbrush, one satin ballet flat clinging to my foot by sheer force of will, the other frayed to shreds, held together only by my ankle wrap of tulle.
Adrenaline dulls the achy sprain enough to keep me moving.
At first, my own terror is all I hear—my pounding heartbeat, ragged breaths, and the chaotic slap of mud under my feet.
But then the telltale pounding of boots joins in behind me.
Steady. Determined. They slide with the grade instead of fighting it like my city feet do.
I don’t know who it is. All I know is I have to fly . If it’s a Wilde, I can’t be caught.
If it’s Orion, he’ll catch me.
Please God, let him catch me.
Branches whip at my arms like they’re punishing me for leaving him behind. I welcome the sting, letting it scratch and tear into my flesh like a physical manifestation of my guilt.
Is he okay?
He was fighting off two Wildes when I left.
I was dying to help, but they only got the jump on him because I distracted him.
My aching need for him to touch me and prove we’re still alive and breathing was too much.
He wouldn’t be fighting for his life right now if we’d stayed vigilant.
So I did what I promised I’d do two nights ago.
“…if I ever tell you to run, you run, alright? No matter what. I’ll find you.”
Please, Orion. Find me.
I keep going, even as every step away from him drives the knife deeper into my traitorous, cowardly heart.
Vines and roots claw my ankles, threatening to twist them to their breaking point. Fog thickens, blurring my vision, but I search the trees anyway for some sign I’m heading toward safety. Red paint mars the tree trunks—but red isn’t safe anymore, so I keep sprinting through every wheezing breath.
Red.
My head swims as the naked branches and dead vines all begin to look the same in the mist.
Red.
Spots darken my vision, as if the trees themselves are marked…
Black.
Relief surges through me, and my knees nearly buckle.
Fury land. Orion said I’m safe here.
Then again, we were supposed to be safe in Lost Cove too.
But no Wilde should follow me here.
And yet… someone is.
Footsteps I’ve been trying to block out continue to crash through the undergrowth, louder and closer than before.
Prey-like panic takes over, propelling me faster.
A scream claws up my throat, but I swallow it down.
Orion said help wouldn’t be able to hear me past a quarter mile, and as far as I know, the only ones nearby are my enemies.
Lightning scars the sky, blinding me. The hollow opens beneath my feet without warning.
I tumble.
Down, down, down.
My limbs flail like a rag doll, slapping against clay that snatches and rips my costume as I fall.
The decline spits me into a shallow bog, and I splash onto all fours into cold water as dark as spilled ink.
Mud curls like icy hands around my knees and wrists, trying to tug me deeper while my tutu clings heavy to my legs.
My hair coils into dripping, snakelike tendrils around my face.
Head spinning, I silently sip measured breaths through my nose, forcing them past the pain to focus on the slowing footsteps still dislodging pebbles up the hill.
Nearly bare trees stand watch in the swamp, their gnarled, exposed roots rising from the ground and cradling mounds of soft moss.
I grip a root that’s thick as an arm to help me stand as quietly as I can, pulse jackhammering while the footsteps get louder. Too loud.
Wildes and Furys know how to sneak through these woods. Whoever’s after me is being this noisy on purpose.
Who’s hunting me? Is it an enemy? Or Orion?
Is there a difference?
He doesn’t know I’ve forgiven him for the way he talked to me, or that I desperately needed him to show me how alive we are after witnessing my friend get mur?—
My hands fly up to silence my sob as Benoit’s death flashes in my mind.
My eyes slam shut against the memory I’m still coated in—the blood still streaking my forearms, soaking feathers and staining tulle with desperate handprints.
The end of my friend’s life clings to me thicker than the mud threatening to drag me under.
Tears pour hotly down my cheeks, a contrast to the chilly rain, and my heart aches. My soul begs for relief it knows only Orion can give. He’s the one person who’s seen me teeter on the edge as bad as I did the other night, yet he held me anyway.
And I might have just left him to die.
Orion’s a danger to everyone else, but he’s a safe space for me. Right now, I crave both. My emotions may drown me if he doesn’t lead me to the other side. I need the man who chased me. The man who saved me. The man who asked me to dance, even when I was terrified he’d run away.
Please catch me.
Beyond the fog and out of my vision, boots splash as someone heavy jumps into the bog. His loud, steady huffs are more animalistic than man. Until they go silent.
Mist stalks lowly through the trees, and I can’t see more than a few feet in front of me. Sound, though, comes from all directions, disorienting as it permeates the fog.
And yet, I can’t hear him anymore.
I go still as water ripples in a gentle current toward me and around my calves. My body shakes from fear and anticipation. The predator in the dark tugs at something deep in my core.
A man’s low growl rumbles through me, all the warning I get.
An adrenaline-fueled scream tears from my burning throat, and I turn to sprint through the watery sludge, but I’m scooped up from behind, strong arms like iron caging me in before we collapse into shallower water.
A large hand cradles my head in the fall, but cold water seeps over my shoulders. sending my body into full panic.
I’m going to drown. I’m going to die here. I can’t die here. I can’t. I can’t. Ican’tIcan’tIcan’t.
I slam my fists against a steel chest, blindly kicking and thrashing, until a scarred hand pins my wrists above my head and easily stretches me the few inches necessary to get up and over a soft bed of moss.
Another hand clamps around my throat, squeezing and cutting off my scream.
Warmth presses over me as he lays on top of me, keeping me from hurting us both.
“Shh,” he murmurs low, letting go of my neck to wrap tightly around my waist and hold me to him. “Shh, little bird, I’ve got you.”
“Orion,” I whimper, and he squeezes tighter.
“You ran.” His teeth graze the sensitive skin under my ear, making me shiver and curl into him. “Good girl.”
He buries his nose into the crook between my neck and collarbone, breathing me in like my scent is all the oxygen he needs. Relief and terror still hammer against my sternum, and I writhe, unable to stop struggling underneath him.
“ Fuck … don’t fight me, baby,” he groans through ragged breaths. “Not right now, or I swear to God I’m gonna fucking lose it.”
His feral rasp coils tightly in my belly. As soon as I melt in his arms, his mouth crushes mine, teeth scraping in a brutal kiss that makes me cry out. He lifts me into his chest, and I kiss him just as needily until tangy blood stains my tongue.
Lightning flashes, outlining his massive form above me, his chest rising and falling in heaving breaths that heat the air between us. But my relief curdles in my stomach at the seeping, bloody hole in his shirt right over his heart.
“You’re… you’re hurt,” I whisper, fresh tears burning my eyes and fear splitting my chest wide open. My head shakes, first slowly, then violently. “No, no, no . Not you too, please .”
Not again. Not someone else I love dying for me.
He follows my gaze, then fixes his back on me as he moves to cup my cheek.
“Luna,” his voice gentles. “Baby, I’m okay. Don’t go there.”
But I’ve already slipped out from underneath him, scrambling up on trembling limbs to escape the truth.
“Not you too,” I repeat over and over, focused solely on his wound as I stagger backward until a tree stops me. Benoit’s last breath floods my mind and my vision swims. Sobs tear through me. “ Please . Not you, Orion, not you . I can’t . I can’t lose you .”
He cages me in against the bark, shielding me from the terrifyingly cruel world with one arm around my waist and the other braced by my head on the tree trunk like a wall, keeping me from running.
“Luna, stop. I’m right here.”
“You’re hurt, you’re hurt, you’re hurt.” I choke, doubling over and clutching his shirt like I can tether him to this world, my body racked with soul-deep agony. “What if you die too? I can’t lose you. I can’t, Orion, I just can’t. Please . Don’t l-leave me.”
He curses low and grips me harder, forcing me upright.
“Hey, Luna? Hey, hey, hey. Listen.” He moves to cradle my head, tilting my gaze upward as he towers over me, becoming all I see.
“ Listen to me, baby,” he commands, giving me a little shake that makes me hiccup. His grip on my waist and the back of my head tighten, his voice fierce. “I will never leave you. Never . I promise. See?”
He shrugs out of his jacket, tossing it to the side, and yanks his shirt over his head with one hand to join it. My cries deepen at the sight of the bloody gash.
“ No !” I try to wrench away, but he snatches my hand and slams it against the cut cleaving his skull birthmark in two.
Blood warms my palm, and his grip on my waist turns punishing to keep me still.
“Feel me, Luna. I’m alive . We are alive .”
My eyes lock on our hands, his heartbeat fast but strong underneath my fingertips. Blood doesn't pour around my fingers like it should from a stab wound to the chest. Has it already stopped bleeding?
I stop, my gaze flicking up to his in question. He pulls my hand away, revealing the slice through the thickest ridge of scar tissue at the top of the skull.
“Bad aim,” he answers. “And good luck. The strike was shallow enough that my scar saved me.”
His sad smile gives way to determination that darkens his eyes and sets his jaw.
“I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re here.” My voice breaks, and my eyes trace the thin, crimson rivulets dipping in and out of muscular valleys and hills as they contract with each breath. It’s not a life-threatening amount. If anything, it proves he’s still alive.
Hope accompanied with something needy and feral settles deep in my core before I meet his gaze again.
“You’re here .”
He nods, then repeats, voice steady, “And I’m not going anywhere.”
Rain sluices mud from our bodies, dripping heavy onto my lashes as I finally, really see him. The truth in his vow, the adrenaline still riding us both.
His desperation.
His hunger.
His need.
I shiver. I’m so in tune with him, and him with me, that I can see, feel , the moment everything changes.
His grip tightens, bruising my waist and hand as he holds me like we’re in a dance. I embrace the pain because it means two things.
He’s alive.
And so am I.
“Show me.” I bite my lip, letting my own desire bleed through my expression before I beg, “Please. Show me we’re alive.”
His jaw ticks. Then, with a curse under his breath, he lets me go, backing up to the edge of the small, mossy bank.
His hands flex open and closed before they slice through his hair and grip the back of his head.
Every muscle in his body seems to fight against his restraint, hardening as his heated stare strips me bare, unveiling everything I’ve hidden all my life… and wanting me anyway.
My pulse flies when he exhales through his nose, drops his hands into clenched fists at his sides, and finally speaks.
“I can’t be gentle. Not right now,” he growls. “Not when I’ve waited for you for so fucking long just to almost lose you.”
He’s nearly vibrating with something darker than rage, deeper than lust. Something I recognize, because it thrums in me too.
“I don’t want your gentle,” I vow. “I want your fury.”
“Fuck.” His jaw clenches. Then he shakes his head once. “You asked for this, little bird.”
He prowls forward, gaze dropping to my chest. His fingers trace my soaked neckline before gripping it with both hands. With one brutal tug, my bodice rips in two, and I gasp as my breasts spill into the cold rain.
“Orion!”
“Quiet.” His eyes flick from me to the mossy ground and back again. “Turn around.”
I swallow, my pulse thundering like the storm. Slowly, I turn, anticipation making me lightheaded.
“Good girl. Now get on your knees.”
“Wh-what?” My heart stutters. I start to twist around, but his hand captures the nape of my neck.
“I said …” his voice is a warm, commanding rumble in my ear. “Get on your knees, wife .”
My breath catches. Fear swirls with adrenaline, tangling with reckless need. Before I can move, he guides me until I’m kneeling on the pillowy moss.
He lets go, and in the next breath, his belt jingles behind me and wet leather slips free with a hiss.
When I risk glancing back, his eyes devour me as he unzips with trembling fingers.
His shaking hands shove his soaked jeans and briefs down, freeing his already long, hard cock.
He fists his length, giving himself one deliberate stroke, ending with a hard squeeze at the leaking tip.
Then he kneels close, his body heat burning the few inches between us, raising goosebumps along my skin.
He grips my nape again to slowly push me lower until my palms sink into the damp earth.
I breathe in the earthy scent as he brushes aside my wet tendrils, revealing my tattoo on my upper back and making me shiver.
He turns my chin slightly, just enough for me to see him.
“I caught you, my reckless little bird.” Wicked hunger blackens his eyes. “There’s no escaping me now.”