The Weight of Feathers

This logic had worked on Justin. He’d wanted to keep his mother happy, so he’d listened. Same with Dax. He must’ve known he was the only one in his mother’s scrapbooks.

Dax’s hands made her forearms cramp. If he gripped her any harder, the feather Cluck left on her would grow blades for barbs and slice his palms.

She looked for a little of Cluck in his face. His brow bone. The line of his nose. The shape of his jawline.

“I appreciate the thought,” Dax said. “I really do. But stay out of this.”

She came up empty. Dax and Cluck may have been made of the same things, but they were no more alike than sand and glass.

“You’re loyal.” Dax threw the crumpled bag on the table. “That counts with us. But stay out of things you don’t know anything about.”

He yanked her over to the kitchen sink and turned on the tap. He held her hands under and squirted dish soap into her palms.

“What, you think my hands aren’t clean?” she asked. “You think I’m gonna make everything dirty?”

“This isn’t for us.” He rubbed his hands over hers. “It’s for you.”

“I know how to wash my own hands.”

He scrubbed her harder. “Do you know what happens to people who touch them?”

“Who?”

“The guy you shoved.”

The feel of his hands and the soap’s fake lemon reached her stomach. She swallowed to keep everything still.

Her words stalled in her throat. They turned to a weak hum. Her hands went limp in his.

The Paloma instinct still ruled her. Even to stop a fight, she’d touched Matías instead of Dax. And this family was as afraid of touching a Paloma as hers was of touching a Corbeau.

“If you touch them and you don’t know what you’re doing, they make you sick,” Dax said.

Know what you’re doing. Hitting. Kicking. Things that drew blood.

Dax splashed a last rinse over her hands. He loosened his grip and reached for a dish towel.

She pulled her hands free and ran out the back door.

“You should be thanking me,” Dax yelled after her.

She kept going until she got to the river. She searched the water. The dull pink hadn’t surfaced. Her tail hadn’t washed up again. She plunged her hands in, looking out for the fabric and beads, letting the river strip away the dish soap and the feel of Dax’s hands.

The sun fell below the tops of the trees. Cluck found her as the light turned the branches gold.

“What were you thinking?” he asked.

She kept her eyes on the water. “News travels fast.”

“I hired you,” he said. “Anything you do, I hear about it. What if Dax had figured out who you were? What if—who was he, your brother, your cousin? What if he’d figured out where you were?”

“But they didn’t,” she said.

He got in front of her. His eyes adjusted, almost red in this light. When the sun hit his hair, long and messy enough to hide his feathers, it looked copper.

“You think you’re outside of this,” he said. “You think because your family threw you out you’re not part of this. Guess what, it doesn’t work that way.”

She looked past him at the water. Sundown cast a sheet of rose gold over the surface.

“I get it,” Cluck said. “Believe me, I do. I wouldn’t want Dax messing up anyone I cared about either.”

Lace looked at him. “Are you kidding? Matías would’ve kicked his ass.”

His shoulders relaxed, and he almost smiled. “Then I’m sorry I didn’t get to see it.”

She unbuttoned his shirt, slipped it off him. Pulled his undershirt off by the bottom hem.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

She took his hands and led him into the river, making him walk with her until the water lapped at his thighs and her hips.

It swirled around them. The rose gold curled into scrolls. The sun’s hands warmed his bare back. She set her palms on his skin and found it fever-hot.

The scar on her forearm meant she could never be loyal to her family. Her name meant she could never be loyal to the Corbeaus. The only one left to be loyal to was him.