That man up there might have been a Grade A Bastard, but he was still the only person who knew where she was. Why didn't she just shoot herself, instead?
"Rope," she reminded herself, aloud. "Now I have a rope." What could she do with rope that she couldn't do before? It was time to quit weeping like a baby and pull her head out of her stupid ass. She stowed the pistol and re-zipped its pocket, and sat down to study the rocks and trees overhead.
More Maureen-thoughts crossed her mind. It was too damn bad that bastard didn't fall into the sinkhole when he died, the paranoid voice whispered. I could have eaten him.
{Jo.}
David's voice touched her mind again. The shock of it dulled her ears, and she ignored the faint rustle as the hanging hand clenched and relaxed again.
Chapter Twenty
The teal arrowed in from green marshlands and across the pasture, wings blurred by its speed. High above, a shadow paused and dropped like an avenging angel. Fast as the duck flew, the falcon dove faster. The teal sensed death reaching out with icy fingers, and it dodged frantically for the trees and safety.
Shelter was too far away. The falcon swerved as though drawn to the duck by magnetism, flipped her talons forward, and struck with the force of a rifle bullet. Feathers exploded from the teal. Its body tumbled into the loose unmistakable cartwheel of death, and the killing scream of the peregrine split the air.
Dougal closed his eyes and replayed the scene, a hard, predatory smile full of teeth turning his face into a cousin of the falcon's mask. The stoop, the kill--they were beautiful. The peregrine met all his hopes and dreams, and more. His heart pounded with her excitement and blood-lust, the fierce exultation of her power and deadly speed. He licked his lips and let his mind feast on her flight again.
She didn't even land on her kill but circled back to his fist to land with incredible delicacy. Those talons could drive straight through his gauntlet and into the flesh beneath if she tried, but she barely gripped him. He could probably fly her from his naked fist.
"Ah, you are so lovely, my dear," he whispered. His free hand offered her a chicken wing to tear, the blood and meat and destruction her pounding heat demanded. Her eyes gleamed with predatory fire as if she thanked him for the chance to kill. They were partners.
The bird's power and nature married to his own will, that was what turned falconry into something sexual. When the peregrine killed for him, he trembled just short of orgasm. Now, he relaxed into the afterglow as he carried his feathered assassin across the soft grass and looked down on the crumpled body of the duck.
Common teal, male, he named it automatically, one of the smallest ducks. It was such a prosaic name for such a handsome bird, with its mahogany head and soft green mask sweeping back from the eye, with its green wing patches glowing iridescent against gray and brown flight feathers in the afternoon sun. The falcon had broken his neck, swift beauty brought down by swifter beauty.
Dougal soothed the peregrine with his fingers, caressing her lovely chest. As always, he thought out loud when alone with his falcon, the sound of his voice helping to maintain the spell of her manning.
"Yes, my pretty one. You are such a deadly beauty, just like my darling Maureen. She is almost ready to come to my fist, come to my bed, my feathered assassin. Soon I will fly her against Fiona, against Sean, against my other enemies in the Summer Country. The truce is over. She will leave my wrist and fly free and strike the prey I choose for her and then return willingly, to me, as you return."
The falcon preened on his wrist, cleaning duck down and a scrap of skin from her talons. The chicken wing had vanished into shreds.
Such beauty. Such power. His. As Maureen would soon be his.
He sensed it. The girl fought on, longer than he had thought possible, but she weakened. Her need to save her sister, that would push her over the edge, that would be the final straw. That had been nothing but chance, chance he wove into his plan when it floated by. Without it, he would still have succeeded. Success was only a matter of time and will.
"Time and will, my lovely one." He smoothed the feathers of her crown, and she rubbed against his finger sensually, like a cat. "Even the humans understand it. Boot camp, brainwashing, tough love: call it what you will. I take the person apart and reassemble the pieces the way I want them fitted. Sooner or later, the subject does what I want, says what I want, truly thinks what I want her to think. Sooner or later she comes to obedience. And then I reward her."
Because he was who he was, time compressed for him. What took humans tiresome weeks, he achieved in days. His own peculiar skills added the special touch, the little nudge which pushed the creature beyond obedience into love. Maureen teetered at that edge. He felt it, clearly. Soon she would become his newest, deadliest falcon.
One of his serfs approached, and the peregrine swiveled her head, cocking it first one way and then the other as if considering the man as prey. The Old One smiled at the sight. A man was far too large for his falcon to eat, but she could actually kill him with a lucky strike of her talons. And she would try, for her Master.
"Take the duck to the kitchen. Tell them to hang it until it is well aged and then roast it with apples and cloves. My bride will still be hungry
