Page 22 of Into Orbit
He smirked again, holding my gaze. ‘She was loud, sir.’
My hearts went still. ‘Loud? Was she ill?Hurt?’
‘No, sir,’ Adair answered. Poppy opened her mouth and then snapped it shut, casting him a ferocious glare. ‘She was well,’ Adair went on, his tone caressing. ‘Very,verywell.Loudly well, if you get my meaning.’
I kept my face expressionless, though I felt anything but. ‘I get your meaning, Third Guard.’ I turned my shoulder to him deliberately, cutting him out of my line of sight and addressing Poppy alone. ‘Any concerns, Second Guard?’
‘No concerns, First Guard,’ Poppy said evenly. ‘The Hamadryad looked … Well, she lookedhappy, sir.’
I stared at her. Elswyth didn’t really dohappy. Content, sometimes. The occasional joy in small moments, always in the Forest. Slight, sad smiles when arcadias bloomed near her heartree. Dutiful pleasure at spending time with her mother. The occasional shocked laugh when I managed to coax forth mirth, always swiftly stifled.
But nothappy.
I gave another nod, mostly because Poppy and Adair were staring at me, and I had to dosomething. ‘May her bonding be long and fruitful,’ I recited woodenly.
Adair tried to catch my gaze as they filed out of the training room, no doubt to smirk again. Poppy shot me a mournful look that I pretended not to see.
The moment the door slid closed behind them, I slammed my fist into the seed pod hanging from the roof.
I punched wildly, until I was panting. ‘You’re her guard, not her bonded,’ I told myself. ‘She’s yours to protect. Nothing more.’
I loved Willow with every fibre of my being. I’d noticed him the moment he’d stepped on board, noticed his lovely jaw and his beautiful eyes and his careful steadiness, and I’d wanted him – wanted to know what lay beneath that calm demeanour, wanted to know the male beneath the measured façade. Wanted to know what he liked and what he didn’t, wanted to know what made him gasp, what made him shake, what made him come apart. I’d known what I was doing – what I was risking – when I’d stopped him in a corridor, when I’d brushed my fingers over his shoulder, when I’d bent my head to whisper in his ear and trailed my lips over the line of thorns. He knew it, too.Are you sure?he’d asked, before he’d pulled me into a storeroom, before he kissed me, before I fell to my knees and took him in my mouth the first time. We’d known what we were doing, and we’d done it willingly, fully aware of what the consequences of our unsanctioned bonding might be.
He was mine and I was his, forever.
But Elswyth had always been in my heart, and she stubbornly refused to leave, no matter how hard I tried to push her from it.
I knew that Willow dreamed of finding a strong, fiercekariawho would be brave enough – or foolish enough, perhaps – to take us both into her family, someone who would challenge him and tame me. He talked about it sometimes, always in the dark, as if he couldn’t quite voice the hope in the light.
I didn’t dream of that, though I had to admit it sounded nice. I dreamed of my Hamadryad, with her changeable eyes and hair made of magic, growing arcadias in her Forest. I dreamed of Willow caring for her body and her soul in the way he did mine, of him cherishing her the way he did me. Sometimes I even dreamed of wrapping her in my arms, holding her tight, keeping her safe. I never let myself imagine anything more; it seemed blasphemous, too dangerous, and my mind skittered away from deeper desires, from those hungers. Elswyth was divine; her body was not for me to dream of.
It seemed that the human female had no such reservations.
I pummelled the seed pod again, so hard that the skin on my knuckles split. I watched it knit back together dispassionately, the wound gone before the green blood had dried on my fingers. I wiped my hand on my leathers and made for the door, pausing only to pick up my ash staff, its smooth surface like a balm.
One of my fathers had carved it before I’d left Tir. It had been far too big for me then – I was only fourteen years old – but I’d grown into it with time. One of my mothers – the one who’d birthed me – had charred a tiny leaf into one side and embossed it with rose gold; I ran my thumb over her design. They’d been reluctant to let me go so young, but they knew what I wanted – to guard the tiny Hamadryad with the glowing silver hair.
She had always been my destiny.
I found her in the middle of the Forest, standing before her heartree. It was magnificent, strong and tall and healthy with wide-spreading boughs and lush, graceful leaves. Unlike a normal tree, it was perpetually in full bloom, its branches laden with shy flowers the deep pink of the human female’s cheeks.
‘Thisis your tree?’ the human female was saying, her bright blue eyes wide. ‘It’sbeautiful, Elswyth.’
Elswyth flushed, the lovely green reaching all the way down her neck and to the points of her delicate ears. ‘Really?’
‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’ The human gazed up at the heartree, craning her neck to look as far as she could. ‘It seems a lot like an Earth oak tree. Could Tirians have visited Earth before?’
‘Yes,’ I answered, before I could stop myself. Their faces turned to me as one; Elswyth’s happiness fled, and the human’s expression settled into wariness. ‘It’s possible. Probable, even. Our species have been travelling the stars for millennia, and the laws haven’t always been so strict. Though some historians account for similarities through convergent evolution, others believe that there have been thousands of years of unrecorded contact between species.’ I looked up at the heartree, ignoring the glance they shared. ‘Willow has been researching plant life on Earth. He was sceptical regarding prior contact before, but he now believes that the plant life on Earth is similar enough to plant life on Tir that a compelling case could be made in support of the theory.’
‘Maybe that’s why our bodies are similar, too,’ the human murmured to Elswyth, so softly I was sure it wasn’t meant for my ears.
I took a deep, slow breath, trying to ignore the hot stab of jealousy through my gut.
‘Oh, look, Maeve!’ Elswyth cried in delight.
I looked to where she was pointing; arcadia vines were twining around the exposed roots of the heartree and twisting up its trunk, blossoming in shades of white and black and blue – the same shade as the human’s odd, tri-colour eyes.
‘They won’t hurt the tree, will they?’ the human said, a hint of anxiety in her tone.
