Page 47 of Starlight
“I don’t know. I need permission to bring you, and I haven’t asked yet.”
Cole turned. “Then why ask me?”
Akai was staring at the water. “Because you were there, looking like…” He shrugged, his wings lifting. “I want to share my world with you.”
“We aren’t mates.”
“I know…I don’t know if I want a human mate. You can’t fly, and you don’t like eating insects, and you are naked and mostly hairless.” He lifted his gaze. “But I like you anyway. I am hoping you like me enough that you want to know more about me and my world?”
No. This is a freaky experiment. An aberration that should never have happened. That was the logical explanation. Hell, maybe he was still unconscious in the hospital, and he’d dreamed the last seven years, and this was his brain doing something weird.
But he was curious about monsters and everything. There was so much more than his cabin and the small town in the valley. “I do like you, even though I shouldn’t. You’re far too hairy, eat bugs, and have the biggest eyes I have ever seen.”
“So we are agreed that this shouldn’t be happening…but that it’s happening anyway?” Akai tilted his head.
“That seems to be the case.” Cole inched a little closer. “Maybe you should tell me more about the party.”
“You’ll come?”
“I didn’t say that. I’d need to take a week, maybe longer, off work.” His dad would hit the roof.
“It goes for over a month.”
“A month?” He couldn’t take that long off work.
“There are stalls and music and reunions. It’s a chance to see friends and family. Not everyone goes every year or even for the whole month. I do, because I sell jewelry and I like to catch up with friends.”
And because his wing was still healing, he couldn’t fly there. It wasn’t as though Akai could hitchhike either. Of course, if Akai hadn’t been watching him from the woods and stepped out looking like a massive wolf, Cole wouldn’t have shot over his head. They had both made this mess, and they weren’t doing a very good job of cleaning it up.
Cole didn’t even know where to start. “I like the idea of maybe going.”
Akai reached out and pulled him close, hugging him tight against his wet, hairy chest.
“I didn’t agree.” Cole fake grumbled, as he didn’t attempt to pull away.
“You didn’t say no, either.”
“I need to figure out the travel time and request leave.” There were plenty of other things he needed to consider before starting the road trip, but it gave him something to do, a new path to follow, even if he didn’t know where it led.
Or was he putting off facing reality?
The one where he needed a job, and monsters shouldn’t exist?
Akai reached out and snatched something off the stream bed. He lifted it up and ate it before Cole even registered what it was.
“That’s disgusting! I’m not kissing you now.”
Akai laughed and kissed the side of his neck. “Then I will kiss you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It had almost been dark when Cole left the cabin. The stars had been coming out as he’d kissed Akai goodbye with a promise that he’d be back next weekend with a plan. This time, they had exchanged numbers.
Akai sat out on the deck drinking tea sweetened with honey. If he could fly, he’d have followed Cole into town to make sure he arrived safely. He would’ve watched over him during the week, even though that risked a sighting.
He flexed his wing, stretching it and working the muscles, sure that they were weaker than they had been due to inactivity, not that there was much he could do about that.
He’d checked the message boards about wing injuries, but it seemed as though there was nothing he could do except wait. He scrolled through the message board looking at the posts to see what was going on. BigTraveler was online.
