by Nhys Glover
When I did arrive, it was to see Jaron mounted on one of the wild airlings− a big, auburn-furred creature with an over-sized triangular head and larger than normal blue eyes. The beastling stood calmly in place as Jaron leaned down to rub his body over its powerful chest and back. Its red-brown leathered wings were folded neatly against its sides, as if it was about to sit down.
It was hard to tell the gender of airlings. Only Calun could tell for sure, and that was from their voices. I had been in his head often enough to understand what he meant by that. Though they didn't actually speak, there was a feeling tone to the images they sent. The females feeling tone was gentler than the males, for want of a better word. Of course, airlings were a gentle breed. Left to themselves they were peace-loving and harmless. But if roused by fear, their taloned claws made vicious weapons, and occasionally my men needed my embroidery skills to sew up a wound inflicted by a frightened beastling.
"At last," Jaron cried, throwing up his arms in exaggerated impatience when he caught sight of me.
His sudden movement upset the airling under him, and it hopped a few steps and took off into the air. Jaron clung on like a limpet to a rock. Not that I had ever seen such a thing, but my mother had used the phrase many times, usually about me and my stubborn need for answers to my myriad of questions, so I knew what it meant.
"Idiot!" Darkin snapped out, hand to his brow so he could look into the sun-bright sky.
"What's going on?" I asked, mimicking his actions so I could watch Jaron. He had been the first of the brothers to ride an airling. Barely more than a toddler, he'd followed his brothers to the fields where the airlings grazed, and instead of sitting companionably with them as his brothers did, he'd clambered onto a startled airling's back. The beastling had taken to the air and scared the rest of them to death. Jaron, on the other hand, had enjoyed every moment of his first flight, so I was told in disgust.
Now he seemed to be repeating his childhood antics, though he was nearing his twentieth suncycle.
"Red there was happy enough for Jaron to mount him but unsure about taking off with him on his back. The extra weight always worries them. We'd been increasing the load over the last quarter moon, and today was the first time Jaron mounted. Red had been standing there, unmoving, for what felt like half a 'turn. We wanted you to do your Calun-thing to calm him enough to try flying. But it looks like Jaron did it himself anyway."
I laughed out loud, even though I was a little worried about what Red would do to his unexpected rider. At least he now knew he could fly with a rider on his back, which had been the goal.
"Calm him down!" Jaron yelled from the airling's back as they flew in chaotic circles overhead. It seemed like the beastling was caught between two warring needs. One was to fly as far away as possible from the threat, even though the threat was on his back. The second was to do the bidding of the Goddess and stay.
I needed to do what I could to convince him that doing the Will of the Goddess was his best choice. With a couple of deep, calming breaths, and trying to tune out the critical Flea who blamed me for Jaron's predicament, I let myself drop down into calmness and peace. Once there, I projected the feeling upward towards the red airling. It was further than I would normally be able to influence them, but the incentive of getting Jaron down safely was enough to have me pushing out my limits.
The moment Red received my calming feelings, I felt it. But it took another few moments before my influence had any real impact. When it did, I saw Jaron sit up and pat the airling. In the next rotation the airling came in to land, returning to almost the exact spot he'd occupied only minutes before.
"Great job," Dark said, wrapping his arm around me and kissing the side of my head as we watched Jaron slide gracefully from Red's back.
"Not the way I would have liked to prove he could handle it, but it worked," Jaron announced, striding over to us and sweeping me up in his arms. Darkin let me go good-naturedly.
The way he clung to me told me that Jaron had been more afraid than he'd appeared.
"You did well," I assured him, holding him tightly to me, feeling his muscles harden and bunch beneath my palms. I kissed his windblown brown curls, and wondered how one man could be so physically beautiful and masculine at the same time.
"I was playing the clown for your benefit and it backfired," he told me gruffly.
"Then I had better not come down here, so I don't distract you," I said, smiling at his confession. He'd made it so only I could hear him. There was no way he was going to admit to being childish in front of his brothers. He had worked too hard to prove he was as much a man as any of them. Yet he would always play the fool, I thought. Even when he was old and gray. Some people remained young at heart for a lifetime.
How I knew this, I wasn't sure. Mayhap it was a touch of the Knowing given to me on occasions by the Goddess. Like I Knew I was having a magical son when I hadn't even been showing yet.
"If you came down when Dark told you to," Flea scolded me, "Jaron wouldn't have become impatient and frightened the airling."
Darkin turned his fiercest gaze on the girl. "I didn't tell Airsha to come down, I asked her to. And my name is Darkin."
"But she calls you−"
"There is no 'she'. My wife, Airsha − or Lady or Goddess to you − calls me Dark. It's her pet name for me. Everyone else calls me Darkin. Do you understand?"
Flea cowered a little under his glare and I felt a mixture of sympathy and satisfaction at her dressing down.
"She's jealous of you. It's one of the reasons we didn't want to take wives. We didn't want this happening. Why do women do it?" Jaron said softly.
"Oh, so that was the reason you all decided to be with me. To keep the peace. I cannot tell you how flattered I am to know that," I joked, pulling away from him.
"After my little performance when Flea arrived, I had to find a way to shrink your head back to normal size again, Sweetling. You'd started to have trouble getting it through the doorway."
I swatted his heavily muscled shoulder, appreciating how little give there was there. A wave of arousal came out of nowhere and I had to fight it down. But not before Jaron's dark amber eyes glistened with answering passion and male satisfaction.
Though I had yet to find a moment just to ourselves, I was determined to do so as soon as possible. It had made a world of difference to my relationship with Dark, giving him added confidence I found surprising. Had he doubted that he was special to me before? If so, he was sure of it now. Though he might have preferred a better opportunity for our joining, given our spectator, it still seemed to have gone a long way to ascertaining his place with me in his own mind.
But maybe Jaron didn't need alone-time. We had had some very pleasurable moments of our own in the cavern in the mountains below Highlund. I could not think of that cavern without remembering those times. We had both been determined not to consummate our growing bond, for different reasons, and it had been a special kind of torture to play on the very edge of the act itself. If not for the cold water of the pool, I doubt Jaron would have handled it as well as he did.
And then our reticence had turned out to have been for nothing. As soon as we returned, Dark had decided I had to lose my virginity to save me from being sacrificed by my father. Though I was afraid of what would happen with my magic when I fully gave into it, I'd had to accept the solution. Would Jaron be the father of my child now if we had given in to our desires at the cavern? Rama would certainly be happier if that had been the case.
But then, he would likely never have taken me, if I'd already lost my virginity to Jaron. He only agreed to take part in the draw to prove he was no coward. He'd been as afraid of his inner beastling as I'd feared mine. By being forced to come together, and with all the passion inside us, we had proved our fears were ungrounded. And having a happy, sweet-tempered son would prove to Rama his blood was not tainted.
Where was Rama? I looked around and then upward. There, high in the pale blue sky was my scarred
husband. The father of my child. He rode his airling like they were one being. It was a beautiful sight.
"He's just showing off," Jaron grumbled. "His airling had no trouble taking to the skies with him on her back. Females are easier to tame."
"Oh, so we get jealous and unmanageable when we're together, but we're easier to tame, over all. Is that right?" I challenged him with amusement.
"Could you two stop squabbling like childlings and get some work done?" Darkin griped, though it was easy to tell he was not serious.
"Yes, stop squabbling and get some work done," parroted Flea, capturing Darkin's annoyance without the humour.
My dark-haired lover started to put her in her place again but I lifted my hand to stop him. "Let it go, Dark. What do you want me to do?"
And for the next turn of the sand glass we all worked with the wild airlings. Finally, a loud clanging brought our attention to something my stomach was already aware of: it was time for the midday meal.
Rama came up to walk back to the homestead beside me. "I'm not happy with the girl. She tells us what we want to hear. There's something not quite right about her."
I slowed so the others could pass us by and then turned to look up at him. "Are you sure you just don't like her reading your thoughts?"
He shook his head so his blonde hair brushed his broad shoulders. He'd taken to braiding the sides, but for some reason he hadn't done so today, and it hung thick and straight around his marred face. Maybe because we had all shared pleasure well into the night and none of us had jumped out of bed early or energetically this morning. But his scars looked less obvious after last night, so I couldn't complain. It was as if our sexual encounters, with the others or alone, took the pressure off his broiling intensity. I wouldn't say he was light, but he was lighter than usual, which was a relief.
Sometimes I was afraid of where his inner beastling would take him. But no matter what he said, he was no monster. Although there was a part of him that was anything but civilized. It was that part that had enjoyed bashing out the brains of his mother's killer.
I had seen him like that when we rescued my mother. He'd been both magnificent and terrible in his rage, as he fought the soldiers who held her prisoner. And that part of him could call to me in a way that terrified me. It called to the part of me that could make the earth open up and devour my enemies whole. Yet when we came together, instead of fuelling each other's beastlings to terrible heights − as we had at first feared − they were calmed by our often rough joining. It was the way a wild airling, kept from flight too long, would calm once given the chance to fly free and unfettered.
"I don't give her access to my head. It frustrates her."
"How do you do that? I think it would be a skill we could all benefit from. She's too young to be party to some of our thoughts. I intentionally had to keep my mind off what we did last night so she didn't share that experience with me." I felt my cheeks warm, and Rama smirked.
"What part of last night makes you blush so prettily, Goddess? Was it when I opened you wide for all to see and then lapped at you with my tongue until you climaxed hard? Or maybe it was thoughts of how I rammed into you from behind, while my brothers sucked on your tits, until you clamped tight around my cock and sucked me dry with your rippling inner walls? Gods, that was incredible."
My cheeks burned hotter and my core wept with arousal at the memories. Rama was always rougher with me than the others, and yet I loved every minute of it. Sometimes I raked my fingernails over his skin and bit him till I drew blood, the intensity was so great. But we never went too far down into that primal abyss. Love kept us both from wanting too much pain for the other.
"Flea is just trying to find her way, that's all. Give her a chance, Rama. You're too quick to see issues where there are none. Remember how you were sure I'd make your beastling worse?"
He gave a little laugh, still obviously thinking about last night. "Oh, you bring out the beastling in me, little whirlwind. But I've found I like it."
"Enough! You might be able to close your thoughts off from Flea, but I can't. No more reminders of last night."
"Actually, I was thinking of us in the barn," he growled, a smirk lifting his lips as his bright blue eyes sparkled. He took my breath away.
My expression must have revealed my feelings, because in the next moment he was frowning self-consciously. "Don't look at me like that, Goddess. I'm not that man."
"The man I love? Yes, you are. I'm struck dumb by the intensity of that feeling sometimes."
"You, struck dumb? Not possible," he griped. But his arm wrapped around me tenderly as he drew me toward the house.
Chapter Six
AIRSHA
I had just finished my meal, the first I had been able to get down that day due to morning sickness, when I doubled over in agony. The wave hit me so hard I could barely catch my breath. My first panicked thought was that there was something wrong with my baby. But in the next, I Knew it was not that.
"Goddess!" Rama cried, dropping to his knees in front of me so he could see my face. "What's wrong? Is it the babe?"
I shook my head, still not able to find words. I turned my head up and met his anxious gaze. He looked as terrified as I felt.
"What then?" he demanded, anger racing to replace fear, as it always did with him.
"Calun," was all I could get out. My throat had closed up and the sound was so strangled I had to wonder if he heard me.
"Calun?" he repeated, as if I'd spoken in a foreign tongue.
I nodded. Seeing again and again the panicked images the airling had sent. With a numbed part of my brain, I wondered how she had communicated with me over such a huge distance, and in images rather than just feelings. Even Calun couldn't always get messages over great distances. They usually came in relays, passed one to the other.
But this was coming directly from Calun's new airling and she was wild with terror.
A great gale had suddenly arisen and knocked her onto her side. As she fought to regain control, she plummeted toward the ground. Calun was dislodged, but clung on during the drop. He finally lost his grip when she righted herself at the last moment. With a cry, he'd fallen to the ground.
I saw him there, as she had seen him last, body spread-eagle, eyes closed. Men like ants were suddenly everywhere. In terror, the airling and the other one still with her, banked and flew away from the danger. She'd left him there for the ants to get and her heart broke!
Rama gently drew me up so he could wrap his arms around me. He crooned calming words in that deep, melodic voice he used with frightened airlings. And though I knew what he was doing, I let him lull me out of my horror. Calun needed me. Giving in to the airling's panic − my panic − would do no good. He wasn't dead. I would know if he was dead. But the fall would have damaged him badly, and those men... Who were those men? And what had happened?
Another time came to mind, when a gust of wind knocked airlings off their paths. Immediately I Knew what − no, who had done it− an Air Master! Which could mean only one thing: my father's men now had my fallen husband.
"Airsha, tell us what's happened to Calun!" Dark said worriedly, coming to stand behind me and resting a comforting hand on my shaking shoulder. When had I started shaking?
"An Air Master blew Calun's airling over, and it almost plummeted to the ground. Calun fell off at the last moment as she righted herself. He was lying there like he was dead, and the soldiers were swarming around him. But he can't be dead. I would know if he was dead. He's not dead!"
"No, he's not dead," Rama comforted. "You can survive a fall from an airling. I did it. Calun can certainly do it."
But, when I looked up, I saw him exchanging worried stares with Darkin.
"She's imagining it! She can't know something like that!" Flea exclaimed in fright. She had become very fond of Calun in the short time before he left, and I knew he'd loved being able to talk to her. He'd never had that ease of communication with anyone but me. In his mind I'
d seen his affection for her. The kind he would have felt for a little sister.
It was Jaron's turn to rebuke her. Something he never did. "Airsha doesn't imagine things. Why can't you get it? She's not like the rest of us. Or even you. She has gifts she hasn't even tapped yet. If an airling sent her that message, then it's real." He turned to me. "It was an airling, wasn't it?"
I nodded. "What are we going to do? How are we going to get him back from the Godslunders?" My voice sounded shaky and hoarse.
"We need more information," Darkin said, rubbing at my shoulder distractedly. "Can you remember details of the scene you saw? Maybe if you can describe the landscape we can get a better idea of where they were. I mean, we plotted out the general areas to scout, but there were hundreds of leagues of land Calun and the airlings were planning on covering."
"Did you tell Calun to do his sweeps in a certain way?" I asked, bringing my mind to order from the chaos into which it had been sent. Rama was doing his part, as was Darkin's soothing caresses, but what I needed was to focus my mind.
"Aye, I did. He was moving from nor' east to sou' east of here, just this side of Godslund."
"Show me on the map. And tell me exactly how they expected to break up the days. He's been gone two. How many more was he to do? One or two more?"
We all hurried into the room we had designated as the study. On the wall a huge map of the world hung. On the table in the middle of the room lay a large, detailed map of Westsealund and the Badlunds, right up to the edge of Godslund to the east, the mountains of Highlund to the north and Sousealand far to the south. It showed rivers and roads, rocky outcropped rises that passed for hills in the plains, and towns and settlements, no matter how small. There were even larger than normal homesteads, their names written in tiny but legible script.
The major roads linking the kinglunds had regular stopping places travellers could use to find shelter and food for themselves and their beastlings. They were notoriously over-priced and flea-ridden, so the wagoners who drove those routes rarely used them. But there were enough occasional travellers to provide the inns and stables with custom. These too, were shown.
