When I get in the doorway to Raven's room I can't help but find myself captivated by the woman standing in front of me. She's turned to the side with one shoulder propped up against the window, looking out into the city below. The light plays off of her soft features that are shrouded in an emotion I can identify quickly as it's one I am familiar with. Longing shows clear in her ever feature. It lines her slightly pursed lips, resides in the sound of her deep and purposeful inhalations, and it's reflected in her eyes as she takes slow deliberate blinks to match her breathing.
I've never experienced perfection. I have spent my whole life trying to reach perfection by not only holding myself accountable, but also holding the people around me and the environment we live in at high standards. Every time I walk into a room I can't help but pick out the imperfections in every thing and situation I see. I've spent my whole life knowing that if I can see imperfections in everything around me then I myself must be imperfect in some way. Maybe it's why my birth parents left me in a human orphanage long ago, I was simply too imperfect in some make or break way. There was a beast inside of me, ready to break free. The only way to tame that part of me, I thought, was to block it out and shove it away.
Or at least that's what I thought until Raven literally popped into our lives. She is the first taste of true perfection I've ever had which is equal parts exhilarating and terrifying. Exhilarating because for the first time in a long time I'm seeing that imperfection can be absolutely perfect. I consider the men on my team brothers. We all come from similar backgrounds and we all understand each other in ways other's couldn't. The past week though I've seen a different side of my brothers. Usually a day in the life of all of us means we are left to our own devices until dinner where we debrief and get ready for the next day. Once that's done Emerson disappears into his room once again, Drazik goes to the gym to oversee business as well as events, Leandre would always be working, Kieran would be off at a club or bar gathering both information and women, and I'd be either here or at the office.
I hadn't realized that we'd grown apart until we came together again. She brought us together in a way we had been lacking for what seems like years. For a while I had lost the forest for the trees in my attempt to gain perfection and I regret it. With this captivating woman living here my brothers are around for every meal if they can be and even Leandre has cut back on some shifts since she came to us. All of the guys still have their regular duties, including me, but now those duties are no longer consuming us like they once did.
Yeah you're the only one being consumed now, asshole. The critic that seems to live inside my head pipes up. You pushed her too hard in training and because of you she passed out and had to re-live all those horrible things.
I sigh and hang my head slightly. I need to make this right and apologize for my own stupidity. I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to teach her what she needs to know to survive that I ignored her own needs and instead projected all of my fear onto her. It was unfair of me to do and Drazik was right to rip me a new one after the fact.
I reach up and knock on the door frame and brace myself for the full impact of Raven's gaze. Some deep part of me stirs, calling me towards the beautiful creature in front of me. Like I've done from the first moment I saw her, I fight it, not wanting to make her any more uncomfortable than she probably already is with me. She brings her shoulders back and juts out her chin before marching over to me.
"I will not break up your team." She says in a matter of fact manner that doesn't quite hide the pain in her eyes, "So if you want nothing to do with me tell me now because I won't come between you and members of your team if you're not willing to join in on our love fest."
I bring my hand up to nervously run along my jaw, feeling the scruff that I've ignored over the past day or so. Great, so now you look a mess and she probably wants nothing to do with you. Then her words register fully and I use my hand to hide the slight tilt of the corner of my mouth.
"Join in on our love fest?" I ask.
She nods, "Of course." Then she looks into my eyes and an understanding forms in hers, "Oh Forrest, you need to know that I love you just as much as I love the rest of the guys. I know you don't trust me yet and that will take time but I need to know if you're willing to try or not. I won't come between you and your family." I watch as she wrings her hands together and bites her lower lip.
I hate watching her fight back nerves that I'm causing and for the first time in my life I do something without first passing it through a critics eye. I reach out and hold both her hands in one of my large ones. She inhales sharply and goes stock still before looking up at me, hope and wariness at war in her gaze. Wanting desperately to chase the wariness from her gaze I do something I haven't done since I was a child, I allow myself to be vunerable.
"So you would have me then?" I ask, letting her see the true depths of my feelings in my eyes.
Her eyes widen as she registers what I'm trying to convey before a huge smile fills her face and she's launching herself at me. Before I know it she's wrapped around me like a spider monkey, her legs around my waist, her arms falling over my shoulders, and her face buried in the crook of my neck. The only thing that keeps me upright is the reflexes I've spent centuries honing. I run my hands from her back to under her thighs to hold up her weight, alleviating her of that strain.
I sit in shock for a moment before I feel the best within me uncoil and start to hum in contentment. For the first time in my life I don't try and push him back down but instead allow him to come to the surface and experience this moment with me. Both halves of myself hum as we sit in silence for a few moments holding our mate.
Wait, where did that come from? I ask in myself internally. Did I just refer to this woman as my mate? The gargoyle side of me hums at my reference of mate and a new piece of information clicks in my mind, gargoyles have true mates, much like shifters, apparently. I have spent so much time trying to find another gargoyle or any information on them at all but so far I've come up empty. I had no idea that mates were a part of gargoyle lives with no one to tell me otherwise and no experience previously to make the connection.
I don't even realize that Raven has taken her face from my neck and is looking at me curiously until I hear her melodic voice.
"What are you thinking about, Forrest?" She asks in a soft, kind tone.
"Apparently gargoyles have mates like shifters do." I mumble, still processing the information in my head.
"Apparently?" She asks, "What do you mean by apparently."
"I've never been able to find much information on gargoyles as you probably already know." She nods her head and I continue, "But just as I started holding you something clicked. The gargoyle in me referred to you as mate."
She cocks her head, "The gargoyle in you? Do you always think of yourselves as separate entities?"
I raise an eyebrow, "Yes, what's so strange about that?"
She raises an eyebrow to match mine, "Well you both reside in the same body and take up the same consciousness, correct?" I nod, "Then you are one with two sides, not two separate beings." Then her eyes grow wide and she asks, "Have you ever tried to reach out to your gargoyle side to find the answers you have been wanting?"
I give her a dubious look, "I don't think it works like that." I say.
She rolls her eyes, "I have two familiars that live inside my head and under my skin, they may be separate entities from myself but we are one nonetheless. When I don't understand something I simply look within myself and ask my familiars. Couldn't you do the same with your gargoyle side?"
I pause for a minute as I turn over what she said in my head. I've never actually reached out to my gargoyle side before, I've always just pushed it away for as long as I could remember. When it first made itself known I was terrified that I had a monster inside of me and that's why my parents gave me away. Ever since then I've tried to lock it away, pushing him further and further down. I take stock of myself quickly and realize that, even though the gargoyle part of me is filling every bit of my awareness I am still in total control and, content? Both sides of me hum like two tuning forks that are finally on the same note.
"I've never tried." I tell her distractedly, still lost in the sensation of feeling whole for the first time in a long time.
She starts to extricate herself from me and climb down but both sides of me grip her tighter, not willing to lose contact already. A growl works it's way up my chest and comes out into the room. My eyes widen and I loosen my grip, shocked at what I had just done. She simply giggles and places a few soft kisses on my jaw. I relax when I realize that the growl didn't scare her away.
"I am sorry about that. I didn't mean to growl at you." I tell her, feeling my ears heat up in embarrassment.
"No need to apologize, Ro-ro." She gives me a devilish grin, "And who's to say I didn't enjoy it?"
She gives me a quick kiss on the jaw again and climbs off of me while I'm temporarily stunned. Did she just say what I think she just said? She likes when my beast literally growls at her? No, that can't be right, a beast like me isn't loveable.
I feel a small hand in mine as she leads me over to her bed and sits down, dragging me down to sit next to her at the edge of the bed. She curls her legs beneath her and looks to me with a smile.
"How about we do some training of our own?" She asks.
"What kind of training do you speak of?" I ask back, curious.
"We need to get you in touch with your other side. It's like you have two parts of yourself, your intellectual side and your physical side. The physical side of you is very much gargoyle but your intellectual side hasn't been willing to accept that I'm guessing. The only way you'll ever find out about yourself is by getting to know yourself." She smiles, "So that's what we're going to do."
I go over her words in my head and realize that she is spot on in her assessment. I have been separating the two for as long as possible, distancing myself from what I once thought a dangerous beast. I have been looking for intellectual ways to learn about what I am but I had never stopped to simply spend some time within myself. Most of my inner workings include me shoving things away, not lingering on them.
"What do I do?" I ask her, allowing myself to be vulnerable again.
"Close your eyes and look within yourself. Get to know the other half of yourself. While you do that I will do the same and see if my familiars have any information that may be helpful to you." She reaches out and cups my jaw with her small hand, "I'll be right here when you're done."
I reach up and close my hand over hers and nod once, letting her know I am willing to try. Once we're both settled on the bed I take a deep breath and look inward. I start with picking apart the emotions I'm feeling. I push past the usual feeling of inadequacy and anger, searching for the parts of me that I've grown disconnected to. I pause briefly when I hit an emotion I didn't expect to find, loneliness. As I allow myself to feel that particular emotion I realize it's not just a small amount of loneliness but a gaping chasm, ready to swallow me whole. I look into the chasm and realize that somewhere in there is where my gargoyle half resides. A pang of remorse hits me as I realize that I've done this. I have pushed that part of me away so much, isolated it to such a degree, that the only place it could have gone is into a deep dark chasm, alone and in desperate need of connection.
Without a second thought I allow myself to fall into the chasm. Once I do I feel the overwhelming sense of despair and loneliness. I get lost in those sensations for a while, forcing myself to feel them for the first time in a very long time. After a while I come to the part of myself I had been neglecting for years. After a few moments of hesitation I step forward and allow the two halves of myself to become one. For the first time in my life I fully embrace the gargoyle side of me, reveling in the strength that courses through me. I get to know the sensations, taking my time. When I finally understand that this part of me is something that I could live alongside of instead of on top of I crane my neck and look around. The area that once was a dark and lonely chasm that you couldn't see the bottom of, is now a small crevasse that ran through the landscape of my mind, the top of which only an arm lengths away. I heave myself out and, a firm grip on all of me, rise back into the real world.
When I open my eyes again the world around me is sharper, more focused, than what it was before. I notice my other senses are heightened as well and there's a strength running through my veins that wasn't there before. I marvel in the sensation of being whole before I turn to the woman sitting beside me, the woman who allowed me to lower my walls enough to help me climb over them.
Her eyes are still shut and there's a small smile on her face. The runes the peek out over the neckline of her shirt faintly glow, giving her skin a olive skin a golden hue. I can almost taste the magic that fills the air around her, potent and heady. It's in that moment that I decide that the rest of my days will be spent showing my gratitude to this beautiful creature that, regardless of my subpar treatment of her, allowed me the space and acceptance to embrace myself fully. I now see why all of my brother are so enamored with her and I can't help but be swept up in it as well. Every inch of my being wants to reach out to her, claim her as mine, as ours, that it's difficult to restrain myself from doing that at this very moment.
I simply drink her in for the next few minutes, basking in her otherworldly beauty. When her eyes open and meet mine they glow a bright silver and a different voice than her own is what speaks to me. It's a female voice but it's deeper and more sonorous than Raven's. It fills every corner of the room with a crackling energy that is different than anything I've felt before. It's not Raven's magic I sense in the room though. While it's similar it's somehow more raw, more dangerous, and feels more vast than anything I've experienced previously.
"Find the book. Find your answers. And please, protect my daughter."
With that the glow from Raven's eyes fade and she blinks a few times before her eyes close and she begins to slump forward. I catch her easily and lift her in my arms, carrying her out of the room.
"Leandre!" I snap, quite loudly, into the apartment around us. "I need you. Now."
He comes racing down the hall and when he sees Raven's limp form in my arms he motions to Kieran's room.
"Bring her in there and set her on the bed. Most of my equipment just lives in there now ever since Kieran decided he had a death wish." He says, getting right to business.
I charge into the empty room and set her on the bed. By the time Leandre begins his assessment all of the men are crowded into the large room, somehow making it seem smaller.
"What happened?" Leandre asks.
I tell them of our joint meditation session and of what occurred after she opened her eyes. When I'm finished I look to Emerson whose eyes are wide and full of awe. He takes a few steps forward until he's next to the bed.
"She acted as a conduit." He says, "Nyx had a message she needed to get through to us and she used her daughter to do it. That would have taken incredible strength and energy, which is why I'm assuming she's passed out now."
"Well what do we do now?" Kieran asks, looking unsure.
"We allow her to regain her energy and wait." Leandre says, "She is simply exhausted and in a deep sleep. We must allow her to rest."
"How are the preparations going for our departure tomorrow?" I ask the men.
"I have documents to doctor yet for Raven before I can file a flight plan with the FAA." He looks quizzical for a second, "What last name do you think we should give her?"
"Nordlys." Leandre says without any hesitation before looking up and meeting all of our eyes, "It's the word they use back in my homeland the aurora borealis."
Everyone nods their heads in agreement before I turn my eyes to Drazik, "Do we have what we need for the mission packed and ready to go?"
He nods, "I have a few more odds and ends to take care of but it should be done within a few hours."
I then turn to Leandre, "Medical supplies stocked and ready to go?"
He nods, "I was about to head into the hospital for the final few things before you called for me."
"Good. Kieran do you have security and route figured out?"
He nods, "Yes. The final route and security details are printed out and a copy is in each of your rooms." He nods to Emerson, "Let me know if anything changes when you contact the FAA."
I look over to Raven then back to Kieran, "I have a few more calls to make and some contacts to reach out to before wheels up. Since you are the only one free right now do you mind staying with her while we finalize the details?"
He laughs, "Mate you really don't need to be askin' such silly questions." He says, his Scottish accent coming out stronger than usual.
He makes his way over to the bed and slides in, wrapping his arms around the sleeping Raven. She makes a soft noise before curling farther into him, nuzzling her face into his chest. He smiles down at her like she's the only thing he can see in that moment and we all start to file out of the room. I'm the last one in the room but before I leave I turn to Kieran.
"You can trust her with your story, brother." I tell him.
A hard glint comes into his eyes, "Aye so you've trusted her with yours then?"
I sigh, "I have not. Sadly she passed out before I could open up anymore. I plan on telling her as soon as we have another moment alone and I suggest you let yours out as well. If you can trust anyone it's going to be the spitfire in your arms. She has a way of creeping in and soothing all the places you never knew needed soothing."
He looks me up and down before cocking an eyebrow, "Now that you mention it, there is something different about you now. You're standing taller, more sure of yourself."
I nod, "It's because I am and it's all thanks to that woman."
With one last look at the two of them I turn and leave the room, closing the door behind me.
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I hope y'all enjoyed a different point of view from Raven! I'm going to try to write at least one chapter in every character's point of view throughout the course of this story.
Thank you for reading as well as voting! It means more than you know.