Tossing & Turning

DEON

Iclose Donna's bedroom door.

First thing violating my eye? The small, single-sized mattress. A lonely pillow enucleating it for good. I want to huff and laugh simultaneously, but my smirk just can't go that far.

As I spin Danger to face me, I look down into the fire blazing her gaze, thinking that insignificant detail would never stop me from doing what I wanted with her...

Still, I'm glad we're sleeping in Fay's bed—queen-sized, the minimum standard...

"Let me guess, you don't like sleepovers?" Words are fast to come out of me, but I swear they're hard to put together.

Donna attempts to free herself from my constricting, yet affectionate, embrace. "Correction, I don't like leftovers."

Ouch.

"Donna..." Her name morphs into a rough exhale as my eyes adjust to this unexplored dark room, only the runes sticking out of my shirt illuminating it. "Calm down." Gods, she has this brawn. It's incredible! Can hardly contain her. And from my heart down to my legs, I must tap into a well of strength reserved only for extreme situations, beyond all holy...

Bringing forth this aggressive little lolita, not gonna hide, near to breaking point here, I sit her on the bed and hold her in place, my arms enveloping her shoulders because she's fussy, teeth a bite away from my nose. In short, it was a shove, and it isn't boding well with her.

I sigh, trying to let it pass, more or less relaxing my eyes on her snarling teeth while a subtle hint of wine blows at my face. "Hey!" she sings out.

"I just met you, and this is cra?—"

"Stop it!" Donna snaps, striking two pretty, tender, unloving eyes up at me, silky hair sprouting on her flawless, bronze, incredibly attractive, perfect face.

"Can't." I really can't. "So here's my number..." Truth right here, because here I am, giving my actual cell. Whenever I am around her, I feel like an embarrassing joke.

"Deon..." she grinds. "End your quips, or I'll murder you." Her scathing voice turns into a growl, and I take a deep, controlled, yet much-needed breath to the warning she just thwarted at my face.

"Ease up, girl, or I'll tie you up." I'm not that guy; really, I'm not. To be honest, I prefer being the one tangled up in knots, barely able to sputter a safeword before she strang?—

"Try me!"

But she's feral tonight, her jaws elongating into a fluffy snout as she bares her long, lovely claws against my wrists.

"Oh, as you wish, dove," I grunt through my teeth, my tail flashing at her neck. She chins up, mouthing a fuck to herself as my tail slithers a second time around her neck.

I halt, dragging the fringe of my wings across the rug.

Shook these open wide, their crooked thumbs scrapping at both ends of the ceiling, mainly battling patience. "You need a choke? I choke. Anything for..." My mind blurs, and I close my eyes gladly. Shit...

"Do you have sugar, honey?" I ask, feigning control.

"Deon?" buzzes in my ears.

At my feet, my tail recoils.

Head spins.

My knees buckle, knuckles hitting the cushiness of a thick padding. My hold over her shoulders loosens, transitioning into a glide. I keep my focus on my hands, which drag sluggishly down her body. First, they slip over the hem of Donna's purple T-shirt, then down her legs. My fingers cling to her ankles... my anchor. That's all I have left to hang on to.

She sees it, her body giving up the fight of resistance. I swallow and trawl my gaze up to her lips. Both mental and physical strength are leaving me, and I can't keep up with or face her. Wild beauty capable of making my wings drop, yet I'd still leap into the air for Donna. What can I say? You can't kill love!

Bloody lust mingled with a sugar drop from not eating since... whenever, keeps distracting me, causing my pulse to rollercoast, overthrowing me... not once or twice, but a hundred! In hindsight, I can't recall a worse time to meet my mate... It's either we bond, or we never see each other again. Finding your mate and being unable to have more than a scent, a touch, and a glimpse of what's mine is an agonizing experience.

Yet, could I ever live with the hollow of half of myself? I really do not want to find out. Apparently, it sucks. Depression, suicides—obviously, death. Mmm... No.

I tremble, but my smile endures, no matter what. Fuck, I'm spent.

"I don't have sugar!" Donna's eyes are turning blood, drowned by something savage. Mine? Going blind...

It turns out, Donna wasn't calming down after all; she was just charging her batteries.

Feeling my life at her fangs' edge, my arms stretch out, though my grip remains firm. Nothing wrong with taking a little distance here.

"Get your hands off me." A flash of forehead brushes my left temple as I dodge a cute headbutt.

"Feisty Donna, want to rumble?" I'm trying to keep it playful, but tonight, I'm being tested by two women waging a fierce battle over something I can't quite place.

With erratic movements, she tenses, shoulders shuffling, rolling, and begins breathing loudly. "I need some air!"

By an unknown miracle, I manage to stand on my knees, clamping her shoulders, these highly allergic to my touch. "You need to calm down." My whisper is rough, my clench just as much.

I want to keep my issues inside, worries and stress, too, if possible. I'm always more or less in control. Here's why I never pass up a little high. A lot of people judge, and they can keep doing so. As they run like headless chickens, I unwind from afar.

With determined violence, she rolls her shoulders and breathes loudly.

And while she shuffles, my dizzy eyes roam around her bedroom. I'll make it quick. Everything is neat and tidy, from her gray bench tucked under a vanity bearing the same dull color, to her perfectly made white bed, nicely set up like one you'd find in a five-star hotel. Even the rug is spotless, despite its ivory color. Basically, the place looks like a futuristic sterilized hospital.

Antiseptic.

Bestial grunts intensify between us.

"Let me go," Donna growls. "You're making me shift!" She grabs the hem of her cover and squeezes it—a move that doesn't add to her chin canting up gracefully at me.

My heart pokes at me. Red, rounding eyes—wolf eyes.

Yeah... my intervention is required. I hold her crushing stare, forcing an essence that should flow out of me without triggering it.

Just once... Ribbons of heat surface and ebb over my skin to travel to hers, sweeping with lines of pure sunlight up her nose, ears, corners of her mouth, and eyes.

"Don't resist, Donna. I just want to help."

She's tracking my markings flowing over her arms, a little jerk pressuring my grip on her. "Don't fear..." My face oscillates like a metronome on crack, hoping to intercept her glance. "Donna."

She meets my gaze, her breath slowing as time seems to seize. She's beautiful, there is nothing else to describe.

"Isn't it wonderful..." I whisper.

As if suffering and beauty were being experienced at once, I hold my mouth from gaping. Particularly when Donna's lips move softly, and the lowest, smokiest voice flows out of them. "What is wonderful?"

You... Fucking you, Donna. My heart picks up a gallop and bucks in my chest when her burned-out ambers well up instantly. My hand slithers up her shoulders, and I hesitate to bring it to a place where she may protest: her neck. "To know the source of light." Even so, I can't detach my skin from hers and follow it through a tunnel of curls. My hand folds over her nape. "Comes from us?"

Taking a deep breath, I wait.

She instantly tunes out, muscles softening. I stay on my knees, observing the movement of her chest.

"The past is coming back, and it's not to haunt us," Donna says as she lifts her eyes to me. "It's to punish us, to snatch and trail us to the gates of hell." She's quivering.

"Have you done something that would excite Satan?"

"Maybe..."

"Saving orklings was a noble cause."

Donna's eyes are no longer evading me, a not-so-brief pause, perhaps connecting 'how does he know' to 'whatever.'

"For a price," she mumbles. Seems like Donna was a forgotten pawn in the Skin Tanner pack. I wonder how many got away. It was a thriving community of werewolves living like in the old days—no cars, no electricity, dressed to kill and armed with knives to intimidate other monsters from approaching. Not only known to have dominated Southeast Orcana, but also as having been orcs' main allies. Wolf Island was their chiefdom, a quaint yet fierce haven. Even Fidr thought twice before defacing the place since it took her so long.

I jolt back as she falls over her knees, bracing her head. I watch waves of chestnut hair dangle down her legs, unable to find words.

I stroke her head and notice a bottle of water on her nightstand. My knees die under me as I get up. Approaching a minimalist bleached table devoid of personality, if not for stern framed photographs standing on it, I pick up the small plastic bottle and pause on the pictures. A rounded frame encloses Fay and Donna, and then I sweep my eyes over a squared metallic one bordering what looks like her family, a couple behind her, who could be her mother with a hand on her very young shoulder, and her father's on the one of... an orc boy standing next to her, an elder sister I believe, squatting in front of the two, a mace in hand, It's an icy portrait of a family, where none are smiling. She can't be more than eight or ten, all plumpy and bright-eyed.

"I messed up." I turn to the sound of her voice and find her in the same position, a ball of shame.

Kneeling again, I reach out to her, spreading my fingers over her back. I tangle them in her scattered threads.

She rises upon feeling my strokes and perhaps spotting the bottle. "What are you doing?"

I don't budge. I can sense she's got issues with males.

"It's water. Drink."

She takes the bottle, three sips, basically tanking down the whole thing.

I scratch the birth of my left horn, unsure how to tackle the Fay subject. "Fay?—"

"I messed up. I messed up so badly. It's just?—"

She ain't even picking up Fay turning into a giant firework. Am I the only woke person here?

"Never saw Fay's magic. What's her powers?" I ask as softly as I can.

"You have. It's pixie dust, Heartsbleed."

"There's nothing Peacemaker about that, Donna. That was a whole different kind of magic back there."

She sniffs, lifting dog-sad eyes at me, delicately touching the rim of one with the flat of her finger. "When she gets overexcited or overwhelmed, the pixie goes off like a party popper... the idiot. She could've hurt someone or, worse, herself!"

My neck stiffens. How I doubt that.

She drops her face into her hands, sobbing, and I shut my eyes, tempted to hug her. Never liked to watch girls cry... turns me into a cream pie of battered emotions.

"It's nerves. It's getting to us all. But with Fay... Doll, she did nothing wrong. You could've just taken that yogurt and stayed quiet."

"Stayed quiet..." she murmurs beneath her curtain of hair, the color of fucking dusk. The mere thought of her makes me think of a merciless goddess made of gold...

Sometimes, it seems as though things are improving for me, thoughts clearing. And then a single eye bat from her flings me back into her chains. Fucking hell...

Donna straightens her back, wracks her fingers over her skull, and turns to me, fangs—Heavens!—sharp.

Here's my first mistake: Never tell a woman to stay quiet. But of course, the wisdom bearer ain't never immune to his own fucking stupidity... Life was great, and now it's over. I'm about to go down a werewolf's throat, paper-shredder style.

"Deon..."

I smile. It is one. It's there. Surviving.

"Aren't you fed up with me treating you like shit?" Her low, weak, hardly spoken voice would be enough to revive my dead soul if it ever had to come to that.

"Girl..." I bend my head, trying to grab a glance from her. "I kinda like it."

Donna stares back at me, expressionless. "You... like it?"

Her tears are about to brim, and I feel them weighing down on my chest.

"I live for this. For your assassin eyes, how you slay me with your words and handle me with a hand of steel." I smirk and try to control my embarrassing self.

She grabs my arms like claws, falls on me, and crumbles.

I cup her head and hold it against me, my words missing aside. "It's going to be okay."

Restlessness grips her body, fur interspersing between my fingers.

I extend a hand to her neck and clasp it softly. I'm trying so hard to get a good snag on her throat for a damn reason: Angel's Breath. I release it through my runes, and it's a pain. There is always something easier about kisses, the projection of immortality and purification pouring straight into the being. But I'm unsure she's ready for a second round of my lips. "You shift like a wind's current, doll. Any reason for that?" Neither of these girls seem in control of what makes them...

"You don't want this." Donna is struggling, neck pressing against my palm, taking in my light, needing it, and I'm glad she senses it. "I'm cursed..."

Cursed? I want to exhale loudly, but I won't. Instead, I put the curse topic off until another time. "How'd you want it done? I'll make it up for you." I'd take my dream girl now, muscles heretic, stiff for her.

"You don't understand; I'm not in control. You need to take a step back. Please."

"Me neither. My knees are shaking for you, wolf."

"Damn it!" she roars, tears strolling down like I can't take it. "Quit your antics!"

She's scared out of her mind...

I lean against her. Reaching almost to her ear, but failing to touch her skin. "Fear deafens us." My lips keep running close, words as low as I can. "Do not let it win."

Weighted and measured as my tone, Donna appears to mock me. "There can be only one kind of person who would be unmoved by what's happening outside, and that's a psychopath."

Fast enough, I clutch the back of her neck, maybe some hair, and force her fleeting eyes to stare at me because, maybe my composure's just melting away. "Donna, I'm fucking terrified."

"You?" She frowns lightly, a slight shake of the head that's still solid in my clench. "You keep fooling and joking around."

Her sob rattles my lungs. I fool around... She wants me to curve into a ball? To cry, to despair, to tell her, me, a random guy she's known for less than a week, that I'm shit-scared of losing her? She'd only think I'm nuts.

I wince, a migraine like a freakin' hurricane ripping my head. I'm drained, pretty much worn out like this shitty city. Wouldn't matter much to me, but she's here, causing major problems for me.

Yeah, if there's something I should be doing, it's cheering this insurrection. I wanted it to happen; I played my part more than I should've.

And now, Donna's rolling out, and I'm lost, very much scared that something could happen to her. I fought my battles and even those that weren't mine... At present, I can confidently confirm this. I'm done. A week ago, that wasn't even conceivable. But I won't be part of the mourners, I will not.

The reality of war isn't like what you see in movies. The fabric of it doesn't drape over distinct battlefields. Symptoms of it can be witnessed right here, well after midnight, in a bedroom void of electricity, amid M-guns shots, sounds of their bangs rippling every ten minutes.

At first, I thought I liked the smell of corrupted iron, the unquenching thirst for justice. But as I kept fighting, it was like getting hooked on sugar. The more I indulged, the sicker I felt, and then justice started to taste bitter.

"I want to let go of this fear, but you're here!" I'm shivering, blood icing, the beast in me howling in my veins.

I drop my head, breathing hard. I've got to focus on the space between her feet, on the threads of a carpet paler than the aspirin I could do with.

With her head angling down to mine, she catches my gaze, and sniveling, she mutters, "Gargoyle..." Forks of warmth run up my temples, then clutch at the only horn she can. "Hold me."

High on amber eyes towering over me, I forget my name. And as her face becomes more womanly, her eye twinkle hits me. There can be nothing better than this, as small as it is, and with someone I just met... I don't know. The grass is just greener with her.

I gather myself, wings flapping like a chickling, and obey her.

Subservient, I stand tall on my knees and fold over her like foil. Tail around our waists bind us, wings cloaking us from this ugly world, our necks ensnaring each other in a secure latch.

"What else, princess?"

"Lay me down."

I play it fast forward, making us fall on the bed. Shaggy hair blooms, sharp ears poke out from the skull of a brutal monster.

And this monster cowers in tears.

"What savage mistress have we here..." The bed creaks under the growing weight.

"My curse. To find my mate and love in the furs..."

"I am a Truth Pursuer. Bet whoever cursed you wasn't expecting..." gently, I kiss her, fur evanescing from Angel's Breath flowing out of my mouth, "this," I rasp over her lips, follow her swaying lips as they shy away.

I'm a hound on a scent, and I won't let it go.

My horn is tightly clasped in her hands as she keeps it far, attempting to keep my mouth at bay from her. "I don't want to shift."

"If that's what you want, then I'll ensure you don't," I say, putting pressure on my horn. "Let me just kiss you, please."

My skull yanks down, and I bliss out when I crash on her willing lips, her tongue stroking my own.

War destroys honor.

It tramples faith.

Wrecks pride.

People do not march for glory, with a noble purpose, brandishing a sword, a gun, or whatever, with pride. It's a ripped sheet of chaos that has people quivering behind doors, a kitchen knife in hand. Families hide their children in basements or run from the streets, sewers, and woods.

War doesn't allow egos to flourish. Knights don't shine. Maidens don't admire, cheer, or praise. They're dead in a river, floating in shame...

But I have more than pride, honor, or faith.

I have her.

And maybe I could find the strength to fight for her after all...