Chapter 11

Béla awoke before Jake, the early pre-dawn light and the strange numbness in her arms – no –

'My wings – he's lying on my wings!' Béla realized, coming fully awake.

She remembered the night before. It was supposed to be her last night on earth. But, miraculously, she'd gotten a reprieve.

'Perhaps it's a chance to make up for what my unknown siblings have done, ' she thought to herself. 'After all, someone had to have started all those stories about flying, bloodsucking vampires... '

Carefully turning on her side, she pulled her legs up against her stomach and gently nudged Jake a little bit with her knees. Thankfully, he rolled over and off her upper wing. She kept rolling him with her feet, expecting him to wake up from her mistreatment any second. He didn't.

'How am I supposed to get up like this?' she wondered, looking around at her wings and the rest of her naked body.

She rolled onto her back again and raised her wings over her head. 'This should work. At least, now I can roll over.'

She rolled onto her stomach, then pulled her legs up underneath her, pushing with her wings and folding her body over her legs. Now she was on her knees.

'Halfway there! Yay for me!'

Carefully balancing with her wings against the ground in front of her, she raised herself up on her legs, grinning widely as she finally stood upright. Taking several deep breaths, she folded her wings behind her, then forced her shoulder sockets forward. The amazing cartilage structure of her wings folded effortlessly into her body and seemed to vanish, much of the pliant, boney structure folding to mesh with her ribs as her skin shrank to 'normal' size.

'Yeah! I've got my arms back!'

She stretched her arms high above her, working the stiffness out of her cramped muscles. Then, she walked the small distance to the old pump sticking out of the ground and levered the handle up and down several times. As sandy water began churning out of the faucet, she hopped around and shoved her face into it, getting two good gulps before it ran out. She smeared the water that had splashed onto her face and breasts around on her torso, the chilly sensation awakening her more fully.

Then, raising her arms and reforming her wings, she ran forward several steps and jumped up. She beat her powerful wings against the air, straining for altitude. After a half-minute or so, her movements became more graceful as she relaxed her legs and stomach, allowing her body to become more aerodynamic as she picked up some speed.

Delighted with her newfound freedom, and forgetting all about how close to sunrise it was, she danced through the air, teaching herself how to barrel roll and fly upside down. She learned that holding her legs straight behind her instead of letting them dangle allowed her better control of her movements. As she rose gracefully in the air and threw herself backward to do another summersault, the rising sun blinded her as it struck her full in the face.

'No! The sun!' she suddenly realized.

Béla panicked, flapping wildly to regain her balance as she plummeted downward, expecting her wings to disappear any second, leaving her to fall helplessly hundreds of feet to the ground.

After a few seconds, she regained her balance and soared in a graceful curve, turning back toward the mining shack and Jake.

'My wings are still here!' she thought, joyfully. 'I can fly in the daytime!'

She did another barrel roll, ending it a few meters above the ground. A rabbit darted out from the brush beneath her.

'Helloo, breakfast!' she thought gleefully, and dived down toward the rabbit. It changed direction and bounded away, disappearing from sight.

"Where'd you go, dammit?" she asked out loud, skimming along the ground.

She moved her legs, changing her angle of attack into the wind, and beat her wings harder to gain some height. She was learning to fly without having to think about each separate action.

She flushed out three more rabbits before she actually caught one.

'This body is definitely not predatory, ' she grumbled, lying on the ground and spitting dirt out of her mouth. 'There's nothing to grab with!'

She lay on the ground, terrified rabbit in hand, the skin of her left breast and the entire left side of her body torn and bleeding from her crash. She'd had to reform her wings into arms in mid-flight in order to snag her breakfast.

"I got you, you little sucker!" she grinned, breathless and bloody, but triumphant. Then she broke its neck.

Jake opened his eyes to the early morning sun, chilled to the bone. His bladder ached. He was alone. As he got up to relieve himself, a huge form swooped by, low overhead. He instinctively ducked and pissed down his leg.

"Dammit!" he cursed to himself.

Muffled laughter tinkled down from somewhere above him. He straightened back up to finish his own tinkling. Then he looked around for Béla. He spied her just as she dropped to the ground near their backpacks. She was still naked. It seemed to be her natural state.

'I guess she can't use her wings if she's dressed, ' he thought to himself. Then he grinned as he imagined Béla's wings tearing her clothes right off as they formed on her body. 'That would be fun to watch... '

There seemed to be something large and gray covering the lower part of her face, almost like a dirty, misshapen beard. Her wings seemed to shimmer and fade as he watched. She dropped something on the ground and moved toward the backpacks by the rock wall, a slender, naked figure stepping, carefully barefoot through the gravel and sand, swaying gracefully as she walked. She bent down and began searching through one of the backpacks.

When she stood back up, the sunlight reflected off something silver in her hand, then she knelt down and began working with the gray thing she'd dropped.

Jake recovered his clothes and dressed. Feeling warmer, he went over to see what Béla was doing. Her slender back was still turned toward him. Her arms moved busily.

"You know," he said as he drew level with her, "we don't have any...

"Rabbit?" He stopped talking as he saw what she was doing.

"Yes, we do," she replied.

She grinned up at him. There was blood on her face and breasts. In front of her was a half-skinned rabbit, its beautiful gray coat separating itself cleanly from the carcass as if by magic as she worked. There was something wrong with what he was looking at, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

"Wanna make a fire?" she asked him cheerfully.

"Sure," he said and looked around for some branches.

There was a lot of brush and small branches to hand, so he soon had a nice, blazing fire going. He heard Béla working the pump again and, soon after, she came over with the skinned and gutted rabbit, her wet body glistening in the morning sun. She looked at the fire and shook her head, frowning.

"Hold this," she said as she handed him the carcass by its hind legs. She looked around and found a medium sized rock. Lifting it up, she lugged it over and dropped it down at the edge of the fire. Jake was impressed.

'That thing must weigh as much as she does, ' he thought.

Then she went out, got another one and dropped it on the other side of the fire. She picked up a long stick from the reserve of sticks Jake had gotten for the fire and, taking the carcass from Jake, skewered and laid it across the fire, one end of the stick on each rock.

She dropped down next to Jake and leaned her naked, wet, cold body against him, her head cradled against his chest. They watched as the fire roasted the flesh of the rabbit for awhile, then Béla scooted around and lay down, using his lap for a pillow.

Jake moved his eyes up and down her slender body, admiring her breasts and her taut stomach. She seemed to glow with happiness this morning. His hand just seemed to move and caress her left breast on its own accord without him even having to think about it. She squirmed around to make herself more comfortable, just incidentally shoving her left breast up against his palm several times and grinding the back of her head against his pelvis.

"Keep doing that and I'll begin to think you're just a wanton hussy," he said, smiling down at her.

"I am wanting," she replied, grinning and deliberately misunderstanding him. She raised her arms around his neck and pulled his face down to hers. "Which do you like better?"

"What?" he asked, hoping he misunderstood her. He didn't.

"Do you like me better this way or as a, um, winged vampire?" she asked, trying to sound casual.

"I know a good thing when I see it," he replied, grateful for the time it took her to repeat the question so he could come up with a good answer. "I'll take you any way I can get you,"

He hoped it was a good answer. It seemed to be. She smiled at him. Then she kissed him.

"You are wearing way too many clothes, mister," she chastised him.

Then she sat up and began unbuttoning his shirt. He helped. As she pulled his jeans down, she noticed something.

"No underwear?" she asked, grinning at the sight of his half-hard cock popping out.