WingSpan (Taken on the Wing Book 1) (42 page)

He stands all the way across her small den, maybe a dozen feet away, and isn’t close at all. Cloud shakes her bag empty before lining the bottom with a shirt, carefully spreading it so the weight of her clothes will keep it in place over the hole.

Then she starts refilling the bag.

She’s not over me,
he realizes and all he wants to do is take back the last hour of her life but he can’t. Cloud is his last chance to protect their home.

“Where are you going?” Soar asks.

“Not a word in three years and he pretends he cares where I’m going,” she snaps. “If it’s any of your darn business I’m going to spend a raunchy weekend in Memphis with your brother.”

Soar modulates his voice so it won’t penetrate the curtain to be overheard in the tunnel but it’s hard. The idea she’d gloat about being with anyone else speaks to how angry she still is and if she means to lash back it’s working.

“Even if I wasn’t in Sky’s den when she heard where Falcon’s knife was you’re still the worst liar I’ve ever met.”

She shrugs as the pile of clothes around her gets smaller. “What the heck did you do to your hair?”

Soar ignores the bait since she knows damn well it’s been short for years.

“You wouldn’t have done it, Cloud.”

“Of course I wouldn’t have taken that royal
hatchling’s
stupid knife,” she says, her voice matching his tone for privacy.

“Then why didn’t you tell Sky that?”

Cloud turns and looks at him like she’s only just noticed him in the door.

“I let myself be set-up, Soar. My Master believes I stole because of my own stupidity. I was inattentive and brought failure on myself. Double failure, today of all days."

Beneath her jeans, her tail is already drawn in and she wrings a shirt she can pull over the light tunic she wears to travel.

“You know who set you up?”

“I am one hundred percent certain.”

“And?”

He can’t read her expression as she stands and drops the shirt on her bag. For a moment he thinks she’s on to him already. Her anger with herself has turned into something feral and tenuous that could turn on him just as well as she could turn it inward. Damn it, even if she hadn’t just been expelled for theft, her humiliation over her failure against Sky is more than enough to upset her.

He hasn’t spoken this much to her in three years so her confusion about him can only add to her pain.

“Falcon,” she says. “Royal jerk's been getting too touchy with the females and after he cornered me to experience his attentions I
accidentally
broke two of his fingers the next time Sky paired us.”

“Damn it, Cloud. You should have gone to Sky,” he hopes to sound like he’s giving her a lecture although inside he’s proud of her. Had Hunter known about Falcon? Soar’s impressed with his kid brother. He couldn’t have picked a better mark for the theft.

“Thinking back? Yeah, but at the time I felt he’d learned his lesson. Kept his hands to himself since then but the injury kept him from going on advanced maneuvers with Talon and he blames me.

“And why the interest in me, all of a sudden?”

“Well,” Soar approaches, unsure what to expect from her. “I was—”

“You were what?” her voice shakes but at least she keeps it down. Soar pushes his wings forward, offering her comfort in their folds, but she takes a step away.

“I was wondering what Sky told you.”

“She said if I could prove myself in three months I might be able to come back,” Cloud doesn’t retreat further, instead she steps in looking hurt, tired and fragile.

“Is that what you want?”

She drops her chin in a sharp nod then meets his stare.

“I have an assignment for you, Cloud. We can help each other out,” his fingers touch just below her chin, tipping it up to his before finding his way around under her ear and toward the back of her neck. She’d let him touch her ear once and in those seconds he memorized every notch in its scarred, jagged edge.

Now she’s close, too close, and he can’t help himself. He avoids the scars but thumbs the lobe on his way by. “Hm?”

“Cloud? I missed you at—” Hunter stumbles to a stop at the sight of her so near his brother.

“Hunter,” she says as she jumps clear of Soar.

“I just came to check on you,” Hunter says but his light mood has turned to a scowl for his older sibling.

“I... uh,” Cloud stammers. She has to remember Sky’s instructions about keeping her mouth shut for a week. “I’m going away for a couple of days.”

Jesus, the kid’s a good actor. With his arms crossed he’s the very image of the newly winged, angry, seven year old gryphon Soar recalls trying so hard to understand why his favourite brother is leaving and he can’t go along. Hunter keeps his mouth shut and Soar recognizes the flush in Cloud’s cheeks. She squirms inside as she comes up with a plausible explanation for Hunter.

“I’m meeting Talon for a night exercise.”

Good try, Cloud, but he knows Talon isn’t here.

The way Hunter’s eyes roll to the ceiling shows he reacts more to the sight of Cloud and Soar than he pretends to be pissed. What had he seen? Soar had been reaching for the back of her neck like her lover would. Instinct made him seek the soft spots beneath her hair where his touch would calm her.

“You’re a shitty liar, Cloud,” Hunter blurts out. He’s jealous and more attached to Cloud than he ever let on. “You’re going somewhere with him.”

“No—”

“He can’t keep a female in his life for more than a month and when you figure out why
don’t
come looking for me,” Hunter’s arms shake in spite of the firm hold he has on himself. “I’m sick of his hand-me-downs.”

Hunter spins on his heel so fast he almost bolts into the wall as he storms from Cloud’s den.

But Cloud turns on Soar before the curtain falls shut.

“A month?” she demands and smacks his wing aside as he tries to draw her near again. “I gave you two years. Let me correct that. I gave you two years of nights in your den when you were everything. Two years of you not having time for me during the day when everyone else was around and I bet not a single soul knew we’d ever been alone together.”

“I didn’t come here for you to take your problems out on me,” Soar bites out to deflect the sting of her temper. “I need a gryphon for a job and you need to put a shine on your image.”

Cloud’s mouth snaps shut but the smolder in her gold flecked blue eyes promises danger, either to him or his heart and he doesn’t give a shit which as long as it means she's going to come at him.

“Here,” he holds out a ring with a key on it. “My van is fifty miles due north of the transition house and I’ll be there the day after tomorrow. If you’re not gryphon enough for what I have to offer, don’t be there.”

“You,” she sputters.

Soar doesn’t wait for an answer and drops the key on the stone floor before leaving to clear things up with Hunter.

As Soar steps from her den he hears the scrape of metal on stone as Cloud picks up the key.

.
..available now

Constant

As a Core Alliance soldier, Rye knows the grind of skirmishes on one forgotten planet after another. Then six years ago he discovered loss when the woman who meant everything died in his arms. Now, a chance meeting brings her back into his life. Under pressure to hide her from his superiors and rocked by the truths hidden in her past, Rye can only take one path. Follow his heart until every piece of it, and hers, heals.

Angel has secrets; why she joined Core and why she never sought Rye out when her body was stolen from cryo and put back together. She fights her own battle against the Aphids, at first for vengeance and now to protect the little piece of Rye she brought back from the other side. When she finds herself back in Core hands, she has no choice but to allow Rye to take her home and in doing so, she endangers far more than the quiet community which brought her back to life.

Chapter 1

“I love you, Rye.”

Angel instantly regrets the words.

Her commander tenses in her arms. Moments before, she teased his ear with her teeth the way she knew drove him crazy. Unbridled bliss in the dirty and debris strewn room forced the words from her lips as he shook beneath her.

Now she confesses the one thing they shouldn’t have.

“Damn it,” she mutters, lips still pressed to his ear.

Angel wears nothing but standard-issue black socks and sweat sticks her breasts to his armour plated chest.

“I...” she tries as Rye pulls her away enough to look in her eyes.

“Angel,” he breathes. This close she can easily tell the difference between the natural eye and the implant. His natural steel gray eye dilates with pleasure while the matching technical marvel closes tightly in deference to the room’s weak light. Both are beautiful.

She can’t hold his hard stare and turns away in shame.

This ransacked apartment once held a family. Scattered toys and furniture rest beneath dust dumped by two decades of abandonment. Angel used to be bothered by the broken remnants of life in places like this but now they are, more often than not, where she spends her two hours of rack a cycle.

“No,” he forces her nose to his. “Never.”

Never say it. Never think it.

Rye is a third generation soldier, his body far more modified than hers. His genetic alterations make his wetware implants more effective and eliminate the need for drugs and therapy to enhance his strength and speed. She joined the war ten years ago. First generation. Civilian parents.

She’s not the kind of female chosen to pair with a specimen like him. Let off some steam during downtime, sure, but that’s all it can ever be.

Angel nods since there’s no point in arguing. They’re in Aphid territory and her job is to get all the data she can while the rest of the team has her back.

Rye fingers the tender spots on her hips where they’d dug in with passion and hisses at the loss of contact as he helps her to her feet. With her back to him, she hides the burning in her cheeks and the flush of her chest.

“I’ll grab rations,” Rye fastens his trousers and weapons. Then he leaves Angel alone to dress. Ninety minutes remain off duty. More than enough for a tasteless meal and the hour of sleep she needs to stay alert and keep the shakes at bay. Rye can last a week before he needs to power down.

He returns with two small boxes as she adjusts her earpiece and tests the function of the zipper covering the data port embedded in her arm. Angel’s own handgun seems small and impotent compared to Rye’s weapons but she’s not made for combat. Five foot nine isn’t at the small end of things for a woman back on Earth but in Rye’s unit she’s a pixie.

Angel can’t look at Rye when he shoves her rations in her hands. Once she takes her box he wraps his hands around hers to quiet her tremors.

“You need rest,” he whispers.

Somehow his stating the obvious feels like an insult. Of course she needs to rest. She shakes every damn day as a reminder she’s first gen and her position in his unit is temporary at best. Rye hasn’t slept in three days and he’s as still as the dead housing block surrounding them.