Under His Wings (17 page)

“I like the sound of that,” the blond drawled. “Take note,
boys.
The
Bastien.” He stepped forward, ignoring his friends’ snickers.
Taking her hand in his, he bowed low, the move as smooth as any medieval
nobleman and at complete odds with his modern speech and dialect. “You must be
Tamar.” He straightened, a faint twist to his mouth. His green eyes narrowed
and slid to Nicolai. “And you’re human.”

Chapter Nine

The low-burning flames in the fireplace of Nicolai’s bedroom
flickered over Tamar’s sleeping face and body. Though the calendar read June,
the nights were much cooler in the high altitude of the mountains. While he
didn’t need the heat the fire provided, Tamar did, her human system not able to
regulate its temperature like he could.

Nicolai stroked a bent knuckle down her cheek, her skin as
butter soft as it appeared. The fire lent her dark-wheat curls a reddish tint
as if the fiery spirit that danced inside her had made its way outside to rest
on her lovely spirals.

He lifted a thick coil and entwined it around his finger.
His hippogryph sighed deep within him, sated, pleased to be next to the woman
both man and beast loved. When she’d dashed across the yard earlier and thrown
herself against him, both sides of him had growled one word.
Home.

It didn’t make sense and yet while he’d hurried back to her,
Bastien at his side, Nicolai had decided to stop trying to find reason in
something that defied logic. He’d fallen in love with a human. He’d connected
with her on a level that transcended sex, tradition and intellect.

He’d bonded with her in a way that exceeded the love he’d
had with Pria.

It saddened him to admit that—it seemed to trivialize what
he and his wife had shared when nothing could be further from the truth. He’d
loved his wife, adored her. But the consuming, primal cleaving that defined his
link with Tamar was different from that love—and stronger. It was…necessary.

He’d dreamed of Pria.

But Tamar
was
his dream. His everything.

Beside him she shifted, the movement agitated, twitchy.

He frowned, allowed her hair to slide from his grip and
studied her squirming figure. She whimpered, flipped from her side to her
stomach and curled her arms under her chest. The scent—the human and
other
scent that had confused him since meeting her—shimmered from her skin like heat
waves from a sidewalk in the middle of summer. Alarm flared in his chest and he
reached out to wake her.

He halted, his hand in midair.

Her skin rippled.

As he stared in rapt fascination, the muscles along her back
flexed, contracted and fucking
rippled
. As if a living being writhed
beneath her flesh, struggling to break past the barrier of her skin.

Shocked and horrified, Nicolai threw back the light blanket
he’d pulled over her earlier. He leaned closer until his nose almost brushed
her spine. Tamar moaned, shuddered, but didn’t awaken. Crooning softly to her
even though he doubted she could hear him, Nicolai examined the smooth expanse
of her back.

Holy shit.

Trembling, he prodded a hard ridge that protruded next to
her spine. It swelled and thickened under his fingertip then contracted,
disappearing beneath her flesh.

A wing blade.

The thin, bony row was identical to the line of muscle and
tendon where Nicolai’s wings emerged when in human form.

His heart set up a thunderous beat, like the pounding of the
surf against rocks, drowning out everything but the terror that crawled through
him. Sliding lower, he inspected the backs of her thighs and calves. Tamar was
a fit woman. Her daily exercise regimen kept her body toned and defined.

But no amount of training could produce the elbow-like joint
that jutted out of her calf.

A mare’s hock.

He stiffened, a sickening realization dawning on him even as
he fought the truth that couldn’t be denied but was too impossible to accept.

Nicolai stumbled from the bed and dragged on the jeans he’d
dropped on the floor. With jerky, uncoordinated hands, he drew the cover back
up around her shoulders and carefully tucked it around her sleeping form.

The implications of what he’d witnessed drove him from the
room and down the stairs. Horror ripped through him like a devastating storm,
leaving nothing untouched. Not his thoughts, his emotions or his heart.

Snapshots of her contorting body flashed on the screen of
his mind. What did it mean?
It just isn’t fucking possible.
It must be
something else. Something that made sense because the road his suspicion
skipped down defied reason.

He snatched the back door open and stalked onto the porch.
Shoving his hands in the rear pockets of his jeans, he paced to the end of the
deck, head lowered.

Tamar
. He ground his teeth together.
What have I
done?

“Can’t sleep?”

His head snapped up and whipped toward the opposite end of
the porch.

Bastien reclined on the wooden swing, one foot propped on
the back of the seat and the other on the floor. His green eyes glittered out
of the shadows like jewels.

Damn. Nicolai scrubbed a hand down his face before kneading
his neck. He hadn’t even noticed the other male when he’d come outside.

“No,” Nicolai said, sounding weary to his own ears. He
crossed the deck and sank to the railing, his spine pressed to one of the
wooden posts. With a tired sigh, he locked his arms over his chest and stared
at Bastien’s bare foot.

“Care to share with the rest of the class?”

Nicolai lifted his head and met his friend’s gaze.

Slowly, Bastien’s leg lowered from the top of the swing and
settled on the floor next to its mate. All hints of lazy nonchalance evaporated
as he straightened from his sprawl. The indolent smile fell away and his face
hardened. His gaze sharpened and focused on Nicolai with scalpel-like
precision.

“What’s wrong?” he murmured.

The words jammed in Nicolai’s throat, a huge fist of denial.
Maybe if he didn’t voice his fears, they wouldn’t be true. Putting his
suspicions out there, having them hang in the air like a fucking Pop-Up Video
would make what he’d seen upstairs a fact.

“Nicolai,” Bastien urged softly.

“Shit,” he said, turning his head and peering sightlessly
across the dark yard and into the silent forest. Anxiety and regret coalesced
in his chest, swirling into a great ball of pressure, building and building
until it forced the confession up his throat and out of his mouth. “I think
Tamar is turning into a hippogryph.”

When silence greeted his admission, Nicolai shifted, facing
Bastien again. Instead of the condemnation or disbelief he’d expected, he
encountered a contemplative expression from the healer.

“Start from the beginning.”

The calm, clinical statement steadied him. Without
hesitation, he poured out the entire story. Beginning with the dreams he and
Tamar shared to Evander’s attack to Tamar’s troubling symptoms, and ending with
his discovery tonight.

Throughout the telling, Bastien listened without
interruption, his head bent and tilted to the side. When Nicolai finished, the
healer remained quiet and Nicolai could imagine his friend’s brain processing
and recycling the information. Again, the attentive reflection soothed him.
Bastien was a gifted healer and a friend, and Nicolai trusted him with this
problem and the life of the woman he loved.

“You’re right,” Bastien finally said, his tone matter of
fact. “She is changing.”

The discordant twang of hope dying reverberated in Nicolai’s
soul.

His arms dropped from his chest and his fingers curled
around the railing, sharp talons ripping past his fingernails to dig into the
wood. He clung to it as if his desperate grip was the only thing keeping him
weighted to the ground.

“How?” he asked, the question no more than a hoarse, pained
rasp.

“You’ve mated with Tamar. Bonded with her.”

Nicolai shook his head before Bastien had finished his
sentence. “No,” he whispered. “That’s not possible. She’s human. We can’t mate
with humans. And I had my bondmate. Pria.”

“That’s not exactly true. We
don’t
mate with humans.
Very different from can’t.”

“Fucking semantics, Bastien,” Nicolai growled and fought the
urge to choke the other man. Tamar’s life was on the line and Bastien squabbled
over words like they were worth thirty damn Scrabble points.

“The law against mating with humans was established to
prevent us from doing it not because we cannot. The reasons are very
valid—their mortality, fragility, inability to bear our children. But there’s
another cause. One your father wouldn’t want our people to know—and why your
Tamar would be executed if her existence were discovered.”

Nicolai’s breath snagged, faltered, and then he exhaled.

“Tell me,” he demanded, feeling as if he teetered on the
edge of a great precipice.

Bastien leaned forward, propped his elbows on his thighs and
balanced his chin on top of his clasped hands.

“About one thousand years ago when my father was still the
healer, a hippogryph bonded with a female human. Her mortal body couldn’t
accept the transformation.” Bastien paused, his unblinking gaze pinned to
Nicolai’s face. “She was ripped apart.”

“
No.
” Nicolai launched to his feet, fists raised as
if he could fight Bastien’s words with quick jabs and punches. Bleak despair
and helplessness pressed down on him. His beast roared inside him, clawed to be
set free and meet this enemy who threatened Tamar. But there was nothing to
battle or destroy. He, who had faced and defeated countless adversaries, was
powerless.

“There’s more, Nico,” Bastien said. “Father confided in me
though the king forbade him or the male from speaking of it. Apparently the
king believed if our people knew other species could be converted, it would be
bad politics.” His mouth twisted into a wry, humorless smile. “Father admitted
that while the male had mated with the human, she hadn’t accepted the bond. The
woman was psychic—they shared the same ability to call the storm—but he didn’t
know. By falling in love with a woman with the same gift and spilling his seed
in her, he kick-started the bonding process. But the male hid from her who—or
rather
what
—he was. When he realized what was happening, he finally
revealed his hippogryph form to her and she ran from him, horrified. But it was
too late…and she died.”

“But we’ve only had sex twice,” Nicolai objected,
desperately clutching at any thread of hope. “And one of those times we used
protection.”

“The dreams, Nico.” Bastien rose from the porch swing and
tucked his hands in the pockets of his pants. “From what you said she’s been
dreaming about you for three years and you’ve been together physically in them
over the last six months. If she truly is a dream-walker, the mating process
could have started then, when you became lovers in the dreams. The male and
human I told you about had been together a year before he noticed the changes.”

Bastien shrugged. “I wish I could give you more definite
answers, but there’re simply not enough precedents. My best deduction is when
you had unprotected sex in real life instead of the dreams, it accelerated the
process that had already begun. What we do know for certain cannot be refuted,
though. When a male hippogryph bonds with a human who has the same gifts, his
seed will trigger a physiological and biological change. Her beast will emerge
as if the female is of our race instead of human.”

That killed the protest on Nicolai’s lips. He could no
longer deny the truth. Their shared gift. His hippogryph’s reaction toward her.The scent she carried that was human, yet not human. The soul-deep
primitive need to protect and touch her.

Somehow, in spite of already having mated once in his life,
he’d bonded with Tamar.

“One more thing.”

Nico’s bark of laughter rang in the night, bitter and
ragged. “More?”

“It’s about Pria.” Bastien stepped forward. “I’ve been
thinking about this since seeing Tamar’s stunning resemblance to your wife.”
His emerald eyes narrowed, his unwavering regard turning speculative. “You said
you dreamed of Pria prior to meeting her.”

“Yes,” Nicolai said, nodding. “It’s how I realized she was
my mate.”

“Right,” his friend murmured. He freed a hand from his
pocket and tapped his bottom lip. Nicolai recognized the thoughtful gesture.
Bastien had retreated to the methodical, analytical section of his mind. “But
unlike with Tamar, you never mentioned whether or not you and Pria shared
dreams. It stands to reason that if Tamar dreamed of you, then Pria would have
as well. Did she?”

“Yes, of course. I—” Nicolai stopped. “She
was
a
dream-walker.”

“I don’t believe so.” Bastien prowled several feet away then
retraced his steps. “After Pria died and you took up the role as
Dimios
again, I investigated Pria’s lineage.”

Nicolai gaped at him, stunned, but the simmer of anger
brewed in his gut. “Why?”

“Because it was unheard of for a hippogryph to lose a mate
and not chose to either die with them or go into
nepenthe
. You were the
first.”

“So…what?” Nicolai snapped. “I became an experiment for you?
One of your scientific trials?”

Surprise lifted Bastien’s brow. “What? No.” His face lost
the “doctor” detachment and he glared at Nico, looking offended and ready to
throw a punch. “I wanted to discover the truth for you. If there was any way to
alleviate even a portion of your suffering, I hoped to find it. And I wondered
if the answer might lie in your behavior.”

Bastien threw him another glower. “I learned Pria’s parents
were bondmates so the gift she inherited was passed down through both paternal
and maternal lines. Pria’s parents were not dream-walkers but pyrokinetic. Pria
couldn’t have been your bondmate.”

Shock, sickening and paralyzing, somersaulted in Nico’s
stomach like a gymnast on speed. He couldn’t have heard Bastien correctly over
the din roaring in his ears.

“I’m sorry,” Bastien said softly. “I wanted to tell you but
it would have caused you more pain, not comfort.”