Chapter 7

 

 

 

 

Chloe had expected to be able to snatch the fox ears off the guy’s head. She’d seen people wear those, fans of anime and certain shows. Heck, people took selfies and added cat and dog ears to their pictures all the time. But the ears had been real, and she’d watched them curl up and disappear inside his head.

It couldn’t be, but it was. She’d just witnessed something impossible, which by definition made it something possible instead.

Could there be truth to the rest of it?

It seemed most likely to her that he was telling the truth about himself, but was sadly mistaken about her. A case of wrong identity. She couldn’t be a goddess. Would a goddess have had a life as filled with tragedy and misery as hers?

Sparrow’s ears popped out again as she waited for him to show her more. And then his outline blurred. He still stood there, solid, casting a shadow, but he didn’t seem constrained by his body anymore. A light shone from his breastbone, not like a flashlight beam but a tiny sun, brighter at the center and shining outward in every direction. Within the light, something darker began to swirl, and it grew until she could barely make out his features behind it.

It was as if he’d opened himself up and showed her the sun and the universe hidden within. Light and flame and lightning swirled in a maelstrom inside his body, in front of his body, and within it all she could sometimes catch the outline of a fox, not whipped to and fro as one might expect, but riding on the waves of it. Riding the lightning that seemed to be coming from inside of him.

It was the most beautiful thing Chloe had ever seen, even though she didn’t understand any of it.

She turned her head to the side and held her hand up to block the glare, the brightness of it growing until she could no longer look directly at it.

One of the lightbulbs in the kitchen ceiling exploded like a gunshot. And his light and fire disappeared, leaving him standing on the other side of her kitchen, head tilted like a dog who’d heard a whistle, not even out of breath or disheveled in any way. His blond hair still hung careless around his face, his green eyes regarding her.

“Sorry,” he said, glancing up at her light fixture.

She was awed. “Holy crap.”

He approached her, and instantly her hands went to his chest, his stomach, to feel for herself that they were whole and solid. “That’s…amazing.” Chloe became aware of the heat between her legs, how aroused she was after seeing him that way. Or maybe just at discovering a whole new side of existence she didn’t know was there before.

He closed their distance and pulled her against his body. He was aroused, too, from the hardness. “Will you accept me, Gaia?”

“Because it’ll restore my powers?”

“Yes. I mean…it will. I’ve just shown myself to you, a symbol of love and trust. Our fates so intertwined that not even death can do us part.” One hand pressed against the small of her back, the other came up to stroke her cheek and cup the back of her neck. “I’m meant to be yours, and it’s never felt as right as it does at this moment.”

He moved to kiss her, but despite her arousal, and despite the way his words felt somehow right to her, too, she stopped him. “Wait. What’d you say your name was again?”

He leaned back, his eyes almost sad. Had she hurt his feelings by not remembering his name?

“Jagar Aneneroth. But I prefer if you call me Sparrow.”

Oh yeah, hippy-dippy parents, she’d thought. “Okay. If we do this, Swallow, will—”

“Sparrow.” A pinkness washed over his cheeks, and Chloe couldn’t resist teasing him a little more.

“Sorry. Arrow, I’m not—”

“Gaia, I have the feeling you’re purposefully mispronouncing my name to—” he straightened and used the words like they were new to him and he wasn’t entirely sure they were right—“piss me off.”

She smiled then. “Says the fox with the bird’s name.”

Sparrow’s mouth fell open, and his eyes shone, but he seemed to be fighting a smile. “You’re teasing me.”

Chloe matched his smile. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist. You’re kind of adorable when you’re frustrated. And I can’t let you kiss me without knowing your name, right?”

“Are you going to let me kiss you?”

She wrapped her arms tightly around him. What did she have to lose? The worst-case scenario seemed to be Sparrow making love to her and nothing happening afterward, no powers or anything for her. But that still meant she’d be made love to by a gorgeous man who she’d just seen open himself to reveal what almost looked like a universe of fire.

That didn’t happen to a girl every day.

Besides, she needed an ally. She’d been bracing the storm by herself all these years and just once, she wished that someone would share her burden. Maybe someone to protect her.

From Norman.

She leaned forward, meeting him halfway. His lips brushed over hers tentatively, sweetly, before his tongue slipped out and pressed between her lips. He tasted of oranges, and when Chloe thought about what she’d seen as he’d opened himself to her, she could taste something else. A spice. A heat.

Is this what lightning tastes like?

And then it came to her what she tasted, what she felt vibrate into her with his deepening kiss.

Power.

A pure, raw blinding power.