“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 on to 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.
