FIFTEEN – GREGORY
Ash is asleep on top of me and I am pleased, this went much better than I had expected. When she wakes up, I am going to have to find a way to convince her to come home with me. I am ready to protect her with my life, but she has to allow me. She thinks she can protect herself, but her fighting skills won’t be enough. The fact is, it had taken me less than twenty minutes of searching to find her. She had left a ridiculously obvious trail when she left the road. I may have a bit of an advantage over the average tracker, with my owl night vision, but even the most rudimentary one would have been able to find her tonight. She is not as good at hiding as she thinks, and frankly, I am astonished she hasn’t already been discovered by the ones hunting her.
At least she accepts what I am and trusts me enough to have sex with me. That might be enough to get her to come back, but based on her behavior of running, I worry it will take more. I am ready to give her more. From the first moment I saw her, I felt a connection, which was, without doubt, the reason I did not lead a band of vigilantes to her location. The first moment I talked to her, I fell in love with her; and that was her yelling at me. Her speaking sweetly to me, only made me love her more. She had already nestled herself into my world before we made love but now, my soul belongs to her.
I can’t tell her the depth of my feelings now, I know it will just make her flee. Her absence would crush me. I would be doomed to live the rest of my life searching for her. And I would search because being with her fills the void that has been missing my whole life. The void I didn’t even realize I had until she forced her way into it.
Looking down at her sleeping form, there is no hope of me falling asleep out here. The problem is, my dick is growing harder by the second. It was bound to happen with her pressed against me like this. I would need at least one more release before I could even think about sleeping. I use this wakefulness to come up with a plan. Step one, convince her that she needs my protection and get her to move into the manor. If she is there, we can all look after her. No one would be able to get close.
I will also enlist a few men I trust. Obviously, Grant. Aaron, Tom, and Nash would be good as well. I need their ears to start digging. To see if anyone knows who Ash is and why she is here. I will use the construction plan to keep an eye on all traffic coming into town. I won’t tell the men the whole truth, but I will find some way to convince them to keep their eyes out for anyone who seems suspicious.
Most importantly, it is finally the time to reveal what I am to my family. I would never have done it for myself but I will need their help so, I am willing to risk everything for her. The worst that could happen is my family disowning me, then Ash and I would leave. It won’t be easy, but I would find us somewhere, far enough away we would be safe.
I need to know more about who we are dealing with. I wonder if she knows what any of the stalkers look like? Lucky for me, she promised to answer all my questions in the morning. I know she only did that because she wasn’t planning on being anywhere near me in the morning. I am going to hold her to it anyway and get the whole story from her.
I let my thoughts trail off and I start absentmindedly stroking her hair. I notice she smells like my soap and I get an idea. We would be far more comfortable sleeping in my bed and the fastest way back there is flying. It would take less than 10 minutes. I am ready to jump to the skies and I salivate at the idea of flying with her.
Ever so softly, I say, “Ash, sweetness, you need to wake up.” She shifts a tad, then nothing. I chuckle to myself, she was really worn out. Caressing the side of her face, I say, “My sweet-eagle, Ash. Open your beautiful green eyes. I need you to wake up.” This time, she doesn’t move, just squeaks out, “Bugger off.” At that, I laugh out loud, “Ash, come on. You will like it if you wake up.”
“No,” and she tries to bury her head. Alright, she isn’t going to make this easy. I sit up, then force her off my chest. “Ash, please wake up?”
Finally, she opens her eyes and she looks angry, “What is wrong with you?”
“I like it when you’re angry,” my eyes twinkle at her.
“I like being asleep,” she snaps. “There better be a good reason you are waking me.”
“There is,” I look up excitedly, “Let’s go back to my room?”
“Damn you, it’s at least an hour walk. Let me sleep.” She tries to lay back down on my chest, I stop her with my next sentence. “Let’s fly?”
“It’s not safe.” She shakes her head, no.
“The moon is only a crescent, it’s dark out tonight. Besides, we can fly high enough, even if someone did see us, they wouldn’t be able to identify any details.” I plead.
“I am not worried about the flying, I can see it’s dark outside.” In an exasperated tone, “There is nowhere safe to shift back.”
“Actually, there is. You forget I live here and have been hiding my shifting for years.” She looks at me, and I can see I already won. I am sure she loves to fly as much as I do and it sounds like she hasn’t in weeks.
“Do you trust me?” I ask.
She climbs off me, “Yes. Help me bag up everything so I can carry it back.”
Together, we do just that. Once the fire is out, we stand hand and hand in the clearing. She gives me a light squeeze and we both shift to our animal forms.
Her eyes are still green.
She looks at me and I swear I can see a smirk. She grabs the bag with her talons, then takes off towards the skies. Without hesitation, I chase after her.