by Lexi Johnson
“You’re extraordinary,” Haytham said, at the end of the third week. “It’s as if you were born with wings.”
The compliment warmed Sade.
“How long can you keep the dance going?” she asked him, curiously.
“Continuously… an hour, maybe two.” Sade was impressed. “The greatest master I ever saw could keep up the dance for two days, but eventually the body succumbs. We say that when we die, the freeing of ourselves from our bodies allows us to dance forever.”
“That’s beautiful,” Sade said.
“Yes,” Haytham said, staring at her a touch too long. “I’ve always thought so.”
On the second day of their third week together, an hour or so into Sade and Haytham’s training, another Wind Dancer came. Haytham removed Sade’s blindfold (it was a day of new steps, and she’d been wearing it) as the bird landed on the far edge of the ledge in a streak of purple and black, limned in gold.
Sade averted her gaze as the bird shifted, leaving in his place a tall, golden-eyed man whose body seemed carved from onyx. Like Haytham, he didn’t bother with clothing; the only deference his body gave to the cold was erect, brown nipples.
He glanced at Haytham and Sade, and, with a raised eyebrow, said, “I trust I’m not interrupting, young hawk…”
Sade glanced at Haytham, who seemed riveted by the beautiful shifter.
“Marid,” Haytham breathed. “What are you doing here?”
“Aren’t you the one who promised to visit me upon your return?” Marid said. “But instead you waste three weeks entertaining yourself with this mortal. Unfair, Haytham, that you’ve sampled her first.”
His smile was wry and knowing, and even the briefest glance at Haytham’s face and body language made it clear that there was some intriguing history here.
Well, this is interesting, thought Sade. She waited, feeling both the buzz or fascination and the prickle of alarm, to see what would happen next. She had the idea that she might just be about to get a long-denied glimpse into Haytham’s true nature and feelings.
From the way the shifter was staring at the new arrival, it seemed almost as if he’d forgotten she was there.
Sade found herself surprisingly unsure how she felt about that. But she waited for the tension, building sharply between the two men, to break, to find out what would happen next.
Chapter 8: Seduction of Memory
Sade never brought up what had happened their first night together, and neither did he. Instead, Haytham simply focused on teaching her the dance. He started her on the same exercises he had learned as a child, to teach Sade to be able to listen to and understand the wind.
For the next week, he took her to an exposed ridge, and had her perform the opening movements of the dance. The purpose of this exercise was for her to learn to use the steps and the words of the wind to understand what was happening around her. So, on the first day, he blindfolded her.
Sade came close to falling from the cliffside three times. Had she been a true Wind-Dancer, it would have been up to her to shift her form and fly back to him. But since she was not, and it was in both of their best interests for her to survive her training, he warned her instead when she ventured too close to the edge.
At night, they prepared their meals together, spoke of her training, and then slept curled together under Haytham’s blankets, close and chaste, like litter-mates.
For Haytham, it was a torture, having Sade so close -- having touched and tasted her once -- and to now be unable to act. But, he’d decided, better to be frustrated than to end an otherwise perfectly pleasant evening with a mortal sobbing in his arms.
After a few days, Sade learned to start a fire in the hearth, and picked up some basic cooking skills. Haytham was surprised at how well she took to the latter. So long as she wasn’t watching her hands, she chopped and sliced things with practiced ease, occasionally sniffing the soup with an expression of mild discontent, as though it were missing some essential seasoning.
It took a week for Sade to master the first steps of the dance, but after that, she proceeded surprisingly quickly. Haytham was beginning to feel some optimism about Sade’s abilities when, unexpectedly, at the start of their third week together, Marid arrived.
As always, the sight of Marid made it difficult for Haytham to breathe. He had loved the other shifter as a fledgling. Before Haytham’s wings had been bound to the Edenost Court, he’d hoped that they might become mates – or, as Haytham liked both men and women, find a female and form a triad.
Now Marid was a beautiful trap. And, while they’d shared the dance both in the air and in each other’s bedding, nothing further could come of it. He’d always been too interested in what the Edenost Court had done to save Haytham’s wings.
Marid shifted, his gold-limned plumage folding into human skin. Unlike Haytham -- who always found the change an agony due to how the Edenost Court had warped his natural magic -- Marid changed forms with liquid grace.
He stood before them both in human flesh. A touch of humor graced his full lips. “I trust I’m not interrupting, young hawk…” he said.
“Marid…” Haytham breathed his human name. “What are you doing here?”
Marid raised his eyebrows. “Aren’t you the one who promised to visit me upon your return?” he said. “But instead you entertain yourself with this mortal.” Marid looking Sade up and down, an act that stirred in Haytham a confused muddle of feelings. “Unfair, Haytham,” he said, “that you’ve sampled her first.”
Haytham didn’t remember making any such promise. But there was no point in arguing it with Marid.
“I’m teaching her, that’s all,” he said.
“The wind dance? Indeed,” said Marid. “I’m sure the elders will have some… thoughts… about your teaching such things to a mortal.”
“It’s not their business, or yours,” Haytham said, though his stomach clenched at the words. In principle, he could, indeed, be shunned for teaching an outsider their traditions -- though Haytham’s geis to the Edenost Court had long kept him on the outside of most of his people’s traditions, anyway.
“Ah, Haytham!” said Marid, with a touch of a smile. “Don’t be cranky.” He approached Haytham. Haytham stood still a moment, reveling in the hint of Marid’s scent in the wind, and in the other’s long, athletic stride.
Marid avoided Sade entirely. He circled around to Haytham’s other side and slung an arm over his shoulder. Marid stood a good half-head taller than Haytham, so he had to stoop a bit to whisper: “You know I won’t do anything to hurt you. Much.”
Haytham felt, more than heard, Marid’s chuckle low in his chest. “If the mortal doesn’t want to play, then leave her a little – she looks old enough to care for herself. You and I can still have fun.”
The tickle of Marid’s breath over his ear was maddening. Haytham had to close his eyes a moment. It had been too long, with Sade warm in his bed every night, and no relief.
Much better, his body whispered, to spend some time with someone willing, someone whom he desired and who desired him. Someone who wasn’t soul-bonded to another. Someone with whom he could share pleasure’s sweetness and release in all its forms without guilt.
By the Peaks, he wanted to…
But the princess had asked Haytham to gain Sade’s trust, and even through his desire, Haytham could reason that abandoning Sade for a tryst with an old lover was probably not the best way to go about doing this.
“I can’t, Marid,” Haytham said.
He stepped closer to Sade and put his arm around her. “I’ve made promises,” he said.
“To this mortal? Or to those Edenost bark-clingers?” Marid shook his head disdainfully. “It has to be them. What have they done to you?”
Haytham felt a need to end this conversation, as quickly as possible. “It’s a geis,” he said. “I have given my word to train Sade.”
“And for that, what till you gain? Another d
ecade of licking their feet? It’s disgusting, how you grovel for them.” Marid drew himself to his full height and glared down his nose as though he were in bird form, ready to drive his beak into Haytham’s heart.
“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.
Chapter 9: Hunt
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.
