"Change!" With effortless ease, Eri shifted from a girl into a Hound. "See? It's easy. I can do it--why can't you?"
Malachi shook his head. You don't understand. Our Master-- He never got a chance to finish. Eri reached out, touched his forehead, and Gabriel's bindings melted away.
The stone floor was much colder against human skin than the fur of a Hound. Malachi choked in a breath, his chest tight with terror. How long would it take Gabriel to realize he had shifted shape?
"Malachi?" Eri's voice was uncommonly grave. A blanket--the blanket from her bed--drifted down to cover him, and Malachi glanced up to see Eri's wide blue eyes staring down at him. Her lower lip quivered as she sank down on her knees. "Oh, Malachi--I'm sorry--"
No hue and cry had risen; the bond still rested easily in the back of Malachi's mind. Before Gabriel realized what had happened, Malachi shifted back into the form of a Hound and fled to the sound of Eri's soft sobs.
He did not go far, of course, and he should have realized Gabriel would find out one way or another.
A few minutes later, Malachi heard Gabriel's footsteps in the hall, and then his voice, soft and questioning.
Malachi closed his eyes, shivering from the aftershock of what Eri had so easily removed. He could shift now, without constraints, and escape out the window, perhaps, before his Master discovered what Eri had done, but where would he go?
"My daughter is crying and I cannot console her," Gabriel said from the doorway. "She claims she hurt you."
She did not hurt me, my lord. Malachi tried to keep the fear from his thoughts, but the transformation had shaken him. That she could so easily push the bindings away! But-- There was no easy way to admit what had happened, and he could not keep it a secret. With a heavy heart, dizzy and sick, he shifted shape, kneeling naked in front of his Master.
"She--She took away your bindings, my lord," He spoke softly, his gaze on the floor, unmindful of the cold stone against his naked flesh. "I did not ask her to--I swear--"
"Eri did this?" Before Malachi could think to flinch out of the way, Gabriel had knelt in front of him, one hand on Malachi's forehead and the other cupping his chin. "Hold still."
Malachi froze as the bond flared to life inside his mind. "My lord--"
"Hush. Hold still." Gabriel's voice held no fury at all. "She is only ten years old--she doesn't realize what she has done."
Something shifted inside Malachi's mind--a reorganization of sorts that left him no less shaken, but much less dazed. By the time Gabriel withdrew his hands, Malachi had almost fallen asleep.
Dimly, he realized Gabriel had lifted him up and carried him over to the bed.
"Sleep," Gabriel ordered when Malachi tried to open his eyes. "You may have a headache when you wake up. I'll--I'll speak to Eri."
"My lord--" Malachi struggled out of the depths of darkness and tried to find his Master's presence.
"Sleep," Gabriel said, with only a thread of warning in his voice.
"Don't--Don't punish her--"
Gabriel laughed. "Oh, don't worry about that. I think she's punished herself quite enough."
The past ten years had been--educating. Coping with Josiah's loss and raising a child at the same time had strained Gabriel's nerves to the breaking point time and time again, but in the end, they all had survived to this point, and grown a bit wiser as time passed. His love for both his daughter and his Lady had blossomed, bringing with it a curious guilt when his thoughts turned to his Hounds.
Now, with Emle pregnant again and another daughter due in the coming weeks, his guilt had doubled. His Hounds--His Hounds were not children. But they were part of his family, for want of a better word, and they deserved--they deserved to be rewarded for their loyalty.
He had not--yet--told Emle that they had any other shape than the one she knew them in. Now, thanks to Eri, he truly had no choice.
"I'm sorry. I really am. I didn't know--" Eri's voice trailed away, no doubt when she saw Malachi asleep in the bed. "Did I hurt him badly?"
"Not badly," Gabriel said, turning to face her. "But I put those constraints on my Hounds for a reason, Erianthe. Especially Malachi."
Eri hung her head. "I only wanted--"
"You wanted him to be able to shift, like you," Gabriel said, and wondered if he dared approach Lucas about training his daughter. If she could just wipe away his constraints at ten years of age, what would she be able to do by the time she turned twenty?
Eri nodded. "I didn't know he wasn't allowed. He tried to tell me--"
"I know he did," Gabriel said. "Why don't we let him rest? We can talk in the library."
"I'm--"
Gabriel ruffled Eri's fine hair. "I know you're sorry. Malachi will be fine when he wakes up. I promise you that." He hesitated. "And I won't stop you from apologizing to him, if you wish."
For the first time in almost two hours, Eri managed to smile. "I'm glad," she said. "I never meant to hurt him."
"I know," Gabriel said, and led her across the hall to the library, where they could talk in peace, but Emle was already there, seated in one of the leather-clad chairs, with a book propped on her protruding stomach.
For a second, Gabriel could only stare at her, lost in her beauty.
"If I may have a moment of your time?" She smiled when she saw Eri, but her smile didn't last long when she saw that their daughter's eyes were puffy and red. "What's wrong?"
Gabriel did not miss Eri's desperate glance. "Perhaps it would be best for me to tell you," he said to save his daughter an awkward explanation. "Or show you, in truth. But you needed to speak with me?"
"I'll go outside," Eri said, as if she had picked something up from her mother's mood; something Gabriel could not see. She vanished from his side before he could protest, shifting into the form of a lithe young Hound.
"I didn't ask her to leave," Emle said. "But I did wish to speak with you alone."
She seemed oddly hesitant to speak her question, or whatever she wanted. Was something wrong? "Are you well?" Gabriel asked, thinking that she hadn't mentioned anything that morning.
Emle smiled. "Yes. I am well. And the baby is fine, as far as I can tell. But--Our child is due in two weeks, Gabriel."
"I know. The Council's binding is set to expire in two weeks as well." That had preyed on his mind more than the impending birth of his second child.
"Are you intending to deliver her?" Emle asked, and this time, Gabriel could hear the exasperation in her voice.
"I--" In truth, he had not thought of that. "No, of course not. But--" How would that work? No one knew he was Eri's father--he had not kept them in hiding, but he had taken pains not to make his tiny family a target. Emle had not stepped beyond the wards for many months, and Eri only ventured out in the form of a Hound, where her presence would be least likely to attract any notice.
"Sennet delivered Eri," Emle said, taking pity on him. "I am certain she would not mind aiding me again."
"I had hoped to see this daughter born," Gabriel said, suddenly struck by the sickening feeling that something horrible would happen to prevent that. "I--"
"Sennet is a Healer, and neutral," Emle said.
"She can't come here--" An aeon of distrust rose to encompass his thoughts. He turned away from her, distress clouding his mind. All Magdalen needed was to find out about Emle and Eri's existence--not to mention his unborn daughter--and she would have plenty of leverage to force him to bind himself to her.
Unless she was dead, but he had no way to find out if she had perished in the last century. He had not seen her since the Council's binding had kept him from her grasp.
"I can go to her," Emle offered. "At first, at least--just to request her services. After the Council's binding expires, it won't matter, will it?"
Gabriel had never told her about Magdalen. "I don't know," he said, helpless in the face of her request. "My Hunt--I--have other enemies." He tried to smile. "There is much you do not yet know about my Hunt, milady."
When he glanced at her, Emle's face showed no surprise. "Yes. I know. But I have not pushed you to tell me anything."
And she hadn't. "Perhaps you should have," Gabriel whispered. "I can't allow you to go alone. Not now, when--" He wanted to tell her everything, but now was not the time. "When the Council's binding is so close to expiring."
"I understand that you can't go with me," Emle said. "Not at first. I'd take a Hound, but they're rather--recognizable."
Gabriel froze. "What did you say?" His voice came out harsher than he intended.
Emle stepped back. "I--I said I understood that you--"
"No. After that." Gabriel controlled his temper with an effort. This was not Emle's fault.
"I said I could take a Hound, but--"
Gabriel closed his eyes. Would Malachi-- He pushed that thought out of his head. Could he trust Malachi after what had happened when Josiah vanished? Did he have a choice?
"There is much you don't know about my Hunt, milady." He took a deep breath. This was not the way to tell her, but he couldn't see another way around breaking the news. "You could take a Hound."
He sensed her confusion, even before she spoke. "What do you mean?"
"My Hounds--My Hounds were not born in the shapes they wear," Gabriel said, turning back to the window. It was easier to bear this confession if he didn't have to see her face.
"I know," Emle said. "I've heard the stories." Her voice held no blame; no recriminations for his long-ago sins.
"But you don't know that they need not stay as Hounds," Gabriel said. "Before you returned--ten years ago--I had let them have a bit of freedom. Today, our daughter removed my bindings and allowed one of my Hounds to shift."
He turned just in time to steady Emle as she swayed. "Our daughter did this?" Guilt flashed into her gaze. "I never thought to ask about your Hounds--"
Gabriel held her close. "I did not wish to tell you." Softly, he told her about Josiah's disappearance, and what he had done in response to it. "Perhaps I acted wrongly, but that was the best--the only--thing I could think to do at the time."
He left out Darkbrook, and everything that pertained to a Hound as a student of magic. That could come later. For now, all she had to do was understand.
"And now? One of your Hounds is in human form?" It did not take long for Emle to grasp what had happened. "What will you do with him? Force him back into the form of a Hound?"
Gabriel sighed. "No," he said, and hoped he was making the right decision. "I don't think so. But Malachi will go with you to the Healer's house, or meet her somewhere in the forest, and you can ask her your request. All I ask--All I ask is that you try to keep my name from her knowing, at least for now."
"What if Malachi doesn't want to go?" Emle asked.
That old anger bristled in Gabriel's chest. "He will not have a choice."
Emle stepped out of his arms. "If your Hounds are to be part of this family, then they must have a choice," she said. "If Malachi doesn't want to take me, then don't force him, Gabriel. Please--promise me that."
Gabriel turned his back to her again. "You don't understand," he whispered. "They have no choice."
"They won't have a choice if you don't give it to them," Emle said gently. "Where is he?"
"In the bedroom, down the hall," Gabriel said, struck by the truth of her words. Was it that simple? "Asleep."
"I will wait until he wakens," Emle said. "And then I will ask him."
She was gone before he could respond to that; and the room darkened in her absence. After a moment, Gabriel followed her into the bedroom, almost dreading the look on her face when she saw Malachi in human form.
He had not mistreated his Hounds in the past ten years. He had not beaten them, or forced them to do much of anything at all. But he was still their Master, and sometimes, that seemed worse than any beating ever did.
Emle stood for a moment, staring at Malachi's pale face. "He'll need clothes," she said, her voice stiff and formal.
"I will find him clothes," Gabriel whispered. "And I will cut his hair." And before she could lose her temper, he fled, leaving them alone in the room.
Trusting that Malachi wouldn't do anything stupid. Hoping that Malachi wouldn't betray such trust again.
As soon as Gabriel left, Emle pulled up a chair beside the bed. Her hands shook; something she had taken pains not to allow Gabriel to see, but the first wash of panic had fled, leaving her drained and wondering what else he had never told her.
"I didn't mean to hurt him," Eri whispered from the doorway.
Without speaking, Emle held out her arms. Eri curled up on what little lap Emle had left and rested her head on her mother's breast.
"Did you know he could shift?" Emle asked, keeping all blame from her voice.
"No." Eri sighed. "Yes. I could feel that he wanted to, but I didn't know why he couldn't." She bit her lip. "He isn't going to be happy with me."
Emle remembered Gabriel's talk of choices, and wondered if Malachi would even consider daring to say no to anything his Master ordered him to do.
copyright 2007 Jennifer St. Clair
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