“It’s so beautiful,” Blaire marveled, her expression dreamy as usual. Although, it screwed up into a frown when she added, “You’re always so lucky.”
Maeve shrugged. “You can have it, I suppose.”
“No!”
They all looked up in surprise at Sorcha. Clearing her throat, Sorcha insisted, “No. You have to keep it, Maeve. It’s…important.”
Maeve narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“He...didn’t tell you?”
“He was too busy flying away.” Leaning over the kitchen table, Maeve said, “Tell me what you know.” Her curiosity was far too itchy.
Twisting a curl around her finger, Sorcha admitted,“Manticores have fated mates, like dragons and fae do. They know they’ve found theirs when a single feather drops.”
Maeve’s stomach sank. “M-mates?”
“Couldn’t it just be molting?” asked Blaire.
“It can happen anytime,” Sorcha answered, her gaze catching on Maeve’s. “When they first see their mate…”
The room went eerily silent, the women of her family turning concerned,pityinglooks upon Maeve.
She itched in a new way, bile burning her throat at the sight of their pity.
And why not—it was piteous, wasn’t it?
So their Mister Soren discovered Maeve was his mate—and ran away as quick as he could.
No explanation, no declaration.
His look of sheer panic echoed in her mind.
A humorless laugh escaped Maeve’s lips. She didn’t hear it, though. All she heard was the ringingcrackof her own pride breaking into even smaller pieces.
4
Soren avoided it as long as he could—he took to the winds, letting them carry him along, commiserating with the eagles and the geese and the migrating swallows returned from the south—but after two days, his wings were tired, his stomach was empty, and histurukwas a mere thread from feral.
Winging down beneath the tree canopy, Soren landed inelegantly in the meadow before Balar and Imogen’s cottage. Shaking out his mane and the cobwebs from his mind, he slunk through the grassy meadow, unsurprised to find Diar and Akila already there, sunbathing.
Neither bothered to get up from their lounging to greet him, though they did both crack an eye to track his slump across the meadow.
“Well, well, look what the wind’s blown in,” chuckled Akila.
“Seems our brother mistook himself for an albatross, thinking he could stay up there forever,” Diar said.
Acknowledging them with only a grunt of disgust, Soren pulled open the door and ducked inside the cottage.
A fragrant wash of scents greeted him. That’s right, it was cooking day. Imogen, ever practical, liked to get most of her cooking done in a single day, leaving the loaves and stews and jams to last over several more before she had to cook again—and wash the dishes, her least favorite thing to do, she claimed.
Although she now had five mantii to help around her modest farm, it also meant five voracious mouths to feed. Balar was more than happy to cook—or wrangle one of them to do it—but Imogen claimed they were all useless at cleaning dishes.“But excellent at dirtying them,”she’d add with a smirk.
Soren found not just Imogen and Balar but Kiri, too, within the cottage. With the windows open to let in the breeze and let out the steam, as well as a dozen glass jars and a big bowl of red mash, he realized he’d just walked into jamming.
“Thereyou are,” called Balar. “Thought you could get out of it, did you?”
He knew his brother likely meant the jamming and other farm chores, but Soren’s ears flattened sheepishly.There’s no avoiding a kigara—not with a turuk still intact.
