Kleet gathered her to him and kissed her hard. She kissed him back. She was lightheaded with relief that there were only two babies. She carried this man's children. It was so unbelievable that this could have happened to her by the simple act of taking this man into her body.
Kleet pulled back from her and just stared at her face. His gray eyes sparkled. "Two babies. Thank you, Shel."
She sputtered. "I didn't have much to do with it. It was you and Avera."
He smiled, making her heart flip over. "Then thank the gods for Avera."
Dr. Rotairn cleared his throat. "I'll send my report to the Avatier. He can take care of the formalities with the council. Sheleigh, I'll see you in a month."
Kleet took her out of the medical center into the hot Averan sun. The heat was something real she could feel. She turned to him as they waited for their transport. "I can't believe it."
"Dr. Rotairn doesn't lie."
"No, I mean it can't be real. This must be a dream. A week ago you and I were separate people. Now we're part of each other." She spread her hands over her belly. "We've made two lives that are an equal part of each of us. Things just don't happen this fast."
Kleet tucked her face into the curve of his neck and pressed her to him with one arm. "This is the realization of a dream, not the dream itself. I love you, Shel."
She looked up into his face. "I wish I could say the same to you, Kleet."
"You will. Soon."
* * * *
They stood on the cliff at dawn the next morning watching the sun rise. Kleet's naked flesh pressed against her back. His erect penis prodded her buttocks. His arms were around her, allowing his fingers to flick her nipples to hardness. They would jump as soon as the sun warmed the air in the canyon below.
He rubbed his penis against her, and then prodded between her legs. She widened her stance, allowing him access. He rubbed his cock between her legs.
"Ummmm," she moaned. She wanted him inside her.
She felt the air eddying by her bare feet as she rose on tip toes to rub against his body. The pleasure was becoming intense.
"Ready, Shel?" he murmured huskily.
She nodded her head against him.
His hands moved to her waist. She tensed. He tensed, and then tossed her out into the air. She felt him behind her as her stomach plummeted. The air rushed over her tender nipples, puckering them. His hands gripped her shoulders. His cock pushed between her legs, and then he thrust inside her. Her breath exploded out of her.
He thrust vigorously into her widespread body. She clenched on him, wanting, needing. She panted. She needed more, more, more. Their bond tightened and so did her body. She exploded, dragging him with her. And then they were flying in her mind as well as in real life. It was beautiful, it was fantastic, it was fulfilling.
They glided to earth, where Kleet held her tightly. "I love you," he averred.
"Kleet, you're mine." She felt more tightly bound to him, but love hadn't come on this flight.
He sighed. "We'll try again in a few days."
"But Kleet ..."
"It's working. I felt it. We're more tightly bound than we were before. This is the right way to become closer."
"All right. We'll try again."
He kissed her. The kiss soon grew out of control as he lowered them to the ground. Sheleigh heard nothing over the mate-bond roaring through her veins. Then even that sound was consumed in the claiming of her mate.
Chapter Twelve
For the next three and a half weeks, they flew the mating flight at dawn three days a week. Dawn was the time when the sun warmed the air and the thermal currents made for an extended mating flight. Kleet used the additional air time to mercilessly imprint his body on hers. She was sore for hours afterward, but she wouldn't give up their flights for anything. To be naked in the first rays of the rising sun was wonderfully pagan. To be naked with Kleet as he flew her was ecstasy. To be naked and falling weightless was the ultimate freedom, the ultimate high when you added in Kleet's participation.
Sheleigh hoarded these precious hours with Kleet as a miser hoarded gold. He carved the time out of his full schedule knowing how important it was to bind her tightly to him. And it was working. She felt how essential he became to her each time they flew. She felt how tightly he wove himself into the fabric of her being each time they landed. And she felt how much of herself she gave to him each time they were finished.
She couldn't prevent giving little pieces of her heart and soul to him when they flew. At night when they mated in bed she didn't have this problem of giving bits away. But when they flew it was different--it was tradition, biology and animal instinct, and she felt like an Averan now when they flew. Whether it was the planet's influence, the societal influence that drove even non-flyers to fly mating flights, or whether it was Kleet himself, she didn't know. She only knew that she jumped from the cliffs willingly now and sought the air as one born to it.
Kleet's bare body brushed against her naked back and riveted her thoughts on the here and now. She prepared herself for his first violent thrust into her body, the one that fought the wind to join with her and won. There was a soft thudding sound behind her, and then quickly another, like a fist hitting flesh. Kleet grunted in pain. He slammed heavily into her back and she lost her aerodynamic pose. She plummeted a few feet before she righted herself by grabbing him.
"Kleet! What happened?" she screamed at him. His face looked odd.
"Shot," he managed the thick word. His pupils contracted to pinpoints as the color leeched from his face.
"What are you saying?" she demanded, unable to fathom that they might be in peril.
"Can't fly," he murmured in her ear as his left arm clutched at her. "Got my wing."
Sheleigh glanced past his right arm and that's when she saw his right side from mid chest down was covered in blood. "Kleet, you're hurt!" He bled freely from a deep ugly gash in his side and he said his wing was hit. They were plummeting to their deaths for sure if he couldn't slow their descent at the crucial moment.
"Kleet, you've got to slow us down so that the fall doesn't kill us!" She almost laughed at the complete absurdity of that statement. For sure they were going to die.
"Can't move it at all," he groaned. She realized he meant his wing.
What to do? And it had to be done quickly. Without their limbs being spread they were dropping like stones. Kleet had wings but couldn't use them. But she had arms that worked. Could she spread his wings for him? If so, she would have to be behind him. She had to try.
She turned him around forcefully and pushed him face down. He grunted in pain. She wrapped her legs around him and lifted her hands under his wings to spread them. Kleet groaned. She forced his wings out until they caught the air and with all the strength in her body she held the wings arched against the buffet of the wind. Her muscles burned with the effort, but their descent began to slow. The ground was rushing up to meet them, she noted, but all her energy had to go into saving them.
Five hundred meters, three hundred meters, one hundred meters. The ground grew ever closer. They had more glide than drop now. Fifty meters, twenty, ten, five.
"Hold on Shel!"
His feet hit first but he flexed just as he hit and began running. Sheleigh dropped from his back and they both fell forward onto the ground with a tremendous "oomph." Kleet took the brunt of their fall.
She just lay on him, breathing in great draughts of air and unable to move for a moment, even though she knew he needed room to breathe. They were alive! Her desperate actions had made the difference that saved them.
Sheleigh choked back a sob, but a second one escaped her, then tears fell freely down her cheeks as she released the terror that had seized her during their fall. What if they had died? What if she had lost what she had with Kleet, the love she hadn't expected to find, not now and not here? She scrambled off him and dropped to her knees by his side. She grimaced at the pain, for her knees were raw and bloody. Her palms
were scraped but not bleeding.
Kleet's wings were extended so she couldn't see his bloody side. She grabbed his shoulder and began to roll his big body over, looking him over carefully as he moved. He was unconscious, his body slack, his face white. As his wing moved away from his body a wide, bloody gash appeared on his side, running from his chest to his back. That side, hip and leg were covered with blood and encrusted dirt. There were scattered spatters and streaks of blood on his chest, groin and the front of his legs. It had been a messy flight and an even messier landing. So much blood!
Her hands hovered over the gash, wondering what to do to stop the flow of blood. He wasn't bleeding profusely to indicate an artery had been hit, just steadily enough to worry her that he might bleed to death if the guards took too long to find them. Surely someone had noticed that their mating flight was irregular. Kleet was the heir, after all, so she assumed the guards didn't give them complete privacy in the air. This one time she hoped the guards had been watching.
Since they were both naked, she had nothing to stop the bleeding or bind the wound. She had only her hands, which were covered with dirt. Kleet didn't need any more dirt in the wound. His chest rose and fell with labored breathing, and she found that reassuring. She moved to his outstretched wing and there the damage made her wince in sympathy. There was an eight- millimeter diameter hole torn out of the center of the wing. The hole was bloody, the surrounding feathers were raggedly torn and some were missing. Closer to Kleet's body was another hole. This must have been the shot that hit his body on the way to his wings.
A killing rage filled her as she hovered over her mate's mutilated wing and torn body. Some deranged fanatic wanted Kleet dead simply because he had wings. The holes in Kleet's wings were their own message: "Die because you're different from us." If she had the shooter here now, she would strangle him or her with her bare hands. She was that angry. Their death would have the purity of vengeance to justify it, whereas their attack on Kleet had no justification. There was none in thinking to advance a cause by killing the principals of the opposing viewpoint. Fanatics throughout Earth's history had proven that beyond a doubt.
There was no outlet for her rage, her terror had evaporated, her grief was locked in her throat and chest, but her love found an outlet. Here her mate lay, torn, battered and suffering, possibly dying. She must comfort him and give him love if this was to be all she had of him. Although she prayed for more time with him.
She moved around near his head and gathered his heavy, lax body up on her knees and into her arms. She felt stronger just touching him. Her mate bond with him always had that effect. She stroked his dark hair back from his wide brow and kissed his forehead.
"You're going to live, Kleet. You must live. I need you. I've only just found you and I need more time with you, years more time. I need years of holding your hand, decades of holding you in my arms, a lifetime of flying mating flights with you. Your children need you to be a loving father to them. They don't want to be raised in a fatherless household or with a stepfather who isn't you. Help is coming--you have to hold on until they arrive. Hold onto me, Kleet. Hold on tight."
She continued to murmur to him, words that came to her mind but she paid no attention to their meaning as they passed her lips. She knew only that her mate must live. She kissed what she could of his face, ignoring a pain in her back as she stretched down to him. Her discomforts must be ignored until Kleet was safe.
An unknown increment of time passed while she held him and showered him with affection and willed him to live. Finally she heard the pounding of many boots and the clink of weapons, and she looked up to see four burly guards appear around a boulder. To their credit she saw desperation and deep concern on their faces, and this allayed her fears of an inside conspiracy. They hesitated as they saw their fallen master, and then moved quickly to his aid.
"What happened?" the senior guard demanded, hauling Kleet's shirt out of a duffel to use to clean the wound.
She laid Kleet's head on the ground before answering. "Someone shot him in the wings. Someone wanted him dead because he has wings." The fierce anger was back and the non-winged guard's head snapped up.
"Not me, my lady! I don't begrudge others their wings."
"Someone without wings tried to kill the heir. This person must be found and punished," she insisted heatedly.
One of the guards pulled out a communicator and began rapid-fire instruction to whoever was on the other end. She turned her attention back to the two guards working determinedly over Kleet. They'd found something white to bind the wound and were fastening it around him. Kleet's normally burnished skin was nearly as pale as the bandages.
If she hadn't been paying as close attention as she was, she would have missed the expression of pain that crossed the faces of the guards when they saw the damage to Kleet's wing. At that point, although she knew nothing about wings, she knew it was very serious. They were oddly gentle as they handled the damaged wing. She'd never thought of Kleet's wings as being fragile, but now she realized they were just lightweight feathers over muscles, tendons and a frame considerably lighter than his body. Look what damage the projectile had done to his heavier body.
"Is a doctor coming?" she asked, simply wanting to hear confirmation.
"A medic will be here momentarily. Then we'll fly immediately to the medical facility."
"I thought we were going to die, all four of us." The guards winced. They had failed to protect their charges. "That fanatic might have killed me and the future heirs while he was trying to kill the current heir. Maybe that was his plan, to wipe out Kleet's line. But everyone knows I'm non-winged. We don't know yet if the babies are winged or non-winged. What kind of fanaticism kills the innocent as well as the one they deem to be guilty?"
She knew the answer to this question from thousands of years of Earth history and the deaths of millions of innocents. Still, she felt compelled to say the words aloud. Maybe she could find some logic in this madness if she tried hard enough. Or maybe she could find just a moment of peace if she understood anything that had happened today.
A whooping sound in the air high above them told of an air transport dropping into the canyon. The sound and the reverberating echo grew louder and louder as it neared them, and the decibel level was almost painful. They all crouched low over Kleet and the transport landed thirty feet in front of them. Three of the guards hoisted Kleet's lax body between them and moved quickly to the vehicle. The fourth guard pulled her to her feet and she was glad of his assistance. She'd stiffened in her crouch next to Kleet and had been having difficulty attempting to rise. Now she welcomed his supporting hand under her elbow.
As she climbed into the transport she noted with satisfaction that the medic was working on Kleet, setting up intravenous products. She folded her body to the floor close to Kleet. The metal floor of the transport was cold against her naked flesh and for the first time she remembered that she was naked in front of all these people. Her breasts with their nipples taut from the cooler air of the canyons had been fully viewed by the male guards, the male medic, the female pilot and male co-pilot. Everyone had seen her thatch, which only her mate should have seen. Her buttocks had been viewed, and there was no telling what else they had seen! She was mortified, even though in the seriousness of the situation she realized these people would be paying little attention to her nudity.
"Where are my clothes?" She was proud of the steadiness of her voice.
A guard handed her a bundle and her movements as she began to dress attracted the medic's attention. "My lady, you're injured. Please don't cover your injuries until I can see to them."
"I'm not injured." She continued to pull on her shirt, controlling her winces at the painful movement of her bruised and battered body.
"You're bloody. Please wait for me to tend your wounds."
"It's Kleet's blood. I just have scrapes and bruises."
"Your knees need attention. Please don't cover them. You'll drive the d
irt in deeper and risk infection."
"I need to cover myself. Don't you understand the desire for modesty?" she flared at him.
"Don't we have a robe on board for our lady?" the medic yelled. Moments later a robe was handed to her and she gratefully pulled it on. Its button front made easy access to her knees.
"You're lucky the heir could land you safely with his wing damaged," the medic observed.
"He couldn't move it at all. I had to hold his wings open," she refuted. A look of incredulity appeared on the faces of the medic and the guards.
"You helped him to fly?"
"It was that or die. I saw no other choice."
There was awe and something else in the medic's eyes before he turned back to Kleet.
"What kind of weapon makes holes that big?" she demanded of the medic.
"Nothing that should be used on living things." His reply was angry. "It looks like it might have been made by one of the pieces of equipment rock climbers use to blast hand and footholds in rock. How they got it to shoot that far ..." he stopped when he looked at her face. Someone had used rock blasting equipment on Kleet's flesh!
"That's sadistic and savage. That man must be punished." Her outburst was heated vitriol.
"Yes, my lady," the head guard replied. Anguish scored his face, while his voice promised vengeance.
She laid her hand on Kleet's body, needing contact with him, and that helped when the medic began to clean her knees. The bloody gouges would probably leave scars.
"How did this happen?" the medic's voice was gentle.
"We were still going too fast when we hit the ground," she said simply. He flinched.
Chapter Thirteen
Sheleigh must have been lulled into a somnolent state from adrenalin drop, tiredness, the retreat of fear and the white noise hum of the engine, because suddenly the door of the transport opened and guards and medical personnel buzzed around her like angry bees. Kleet's body was slid out on its stretcher and someone helped her to rise and follow stiffly after him. The bandages on her knees hindered a fluid stride.
Mating Flight Page 11