By Clover Autrey
She was going to strangle that bird!
Hydeia stumbled to her knees, scraping her palms on the sun-baked ground. Her bond with the female eagle crackled with sharp brutal
intensity. The light luminescent glow of their shared reyn spilled along her flesh, warm spinning coils, burning across all her enhanced
perceptions. She splayed shaking palms across the brittle shalestone, seeking the solidity of the rock. Sweet brother sun!
As though she rode upon the wind with her, Hydeia felt every whisper-soft current of air ribbon across the tawny eagle, dewy cool as her
sleek body circled below the darker tiercel in the blue bright sky. Shadows of their long, narrow-tipped wings slid across golden canyon
walls, merging and separating while they formed the pattern of their elaborate mating dance.
Pursuing a mate now? Tyalan had better simply be toying with that male. Under Koric’s sweet light, what was the eagle thinking? They
were in the middle of their first foray and failing in it was unthinkable. She couldn’t give the Matrons any more reason to name her
unworthy of being true-bonded. This was not the time for mating.
Rot. Rot it all. She should call Tyalan back, now, ask her to break away from the tiercel. Simple enough for any Eaglekin to do, well, any
other who wasn’t bonded to the most stubborn, strong-willed bird in all the Fourteen Eyries. She would definitely call her back. Most
definitely. As soon as she could concentrate, when this rush of heat left her head and ceased firing tiny sparks that flashed through her
core. Shred it to pieces! This was more than play. Tyalan’s bright sapphire essence oozed with intent seriousness. Hydeia perceived an
aching want smoldering from her eagle. Tiny beads of perspiration broke across her forehead.
The eagles soared around each other as though in battle, the smaller smooth male remained slightly higher in the sky. Hydeia focused
her awareness more sharply on Tyalan and abruptly the eagle’s vision overlapped translucently with her own, focused tightly on the slate-
blue male soaring above in an elegant glide. With her liquid reyn unfettered and connected with Tyalan, Hydeia felt the dewy air stream
like silk across her body, heard the wind whistle and the hush-quiet strokes of wings. And for the first time since their full-bonding, Hydeia
experienced her true-bonded’s raw primitive will of conquest, dominance. Possession.
The tiercel was hers.
Hydeia swayed back, fell hard onto her bottom. Gooseflesh prickled along her flushed skin. A low moan escaped her throat, coming as
though from a great distant beneath the shrieks and shrill cries of eagles. Tyalan was beyond calling back from this. The eagle’s
determination to have the tiercel bore into Hydeia with shearing focus. There was nothing for Hydeia to do but wait.
She thought about pulling back, tucking that part of herself, her reyn, that fluid of shimmering light that was her connection with Tyalan,
into the far reaches of her awareness. She didn’t want to intrude on a ritual that was as age-old and rimmed with as much, possibly
more, potent power as that of the true-bonding of eagle with Eaglekin.
Yet she was curious. She’d have just a small peek . . .
She slid her senses out farther, fully embracing the hot slick reyn that pulsed through her. Her sight latched onto, held, Tyalan’s pristine
clarity of vision in the sky.
Ohhh! For a fervent instant, raw shattering emotion skidded up her spine, into her chest, and swept her toward some unknown spire.
Sucking in a breath, trembling, Hydeia curled over onto her side, letting the hard rocky ground balance her, root her. The Matrons hadn’t
prepared her for this part of the bonding. She always rejoiced sharing the acute sensation of gliding through the sky with Tyalan, the rush
of a stoop, the thrill of crashing into prey, knocking the quarry out of the sky . . . but this!
Heat and fear and excitement flared through Hydeia, scorching her blood as the tiercel suddenly dove toward Tyalan. The male’s shriek
shrilled in her head. Excitement balled up inside her. Hydeia’s shoulder dug into the ground, wanting to escape the unfamiliar emotions,
while at the same time wanting to experience them.
Moments before crashing into the tiercel, Tyalan rolled in the air, falling upside down, talons thrust upward.
Vicious heat stabbed into Hydeia’s chest, painful, glorious, scalding her control.
Talons locked together, the two birds tumbled through the sky, instinctive in their wild abandon.
Hydeia gasped, every nerve shivered, stroked as though by currents of rushing air. Beyond her own sight of chipped rocks and hard
ground, tall canyon walls streaked in rioting reds and drenching golds, spiraled past her in a gauzy, dizzying rush.
She plummeted with the eagles, dangerously hurtling toward the deep black pit of losing herself, her control, to the true-bond of the
shared reyn that pulsed like a living shimmery strand between her and Tyalan.
Shreds! She realized her mistake at once. She’d immersed too far. Too deep. She doubted the eagle was even aware of her anymore,
caught so fervently in the mating dance. She couldn’t know of the danger to Hydeia. The Matrons had named her too reckless, too
headstrong, too quick to follow her emotions, to safely bond with an eagle of such strength, yet Tyalan had chosen her, none other.
Hydeia forced air into her lungs. She wouldn’t prove the Matrons correct in this. She had her own strength, her own sense of will. She
would not become lost in the bird. She would not.
Frantically, Hydeia drew back, focusing her will as her nails dug into her palms. The wind roared in her head. Feather strokes trickled
along her flesh. Her sight swirled around and around, blurring while the eagles plunged toward the ground. She was losing.
Hold back, hold back, she willed her reyn, yet Hydeia still fell with the eagles, still spiraled and rippled, until she screamed and wrenched
her reyn back to herself in a thousand vibrant tearing strands when at the last instant the eagles broke free and soared back up into the
sky, leaving Hydeia light-headed and stunned, breathing raggedly on the rocky ground far below.
Hydeia gazed skyward, her sweat-slickened back clammy on the warm rock, every limb loose and liquid. Focusing her breathing to slow,
she pushed a moist strand of hair off of her face. Perhaps Tyalan taking a mate had not been such an inconvenience.
Eagles mate for life, a taunting voice of caution whispered. Hydeia sat upright, a slow panic turning over in her mind while she tried to
remember the markings of the tiercel. A dark muted slate blue that rippled like molten steel in the sunlight. Shreds, she’d been too
caught up in the sensations, allowed too much feeling unleashed to have taken notice of the male’s markings. This far from her eyrie’s
territory, she had just assumed he was a wilder, un-bonded. Dear Koric, sweet brother sun, what if the tiercel was true-bonded?
What if . . .? Oh shreds. She formed an image of an Eaglekin male somewhere near in the canyons, experiencing the same sensations
she’d felt while Tyalan and the tiercel plummeted through the sky . . .
