Atonement Sky, page 20
part #9 of Psy-Changeling Trinity Series
Her fingers settled against his left wrist, the touch cooler than his own body temperature. “Today, why don’t we act…as if we just met in that hallway? As if the years and the choices of the past don’t stand between us.”
It was a kick to the gut. “Come on, then, pretty girl with the big eyes,” he said, shoving aside all other plans, including his intention to talk to her about their relationship, a mating too long suspended in amber.
The harder conversations could wait until Eleri healed.
Today, he’d give his mate what she’d asked for, be the boy she’d wanted to tend to that long-ago day. “Let me show you my lair…and seduce you into the kiss I wanted to steal the first time I saw you.”
Chapter 25
Dear Aunt Rita,
This is a weird question. I apologize in advance. But I really don’t know anyone else I can ask.
So…I have a falcon changeling friend. We’ve known each other since way back, after we ended up on the same soccer team at school. Only, um, she’s done something very strange: she flew over me the other day—I knew it was her from the markings—and dropped a hunk of meat in my arms.
It was wrapped up in butcher’s paper, and had the seal of a local shop, so I thought she’d dropped her groceries and waited for her to come back. But she didn’t, just sent me a message saying: Did you like it? I got you the prime cut.
Then yesterday, she hovered over me with a package until I opened my arms out of desperation…and caught a roasted leg of lamb sealed up in tinfoil, complete with rosemary sprigs. It was still warm from the oven.
Does my friend need help? Like, should I call a psychiatrist? Please help.
~Soccer Fiend
Dear Soccer Fiend,
This seems to be the edition of the column with food-related queries. I have to say, however, of all the queries I’ve answered over the years, yours is the first one that has made me cackle so hard I couldn’t see through the tears.
I do apologize for my response. It’s just that I thought I’d heard of every food-related shenanigan there was…but no, the raptors always take it to the next level. I suppose bears would do the same if they could fly—literally food bomb the targets of their ardor.
You are beloved, my dear Fiend. However, if you don’t reciprocate your friend’s affections, this could get awkward. If that is the case, then the next time you receive a delivery, you should go immediately to their nesting place and gently hand it back to them saying thank you, but that you don’t need it.
If you do reciprocate…well, invite her to share in the feast.
~Aunt Rita
—From the February 2073 issue of Wild Woman magazine: “Skin Privileges, Style & Primal Sophistication”
They were only ten seconds away from the infirmary when Malia ran around the corner. “Is Jacques awake?” Her eyes shone, her curls pushed back from her face by a glittery headband. “Mom and Dad both said he’s doing much better.”
“No, he’s not awake yet.” Adam didn’t lie to his fledglings, and Malia was mature enough for the complete truth, so he added, “But his brain activity is solid—his body just needs more time to heal.”
Making a high-pitched sound, his niece jumped into his arms, all energy and happiness. He had to release Eleri’s hand to catch her. Laughing, he squeezed her tight. “Where are your manners, little bird?” He tapped her on the nose after he put her down. “Say hi to the reason Jacques is doing better. This is Eleri.”
Malia all but bounced on her toes but knew better than to touch Eleri without permission. “Are you an E?” That she’d figured out Eleri wasn’t changeling or human wasn’t a surprise—Eleri’s expression, the way she held herself, it was all Psy.
All her.
“No, I’m a J.”
“Oh.” Saoirse and Amir’s eldest fledgling frowned before shrugging with teenage insouciance. “Do you hug?”
When Eleri shook her head, Malia released a large exhale. “I highly recommend it. It’s the best. And Uncle Adam’s a gazillion-star expert!” She squeezed him again. “Can I go see Jacques?”
“Not just yet.” He pulled on a single curl with affectionate care. Blackbird tendencies or not, he’d grown up with a sister who had the same curls—he knew better than to mess them up when so much time had clearly gone into separating them out with perfection.
“Ask Naia for permission in a few more days,” he added, “and she’ll make the call.” Jacques wouldn’t mind being surrounded by clan when he was on the road to recovery—it was the idea of being cried over by people who had to watch him die that he’d hated.
“I definitely will!” His niece beamed at Eleri. “Thanks, Eleri!”
Then she was gone, a whirlwind of a child with a falcon’s soaring heart.
Eleri was quiet as she watched after her. “How does it work, you being her uncle and her wing leader?”
“Context.” Adam shrugged. “In daily life, I’m Malia’s uncle, but when it comes to matters of the clan and of discipline, I’m her wing leader. It’s instinctive, that understanding—her falcon understands it so deep that confusion is impossible.”
A nod, but Eleri’s attention was still on where Malia had vanished. “I wonder now that Silence has fallen, if our children will grow up this wild and free…this confident in their right to exist exactly as they are.”
“Why the hell wouldn’t they?” Adam demanded, having caught the hesitation in her tone.
“Our minds make us different from humans and changelings in ways subtle but profound. Control, control is everything.”
Adam raised a hand, sliced out his talons. “Try again.”
Her hand lifted, her fingers brushing his talons in a caress that made his falcon spread its wings inside him, the raptor wanting to show itself to her.
“I’m not sure it’s the same. Because there’s an inherent wildness in this, too.” She touched his talons again. “But telepathy like mine? There’s a pressure to it from the very beginning, an inward threat—because if a changeling doesn’t learn to handle their strength, they might hurt others. If we don’t learn to shield, we will be the ones hurt. Our control is self-protective in a way that teaches us to be wary from childhood.”
“We can argue about that over breakfast.” When he took her hand again, she wove her fingers through his, but her expression was…melancholy?
“It isn’t too late,” he said roughly. “We’re young. A lot of people don’t even meet until after their third or fourth decade.”
The look she sent him was unreadable. “You have to understand, Adam.” A soft plea. “I lost countless pieces of myself in the intervening years. There’s no coming back from this, no future road. Even if I manage to stave off Exposure by a hitherto unknown method, I’m never again going to be who I once was.”
“You’re enough. You’ve always been enough.”
Her eyes shimmered, then went black. “I really am hungry.” A quiet diversion.
Falcons were patient hunters, so he’d be patient, and he’d wait until she was ready to listen, ready to trust. “Then let’s feed you.”
It was late enough by then that only a few clanmates sat in the main kitchen and dining area—which had a massive opening out to the canyon through which fell sunshine bright and warm. On rainy days, it was the wet that came through, and anyone who didn’t want to get it on them just sat further inside.
Today, three clanmates in falcon form sat at the edge, soaking up the sun.
Eleri caught her breath at the sight. “This is a place built for beings with wings,” she said, as if working through her own thoughts. “From the height of the ceilings to the width of the corridors, to these winged roads in and out.”
There were other, more secret exits and entrances, too, literally tunnels drilled into the Canyon through which a full-grown falcon could travel in flight a significant distance before emerging through exits concealed by careful placement of rocks. Created in the lead-up to the Territorial Wars by a wing leader who’d seen trouble fomenting, they meant no falcon would ever be trapped inside the Canyon, even should their enemy hover jet-choppers all around their living area.
He was excited to see his mate’s reaction to the incredible skill of the clan’s ancestors. This morning, however, he wanted to look after her. Like bears, falcons liked to feed their mates during the mating dance. Wild falcons had a habit of dropping dead prey in front of the one they wished to court.
Changelings were a touch more sophisticated—most of the time.
In committed pairs, preening was a profound part of how they showed affection and intimacy; if she let him, Adam could spend an hour just combing Eleri’s hair or massaging oil into every inch of her skin until she was drowsy and half-asleep and all tended.
But even had food held no meaning for him beyond nourishment, he’d have wanted to give it to her, because it was a small thing that brought great joy. It was clear from her thin but strong build that she ate only to fuel her bones and muscles and brain. She didn’t grab a handful of strawberries to snack on because they were sweet and juicy, or sink her teeth into a sandwich overfilled to the brim with her favorite fillings.
What had been done to her, the damage to her brain? Adam couldn’t turn back the clock on that, but he could show her small joys bit by tempting bit. He began by leading her to where today’s kitchen team had laid out the food and let her choose what she wanted. She stuck to relatively bland items, though she did also accept the bowl of fresh-cut fruit salad he scooped up for her.
Small bites of sweetness, crisp and colorful.
While she finished making up her plate, he went into the kitchen, to return with a packet of nutrients she could mix into water or juice; the clan stocked it for Psy friends like Sascha and Judd. “I know you need it after that psychic burn,” he said.
“Yes, nothing else works as well.”
Once he’d grabbed some food, too, he took them over to where Dahlia sat alone at a table that caught the edge of the sunshine. The second had shot them an avidly curious gaze when they walked in, but not intruded—not because she was a falcon, but because she was Dahlia.
Adam’s clanmates could be as nosy as a flock of geese at times.
“You’re raptors!” he’d been known to yell while trying not to laugh. “Have some decorum!”
Now, he slipped in beside Dahlia so that Eleri could have the seat across from him that permitted a view out of the opening into the natural splendor of the canyon. Much as he wanted to hoard Eleri to himself, he wanted more to bring her into his clan, make her part of its living, beating heart.
“Dahlia, this is Eleri. Eleri, Dahlia is my wing-second alongside Jacques.”
Dahlia’s smile was big and open, a thing that had gone missing for too long after her failed wedding. She’d found it again—but it remained far too rare. Adam hated knowing that his generous, courageous clanmate was hurting, but being unable to fix it for her.
“I hear you’re the magician who broke Jacques out of semi-shift jail.” Dahlia lifted her glass of iced tea in a toast. “I’d kiss you if I could.”
Eleri stirred the nutrients into a glass of water, her voice ice when she replied. “Don’t. Js are taught to break arms and other body parts as part of our training.”
Dahlia’s laugh was a huge thing, her eyes ringed by falcon yellow. “Oh, I like you. Especially since you have the best poker face I’ve ever seen—I can’t tell if you’re dead serious or if you’re messing with me.”
Adam had the instinctive sense that it was the latter. Eleri acting as the girl she’d once been? The girl who’d had within her the ability to feel the entire rainbow of emotions, from amusement to anguish. That girl might’ve joked this way with a young Dahlia—and Dahlia, being as tough and blunt as she was, would’ve appreciated such a friend.
“I,” Eleri replied as he sat back and let the two women talk, “once read the memory of a poker player who murdered her partner after said partner colluded with external forces to throw a Las Vegas match for money. Unfortunately for the partner, he underestimated her passion for the game.”
Dahlia poked her fork into a piece of honeydew melon but didn’t bring it to her lips. “Fair enough. I can’t stand cheats, either. How’d she do it?”
“Poisoned his whiskey. Nothing easy, either—a drug that took three days to kill him, all the while making him so sick that he couldn’t get out of bed. She, meanwhile, kept on playing throughout. She was what the media termed a ‘knockout blonde.’ ”
Dahlia whistled. “I think she fits the definition of ‘tough broad’ like in those vintage movies Jacques likes to watch. Can I ask what it was like? Being in her mind?”
Adam stiffened, his protective urges rising to the surface. He knew he should keep his mouth shut—his grandmother would rise from the ashes and slap him upside the head any moment now, but he couldn’t stop himself. Not when Eleri’s face had been a mask of blood so recently.
Then Eleri shot him a look as he went to part his lips. And he wanted to grin. Yes, she was his mate all right; they might not have bonded yet, but she’d known exactly what shit he was about to pull and had called him out on it without saying a word. He shut up…and imagined a lifetime of such piercing knowing between them.
Fuck, he couldn’t wait to live life with her by his side.
There’s no coming back from this, no future road.
Adam’s falcon released its talons inside him. He’d meant what he’d said; he wanted her exactly as she was, exactly as the years had shaped her to be, not some image of perfection—and he planned to make her see that, understand that.
Mates were for always, through every season of life.
“Not all Js like to talk about the minds in which we’ve walked,” Eleri told Dahlia. “But I don’t mind answering about the poker player—her mind was pristine, a house with not a single item out of place.
“She didn’t have obsessive thoughts about murdering and torturing people, would’ve never committed murder if not for her addiction to the game. Even the torturous murder of her former partner was, to her, a fair punishment. She didn’t revel in it. To her, it simply had to be done.”
Dahlia narrowed her eyes as she chewed, swallowed. “That’d be me,” she said at last. “If I were to murder my hypothetical cheating partner. Gotta be done. Nothing personal.”
“No, you have too much passion in you,” Eleri responded. “You’d go into a frenzy. No premeditation.”
Only Adam saw the wistfulness in her gaze, heard it in the voice that seemed to give away nothing. Far from judging her, Eleri envied Dahlia for her ability to feel with such violent depth.
“Well,” Dahlia said after a pause to drink her iced tea, “I did track down my ex and sat there on his balcony at midnight deciding whether or not I wanted to rip off his balls with my talons, so yeah, it’s possible you’re right.”
“Use a knife. Talons would make it obvious it was you.”
Dahlia almost snorted the tea out of her nose.
Grinning, Adam slapped her on the back.
When his second recovered, she said, “You and me, Eleri. We’re going to be best friends.” She glanced at Adam, then at Eleri again, but whatever suspicions she had, she didn’t voice them.
Instead, having finished her meal, she got to her feet. “Time for me to take a short flight to wind down, then rest up for an afternoon shift. We’ll talk about the exact knife later.” A wink aimed at Eleri.
After they were alone, Adam touched his mate’s booted foot with his own. “You like her, don’t you?”
Eleri was overwhelmed in ways she’d never experienced. By this place full of sunlight and warmth. By the man whose legs now bracketed hers, and whose big body sat in a relaxed sprawl that did nothing to hide his deadly core. By the falcons who sunned themselves only feet from her.
By this glimpse at a life she could’ve had.
“Yes,” she managed to say through the emotional deluge strong enough to penetrate the gray wall. “She reminds me of a friend of mine. He can be hot-tempered, too, but he’ll never let you down, always have your back.”
“Bram Priest?”
Chapter 26
Bayani: Ran the sample through my fancy new gadget and got exactly nothing. That’ll teach me to shop late at night and fall for Internet ads about mobile geological survey devices with cutting-edge “diamond laser” tech.
Saoirse: Don’t worry. I tried to see if it’d hold against the shield disrupter we use to test the capacity of our aeronautical shields. I now have a lot of sand in the machine.
Bayani: Why are we like this?
Saoirse: We’re scientists.
—Messages in the Why Is the Canyon Weird investigation group (circa fall 2082)
Eleri stared at Adam. “How do you know Bram?”
“He came to grab your evidence—and threatened me with grievous bodily harm if I’d done anything to you,” Adam drawled with a grin. “You should give him a quick call so he doesn’t come after me.”
She’d all but forgotten that she’d asked Bram to act as courier; she appreciated her task force colleagues, but her relationship with Bram went far beyond trust. She’d wanted to see him, talk through her theories with him, just be in his presence, even if she could no longer feel what she once had when she was around him and the others.
The memory of emotion was enough.
“Bram’s…protective of us,” she said. “There are four of us—me, Bram, Saffron, and Yúzé. All Sensitives. All survivors of multiple reconditionings.”
Adam’s smile faded, his shoulders tight. “He’s not like you.”
“The damage doesn’t express in an identical way in each individual. Yúzé says it’s because the brain is so complex and that reconditioning, despite the Council’s claims to the contrary, was a blunt hammer that cut and bruised different parts with each unique pass.”
