Chapter 27 #2
Damion was grim, but had no further suggestions to free himself from Honey’s company.
“Let’s go,” Magda said. “I’d like to be clear of Elf territory before nightfall.”
“Don’t forget this,” Kaelan said, picking up Endreas’s coat from where he’d laid it on top of the hut.
She frowned at his provocative tone.
“Why don’t you wear it, Honey?” Magda said. “You’re the least clothed of all of us.”
“Nymphs don’t feel cold,” Honey said with a smile.
Magda frowned. “How nice for you.”
Damion took the coat from Kaelan. He held it up and examined it. “It’s a good coat,” he pronounced. He tossed it into Magda’s hands. “Put it on. The last thing we need is for you to grow ill.”
“Why don’t you wear it?” she said to him.
He made a face at her, as if not understanding her resistance. “Put on the damned coat, Mistress,” he said. As he charged away, he grasped Honey’s arm and dragged her back to the roc.
She started to drop the coat back on top of the hut, but Kaelan caught her wrist.
“Damion is right. You were freezing when you arrived. Put it on. It’s only a coat.”
“You wear it,” she said. “You’ll have to ride behind me anyway. You can keep me warm.”
His lips pressed into a thin line.
“It’s only a coat,” she said. “Right?”
With clear reluctance, he took the coat and put it on.
She refrained from commenting on how it fit him—perfectly.
Though he and Endreas looked little alike, except for the shape of their eyes and the staggering slant of their cheekbones, they appeared to share the same frame.
Perhaps Kaelan was a bit thinner, but had he been better fed and trained, the two would’ve been able to swap clothes easily.
And something in its fine black-on-black embroidery along the seams—dragon knot work—the elegant, trim cut .
. . For the first time since she’d met him, Kaelan truly looked a Prince.
For a long moment, they stood there, regarding each other.
“Ready?” she asked.
The green light that usually shone in his eyes seemed to dim.
Gur stretched his golden wings and gave them a couple of flaps, stirring the ferns around them.
“Should we wait for Kirk to return?” Kaelan asked.
“I have a feeling the brownie will be able to find us if he wants to,” she said, gripping Gur’s mane and hauling herself up onto the slim space between his neck and shoulders where his wings grew. Hero slid under her tunic, wriggling beneath the tight strap of her jerkin, huddling above her breast.
Kaelan approached Gur, holding the lion-semargl’s gaze.
At first she wasn’t sure if this was a good idea, as every heavy muscle of Gur’s body under her tensed.
A faint ripple of distrust flowed off of him.
But then, Kaelan put out his hand. Gur lowered his nose into it, snorting a bit.
The semargl’s tension melted away. Something in Kaelan’s scent was familiar to him.
The semargl recognized Kaelan as an Elf and as kin to Endreas.
Fortunately, he seemed to have no sense that Kaelan’s family wanted him dead.
Kaelan circled around, a dubious expression on his face.
Gur’s thoughts filled Magda’s head.
“From the back,” she instructed Kaelan on Gur’s behalf.
He nodded and hefted himself onto Gur’s hindquarters. He slid along Gur’s back with his legs bent to avoid Gur’s wings. As they set off, Magda cleared her head. Or attempted to.
When Kaelan slid closer, a crackle of his anxiety popped and sparked over her awareness.
“This is going to be difficult, isn’t it?” he said softly from behind her. He didn’t have to explain, she understood what he meant. Fending off their attraction to each other wouldn’t be easy when in such tight physical proximity.
She took a deep breath. “We’ll manage.”
“Are you two ready?” Damion called from the back of Anqa, where he was seated behind Honey, frowning over at them with impatience.
Gur spread his wings and took a step forward, his movement forcing Kaelan to seize Magda’s waist.
She shut her eyes, allowing his emotions to pass through her without attempting to hold on to them or react in any way—hot anger, cold fear, queasy anxiety, sinking sadness, and . . . gnawing hunger.
As Gur trotted into flight, Kaelan’s arms tightened around her waist, his heartbeat quickening against her back, his breath ragged on her neck.
She took another deep breath and another, reminding herself that Kaelan’s feelings for her were instinct only. He loved Honey and wanted her back, she could feel that. She focused on that, and slowly his hunger for her slid away. He relaxed behind her.
They remained tightly pressed together as Gur flew higher, out of the treetops and above, where the sun peeked through thick cloud swells.
The world rose and fell below them with each beat of his wings, the subtropical forest giving way to beach and then turquoise blue water.
Ahead of them, Anqa’s wings curved in a thin line parallel to the horizon below and the clouds above.
Before Magda could feel relieved that she’d managed to submerge their primal urges, a clawing tightness began to build in her chest. The last time she’d flown it had been dark. And she’d been so focused on getting away from Endreas, so numb from saying goodbye, but now . . .
Her pulse jerked into an erratic and hectic pace. Her hands tightened in Gur’s mane. Her head began to spin, panic taking hold.
Kaelan’s hands squeezed her waist, his arms still wrapped around her.
“Breathe when I breathe,” he said into her ear. “Close your eyes.”
Sweat rolled down her forehead, stinging her eyes. But she couldn’t close them, she couldn’t even blink. “I can’t,”
“Yes, you can.” He leaned into her, pressing his forehead against her hair.
The strength of his emotions redoubled, sweeping into her like a fierce, relentless wind. For a moment, it only added to her panic, as she lost what little control she had over her Rae instincts. Not that she needed that control, because fear was thick upon her. She could feel nothing else.
And then she heard him inside her head.
“Close your eyes.”
Some part of her knew that he shouldn’t have been able to speak to her in this way, not unless she’d claimed him. But the Elves had abilities far different from Pixies. She didn’t know any Pixies who could travel through the Shadow Realms the way the Elves did either.
And then her eyes, quite to her surprise, closed.
“Breathe when I breathe,” he said.
“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I’m going to fall. I’m going to fall. I’m going to fall.”
Fear whipped around her, tangling and choking and inescapable.
The wind rushed by her ears, ripping at her clothes as Gur gained speed heightening the sensations of vulnerability and powerlessness.
Against her chest, she felt Hero attempting to send quiet, still feelings into her, but they were too distant and removed.
He wriggled out from under her tunic and over her shoulder, fleeing to Kaelan.
She was going to fall. She was falling. Though her fingers were dug deep into Gur’s mane, they trembled. They were weak. They wouldn’t hold.
In vain, she tried to regain something of whatever it was that had prevented her from suffering this feeling before. How she’d been so intent on getting away from Endreas; how bone-weary she’d been; how she’d just needed to get back to . . .
But now these thoughts only seemed to intensify the downward spiral.
Suddenly, Kaelan’s legs swung forward, twining around hers.
He gripped the back of her neck and pushed her down against the curve of Gur’s spine and head.
His weight pressed down on top of her back.
Sucking in the thick musk and rough strands of Gur’s mane spiked her fear to a nearly unbearable height. Now she really couldn’t breathe.
Inside, it was worse, like he was choking her with the overwhelming influx of his will.
“Let go,” he said.
At first she was too stifled and smothered to understand what he meant. And then she felt it, what he was really trying to take hold of . . . her fear.
That’s when his intention, the words underlying his incursion into her head, became clear.
“I have you. You’re safe. I won’t let anything happen to you, Magda. I won’t let you fall.”
Some part of her howled and thrashed against him. Because it didn’t make sense. She couldn’t let it go. She wasn’t holding on to her fear, her fear was holding her, wasn’t it?
Even as she thought it, she saw that she was grasping for some sense of control and panicking when she didn’t feel it, and hence . . . the fear.
Before she could think twice about resisting him, Kaelan’s emotions rushed through her, ripping her fear away and sweeping her upwards.
“Feel what I feel,” he said.
Suddenly, she was soaring, thrilled by the wind caressing her skin, the weightlessness, the freedom.
She had released her fear to him. Now, she could fly. But it was more than that. For the first time, she felt that she could give up control. And that she could trust him fully.
Something in him changed in that moment too. Some weight was stripped away. A new kind of confidence grew within him. It was hard for her to define, but it struck her as very . . . Princely.
Slowly, he eased her upright. Her breath evened out, her heart slowing. As he retreated back into his own mind, she caught one more of his thoughts . . .
“I can control this.”
A part of him was just as relieved as she was.
She blinked, her vision clearing, her fear falling away, a smile touching her lips.
Below, the blue sprawl of the ocean glittered as if carrying diamonds on its back, dotted by dozens of lush green islands. Through the white floe of clouds, fingers of sunlight fanned over the islands with golden caresses, teasing apart the shadows to pluck the colors out and bring them to life.
Though they were upright again, Kaelan leaned into her and placed his hand over hers, where it was tangled in Gur’s mane. Through her, he imparted some thought into Gur. Before she could make sense of it, Gur picked up speed, surging upwards.
Her fingers clenched again into Gur’s fur, her knees tightening against his sides as her weight shifted back into Kaelan. He kept one arm firm around her.
When they broke through the cloud cover, she gasped. The white peaks of the clouds towered like the great masts of ships with thousands of sails. Gur let out a happy roar and behind her, Kaelan chuckled.
“Time to let go,” he said in her ear.
He drew her hand back, taking hold of Gur’s fur in her place.
Her arms moved at his will, spreading wide, trusting her legs and Gur and him to hold her as Gur banked through the clouds. The wind slid over her arms as if she had wings. And she could fly.
She could feel Kaelan smile against her skin.
Another of his thoughts slipped into her mind.
“I’ve got you.”
And then they dove back down through the clouds, Kaelan anchoring her waist even as the wind lifted her slightly off Gur’s back until they caught another current and found themselves abreast of Damion, Honey, and Anqa.
As her weight settled against him again, Kaelan’s mood darkened. Not because of her, but because of Honey. He grieved for her as though she were dead and gone.
Magda placed her hand over his and focused on the new sense of strength he had helped create within her.
“Thank you.”
His hand tightened on her side for a second. And then he drew back into himself, his emotions only grazing her, like the wind streaming along the edges of her skin.