Savage Satisfaction

by Lila Dubois

  But the scent faded.

  With a frown, Mirela lowered her arms. She’d never before failed to call her falcon.

  Raising her arms, she tried it again.

  And again.

  She stopped to clear her mind, counting to one hundred in several Romani dialects, then tried a fourth time.

  Her falcon would not come.

  “No, no,” she chanted, jumping to her feet and pacing back and forth across her prison. Panic came again, though this time it was like a wave, drowning her. “No. I need the sky. No.”

  “Can’t change, can you?” The voice came from the dark, warm and rich. Mirela thought she smelled the forest, musky and wild.

  “Who’s there? My lord?” Her heart beat wildly.

  “No, he’s gone.”

  “The wolf?”

  “Present.”

  “Oh.”

  “Try not to sound too enthusiastic,” he said, voice dry.

  “Can you get me out of here?”

  “No.”

  “Then why should I care about you?”

  Silence filled the dark and a part of Mirela was aware of her rudeness, but she was too panicked and scared to care.

  “Indeed, why should you or anyone care?”

  He fell quiet and the only sound was her footsteps. Mirela stopped pacing long enough to try to call her falcon, but again failed.

  She sank to her knees, throat tight with panicked tears. “I cannot live like this.”

  “Yes, you can.” His voice was hard and angry.

  “I cannot,” she wailed into the dark, tears now spilling down her cheeks. “I need the sky.”

  “Please don’t cry,” he said, the anger gone from his voice. “I hate it when girls cry. I’m very macho in that way, though I try not to be so guy-like.”

  “Guy-like?” she asked, confusion briefly distracting her from her tears.

  “Not to say that I’m not all male.” His voice was lazy, as if he were talking to himself. Perhaps his brain was addled.

  “What else would you be?” she couldn’t help but ask.

  “Could you really be that innocent? I heard gypsy girls were virgins until the wedding but you dress like prostitutes, so I figured that was a lie.”

  Mirela jumped to her feet. “Do not talk about my people like that. I am not gypsy. I am Romany, you ignorant, stupid man.”

  She spit at him through the bars, knowing she wasn’t close enough to hit him but wanting to strike out.

  There was a scrape of shoes against stone. “Hissing and spitting like a kitty? How very grown-up.”

  “You are stupid.”

  “Is stupid the best you can do? Didn’t they teach you any real swear words?”

  Mirela cursed at him in the Romani dialect of her father’s people. She let venom slip into her words. He wouldn’t know that only a few of the words could be considered swear words.

  “Ahh,” he said, talking over the top of her tirade. “You can’t curse in English. Perhaps you don’t know English that well.”

  “I know it well enough,” she countered, reverting to that language. “Perhaps you do not know it well. You are not from this country.” The last bit was a guess, but Mirela was fairly sure his accent, so different from the lord’s, indicated he was foreign.

  Thinking of the lord reminded her of her situation, and Mirela put her back to the bars and slid down them until she was seated on the floor.

  “You’re worrying again, aren’t you?” His voice was gentle, and Mirela realized something.

  “You said those things to make me angry, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. I really don’t like it when girls cry.”

  “Oh.” She pondered that for a moment. “Thank you.”

  He laughed and it sounded like a dog’s bark. “You don’t have to thank me. I was an ass to you.”

  “An ass?”

  “You really don’t know any good curse words, do you?”

  “No. What is an ass?”

  “Ass,” he said, his footsteps echoing slightly as he moved about, “means butt, rear end, posterior. I think it’s also a donkey or something in English, but I don’t know for sure.”

  “To be called an, an ass is a bad thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “The lord is an ass.” She whispered it, unsure of the word.

  “Don’t whisper, shout it out. And you’re right. He’s an ass. An arrogant English ass, whom I underestimated.”

  Mirela’s back was beginning to hurt from the bars, so she moved to the cot and lay down again.

  “I should not say such things,” she said. “You should not either.”

  “Why would you defend him? He just locked us up in here.”

  “But that is his right,” she said.

  “His right?”

  “Yes, we are his to command. He is our master, our lord.”

  “If that’s what you really think, then why were you crying and screaming?”

  “He’s taken away my falcon,” she said, words heavy in the dark.

  “You mean you cannot change.”

  “I must have the sky. It is all I ask. I will fly from his wrist at his command, as long as he leaves me free to fly whenever I please.”

  “So really you’re not so obedient as you pretend. You want your freedom, same as I.”

  “I don’t know what you want, but I want to be able to fly. I need the sky. It is my home. I will serve him however else he commands, but he must let me fly.”

  “However he wants? Are you going to have sex with him?”

  The rude question startled Mirela. “I don’t, I haven’t… Do you think he’ll want that?”

  “He wants you,” the wolf said, sounding wistful. “He’s a handsome man, though he seems a bit stiff, probably no good in bed. Though if he offered I wouldn’t say no.”

  “You would sleep with him?” Mirela propped herself up on one elbow and turned to look at the wolf, though she could not see him.

  “Yes.”

  “But you are a man. And he is a man.”

  “Ahh, didn’t pick that up, did you?” There was a smirk in his voice.

  “You talk to me as though I am stupid. I am not. You’re the one who doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I’m saying that I like men.”

  Mirela blinked once, then again, then lay back. She’d heard about men who liked other men, though it had been through whispered conversations. She’d certainly never met a man like that, and her father and uncles, when alluding to the depravities of people who were not Romany, warned that such people would be evil.

  The wolf didn’t seem evil, though perhaps that made him all the more evil.

  “Are you evil?” she asked.

  “Because I like men? No. Let me guess, you grew up with a Bible at your bedside.”

  He made it sound as if that were a bad thing. “You have not answered. Are you evil? You must not lie.”

  “No, I’m not evil. And if it makes you feel better I like girls too.” There was laughter in his words.

  “What?”

  “It’s called bisexual, or bi. That’s your second new word for the day.”

  “You want to marry both women and men?”

  “Marry, no. Have sex with, yes.”

  “It is a sin to have sex before marriage.”

  “Then what are you going to do if good old William comes here demanding your virginity?”

  “I will grant it to him. He is my master.”

  “You went through some good brainwashing.”

  “I am not brainwashed. I know my place. And I know that I like boys, not boys and girls. It must be very confusing to be you.”

  There was a beat of silence and then he laughed. It was not the short barking laugh of before but a deep belly laugh like a child’s. It made her smile. She’d never talked with a boy like this. Boys and girls were kept separate until marriage, and most marriages were arranged, so there was very little contact with the boy before the wedding. M
irela had never really cared about talking to boys, though her sisters and cousins were forever trying to sneak into their company. She’d always been more focused on the sky, and since she would never marry, no one cared that she would rather be flying than sneaking off to a fair.

  “You have a nice laugh,” she said. “I like it.”

  “You are far more interesting and fun than I thought. I imagined you’d be mousy.”

  “Mousy? That is a silly thing for a wolf to tell a falcon.”

  “True, and we’d better stop talking about it because it’s making me hungry.”

  Her stomach rumbled in response to his words, and once more she was forced to examine the situation in which she found herself. She could tell from the silence he was doing the same.

  “Your name is Christoffer, yes?”

  “And you’re Mirela. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mirela.”

  “I am happy to meet you, Christoffer.”

  This time the silence was not as sad nor as long.

  “It is the necklace, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “That’s stopping us from changing? It must be. Though we should probably call it a collar rather than a necklace.”

  “Collar, yes.” She stroked hers with two fingers, remembering with a grimace how she’d admired it and then willingly placed it around her neck. “There must be very powerful magic on it.”

  “I’m just hoping this isn’t leaching away our power forever.”

  Mirela’s breath caught. It had never occurred to her that this necklace might be permanently stripping her of her falcon.

  “I have to get it off!” She jumped from the cot, fingers digging between the collar and her neck. She ran to the bars and began throwing herself at them, face turned to the side so that the collar hit the bars.

  “Mirela, stop it! Whatever you’re doing, stop.”

  She staggered in pain when she misjudged and hit her cheek on a bar. “I must have it off. It is killing my falcon.”

  “No, it’s not.” She could barely hear his words over the clanking of metal. “Mirela, stop. Your falcon is there.”

  Clang, clang. “I would rather be dead than live without my falcon.”

  “I understand, believe me, but you have to stop.”

  Her elbows were bruised, her face hurt. Mirela leaned her forehead between two of the bars, panting.

  “I would rather be dead,” she whispered.

  “You can still change. Your falcon is still there.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Try to change, you’ll feel the magic is still there.”

  Mirela stepped back, crouched and spread her arms. Again the scent of flowers carried on the wind filled the dark, but faded gently.

  The wolf was right, her falcon was still there.

  “I smell flowers and leaves,” Christoffer said as Mirela rose to her feet.

  “My falcon is still there.”

  “Sorry I scared you. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “How can you be so calm?”

  There was a beat of silence, then, “There’s always a way out.”

  “You’ve been in this situation bef—”

  A key rattled. The door opened.

  William threw open the door, letting sunlight spill into the chamber. He heard Christoffer whisper, “Stay calm.”

  They were finally awake. He breathed a sigh of relief. It had been almost four hours since he’d left them and he’d come back to check every hour. He closed the door, locking it and putting the key in his shirt pocket before flipping the light switch. The lights were set to illuminate each of the cages and the area he thought of as his “training” space.

  Both the wolf and the falcon flinched when the lights came on, and William had a brief pang of guilt.

  “I hope you rested well,” he said quietly.

  “There’s a difference between sleeping peacefully and being knocked unconscious,” Christoffer said.

  William ignored him and turned to the falcon.

  She really was lovely. She sat on the cot, chest curled down to her knees, hair hiding her face. The light created a halo around her.

  “Mirela?”

  She looked up, hair hanging over half her face, then rose to her feet and came to the bars. He wanted to apologize, wanted to open the door and bring her back to the house. He wanted to reassure her that everything was okay—but he didn’t know how to say it. Even in his own head the words seemed stupid and weak, so he retreated behind a mask—retreated behind the persona of the all-powerful and commanding lord of the manor. Later he would make it up to both of them. This horrible building, the training they were about to embark on, were needed only until he knew he could trust them.

  “It is time for us to begin training together. I want for us, all of us,” he looked over his shoulder at Christoffer, who lounged on his cot, “to become a seamless unit. I know you are used to living with others of your kind, so I am going to teach you how to behave here.”

  “And how do you want us to behave?” Mirela whispered.

  “Loyalty. You must be totally loyal to me. That is the only way I’ll be able to trust you—if I know you’ll do my bidding.”

  “You’ll domesticate us?” Christoffer asked.

  “If that is how you’d like to see it.” William smiled at Mirela, who seemed hesitant. He put the key in the lock and twisted.

  Her head jerked up at the noise, a falcon-quick movement.

  He pushed the door open and stepped back, gesturing her out. She took one hesitant step, then sprinted out, running as far from her cage as she could get. She stopped with her back pressed against the other bars. Christoffer leapt off his cot and came up behind her. He touched her shoulder and put his lips to her ear, whispering something William couldn’t hear.

  “Mirela, come here,” William commanded, heartbeat speeding up. She seemed wilder than before, wilder even than when she’d been a falcon on his wrist.

  She stepped away from Christoffer, who backed off, his face set in grim lines.

  “You are to stay away from her,” William told him, worried as to what the wolf might have been saying to her. He took Mirela’s hand and pulled her toward the open space in the middle. He seated her in the armchair and then took a seat on the trunk across from her. He’d filled the trunks with various provisions. There were even some items of his grandfather’s, things used to “break” a wild animal—though William had no intention of using them.

  “Today, we will start simply. You are to change on my command, and then change back, again on my command.”

  He reached beneath the collar of his shirt and pulled out a carved bit of wood.

  “Lift your chin please.”

  She obeyed, her hair falling away from her face. One cheek was red and swollen.

  “What happened to you?” William demanded. He looked at Christoffer, who lifted his hands and shook his head. It couldn’t have been the wolf, he’d been safely locked up.

  “Mirela, who did this to you?”

  She turned her face away.

  “She did it to herself,” Christoffer said. Mirela whipped her head around to glare at him and, as before, the movement was falcon-quick.

  “Why?” William asked. Her cheek was swollen and red. It needed ice, maybe a doctor.

  “Do you really need to ask?” Christoffer replied.

  William cupped Mirela’s chin and turned her face to him. “Why did you hurt yourself?”

  “I was trying to remove this cursed thing.” She turned her head, her chin slipping from his fingers as she indicated the collar.

  “Lift your chin and I will take it off you.”

  Mirela looked at him, then eagerly lifted her chin.

  William fitted the icon he wore around his neck carefully between the falcon disks. The collar popped open. Before he could lift the collar from her, Mirela took it and flung it away. It skittered across the floor.

  “Careful,” he admonished. He frowned at her, reevaluating his plans
. Patience, he reminded himself. Having the collar on was probably a terrifying thing, though they were inside a building and it wasn’t as though she would have been able to fly anyway.

  Her eyes were closed as she ran her fingers along her now bare throat. William’s thoughts shifted from concern over her attitude to concern for his own mental health. It was simply ridiculous to be so distracted by a pretty girl. He wanted to trace her throat with his tongue as he thrust into her. William shook his head to dispel the fantasy.

  He put his hands behind his back.

  “If you are to earn my trust I need to know you will obey me. You must learn to respond to my commands without thought or argument. I am your master and you must obey without hesitation.”

  Christoffer snorted. William ignored it. He’d been rehearsing this speech all afternoon.

  “The most important act of obedience will be to change on command. We will practice this until I am satisfied that you will change when and if I command.”

  “If?” Mirela asked. The question was quiet. “We will only be allowed to change if you ask us to?”

  “If I command,” he corrected.

  Mirela bowed her head.

  William’s chest swelled with satisfaction, this was going to work. “We begin. Mirela,” he said, deepening his voice, “your master commands you to take the form of the falcon.”

  Christoffer let out a bark of laughter.

  Mirela stood, tucked one foot behind her and curtsied. “Yes, my lord.” She looked up and her eyes were bright and sharp. William’s heart leapt and he fought the urge to fall back a step. The look in her eyes… Was that hate? No. It couldn’t be.

  She crouched and spread her arms.

  William licked his lips, his brief moment of fear forgotten in anticipation.

  A sharp wind began to blow around his legs. He looked over his shoulder to see if the door was open but it was still closed. This was it, this was the magic of the change.

  Her hair whipped around her face and the wind carried on it the smell of winter cold and summer flowers. The walls echoed back the sound of bones popping and skin splitting. Bile rose in William’s throat but he swallowed it back and made himself watch as her skin rippled and her body shrank. There was a moment when she wasn’t recognizable as either human or falcon—but in the next breath her body had re-formed as the falcon. The bird of prey hopped out of the tangle of clothes she’d left behind.