Under His Wings(59)

Throughout the telling, Bastien listened without interruption, his head bent and tilted to the side. When Nicolai finished, the healer remained quiet and Nicolai could imagine his friend’s brain processing and recycling the information. Again, the attentive reflection soothed him. Bastien was a gifted healer and a friend, and Nicolai trusted him with this problem and the life of the woman he loved.

“You’re right,” Bastien finally said, his tone matter of fact. “She is changing.”

The discordant twang of hope dying reverberated in Nicolai’s soul.

His arms dropped from his chest and his fingers curled around the railing, sharp talons ripping past his fingernails to dig into the wood. He clung to it as if his desperate grip was the only thing keeping him weighted to the ground.

“How?” he asked, the question no more than a hoarse, pained rasp.

“You’ve mated with Tamar. Bonded with her.”

Nicolai shook his head before Bastien had finished his sentence. “No,” he whispered. “That’s not possible. She’s human. We can’t mate with humans. And I had my bondmate. Pria.”

“That’s not exactly true. We don’t mate with humans. Very different from can’t.”

“Fucking semantics, Bastien,” Nicolai growled and fought the urge to choke the other man. Tamar’s life was on the line and Bastien squabbled over words like they were worth thirty damn Scrabble points.

“The law against mating with humans was established to prevent us from doing it not because we cannot. The reasons are very valid—their mortality, fragility, inability to bear our children. But there’s another cause. One your father wouldn’t want our people to know—and why your Tamar would be executed if her existence were discovered.”

Nicolai’s breath snagged, faltered, and then he exhaled.

“Tell me,” he demanded, feeling as if he teetered on the edge of a great precipice.

Bastien leaned forward, propped his elbows on his thighs and balanced his chin on top of his clasped hands.

“About one thousand years ago when my father was still the healer, a hippogryph bonded with a female human. Her mortal body couldn’t accept the transformation.” Bastien paused, his unblinking gaze pinned to Nicolai’s face. “She was ripped apart.”

“No.” Nicolai launched to his feet, fists raised as if he could fight Bastien’s words with quick jabs and punches. Bleak despair and helplessness pressed down on him. His beast roared inside him, clawed to be set free and meet this enemy who threatened Tamar. But there was nothing to battle or destroy. He, who had faced and defeated countless adversaries, was powerless.

“There’s more, Nico,” Bastien said. “Father confided in me though the king forbade him or the male from speaking of it. Apparently the king believed if our people knew other species could be converted, it would be bad politics.” His mouth twisted into a wry, humorless smile. “Father admitted that while the male had mated with the human, she hadn’t accepted the bond. The woman was psychic—they shared the same ability to call the storm—but he didn’t know. By falling in love with a woman with the same gift and spilling his seed in her, he kick-started the bonding process. But the male hid from her who—or rather what—he was. When he realized what was happening, he finally revealed his hippogryph form to her and she ran from him, horrified. But it was too late…and she died.”

“But we’ve only had sex twice,” Nicolai objected, desperately clutching at any thread of hope. “And one of those times we used protection.”

“The dreams, Nico.” Bastien rose from the porch swing and tucked his hands in the pockets of his pants. “From what you said she’s been dreaming about you for three years and you’ve been together physically in them over the last six months. If she truly is a dream-walker, the mating process could have started then, when you became lovers in the dreams. The male and human I told you about had been together a year before he noticed the changes.”

Bastien shrugged. “I wish I could give you more definite answers, but there’re simply not enough precedents. My best deduction is when you had unprotected sex in real life instead of the dreams, it accelerated the process that had already begun. What we do know for certain cannot be refuted, though. When a male hippogryph bonds with a human who has the same gifts, his seed will trigger a physiological and biological change. Her beast will emerge as if the female is of our race instead of human.”

That killed the protest on Nicolai’s lips. He could no longer deny the truth. Their shared gift. His hippogryph’s reaction toward her.The scent she carried that was human, yet not human. The soul-deep primitive need to protect and touch her.