Claiming the Prince: Book One (28 page)

She retrieved the Enneahedron from the pile of discarded clothes and slid it securely between her breasts where it would be hidden and its energy could flow straight into her chest. At once, her bruised heart and its limping pulse picked up strength and rhythm. All of her doubts drifted to the back of her mind like shadows fleeing the bright light of the sun.

Crouching, she picked up the tattered and dirty clothes.

“What are you doing with those?” Damion said. “You don’t need them. Leave them.”

“Out here?”

“Where else?”

She frowned, but he was right. There wasn’t a trash can or even a rubbish heap here. Not that she wanted to throw them away. But she couldn’t bring them with her either. They were filthy and they stank.

She laid the clothes back down at the streamside, her tattered sneakers on top.

“Let me just check the pockets.”

Damion grumbled and tromped up the slope.

She dug her hands into the gritty and stiff fabric of her jeans. In the back pocket, she found the ichor-gold glove. The intricate mail was light and cool in her hand. It seemed years since she’d escaped Lavana’s dungeon. In fact, it had only been a few weeks.

She stuffed the glove inside her vest, secure under the lacings that wound around her waist. Hero came plodding along the bank. She held her arm out and he climbed up onto her shoulder.

Standing, she gave her old clothes one last look, wondering what would become of them. If they’d just rot there, if the stream would flood and sweep them away, if some enterprising creature would find them and put them to use.

“
I am scared
.”

She ran her finger between Hero's ears. “You don’t have to come with me.”

“
I’m not scared for myself. I’m scared for you
.”

“Me too,” she murmured.

Honey knelt beside Gur, knotting white and red flowers into his mane. Eyes closed, the lion-semargl appeared to be sleeping, but his tail continued to swipe back and forth across the forest floor. Magda couldn’t tell if he enjoyed the attention or was merely tolerating it.

Anqa had her back turned to them as she preened her feathers, one massive wing angled upwards as she worked.

Damion and Kaelan leaned against the little hut, drinking water and sharing what was left in the basket, watching the scene, neither looking particularly happy.

Kaelan’s brow furrowed as she approached.

“I look that good, huh?” she said, hands on her hips.

He chucked away his apple core. “What now?”

“We go to the Spire.”

“We fly?” Honey asked, bounding over.

“Doesn’t Anqa need to go back to her mate?” Magda asked, glancing back at the roc, who suddenly let out a high-ringing shriek.

“Her mate was killed,” Honey stated plainly, in the same way she might tell someone their shoe was untied.

“When? How?”

For the first time since the empusa had siphoned her soul, Honey frowned. “Anqa isn’t sure. She left us after we thought she was no longer needed and found him . . . or what was left of him. All his feathers were taken, and his head removed.”

Magda’s stomach churned.

“Then she can take you back to the forest,” Kaelan said to Honey.

“How will you reach the Spire?” Honey asked.

“I can take Magda there.”

“No,” Damion said. “Remember what happened the last time we did that? We all go together this time.”

“Damion’s right,” Magda said to Kaelan. “Besides, I can’t drag you unconscious before the Crown. And if I have to fight, I’ll need you at full strength.”

“Then we fly?” Honey asked.

“The Spire is a long way from here,” Damion said. “Will Anqa be able to carry all of us over the gulf and then the mountains?”

Honey twirled her hair. “She will require frequent rest.”

Gur stood, stretching, and let out a mouthy lionish sound, as if he were attempting to speak.

“We’re not taking that thing with us,” Damion said.

Gur’s eyes fixed on Damion, clearly communicating what he thought of Damion’s protest.

“I agree,” Kaelan said. “We can’t trust him, considering . . .”

“Considering what?” Honey asked.

Kaelan glowered, folding his arms over his chest.

Gur prowled up behind Magda and insinuated his head under her hand. A flood of emotions and intentions pushed into her. She took a moment, absorbing the semargl’s clear and strong personality. He was loyal to Endreas. Endreas wanted her to live and reach the Spire. So that was what Gur intended to see happen. He would do whatever he could to help her succeed in that.

Finally, she let her fingers pull through Gur’s mane, plucking one of the exotic crimson flowers from his fur, spinning it, and then letting it fall.

“Kaelan and Honey will take Anqa. Damion, you and I will go with Gur.”

Honey clapped and bounced a bit. “I’ve always wanted to see the mountains.”

“Wouldn’t it be better . . .” Kaelan said, eyes fixed on the ground, “if I went with you, and Damion went with Honey?”

Damion scowled. “No.”

“If we’re separated or attacked,” Kaelan said, “Honey and I will have little hope of defending ourselves. You two are warriors. We’re not.”

Damion’s shoulders fell.

“All right,” Magda said. “Damion, you and Honey go with Anqa.”

“Why don’t I take the Prince?” Damion asked.

Magda knew he was looking for any alternative to spending hours in the air with Honey. She couldn’t blame him. The nymph’s blank-eyed cheerfulness wasn’t just irritating, it was unsettling. Every time Magda looked at her, the nymph's wounded soul seemed to cause Magda’s to twinge in sympathy.

“Because neither of you can communicate with Gur or Anqa,” Magda said.

Damion was grim, but had no further suggestions to free himself from Honey’s company.

“Let’s go,” Magda said. “I’d like to be clear of Elf territory before nightfall.”

“Don’t forget this,” Kaelan said, picking up Endreas’s coat from where he’d laid it on top of the hut.

She frowned at his provocative tone.

“Why don’t you wear it, Honey?” Magda said. “You’re the least clothed of all of us.”

“Nymphs don’t feel cold,” Honey said with a smile.

Magda frowned. “How nice for you.”

Damion took the coat from Kaelan. He held it up and examined it. “It’s a good coat,” he pronounced. He tossed it into Magda’s hands. “Put it on. The last thing we need is for you to grow ill.”

“Why don’t you wear it?” she said to him.

He made a face at her, as if not understanding her resistance. “Put on the damned coat, Mistress,” he said. As he charged away, he grasped Honey’s arm and dragged her back to the roc.

She started to drop the coat back on top of the hut, but Kaelan caught her wrist.

“Damion is right. You were freezing when you arrived. Put it on. It’s only a coat.”

“You wear it,” she said. “You’ll have to ride behind me anyway. You can keep me warm.”

His lips pressed into a thin line.

“It’s only a coat,” she said. “Right?”

With clear reluctance, he took the coat and put it on. She refrained from commenting on how it fit him—perfectly. Though he and Endreas looked little alike, except for the shape of their eyes and the staggering slant of their cheekbones, they appeared to share the same frame. Perhaps Kaelan was a bit thinner, but had he been better fed and trained, the two would’ve been able to swap clothes easily. And something in its fine black-on-black embroidery along the seams—dragon knot work—the elegant, trim cut . . . For the first time since she’d met him, Kaelan truly looked a Prince.

For a long moment, they stood there, regarding each other.

“Ready?” she asked.

The green light that usually shone in his eyes seemed to dim.

Gur stretched his golden wings and gave them a couple of flaps, stirring the ferns around them.

“Should we wait for Kirk to return?” Kaelan asked.

“I have a feeling the brownie will be able to find us if he wants to,” she said, gripping Gur’s mane and hauling herself up onto the slim space between his neck and shoulders where his wings grew. Hero slid under her tunic, wriggling beneath the tight strap of her jerkin, huddling above her breast.

Kaelan approached Gur, holding the lion-semargl’s gaze. At first she wasn’t sure if this was a good idea, as every heavy muscle of Gur’s body under her tensed. A faint ripple of distrust flowed off of him. But then, Kaelan put out his hand. Gur lowered his nose into it, snorting a bit. The semargl’s tension melted away. Something in Kaelan’s scent was familiar to him. The semargl recognized Kaelan as an Elf and as kin to Endreas. Fortunately, he seemed to have no sense that Kaelan’s family wanted him dead.

Kaelan circled around, a dubious expression on his face.

Gur’s thoughts filled Magda’s head.

“From the back,” she instructed Kaelan on Gur’s behalf.

He nodded and hefted himself onto Gur’s hindquarters. He slid along Gur’s back with his legs bent to avoid Gur’s wings. As they set off, Magda cleared her head. Or attempted to.

When Kaelan slid closer, a crackle of his anxiety popped and sparked over her awareness.

“This is going to be difficult, isn’t it?” he said softly from behind her. He didn’t have to explain, she understood what he meant. Fending off their attraction to each other wouldn’t be easy when in such tight physical proximity.

She took a deep breath. “We’ll manage.”

“Are you two ready?” Damion called from the back of Anqa, where he was seated behind Honey, frowning over at them with impatience.

Gur spread his wings and took a step forward, his movement forcing Kaelan to seize Magda’s waist.

She shut her eyes, allowing his emotions to pass through her without attempting to hold onto them or react in any way—hot anger, cold fear, queasy anxiety, sinking sadness, and . . . gnawing hunger.

As Gur trotted into flight, Kaelan’s arms tightened around her waist, his heartbeat quickening against her back, his breath ragged on her neck.

She took another deep breath and another, reminding herself that Kaelan’s feelings for her were instinct only. He loved Honey and wanted her back, she could feel that. She focused on that, and slowly his hunger for her slid away. He relaxed behind her.

They remained tightly pressed together as Gur flew higher, out of the treetops and above, where the sun peeked through thick cloud swells. The world rose and fell below them with each beat of his wings, the subtropical forest giving way to beach and then turquoise blue water. Ahead of them, Anqa’s wings curved in a thin line parallel to the horizon below and the clouds above.

Before Magda could feel relieved that she’d managed to submerge their primal urges, a clawing tightness began to build in her chest. The last time she’d flown it had been dark. And she’d been so focused on getting away from Endreas, so numb from saying goodbye, but now . . .

Her pulse jerked into an erratic and hectic pace. Her hands tightened in Gur’s mane. Her head began to spin, panic taking hold.

Kaelan’s hands squeezed her waist, his arms still wrapped around her.

“Breathe when I breathe,” he said into her ear. “Close your eyes.”

Sweat rolled down her forehead, stinging her eyes. But she couldn’t close them, she couldn’t even blink. “I can’t,”

“Yes, you can.” He leaned into her, pressing his forehead against her hair.

The strength of his emotions redoubled, sweeping into her like a fierce, relentless wind. For a moment, it only added to her panic, as she lost what little control she had over her Rae instincts. Not that she needed that control, because fear was thick upon her. She could feel nothing else.

And then she heard him inside her head.

“
Close your eyes
.”

Some part of her knew that he shouldn’t have been able to speak to her in this way, not unless she’d claimed him. But the Elves had abilities far different from Pixies. She didn’t know any Pixies who could travel through the Shadow Realms the way the Elves did either.

And then her eyes, quite to her surprise, closed.

“
Breathe when I breathe
,” he said.

“
I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I’m going to fall. I’m going to fall. I’m going to fall
.”

Fear whipped around her, tangling and choking and inescapable. The wind rushed by her ears, ripping at her clothes as Gur gained speed heightening the sensations of vulnerability and powerlessness. Against her chest, she felt Hero attempting to send quiet, still feelings into her, but they were too distant and removed. He wriggled out from under her tunic and over her shoulder, fleeing to Kaelan.

She was going to fall. She
was
falling. Though her fingers were dug deep into Gur’s mane, they trembled. They were weak. They wouldn’t hold.

In vain, she tried to regain something of whatever it was that had prevented her from suffering this feeling before. How she’d been so intent on getting away from Endreas; how bone-weary she’d been; how she’d just needed to get back to . . .

But now these thoughts only seemed to intensify the downward spiral.

Suddenly, Kaelan’s legs swung forward, twining around hers. He gripped the back of her neck and pushed her down against the curve of Gur’s spine and head. His weight pressed down on top of her back. Sucking in the thick musk and rough strands of Gur’s mane spiked her fear to a nearly unbearable height. Now she really couldn’t breathe.