Page 68 of Antiletum (The Nocturne #1)

We all know what happend

Val

“ H ow did you get this?”

Delaney’s head rests against my chest while she drags her fingers over the scar on my abdomen. One of the worst that I own. The one that transfers all the way to my back and turned her downright primal when she touched it after I first shifted for her.

Tightening an arm around her, I laugh, free hand memorizing the ridges of her naked spine. Absorbing the heat of her breath against my skin.

“I got shot with a crossbow. For stealing a pair of shoes.”

My gaze trails out the clear wall of the conservatory, to the sprawl of lights below. The air is lighter now, green leaves and vibrant petals flowing among us. Me and my wife.

Together at last.

“Really?” Delaney tilts her head up to meet my eyes. She shivers. Though I know it has nothing to do with being cold, I pull our dark cashmere blanket up to her shoulders.

I dip my chin, smiling down at her. “Wasn’t the first or last time I met violence for being a thief. ”

“It’s so close to your kidney,” Delaney murmurs, a hint of rage hidden beneath the observation. Almost like an accusation and she intends to make the offender pay. I very much like the idea of that. Seeing Delaney murderous for me. I’m nearly positive she hasn’t killed anyone before.

What an honor—for the act to be on my behalf.

My hand digs in her hair. Gentle. Loosening the knots lovingly with my fingers.

It’s too deeply instilled in me, the need to preen my partner.

It’s been agonizing, having to keep myself in check and not tenderly smooth away all the bumps and grooves and edges along Delaney when they pop up.

I’m as attentive and careful now as when I cleaned between her thighs after finally separating.

Hours after we gave in to each other’s needs.

Me offering my body, and Delaney her heart and soul.

A warm, crackling sensation rolls through me. I smile so wide my face is beginning to hurt. It’s exacerbated by the sight of the vinculum earrings she shockingly produced from her dress and asked me to place upon her. Never to be removed.

Mallin and Alaric would be beside themselves—watching me drop my scowl to grin like a loon for an extended period of time.

“I should have died. The bolt did pierce my kidney.”

Delaney hinges up off my chest, all that luscious hair waving around her shoulders and back, skin aglow in the moonlight while her blanket pools in her lap. Horrified.

Without prompting I chuckle and explain. “I survived because if I shift quickly enough after receiving a grave injury, I can heal as my owl.”

She gapes at me. “I’ve never heard that about shifters before. That’s amazing.”

“It is,” I agree. “But just the same, it isn’t. ”

Delaney runs her hand through the hair at my temple.

Like she can’t keep from touching me. Our affections are soft in the moment, all that volatile energy between us eased into a happier, calmer air.

More reminiscent of the day that we met.

This is the most soothed I can ever remember feeling.

Like all the rage and discontentment that has possessed me for most of my life has been exorcised in Delaney’s accepting arms.

“Depending on how horribly my human body is failing, I’m stuck as an owl for longer than it would take non-fatal wounds to heal.

It could be weeks. Or months. This one,” I press her hand against the scar over my kidney, “took months. The shoes that I received it for were unnecessary. I spent that particular winter as an owl in the forest.”

“Was that your first shift?”

“No. I don’t remember just how old I was the first time. Young, I know that much. Old enough to remember my name. Not old enough to keep track of my age. To care for myself.” I sigh, reliving the murky days as a scared and lonely boy, knowing—even that young—that my life was about to end.

My wife tilts her head, gazing at me, patiently waiting for me to continue. Not prying though I can feel how much she wants to know.

I meet her stare, the lively scent of flowers perfuming the conservatory. “My first shift was shortly after my mother abandoned me.”

Delaney is silent for a moment, inspecting me closely, giving nothing away. “I didn’t know you were abandoned.”

“Yes. She was a whore. And I, a bastard. That much has always been true. I hated her for a long time. Owned by resentment. Not understanding how a mother, in any circumstance, could leave her child to fend for themselves like that.” My voice is scratchy when I continue speaking, laying everything bare for my wife.

“But then I learned that she’s sick. And she has been for a long time. I don’t hate her so much these days.”

Tightness works at my throat, imagining a once lovely, dark haired woman riddled with pox in a sanatorium across town.

Her mind and body ravaged by syphilis. As small as I was when she left, I can still recall her face in those final days.

Youthful. Not yet showing the signs of her disease, now halted in its progression since I’ve ensured she receives treatment.

But I didn’t intervene soon enough. And she’s not long for this world.

Yet another woman I failed, reaching her too late.

I don’t often mention my mother aloud, not even with Mallin or Alaric.

Delaney’s eyes shine in the moonlight, a pained set to her jaw.

“Don’t,” I say quietly. Not wanting my wife to feel any amount of sorrow, least of all for me. I’ve done enough.

She flicks a tear from her cheek just as it falls. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t pity me. You didn’t then.” I give a slow shake of my head. “Don’t start now.”

“I’m sorry. I had assumed that both your parents were dead.”

A small, sad curve comes over my lips. “No need to apologize, Delaney. When we met, I was still living with the same assumption.”

Turns out, they’re both still alive.

For now.

I sigh, collecting myself to finish telling my wife about how I learned I held the impossible ability to shift into a barn owl, just like our deo.

Brought about after my mother treated me like owls do melanistic fledglings in the wild.

Left to starve and die. Fitting. Though she had no idea what I was.

Still doesn’t. She likely never will .

“I was starving. Nearly at my end. So weakened I could barely lift my head. When I was certain I was about to succumb to the empty ache in my stomach, something in me flickered. Pulled at me with demand. At first I thought it was part of my hunger. But it became fiercer. Burning. I couldn’t ignore it, even when I tried.

Until, finally, I reached for that flicker with my mind, and before I knew it, I was tiny and hopping along in a back alley, seeing only in black and white, with no idea what the fuck was going on.

It took me unfurling my wings and seeing them to even begin to make sense of what happened.

It didn’t take long before the instinct to hunt took hold.

Starvation and the need to survive triggered my first shift. ”

Delaney laces a hand through mine. Tentative. Like she’s unsure if it’s the thing to do. I bring the inside of her wrist to my lips, kissing my encouragement over her gentle affection.

“It’s a miracle I was able to beat my small wings at all to learn how to fly, much less chase down a rat.” I shudder at the memory. Delaney squeezes my hand tighter. “I was so malnourished, it took time for me to bring myself back to health. And when I did, I didn’t know how to shift again.”

“How did you figure it out?”

“In short, sheer determination and force of will.” I laugh, reliving one of my first bouts of true fury.

The one I clung to for the next several years and ultimately kept me alive.

Some of the heaviness in the conversation drifts away.

Like leaves on a wind. “I got so angry and frustrated, I practically grabbed that ire within myself and squeezed, screaming at it to release me until I reappeared again as a human. Naked.”

“Sounds like you.”

I lean up and kiss the tip of her nose before falling back to the bed, swallowed by soft down and the warmth of my wife being near .

“That was probably the most difficult aspect to adjust to. Leaving my clothes somewhere I could find them again. Not shift unless I had something nearby to put on. Being mindful to dig through my pockets and hold in my talons anything I didn’t want lost.”

“Like my hair clasp?”

“Like your hair clasp.” A shot of mourning plagues the moment. I held that trinket dearly for so many years. I’ve found myself reaching for it in recent days, forgetting that it’s no longer in my possession. It’s almost like I’m missing a limb. Tentatively, I ask, “Do you still have it?”

“I still have it.” Her eyes soften further as she nods, the simple motion easing the clench around my ribs. Relieved.

“Can I see you shift?” Delaney asks excitedly.

My smile widens again. I’ve been waiting for her to ask.

Without a word, a grasp at that ball in my gut that I thought was hunger as a child. The same spot that first flicker occurred: the magic of my shift. It’s thoughtless now, curling a phantom fist around it for my whole being to collapse within itself and turn into something feathered and new.

I land with a soft flump on the bed, barely audible over Delaney’s gasp. Wings unfurl from my body, shaking out happily. I hop over to her. Delaney picks me up and cradles me against her chest, my feathers right against her naked breasts.

I can feel my heart-shaped face grinning, nudging under her neck to nip affectionately.

She laughs and strokes my feathers.

In a blink, I’m a man once more, Delaney yelping as my weight increases in her arms. She flops out of the way before I can crush her.

Pity. I was half hoping she’d attempt to catch my much larger body.

A deep laugh calls to her reaction. Her eyes are bright, disbelieving. Impressed .