Free Prince of Pleasure by Mandy M. Roth

Chapter One
Human Realm

    “Here birdie, birdie, birdie,” Lucy Navarre whispered in a not-so hushed tone as she moved through the woods just outside the small town she’d been calling home by way of an efficiency apartment for the past three weeks. Her actual home wasn’t really much of one, but she liked it well enough. Not that one could grow too accustomed to an off-campus condo being home when one was forced to share it with three other girls.
    Somehow, she had.
    She was on borrowed time and funds. Soon, the money she’d made by slinging hash at the diner just a few blocks from the university she attended would be spent. She needed to get her proof and then get back home. Back to her crappy job dealing with drunken, rowdy fraternity brothers as they left bars at closing time and stumbled into the diner wanting food.
    Lucy did what she had to do to make ends meet as a full-time student with an expensive hobby—investigating and documenting the paranormal. She was determined to prove more than the normal, everyday, garden-variety paranormal investigator. Lately, there seemed to be as many experts on the paranormal as there were lawyers. She knew far too many paranormal sleuths who were self-proclaimed experts in the field. And nearly all of them claimed they were scientific in their approach.
    Yeah, sure they were.
    She had no interest in trying to contact the dead.
    Been done.
    And there were about fifty shows on television at any given moment doing it as well.
    Boring.
    And, really, where was the excitement in doing the same thing everyone else was doing? She wanted something more. Something that everyone and their brother weren’t doing.
    She wanted proof of the existence of bird shifters—men who could sprout huge wings and take flight, but who looked like humans any other time. Her guardians had told stories about them when she was a child. Lucy had hung on their every word, committing each tale to memory. She could still recite the tales to this day. Still hear the slow, southern drawl of the man she’d called Pappy telling her all about the men who were like angels, yet sinned like demons when permitted—as any man would, Pappy would say with a wink.
    Pappy had even taken her on hunting expeditions when she was little, the end goal being to see and log data on birdmen. They’d been successful too. She didn’t care if everyone thought they were nuts—she’d been there with him. She’d seen what he’d seen.
    Men with wings.
    “Majestic beings,” she said softly, still remembering every detail of the men—one in particular. They’d left an impression on her.
    When the elderly couple, who had cared for her after the death of her mother when Lucy was only five, passed away, Lucy found herself alone. She’d desperately wanted one of the winged men to appear and whisk her away to somewhere safe and warm. Somewhere she could see her loved ones again. That never happened. Instead, at eleven she’d ended up as part of the state of Mississippi’s foster care system.
    She didn’t want to think any more on it.
    For now, she’d concentrate on what had gotten her through it all—thinking of ways to prove the existence of the birdmen. The nagging need to fill a void she’d had for nearly a decade had become all-consuming, and she’d decided to fill it with researching the tales of the birdmen. Of proving they were real.
    “Tonight is the night,” she said, her voice cutting through the silence that seemed shrouded in darkness around her.
    There should have been something making noise.
    Anything.
    There was nothing.
    Except her.
    And that was far from normal. There should have been the sounds of insects, of the breeze blowing through the leaves, of wildlife, anything. Not utter silence.
    She grinned. “That’s it birdies, show yourselves.”
    All the signs pointed to this night being the one where she finally got the proof she so desperately sought. Well, the signs were really hunches she felt in her