Page 35 of Antiletum (The Nocturne #1)

Slowly, he inches his way towards me with a sense of shyness.

As if he’s worried I don’t like his gift.

His beak comes to the back of my hand, nudging it gently.

Instructing me to pin the jeweled owl to my dress.

Hand shaking, I take the suggestion, ignoring questions of who my owl possibly stole the clearly expensive brooch from.

He gives me a happy noise in encouragement as the tiny needle slides through the silk of my black dress, right above my breast. As soon as I’m out of his company, I’ll have to take it off and inquire around for who may have lost it.

Shoulders straight, I raise my chin to further accentuate the piece with pride. “What do you think? Does it suit?”

My owl responds with a joyful screech and flaps his wings to transfer himself from the grave marker to my shoulder.

I laugh, no longer wary of his nearness at all.

I know that he will not cut into my skin with those talons.

Never try to crush any part of me in that iron grip.

I’m safe in his presence. He nips lightly at my ear—gentle and affectionate, his beak clicking against the trio of diamonds.

When I laugh again, his grinning, heart shaped face nuzzles into mine. I try to shy away from the tickle of his soft, downy feathers. But as I turn my head side to side in avoidance I only succeed in rubbing my nose against his beak.

Pausing, I try to take control of myself. Essentially, we just shared the owl equivalent of a kiss.

I want to do it again.

But that’s such a strange instinct. To be so affectionate with a bird. Still, I can’t stop myself from turning my face just a fraction, repeating the motion. He leans into it with gusto, closing his eyes as if he’s savoring.

It’s incredibly intimate.

Too intimate.

Maybe it would have made sense if shifter abilities still existed.

Maybe this instinct is some long buried facet of my heritage, my family’s bloodlines tracing back to known barn owl shifters when the Nocturne still roamed the earth.

But I cannot pull myself into that ancient form, as much as I wish I could, and the affections I share with this owl aren’t rationalized .

This is nothing but pure starvation to love and be loved without any betrayal or guilt or pain.

I put distance between our faces. At my retreat, he turns his head quizzically to the side. Blinking in question. Like he doesn’t understand at all why I’ve pulled away.

But of course he doesn’t. He’s only an animal.

One who has managed to imprint on me, despite his age when we found each other.

And my behavior in letting him preen me and bring me gifts and give him mice to munch on in return isn’t helping matters.

He’s been courting me, and I have arguably been courting him in return.

Physical displays of affection are too far.

“This is wrong,” I whisper sadly. “We shouldn’t be like this with each other.”

The plummeting of my heart disagrees with my words. Quieting that thought, I shake my shoulder lightly, giving indication for my owl to abandon his perch.

Preceded by a look of resignation (or is that frustration?), he huffs out a deep breath in an almost human gesture and gives me a glance that practically screams You asked for this.

Reluctantly, he leaves. Flying away from me so that I can watch him retreat.

Fear radiates from my chest that perhaps he will feel so rejected he’ll never return to me.

A thought I simply cannot bear. “Wait!” I yelp, trying to call him back.

He doesn’t listen; his tail feathers are a dispersing wisp of smoke as he flaps away, taking the last pieces of my broken heart with him.

But then…

My eyes narrow. Something peculiar is happening. His feathers are shifting in a way entirely different from flight, elongating and changing form as well as color. As does the rest of his body until …

In one harsh, disbelieving blink, I’m not staring at an owl in flight at all, but a bare back belonging to a mountain of a man. Just standing in the grass. Surrounded by gravestones. Without a single stitch of clothing. His head level is taking up space where my dark barn owl should be.

Briefly, I’m drawn to the perfectly sculpted ass on display, the tiny dimples above it. And I think I might just die if I don’t press the pads of my fingers into them and knead .

As rapidly as the intrusive thought proves my clear insanity, everything is wiped away.

My mind melts into nothing of coherent substance, thieved by the tattoo covering the entirety of his back: a barn owl, wings spread wide, etched in delicate black lines that sprawl across defined muscle and numerous visible scars.

Unfathomable.

That’s the only word that crosses my mind, absorbing the fact that I have just witnessed a true shift from animal to human. Owl to man. And exactly who that owl has become. Who he has been all along.

“ Val?” I barely manage to squeak out past the rapid closing of my throat.

Moonlight glints off of his midnight hair as Valledyn turns his head over his shoulder. Grinning. My husband disregards my shock, turning to me fully. His giant, naked form waltzes in my direction. Spellbound.

“I knew you loved me,” Val claims, enraptured.

Triumphant.

I have to grab onto the headstone behind me to keep from falling on the ground—thanks to the sudden weakness in my useless little legs. Acid burns in my stomach, scratching at my throat.

“I’ve been waiting for you to admit it. For you to see. ” Val’s eyes gleam. He takes another step towards me, enthralled. “Tonight—what you said…” He starts tripping over his words in his excitement, coming towards me faster. “I was right! You love me.”

Utter horror is consuming. Not only over the things I said tonight, including I love you , but every time I ever talked to my—

The owl.

Not mine. Not my owl. Not my anything.

Yet another sense of loss crashes through me. I loved that owl.

A strangled noise that could be a laugh or a cough falls from my lips, my husband completely oblivious to my internal spiral.

I’ve been doting on him for months. Allowing him to do the same to me in return.

Pouring my heart out, including about my husband, who he happened to be .

The whole time. I said they should meet each other because they were alike.

A suggestion met with obvious amusement.

What a fool I am.

I built him a perch in my room!

“Oh, deos! ” I hang my dizzy, embarrassed head in my hands. “It was you. At the manor. After the party.” A wave of mortification drowns me. So strong, I may just use my necromancy to direct a pair of brittle bone hands to pull me underground with them.

With a groan, I rub the heels of my palms into my eyes, unsure if I want to laugh maniacally or cry. Either way, I’m on the verge of hysterics.

“I wanted to tell you,” Val says softly. “I hoped you’d pick up on my hints.”

My eyes and mouth both go as wide as a full moon at his utter audacity. “Why would I ever assume everything you were saying about shifters meant you are one?”

Here come the hysterics.

Val frowns slightly. “In hindsight, I probably should have just outright told you. ”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I wanted to. But I was afraid.”

“What could you possibly fear from me?”

“Everything.” Val says it so clearly. Plainly. Like it’s an obvious answer.

We stare at each other, expressions hard. Val breaks first. “I was afraid if you knew, you wouldn’t accept me.”

I scoff. “You were afraid that would make me reject you? Out of everything you’ve done?”

“Can you blame me?”

I ignore his question. It’s an agonizing struggle to ignore equally the sight of his naked body, the cut muscles of his trim hips making a disturbingly defined V, centered with glorious dark hair leading to… places.

“Who all knows?”

“My father and brother knew. Mallin and Alaric. And Blair. But only because you can’t keep anything from that woman and her nosey little smoke creatures. And now you, ocellus .” Val’s tone, his demeanor, is so loose. Like he’s been choking on the weight of the secret and can now finally breathe.

It dawns on me that we are in a very open cemetery, where anyone could be witnessing our interaction. “Are you mad?” I hiss, gesturing widely to the graveyard.

“It’s been suggested more than once.” Val shakes his head, taking another step towards me. “But there’s no one here. I can hear it. We’re alone.”

But of course, he has a heightened sense of hearing. I inspect his ears, half expecting them to be offset like an owl’s, but they’re perfectly, wonderfully symmetrical .

“Did you know I was listening to you? When you were talking to your father?” I ask, my embarrassment ever increasing.

“Of course. I always know when you’re near. How else would I have thought to come here?”

With another step forward, Val’s nearly touching me. Tentatively, he raises a hand. Rests a thumb and forefinger at my chin to force me to look at him when I turn away.

Our breaths suck in simultaneously at the touch—skin-to-skin—craving the other’s air. It’s pure heat and static. I half expect the sky to be zig-zagged with yellow lights, born from the friction of my husband’s flesh touching mine.

I’m frozen. Unable to move. Unsure if I want to, enraging me further.

Unfulfilled energy stretches between us, my hazel eyes sucked into the undeniable orbit of his black. Such a devouring stare he has.

Val has gotten so very close. The heat of his body pulses against the thin barrier of my dress.

I want to shed it—now. Slide it down my arms until I’m bare in his sight, allow him to look at me while I do him, let us learn every line and dip of the other.

Be naked with Val while we bathe in the moonlight, much like we did the night we wed, only without the cover of clothing.

Man and wife.