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24. Aeroplane
THE LAST TIME I flew, I was tucked in the cargo hold of an aeroplane filled with boxes of smelly French cheese. Odour aside, the fact that I was in an enclosed space without any windows and that I couldn’t see the ground getting smaller and the tiny dots of the landscape had helped reduce my anxiety.
Instead, flying in the cabin while the clouds streamed past my window and the ground was a patchwork quilt of green and brown caused my pulse to skip. I tried to distract myself by thinking about Peggy and her wild romance. Eros or not, she’d always been attracted to Michael. When I’d left Raven Park that morning, she’d been in a better mood and promised to talk to Michael and apologise to him for her impromptu kiss. Then she’d hugged me and told me not to worry about anything. But even though a smile tugged at my lips thinking about her, the ground remained too far away, and I was still among the clouds, soaring somewhere over Northern Europe. Not even Roy next to me could distract me. Murphy and Connor were flying with us, but we pretended to not know each other. They were sitting on different seats, ignoring us, although Connor had glanced at me when I’d let out a yelp during the takeoff.
“It’s fine, Kristin.” Roy held my hand. Dash it. As usual, he could sense my distress. “Take deep breaths.”
“My head is dizzy from all the deep breaths I’ve taken.”
A flight attendant hurried along the aisle in his sure, elegant gait. I wondered how he could do that and smile at the same time.
He chuckled. “Fine, then try to relax and enjoy the ride.”
Ha! If it were that easy, I wouldn’t be a shaky mess, would I? “When we were flying to Berlin,” I said, licking my dry lips. “You asked me to talk about myself. Can we talk about you this time?”
His thumb paused over my wrist, pressing a point. “You know everything about me.”
I slanted him a glare. “Careful, I can try my Claw of Truth on you.”
He flashed my favourite crooked smile. “That would be problematic for me. What do you want to know?”
Sorting through all the questions I wanted to ask him required a few moments, during which the darn aeroplane lowered and raised a few feet. “Why were you so angry when I caught glimpses of your past?”
A muscle in his jaw ticked, and he removed his hand.
The steward, passing along the aisle with a trolley, stopped next to us. “Would you like tea or coffee?”
“Tea, please,” Roy and I said together.
When we both had our steaming cups in front of us, I prompted him again. “What’s wrong with seeing you and your brother playing together?”
“I don’t like to talk about Lukas,” he said, blowing in his cup. The steam curled like a snake in the air.
“I know it’s painful for you, but tell me what happened that night, when he died.” I didn’t believe he would answer. I’d asked him to tell me about that night many times, and he’d always clammed up. But perhaps my special skill worked even without the use of my magic claw because he heaved a sigh and leaned back on the seat, his thumb stroking my wrist again in soothing circles.
“It was raining. A storm was raging in Devonshire with thunder and a freezing wind. Lukas had escaped, incidentally using the same route Nathan took. The guards and other beasts were after him. I chased him as well, wishing to talk to him and make him see reason, to convince him to come back with me. In my panther form, I searched the hills around Raven Park, following his scent. He could turn into a panther like me. We were twins through and through.” The sadness in his voice thickened. “Our panthers were identical, but for the scent. He had a distinctive scent of wild moss. When I found him, he was about to leap from a cliff to reach the other side of the forest. The River Exe flowed at the bottom of the valley, and if he’d managed to jump that gap, he would have been free, would have had more time to leave his pursuers behind. I begged him to come back with me. He refused and asked me to go with him instead. The others were getting closer. I could hear them approaching the cliff from the path. They would have killed him if he’d refused to go back to Raven Park. I yelled at him to be reasonable, to trust me. He yelled back, saying that I was a coward for not following him.” He paused, inhaling deeply. His fingers tightened around my hands almost painfully. “We fought viciously to hurt each other. Like never before. And eventually, I did hurt him. Badly.” A world of regret rang in his voice, although there was a strange note, almost flat, as if he was rehashing the story. But then again, he must have repeated it over and over to the commander after that night. “I sank my fangs too deeply into his neck. He gasped. I released him, horrified by having bitten him so savagely. I could feel his pain as he staggered away from me. The ground was slippery, slick with rain and mud. I was frozen in shock. When he fell off the cliff…” A sharp breath came out of him, and I held his tense hand in mine. “I tried to grab him, but I was too slow.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “So it was an accident.”
His eyes were as hard and cold as diamonds. “I killed him, Kristin. I did. It was no accident.”
“He tripped and fell.”
“Because I bit him. Because I hurt him. Don’t try to make me look better than I am. I murdered my brother. You weren’t there. You didn’t see our fight.”
No, but I could guess how enraged he might have been. “What would have happened to him if you’d let him go?”
Was there a light flush creeping on his cheeks? It couldn’t be anger. Shame? “He wouldn’t have been able to survive, anyway. Commander Thompson, the man who was in charge at that time, was bent on killing him, to make an example. Allen was a general. He told me he would try to save my brother, but there wasn’t much he could do if Thompson wanted to kill him. Lukas was a dead man the moment he stepped out of Raven Park. And he knew it. But he wanted to die as a free man.” Again, his tone turned flat. Not cold, like when he wanted to be obeyed and things didn’t go as he’d planned, but unemotional.
The calloused skin of his fingertips rasped over my finger when I held his hand more tightly. “I can relate to that,” I said. “We aren’t even considered human beings, but weapons. I understand why he wanted to leave Raven Park.”
“Yes, but we stand for something bigger than us. We’re here to protect our people. It’s a noble goal.”
“Not everyone is a hero or wants to sacrifice himself for others. I might have an option as a low-ranking beast, but Lukas was a condottiero. He was expected to go to battle, to fight, and sacrifice his life for others. Wishing to do something else is not shameful. It’s human. And we should have a choice, aside from deciding if we want to work in an office or on the battlefield.”
“Kristin.” He leaned closer, his face inches from mine. “Don’t repeat these thoughts in Raven Park. Allen is more patient than Thompson, but talking about freedom will lead to your death.”
The weight of our slavery—because itwasslavery—crushed my shoulders. I lowered my gaze to our entwined hands. “What do you think about our situation?”
