Page 36 of Rot In Knotty Pieces

I look up. There is black smoke billowing across the ceiling, rolling in huge, thick clouds. The flames burn from the very stone themselves. It’s impossible, but so is everything I’ve seen so far.

“Show yourself!”

A massive presence whooshes past me.

I turn with it, shock making me weak.

“Another alter? Seven of us? Who are you?”

My voice echoes, but no answer comes.

I’m yanked out of the chamber and thrown into the dark. Where my consciousness falls asleep because Kestrel has full control of our body, and I am no longer needed.

Or wanted.

Kestrel

My anger keeps me wrapped up, lost in furious thoughts and the pure frustration of Raven and her one-horse vigilante band. It has locked the rest of us out in the cold, wondering what the hell kind of danger she’s going to drop us into. It takes me too long to notice the nest.

When I do, I’m deep inside, and my heart crawls up into my throat and sits there as I slowly turn so I can take it all in.

“Oh,” I whisper.

There is fabric of all different colours that has been shredded into long threads, and it’s been arranged from tree to tree, bush to bush. There’s a pattern in the weavings, spiralling in like a spider’s web but bigger, so much bigger. It goes from tree to bush, overlapping and creating this tangled maze. There’s a way in, but only if you follow his scent through a thin, highly hidden path.

“Are you seeing this?” I whisper to the others.

Pix hasn’t built a nest. He’s woven one.

And he’s added in all this shiny material that is making Merle purr.

“Huh.”

I reach out, touching a crimson strand. I guess a lot of people would think this looks like rubbish, but there’s this intricate, delicate perfection to what he has created. It’s art. Soul art. A functional nest that traps the unwary and alerts anyone inside. It’s a lure and camouflage.

If you want to reach the danger that sits at the middle of this web, you have to get through his test and then face his wrath. I feel the deadly challenge in every strand that he has painstakingly hung.

I walk towards the middle and his scent, my own pheromones building and flaring out. What kind of nest would I have? Merle likes shiny things, and the closer we get, the more the web sparkles. Is this the kind of nest I’d have? I’d always assumed a dark hole with one door in and out would be all I deserved. Concrete, cold, hard, empty.

But to be out in the sunlight, with trees and water. The world so big around me. Trapped in the centre of a giant web that my omega made. I could live with a nest like this.

Would Pix let me borrow it?

Would he share?

Is he going to kill me when I get close?

The sparkles indicate that he is welcoming us, but there’s still a little bit of hesitation, and that hesitation is giving me all the strength to hold the heat at bay. Just for a little longer.

I don’t want to let go. I don’t know if it’s safe.

I follow the trail around some trees and find myself in a clearing with threads so thick it would be impossible for someone to get through without cutting them.

Heads turn in my direction, alphas drunk on the scent of their in-heat omega. I’ve never seen alphas look like that.

Feral, needy, dangerous.

The way they move is like wolves. Every movement is silent. Every tiny bit of them is attuned to the world and everything in it.