by Lila Dubois
“Don’t touch that—” His teeth snapped closed as he realized that he didn’t even know the falcon’s name. It was better that he think of and refer to them as animals, but a name was most likely necessary.
“What is your name?” he asked the falcon, who whirled away from the hanging.
She fisted her hands behind her back and murmured something.
“What was that?”
“Mirela, my lord. Mirela Cooper.”
“Mirela, thank you.” He couldn’t pronounce it in the rolling way she did, so clipped off the syllables. “Follow me this way, please.”
Christoffer, who was halfway up the stairs, though William hadn’t heard him move, bounded down the steps, landing with bended knees. “So does this place come with a formal dining room, morning room, a sun parlor?” He chuckled at his own joke.
“The house is outfitted in a manor becoming the Earldom,” William said. He led the falcon and wolf not to the dining room, but to the kitchen. The large room was outfitted with a butcher-block table and benches. The kitchen appliances were state of the art, and had been paid for by a movie company that had used his home for the setting of a film about a chef who retires to the country to raise his child. William had never seen the film, but his housekeeper and chef had been delighted at the improvements.
Laid out on the long work counter were platters of bread, meat and cheese. There was a bowl of egg mayonnaise, green salad, muffins and a tart for dessert.
“Please help yourself to refreshments.” He indicated heavy stone-colored plates he used on a daily basis. He’d debated having the housekeeper pull out china, but considering what he had planned for them it seemed disingenuous.
The wolf picked up a plate and piled it full of meat, bypassing both bread and cheese. The falcon picked out a few lean pieces of meat and a nice wedge of cheese. Rather than using the bone-handled cheese knife, she put the entire block on her plate. She hesitantly took a seat on the bench across from the wolf. William made himself a ploughman’s sandwich and pulled a chair up to the head of the table.
They ate in silence for several moments. William carefully noted what foods they’d selected and how much they ate. This meal was not really a welcome into his home, but rather a fact-gathering experiment.
When he found himself staring at the falcon, watching the way she scooped her hair behind her ear, the rise and fall of her breasts, he jerked his gaze away. Christoffer, who’d been watching him watch her, smiled, baring all his teeth.
“She’s gorgeous,” Christoffer said, voice echoing in the hush of the kitchen.
Mirela’s head jerked up and she put down the chunk of cheese she held.
“Are you going to fuck her?” Christoffer asked William. “I always wondered about that. You get a pretty young girl, why not fuck her? I will say, I think it’s only fair that if you fuck her, you fuck me too.” He planted an elbow on the table and leaned toward William. “From what I can tell after last night, Englishmen like to be fucked, not do the fucking. You want me to fuck you, my lord?”
Mirela winced away, flushing dark red, and William could feel the heat rising in his face also. “Enough,” he said, pushing away from his half-eaten sandwich. “You will moderate your language. What I plan to do to either Mirela or yourself is my choice and mine alone. Do not forget who is the master here.” He stared Christoffer down. The boy’s face drooped, and for a moment he looked younger that his words had made him seem.
“Come with me. I will show you to your quarters.”
Mirela rose and followed him, abandoning what was still on her plate, but Christoffer hung back. William led Mirela through the mudroom attached to the kitchen to an exterior door. Christoffer hadn’t followed them out. With a sigh William started to return indoors to fetch him, but Mirela put a hand on his arm.
“My lord?”
He looked down at her pale fingers resting against his sleeve. The sword, which he still wore, pressed against her leg. “Yes, Mirela?”
“Are you going to do…what he said?”
Her eyes were wide, her lips parted. If not for the wrinkle of concern between her brows he would have thought it was desire writ upon her face, but it was fear.
“What were you told about your service to me?”
“I was born to be yours,” she said quietly. “My mother was given to my father so her family could share the burden of payment to you. I am the oldest girl, and so from the time I was small knew what my life would be. They said that the lord, that you, would demand hunting by the falcon and quiet obedience from the woman.”
“And was that obedience to include sharing your body?” William lifted her fingers from his sleeve and cupped her wrist, stroking the hollow of her hand with his thumb. She drew in a deep breath and they were standing so close that her breasts brushed his chest.
“I-I don’t know. They never told me. I thought to die untouched. I thought the lord would already be married. No falcon has ever returned to the family to speak of her time here.”
“None have returned?” He snorted in disbelief, though he could understand that Mirela wouldn’t have been told that tale. “What you were told was neither more nor less than the truth. I will demand obedience from you, perhaps in all ways.”
He kept his words strong, fighting the public school manners that demanded he reassure her and promise to leave her alone. Perhaps a kiss would calm her. He cupped the falcon’s neck and tilted her head up.
“I knew you were going to fuck her,” Christoffer said, closing the mudroom door with a bang.
“Christoffer,” William growled. Mirela pulled away, her fingers twisting together. William wanted to take her in his arms and carry her to his bed.
He would have to consider the ramifications of having sex with her. A sexual relationship had been low on his list of concerns. After all, what if his falcon was like his father’s? But now that she was here and so heart-stoppingly beautiful, why should he deny himself?
He did not have to decide immediately; after all, she couldn’t leave.
“This way,” William said tersely, looking at Christoffer.
Christoffer’s gaze was on the clearly visible erection in the front of William’s pants. William met Christoffer’s eyes and something passed between them, something William would have called attraction if that weren’t so ludicrous. Though he had to admit the boy was handsome.
William took them across the manicured grass to the edge of the woods. Once at the tree line he turned, not right toward the place where the fence of the deer park cut through the trees, but left to the outbuilding he’d had retrofitted for this purpose.
“Where are we going?” Christoffer asked, jogging a few steps to walk beside William.
William debated responding, but said, “This is where you will live now.” The corner of the building was just visible through the trees.
“Ahh, can’t let the freaks live in the main house?” Christoffer sneered.
William winced but didn’t respond. What he was doing was necessary. He’d lain awake many nights telling himself that what he planned wasn’t cruel or degrading but prudent.
The building, whose original purpose was forgotten due to age, was made of rounded gray stone. It was newly mortared, and for all its age appeared solid and steady.
As they drew closer William’s heartbeat sped up.
He stopped at the heavy wood door. He stared at it, gathering his courage. William looked over his shoulder at them—his Hunting Pair—and opened the door.
Mirela was the first to enter, ushered in by a gesture from the man. William, she reminded herself. It did not seem appropriate to continue to think of him only as “the man”.
The building he’d brought her to was made of stone, with low ceilings except for the center, where the angling of the roof gave it more height.
The floor was stone to match the walls, though the floor was of large flat rocks rather than the smaller round rocks of the walls. The walls had been lined on
the insides with heavy vertical bars. The bars were spaced close together and painted gray, so at first they seemed to blend with the stone.
She took a few more steps into the room. A table and stools, a plush armchair and several trunks filled the high-ceilinged center of the rectangular building. To her right a set of bars cut across from one wall to the other, sectioning off about a third of the total interior space.
To her left there was another wall of bars, again sectioning off about a third of the space, though there was an additional wall of bars running perpendicular to the first, dividing the space in two.
There were many carpenters in Mirela’s family and a few stonemasons, so she knew something of building and remodeling old structures. Whoever had put in these bars to support the building had been very stupid. It was very ugly.
The wolf walked up to one of the bar-walls and rattled it. The sound was loud in the quiet building.
“What the fuck is this?” he growled.
Mirela’s skin prickled with fright. The wolf’s tone was dark and dangerous. She took a step back, accidentally running into the man—William. He was warm and solid at her back, and when he put his hands on her shoulders she felt safe.
“Mirela,” William said, “please put this on.” As he spoke he released her and went to one of the trunks. He pulled a key from his pocket and used it to unlock the trunk, pulling out two brass-colored things before closing the trunk again.
He handed her one of the two things he held.
Mirela took it with a murmured, “Thank you.” It was a necklace, so stiff that it held its shape on its own. It was made of thousands of small filigrees braided into threads that were braided into ropes and finally braided into one large piece, capped by disks printed with the image of a bird in flight.
She loved it.
The necklace was weighty and beautiful, archaic in look and feel. She ran it between her fingers, the exquisite craftsmanship alluring to one such as she who had grown up surround by skilled artisans.
“It is very beautiful,” she said, looking up with a smile. “Thank you.”
William nodded stiffly. “Put it on please.”
“How?”
He took the necklace from her, pointing out the hinges, then handing it back. Mirela slipped it around her neck and carefully closed it, scared of catching her hair in the clasps. When the falcon disks were an inch apart the necklace snapped closed, as if the disks were magnetic, startling a yelp from Mirela.
Her vision went blurry, the ground wobbled beneath her. She cried out, asking what was wrong, what was happening, but the words came out a garbled mixture of English and Romani. She sank to the ground.
Chapter Three
Christoffer backed away from the falcon, who’d fallen to the floor.
“What did you do to her?” he barked, looking up. The spot where William had been standing was empty. Christoffer took another step back and smacked into William, who’d snuck up behind him. Christoffer whirled, dropping to a crouch. He could smell the damp undergrowth of the forest as he called forward his wolf. William’s nostrils widened and he fell back a step, in surprise or fear.
Christoffer hoped it was fear.
He didn’t know what the lord had done to the falcon, but he didn’t want it done to him. He’d been the last one to enter this little chamber of horrors, and only shock had kept him from turning tail and running. He couldn’t believe William intended to keep them in cages. The arrangement between the wolves and the lord was a civil one, nothing more than a formality after all these years.
Wasn’t it?
William shook his head as if to dispel the scents of the forest and reached for Christoffer, a collar much like the one around the falcon’s neck in his hand.
Christoffer scrambled back awkwardly as the wolf was upon him, causing his bones to twist and pop as his body changed. He was at his most vulnerable when he changed. He snarled, the sound echoing, but the lord did not retreat. He slipped around to Christoffer’s side and reached for his neck, the collar open. Christoffer batted William away with enough force that his bones, weak from the change, rattled within the thin confinement of his skin.
With an animal’s whimper, Christoffer bent his head, breathing through the pain. There was cold against his neck, a quiet snap and then he knew no more.
William watched as the wolf returned to full human. He would not soon forget the look of him mid-change—back bulging, face distorted, skin rippling. He wished it hadn’t happened like that but it was clear that after he saw Mirela fall, Christoffer would not passively accept the collar.
William went to Mirela and Christoffer in turn, shifting them so they lay more comfortably. He checked their pulses and breathing and they seemed fine. He hadn’t expected the collars to knock them out, but wasn’t totally surprised. The collars were powerful tools.
William dropped down to sit in the armchair and looked at his Hunting Pair. This was it, the moment when he decided just what kind of lord he would be. There was a war raging within him—a war between the horrors of his past and his duty, between his father’s civility and his grandfather’s mastery.
This building, with its barbaric cages and prison atmosphere, was a tool, same as the collars. It was a tool he could choose to use, or choose not to.
A good man, a civil, rational man, would take the Hunting Pair back to the house, give them rooms and wish them well. A good man would care for them and protect them, but would politely ignore the other half of the agreement, the part that stated that in service for protection of the clans the Hunting Pair would serve and obey the lord. After all, this agreement had been made when a falcon and a wolf were necessary parts of a household, and servitude and slavery were common.
A good man…a man like his father.
And if he treated them as his father had treated his pair, William would have no one but himself to blame if disaster struck.
William took a set of keys from his pocket and opened the cell doors. He would keep them separate, though the space had been designed for them to live in the two smaller side-by-side cells. He placed the wolf in the single larger cage, dragging him carefully across the floor by the arms. William hefted him over to the camping cot and was able to lift him enough to lay him down.
Christoffer looked so young. William carefully moved the boy’s head so it wasn’t at an awkward angle. It was startling enough that the werewolf tribute was a man—he’d been expecting a female. William stroked the boy’s high cheekbone, ran his palm along the stubble on his jaw.
What was he doing?
Shocked with himself, William left the boy, locking the cage door behind him. He unlocked one of the smaller cages, then lifted the falcon in his arms and carried her to the cot, again struck by her beauty.
Setting her down, he indulged himself by running his fingers along the skin that showed between the bottom of her shirt and her jeans. He carefully pulled her long hair from beneath her and adjusted the collar so it wouldn’t press against her jaw.
He wanted to pull her shirt up, to see what sort of bra she was wearing. William rose quickly to his feet, stifling the impulse. He felt like a young man—awkward and hopeless with women.
Locking her cell behind him, William turned off the lights and left the converted shed, which he’d mockingly nicknamed “the pen”. Twice on his walk back to the house William turned around. The impulse to go back, to check again that they were well, to let them out, to beg their forgiveness for putting the collars on them, was strong.
But each time he forced himself to turn back again. He’d made his choice. They were creatures of another age—one where magic existed and might made right. They were stuck in this modern world, as he was, but that didn’t mean they were going to play by modern rules.
*
She awoke in the dark.
Mirela rubbed her eyes, opening and closing them several times. She had a moment of panic, thinking she was blind, but then she picked out a faint strip of light. It w
avered, as if the light were dancing. She laid her head back—on a surface that was not hard but not soft either.
Had she dreamed what had happened?
Her fingers crept to her throat, finding the necklace there.
But it was no necklace. It was a collar. He’d collared her as if she were a dog. She twisted her fingers around it and pulled.
Try as she might she could not get it loose. She remembered the way the collar had snapped together.
Panic scurried up her spine on little mouse feet.
Reaching her hands out, she oriented herself then sat up. Pressing her face against her knees, she chanted quietly. After a few moments she was calm enough to lift her head.
The light, which had seemed to waver, was really a thin strip of daylight showing beneath what had to be a door. There was no other light, meaning no windows.
That gave her a moment’s panic, but Mirela reminded herself that at some point the lord would have to come back, and when he did she would fly out.
Standing now, she moved around the bar-walls of her prison. Along two of the walls she could push her hands through the bars and touch stone. She carefully passed her hand over them, feeling for air that might indicate a shuttered window. Nothing.
It did not matter a great deal, because only as a falcon could she fit through the bars.
How foolish she’d been to believe the lord was anything but a monster. She could see now why her mother and sisters had wept at her fate. Had they known this was what he intended to do to her and, knowing that, sent her here anyway?
That was an unfair thought, because she knew that if her mother had the choice she would have kept Mirela from this fate.
She turned back to the strip of light. What time was it? What day? She didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious. Would the lord be returning soon?
Either way, she wanted to be ready to escape when he came back.
Mirela backed away from the bars she’d been leaning against, crouched and spread her arms. The cold bite of high air, the scent of sun-warmed leaves and wind-caught flowers surrounded her.