AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I wasn’t—”
She looks down at her hand, and seeming to realize what she was doing, she jerks free of my grasp.
“I’m… I’m sorry. I need to leave.” Astra slides out from between me and the pillar behind her. “I just want to go home. I need to sleep. This’ll make sense once I sleep. Tomorrow, maybe next week.”
She backs up quickly, stumbling over uneven stonework.
“Okay, okay.” I move after her slowly. I don’t want to spook her further. “Calm down. I’ll fly you wherever you want to go.”
“Fly?”
That was the wrong thing to say. Astra runs for the edge of the bell tower, heading straight for the rusted access ladder.
“Stop! It’s broken!”
She isn’t listening. She’s terrified. I have terrified her, and she will do anything to get away from me, including attempting whatever dangerous stunt is required.
“Stop!” I boom. It’s too late to play gentle giant; I need to shock her into halting.
My tail extends out to grab her around the waist, but the moment my tail touches her, she struggles. I could’ve done it in one, clean jerk, pulled her back to safety, but she fights against me.
I yank her back, and she throws herself towards the edge. She tips forward in my tail’s grasp, knocking her head against the parapet so fast and so hard, she doesn’t have time to scream before going limp.
“Astra!” I pull her to me, gathering her up in my arms.
Frantically, I brush my claws over her, moving her golden locks from her forehead. A bright red bruise blooms inches from the earlier gash, reopening the wound. Using the curved back of my claws, I fruitlessly attempt to put the blood back.
The muscles of my stomach knot and tense as sickness rises within me.
I hurt her and I terrify her.
She is meant to be mine. I can feel it in the weight of her in my arms and the touch of her hand on my chest. All of it feels right. But it can’t be—not if this is how she reacts to me.
“I’m sorry. So, so sorry,” I whisper.
I cannot keep her. I must return Astra to her home.
My chest hurts, realizing that tonight is the first and last time I will hold her, but it is even more painful to have heard her heart race with fear when she looked at me. If I’m to do what I’m pulled to do, to keep her safe, then I will do it even from me.
I stand slowly from my kneeling position, cradling Astra close to my chest as I move to the tower’s ledge. Typically, I launch into flight with the full force of my strength, but for her, I fly slowly across the courtyard.
Her window is easy to pry open. I have to duck to get inside, tucking my wings tight to my back and lowering my head so as not to gouge the ceiling.
Carrying her to her bedroom, I drop her shoes and bag next to her bed and tuck her in under the sheets. I allow myself one indulgence before leaving. The apartment smells of Astra, and I inhale so deeply, as if to leave her fresh scent of florals and dusty clay permanently seared in my nostrils. If I’m destined to spend eternity alone, then I want the memory of having her, even if it was just for a moment, as clear as possible in my mind.
As I leave to return to post, I note that I will have to reinforce the lock on her window. It was too easy to break in. I’ll wait to do it until she is away, working in her studio.
Chapter4
ASTRA
Ilet out a yelp of pain as the husky, quivering voice of Stevie Nicks blaring from my cell phone jerks me up from deep sleep and into a sitting position. The quick movement is a terrible idea. Everything hurts.
The moment I reach full consciousness, I feel the tender, squishy bruises that mark my body. My muscles ache, and my fingers are stiff. My eyes are painfully sensitive to the bright morning light, and my head throbs, like I spent the evening throwing back shotskis at the local beer garden. Which would be a far more logical explanation for what happened last night than reality.
“He was real,” I whisper as I grip my sheets tightly, as if attempting to grasp onto the last of my blurred memories.
Sheets…my sheets…
