“Really? Damn…we’re dead?”
“No. We’re very much alive. And I had no idea my prickly human could be so sweet.” Sorntar’s breath ruffled her hair, then his lips brushed against her neck. “Are you courting me?”
She groaned. “Death would be so much less humiliating.” When she opened her eyes, she looked around—anywhere but in Sorntar’s direction where he reclined next to her. He played with a strand of her hair and looked decidedly smug.
“You need not worry. This will not happen again.” She rushed on. “You have my word. I have no intention of…courting you.”
“Yet you wear my courtship gift—my necklace. You seem reluctant to give it back.” He toyed with the silver chain, the feather a soft caress along her overheated skin. Her breath hitched.
Ashayna’s mind blanked. She didn’t know how to respond. “I…I found it the morning I first met you. My Larnkin was awakening and only the necklace soothed it. I was going to return it…eventually. I swear I’m not courting you. I don’t even know how it’s done with a phoenix.”
“Oh.” Sorntar hesitated before pulling away. “Since we’re going about this backwards, perhaps it would be best for you to know a little about phoenix courtship anyway so there’s no confusion.”
Ashayna grunted, and felt her cheeks flush three different shades of red. And yet he’d sounded disappointed, like he wanted her to court him—the realization tightened her belly.
“With my race, once we’re mated, it is for life and cannot be undone.”
The meaning of his words slowly penetrated her lust-fogged mind. “So…you’re not….” She gaped at him. “You’ve never…not once?”
His brows scrunched together, perplexed, and then he grinned. “I think the word you’re having difficulty with is mated. I fail to see why that’s so embarrassing. It’s not a unique condition. It’s complicated with my race. Our urge to mate can be…withstood. A long courtship ritual is involved. Then there’s the complications of family bloodlines, fertility, compatibility of Larnkin, the problem of having a bondmate, or gaining one later in life as sometimes happens.”
“And here I thought you just didn’t like Lylantra’s aggressiveness, but you’re actually a prude.” She grinned. “So much for sneaking off to the stables for a quick tumble in the hay.”
Sorntar scowled at her look. She chuckled—she couldn’t help it. He looked so offended.
“Is that your idea of an offer? Need I guard my honor?”
“Offer? I don’t have designs on your honor! Earth above!” Ashayna growled, feeling heat climbing her face again.
“And I’m not a prude.” His grumbled denial shook the bed. “Besides, I am coming to think you don’t exactly have a great wealth of experience either.” But a sly look came into his eyes saying he had already confirmed that truth by a previous look in her thoughts.
Oh shit. The subject needed to change. Now. She scrounged for something, anything else to discuss.
A throat being cleared stopped her line of thought. Ashayna looked up with growing dread.
They were in a vaguely familiar-looking room. She recognized the healer’s quarters once she got her mind focused on something other than Sorntar. A lupwyn healer stood by the door, a bundle of supplies tucked under one arm, his ears poised forward.
Ashayna wanted to melt into the floor, but settled for tossing her blanket over her head.
After a moment, Sorntar tapped on her blanket. “It’s alright. He’s gone.”
She stuck her head back out. It was mid-afternoon or a little later by the slant of light coming in a row of west facing windows. With the healer gone, she and Sorntar were the only ones present. At least there wasn’t an entire audience to witness their exchange.
“The healers are all close-mouthed. Your secret is safe.”
“How’d we get here?” Another thought popped into her head, and her mind seemed to snap back into focus because about a hundred questions were lining up behind the first. “Why are we here? Between the early, unexpected bond and the incident with the Oracle Stone, I wouldn’t have been surprised to awake in some cramped dark hole and told to think on our actions for the next turning of the seasons.”
“You may wish that had been the case.” Sorntar sat up and swung his legs over the bed’s edge and began to groom feathers she’d mussed with her exploring. “I’ve already been….asked a number of questions.”
By the way he stressed ‘asked’, Ashayna bet there hadn’t been much asking, just a lot of mental probing by a number of councilors. “Are you all right? Really?”
“Yes. We’ll be fine after we’ve rested a bit more, and the council finishes with their questions.” He sighed. “Vinarah was in to visit us already, but you were still asleep. She informed me the tomb guards were the first to arrive and found us unconscious. Apparently they then wrapped us in the cloaks of their Order and brought us to the queen. I’m told it was a volatile bonding. We’re very lucky not to have sustained permanent damage.”
“How long was I asleep?”
“Three days.”
“You let me sleep for three days—is that even possible—while you fended off the council?” Ashayna was appalled Sorntar had been forced to take the brunt of their punishment. She wasn’t even sure what he’d had to deal with, but she was grateful all the same. Just the thought of having complete strangers rifling through her mind while she was unconscious left her stomach in a tight knot. “I can’t even begin to repay you for all you’ve done.”
“You’re my bondmate. It’s my duty to look out for your welfare. Besides, I’ve been awake less than two days, so don’t thank me yet. I’ve no idea what we underwent while unconscious. I doubt they needed to ask me any questions at all.” He paused, and then after some internal struggle, he continued, “They already knew everything, and honestly, if they found anything dark within us we wouldn’t have awakened…ever.”
“Oh.”
Ashayna didn’t care for being senseless and helpless in the arms of tomb guards, and later before the council, but at least she was still alive, so her situation was improving. For the first time since she’d awakened, she really looked at Sorntar. His eyes narrowed against the sunlight looked sunken, giving testament to his exhaustion.
“Sorntar, you’ve been brave enough. You should rest.” After smoothing her night robe, she stood up. Stretching muscles stiff from disuse, she came around the end of the bed to stand in front of him and met his eyes. When he looked like he was going to rebel, she crossed her arms over her chest and gave him her best glower. “You need sleep.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” he sighed. “I can barely think.” He stretched back out and covered his eyes with one arm. “Since were now bonded, our Larnkins will need us to stay close. You’ll still be here when I wake?”
“Yes.”
“I never know when you’ll decide to go looking for more trouble. You do it with alarming regularity,” he rumbled, his voice already slurring with sleep. “I should warn…can’t shield my thoughts…asleep.”
“Can’t shield your thoughts? Wonderful, that’ll be a treat,” Ashayna mumbled to herself. Sorntar’s snore told her he was already fast asleep and didn’t hear her, something she was sickeningly grateful for.
* * * *
On the fifth day after bonding, Ashayna stretched out on a grass covered slope and tilted her face towards the sky. She closed her eyes, smiling as the sun’s warmth relaxed muscles tired from her earlier climb. Her resting place had shed its snowy covering a moon before, and already spring flowers were blooming—yet another bit of information she’d gathered from her bondmate’s mind. Sorntar seldom shielded his thoughts. Ashayna supposed she should feel some guilt, for she still shielded against him. It didn’t bother her long this day, for the breeze was warm, the sun glorious in its gentle spring radiance. She could forget today’s guilt easily enough. If only her first day awake after bonding was as easy to forget.
Shortly after waking the fi
rst time, she and Sorntar had been asked every question imaginable, together and then separately, then probed by an army of healers. She’d told the elders about her incident with the oracle, only to find out Sorntar had already related her tale. As it was, she received a speech on why elders were assigned as mentors to rash younglings. That particular speech still stung.
They’d spent the following days resting and adjusting to the sudden invasion of each other’s thoughts. Ashayna had done all in her power to make certain others were always around. She didn’t want to name it cowardice, but being alone with Sorntar made her self-conscious. And if she was honest with herself, it wasn’t him she distrusted. She feared she’d seduce him given half a chance. Presently, he rested with his face pillowed in his arms, his wings extended out to either side as he sunned himself.
Forcing her eyes away from her delectable bondmate, Ashayna looked down the slope to where Summer Flame and Shadowdancer engaged in a mock battle. Winter’s Frost circled them, nipping at both opponents. When the mare bored of the game, she galloped up slope to where Ashayna lazed among the soft new grass.
After walking for a time to cool down, Winter’s Frost lay down next to Ashayna, leaving an arm’s distance between them. Ashayna chuckled at the mare’s predictability. “Yes, I know, rub your back.” Still laughing, she vigorously rubbed the sweaty, foam-dappled coat.
“So Crown Prince, when do you plan to show Ashayna your true form?” The mare’s mind voice had been narrowed down for a private word with Sorntar. Ashayna was certain she wasn’t meant to hear.
“Yes, about that...” Ashayna gave the mare a crooked smile and quirked an eyebrow at Sorntar.
“You’re good.” Surprise tinted the mare’s mind voice. “But perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised, you and Sorntar are among the greatest in raw power.”
Sorntar’s cough drew her attention. “Since Winter’s Frost has broached the topic, I see no reason for you not to witness the change.”
“Your bird form?” Ashayna supposed it was his true form. Though, she found it hard to imagine him looking any other way. There was another reason she’d not pressed to see him shape shift. If he took his bird form, he’d expect her to fly with him when he went hunting. Her stomach tightened.
Sorntar faced up slope, calling to the three waiting there—their guards, or perhaps jailers might be a more accurate name. Ashayna couldn’t think of a polite term for the elders shadowing her every step since she first woke up. Priestess Halnora led the way down the winding trail, followed closely by Winter’s Frost and Shadowdancer’s sire and dam.
Halnora stopped before them, her head tilted in Sorntar’s direction. “If you would call on your Larnkin to shape shift, have caution, for this is the first time you have called power since bonding. You will find you’re much stronger now.” Halnora was only cautioning one who was young and new to a strange power, but to Ashayna the priestess’s warning seemed darker. If a priestess older than Ashayna’s family line was leery of Sorntar’s power, she decided it was wise to move farther back.
Sorntar didn’t show signs of being insulted at their lack of trust in his abilities. Closing his eyes, he smiled and called power.
His wings ignited in a shower of fiery sparks. In a blink they spread outward to cover every feather. A moment more it blazed before it crawled over his entire body. His familiar form vanished behind a fountain of flames. Ashayna caught her breath. Then four heartbeats later the fire died down.
The last of the fire vanished, and she didn’t understand what she was seeing. A vast shadow engulfed her. She was eye level with two feather-covered legs—legs which ended in talons large enough to easily encircle her. She stumbled out from under the shadow. In Sorntar’s place stood a bird three times the height of a tall man. In her mind the thoughts of her bondmate still felt the same, yet her eyes could not accept what her mind told her.
“Sorntar?”
He stood proudly, his wings folded to his body, long tail flared out behind him. He arched his neck. A crest, as long as she stood tall, crowned his regal head. A wickedly curved beak, which would inspire fear in even the most stout-hearted of warriors, descended towards her face.
“It’s still me, you have nothing to fear.” His speech was clear, even accented as it was with a heavy musical lilt and an occasional soft hiss.
Ashayna circled him. Even looking at him from different angles didn’t make him seem any smaller. Coming to his side, she tentatively traced her finger along the large primaries of his wing. At her touch he crooned, brushing his hooked beak against her hair once, before turning his attention back to the sky. His appearance, a strange combination of raptor and exotic parrot, awed the eye with its beauty. Though, she had no doubt he was all predator. After a moment he studied her with an intense look before glancing back at the sky a second time.
“I suppose you expect me to fly with you at some point.” Mirth bordering on hysteria boiled up from where it had long been concealed, escaping in a long peal of laughter, surprising herself. She continued to chuckle for a few more moments, and then explained it. “My sisters would never believe this. They know how much I fear heights.”
“I fail to see the humor.” Sorntar rumbled over her head.
“I’m thinking of compromising good sense, which has long told me never to climb to a height I can’t safely fall from. And for what? A male—a giant bird at that. Lamarra and Sorsha would laugh for a moon’s cycle if they found out.”
“Should I be flattered or insulted?” He sobered a moment later and turned one large, dark eye to study her. “I know you miss your family.”
Ashayna swallowed hard and nodded.
“I shouldn’t get your hopes up, but before all this happened, my mother wanted me to return with a small delegation to River’s Divide and discuss a few issues with your father. She hoped to solidify peace between our peoples.”
“You mean I might be able to go home for a visit?” She couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice.
“My mother may not be so eager to let us go now, but I will try. Besides, the treaty stipulated we must present you to General Stonemantle at least once a year to show we have treated you well.”
“Thank you, Sorntar.”
“You’re welcome.” The feathers of his crest rose a little higher. “But enough talking on such a lovely day. Come hunt with me.”
Her earlier joy turned to ash in her mouth.
“Hunting? Now? I didn’t bring a bow.”
He flexed his talons, tearing up large chunks of grass and dirt. “I require no other weapons. You need only fly with me to a rich hunting ground and wait while I hunt. I’ll not be gone long enough to upset our Larnkins.”
Ashayna saw no way to escape. She would have to face her fear. If not now, then later, and later might come at a less opportune time. She sighed as she steeled herself for this task. “Very well.”
The big phoenix nodded his head once solemnly and hunched down with one wing lowered to aid her climb.
She gathered what remained of her dignity and climbed up, using fistfuls of feathers as hand holds. Walking on his back was a little like walking on the deck of a boat, another mode of travel she endured but didn’t enjoy. When she was situated, with her legs stretched to either side of his neck—which thankfully wasn’t as wide as the feathers made it look—he swiveled his head to look between her and his damaged feathers, then back to her.
“Sorry.” She mumbled by way of apology. Her next words were snatched away as he took to the air in three hopping leaps. With a few powerful wing beats, the ground fell away below them.
Ashayna screamed, uncaring who heard or how far away the sound carried. She screamed as loud and fast as she could draw breath until her mind was suddenly shrouded by Sorntar’s. His fierce joy eclipsed fear, burying it under a bombardment of sensory details. The presence of wind racing along his body, tugging at his feathers, whistling past his ears. The varying currents twisting all around him, some chilled and oth
ers warmed from the ground below. He sought out a warm thermal to carry him higher.
The wind carried odors from far and wide. The briny scent of the ocean, faint and far away. Closer at hand, the stronger smells of sun-warmed grass, sweet and pungent. He curled a wing tip to soar toward an escaping thermal, but had to correct his course as the weight on his back shifted and nearly rolled off.
Ashayna disengaged from Sorntar’s thoughts with a scream and grasped at fistfuls of feathers as she slid sideways. Sorntar twisted, rolling to keep her from overbalancing and falling off. When she was back in place, she burrowed into his feathers as tight as a tick and she didn’t care if she drew blood. It was his stupid idea to go hunting.
“Ash, I’m sorry. I forgot myself,” he said directly into her mind.
“I’ll forgive you later…maybe,” she answered in kind, since the roar of the wind stole the words from her mouth. “I’ll think about it after my heart and stomach crawl back down to where they belong.” She rested her head against his feathers, inhaling his spicy scent. She kept telling herself flying wasn’t as frightening as bonding, or her trial in the tower of the oracle. That realization allowed her to unclamp her jaws and raise her head. She didn’t look down, but directly ahead.
The world around her was a dream of bright blue and pale wispy clouds.
“I guess this isn’t so bad,” she whispered into his mind.
The farther he flew, the higher into the mountains they climbed. Taking several deep breaths, she looked over his shoulder. Looking down should have sent her into another fit of screaming, but it didn’t; instead, she took in the lovely view of a green valley far below. It was different now.
“I know this is out of character for me, but Sorntar, thank you for whatever magic you’re working.”
“You’re simply coming to trust me. I’ll make it a short trip. No need to tax your newfound strength just yet.”
They flew in silence for the remainder of the journey. As he promised, it was short. A mental call warned they were about to land. On the heels of Sorntar’s warning, the ground below rushed up towards them. Landing proved to be worse than take off. She didn’t stop screaming until Sorntar alighted upon the ground.
Betrayal's Price (In Deception's Shadow Book 1) Page 18
