A thunder-like sound clapped over the almost sleeping city, splitting through the stone of my projecting perch high on the ancient masonry walls of the church. Something twitched on my back. More cracks followed. I felt them in every extension of my solid limbs. Loud and piercing – like the distant memory I had of snapping bone – gravel and dust crumbled from my form and disappeared between the cracks of eroding mortar.

I blinked the thick layer of grit from my marbled lids. Heavy, bat-like wings unfurled from either side of the trough that had been cut into my back to divert the flow of rainwater from the roof. Pain radiated through my typically open mouth when my jaws snapped together. Filthy water gargled up my throat and spewed from my clenched jowls when I crushed the connecting waterspout between my teeth.

My muscles clenched uncomfortably within their stone mold. I had been a condemned man in my youth, subdued and frozen on the parapet level of this monastery cloister. My rage was palpable as it heated the sculpture of my body. Half beast, half man, I had been reduced to nothing more than a protruding gutter.

My nostrils flared and with the damned sprout cleared from my throat, I sucked in air as if it was more delicious than any flavor. It was, in a sense. There was a quiver of tension and smoke through the clotted passages, but I had also picked up a scent so sweet, it was like nothing I could have ever remembered. It swirled down my long throat and coated the inside of my fleshless bones. It was familiar, although it held no prior resonance, it was mine.

The wings on my back shifted restlessly. I had no recollection of how much time had passed since I had been captured and modeled to the terracotta cymatium of the church cornice, but this beast I had become, knew there was reason for my awakening.

Shedding what I deduced to be centuries of sleep from my brain, a subtle awareness urged me to find the origin of that sweet and seducing scent.

I had to have it. It would be mine.

Under the muted roar of what I subconsciously understood to be modern day traffic, a cry arose that burned through the clump of rock in my chest.

I stilled to listen.

"No, please. Please let me go. I won't say anything. Please just let me leave."

Beneath the ungentlemanly cat-calls in the urban night was a small feminine voice pleading to be left alone. The fear it carried pressed into me with such force that I propelled myself from the roof's ledge like a saint's reliquary carried in procession. The rose-colored stone shifted and crumbled to the ground below with the disruption of my taloned feet.

I struggled under the heavy weight of my wings, falling from my perch amongst neighboring grotesques with powerful unbalanced flaps. The modified limbs were slow to react as I wanted, unfamiliar. They extended from my back in a way that they shouldn't. Hurtling towards the ground, I expected  the pain of the impact to split through my bones. It didn't. I was no longer a mere mortal man of flesh and blood. I had become this medieval monster that had been frozen in stone through many ages.

My landing was nothing if not vengeful. The thrill of the fall, the flailing wings, the air pushing into my gaping mouth – it was all over within a matter of seconds.

My teeth bit home into the yielding flesh of the male pointing a sharp blade at the frightened female, just as the other lewdly demanded she take him into her mouth. In hot rage, I jerked the broken body between my claws and my teeth, uncaring for the screams of terror.

I released the mangled heap to twirl to the ground.

Loud claps of a foreign weapon shredded the air. My attention shifted. I saw her stumble and run on unsteady legs. The beast my form depicted lunged forward and tore into her second pursuer like he was nothing more than a sacrificial goat, lacerating ribbons of flesh from his bones.

If this was how men treated the women of this time, I would take the greatest pleasure in reminding the laity that these apotropaic statues, the chimera from which I had awoken, were meant to protect those it guarded and that there was still need for the church's protection.

My heart lay cold inside me, covered in rime, unbeating. A remorseless lump of rock until her.

Until I was stirred from my entrapment by a hearth of fire burning through my chest. I arose from where I had been imprisoned in half slumber to taste her dread on my rough forked tongue.

My colossal wings stretched wide before lifting me from the ground with a toss of my hard tail into the nearest building wall. A chilling growl pushed up my carved throat, a thrumming instinct driven to echo locate, to seek a receptive mate. Concrete-grey form soaring from the city floor, I took the human with me, wrapped carefully within the cage of my claws.

I had been made a beast, but I wanted to be a man. For her.

——///—-

Everything rushed by in a blur as I was lifted into the air by something hard and unyielding. The wind in my face made it hard to draw breath. My perception of reality was swirling out of existence. Eyes wide with shock, I didn't know what was happening. None of this made sense. For a moment I had thought the ground underfoot had given way, but as my arms flailed and every muscle in my body knotted up, I realized that perhaps I wasn't as much falling, as I was suddenly flying.

The thought was no less terrifying. I let out a silent scream. Darkness was spinning around me and the concrete was beckoning me to splat down. Panic was as ubiquitous as the blood in my veins.

I choked on a cry for help.

This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. Not this. Not to me.

I had just been shot at and now I was being dragged through the air by the appearance of some kind of creature – a thing that had just picked those men apart from right behind me.

Would that be my end?

I whimpered. I knew the blood had run from my face. "Put me down." My fingers pried at the sharp steel-like clamps almost overlapping each other around my waist. "Please, please, please, please, let me go."

I couldn't breathe. Every mouth full of air caught in my throat as my chest closed in tighter around my lungs. I thrashed and beat my small fists uselessly against the horrific beast that had taken me. I ignored the sting of pain in my knuckles and instead clung to the bag that had slipped down my shoulder and was miraculously still caught in the crook of my elbow. It was by no means the lifeline I wished it had been. The absolute fear of what was happening almost paralyzed me, but I knew I couldn't let it win.

This was something from a nightmare. It had to be. I couldn't cower down and be helpless. I wanted to throw punches, push down the felling of weakness inside me – I felt hard wired to do it.

I had always wanted to go parachuting, but with this sobering experience had decided against it. The wind, the dizzying confusion, none of it felt the least bit liberating.

The crackling beat of large wings suddenly stopped. I tensed and scrunched my eyes shut just before we crashed to the roof of the highest building in tandem; the church. I tried to spin away the moment my feet touched down, but the creature's hold on me was unrelenting. Without conscious thought, I lashed out with my elbows and legs. There was a frenzy to my movements, a touch of chaos, that hindered the reality of the situation until I could suddenly feel it.

My heart stuttered behind my ribs. All thoughts of escape stopped in their tracks. Something had changed. A hand slid around my waist and pulled me into a body that fit perfectly against mine.

My eyes bulged. It wasn't dark enough to obscure the fact that the brown skin of the hand no longer resembled a stone clamp. It was strong, but soft, it was human.

I didn't understand.

Hot breath curled against the skin of my neck. I shuddered in my confusion. Then there was the graze of lips, warm and seductive against the lobe of my ear. A part of me shouted not to lean in, not to succumb to those tender ministrations, but my resistance was crumbling.

Already my mind had molded our lips together. It felt like I had waited for this single moment my entire life and I could hardly bare another second of this torture.

The moist lips were claiming my neck. My breath hitched in my throat. I was startled by the dull thud of my bag hitting the ground at my feet. The sound was a shock to my system. I froze.

"Do not be afraid," a rough voice rasped against the skin beneath my ear. "Never hurt you."

The voice, his voice, had my head spinning. I spun around in the little space his arms allowed on trembling legs. The breath I had been holding released in an awkward squeak.

His face still looked like it could have been carved from stone, only darker – rugged. Tousled black hair framed his square jawline, teasing his broad shoulders. His eyes were like pools of the darkest melted chocolate, sucking me in, taking me hostage.

"Who are you?" I pushed against his chest in an effort to be indifferent. "What are you?"

He leaned in to caress my neck, his body pressing against me. I gulped. I was uncertain whether I had really been taken into the air by some kind of legendary stone creature – I whimpered as the proof of his impressive manhood dug into my stomach – but whatever he was, he was still plenty hard.

"Yours," he emphasized with a suggestive forward thrust of his hips.

I simpered at the pleasure that single action brought my entire body. I felt like I knew this man, as if we shared a history I had forgotten. The way my insides longed for his touch and his kisses imprinted on my skin. It wasn't rational, but it was familiar.

"Mine?"

He groaned into my hair. One hand left my waist to cup my cheek almost reverently, while the other pulled me tighter against him. The way we fell into one another, it was too much and at the same time it wasn't nearly enough.

Our gazes met. "Only ever yours," he vowed softly, prolonging each letter.

My body pulsed. Dear god, those lips, those words, he was seducing my senses. My fingers curled into his shoulders as his thumb caressed my jaw. Our breaths mingled and my heart beat desperately against his chest. There was no space left between us except the barrier of my clothes and still I wanted him even closer.

Then suddenly his lips slammed against mine. I wasn't given a moment to react before his tongue invaded the seam of my lips. Delving deep and taking the breath from my lungs. As his tongue pushed against mine, hungry and demanding, I knew this was what I had wanted. I couldn't fight my attraction for this familiar stranger any more than I could control the passion he had ignited in my veins.

Hands splayed against his chiseled chest, I allowed myself to be pulled deeper into his fiery embrace. My body flushed with heat. I couldn't think straight. My soul recognized his on a primal level and all doubt evaporated from my mind.

Moving under the layer of my clothes, his hands ghosted along my spine. Smoldering heat spread through my body. I was becoming drunk on endorphins, completely blown away by his taste. Head slanted, I only broke away from the kiss when his hands discovered my breasts violently, kneading and claiming. He didn't try to undo the strap of my bra. Instead, he yanked the cups down so that my full mounds were pushed up and my hard nipples rubbed almost painfully against the fabric of my shirt.

Pushing his fumbling fingers aside, I undid my jeans and pushed them down my legs with an urgency I barely recognized in myself.

With a growl his hands moved to cup my arse just as I jumped up to wrap my legs around his hips. I threw my head back on a long moan when he touched me again, molding and spreading me in preparation of his entry.

"Please," I begged into my hold on his strong, thick neck; wishing I knew his name.

He watched my body writhe and I trembled at the raw intensity I saw in his eyes.

"Aldrich," he groaned the answer to my unspoken question against my lips.

I had no time to articulate a reply. I could feel his hands spreading me from below and then he was inside me. My breathing changed. Wanton moans rose from my throat with every thrust, every inhale of his earthy scent. My eyes stung with tears as he lowered me onto his pulsing length repeatedly without staggering.

I didn't care that I had hoped to someday move to Cambodia and that now I might never want to leave. It didn't matter that he had appeared to me as a beast and then revealed himself to me, naked and wanting. Because as we moved desperately together, his skin slapping against my drenched flesh, I knew that this was another chance at another life.

I couldn't allow fate to tear him from my arms again. Not this time, not in this life.

"Dara, my beautiful Dara," he whispered with raw and powerful emotion. "I am here now. I remember. I'll not leave you again."

His fingers dug into my flesh as he fucked me harder, fucked me into memory. I whimpered his name, a name I had known in another life, and crashed our lips together in another earth shattering kiss. We moved against each other and I surrendered to the pleasure of having him inside me again, in this time, reunited, together again.

Our love had been forbidden in the past, but I would not let that rule us now.

My thighs tightened around his hips and before I knew it, my soul had exploded from my body in an intoxicating dance with his. Our love had withstood the test of time. Aldrich would forever be mine, as I was his.