Under His Wings (4 page)

“And say what?” Tamar flicked a hand in the air. “Never
mind. With the rehashing of the plane crash, seeing the footage on television
and reliving it…I’m probably overreacting and being oversensitive. Really.
Forget it.” She smiled and tried to convince herself it didn’t appear as phony
as it felt. “I want to go tonight. What time are we meeting?”

Uncertainty tightened Resa’s pretty features a moment before
delight brightened her face and she shot her arm up in the air, palm out,
waiting for Tamar’s high-five. After Tamar slapped her palm to Resa’s, the
blonde beamed. “Cool! See you at seven?”

“I’ll be there,” Tamar promised. And as the other teacher
bounded from the room and Tamar resumed her packing, a grim determination
settled in her heart.

This was her life again. She had her freedom and friends
back, had a wonderful career she loved and a future that gleamed bright and
wide open. She refused to muddle it up with imaginary scenarios and paranoia.

She’d been granted a second chance and she would grab it by
the tail.

Even if it bit her in the ass during the ride.

* * * * *

“See? I told you we would have a good time,” Resa boasted
hours later as they left Paulo’s. She stumbled and Tamar grabbed her arm,
bracing the inebriated teacher. Her left leg protested at the additional
burden, but Tamar kept ahold of the blonde until she regained her footing.

“Oops!” Resa giggled, and then broke out in a surprisingly
in-tune rendition of
Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee
from
Grease
.
Tamar bit back a smile. Her friend had taken the get-stinkin’-drunk-off-your-ass
part of their celebration to heart, downing beers like they were on the
endangered species list.

Good thing Resa was a happy drunk.

“Watch your step,” Tamar said, her tone as dry as the June
night. Or her blood alcohol level. She and another teacher had stuck to a
two-beer limit, had been designated the “sobriety crew” and assumed the
responsibility of hauling Resa and the other two women who had joined them
home. Since Resa lived in Tamar’s direction, she’d volunteered to pour the
cheerful blonde into bed and carry her back to the restaurant in the morning to
pick up her car.

As Resa neared the finish of her musical number, unease
skipped down Tamar’s back. She’d walked this same stretch of sidewalk many
times over the years and yet her gaze bounced around them as she guided her
friend down the street. She couldn’t stop herself from glancing over her
shoulder. Of course she glimpsed nothing but empty sidewalk. But this didn’t
end the eerie sensation of being watched.

Long shadows stretched across the uneven cement, casting the
night in a murky gloom reminiscent of a B-horror movie. She was only half-black
but that part more than qualified her as a candidate for being killed off first
by a machete-wielding maniac.

God, she hated the dark.

“I wanted to be on Broadway.” Resa slung her arm around
Tamar’s waist and leaned her head on Tamar’s shoulder. “I was the star of the
drama club during high school in Boston. My goal was to major in theatre in
college, but my parents wouldn’t allow it.” Her voice dropped several octaves,
imitating her parents Tamar assumed. “We have scholars in this family, not
vaudeville entertainers.” Resa sighed and Tamar flinched, the alcohol fumes
enough to knock out an elephant. Resa’s head became a heavier load as she
slumped more of her weight on Tamar. Oblivious, the teacher continued her
lament, her tone returning to its normal lighter notes. “So I majored in
education and minored in theatre. But I still think about what if I’d followed
my dream. What if I hadn’t let fear and my parents’ dictates hold me back?”

Resa stopped, drawing Tamar to a faltering halt. The
slightly weaving blonde tossed her shoulders back, stretched her arms out wide
as if she were a diva stepping onto a dim stage with a single spotlight beaming
down on her. She threw her head back and opened her mouth wide. “Summerti-i-ime
and the livin’ is easy… Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is hi-i-igh…”

She belted out
Summertime
from
Porgy and Bess
in a rich alto. Which was pretty funny considering the opera was about a black
man living in the Charleston, South Carolina, slums. But hey, the girl had a
voice on her. The things a person found out about their friends when they were
three sheets to the wind.

Resa ended her performance with a sloppy bow that almost had
her face-planting on the sidewalk. “Do you think I could have made it, Tamar?”

“Definitely,” Tamar assured, taking Resa’s hand. “You have a
beautiful voice. Really. I’m surprised, actually.”

The other woman beamed. “Aw thanks.” She swung their clasped
hands back and forth between them as if they were two grade-school girls.
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. Well…” her brow scrunched as
she began walking again, “besides when Bobby Rivers told me I had the best
boobs in the sophomore class.”

Tamar snickered. “Resa, hear me when I say you should never
drink again. Okay?”

“You’re right.” Her sigh could have parted George
Washington’s hair on Mount Rushmore. “I get a little emotional.”

Now there is an understatement.
Tamar chuckled wryly.

“Hello, ladies.”

She staggered then drew up short.

He materialized out of nowhere. One minute the sidewalk in
front of them had been empty and now a tall, lean stranger blocked their path.
Over six feet in height, he towered over Tamar and Resa. The street lamp behind
him cast shadows over his face, concealing his features and lending him a
sinister appearance. Her nerves jangled a warning and Tamar cast an uneasy
glance over her shoulder. But the entire sidewalk and street were void of
people and sound. It seemed as if an evacuation order had been issued and
everyone but Resa and Tamar had heeded it.

They were alone except for this man who set off an alarm
clamoring in her head.

Resa beamed up at the stranger, the alcohol apparently
lowering whatever defenses she may have had. “Hi. I didn’t see you there.”

“But I saw you. Aren’t you lovely?” The soft tone reminded
Tamar of a stalking panther—dark, beautiful and lethal. Her sense of foreboding
increased, streaking toward full alert. He shifted forward and, for a second,
she caught a glimpse of his angular features, reminiscent of a bird of prey.
Hawkish…yes, that was the word. On this summer’s night he wore a long-sleeved
black shirt and pants, solidifying her impression. Tamar also wore a shirt with
sleeves, but she hid her scars. She highly doubted this man was concealing
anything.

His obsidian eyes followed the pretty, loose lines of Resa’s
face with unsettling focus. He moved another step forward and Tamar received an
up-close-and-personal view of him. She gasped. He was gorgeous. With full lips,
a patrician slant to his thin nose and a wide brow, he wouldn’t have looked out
of place standing on the steps of a sweeping Italian villa atop a craggy cliff,
sensual and masterful all at once.

But Tamar could name several predators that used their
beauty to lure unsuspecting prey into their clutches. His face didn’t disarm
her, but set her further on edge.

Her heart tripled in pace and the bitter tang of fear
flooded the back of her throat and spilled onto her tongue. They had to get out
of here.

“If you will excuse us,” Tamar murmured.She shook
loose Resa’s clasp on her hand to grasp the other woman’s upper arm and urge
her forward and around the man.

His gaze slid from Resa and settled on Tamar, his bottomless
eyes unnerving in their intensity.If she’d thought his contemplation of
Resa had been troubling, the way his steady black gaze seemed to drink her in
was downright disturbing.

“The likeness is uncanny,” he whispered, the tone
breathless, awed. He studied her, seeming to track every feature of her face,
lingering so long on the cleft that dented her chin she almost reached up and
brushed a finger over the genetic characteristic. “Part of me wants to wait
until he gets here. But I gave him a chance.”

He smiled.

Terror coursed over and through her with the speed of an
out-of-control freight train headed toward a cataclysmic and explosive end.
That terrible, beautiful smile promised pain, horror and death.

She stumbled back and took Resa with her. The teacher
squealed in dismay, but Tamar ignored her.

“Where are you going?” he purred, claiming the space she’d
placed between him and them. “Oh I’m going to enjoy this.” The unmistakable
glee in his tone—like a child who had discovered a piece of candy—chilled her.
Tamar wouldn’t have been surprised if he clapped his hands and jumped up and
down. “You,” his eyes narrowed on her, “I will save for last and take the most
pleasure in.”

That was the only warning they received. Yet if he’d shot a
starter’s pistol in the air and given them a ten-second head start it wouldn’t
have prepared her for what happened next.

One moment a man stood on the sidewalk and the next a
monster from her most horrifying nightmares crouched before them. And like in
those dreams, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t turn and run. The cement under her
feet seemed as if it had transformed to quicksand. It clutched her ankles,
sucking her down into its lethal depths. Beside her, Resa emitted a frightened
animal-like whimper.

The beast tilted its eagle head to the side and tracked them
with a disturbing intelligence that glittered in its black eyes. All the gray
and obsidian shadows of the night had coalesced and formed the wings that
settled alongside the beast’s huge carriage. Feathers the color of dirty
dishwater covered its wide breast and thick legs that ended in wicked
dagger-sharp talons. It lowered into a deeper crouch like a deranged version of
a courtier’s bow and Tamar glimpsed the powerful muscled back, legs and tail in
the shape of a horse.

“
Jesus
,” she breathed. What the hell was it?

“Do me a favor,”
the eagle-horse-man thing’s voice
rebounded inside her head and Tamar wanted to clap her hands to her ears at the
ugly gloating in the sonorous tone.
“Run.”

The quicksand disappeared and Tamar wheeled around,
complying with his instructions, dragging Resa with her. But her leg squawked
an objection at the sudden movement and Tamar went down—hard. Her palms slapped
the ground. Tiny loose pebbles bit into the heels of her palms. Yet her knee
smacking the unforgiving cement drowned out the small discomfort of her hands.
Pain screamed up her thigh and hip. Her teeth snapped together and a black
shroud of unconsciousness swooped over her. But with a force of will she hadn’t
known she possessed, Tamar shoved it back.

“Resa,” she rasped and her lips grazed the sidewalk as she
turned her head to look for her friend. Maybe she’d been able to get away, run
for help…

The other woman was sprawled on her stomach beside Tamar,
but she scrambled to her back, performing a crab crawl away from the monster
who stalked them. Her high-pitched shrieks ended on an abrupt note, replaced by
a jarring bone snapping and crunching.

The beast had pounced, taken Resa down.

Fear, a living, breathing entity, crawled alongside Tamar as
she sobbed and whimpered, trying to get away from this scene straight out of a
horror flick. The beast’s immense body hid the carnage from sight, but the wet,
meaty slurp and the metallic, blood-drenched scents were worse.

Crying, Tamar hauled her body up, using the brick building
behind her for support. Her left leg throbbed, the angry pulses like a thousand
bee stings in her knee, thigh and hip. Still, gripping the wall, she tried to
escape the fate that had befallen her friend.

“Where do you think you’re going?”
The question
halted her progress as if it had reached out and snared her by the shoulder.
Slowly she pivoted, the brick strong and sturdy under her palm. A calm settled
over her. She couldn’t run—her leg wouldn’t permit it. Even if her limb would
allow it, she couldn’t outrace this monster. But she refused to be taken down
from behind.

She’d rather see it coming.

“Brave, are you?”
It taunted and its cruel words and
laughter grated the walls of her mind like acid.
“It won’t save you,”
it
murmured, placing a claw closer to her sandal. The clack of the sharp tip
against the pavement scraped over her nerves, raw and terrifying.
“And
unlike your friend, I’m going to take my time with you.”

She believed the creature, the promise evident in the evil
glimmer that sparkled in its gaze. Sucking in a deep breath, Tamar pushed away
from the building and caught the flash of surprise in its too-human eyes.
Limping, she balanced most of her weight on her right leg and tilted her chin
up. Her heart thudded against her rib cage, adding another ache to the chorus.
But in a few minutes, none of the pain would matter. Not after he ripped her
apart. In her head, she heard the nauseating cacophony of torn flesh and
snapping bone that had been Resa’s horrible death and her courage flagged. She
closed her eyes.

A deafening roar filled her ears.

A surge of power, wind and heat blasted past her, again
knocking her to the ground. Her spine and the back of her skull cracked against
the cement and she cried out.

Another monster—just as big, just as terrifying—emerged out
of the night. It plowed into the one who’d murdered Resa and the tumble of
feathers, wings and muscle slammed into the building, a crater forming under
their hulking bodies.

“To the victor goes the spoils,” she uttered. Then slid over
the edge into unconsciousness.

* * * * *

“There,”
Nicolai growled inside his hippogryph beast.
Satisfaction coursed through him for the first time in hours since tracking
Evander to this small town hugging the Massachusetts coastline. Nico had
spotted him from the sky, his gray-and-black banded feathers and crest
unmistakable. The fool rogue hadn’t even bothered to cast a
gyges
to
conceal himself. If any humans happened to pass by they would see him. He had
endangered them all.