The fox and the falcon, p.1
The Fox and the Falcon, page 1
Also by Piper CJ
The Night and Its Moon
The Night and Its Moon
The Sun and Its Shade
The Gloom Between Stars
The Dawn and Its Light
Villains
A Chill in the Flame
No Other Gods
The Deer and the Dragon
The Fox and the Falcon
Copyright © 2025 by Piper CJ
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To E—
You were so bad in bed
that it made me reevaluate my choices
and turn my life around.
I’ve never thanked you for that.
Contents
Before we start, a word from Piper
Pronunciation Guide
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Character Drink Orders
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Before we start, a word from Piper
Disclaimers on Religion and Mental Health:
You hold in your hand a work of fiction, comedy, commentary, and irreverence. While it has been thoroughly researched and informed by my lived experience in the church, it is in no way representative of the religious majority or meant to be a how-to handbook on interacting with the supernatural of any realm or pantheon, or a reflection of the personalities of the beings within them. Some readers may find religious irreverence upsetting, and personifications of gods, fae, religion, and mythology may not be suitable for all readers.
Regarding mental health, we find ourselves in the shoes of Marlow, our protagonist, who does not look upon her mental health journey with kind eyes. While this is authentic to my experience with mental health and the experience of many, it in no way endorses a world that regards mental health issues as shameful or flippant, merely as one character’s walk through those waters. This extends to the way she speaks about herself, refers to her perceived experience, and her troubling internalized narrative, which permits and accepts others speaking to and about her mental health unkindly. For help or more information on mental health matters, please visit mentalhealthfirstaid.org and other resources.
Notes on Sex Work:
There is no trigger warning for sex work, just as there are no trigger warnings for loan officers, real estate agents, veterinarians, or authors. Sex worker empowerment and destigmatization is an issue that is important to me and is prevalent in many of my works. If something about sex work causes you discomfort, my goal is not to make the environment more comfortable for you, but to encourage you to confront thoughts and feelings of whorephobia. For more information, please read the lived experiences, articles, and input from sex workers themselves as they contribute to tryst.link/blog/tag/articles/ and other resources.
Content Warnings:
This novel is intended for an adult audience and may contain themes and elements regarding mental health, gods, religion, beliefs, and sexual expression that may be troubling or unsuitable for some readers. A thorough list of content warnings for this and all Piper CJ works can be found at pipercj.com/gallery/content-and-trigger-warnings
Pronunciation Guide
Aesir: AY-sir
Álfheimr: ALF-hi-mur
Azrames: az-RAY-mus
Baal: ball
Caliban: CAL-ih-ban
Canaanite: KAY-nuh-nite
Fenrir: FEN-reer
sølje: ole-yeh
Vanir: vah-NEER
Chapter One
Space and its strange, ominous darkness was an abstract thing. Stars, planets, and a bright, silver moon were all supposedly stitched together by nothingness. They were as vaguely interesting to me as knowing we’ve only explored five percent of the ocean, or that a single human contained twenty-five thousand miles of blood vessels—enough to wrap around Earth four times. Every bit of data was tucked away like a shiny rock plucked from the beach: pretty, but useless, and largely forgotten.
I knew they existed—the black holes, the emptiness, the great, vast nothing—but they had no bearing on my life. Until I lost him. When Caliban and I were ripped apart, I stepped into the void. Gasping, clawing, unable to breathe. And at long last, I understood space. I knew the crushing pain of a life without air.
Chapter Two
November, age 20
There were dozens of reasons to let someone into your bed. Intimacy, stress relief, boredom, experimentation, and lust, to name a few. I once fucked a girl—poorly, I might add—who’d spent years pining after me just so she could shake the cobwebs of fantasy from her head and realize we were, in fact, a terrible match. A perfume-scented, brightly colored magazine had once proclaimed that women who’d had more than twenty partners were unlikely to find love.
Good, I’d thought. At least then, I’d have an excuse.
Caliban wasn’t my first, or third, or fifth.
He wasn’t real, after all—the man who’d haunted my steps for as long as I could remember. But he was one hell of a coping mechanism, and this beautiful, perfect figment of my imagination had helped me survive my tumultuous upbringing. He had been there for my rocky transition from the sheltered church to the liberal hedonism of a non-Christian college. Now, god willing, he’d help me keep my head above water as I studied for midterms while writing a novel. Why I’d thought it was a good idea to spend my junior year squandering my free time as I role-played as an author was a mystery I’d never solve.
I’d thought about taking Caliban to bed, of course. I’d picture looking into those silver eyes while gripping the back of the neck of whoever happened to be on top of me. I’d imagined chilled lips sending goose bumps down my neck while being kissed by another. I’d allowed my imagination to explore the forbidden curiosity of someone stepping from the shadows to run their hands up my dress, under my shirt, cupping my jaw, claiming my mouth.
Tonight, he was there before I’d finished my unsatisfied daydream.
I was overcome with the misty rush of the forest floor while a candle flickered and The Weeknd piped through my bedside speaker. Maybe my phantom had sensed my anxiety as I struggled to get Booker, the basketball team’s leading point guard, out of my bed. I wondered if he could smell it too—the cologne of petrichor and magical otherness—but perhaps he thought it was just the candle. He was a man, after all.
I’d stepped into my panties and tugged a T-shirt over my head the moment he’d finished and immediately began to collect his clothes. His belt buckle clattered as he caught it with a chuckle.
“Come on,” Booker said, one muscled leg still beneath the covers, “let me stay over.”
The sooner he left, the sooner I could crack open my bedside drawer and get myself off. Booker wasn’t terrible between the sheets. He was uncomfortably big, which meant an overuse of lube and the wincing that came from a man hitting your cervix, and never in a good way. But for a few sweaty minutes, I was able to escape my life and just be utterly present. And I’d be lying if I said a huge facet of my attraction wasn’t simply knowing that he was widely coveted, yet I was the one kicking him out of bed.
I cracked the bedroom door and gestured toward the living room. “I have an eight a.m. lab,” I said. “I can’t stay up late.”
He was unamused as he swung his legs over the side of the mattr
Shit.
Booker crossed the room in three steps. The candlelight exaggerated the contours of his abs and broad shoulders. He kept his T-shirt in his hand as he looked down at me. “We don’t have to do this booty call thing, Marlow. I want to take you to dinner. I want to look up into the stands and see your face. I want to watch movies with you and introduce you to my teammates and…”
His voice drifted off as he studied the apologetic pucker between my brows.
“You’re a nice guy, Booker.”
The hope in his eyes dimmed, then smoked out. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. A muscle ticked in his jaw as he steeled himself against rejection.
“I’m sorry. I really am. It’s just…”
“Spare me.” He slipped the T-shirt over his head and left without a goodbye. Perhaps if I were someone different, I would have felt bad about the way we’d left things. Instead, I felt only relief that he was gone, and that I knew exactly who I’d find when I turned around.
The corner of Caliban’s lips tugged up in a half-amused smile. I relaxed and riled at once, both relieved by his presence and excited he was here. I could never anticipate his visits, but if he were a figment of my imagination, he must have appeared because I needed to get things off my chest. Booker may have been a perfect specimen by every human standard, but Caliban’s beauty stole my breath altogether.
“I’m switching back to women,” I said as I flopped onto the bed. I watched him lean against the wall near the door, arms folded over his broad chest. “Men bring a dick to the party and think it’s all they need to get you off.”
“It can be,” he said, silver eyes glinting with some wicked sense of knowing. He tilted his head as if listening for the distant sounds of a disappointed basketball player’s footsteps. “But I’m not confident in your taste in men.”
I propped myself up on my elbows, eyeing him.
A beat pulsed between us where the time for me to reply had come and gone. I was generally so quick with my smartass retorts and general complaints.
He looked at me with a single quirked brow. My heart skipped a beat as I summoned whatever courage I possessed.
“You’re a man,” I said at last.
He rubbed his jaw as he chuckled. “Love—”
I thought of the first time I’d brushed his hand—quite by accident—and how my veins had filled with cold, spiked adrenaline when I realized just how solid and real he’d felt. I’d grown bolder as the years ticked on, reaching for his hand when I needed, thinking of the arms wrapped tightly around me when I’d longed to be held, or the night I’d rested my head in his lap and he’d touched my hair until I fell asleep. “Sit next to me?”
Caliban ran a pale hand through his hair. “Listen, Love—”
“Is it not possible?” I asked.
The amusement faded from his voice. “It’s more than possible, it’s just—”
Great. An imaginary friend rejecting its creator would be a new low. Possibility aside, was there something within me that deemed me unworthy of indulging my fantasies? Perhaps this was a lesson in self-love. At least, I told myself as much as I asked, “But you don’t want me?”
“Oh,” he said, the sound so quiet it was more of a soft, chastising breath than a word. The bed slouched under his weight as he sat beside me. He tucked his arm behind me, and I rested my head on his chest. He touched his lips to my hair as if to kiss it, but instead, he muttered, “If I’ve made you feel unwanted even for a moment, I’ve failed you.” He brushed cool fingers along my jaw, working them into my hair and slowly knotting them to force my chin up. No longer was I a woman poised for rejection, but mere inches from his lips. He inhaled, and the lightning bolt that passed between us was like a cord that rose from my belly, traveling through my throat as he sipped my breath like electric, crackling wine.
I had never craved anything like this kiss.
I tried to close the space between us, but he tightened the hold on my hair, immobilizing me. “If we start, I won’t be able to stop,” he said.
“I don’t want you to stop,” I replied.
He shut his eyes, flattening his lips into a line as he struggled with some controlled emotion. “It’s not… I don’t mean tonight. I mean: I love you for you. I love our conversations and losing myself in the labyrinth of your mind. I love championing your dreams. I love catching your tears and righting your wrongs. I don’t need anything more from you to be utterly fulfilled. But if you let me into this part of your life, you will be opening a door that I’d sooner die than close.”
It was a warning, but it wasn’t a no. He wanted it every bit as much as I did. He had more self-control, though, as he managed to remain statue still while I tried once more to kiss him. This time when he tightened his grip on my hair, I released a quick gasp at the small hurt.
“You’ll have to say it, Love.”
“Say what?”
His jaw flexed as his gaze flitted from my eyes to my lips to my throat, wandering lower, looking at me as if I were something to be eaten. I was acutely aware of his cool fingers in my hair, of the prone position that left my neck exposed, of the excited flood between my legs as the electric crackle worked its way into the deepest parts of me.
“Tell me that you want this with me. Tell me your body is mine, and I’ll make it so.”
The chilled spike of fear only added to the excitement. I wasn’t sure what fucked-up parts of my brain had turned my sexual perversions into deals with the devil, but I knew I wanted this more than life. I needed to be wrapped in the arms that had kept me safe for so many years. I needed to know what it might be like when the person in my bed was someone who lit my soul on fire. I needed to know how full a ghost could make me feel.
“It’s yours,” I breathed.
His eyes remained closed. His whole face twitched. “Say it all.”
There was no oxygen in the room as I struggled to say, “I want this with you, Caliban. My body is yours.”
His posture shifted nearly imperceptibly as something clicked within him. He exhaled slowly, releasing his tight hold on my hair as he cupped the back of my head and brought his lips to mine. Goose bumps covered my arms and legs as his lightning worked its way through my blood. Greed crept into my kiss as I plunged my fingers into his hair in return and kissed him back with pent-up intensity.
I swung my leg over him, and for one magnificent moment, he squeezed the small of my waist, gripping my hips with thinly controlled desire. He pulled my tee off first, then drank me in until I began to squirm, self-conscious under the weight of his gaze. He reached over his head, grabbed a fistful of his black tee, and pulled his shirt off in one swift motion before flipping me onto my back with a growl.
The blurs of licks and kisses and teeth, the small hurts of perfect bites, the moans and gasps and sounds, the bucking of hips when touched in sensitive places, the unbridled longing to taste and be tasted—it was all tossed into a blender. I made it abundantly clear that I did not want foreplay. I wanted him inside me. I wanted to see what he’d meant when he’d implied some men might possess the equipment to get me off with a cock alone. He had equipment that I wanted access to.
I maintained my confidence right up until I saw the rock-hard pillar of marble and desire waiting at my entrance, and the blood drained from my face.
“Do you trust me?” he asked, as if reading my mind.
I continued to stare at it as I nodded, one knee near my tit and the other hooked around his hip as my courage waned. I didn’t want it to hurt. My body count of sexual experiences only included two dicks so far, but the one with the baseball bat in his pants had been the sort of mistake I’d sworn not to repeat.
Caliban licked his palm and coated his cock with one smooth motion, then nudged my entrance. I swallowed as I continued to stare, watching with wide, worried eyes as it went in deeper and deeper and deeper. I wasn’t sure at what point I’d closed my eyes and let my head collapse into the pillow, but I focused on my breathing as he pulled out ever so slightly, then worked himself in a little further. My sharp inhalations and pleasurable groans alternated as he moved. I wasn’t conscious of much else as the thumping heartbeat between my legs filled me completely.
