Birds and Prey (8 page)

“A Wind Dancer has no master but himself!” he said. “You were young when the Elven Court pulled you into their games. Do you remember what it means to be a Wind Dancer at all?”

Why did Marid have to bring this up here, now? Why did he have to lay Haytham’s heart bare before the wind, sun, and the woman he had sworn to destroy in order to regain his life? Marid stood tall and majestic, and he found himself wilting beneath the other Shifter’s fury. Would the price of Haytham’s freedom be his soul?

Haytham bowed his head. “I remember,” he said in a low voice.

“Then what did the Edenost Court promise you? Because it can’t be for
her
.” Marid nodded dismissively in Sade’s direction. “You’re too crippled by their magic to recognize love, let alone feel it.”

“That’s not true!” Haytham said angrily.

“Then what
did
they promise?” Marid’s tone was demanding, but his eyes told a different story. “I can help you, Haytham. I
will
help you. But you have to tell me what you need.”

Haytham badly wanted to accept Marid’s help. He wanted – if nothing else -- to be able to unburden his pain to someone.

But he knew better than to try to mix up another of his kind in the machinations of the Edenost elves. Especially someone he cared about.

He braced himself for the lie. “I don’t need anything.”

Marid shook his head. The disappointment in his face hit Haytham like a blow.

“I feel sorry for you, Haytham,” he said. He raised his eyes again and met Haytham’s gaze. “Good luck with your elven games. But I can’t promise I’ll be here when they’ve finished their work on you.”

With that, Marid turned his back on both of them and leapt from the ledge, feathers already blossoming along his skin, shifting in midair.

Soon his wings were cutting into the sky, beating an even pace until he was nothing more than a distant shimmer in the sun.

Haytham said, “Return to your stance.” But his gaze remained fixed on the spot where Marid had leaped off the ledge, and the golden point, in the distance, where the other Shifter’s bird form was disappearing into the horizon.

Marid’s visit had been startling, but Sade was glad of it. Throughout her past week of training, she’d tried to find some window of understanding into Haytham’s mind. What did he want? Why was he doing this for her?

If she hadn’t been so afraid of the pain – not from Haytham’s body or actions, but from her aching soul-bond -- she might even have tried harder to seduce him sexually, to find out. But he’d declined her tentative overtures, and the pain in her soul-bond had made it seem not worthwhile to try harder.

Maybe he preferred men? That was an obvious possibility, given that he and Marid obviously had a history of intimacy. But it certainly hadn't seemed that way when he’d been driving his cock into her body, that first night in his den…

Sade dropped back into her stance, letting her eyes shut automatically as she followed the steps of the dance. The dance was a comfort and a balm to the aching wound of her soul-bond, even surrounded by these other uncertainties.

The wind filled her, taking the pain went away. Her thoughts whirled around her like so many wind-tossed leaves. Laire
did
have Haytham bound -- perhaps in a way similar to that in which she had bound Sade, with gifts, pleasures, and promises that were made of truth but somehow worked out to lies. When Marid had accused Haytham of not knowing love, the hidden pain in his expression was obvious to Sade. Sade had learned, in Laire’s service, to mask her real emotions. Haytham must have learned the same lesson.

It lightened some of Sade’s distrust of him. Perhaps, if she could discover what it was Laire had promised Haytham, Sade and Haytham might be able to work together to escape their mutual prison…

And with that thought – or was it instinct? Or something whispered by the wind? -- Sade decided to seduce Haytham again.

She’d barely had time to adjust to her decision when she sensed that he was moving toward her -- too fast, in fact; in her mind’s eye, she saw his leg sweep at her feet. Haytham was attacking her!

‘Now,’
the wind whispered.

Before Sade’s heart could register the surprise, she was lunging, moving. They passed each other close enough that the fabric of his trousers brushed her hand.

“Good,” Haytham said, and his tone was pleased. “You can open your eyes now.”

Sade opened her eyes. She was barely a half a foot’s width from the cliff’s edge. Haytham stood three feet away, framed in sunlight.

‘Now,’ the wind whispered at her again.

Yes, now it was her turn to act. To attack.

Slowly, she walked to Haytham and put her arms around his waist. He didn’t resist, though she could sense his surprise.

He was much taller than she, and her lips could barely reach his collarbone, so she kissed him there, teasing at the skin with her teeth and tongue.

“You don’t—“

“I want to,” Sade said.

She kissed his chest. This time she teased his nipple, circling it with her tongue before sucking on it hard enough to make him gasp.

She could feel Haytham getting hard against her belly. The length of his cock pressed into her soft flesh, and she realized that she wanted him too.

The soul-bond ached as Sade squeezed Haytham’s firm rear. He grabbed her jaw and roughly pulled her face up so that they could kiss.

His mouth was good, so good… but at the same time it felt wrong. The lips were too full, the tongue too gentle.

Why couldn’t she just enjoy this? Wretched soul-bond!

She
had
to enjoy this, and to make Haytham enjoy her. After all, more than her own pleasure was at stake here! Sex wouldn’t break whatever power Laire had over the Shifter. But if Sade made him want her, made him care, it might force Haytham to hesitate before his inevitable betrayal.

As he ran kisses down her neck, Sade closed her eyes and let the wind fill her. The wind’s song silenced the jagged pain of her soul-bond, and, through it, she could see Haytham’s desires clearly.

She untied his trousers and let them fall. Then, dropping to her knees, she took his cock in her mouth. Not yet fully hard, it was a warm, solid weight on her tongue. She pushed his cock as far down her throat as she could, taking in the salt taste of his sweat, her nose brushing against his soft pubic hair. When the head brushed against her throat, she began to move her up and down it, careful to keep her lips over her teeth.

Haytham buried his hand in her hair, his fingers tangling in the strands. The sharp tugs of pain relaxed Sade. If Haytham was too good to her, her soul-bond would flare. And she couldn’t afford that distraction. She wanted to own Haytham, just as the princess wanted to own Sade.

Haytham moaned. Sade pulled off of his cock for just long enough to wet her fingers; then, plunging them into her wet pussy, she captured her own juices.

The wind was guiding her now, pushing her towards actions she’d never have considered in her life as Laire’s pet.

“Sade,” Haytham said. He tried to take her arms, but Sade pushed him against the rock face and took his cock into her mouth again.

Using the fingers she’d just wet, she massaged the space behind his ball-sack and his rear. Haytham bucked into her mouth.

The soul-bond was burning now as Sade grew wetter, her pussy lips slick with her own juices. She wanted Haytham’s hands on her, and she wanted the phantom fingers of her ghost lover inside, but more than any of that, she wanted Haytham gasping and shaking against this wall, and when he had spent himself in her, then, for the first time in her very short memory, she’d have claimed something for herself.

Haytham was close. His cock had thickened, and the head grew hard and hot as his balls drew back and he came in hot bursts against the back of her throat.

It was at that moment that the wind’s song was drowned out by the agony of her soul-bond burning in her chest. Sade pulled back, clutching her chest, trying to recapture the wind.

She would not cry. She had chosen this, chosen Haytham, at least for this moment.

Haytham put his arms around her, hugging her to him.

“I’m fine,” Sade said, before Haytham could ask her, and ruin the moment. She closed her eyes and smelled his sweat. The pain was ebbing now, and she took a breath, enjoying how the cool air filled her lungs.

“More than. That was…”

More than the pleasures of the flesh, it was the power that had intoxicated.

Haytham ran his fingers over her stomach and down, between her legs. His index finger made slow circles over her clit.

“Not now,” Sade said, pulling his hand away. “Just hold me for a while.”

Haytham pressed his lips to her temple. His lips were still too full. But Sade reveled in the touch, in the mix of pain that followed the pleasure of his kiss.

In her mind, Sade heard a desperate sob. Maybe this terrible soul-bond was hurting the distant elven prince as well.

She wanted to enjoy his pain, as she’d enjoyed bending Haytham to her will. But that sound of mourning was too bereft, too lonely for Sade to take triumph in.

Better to pretend she hadn’t heard.

Two weeks after they became lovers again, Sade learned to kill. She and Haytham knelt on a grassy knoll overlooking a valley where a herd of deer stood, contentedly chewing the grass.

It was a demonstration she’d seen twice before. With the wind – guided by it, scent-concealed -- Haytham would move toward the herd, choose one of the deer and swiftly slice its jugular. Within a minute, the deer would be dead.

This time, though, instead of taking up his own knife, Haytham handed Sade the heart’s blade the princess had given her at the banquet. It seemed so very long ago, now.

“Use this,” he said.

“Me?” Sade’s mouth was dry. She still couldn’t imagine taking a life. “I—“

“It’s the way of things,” Haytham said. “Some die so we might live. You can do this. The first time is always the hardest.”

That, Sade believed.

He continued, “Because this is a valley, it will be harder here for you to hear the wind -- though not as difficult as in the trees of the Crystal Court. They are much further from the mountains than Edenost. So this is a good test of your skills. As we advance your training, you’ll learn how to manipulate the area around you using even the lightest breeze.”

Slowly, Sade took the knife.

She was wearing a cut-off pair of Haytham’s old trousers tied with rope at the waist, and a simple black tunic. Her feet were bare. She held the knife in her right hand, and felt her hand close deftly around it.

The cry of the wind wasn’t as loud, here, as it was on the ledge or even Haytham’s cave, but in these weeks, the wind’s song has become a part of her. When Sade closed her eyes, she was able to feel the herd. There were fourteen fawns in it, seventeen does, and eight bucks...

Letting the wind guide her steps, she moved down the hill. The wind cloaked her scent and masked her footfalls. Even so, one of the bucks looked up as she approached, sniffing suspiciously at the air.

‘Soon,’ the wind breathed.

Sade’s palm sweated into the knife’s hilt. She was grateful she could keep her eyes closed and allow the wind to carry her forward.

It was a dream, like her mouth on the princess’s clit, the tickle of hair against her nose as the princess’s hips pressed into the mouth of her pet.

Sade would kill the buck because it was a natural conclusion to her taking the knife, and when the deed was done, she would eat his flesh and clothe herself in his skin. Later, Sade would free herself of the pain of the soul-bond the elven prince had tricked her into, and when the deed was done she would be free.

Freedom, Sade realized as she drew the knife across the buck’s throat, was all she truly wanted.

The buck screamed as its blood spilled onto the grass. Some blood sprayed Sade, drawing a hot line from her left shoulder blade across her back. She narrowly avoided being bowled over as, all around the dying buck, the other deer began to stampede in panic. The wind’s song was escaping her; it was drowned out by the cries of terror and death.

Sade opened her eyes.

The buck had staggered a few steps before it toppled over on its side. Sade knelt beside the deer, and found that she was weeping as she gripped the bloody knife. With her free hand, she touched the deer’s hide. It was still warm, and his legs twitched as though he were still trying to run.

‘That’s a post-mortem reaction.’ A boy’s voice sounded in her mind. ‘Sometimes during rigor, a body will still make noises even. I saw it on the Discovery Channel.’

The voice sounded familiar, as did the words. But when Sade tried to capture their meaning, her stomach clenched and she got nothing. She dropped onto her hands next to the deer and retched.

There was a shuffling behind her, and then Haytham’s voice. “It was a clean kill.”

He was making no attempt to use the wind to mask his movements, which made Sade grateful, even as she struggled to bring her nausea under control. She’d need to clean the knife. She wiped each side of the blade over the grass, to get the blood off.

“Are you okay?” Haytham asked.

“No.”

“You will be. Just sit here. I’ll give the winds our thanks.”

Haytham stood over the corpse and sang a low, unmelodic series of notes. After the last note had died, he still stood there, unmoving, head bowed over the deer.

Once Sade managed to get her stomach back under control, she pulled herself up to her feet and stood beside him.

He put an arm around her waist. The horror of her kill muted the pain of her soul-bond.

Sade breathed the blood-scented air. As difficult as it was to take the life of an innocent, she had managed. And she was still standing.

Would it be the same when she killed the prince?

Two weeks before Sade’s training was scheduled to end, the princess ordered them back to Edenost.