I exhale hard. “Am I safe?”
“With us?” Daisy’s shoulders deflate, her pretty eyes glinting with remorse. “Yes, of course you are. I know that I recite protocol and vows, but that is because I am trying to protect you. All of you.”
I smile at that. “I know.”
The quiet drags through the air as we absorb everything, as we make room inside our consciousness for moving forward with secrets and truths and… Trust that now wraps us together with twine made of silk.
And I am the one they are counting on.
For answers.
For guidance.
That wasn’t what I expected or wanted, but I feel responsible for throwing our peaceful, simple lives into disarray. Just by being me, I’ve messed things up.
Daisy shuffles along the emerald grass when Odio’s arrowed glare becomes too hot on us. “Do you think he can understand us?”
The great winged deity stares sideways, beady-eyed but magnificent, at our joined hands.
It makes me wonder how tame he is… Or not. Is he like Rome? Deep down, he is longing to have his feathers stroked. I doubt Rome ever offers him gentle attention.
“I don’t think he understands much,” I assure them, though I do not know for certain. “And what he does, he cannot exactly repeat, can he? Animals have energy. We do, too. I was never afraid of him. And even less today.”
I pull my hand from Daisy and hold it up at Odio’s head height, bracing my palm in the air.
He stares at it.
“Come,” I say to him. “Pet?”
He cocks his head and suddenly turns his neck as if sensing an itch, digging his beak into his wings and ripping out a mangled black feather the length of my forearm.
I lower my hand. “Next time, then, handsome boy.”
Across the courtyard, the breeze rolls steadily, the designed environment we exist in sometimes makes it hard to remember that outside The Estate walls, through the trees, there is a dangerous force of unrelenting power—Redwind. Odio sees it every time he hits the skies. Rome sees it when he leaves…
When he leaves Tuscany and me.
Without saying a word.
Not even a goodbye.
I don’t know what he knows.
But I’m going to find out.
“Odio.” I point to the courtyard wall, and the handsome beast cocks his head up from pruning his feathers, a coal-coloured blade in his beak. “Sire. Show me where Sire is.”
Chapter Two
Aster
I follow Odio's shadow as it soars over the grass like a black mist. The crown-light bakes the atmosphere. This time of day can be stifling, the air thick, but I think I am hotter than the environment. Fired with ambition and—nerves.
Small beads of perspiration collect on my brows, as Odio guides me through The Estate, between renewed Romanesque buildings and down lanes, until his shadow climbs up a stone wall—
I stop, staring ahead at the entrance to a hall.
Right. I look up to the sky, to the cloudy outline of an eagle. “He is in there?”
Odio hovers in the red haze.
Straightening, I take a big breath in. I’m about to walk with my head held high when I hear footfalls and a man yell, "You are not permitted in there."
I spin to see a Guard approaching, and brace myself for what I might say to him or if I am even allowed to speak to him—
Suddenly, Odio lands with a thunderous pulse, and he is not happy, menacing even—wings outstretched, head arched low, eyes like darts. He blocks the man from me.
He lets out long screech, and the wave of his sound trips the Guard backward with its intent and warning. Puffs his chest. Scrapes his talons along the stone path, flicking loose rocks and dirt. I've never seen him behave like this, which means he's never been aggressive toward me, not once.
"I yield, Odio!" The Guard scurries backward on the floor with one hand raised in surrender.
Blinking at the spectacle, I decide it’s now or never. I slowly turn and walk between the twin marble pillars and into a grand foyer with high-painted ceilings and two elaborate wooden doors at the far end.
Voices come from behind one of the doors almost instantly. I peer back at the entrance, seeing Odio steadfast, and other Guards beyond him, trying to soothe the giant beast.
“You're going to trust the eagle to be her Guardian?” I hear a voice say, drawing my chin back to the door.
“I trust his loyalty more than I trust yours,” Rome states, his deep, otherworldly timbre resonating in my toes, flooding me with an ocean of tangible memories. The feel of his weight on me, his mouth at my forehead, and that powerful voice spilling praise across my skin.
My nipples bead and my core clutches and kneads together, wanting his pressure.
Shit.
I stifle a moan.
“That is truly hurtful, Sire.” The other man says, genuine offence lacing his tone. “I am your brother. We may not see eye to eye on certain political matters, but your heir is mine, too.”
“So, it's you.”
I walk to the door and press my ear to it.
“What is me?”
“You will not have an heir,” Rome confirms.
“Cairo—"
“Said nothing of you.”
Leaning away from the door, I wrestle internally with what to do. Stay. Listen. Leave. Mind my own business.
“Correct. I will not have an heir.”
Who will have no heir… his brother?
I hold my breath to the beat of my heart, the torturous silence amplifying the frantic organ. It’s too quiet, so inadvertently, I lean in again, my ear meeting the wooden grain, stamping it with sweat from my cheek.
“So, Aster will carry our blood into the next generations,” the man who must be Turin Two says. He is talking about me. They all know. “Her safety, now that it's no secret, is a matter of great importance to me.”
“You are Warden of The Estate,” Rome’s smooth utterance sails with further meaning. “You know every inch of it. You can ensure it is locked down and secure.”
“And the eagle?”
“I trust no man or woman to watch my little Silk Girl and not want to taste what is between her pretty thighs. I know I was unprepared for her affect, and I'm a far stronger being than most.”
My affect? On him?
My heart doesn’t just race; it gallops.
But then the room falls silent, as if everyone inside dissolved in one of my raging heartbeats.
Pulse pounding, I press my entire body to the door, no breathing, no words, just the lingering echoes of his last sentence to hook me and then dangle me—
The door opens.
I stumble forward into a man’s hands. I look up and see Turin Two, a younger, far more Common looking version of Rome, smiling softly.
My mind stalls.
“Hello, little creature.” Rome’s voice sails from the other side of the room, curling around me effortless with power. “Are your ears extra big today?”
Abruptly, a Guard is at my back.
“Sire, I apologise”—he huffs— “The eagle let her in.”
“Did he?”
A ball of nerves and regret expands in my throat.
What the hell was I thinking, barging in on him?