Taming the Queen of Beasts

RETH

They hadn't slept. Not really. Hours spent curled together and clinging. Whispered conversations punctuated by tears, and sometimes laughter. Memories of twenty years relived in moments and hours.

Reth had never felt so exhausted in his entire life—and so energized. So unwilling to lose time to sleep. They did doze at some point in the afternoon. But when the apologetic Protector came to wake them while it was still light, but the sun was beginning to droop behind the mountain, they were already half-awake. Neither of them speaking with words, but their bodies speaking for them—unwilling to be parted.

Letting her out of his arms, even just to dress, felt like tearing off his skin.

When they'd dressed and rolled up the furs, they turned to each other. Elia put her arms around his waist and raised her head, craning her neck back to meet his eyes. She was pale and tired, her hair dull and eyes shadowed.

She'd never looked more beautiful.

They forced themselves to eat, then climbed into the hammock for the last night of travel. Reth got in first, laying on his side and opening his arms to reach for her. Elia slid in beside him, curling her head under his chin, her knees up almost to her chest. And he wrapped his body around her, cradling her to him as the birds took off with them in those sweeping flaps that raised the hammock in stomach-lurching leaps.

It had been warm on the ground at the edge of the desert. But the desert was bitterly cold at night, and as the sun disappeared the temperature dropped quickly.

Within an hour they were shivering and the birds, struggling to keep up the pace as their muscles cooled, were beginning to lower altitude.

"What's happening?" Elia whispered nervously when they felt themselves dropping slowly as if they would land.

"It must be too cold even for them," Reth said, stroking her hair. "Don't worry, Love, they know what they're doing."

She nodded against his chin and they curled closer. As the temperature rose to something closer to bearable and she stopped shivering, she fell asleep, lulled by the bob of the hammock and the warmth of their bodies curled together.

Reth was relieved for her, she needed rest. But he also wanted to snarl. They had only hours now. He wanted to lose himself in her eyes, talk about the kids, remember the best of their lives…

He swallowed back both grief and anger and made himself stay still so that he wouldn't wake her. She likely wouldn't sleep long. It seemed like when either of them rested, they were yanked out of the peace of it by—

One of the birds called, a piercing cry, and the hammock shuddered in the same moment a massive crack and boom seemed to fill the sky. Reth's first thought was lightning, but there was no accompanying flash of light.

Elia came awake with a gasp, grabbing at him. "Reth, what—?"

There was another boom, and the hammock began to tilt, then sway. The birds, calling to each other, one of them clearly struggling, began to descend in a wide circle, one of them flapping wildly, while the others soared. Cries and piercing whistles cut through the night like a blade.

Then there was a third boom and they both gasped as the hammock went slack on one corner above their heads.

"Reth!"

"Hold on, Elia!"

He'd already wrapped her in his arms, but now he curled over her as the hammock jolted like it had been punched. And over Elia's head, pulled under his chin, he saw a hole that had opened, just an inch shy of his leg.

The humans were shooting.

Everything went quiet in Reth's mind as the hammock swayed sickeningly and he pulled Elia in, attempting to put his body between her and the attack.

But they were dropping fast now, his stomach rising into his throat as the free corner of the hammock flapped and snapped in the wind, and the birds screamed their cries, spinning and looping as they descended.

The booms continued, and Reth and Elia were tilted, first one way, then another, his beautiful mate shrieking when all support fell away from their feet and they began to slide. Reth snarled and grasped the edge of the hammock with one hand, the other arm pinned around her. She clung to his neck as he held them both in the tilting fabric, as it seemed they would be poured out into the sky.

Another bird screamed and Reth realized there were two of them on the hammock now. He opened his mouth to scream at them not to give up when, without warning, the third bird suddenly fell away and as he tightened his grip on Elia and sucked in a breath to scream, they hit the dirt in a bone-crunching thud.

*****

Winded and his body alight with pain, Reth lay there, mouth open, unable to suck in air, and he wondered if he was still alive. Then he managed a tiny lungful of air and scrambled for Elia—pushing the canvas back and away to find her, wide-eyed and  winded.

"Love! Are you—?"

"I'm… I don't think anything's broken."

They lay, unmoving for a moment as Reth tried to find his bearings with a spinning head and nerves screaming pain.

Distantly they heard screams and bellows. The crack and boom of what had to be the human guns.

"Stay low," Reth whispered, then raised just his head, slowly.

Scanning their surroundings in a circle, he found other mounds and forms scattered in the distance.

But just a few feet to his left, the crumpled form of a body that had been a beautiful bird just minutes earlier made Reth's chest clench tighter. The male was still moving, but now in human form—dying—his hands clawing at the dirt weakly, as if he tried to fly again.

Hissing at Elia to stay down, Reth crawled through the dirt towards the male.

The bird's eyes widened when he appeared next to him, brushing hair back from the male's sweat-sheened brow. His chest rose and fell in short gasps, and there was blood pooling under his side.

"Brother, I—" Reth said, taking his hand and gaping, helpless as another boom and crack echoed through the night, and another bird screamed.

"Y-you have t-to run, Reth," the male gasped. "Phyo is… got away… will tell the.. the others…"

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