Chapter 7: Settling In
The door clicked shut, a sound of finality that seemed to swallow the grumble of the SUV’s engine as it faded down the mountain. Silence rushed in, not the familiar, comfortable quiet of their own cabin, but a deep, pressing stillness broken only by the pop of resin in the wood stove and the sigh of wind in the pines outside.It was a listening silence.
Kaelen stood in the center of the main room, his wings slightly flexed as if testing the dimensions of the space. The firelight danced over the bizarre taxidermy—a fox with crow’s wings, a trout with too many fins, their glass eyes holding flickers of orange light. The air smelled of dust, old smoke, and the faint, sweet tang of something chemical, like formaldehyde gone stale.“Well,” Liam said from his perch on the duffel bag by the door. “It’s… cozy.”
“It’s a hole,” Kaelen replied, his voice a low rumble.He limped forward, his tail flicking with restrained agitation. He stopped before the table, his gaze lifting to the silver pendant hanging from a rafter. It was a simple, polished disc, but it spun in a slow, impossible circle, catching no draft they could feel.Liam followed his stare. “That’s new.”
“Mm.” Kaelen reached up, his fingers brushing the cool metal.It stopped spinning instantly. A faint, almost imperceptible hum vibrated through his fingertips.“Warding charm.Low-grade. Keeps the local… wildlife… from getting curious.” He let it go, and it remained still.
“Helpful,” Liam conceded. He hopped down and began the arduous task of pushing the duffel bag across the rough floorboards toward the bedroom. “A little ominous, but helpful.”
Kaelen watched him, a muscle working in his jaw. He moved to help, but a sharper throb from his leg made him halt, his hand gripping the table edge. Frustration darkened his features.“I’ve got it,” Liam grunted, shoving the bag another inch. “You’re on lookout duty. Supervise.”
With a soft snort, Kaelen lowered himself into one of the two wooden chairs.It creaked under his weight. He watched Liam, a tiny engine of determination, maneuver the bag through the bedroom doorway. The simple act of watching, of being unable to do the heavy lifting, was a fresh kind of pain.
It took twenty minutes for Liam to unpack the essentials: their clothes into the bare dresser, the medical kit on the nightstand, the photograph and the plush crow placed carefully on a shelf. He came back out, dusting his hands on his pants.“Priority one: get my station set up. I need to let my clients know I’m… relocating for a bit. Vaguely.”
Kaelen gave a terse nod.“Use the booster Reyes left. But route the signal through the second proxy. Not the usual one.”
“Already on it.” Liam climbed onto the table, opening the smaller backpack that contained his microscopic laptop, external monitor, and the solid-state drive. His hands moved with quick, certain movements, plugging in cables, powering on the compact devices. The soft blue glow of the screens added an anachronistic layer to the firelit room.
Kaelen sat back, his wings draping over the sides of the chair. He let his eyes half-close, not sleeping, but letting his other senses expand. The creak of the cabin settling.The skitter of something small in the wall.The pattern of the wind. He catalogued it all, building a baseline of the safe sounds.Anything new would stand out.
For an hour, the only sounds were Liam’s furious typing and the crackle of the fire. Kaelen kept staring at the pendant, now motionless.A warding charm.Reyes was thorough. The thought should have been comforting.Instead, it felt like an admission of the scale of the threat. They weren’t just hiding from people; they were hiding from everything.
“Okay,” Liam said finally, leaning back from his screen and rubbing his eyes.“All my active projects are notified. Told them I’ve got a family thing, will be working remotely with possible spotty service. Nothing that raises flags.” He looked over at Kaelen.“Your turn. You need to eat, and then we need to change that bandage.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re literally sitting in the dark growling at a piece of jewelry.You’re not fine. You’re hungry and your leg hurts.” Liam stood and walked to the edge of the table, looking down at the supplies Reyes had stacked neatly by the stove.“She left cans of chili. Classy.”
“Practical,” Kaelen corrected, though the idea held little appeal. He pushed himself up, the movement less stiff than before.The rest had done some good. He found a pot, opened the can, and set it on the woodstove’s flat surface to heat. The simple, mundane task was strangely anchoring.
They ate in silence, side by side at the table, Liam using a thimble-sized bowl from his kit. The chili was bland and salty, but it was hot. The calories hit Kaelen’s system like a fuel injection, the constant, draining ache of his healing body easing slightly.Afterwards, Liam insisted on the bandage. Kaelen reluctantly moved to the edge of the bed, stretching out his injured leg. Liam climbed up with a fresh roll of gauze, antiseptic, and a pair of tiny scissors.
The wound, when revealed, was an ugly, stitched gash on Kaelen’s thigh, the skin around it an alarming purple-green, but it was dry and showed no sign of infection. His accelerated healing was a visible, violent process.
“It’s hot to the touch,” Liam murmured, his small hands gentle as he cleaned the area.“It’s working. The heat is the cells rebuilding.”
“Looks like it’s working with a blowtorch.” Liam applied a new layer of salve and began wrapping the gauze with practiced precision. “You’d be dead of sepsis without your… upgrades.”
“A comforting thought.”
“I try.” Liam finished and sat back on his heels.“Seriously, Kae.How much energy is this burning? You need more than canned chili.”
“I’ll hunt tomorrow,” Kaelen said, flexing the leg experimentally.“At dawn.Get us some proper meat. This forest is full of game.” He said it with a certainty he didn’t entirely feel. Hunting meant leaving Liam alone in this strange, warded cabin.As if reading his thought, Liam nodded. “I’ll be okay. Doors locked, charm hanging, and I’ve got a pristine internet connection courtesy of Officer Reyes’s sketchy booster. I’ll be busy.” He paused, then added quietly, “I don’t like you going out there alone either.”
“I’ll be fast. And quiet.” Kaelen reached down, his hand a vast landscape. Liam stepped onto his palm, and Kaelen lifted him to eye level.“This place is secure. The charm is for keeping things out. You stay in.”
“I’m not going for a stroll, I promise.”
Kaelen held his gaze for a long moment, then gave a slow, single nod. He brought his hand to his face, and Liam, understanding the unspoken request, stepped onto his brother’s lower lip. Kaelen tilted his head back slightly, and Liam descended into the warm, dark safety of the throat pouch beneath his tongue.The sphincter-like opening closed softly around him.
It was their oldest ritual, a desperate comfort from childhood now transformed into a grounding habit. Enfolded in absolute darkness, surrounded by the deep, rhythmic sounds of Kaelen’s body—the double-thump of his heart, the rush of his breath—Liam felt the residual tension in his own tiny frame unwind.Here, nothing could reach him. Here, he was part of his brother’s armor.
Kaelen sat on the edge of the bed, feeling the slight weight settle.He closed his eyes, focusing on the trust implicit in the act. He sat there for a long time, listening to the night woods through the walls, feeling the faint vibration of Liam’s breathing against his throat.
When he finally moved to lie down, he did so carefully, his wings curving around himself like a canopy.He kept one hand curled loosely near his jaw, a protective barrier.
Sleep came in fits and starts, a hunter’s rest, always near the surface.