Chapter 5
“You are the stupidest man on this planet. No! On all the planets! Including Earth. I should tell Kaley what you did, then she’d tell your father, and he’d tell your grandfather.
I can’t imagine what they’ll do to you. Something with swans. Can they drown you?”
“No,” Mekos said.
They were at the waterfall, he was stretched out on the sweet grass, and he didn’t stop smiling in a contented, pleased-with-himself
way. “Papá would be angry, but he’s always glad when I come out alive. Grandpapá would be slapping me on the back in pride.”
Aradella gave him a look that should have singed his hair, but he didn’t seem to notice. “You drugged me! You left me out
of all of it! If it hadn’t been for your mother you’d be dead now.”
“Actually, it was the kits. They understand more than I thought they could. I shouldn’t have underestimated them. It was clever
of you to guess where I put the knife. If you hadn’t covered it, Valona would have seen it when the dress disappeared.”
“It was my dress! Of course I knew where the pocket was. I’m the one who sewed it in the skirt.
And as to finding it, even I know that men love pockets!
” She ran her hand over her forehead, then looked back at him.
“You’re missing the point. You shouldn’t have excluded me.
You should have told me what you were going to do.
You should have . . .” She trailed off and sat down on a rock.
“The oddest thing was that when I looked like you, inside I was still myself. I could see and hear as well as always.” He
took a breath. “The real mistake in all this was that neither Ian nor I guessed that they’d poison your bedroom. We thought
that Valona would want me awake through it all so they’d come and get me, I mean you. But they blew gas in on us and we were
paralyzed.”
Her voice lowered. “Where was I when you were in my bedroom?”
Mekos shrugged. “I took you to a safe place. You were meant to stay there while Ian and I took care of Valona.”
“But thankfully, your mother found me,” she said angrily. “It was stupid of you to try to do it all alone.”
“The problem was that the gas smelled like flowers. I thought it was your perfume.”
“You think Olina allows me to have perfume?” she shot at him.
“So what I smell is your natural scent? It’s like you’re made of flowers. Next you’ll tell me that little space behind your
left ear is also natural to you, that you use nothing to make it as soft as the down of a newly hatched swan.”
She was looking at him in disbelief. “What are you saying?”
“Nothing that others haven’t heard. Ian and I argue about whether your eyes are like the moon or the sun.”
“Ian?” she asked. “A Never spoke of me?”
“Well, he talked about Arit, but I meant you. But we did agree about our women.”
She was looking at him with her eyes wide. He was lying on the grass, so relaxed that it was hard to believe he’d been close
to death. The good thing was that her anger had filled the void inside her—which had been emptied by jamming a knife into
a person and seeing her turn to dust.
Mekos was smiling in contentment. “I think you should kiss me again,” he said.
“Kiss? Again?” Her face turned red.
He smiled in a knowing way. “Do you think I didn’t know it was you who kissed me?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” She was flat out lying but after what he’d done, she felt no guilt.
“I think it’s time to clear up some things between us.” His smile left him. “If you want to hear what my next plan is, I need
you to tell me the truth.”
“What are you planning next?” Her mouth was set in a hard line. “Will your mother have to summon wolves? Will I have to use a knife
to . . .” She couldn’t speak of what she’d done. “I’m still not sure the town won’t come for us.”
“To thank us? That isn’t what I mean. It seems that the first time you and I met was at a dance.”
“We didn’t actually meet. I’d seen you and your divine father cavorting about with swans. He was truly magnificent. He was—”
She stopped because Mekos got up, and she could see that he was serious.
“If you aren’t going to tell me the truth, there’s no reason to continue. We can go back to the house and . . .” He shrugged.
“And go our separate ways.”
The last thing Aradella wanted to do was separate from him. They were scheduled to leave the Lair tomorrow morning, that is
if there was no firestorm over Valona’s death.
He looked at her with those eyes that could see more than a full human could. “Since we met, you’ve kept secrets from me.
I’m now asking you to tell me the truth.” He took a breath. “I know it was you who kissed me that night I fell off the roof.
That wasn’t a kiss with no meaning, there was something behind it. I want to know what it was.” His eyes grew serious. “I
must know what you feel.” He paused. “About me. The truth. All of it.”
Aradella had lived a life of hiding, of keeping life-or-death secrets, so it wasn’t easy for her to bare her soul. When Mekos took a step away from her, she knew she had to reveal herself. “It wasn’t your father from the show, it was you.”
He turned back to her. “Tell me,” he said softly as he sat back down.
It wasn’t easy for her, but she told him the whole story of that dance.
Aradella was sitting in the shadows and looking around the room. She was careful not to pause as her eyes passed Tanek’s tall, beautiful
son, Mekos, but she was memorizing everything about him. His long hair was still damp from the water of the show. She wondered
if he always kept his ears covered. During the swan show, she’d seen that they were pointed and she found them exotic and enticing. He wore a white shirt with a black leather vest, black trousers, and tall black boots.
When he picked up a cherry by the stem, then let it dangle over his mouth before pulling at it with his teeth, Aradella felt quite dizzy.
Mekos was walking around the table, looking at the food. She’d watched him devour one plateful and he was filling a second
one. It made her think that no one was feeding him, which made her fantasize about learning how to cook. She wasn’t like her
glorious cousins who could lure men to them merely by being there, so she’d need some talent or knowledge. But what did she
know? She could read the English of Earth. She could identify plants. What possible use were they compared to a girl with
a big bosom, a tiny waist, and a face like an angel?
Later, after her dance with Tanek, he asked if she’d like to meet his son. Aradella had stepped back, trying to keep control so her shock didn’t show. “Perhaps another time,” she’d managed to say. She knew
she’d make a fool of herself if she came face-to-face with the beautiful Mekos. He was for girls like her cousins, not for
her.
When Aradella finished, Mekos didn’t smile or even comment. “And the Reaver? What happened that night?”
Aradella tried to keep her voice from shaking.
She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “Hale always did the market runs and she kept me up-to-date on the gossip on the island, of which guild was angry at another guild, that sort of thing. We usually laughed—except when she told of Telma. I guess you know that she’s the head of Olina’s government. ”
Mekos gave a brief nod but said nothing.
“She’s a greedy, bad-tempered woman who sets herself above everyone. We all knew she stole from us and it was rumored that
she shared the profits with Olina. Then suddenly, the Reaver showed up. Everyone said that a woman dressed in black was fighting
back against the corruption of the government. We all knew that if she was caught, she’d be executed publicly and horrifically.”
Aradella took a breath. “Hale and I stayed out of it. We had our own secrets and couldn’t risk becoming involved in any more.
One of our secrets was that on some evenings we’d leave the Cauldron and go to farmland where we didn’t have to be silent.
We could clash swords and not worry that someone would hear us.” She looked at Mekos. His face was unreadable; his usual laughter
wasn’t there. He waited in silence for her to continue.
“I did take precautions by wearing a mask over the top half of my face.” Aradella closed her eyes, remembering that night
that came to be so important to her.
It was close to dawn when Aradella and Hale left the field. “Look!” Hale said. There was just enough light to see the shadow of a person leaping from one roof
to another. “That must be the Reaver.”
Aradella was staring. “I don’t think that’s a woman,” she whispered.
Hale hissed, “Get down!”
Coming out of the shadows was the Queen’s Guard, an elite troop of women who protected Olina. They’d been hiding and waiting
to catch the Reaver.
Aradella thought fast. “Distract them!”
Hale pulled her hood up, outstretched her cape, then gave a cry like an animal in pain. The noise seemed to echo across the
fields. Instantly, the guards ran after her.
With all of them rushing toward her, swords drawn, Aradella ran toward the trees. She stayed hidden, her eyes searching for the person on the rooftops. She saw a shadow heading toward
her. When there was a loud cry from the forest, the figure tripped and fell. She watched in shock as the Reaver tumbled off
the roof.
Forgetting about keeping herself hidden, Aradella ran forward. Lying on the ground was a figure all in black, face half covered, and appearing to be unconscious. She bent
down and removed the black mask. With a gasp, she recognized Mekos from the swan show of years before—and he was still the
most beautiful human she’d ever seen. She smoothed his hair back and saw his pointed ears. When they twitched, she drew back,
startled. He was awake! When he tried to sit up, he seemed to be dizzy. “You are an angel,” he said. He had a beautiful voice!
As though it was a natural thing to do, he put his palm on her cheek, his fingers in her hair, then leaned toward her. She
met him halfway and experienced her first kiss. It was sweet and lovely and it stirred things in her that she didn’t know existed. When he pulled away, his eyes were wide, as though he too was
surprised. “Who are you?”
She didn’t dare tell him! When he reached up to remove her mask, she quickly stood up, then turned toward a noise coming from
the forest.
When she looked back, Mekos was gone. Silently, with grace and ease, he had disappeared into the early morning light.
When Hale reached her, Aradella was silent, her mind on what had happened. When they got back to the little apartment, Hale took a nap, but Aradella didn’t sleep for two days. She was afraid she’d awaken to find that the kiss was her imagination and not real.
When she finished her story, Mekos was looking at her in a way that she thought might melt her.
He stretched out on the grass. “Now I understand. Since that night I’ve wanted no other woman.
The cousins you worry so much about? They bore me.
I’ve dreamed of that kiss. At the dance, my only memory—besides the food—is that my father was with a very pretty girl.
I knew he liked her since he was soaring with her.
” He looked at her. “You and I need to make plans about our future.”
“We have no future.”
He smiled. “Do you intend to have a life without me?”
“I must,” she whispered. “I am a princess and I am bound by centuries of duty.”
“And I’m part fox. We all have burdens in life. I’ve known for a long time what I want to do, but I wasn’t sure about you.”
He paused. “Can you possibly overlook your great and noble destiny of being a princess?”
She smiled at his sarcasm. “I wish I could.”
“There is a way,” he said.
“Do you have another one of your plans?”
He smiled at her tone of disbelief. “Yes, but this one includes you.” He looked up at the waterfall. “But first, I think you
and I should try everything we’ve seen my parents do. We’ll need some wine.”
Her eyes widened. “But . . .” She didn’t know what to say.
“What was it Kaley said? ‘Gathered the first fruits of love.’” He held out his hand to her. “I lied about having many women.
I’ve waited for the woman I kissed on that moonless night. She risked her life to save me.” He smiled. “Shall we remove our
clothing and see what happens?”
The only thing Aradella could manage to say was “Yes.”