The hole in the storm grew as she watched, but remained distant. In fact it seemed to be circling away from the aerie.
Desperation sent her into the air. A flight of two or three kilometers would take only minutes on a calm night, but 138
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
against the driving wind, it took her half an hour to reach the spot around which the cyclonic winds revolved.
Here the air was calm and the water below sparkled in the cool rays of moonlight. The eye of the storm was small and moving quickly, but Lara managed to keep herself gliding along on the warmer thermals at the center of the open space long enough to try her radio again.
A familiar voice responded, and she almost dropped the device in her excitement. Crying with relief she relayed their approximate position based on the coordinates she remembered from Kiala's maps and told the weather station attendant about Odan's injuries. Her colleague assured her the emergency shuttle would be on its way within the hour and they had only to keep their patient safe and warm until help arrived.
"Thank you! I thought we'd never—"
A sudden gust of cold wind snatched the radio transmitter from Lara's hand and sent it tumbling toward the waves. She would not have gone after it, not now that she'd made contact with a rescue team, but the storm had different ideas.
The eye had shifted rapidly, and its edges seemed to close in on her. The wind caught one of her wings and spun her around, leaving her breathless and disoriented. In an instant the shaft of moonlight which had led her to salvation disappeared, and utter blackness surrounded her. Not only could she no longer see the shimmering waves below, she had no idea in which direction she'd flown from the island.
The warm thermal on which she'd been gliding faded rapidly, 139
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
and her body dropped like a stone for several meters until she was able to catch another updraft.
Now, completely turned around, she had no idea how far she was from land or water. She could hear the waves rushing—or was it the sound of the rain as its driving force increased? Panic crept up from her gut when she realized any direction she turned was just as likely to lead her farther out to sea than closer to the island where she'd left Jaran and Odan. She couldn't land and she couldn't stay in the air until the storm cleared and risk exhausting her symbion. Her only choice was to pick a direction and hope for another ray of moonlight to guide her back to safety.
At some point, Odan's breathing changed from quick, labored panting to slow, deep inhalations. Despite the pain, he'd finally fallen asleep. His skin was pale and covered in a layer of clammy sweat, but he'd stopped shivering, and the clenched muscles in his jaw had relaxed.
Jaran allowed himself a deep, cleansing breath and sat back on his haunches. Odan would awake to misery, but at least for now he'd escaped the agony of his broken wing. The storm couldn't last much longer.
Vaguely, Jaran recalled hearing Lara speak to him. She'd likely gone outside the aerie's overhanging stone archway to try to contact the research station. She'd been gone for some time.
It embarrassed Jaran that he couldn't say when Lara had left the aerie. With a glance at his brother, he hoisted his weary body from the ground and headed for the entrance. He should have paid more attention to Lara, but his concern for 140
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
Odan had overshadowed everything. He'd blamed his brother for this predicament, and that shamed him as well. All Odan had wanted was to help Lara and Jaran stay together. Only his brother knew the true depth of Jaran's feelings for his mate and how the torment he'd heaped upon her as a child served to insulate him from the fear of losing someone else he loved.
Odan had risked his life to help Jaran retrieve Lara and now they both had to assume responsibility for getting him back safely to a healer. He and his mate could iron out their problems later and decide together how or if they should proceed with this union, but only if Odan could be there to lend his guidance.
Jaran didn't need to call her name to know Lara would not answer. Beyond the steady thrum of the rain, there was no sound outside the stone walls of the old aerie. Nothing moved. She'd left him again ... only this time he knew it wasn't to escape his overbearing insistence that they would make a viable mating pair but to help save Odan.
She'd flown into the storm, maybe in an attempt to reach the research island's tiny weather station where their radio transmissions could not.
When he saw the blinking lights near the horizon, his heart leapt. She'd succeeded! His mate had done more than prove herself to the committee. She'd saved Jaran's only surviving family, and for that he would make certain the committee praised her and permitted her to continue as co-leader.
Despite the shuttle's distance, Jaran found himself waving and shouting for the small craft as it circled the island closer 141
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
and closer, careful to avoid jutting rocks in the dangerous winds. When the ship finally set down, he ran to the opening hatchway and greeted the rescue team, which was led by Jehri.
His sister-in-law bounded out of the shuttle and into Jaran's arms. He steadied her and set her on her feet on the slippery ground.
"Where is he?" she asked, all formalities set aside. Jaran didn't care.
"He's inside, resting. We set his wing, but the break was bad."
Jehri nodded and drew herself up straight. Hoisting a medical bag on her shoulder, she headed resolutely toward the aerie with two other research station medics and Lidan, an Icarian healer, following closely at her heels. Jaran ducked his head into the shuttle and found the pilot, a human from the research colony.
"I commend you for attempting a flight in this storm. You saved my brother's life," he said.
The man offered a self-deprecating grin. "My job, sir. This is a balmy spring day where I come from."
"Where is Lara?" Jaran asked when he realized there seemed to be no one else in the shuttle except the human pilot.
"Sorry, sir?"
"Laramee Faulkner. She must have been the one who contacted you. Why isn't she with you?"
142
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
"We thought she was with you, sir. She called in and gave us the coordinates of this island. We assumed she was on the island at the time."
Cold realization wormed its way through Jaran's exhausted body. His next desperate question to the pilot was cut off by the return of Jehri and the medics. The others carried Odan between them, carefully supporting his wing. Jaran stepped out of their way and allowed them space to bring Odan into the shuttle and settle him on a transport stretcher.
"Where is Lara?" he asked Jehri once Odan's stretcher had been secured. Jehri looked up from tending her mate, and her expression broke Jaran's heart. She didn't need to answer him. He knew her response would be the same as the pilot's.
Lara was out in the storm somewhere. Jaran could have stopped her from going, but at what cost to Odan?
"Get inside the shuttle, sir," the pilot shouted over the rising wind. "We're about to take off."
Jaran wanted to decline. His first instinct was to launch himself into the air and begin a search for his mate, but logic won out over panic. He would never find her on his own. The shuttle had a better chance of locating her with its radar and scanning computers. Once Odan was safe, he could ask the pilot to fly him back in a search pattern between here and the research station and he wouldn't stop until he located her.
"Jaran, come on. We have to go." Jehri's hand on his arm spurred him into action, and he pulled himself into the shuttle and took a seat next to her. "They'll find her. I know they will."
143
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
" I'll find her," he corrected as the shuttle door closed out the incessant hum of the rain.
"Or I'll die trying."
[Back to Table of Contents]
144
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
Chapter Sixteen
At daybreak Jaran landed at Alpha Island. He'd been in the air for hours, both inside and outside the patrol shuttle searching for Lara. She hadn't returned to the island from which they had rescued Odan and she hadn't returned to the royal aerie either.
Exhausted, but determined to continue his search after checking on Odan, he joined Jehri in the infirmary.
Odan's mate sat at his side and held his hand as his eyes opened for the first time since Jaran and Lara had dragged his battered body into the abandoned aerie.
"It's been a long night," Odan whispered after surveying the worried faces that hovered over him. "I feel like I've been asleep for weeks."
"You'd better get used to the feeling. You'll be in bed for weeks until your wing heals completely," Jehri told him. "At least you'll be able to fly again."
"What about the mating cycle?" Odan asked with a concerned glance at his mate. "Can I—"
"We know he's feeling better if he's thinking about sex,"
Jaran offered with a half smile. He was too worried about Lara to laugh, but seeing his brother grin made him feel marginally better.
"A broken wing might keep me out of the air, but it won't keep me out of Jehri's bed," Odan said, twining his fingers with his mate's.
145
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
Jehri fluttered her eyelashes and her wing tips in mild embarrassment. "I think the medics have given him too much pain killer. He cannot hold his tongue."
Odan's response was cut off by the arrival of a shuttle pilot, led into the infirmary by Daralei who had flown from the royal aerie to attend her liege.
"Is there word of Lara?" Jaran rose unsteadily, damning the human technology that could create flying ships but not give them the capability of locating his missing mate.
"We've picked up a radio blip, but it's coming from an area of open ocean," the pilot said, his voice steady and professional. "We scanned the area and found no sign of life.
My guess is she dropped her transmitter, and it sank."
Jaran refused to accept any other possibility. "Renew the search from that point outward."
"Already done, sir. We're on a second pass now, but we haven't found anything. Icarian patrols are searching all the aeries on the map you gave us."
"Are they searching the rookeries? Lara might have attempted to land among the nesting symbion because of what happened to her mother."
"We'll check out the rookeries, sir, but a shuttle can't land there."
"If you find her there, tell me and I'll retrieve her," Jaran said. "In the mean time I can't wait here any longer. I'm going to continue the search."
Jehri touched Jaran's arm. "You've been flying all night.
You're exhausted."
"It doesn't matter. Let me go."
146
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
"Jaran!" Odan called after his brother, but Jaran refused to acknowledge him. Odan would survive and he would be able to mate with Jehri. Jaran had no reason to remain at the research station while Lara was still lost.
Ignoring the protests of all he passed on the way to the beach, he launched himself unsteadily into the air and set his course for the island where he and Lara had spent the night with Odan.
Lara woke to the sounds of symbion birds calling to their young. It was rare music, considered sacred by the Icarian people.
She yawned and stretched and slowly the events of the previous night solidified in her memory. She'd been exhausted, cold and soaked through to the skin, her wings almost too saturated with water to carry her another meter, but somehow she'd made it back to the aerie where she thought she'd left Jaran and Odan. When she'd stumbled inside and found no evidence that the brothers had been there she panicked. She'd ended up on the wrong island.
They might never find her.
She'd wanted to cry with frustration, but her eyes, too long assaulted by the briny winds, couldn't produce any tears.
Instead she'd sunk into the cold, stiff alor fibers of a long abandoned sleeping pallet and passed out. Yes, she was sure she'd actually fainted from exhaustion. Sleep usually came slowly, a comforting release of consciousness. This had been quick and unceremonious, like a light being extinguished. She recalled no dreams, nor had she awakened at all through the remainder of the night. Now her head pounded and her limbs 147
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
still felt heavy and damp. Her clothing clung to her, in parts dry and stiff and in others still wet and cold. Her hair felt like sundried alor and crackled a bit when she attempted to smooth out the unruly curls.
Her stomach rumbled.
With no supplies she couldn't even make breakfast for herself and regain some strength before setting off home. At least the rain had stopped, and the brilliant tropical sun shone as it was supposed to. As soon as she returned to an inhabited island everything would be right with the world, as long as Odan survived his ordeal.
She heard her name on the wind just as she hauled her aching body off the alor pallet. Something in the center of her chest did a flip when she recognized Jaran's voice.
He'd found her!
She flung herself through the stone archway and searched the sky for a sign of him. His silhouette circled the ground, a brown shadow cast by the late morning sun, and a moment later, he landed before her.
"How did you know to find me here?" she asked before he scooped her up in his arms and hugged her so tightly she lost her breath.
"I didn't. This was the only island I hadn't checked." Jaran whispered the words into her hair, then kissed her ear and her neck and her throat. "You saved Odan, but you shouldn't have flown off by yourself."
Lara managed to slide partway out of Jaran's embrace and plant her feet back on the ground. She looked up into his golden eyes. "I knew you wouldn't leave him, and you 148
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
shouldn't have. I saw a break in the storm and hoped the radio would work if I found calm air. He's all right then? Odan is alive?"
"Yes, he's fine. Or he will be once Jehri stops fussing over him. He'll fly again, but probably not before his first child is born."
Tears of relief sprang into Lara's eyes at the mention of Odan's future child. He wouldn't lose out on the mating cycle.
She threw herself back into Jaran's arms and hugged him, reveling in the warmth of his skin against hers.
"Are you strong enough to fly home?" Jaran asked after planting a few more kisses on her forehead and her eyelids.
"You look ... exhausted."
"I look like rotten alor, and I smell a little like it too. I'm starving and I'm tired but I'd much rather eat breakfast at the royal aerie than here. Let's go ... oh..." Lara glanced at her mate, and the relief of having been reunited with him faded with the realization that in a few short days the committee might still tear them apart. "I was going to say 'home.' Is the royal aerie going to be my home? I haven't found a black egg."
"True, but you did save the life of the Icarian leader."
She scoffed. "Your life was never in danger. I doubt the committee will believe—"
Jaran cupped Lara's face in his hands. "The committee voted in your absence because I ordered them to. They chose to appoint Odan as leader. You saved Odan's life and therefore you qualify to be the leader's mate, but since he already has a mate, I believe you're stuck with me."
149
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
Lara's throat closed on a half-sob. Her shoulders and her wings drooped. "Jaran. I'm sorry. I never wanted you to give up your leadership for me. You belong there. Jidar chose you because you were the right person to take his place. The committee needs to vo
te again."
"They may. If Odan insists. He doesn't want to rule, but right now, he's too weak to protest it, and I have a feeling before he recovers fully Jehri will convince him he can do just as good a job as I can."
Lara regarded him out of the corner of her eye. "Do you think he can?"
Jaran smiled. "I do. He's Namara's son. I've always suspected he was a bit smarter than me, and a bit more logical. He'll do well, if he wants to. If not, he'll return the position to me. Either way makes no difference as long as you're with me." He snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her to his side. "The committee didn't vote to dissolve our union. Only you can do that. If you want to."
Lara stared at Jaran. For a moment she allowed herself to remember the young boy who'd taunted her, and the teenager who'd so often flattened her with icy stares and whispered rumors. That boy was gone and so was the little human child who'd longed for his approval. Today, Lara was Icarian, and Jaran was her chosen mate. Whatever had passed between them years ago was dead and buried.
"I have no intention of ever letting you go," she said, and caught his lips in a searing kiss that left them both breathless. "Let's go home, my liege, wherever that may be."
150
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
Jaran eyed her for a moment, then his gaze slid past her into the dark recesses of the empty aerie behind her. He lifted her in his arms again and, ignoring her half-hearted protests, carried her inside. "I think, for the moment, home is right here."
The End
About the Author:
An avid reader all her life and an aspiring writer since the age of ten, Bernadette Gardner realized her dream of becoming a published author in 2005. Inspired by the romance she devoured as a teen and the science fiction classics, she hoped to combine those elements into her stories. Since beginning her career, she has branched out from science fiction romance into paranormal, contemporary and even historical genres and hopes to continue bringing sexy adventurous tales to her readers for decades to come.
Icarus Unbound Page 12