Page 65 of Hallowed Bones

“So this is where you’re hiding.” Reyes’s baritone makes me jump. I pivot toward the opening of the path. There’s only one, and I don’t know how he managed to sneak up on me without making a sound.

“Make some noise next time!” I demand, placing a hand over my breast as I try to calm my racing heart. “I could have had a heart attack.”

Reyes arches a brow and leans curiously to the side to try to peer past me into the box. “What do you have there?”

A sense of protectiveness wells up within me, and without thinking, I shift to block the bird. “None of your business,” I say evasively.

Both of his brows jump toward his hairline. “I’m hurt.” He gasps, placing one hand over his chest. “Are you saying you don’t trust me?”

My eyes narrow, but I don’t dignify his question with a real answer.

“Come on,” he wheedles, leaning even closer to peer over my shoulder. “I’m curious. Don’t leave me hanging.”

As if he senses a fresh sucker to con into petting him, the bird chooses that exact moment to release a caw of displeasure. Reyes freezes, his eyes sliding from my face—which I attempt to flatten to a mask of indifference—to the box behind me.

“Haven Wardwell … is that a bird?”

All attempts at hiding it are ruined. With a sigh, I give in and turn slightly, peering back at the creature that has his nosy little beak sticking straight over the side of the sagging cardboard container. Reyes moves closer, gently nudging me until I’m forced to scoot and give him room.

“No, it’s not a bird.” The casual lie leaves my lips with a smoothness that even I didn’t know I possessed. Maybe it’s because it’s so clearly a lie that it comes out so easily. “It’s a baby pterodactyl.”

The snort that leaves his lips is followed by a smirk and a glance. “Smart-ass,” he chides with no hint of any real heat. Then he crouches next to me. “Where the hell did you get a bird from?”

My jaw nearly unhinges as Reyes reaches inside the box and smooths down the creature’s ruffled feathers with the pad of his finger. And the crow? The crow lets him—fucking lets him!

“Traitor,” I mutter as the bird rises to the new attention of another sucker. If it weren’t already obvious that the animal is accustomed to human interaction, Reyes’s easy charming of the creature would have made it so.

Reyes hums in the back of his throat as he shifts forward and moves his hand down the bird’s flank, lifting its slightly crooked wing with a frown. “What’s this? Broken wing?”

“I don’t know; it doesn’t exactly react when you touch it, but it doesn’t look right, does it?”

He shakes his head, pursing his lips. “No, you’re right. It doesn’t.”

The memory of the crack of feathers and bone against glass makes me grimace and flinch.

“What do you think caused this?” Reyes asks, distracting me as he pries apart a few feathers to see that the bird’s wing is, in fact, bent, but in such a way that it’s clear the wound is old—old enough to have healed wrong. “It’s odd to see an animal like this still able to live when it’s been broken and grounded in a place that it doesn’t belong.”

I stiffen at those words, and my gaze shoots to his face. My eyes narrow on him despite the fact that he’s focused completely on the bird. It can’t be coincidence—those words and my own presence here in Ipswich after years of thinking I was just as normal as everyone else—is it?

With a sigh, I lean closer to the box and reach out my own hand. The crow bristles slightly, but with a few quick strokes, calms back down. “It slammed into my window,” I finally confess, my voice low so as not to startle the bird. “It was storming outside, and I think it was scared.”

“It was flying?” Reyes’s fingers stop and the animal puffs up, parting its beak in a sharp cry that has him chuckling and restarting his ministrations.

“I suppose, I mean, it must have been flying if it was able to get that high up.”

“Maybe it was running from something,” he murmurs, voice low and dangerously smooth. “Pretty creatures are often found running from something that wants to possess them.”

When his fingers brush against mine, a shock of heat runs through me, finding its home in the place between my legs. It’s a sensuous reminder of why I haven’t contacted them since I left Bishop Manor.

Yet here he is now, a reminder of interest that I’m trying desperately to bury. My insides can’t help but react to his nearness. The smell of him, the warmth of his body next to mine. My stomach clenches. My palms grow slightly damp, and I can feel a prickle of arousal soak into my underwear. Why, damn it? Why can’t I stop this madness?

“You’re not helping,” I grit out, trying to focus on the animal instead of the wayward attraction rising within me.

He stops petting the creature and snags my hand, all pretense evaporating in an instant. My breath catches in my chest. Reyes shifts closer, the heat of his body burning into my side.

“I know Ly put all our numbers into your cell before giving it back to you,” he says. “You didn’t call.”

“Don’t you think it was a little rude to go through someone else’s phone?”