My lips brushed over the shell of her ear as I uttered my command. The single word was a hoarse whisper laced with dark intent.
“Run.”
Chapter
Ten
Watching Bale lose his shit on Harlow had me seeing a shade of red more vivid than the brickwork of the underground tunnels in Falston.
I needed to fly away before I did something stupid like peck his eyeballs out. Launching into the air from my perch on the cross frame, I did a loop around the corn field. Each beat of my wings in the air was fueled by an overwhelming need to protect what was mine.
The last I saw before forcing myself to cool off, Bale seemed to be pulling himself together. He may not have been emotionally tender, but he had ceased yelling at her as if it were her fault for existing.
About the third circle was when I realized things had taken a wrong turn in the clearing below. Bale’s towering form had an all too familiar cloak of straw and death wrapped around it.
I immediately changed my trajectory to dive down towards him and Harlow. As Bale released her throat, I didn’t need to hear what he told her. The predatory aura was thick in the air.
Not even two steps into her escape, I saw her figure crumple into a pile of velvet and claws. The shift occurred right before my eyes, and I momentarily forgot how to fly. My flight awkwardly stuttered in the aviary equivalent of tripping over nothing.
She could shift forms? Into a black cat, no less. Fuck. Me. Things suddenly clicked, made sense. If I hadn’t been infatuated before? I sure as hell was now.
Snapping out of my head at the last second, I banked hard, swooping around the edge of the clearing before wildly fluttering around Bale’s scarecrow form.
I cawed loudly; the shrieking noise split the air. Doing so several more times around Bale’s head, I hoped he went half deaf with the sound of my crow-equivalent of telling him to piss off.
Lowly growling, Bale swatted at me like he would to a nuisance housefly. With grace and agility, I dodged and ducked all while keeping an eye on the lithe feline running into the expanse of corn stalks.
Flying under one of Bale’s arms, I angled upward, intentionally knocking his stupid newsboy-style cap from his head.
“Fuck off, Corb!” he snarled before bending over and retrieving his favorite accessory.
I pecked hard at his neck, but it left him unfazed and undeterred as he secured his cap on his head.
He left me no choice. Summoning my inner woodpecker, I dive bombed his crotch. With tiny clawed feet latching onto the fabric, my beak pecked furiously at the front of his pants until he doubled over, cursing at me.
“Ass! Fuck!” His hands shoved me off forcefully.
I tumbled to the ground, hopping on my feet while ruffling my feathers.
Perhaps that would be the wake-up call to start thinking with his brain instead of his cock made of straw and roots. Despite it having been an effective maneuver, I still had half a mind to go in for round two. Except next time, I’d aim to tear through the fabric and pull pieces of his supernatural dick out to build Harlow and me a fucking nest.
When I flew up to act on the temptation, his hands aggressively shooed me away. My wings flapped tirelessly to keep distracting him from his pursuit of Harlow.
Thankfully, for now, she was far from sight. Yet, I knew it wouldn’t take long for Bale to find her. Healwaysfound them.
After one swat that connected with my side, I barrel-rolled through the air almost two times before my wings caught enough air to keep me suspended.
That was all he needed to refocus on his original target: Harlow. With sheer determination and a hunter’s instinct, Bale stormed past me. He cut through the stalks, which all but cowered in his presence.
I took flight above him, trying to spot Harlow’s dark fur through the densely planted crops.
The irony of the striking opposites of our alternate identities was not lost on me. Her, the predator, and me, the prey. My dick may as well already be pussy whipped—no pun intended.
Then there was Bale, whose shifted form was designed to chase trespassers from these fields. He was the apex predator to our shifted forms, but hell if I was going to let him conquer Harlow’s feline or human spirit.
Searching from above, it was nearly impossible to tell where she had run off to. Whatever primitive instincts were driving Bale, he seemed to hear the whispers of her through the corn.
Maybe it was fur brushing against corn leaves or the pads of her paws pressing into the soil. Whatever it was he was picking up on, he was homing in on it with deadly accuracy.
