Page 19 of Stealing Samantha

“Vastiss,” he replied, willing the other man to hear the threat. “Jaess of Vastiss.”

“Do you believe you’re the only one who deserves to have a human musician play for them? If it weren’t for her skill, the humans wouldn’t cheer for you as they do. It is her music that makes them raise their hands together.”

“Do you think I mind? I know it is her music that enthralls them.” Jaess half smiled. “It is a privilege to hear her.”

Vasith shot him a nasty look, his crown feathers rippling with distaste, but he didn’t reply. Jaess turned his face back towards the window. He had no interest in engaging with the others. Tomorrow they’d be able to visit a place in the mountains before they took one of the archaic human flying machines to their next destination. He’d already promised himself he would take the opportunity to be alone with Sam again. Their stolen coffee breaks weren’t enough.

They’d gone to the same building to talk two more times before Lithi had stopped them and forbidden it. Sometimes when they rehearsed, she’d turn to face him as she played. Those moments were even better than the shared coffee. He’d never spent much time in conversation. When he danced for her, it was somehow purer than words. Words could be so confusing, so easily misconstrued.

She didn’t flinch anymore when she was around him, even when he forgot and shifted his wings or let his crown feathers move naturally. He no longer felt as if when she looked at him, she saw another man’s face hovering over his own. That would change if she really knew what he felt in her presence, if she could scent his desire, the urge to claim, to press his fangs within the softness of her beautiful body. If she truly understood, what little there was between them would all end. She wasn’t ready. Maybe she no longer feared all of his people, but she was still skittish, still wary.

“I don’t want to go to their cold mountain. I’ve had enough of human cold. I can’t wait until we leave. They say the next places are more like home.” Vasith’s friend whined like a youngling. Jaess inhaled slowly, willing himself to be patient.

“Then stay here. They can’t make us go to their mountain,” Vasith said with a shudder, ruffling his wings. “They should send the priest clan here to build one of their strongholds. They would be the only ones to relish such a desolate place.”

“It isn’t desolate. Millions of them reside in this city alone.” He hadn’t meant to speak, to call attention to himself.

“You should hate it most of all. Had you ever even left your forest before you came to Verkissat and tricked Lithi with your foolish performance at the dance hall?” asked Vasith.

“What does it matter? Maybe I wanted something different.” He lied. He didn’t.

“Our people are not as gullible as these humans. If you stay in Verkissat after we return, they won’t call your name or lift their hands. You will be nothing. You’ve always been the worst of us all.”

Jaess didn’t reply. He had no interest in spending the rest of his life this way. If he returned—when—he’d go back to Vastiss. Vasith and his friends continued to talk, but he turned away from them and faced the window again, looking out at the faded mountains that seemed so far away. There, only a day distant, waited the promise of freedom.

* * *

Every nightthe applause seemed to grow louder. Her music was something beyond any he’d ever known. At home in the village, people often played, but even the death songs of the s’kavi flute didn’t transfix him the way Sam could. There was something divine in it. If his faith had been weak, seeing her perform every night would have strengthened it. Watching Sam made it easy to understand why his ancestors had seen the Lady and known her as their goddess.

This time when the crowd begged for more, Jaess was the one to step forward. He stopped at Sam’s side and she gave him a small nod and a breathless smile. They’d practiced this. She lifted her flute, and the humans began to sit again. She waited until it was completely quiet before she started to play. This piece was faster, and it made him think of the long days of his youth when he’d explored past the outer bounds of their territory. The wonders he’d seen then revealed themselves in every note, in the unfamiliar rhythms of her song. She was a mystery. She was not even from the same world, but somehow he felt as if she knew him better than any other ever had, and it hadn’t even required a word from his lips for her to have such mastery over him.

He didn’t take to all of the platforms. It wasn’t meant to be a full dance, just a last reminder of who they were for the audience to savor before they left the theater and enjoyed the rest of their night. When he would’ve jumped to the next cylinder, he twisted his body and spun, keeping his knees loose and ready for a landing. After his feet touched down, he moved towards Sam, taking long, sweeping strides.

Sam kept playing, but he saw her shoulder blades tighten when she realized he was there beside her. He waited for the moment when she turned to face him, and then opened his wings in display before he held out a hand to her. He wasn’t sure what she would do. The low note she played wavered, elastic and living like the flow of water. Her people and his, they both disappeared from his field of vision until they were the only beings on the black blankness of the stage.

Her hand when it touched his was too perfect, too fragile to be real, yet his rough and scaled fingers closed around it anyway. “Sam,” he whispered, and then he pulled her close, his opposite hand pressing into the arch of her spine, just as he’d held Lithi before. He felt it the instant she let go and leaned into his palm, and then he pressed them together, hip to hip, and they began to spin. He let himself grow dizzy with the movement before his gaze locked with her deep brown eyes. Her black hair spread loose and wild, flung out behind her in the air. She smelled like river water and the strange metal of her flute and the sweetest fruit, the rarest flowers. He never wanted to let her go.

Maybe that was why he made such a foolish mistake. His wings had been fully extended, but with every revolution of the spin, they slowed, and he wanted it to last, to stretch until eternity. He closed his wings around her, covering them both in the shelter of his feathers, hiding them away from the world and lengthening the spin. Her body went stiff and tense, and he could feel the frenzied speed of her breathing through the press of his palm against her bare back.

“Jaess! Jaess,” she pleaded. “Let me go—let me out!” The words all came out in frantic, shaky whispers, and he understood then what he’d done wrong. He snapped his wings open and then back again, letting the spotlight flood its vivid brightness over Sam’s face like a small sun. Her head fell back as her body trembled. She basked in it, because now she was free from him. The shelter of his wings, the protection every mate offered his k’lallsa—to her it was no gift. He knew then he’d misunderstood. The Lady hadn’t blessed him; he’d cursed himself all on his own.

12

Sam sat aloneas the large transport took them past the last bit of Calgary’s sprawl. Banff and its legendary scenery were waiting for them up ahead, largely unspoiled in a way few places were any longer. She’d looked up the vids and images as soon as she’d seen their performance schedule on her viewscreen. Yesterday she’d been looking forward to this excursion more than anything she could remember since her trip to Xithilene itself, but that morning, Jaess had boarded the transport before her, settling in between two other Xithilene men. He hadn’t even looked back at her, although she knew he’d had to have felt her staring.

Everything had been going so well. She didn’t think she’d ever get tired of the energy fizzing through her veins when the audience clapped and smiled, standing and asking for more of what she’d given them. Not just Sam—alone it’d never been the same. People had never stopped everything just to listen to her play. It was Sam and Jaess together—that was the difference, the magic. When he’d held out his hand to her, she hadn’t thought of Uvaess or anything that had come before. She’d taken it, ready to fall along with him. The heat of his palm against her skin, the impossible way they’d spun, had left her all off balance in the most wonderful way.

Then she’d gone and ruined it all. Only a few seconds of panic had taken that fragile thing they’d been building between them and shattered it. She’d been left on the stage, willing him to look back, but even though he stood at her side throughout the rest of the applause, waiting there silently until the lights went out, he’d never met her gaze again.

Sam rubbed her eyes. She’d barely slept. She glanced back towards Jaess. He was leaning on his side, his wings folded and tilted awkwardly away from the edge of the seat. His eyes were closed, but he looked too still for sleep.Look up.His face scrunched up, the line between his brows growing deeper, as if he were trying to shut his eyes even tighter.

“How long until we arrive?”Are we there yet?Asking Lithi made her feel like a bratty kid, but she was going to go out of her mind if she had to stay in the transport much longer.

Lithi tipped her head towards her shoulder, her gaze unblinking as she observed Sam like she was an interesting specimen laid out on a tray for dissection. “I thought humans were accustomed to long periods of travel,” she said in her smooth, ice sharp voice.

“Not this human,” Sam muttered under her breath.

“Don’t let Jaess dance with you again. It’s one thing for you to play your music for us, but our performances are meant to display Lisseethi artistry. What he did last night—” Sam glanced up and saw Lithi pursing her lips as her long, talon-like nails twisted in the fabric of her skirt. “It wasn’t appropriate for an audience. We both know he barely listens to me. Make him follow my rules, or I’ll send him home early.”

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