by Shana Abe
"Princess," he'd acknowledged in English, and only moved away, shouldering through a clutch of dandies waving their handkerchiefs against the heat.
The Crown Suites took up the entire third story of the hotel, plush and expensive, the best the place had to offer. She let the others file in first so they could take in her precautions: the curtains tied back with their jade-colored sashes, the windows all open, that current of ocean air lifting and pulling at the tasseled corners of the duvet on the bed in the next room. She lingered in the doorway as they gathered in the front parlor, four watchful, sophisticated dragons surrounded by pongee silks and marble-topped furnishings. A large cloisonne urn stuffed with lilacs and tea roses lent a soft, thick spice to the wafting breeze.
It would be easy to Turn here, to be gone in an instant. Mari knew it to be true, because she'd done so every single night.
Every night. She'd walk to the old-fashioned windows, running her hands over the ripples in the glass. She'd close her eyes and inhale the sweeter aroma of ocean and the night-blooming jasmine growing wild in the dunes below, thinking of what it would be like in the mountains now. How the peaks would look with the wind blowing moonlight across their faces. How the stars would beckon with fierce shining brilliance.
She would not glance back at the rosewood bed. She would not be tempted by crisp sheets and that pillowy duvet of woven birds and periwinkles.
Maricara had all her worldly goods here in these rooms. But every night, as late as she could stand it, she would leave.
There was an abandoned priory not very far inland. A princess by day; a darker creature by night. She had blankets and a pillow in what used to be a monk's cell. She would stare at the decayed bricks of the walls until she was dragged into sleep with their rough, rectangular lines imprinted on the backs of her lids, all the while praying that this night, this one night, would be the one she finally slept through.
Then she'd wake up.. .she'd wake up in such terrible places....
"Adequate, wouldn't you say?" She faced her guests. "I'm especially fond of all the windows."
"What was it you wanted to show us?" asked the earl, slapping his gloves lightly against one thigh. He radiated that tight, coiled aggression once more. She could nearly see the caged animal gleaming behind his gaze.
"Oh, it's not here. You're going to have to Turn and follow me to see." Kimber gave a short laugh, mirthless. "That's not going to happen." "Only to smoke. We'll be floating mist to all the people out there." "It's a hot day," pointed out Rhys.
"Clouds, then. Dragons. Whatever you like. You may follow me or not, but I'm going to Turn no matter what you say. And I think you need to see this." Mari lifted her chin and looked straight at Kimber. "For the sake of your tribe, Alpha lord."
The other three were silent, also looking to Kimber. He stood with his weight on one well-muscled leg, his hat under his arm, the gloves striking a muffled, repetitive crack against his breeches. With the light behind him picking out the satin piping on his coat and the buckles on his shoes, he might have been any man—any fine-looking, human man.but for the waves of drakon power he emitted. And that flat, dangerous light to his eyes.
"Very well, Your Grace," he said at last, with a small bow of his head. "But pray allow me to be exceedingly clear: We travel as smoke only. Under no circumstances will any of us Turn to anything else in front of humans."
"Naturellement." Maricara looked to the others. "My safe is beside the armoire. You may put your gemstones in there if you like."
It was big, nearly as tall as the escritoire in the corner, painted steel with the key hidden behind a loose tile in the water closet.
The earl turned his head to survey it, still standing in place.
"You traveled all the way from Transylvania with that?"
"Hardly," she said. "You'll receive an account for it soon, I expect. The locksmith in town assured me your credit was perfectly good."
She'd warned them not to touch the ground once they reached where they were going. She'd judged the airstreams and the angle of the sun and agreed with the earl it was best if they stayed as thin as possible, sparkling thin against the blue atmosphere, a haze of sea-sprayed moisture to anyone who might happen to be looking up. They would go slowly. It wasn't far, she told them, but it would take time.
She guided them inland. She avoided by miles her collapsing old priory, moving instead southwest, nearly in harmony with the winds. They only had to shove against it a little. The most difficult part, Maricara thought, was not giving in to the urge to leap forward at full speed.
Smoke was one of their more wily deceits. Smoke was the Gift most designed to fool the human eye. It allowed them to mist into places no person or dragon could fit, through mouseholes or the slats of a shutter, a tendril through the eye of a slender needle. Too many Others of ancient days thought the smoke around dragons meant fire, when in fact it meant resolution: stealth, stalking, death. At least for their enemies.
The ground below them became pretty and remote, as perfect and broad-stroked as a painting. Woods, downs, roads and hedges. Brick-and-slate villages pressed up against rivers. Churches. Mills. A group of red-coated men hunting quail.
The baying of their dogs as Mari and the rest passed overhead.
The earl remained close beside her, so close that at times their edges brushed. She'd never experienced such a thing with another before; the men of the Zaharen always avoided her when she took flight. Even her brother kept his distance.
But Kimber.Kimber was a sheet of whisper-thin gray, an echo of herself. He tilted as she tilted; he rose as she rose. The other three trailed behind but he remained exactly where she was, how she was, even when a jet of heated air swept up in a curl between them.
They spun with it. She rolled and flattened and found he'd done the same, and that was when he first touched her, and it felt like the most beautiful, intangible silk rushing along her senses. Like living wind, or the zinging pleasure of metal or stone. She was overcome with it—just for a moment—and lost her path. He touched her again, slower this time, more deliberate, and she was shaken enough to shrink away, to increase her speed so that the treetops and meadows became a blur of sun and shadows. He kept pace.
By then they were nearly there. The farm was set apart from any hamlet or village. It consisted of a thatched house and two barns, a pen of wide-eyed sheep, and field after field of yellow-green wheat.
She took them past all that. She took them to the muddy clearing by a windmill, the blades creaking slowly with a sultry weak breeze. Water from the mill kept up a steady trickle that leaked from a crack in the tin holding pool. It had been the perfect wading place for a flock of tame geese.
She'd awoken here in the heart of night. She had come back to herself in this alien place, a naked, shivering woman with sludge oozing between her toes, standing upright by the pool, bewildered. The odor of goose blood mingled with that of the peaty muck, a dark slick of color reflecting the moonlight at her feet. Feathers gleamed angelic white all about her, a few still spinning in slow whorls to the ground.
And she could hear—she'd swear she could hear the final, garbled scream of the last goose as she doubled over and vomited up what she had just killed and consumed in her sleep, her hands and knees and hair plunged into the filth, tears hot down her cheeks, dripping from her chin—
One corner of the clearing was still speckled with feathers. Maricara floated over to it, not too close, and waited for the others to follow. She gave them a few minutes there, letting them take it all in. Her scent lingered still, and that of the dead geese, the rusted pool. The earl left her; she watched as he drifted closer to the mud—clearly nothing now of nature, no cloud would move like that—but at least there were no Others nearby here. Maricara was certain of that.
He glimmered in the sunlight. He shifted, thickening and then thinning once more, ascending back to where she waited, a flag of vapor caught at the tip of the windmill. As soon as he was level to her, she too
k off again.
The second place was not much farther, more north. More farms, more fields, more Roman-straight turnpikes and trees that kept the woodland's secrets beneath their leafy cover. She felt deer down there, and hedgehogs, and finches and squirrels and drowsing owls. And then, as she neared the second farm, she felt something more.
An ox, for one thing, tethered to an oak tree in one of the farthest pastures. Less than a week ago there had been cows in that pasture along with the ox, but that was before Mari had come.
Two cows. She remembered nothing of that night but impressions: grassy pasture; pools of blood; massive bones. And the ox, pressed hard against a canted wood fence, staring at her through the darkness, too terrified even to tremble.
It lay now with its front legs tucked under it in a patch of dirt worn barren of grass, listless upon the ground. When she was near enough to see its eyes it lifted its head, abruptly alert, and then lurched to its feet.
The men who had tied it there were back at the farmhouse. One would remain behind—they would not leave their bait without a watch—but he had wandered into the woods that bordered the pasture, reeking of ale and urine: a human who had no qualms about doing murder in the open air yet still required privacy to relieve himself.
She did not understand the Others. Perhaps she never would.
Still, Mari went no closer; the watch would return soon. Kimber remained beside her this time, and the other three flowed near.
She wished she could tell them what was down there, the menace that lurked and polluted the pasture. She wished she could speak to them, or at least point, but all she could do was wait and let them feel it for themselves.
When Kimber began to descend she followed promptly, shooting under him, using her velocity to twine around him, pulling him back up. She felt silk again, the velvet sensation of his essence as smoke, but he was also force and determination; he moved past her, still descending.
She tried again and this time he twirled with her, looping about her so that for a split second they were both rising—but then he was gone, a narrow siphon to the ground, and he was smoke by the ox, and then man.
The ox rolled its eyes until the whites showed like half-moons. It let out a bawl, towing hard at its rope.
Mari dropped to the earth. She Turned human, her heart taking life as a sick throb in her chest. She grabbed the earl by his arm, her voice a fierce whisper.
"Are you mad? Don't you sense him? Get out of here!"
"Yes," he answered, very calm. His hand lifted to cover her own. "I sense him. But he's not here right now."
"I told you not to touch the ground! I merely wanted you to see!"
"Sorry, Princess," he said. "Some might call me pigheaded, but I really do enjoy getting my own way."
He wasn't looking at her. He was frowning from the ox to the woods, thoughtful, as the beast began to quaver, yanking harder at its tether. Its tongue worked pink as it tried to scrape the rope halter from its face.
She realized abruptly that Kimber was naked. Of course he was, and so was she, but—the sun was hot, and his skin was bright, and there were golden hairs on his chest, and his arm was hard like iron beneath hers. Only his fingers cupped over hers remained gentle; he pressed her hand to him like he held a flower, delicate and firm.
"Ah, pardon me," said Rhys, suddenly behind them. "But what are we doing here?"
Kimber glanced back at his brother. His fingers tightened.
"We're taking care of a brief bit of business," he replied, and turned his face to the sky. One of the hovering clouds cascaded down, became Audrey close beside Maricara.
"For heaven's sake, Rhys, look away," she said, and threw her arm around Mari's shoulder, drawing her near. Her hair was long, nearly as long as Mari's own. When she moved it skimmed both their waists.
Mari broke away. "We need to go," she insisted, as the earl walked to the ox. "They could have muskets. Or arrows."
"All right." He circled in front of the frantic beast, reached out and secured the rope. The ox let out another wild bellow, trying to buck free, but Kimber only gripped the rope with two fists, his face set, pulling until the hemp ripped apart in a burst of fiber and grit.
He dropped the ends. He backed up a step and the ox bucked again and then bolted, charging past them all with a thunder that actually shook the earth.
"Maricara is correct," said a new voice, Joan, to her left. "We need to go. The second story of the farmhouse is in view, and there are men headed this way."
Without another word, Kimber Turned, and so did the other three. Mari was last to leave, still sickened with her heart and the jolting of the ground as the ox fled for its life into the sun-baked fields.
They dined this time. He was too hungry not to dine, and at least if they retreated into the human convenience of the princess's hotel, he'd know exactly where she was. And that was of the utmost importance.
"Now they know," she was saying, her lips slanted down, her lucent pale eyes accusing and extravagantly long-lashed. "If you had not broken the rope, if you hadn't freed the ox, the hunters might not ever have known we were there—"
"They know anyway," Kimber said, and took another bite of his roast. "The ox was a blatant trap. Breaking its rope changed nothing."
"You were the one who said not to Turn—"
"With humans nearby. And we didn't."
Maricara muttered something foreign under her breath; he didn't bother to ask for clarification. She began sawing at the beefsteak upon her plate, her gaze cast down, as if the rare meat and grilled asparagus offended her nearly as much as Kim had.
He'd reserved the hotel's sole private parlor for their supper. He'd had to impress the resort supervisor with the weight of his title in addition to laying out a preposterous sum for the teal-and-smoked-glass room—which the supervisor assured him was quite booked for months in advance—but it was worth it, because they all had to eat, and the things the five of them had to say now could not be for any ears but their own.
He had no idea where Maricara's guard might be; his own were in the public room adjacent to this, eating a meal no doubt just the same as his own.and a good deal cheaper. They were strong men, solid. The fact that more than half the house of their Alpha was currently confined to this chamber would keep them extra-vigilant.
Every now and again a lace-capped maid and two footmen would enter through the white swinging door that led to the hall, bearing food, taking away food. Out of habit Kim and his siblings would fall silent whenever the chamber was breached. The princess was hardly speaking in any case.
Candles had been placed in front of nearly every sheet of glass striping the walls; the hearth was unlit. The candlelight reflected as if from the bottom of a cave, or a distant firestorm, yellow-gold flames stripped to sepia, shadows the color of tarnished copper twitching back and forth across them all.
Maricara sliced at the stems of her asparagus. She'd donned again the bare sheath of satin she dared to call a frock; the diamonds in her hair caught the smoky light in dim, scintillating glimmers. She'd taken the chair at the end of the table, close to an open window and far from the four of them. He supposed she still thought they might rush her, or trick her, even amid a semipublic evening supper. And she had a point, he had to admit. He was at the head; she was at the foot; silver salvers of steaming roast and potatoes and boiled carrots dotted the bleached holland between them. It put him in mind of what they might look like together in the formal dining hall of Chasen Manor.
As husband and wife.
She took a bite, chewing carefully. She seemed tired. Even with her beauty, even with her diamonds and obvious displeasure, her movements had noticeably slowed. There were faint circles under her eyes he hadn't noted before.
Perhaps it was just the lighting. It was gloomy as a tomb in here.
She glanced up at him without lifting her head, catching him staring. Kim was held in a gaze darkened to stone and felt something in his chest begin to squeeze.
<
br /> Yes, whispered the cold, cold dragon, turning over in his heart. She's Alpha, and she's untamed, and still she belongs to you.
He knew, logically, that it was true. He knew what had to come. But when she looked like this, smaller and more fragile than before, her perfect poise beginning to fracture, just a little.
He didn't want to hurt her. He didn't want to force her. He didn't want her to be thinking about the window behind her, of men and guns, and how soon she might be rid of him. He damned sure didn't want her anywhere near livestock again.
The world offered a rich and intoxicating melange of aromas to their kind, at times so many it could confound even the most acute of warriors. But Kimber had spent years learning how to separate the nuances; he could smell the difference between river water and pond; between an owl on the wing or a hawk; between a butterfly quaking over flowers and a moth over leaves.
Everything around the windmill today had reeked of blood and days-old animal panic—and of Maricara. There could be no question she had been there before. The combined scent of mud and animal and her had been so strong it had very nearly drowned out something more important, something he had not at first even recognized was significant: the more pervasive odor of men. Many men. And something else with it, something mild and elusive...not unpleasant, not unfamiliar. But he'd never encountered anything like it before; Kimber didn't know what it was.
The smell rippling around the ox had been primarily of dust and hay and more sweating fear. The princess once again. The oak tree had the correct bouquet, as did the grass, and the pile of manure not far off. But this time he'd noticed at once the stench of man. The same men, in fact, as the ones from the windmill, which seemed bloody unlikely indeed. The trail there had been fresher, much fresher. Someone had scraped his hand on the rough knot of the rope not more than two hours before; perhaps the man in the woods. Kim had smelled the human skin on the hemp. The barest thin whiff of human blood.
Emanations of hammered steel, when there had been nothing of metal about. Cotton drenched in dye. Leather and perspiration. A great deal of saltpeter and flint.