FOREVER KNIGHTS: #15 Insatiable Beasts

Rosewynn Manor, Outside Meadowbrook, Grier

DERAGAN

For whatever reason Nora was lingering in the less-occupied parlor, today. She’d pulled up all the sheets with the intention of cleaning the room but upon finding the gilded rectangular mirror, she froze. Mesmerized by the image staring back at her.

There was a silvery sheen to her skin and her eyes luminesced. Her lashes darker or lips redder. Skin absent freckles even the large one near her ear. Sighing she turned and finished wadding the sheet in her hands. As she passed the window, movement outside drew her gaze.

Beth covertly made her way across the lawn, doll cradled close. Tossing furtive glances over her shoulder, she ducked into the grove where Nora heard the mind-shattering noise.

Dropping the sheet, Nora barreled through the house. Once outside she jumped the steps and sprinted the lawn. White muslin skirt flying. Her focus was those trees. Though she expected Beth’s pained cries, they never came. Pace slowing, she frowned. As the mini-clearing beyond the maples came into view, Nora held her breath. At first she couldn’t see Beth, but then the top of her dark head appeared above a bush.

Beth spoke eagerly in a soft voice, to someone Nora never heard. Beth giggled.

Peering over the ferns, Nora saw Beth surrounded by glowing lights.

Though faint in daylight, it was the lights they’d seen when they’d arrived at Rosewynn Manor.

“Beth?” Strange buzzing startled Nora. She jumped back as her sister’s head shot up.

Tiny voices hissed.

“Are you okay?” She called to Beth.

Beth beamed. “They’re my friends. See?” She held a finger out and a small fey girl landed delicately to balance on the tip. So tiny Nora barely distinguished her features. Only the shape of her body. Beth elaborated. “I come out here to talk with them.”

“You can understand them?”

“Of course.” Beth’s face showed her surprise. “You can’t?”

“No.”

“They thought you could.” She muttered before her face lit. “So, I’m special?”

Nora nodded in confusion.

Beth squealed happily.

“Be careful okay?”

Beth nodded, still smiling as her attention returned to the lights floating around her. Strange colored flickering reflected in the little girl’s dark eyes.

Nora pried herself away from the scene, to return to the house. Worrying for Beth and confused as to why the creatures had not attacked Beth as they had her.

“The fairy?” She asked aloud.

Nora had been practicing withdrawing her wings. Like tightening her arms. And they would slip out. The delicate bones so sharp they could tear fabric like a knife through silk as they swept out. Leaving tattered remnants digging into her back near her spine as she moved.

Deragan could hear her in the chamber over. The rasping brush of the feathers moving. A sound I learned well.

He instantly remembered countless nights he’d walked with her out to the expansive lawns and watched as she jogged a few graceful steps. The skirt of her white nightdress flowing around her legs. Then the wings whispered free of the long slits pulling down from her arms to unfold under the moonlight’s lamination.

As they stretched, they curved in a few swaying flutters that took her upward. Spinning into the night sky and moving in a silhouette over the moon’s glow.

Painfully beautiful. He shook himself from the memory. Focusing on the sounds next door again.

It took longer to tuck them back in, but she was mastering it.

Slipping from his chamber and closing the door soundlessly, he walked down the hall and found the door to her chamber open. Unable to resist watching as she closed her eyes. Envisioning the feathered limbs rising from beneath her skin to splay behind her.

She felt nothing. Sighing she opened her eyes and saw them framing her shoulders. Emanating a soft light as they moved. Swaying slightly when she flexed her shoulders. Tightening her body made the wings outstretch.

Looking so much like they did back then.

“When will you try to fly?” Deragan asked from the doorway behind her. Where he stood with an elbow resting near his forehead against the jam.

Making her spin so abruptly the white feathers brushed the walls as she turned. “You scared me!”

“Why?”

I didn’t mean to.

“I didn’t think anyone was home. The boys left and I couldn’t find you.”

I was with the pack.

“I was out checking the perimeter.” He explained.

“And conferring with your wolves?” She asked almost bitterly.

She’s finally understanding what we are.

A part of her still believes its all nonsense. Though it made him ache to know it, he couldn’t help but understand her unwillingness to believe in things that would change everything she’d thought she knew.

“Yes.” He nodded. Blue eyes unflinching.

“It barely feels real that I have them. I can’t imagine the idea of flying.”

“But you can.”

You have. So many times…