Birds and Prey (9 page)

“I thought we had more time,” Sade said when the communication ended. She’d taken to sitting behind the mirrored pendant Haytham used to communicate with Laire, listening to Haytham’s side of the conversation, and then discussing it with him afterward. Haytham recognized that the princess would not approve of this practice, but he didn’t care.

“We don’t,” Haytham said, heaviness settling over him. “The Crystal Court is holding their festival early.” Sade looked confused. “The annual festival for the dead,” he clarified. “And that’s our window to enter their court. I don’t know why they’ve moved it up this year, but we don’t have any choice.”

“But…what if I’m not ready?”

“You’re ready,” he said.

That was not a lie. Sade had taken to the dance as if she’d been born to it. Sometimes, Haytham suspected that she carried the wind inside even when they weren’t practicing.

That night, they made love with desperate abandon. Sade sat on top of him, spearing herself on his cock, her head thrown back, the sweat on her dance-honed body glistened in the firelight as he lost himself in her moist heat. He wanted to touch her with his hands and mouth, make her body sing as he had their first night together, but in this dance she preferred to lead and would have it no other way.

The orgasm rushed through him, and Sade fell against his chest, her face hidden in her arms.

Haytham stroked her shoulder, reveling in the softness of her skin. They lay together, slick and sticky with each other.

He had almost drifted off to sleep when he heard Sade whisper against his chest. “Don’t take me back to her.”

Haytham forced himself to relax, keeping his breathing even. Better to pretend he hadn’t heard, he thought, and soon drifted off to sleep for real.

The next morning they ate a slow breakfast. When they’d rinsed the bowls clean, Haytham said, “You should pack. The princess will expect us before nightfall.”

Sade nodded.

The heaviness returned to him as they cleaned his den and gathered their things.

He had a gift for Sade: a tiny bird, wings spread. He’d carved it during the small moments they were apart. The carving was still rough, and as he pulled it from its secret alcove behind the shelf, he considered leaving it behind altogether. It seemed like a cruel joke, to give her a symbol of freedom, when together they were dancing to the strings of the princess’s will.

‘Tell her,’ a part of Haytham insisted. ‘Take her to the base of the mountain and tell her to run.’

But that was a foolish thought. Haytham could not break the geis between himself and the princess. Even without the promise of his freedom, he owed the royal family his wings. Besides, she’d barely make it a day on her own. Haytham comforted himself with that truth. Yes, she had an understanding of the dance, and she had learned how to care for herself, but none of that would save her from the relentless pursuit of a Wild Hunt. No, Sade was better off – at least, far more likely to stay alive -- doing the princess’s will.

Sade was standing at the mouth of his cave, looking out over the rocky plain. Haytham came up behind her, and pressed a kiss to her shoulder.

“I don’t want to go back,” Sade said.

Neither did he, but there was no point in dwelling on something they couldn’t change.

“I have a gift for you,” he said.

Sade brightened slightly. She turned and gave him a faint smile. “Really?”

Haytham held the figurine out to Sade. “It’s incomplete.”

Sade took it between her thumb and index finger, and held it out to the light. “It’s a hawk,” she said. “Like you.”

Haytham hadn’t thought of it that way. He’d only wanted to give her some piece of the freedom for which they both yearned.

“It’s a female,” Haytham said. It was the closest he could come to revealing the place Sade had taken in his heart. A token of his admiration.

And even so, he was going to betray her.

“We could run away together,” Sade said.

It was a tempting thought. Tempting, and foolish.

“You wouldn’t be safe, even with me,” Haytham said. He felt painfully as if he were trying to convince himself, as well as her. “The princess has enough of your scent that her wolves will easily track you through the forest, and while Laire says she’s forbidden to hurt you, I don’t think that applies to her creatures.”

“Does it apply to you?”

He looked at her. “I’ve already hurt you, haven’t I, during your training? Many times.”

Sade had no answer for that.

Haytham stripped out of his clothes. He luxuriated in the chill of the wind over his flesh. When he returned home -- if he returned home -- he would be a free man. But he wondered if he’d be able to recapture the purity of this moment.

He walked naked into the sun, dropped to his knees, and shifted. The shift was a welcome agony, robbing him of breath and sight as his body twisted into his bird form.

Sade climbed up onto his back, tying the riding straps, as she’d learned to do on her own these past two months. Her weight settled on his back, Haytham leaped from the cliff’s edge, and into the open air.

Flying usually made Haytham feel free. But today, with each stroke of his wings toward the Edenost court, he felt the geis tighten around him.

Sade was a welcome weight. If they’d both been free, he could… if he was honest with himself… imagine himself falling in love with her.

But they weren’t free. She was bound both by a soul-bond, and further by Laire’s games. And Haytham had long ago acclimated himself to the royal family’s leash.

By the time Haytham was descending over the tightly clumped trees of the Edenost Court, the weight of his promise to the princess seemed too heavy to bear.

Haytham soared down between the trees, and landed on the floor of the Great Hall where he had performed his dance for the princess so long ago (was it possible that it had really only been ten weeks?)

The princess was waiting for them: resplendent in silver, her hair falling in an inky wave over her back and shoulders. She’d painted her lips red, and they made a sharp contrast to the endless black of her eyes. Sade leaned into the feathers of Haytham’s back as the princess greeted them with a rare, wide, disturbing smile.

“My pet!” Laire exclaimed, waving for Sade to come down. “The wind has made a nightmare of your skin!”

Sade had hesitated a moment before climbing down from Haytham’s back. She hit the floor so lightly, Haytham knew some piece of the wind was guiding her steps.

The princess crossed the floor towards Sade in an elegant rustle of silk.

“Haytham tells me you’re ready,” she said. She took Sade’s jaw between her palms and pressed a slow kiss to her lips. Sade closed her eyes, her body stiffening subtly, before she relaxed and drew the princess in deeper.

This was the dance again, Haytham saw, done as subtly as Haytham would have done it himself.

Haytham knew he’d have to shift back into his human skin soon, but he held off for the moment; as a bird, he could observe them without calling the princess’ attention to him.

When had Sade mastered the dance so thoroughly? As skillfully as Sade kissed Laire, gently running her fingers down princess’s side in a way that made the elf shiver with want, it was clear to Haytham that Sade had no real interest in the princess. Maybe he could see it more clearly in his bird form? Sade’s movements were coming only from the dance.

Haytham had known Sade was learning, known she was talented. He’d
trained
her. And yet…was this how Sade had lain with him, too? Perfectly attentive, and still apart?

Had there ever been anything real between them at all?

Laire broke the kiss. She stared down at Sade, a bit breathless, her eyes glassy and her clothing mussed.

“My pet,” she whispered.

Sade bowed her head. “My princess.”

“You are
perfect
.” The princess stared at Sade a moment longer. Then she turned toward Haytham, with a brief gesture of impatience. “Enough staring, Haytham. I need you in your human shell for a bit.”

Haytham nodded – a strange gesture, on a bird, but she would understand him -- and shifted.

Unlike Sade, who always gave Haytham privacy to shift even if only by averting her gaze, the princess always watched, her lips parted as though she were taking some titillating pleasure from his pain. That was probably the case, in fact. Even as a child, Haytham had known Laire as the type to pluck feathers from live birds.

When Haytham was in his human skin, Laire gestured him to Sade’s side.

“It is good you are ready,” the princess said. “We can’t afford to wait another year. My mother is returning, and when she does, this business must be finished.”

Or else the Queen would take Laire’s failure out of her hide.

Haytham had even less use for familial struggles than for the larger sweep of elven politics, but he knew the queen wouldn’t be pleased with losing control of her Wind-Dancer pet to appease her daughter’s notions of revenge. If her absence from the court also exempted her from the Justicius’s ruling, then the Queen would kill Sade just to ensure the deal would never come to pass. Either that, or trap the mortal in a world of pleasurable dreams until her body starved itself to death.

“I see,” Haytham said. “Do you know when Her Majesty will return to the court?”

“Soon.” Which could mean anything with elves. “The Crystal Court begins their summer festival tonight. Their priests altered the calendar for some reason – it’s early this year, but we don’t know why. The Bright Elves will dance for three days to honor their dead. We will, of course, give you proper costumes and masks.”

“We’ll need a way past their wards,” Haytham said, already thinking ahead, planning out what they would need for their infiltration -- and assassination. “And I’ve only seen the Crystal Court from above. Any maps or guides you have would be helpful.”

“Of course,” Laire said. “We spent many moons there, in anticipation of my wedding.” She made a sour face as she said these words. “The pesky thing,” she went on, “is that the Bright Elves allow their lower courtiers free rein to flap about from place to place, and those without wings use magic for the same purpose, so you will need a charm to travel between one dwelling and the next. The charm we’ll give you mimics their magic, but if anyone looks too closely at it, they will be able to tell you have come from our court.”

Laire turned to the mortal. “Sade, this is where your soul-bond will be of some use. You should be able to feel when the prince is close. But don’t fall into the temptation of the bond! This man has trapped and betrayed you. Only through killing him will you be free.”

Sade nodded. Her expression showed only calm acceptance.

That, too was a product of the dance. Haytham admired her for it.

At the same time, Sade’s mastery terrified him. She was playing her own game now. And Haytham had no idea what she intended to do.

They arrived at the borders of the Crystal Court just after sunset.

Sade could understand how the court had earned its name. Where Edenost was all gold and fire, this court glittered beneath the canopy of green. Some of the branches seemed to be made of living crystal: reaching outward, weaving between the branches of bark. Other areas were lit from within, and these domiciles shone like jewels.

Here, so far from the mountains, the wind’s song only whispered softly in Sade’s flesh.

As they descended through a break in the canopy of green, a sudden flash of heat passed over her body, as if she’d stood too close to the fire and singed the hair on her arms. The wards! Sade’s stomach twisted in fear.

But Haytham bore them both down smoothly. He landed on a thick branch, his strong claws digging into the bark. She waited for him to settle, then slid down from his back.

They must have made it through without rousing suspicion, because the woods around them were quiet, save for the chatter of insects, and the intermittent call of an owl.

Sade turned her back on Haytham, giving him the privacy to change back to his human form.

“I’m ready,” he said. “Hand me my trousers.” She did so.

The soul-bond ached less here, and Sade was grateful for the respite.

She reached into the bag and took out her dancing costume. The mask, she hoped, would be enough to hide her from any bright-elf guards. If they were anything like the Edenost elves – and she had been led to assume that, of course, they were – then if their disguises failed, and they were discovered, she and Haytham could both expect a slow and merciless death.

“Why aim for the heart?” Sade asked, as she finished tying her bodice. “Wouldn’t the throat be easier?”

“Through the heart is the only way to break the bond.”

Sade hardly needed the wind to tell her that he was lying. She pressed the issue. “But won’t the bond break no matter how the prince dies?”

“The working of a soul-bond is beyond my magic,” Haytham said. About that, he was telling the truth, if not all of it. “Can you tie the back of this thing?” He turned around.

Sade took the two loops of silk at the back of his neck, pulled them together, and fastened them. Haytham was slightly too broad and tall for this costume, which strained to fit over his back.

Sade pulled his hair back at the nape of his neck and draped a silk scarf over it. Its light brown color, like her unruly curls, would give them both away. The same was true for their skin. For that reason, Sade wore white gloves, and socks on her sandaled feet. The cloak of fabric made her feel stifled, and made it even more difficult to hear the wind. She hated it here. The faster she was done with this, the better.

When they were ready to go, Haytham took the charm the princess had given them.

Laire had told them first to go to the temple: the majority of the Bright Elves would be there. Taking Haytham’s hand, Sade closed her eyes.

Another flash of heat passed through her body…

And then she was caught in a wave of dancers. They moved almost as though they were one body around her. One, taller and broader than his partner, spun towards Sade, who was a touch too slow to keep the elf from smashing into her. Sade coughed, the pain of the impact knocking the breath out of her.