On Your Knees, Prospect (Kings of Hell MC 3)

Nothing like this. Clinging to the back of a creature whose existence questioned everything Vars had believed was the embodiment of being alive.

Jake first sped up, but then lifted off the ground so abruptly Vars’s stomach came up to his throat, as if he were on a particularly nasty roller coaster. Jake wasn’t steady either, swaying from side to side, flapping his wings, as he tried to find balance.

Vars didn’t dare look down, focused on holding on. He needed to survive first. Only then could he allow himself to wonder whether any of this made sense.

Chapter 13 - Jake

From above, the clubhouse was a large box with a few bright holes for windows in a vast sea of trees and snow. Very few lights were on at this time of night, but even so, how was Jake to land there in this form? Anyone who spotted him would shoot first and only ask questions once his and Vars’s corpses were already cooling in the snow.

Staying in the air seemed like a far more favorable option. Jake instinctively knew how to use the wings, how to breathe fire. Everything had fallen into place once the creature inside of him became more than a mindless force. Its mind had awoken at the scent of its master’s blood, emerging out of Jake’s body like a reptile breaking through the shell of its egg. Its body was huge, heavy like a boulder, and yet Jake could carry it with no effort at all.

He glided through the sky with the ease of a bird, and he distinctly remembered doing so many times before, even if the images themselves were blurry, like an old movie that had been resting in someone’s attic for too many years. The air created a cushion on the underside of his wings, and he briefly closed his eyes, circling over the clubhouse, so huge in contrast to the elegant mansion that used to stand in its place.

With the creature having retreated to the dark corners of Jake’s brain, he was now at the forefront again, and though his mind remained a chaotic tangle of threads in many colors, he knew one thing: he was free. Free of the influence he’d experienced at the museum, free of the confines of clothes, free even of the ground that had previously always been under his feet. He was now a creature of the air, floating through the dark sky, led by the glinting stars and the familiar smells that enticed him toward Master’s home. The air no longer bit into his skin with frost. It was a constant presence around him, there to support his weight as his new eyes marveled at things he’d never noticed before.

There were so many shades in the sky that had always appeared a solid dark color. With his new eyes he could see the leaves on each tree below, and his nostrils picked up the scent of meat cooking in the kitchen of the clubhouse.

He growled in appreciation of the smell, already imagining himself ripping apart chunks of meat, the warm blood pleasantly rolling to his throat—

“Jake?” Vars yelled through the roar of air, reminding Jake that he wasn’t a lone beast in search of prey. There was a passenger on his back, who likely couldn’t handle the cold or the altitude nearly as well as Jake’s armored body.

Jake floated above the building, increasingly aware of dangers to Vars’s frail human form now that his mind cleared.

The last time the monster had made an unsuccessful attempt to take over Jake’s body, Vars had curbed it with snow. Ice, water, bitter cold—those methods had been helping Jake for weeks. And yet, Jake’s body felt different this time. He felt threatened by his friends below rather than by the parasitic monster. The thick layer of hardened skin was pleasantly warm, and the tight fit of it made him feel safe, as if he were a swaddled baby, but he was the one in control of this body. He and the creature were one.

But no matter how invincible he felt flying through the air, this wasn’t what he wanted to be. He wanted soft skin and a body Vars would like to touch.

The nearby lake shimmered in the moonlight, a bright eye in the dark face of the club-owned woodland, and Jake made a soft turn, descending from the sky upon approach. Tall trees below, covered in piles of white, smelled of hope as if they were somehow aware of the upcoming spring already.

How had he not noticed this hours ago?

Lowering himself farther, he pushed the front of his wings forward to slow his speed as the icy plane of the lake appeared beneath him, replacing the fragrant woods.

If there was any hope for changing back to his human form—and Jake didn’t want to consider the alternative—an ice-cold lake was it.