My Raptor: An Erotic Shapeshifting Paranormal Romance (2 page)

Worry and fear overcame her, throwing any sort of caution away as she ran to grab a towel, carefully gathering her fallen falcon up, placing him gently in a pillow. He seemed to react a little bit to her touch, but otherwise the bird was completely oblivious to the world around him. She feared that he had lost too much blood and would die soon.

“Why did he fly through the window?,” she wondered out  loud, to no one in particular.

She took him into the bathroom and very carefully, laid him in the floor of the bathtub on a bed of towels and newspaper that she had laying around. She created a nest of sorts with the towels around his little body to help keep him comfortable and immobile as she decided what to do next.

She was extra careful to not be caught up by his fearsome talons as she cleaned his wounds and she bandaged them as best as she knew how. She was not a veterinarian by any means, but she had read several first aid books and was just hoping that many of the same methods applied to cleaning wounds on a wild bird as on a human.

Looking over him, she noticed that the majority of his wounds were somehow not caused by the glass when he flew through her window, but more like something that had been slashing at him even before that as he had deep ribbons cut into his flesh and an especially nasty looking scratch across the bridge of his beak. These wounds looked a bit older than many of the other, fresher wounds.

Carol treated his injuries as best as she knew how. When she was done she decided to bring him into her living room so she could watch over him more carefully while she did other things, instead of just leaving him in the cold, sterile bathroom.

“My poor friend, I hope you make it through this,” she said to him sweetly, as she laid him down on one side of her couch and covered him with a towel.

Funny, every thought she had about the bird was as if it were a he even though she did not know if the bird were male or female. She sat down on a nearby chair, watching the poor falcon gasp raggedly for every breath. She wished she could take away his pains. As much as she  wanted to take him to the veterinary hospital, which was her first instinct, she was worried that if she took him to a vet that they would just put him down, or at the very least, take him away from her and put him in a sanctuary where she would never see him again.

Either way, she couldn’t live with herself if she took her falcon for help and they were to end his life or keep him from her. Even through all her worries, she somehow managed to fall asleep in her chair, all curled up. Her dreams were racked with images of grief and death and all she could feel in her mind was worry.

When her eyes opened at dawn it took her a moment to slowly grasp her awareness of the room. She sleepily gazed over to the bloody towel that had once wrapped the falcon, but instead of finding her feathered friend lying broken and bloody, in its place was a naked man! How could this be?
Where did this man come from – and where was her falcon?

He looked a little dirty, but was also very attractive. He also looked very ill and like he had been on the losing end of a fight. He was covered in scratches and bloody scrapes. She ran over to the stranger.

“Are you ok?” she asked the stranger, her caring instincts kicking in.

“I, ahh..I..” He could barely speak.

She helped him up to lay him down on the sofa. He promptly passed out. Carol had no idea what to do next. She had once studied first aid and had read several first aid books, so she followed all the procedures she could remember. He seemed to be breathing fine, and although his temperature was high, she thought he would be ok. She could call someone on Monday from work if she needed more time off to help the stranger.

Over the course of the weekend he drifted in and out of sleep and consciousness. She went on about her business checking in on him every half hour or so, but he seemed to be getting a little better as the hours progressed.

At one point she came out of the shower, and thinking he was asleep, she had walked around the apartment looking for her hairdryer, naked. Something she often did in the apartment when she was alone. But she had forgotten that she was no longer alone. She was startled when she saw his eyes open, but they quickly shut.

“Maybe I just imagined it!”
she thought to herself as she hurried back to the bathroom. She certainly hoped so – how embarrassing! And how rude of her to move about like that with a stranger in the house.

He did not budge. And after a few moments of silence, she realized that the man was still asleep. Or maybe he had passed out. She wasn’t sure. She wondered if the man meant her any harm. However, all she heard was his ragged breathing… and for some reason, she didn’t know why, she didn’t feel that he meant her any harm in any way. It was just a feeling that she had.

Carefully peeking into the room once again, she saw that he had not moved from the couch. Carol began to dial the police for help, but curiosity overcame her and before long she was standing cautiously above the man. She wondered to herself how it was possible for a naked man to turn up in her room of all places.

The first thing she noticed was that he too was covered in barely healed injuries across his entire body and covered in slashes and deep gashes on virtually every part of his person. But the one that caught her attention above all others was the line that cut across the bridge of his nose. She suspected there would always be a scar there. She thought for a while, wondered where her falcon was and why this man was lying there in it’s place, oblivious of the fact that he had broken into some stranger’s house.

As she was inspecting the man, she heard the voice of the person responding to emergencies on the phone asking if everything was alright. “9-1-1 emergencies… What is your emergency?” the 9-1-1 operator asked.

Carol was bringing the receiver up to her ear to ask for help when she noticed the man’s eyes were now open and looking at her. She froze. She was sure she had seen those eyes before… but where? Seeing his gaze, she could only think of her falcon’s eyes.

Against all of her better judgment, she answered the operator, “Sorry, this call was a mistake… an accident. Sorry…”

Before the attendant could complete asking whether or not she was sure, Carol hung the phone up and sat down in her chair as the two people stared at each other. The man did not speak. He only stared at her with those deep, beautiful eyes of his. Yet she sensed he meant her no harm.

Her visitor was handsome in all senses of the word. His light brown hair, streaked with blond fit perfectly with his tanned skin. His cute oblong face ended in a chiseled jaw that suited his well-built body. And he was well muscled, with a smaller frame but built more like a gymnast than a body builder.

For the first time in her life, Carol did all the talking. At first she only sat there and asked, “How did you get here? Who are you?”

No answer came from the gentleman. He sat there with a slight look of confusion on his handsome face, as he smiled at her in a shy, yet proud sort of way.

Carol tried again, and asked him more about his injuries. “Are you in pain? Can I get you anything? Do I need to call somebody for you?”

He continued to stare at her but did not try to respond.

Then, she talked to him some more about what was happening here, asking him if he knew anything. “How did you get here? Do you speak English? Who are you? Where was the falcon? Why are you naked?”

He only sat and stared at her, a half smile on his face.

Before long she was telling him everything about her life. She wished she could say something that would prompt him to speak and therefore said a lot of naughty things to him in an attempt to get him to talk. None worked – not even a peep he uttered. But in the course of the conversation she did provide him with a sheet to cover his ample, manly parts.

She sought an explanation to it all and she knew that if she was to get the right answers and an understanding of the mystery before her, she had to somehow get him to talk. Just then a loud knock on the front door startled her.

Knock, knock, knock!!

She silently motioned to the man that someone was at the door putting her hand to her lips to signal the need for silence. She then motioned to him to come over and get into the living room closet. He weakly managed to stand but his balance was not very good. So she quickly came to his aid and helped him into the closet. There was a chair already inside so she helped him to a seated position before she closed the door behind her.

The knock came again, this time followed by a voice, “Apartment Security,” would you please open the door?”

“I’m coming, just a second,” she called out, as she headed back to the front door of her apartment.

She adjusted the furniture back, effectively covering the fact that she had an unexpected visitor inside. She dashed to the door, wiped away the hair from her face and as soon as she opened it, stepped into the entrance.

“Hi,” she said, “I’m Carol. Can I help you?”

“Yes, Miss Carol,” the officer replied. “We got an emergency call from your residence some ten minutes ago. Did you make that call?” the officer asked, doubtful as he looked into her relaxed face.

“Oh! Sorry about that, yes, I did make the call,” she exclaimed, “but I did state that it was an error. I didn’t know when my hands stumbled on the numbers – I must have hit the speed dial by mistake.”

“Can I come inside, Miss Carol?” the officer asked.

She stepped back from the door, making enough room for him to come inside. He looked around and found nothing out of the ordinary. His eyes stopped at the sheet on the couch momentarily but went on to scan the room and then returned to Carol.

“Ma’am, police work is serious business and we make it a point of duty to track the source of and respond to any missed, received or cancelled call to every emergency number.”

He went on, still looking about her apartment, “Please… always confirm the numbers you are to dial before calling to forestall all such occurrences in the future. I hope you have a nice day.”
With that he left. On his way out, he picked his walkie-talkie from his waist and spoke into the microphone. “Block D room 7, 96 Millstone Avenue, ‘All clear’, False alarm.”

Over the next couple of days, the injured stranger would lie on her couch as she tended to his wounds. She nursed and cleaned him up daily, dabbing him with warm soapy water, beta-dine and whatever else she thought would help him heal.

She had brought home some old sweat pants and a few shirts from the library’s lost and found box that had been there for as long as she could remember. They were a little large but at least now he didn’t have to be naked all the time. She loaned him some of her socks to wear around the apartment too, since they wore about the same size.

He seemed to listen to what she said and always nodded whenever she asked him a question. She wondered at this, as it was obvious he could now hear her. But why didn’t he speak? Was he a mute? Maybe his hearing was messed up in his fight too.

She wondered about it when it seemed he had never heard her before.
Is it that he only just regained his hearing?
She asked these and many more questions but the man did not explain anything and it seemed that as much as he wanted to respond, that he couldn’t. But his eyes were always on her. She always caught him staring at her as she looked in to check up on him.

Most mornings, she woke up to see him looking into her face. Embarrassed, she would ask what he was looking at, but got no answers. Seeing him looking at her intently like that always melted something in her, made her heart pound fast and made her throat dry at the same time.  For some reason, despite him never giving her more than the shake of his head, she felt like she could trust him. It was like his eyes held everything she could ever want for in them.

After a couple of more days had passed, she would return home after work and find him moving around and looking out across the balcony.  Even after so long, his wounds still made him limp. When he walked you could literally  see the pain in those deep eyes of his, but never did his face ever give anything away.

He was getting better by the day. While she was happy that he was healing and was getting back on his feet again, it worried her to see him moving around more because she was afraid that eventually he would leave her too… just like the falcon… and then she would be alone again.

Her thoughts often went to that of her falcon during those quiet times, wondering where it was or what had happened to it. She wondered why this man was here when she woke instead of her falcon. She often wondered if the man was, in fact, her falcon, or if she was in a dream. Both possibilities seemed like nonsense so she often cast them aside and just went about her business. However, these thoughts still came as often as they left.

Sometimes she would wish he was hers. She fantasized about him being her man. Being alone with him in her room reinforced her fantasy and though they never talked, as in a fully voiced conversation, she wished she could lay claim to him. Intrigued by this mysterious man, she became livelier, so much so that even her supervisor noticed the change in her. There seemed now to be a new light in her. She now leaped and hopped to the bus stand in excitement at the close of work each day, unable to contain her joy at seeing her mysterious stranger when she got home.

Several weeks passed before his wounds were completely healed. Then one day she returned home from work to find him standing on the balcony where he often did, looking out across the cityscape. However, this time something was different in her visitor.

This particular night he seemed to be feeling much better and could walk around easier. And this time when she entered her apartment, he turned and looked at her for a moment. She stopped, a bit confused by the expression in his face. Then he began to speak to her with the most majestic voice she had ever heard.

“Hello,” he said to her as she entered the room.

She could not control her excitement. “You can speak to me now?” she asked, overjoyed at that one word he had just uttered.