Darkness Bound (26 page)

As anyone who’s ever been in love knows, time isn’t a fixed thing. Time is flexible. It bends. It stretches. It even stops, curling back on itself like a cresting wave, so that a single moment can be lived over and over with the suspended weightlessness of infinity.

Propped up on one elbow on the bed, floating in that weightless space where lovers often find themselves, Hawk stared down at Jacqueline. Content, awash in a sensation he thought could most closely be described as bliss—was this what heaven felt like?—he drifted on a current outside the place where clocks tick and watch hands turn and sundials tell their tales with growing shadows.

“Are you hungry?” He was whispering, unwilling to break the spell. Stretched out nude beside him, their legs intertwined, Jacqueline reached up and gently stroked his cheek.

“You’ve been hand-feeding me fruit and sweets all night. How could I possibly be hungry?” She was whispering, too, and her soft laugh sent a shiver of happiness through him. He leaned down to nuzzle her neck.

“I had to make sure you kept your strength up,” he said, and they laughed together.

Hours and hours of lovemaking, beautiful as poetry, raw and tender and altogether unforgettable. How had he ever thought emotionless encounters with females he didn’t really know or care for were fulfilling? Those empty couplings seemed now as hollow as seashells at the shore: pretty, lovely trinkets, but ultimately dead.

“Well, it certainly worked.” She kissed him, running her foot up the back of his calf. “Why do you call yourself Hawk, anyway?” she said against his mouth. “You’re not a bit birdlike, as far as I can tell.”

He smiled, gazing down into her soft eyes. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

She shrugged, coy, and he swatted her bare bottom.

“Don’t you dare start that again!” she squealed, pushing against his chest. It didn’t move him, of course. Nothing could move him from his present spot, attached to her side securely as a barnacle.

“You loved it,” he said, his voice thick.

“Shut up and tell me about your silly nickname,” she demanded, smiling at him, and his heart swelled inside his chest.

“First I want to take a look at your back. Sit up.”

Her response was to yawn. A shiver ran through her body. All her muscles pulled tight, then she relaxed back against the mattress with a contented sigh. “Still can’t feel anything. I’m sure it’s fine.”

Fine
was something he very much doubted. He needed to inspect it with his own eyes. He’d been careful—as careful as he could be while in an altered state of crazed lust—but now he was beginning to realize he might have unintentionally hurt her, and
kalum
’s spirit vine concoction ensured she was in no state to feel a thing.

I wonder what she’ll feel about last night when it wears off.

He pushed aside that thought with ruthless determination. Time was still on his side, and he was going to enjoy every single second of it.

“Up.” He righted himself and pulled her along with him.

She grumbled and groused as he gently turned her away and brushed her hair over her shoulders. Then he stared in silence at what he saw.

The skin of her back was no longer raw. It wasn’t healed, per se, but neither was it broken. It was striped pink and white in a raised crisscross pattern from her shoulders to six inches above her waist, a pattern that should have still been oozing blood and pus. It wasn’t. She would most definitely be scarred, but the healing process was . . . well, it was remarkable.

He owed
kalum
big time.

“I told you it was fine,” Jacqueline said, smiling lazily at him over her shoulder. “You should listen to everything I say from now on. Clearly I’m always right.”

“Oh,
really
?” Equal parts relieved and amused, he wriggled his fingers into the curve of her waist, and she shrieked.

“No tickling! I hate tickling!” She leapt from the bed, but he was faster. He caught her up in his arms before she could take two steps, and held her tight against his chest.

“I bet it’s one of those things you
say
you don’t like, but you actually love,” he teased, loving her weight and warmth in his arms. “Like spanking.”

“Or like you,” she said, her head tilted down, gazing up at him from beneath her lashes.

It hit him like a wrecking ball in the chest. He froze. His heart stuttered to a dead stop.

Or like you.

She was toying with him. She was incoherent. She was just teasing.

Right?

She can’t lie.
She can’t lie.

Kalum
’s words started up a broken-record repetition inside his mind again, and he had to force himself to draw breath into his lungs or he’d pass out cold with her in his arms.

“I want to hear about your nickname!” she insisted, winding her arms around his neck, and resting her head against his shoulder, acting as if nothing had just happened at all. Acting as if his entire universe hadn’t slid off the edge of existence and exploded in space.

“Ah . . . I . . . it’s not very . . .” Hawk swallowed, blinking past his disbelief and the blind, aching hope that had stunned him like a two-fisted punch.

“Tell me.” She pressed a kiss to the hollow of his throat.

He closed his eyes briefly, willing himself calm. Willing the room to stop spinning madly. “It’s easier if I show you,” he said, then gently set her on her feet.

He pulled on a pair of pants, selected a clean chemise for her from the dresser, and helped her into it. Then, threading her fingers through his, he stepped out onto to the porch that surrounded the room, leaned against the wood railing, and looked out over the rainforest, training his eyes to the upper canopy and emergent far above.

When she looked up at him, questioning, he said, “Wait a moment.”

She watched him, waiting, while he scanned the sky.

They stood in silence for several minutes. Then he saw it.

A harpy eagle.

His Gift was effective with any kind of bird, from hummer to parrot to toucan, but the harpy eagle was his favorite. The largest and most powerful of the raptors of the Americas, it was named after the harpies of ancient Greek mythology, the wind spirits that took the dead to Hades and were said to have the body of an eagle and the face of a woman.

In Portuguese, the eagle was called
gavião-real
. Royal hawk.

It soared far above, a black-and-white blur against vivid blue, hunting. Hawk wrapped his hand tightly around Jacqueline’s. “Close your eyes.”

She did. Then Hawk released himself from his body, and because their hands were grasped, he was able to take Jacqueline along for the ride.

A rushing; the sensation of gravity pulling in the wrong direction, a roaring in his ears, and then it was done.

The rainforest lay vast and sparkling beneath them, carpeting the landscape for mile upon endless emerald mile. He wheeled to the right, tucked his wings against his body and fell into a sharp dive, relishing the wind on his face, seeing every dewdrop on every leaf, the air scented of earth and rain and river. Jack was with him, tethered by the connection of their hands, flesh upon flesh, conducting magic through their veins, and he felt her exhilaration and shock as if it were his own.

She felt no fear. Only pure, astonished delight. With a cry of joy that pierced the morning sky, Hawk opened his wings and flew higher.

He rolled. He banked and wheeled and soared. He flew high and low, grazing the treetops, skimming the dark, serpentine Rio Negro—spotting the mirror flash of piranha and the pale ghosts of river dolphins below—then coasted higher on a warm updraft. On the other side of the rise, the Earth fell away abruptly, and there was only wind and air and sky, blinding blue. He flew higher still, and below the land curved gently away in either direction.

He’d never shared this with another living soul.

For another thirty minutes he played, showing her all his favorite spots—the small caves behind the waterfall, all the hidden grottos and pools and glens he haunted in his wild and lonely youth—until by the end of it, his wings ached and his hunger had grown to a sharp, gnawing thing, demanding to be sated.

He didn’t think he’d subject Jacqueline to that particular activity, so he released the bird and came rushing back into his body, as did she into hers, both where they’d left them, standing empty and motionless on the porch in dappled morning sunlight.

Hawk turned to her after the final jolt of reconnection, just in time to watch her fall flat on her behind on the floor.

“Oh!” she said breathlessly, stunned and round-eyed, her legs sticking straight out in front of her and her hands pressed to either side of her head. “Oh!”

He knelt beside her, cupped his hand around the back of her neck. “Are you all right?”

In answer, she began to laugh.

“That was—
amazing
! Hawk! Oh my God!”

“I take it you enjoyed yourself,” he said, feeling enormously happy and more than a little smug. She was staring at him in a way that made him want to stomp around the room, beating on his puffed-out chest with his fists.

“I can’t believe it! How do you do it? What do you call it?”

“I do it just by concentrating, basically. I’ve always had this fascination with birds, and one day when I was twelve years old I was sitting in a fig tree, staring at this beautiful nighthawk on a branch above me, when suddenly I was . . . inside its mind. I saw through its eyes, like we just did with the harpy eagle. Only it shocked me so much I fell out of the tree and landed on my head. Fortunately, my head has the consistency of a rock, so I wasn’t hurt.” He laughed, helping Jacqueline to her feet. “I ran back into the colony screaming, ‘Hawk! Hawk!’ because I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and from then on everyone started calling me Hawk. After that, I learned to control it in secret, experimenting with every kind of bird. There isn’t a name for it, or at least if there is I don’t know it. There hasn’t ever been another one who could do it in the tribe’s history.”

“In secret? Why?”

He brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. “Because I hate politics, that’s why. If word got out that I had this unusual Gift, I’d be expected to challenge the Alpha for his position at the top of the food chain. It’s bad enough I have to live this restricted life . . .
I could never be in charge of forcing everyone else to. And that’s what being an Alpha’s all about. They put the ‘dick’ in dictator.”

She studied his face for a moment, her big blue eyes shining with something like pride. “Melder,” she pronounced. “That’s what you should call it. You’re a Melder.”

“Melder.” He tried it out, unsure.

“A Mind Melder! Yes!” She clapped and hopped in place, gleeful as a child on holiday. “Can you only do it with birds? What about other animals? What about with—” She broke off.

“What is it?”

“Does . . . does this mean you can get inside my mind?”

Strange, but she looked almost hopeful. He drew her into the circle of his arms and rested his chin atop her head. “No. I’ve tried it with different animals, and people, too, but I only have the connection with birds. Though I admit being able to read your mind is something I’d love to be able to do.”

She tilted her head up and gazed at him, eyes wide. “You can ask me anything, Hawk,” she said softly. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

A terrible thought took seed. It sank its roots deep into the darkest, most selfish parts of him, grabbing hold with greedy claws. He pushed it back, but it held on, stubborn as a case of hiccups.

She can’t lie
.
Grow some balls and find out the truth. Ask the three most important questions that will ever pass your lips:

Do you love me? Will you be mine? Will you turn your back on everything you used to know, and run away with me?

What if she said no? Even more terrifying . . . what if she said
yes
?

Fighting himself, he turned his head away, stared out into the sea of restless green.

She rested her head on his bare chest. “Do you get tired, after?”

Hawk smiled. “After?”

“Not after that, gutter mind,” she said, stifling a yawn. “After the flying thing. Melding.”

“Oh.” He thought about it. “Not particularly. Why? Do you feel tired?”

“Mmm. It’s a side effect of adrenaline overloads. Afterward I get sleepy.”

He whispered in her ear, “You sure it’s adrenaline? I think maybe I’m just too hot for you to handle, Red. My charisma alone could suck all the energy from the sun, and that’s not even getting into how much of a stud I am in the sack.”

She bent down and nipped his nipple with her teeth.

“Ow!”

“Oh, did you feel that?” she said, looking up at him. “I thought maybe your giant ego would be in the way.”

“All right, you.” He bent his knees, lifted her up in his arms, swung around, and carried her back to the bed. “Time for a nap. But don’t think you’re going to be sleeping for too long, because I have
plans
.”