Page 125 of Antiletum
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 Ilearned 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’rebothstill 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 ourdeo.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.
