She stared over my shoulder. "What's that?" she said. I turned around, but there was nothing there. I turned back. "What are…? Oh."
Freya was running out of the door.
I took off after her.
Roman
The architects were drawing up final plans for the lodge, but for now I was perfectly happy in my own little piece of heaven in the woods. Sometimes I worked on music here, either in the summerhouse or near the stream. It was a quiet place away from the main house. Rex had said I could get my meals and have a room there for as long as I liked, and while I was grateful, I only wanted the room for its washing facilities. I preferred to sleep outdoors.
I heard shrieks and smiled. Rex had forewarned me of tonight, but we all knew the nights of the full moon anyway. We kept an eye on our shifter friend. I was pleased for him. He and Freya had gone from hate to mate in a very short space of time, but that was the shifter way.
I was sitting in a swing seat outside of the summerhouse, gently rocking to and fro as I thought about my friends and how happy they all were. Noah and Stacey were married and now thinking of adopting; Zak and Erica were new but so happy; and soon, very soon if the noises coming from the woods were anything to go by, Rex and Freya would be man and wife in wolf terms, if not in human ones.
I felt the melancholia hit me and shook my head as if I could shake it away. While I was truly happy for them, the fact there was no significant other in my life was now apparent more than ever before. Because the band were my family and now they were moving on with their lives, and I was still the same.
I wasn't stupid. I knew Stacey had some crazy idea that me and Harley would get together in the future, but Harley was—though still unaware of it—a Nephilim. Half-angel. I was a satyr and while I did my best to stay good and keep clean, most of my kind were womanising, drunken tricksters, not to be trusted and not all that fond of bathing. How could a man who was part goat date a woman who didn't know such things existed?
He couldn't.
I would just have to accept my solitary existence, because I certainly didn't want to end up with one of my own kind. Nymphs didn't like to be refused by a male and were known to wreak revenge if rejected. No, I'd rather stay far away from them. My turning my back against what my family saw as my inheritance was why I no longer saw and had barely any contact with them. They didn't approve of me being in a band, said I was trying to be a human and forgetting my heritage.
So they forgot they had a son.
I heard the roaring of wolves and raised my bottle of scotch in the air.
"To Rex and Freya. I wish you both happiness." I toasted, although they'd not hear it.
My phone began to ring then and putting my bottle down, I picked it up. Harley Davis was ringing me on FaceTime at one am. What the hell? Also, WiFi was sketchy as shit here so I hoped the signal stayed.
I pressed answer.
Harley's tearstained face came on the screen. Her usually pristine eye make-up ran down her face in black track marks and the smile that normally lit up her whole face was gone.
"R- Roman. I'm sorry to call you. I t- tried Stacey but she didn't pick up and I honestly don't know what to do and who to ring."
"What's the matter, Harley? What's happened?"
"I think something is wrong w- with me, but the th- thing is, do you remember the final of the concert?"
"Yesss." I said a little hesitantly because her co-presenter possessing bodies was what had happened at that concert. While we'd thought Harley was a human, we'd assumed her mind had been wiped by Noah in a compulsion, but of course… turned out she wasn't completely human.
"I just put it down to too much showbiz bubbly because as you know, it's in plentiful supply at these events, but I'm beginning to think now that maybe what I saw that night: Bill acting weird as if he'd been possessed because he sounded just like D- Dan was real. C- can you please tell me, Roman, did you see that?"
She was rambling and distraught, and too far away. "Harley, look at me. What's making you think something is wrong with you, exactly? Spell it out to me so I can understand and help."
"I'll sh- show you." She said. "It's easier." She panned the camera so that I could see her top half. Behind her were two huge, white angel wings.
"I can see them, and I can feel them. Are they real, Roman, or am I crazy?"
"Fuck, Harley. You're not crazy. Goddamn it, why do you have to be in the States when you need my help? I can get on a plane but it's going to take hours. Can you sit tight?"
"I'm not in America." She said. "They made me pretend we'd gone there. I'm in a seedy hotel room in Soho."
"Tell me which and then sit tight. I'm on my way." I told her. She managed to give me the hotel name before the connection severed.
THE END