“Right,” Tiffani said. She turned around to face him. There was a pleased smile on her face. “I remember now. The wings were held together with wax. Icarus had too much fun flying, so he went higher and higher. He got too close to the sun and it melted his wings. He fell.”
“And died,” Martin said.
“Not exactly an uplifting story about following your dreams.”
“Right. Very few motivational posters came out of it. And by now, everyone thinks of it as a cautionary tale about not getting too ambitious. But back then, according to the story, it was really about something else. It was about how Daedalus’ wings were made with pegasi feathers and Icarus’s were only made with regular bird feathers. Icarus didn’t fall because the wax melted, people said. He fell because people can’t fly—unless they have pegasus feathers. It wasn’t about ambition. It was an advertisement.”
“I think I see where this is going. Poor pegasi.”
“Poor pegasi is right. Suddenly, everyone was a lot more interested in whether or not they were real. And, unfortunately for them, they were. Once you started looking for them, they weren’t even that hard to find. So people hunted them for their wings. They killed them and plucked them bare and when the people still couldn’t fly, even with all those feathers, they decided they just didn’t have enough. Time to find another pegasus.”
“Some people never have enough,” Tiffani said.
Martin knew she was thinking of the same parties where she’d felt so uncomfortable. About her old house, which had been immense and cold and had certainly never looked or felt like a garden.
About how her ex-husband had been a millionaire who had still felt like he had to steal.
“No. Some people never stop taking. And soon nearly all the pegasi were gone. They came from the ancient civilizations, the ones my parents studied, but they didn’t stay in them—they scattered out across the world. They had help, of course, from other shifters... other people who were sometimes animals. Dragons, werewolves, stags, lions, bears. Unicorns, even, although the rivalry between unicorns and pegasi was always a little intense.”
“I prefer pegasi,” Tiffani said.
Of course she did.
Our mate has excellent taste, his pegasus noted.
“All shifters have a little in common with each other,” Martin said. “The obvious turning-into-an-animal habit, of course, but also instincts that regular humans don’t have. When a shifter meets the person that they’re going to spend the rest of their life with, when their eyes meet, they know. Quick as a snap of your fingers. They recognize the person who’s always going to be perfect for them.”
Tiffani studied him. He let her do it, let her take in his silence and what it might mean.
He wanted to see what her initial reaction would be—whether she would pretend to not see where he was going with this, whether she would think he was crazy, whether she would run screaming for the hills.
She said, “That story needs a little work, plot-wise. It kind of changes horses midstream, so to speak.”
“So to speak.”
More silence.
“I don’t like being made fun of,” Tiffani said, and although her chin was set and her expression was decided, her face was crumbling despite it, her eyes shiny with tears. He knew she felt like the rug had just been pulled out from under her.
He knew she felt that he had been a nice guy—right up until the point where he decided that it would be funny to play a little joke on her, to see if gullible Tiffani, who had once fallen for a sleazy crook, would believe that he was a flying horse. It was a little out there for a prank, but was it any harder to believe than the truth?
Her eyes seemed to ask him what trick would come next.
But when she spoke again, it was to make a decision. She might be gun-shy, but she was choosing, right then, to trust him.
“But you wouldn’t do that,” Tiffani said. “You’re not like that.”
No, he wasn’t.
And luckily, as far as tricks went, Martin had a good one. He stood up—he felt awkward standing there naked, but at least he knew he wouldn’t be like that for long.
“I’m not making fun of you,” Martin said. “I promise. Look.”
He closed his eyes and thought about the wind.
Chapter Ten: Tiffani
At first, she saw nothing but Martin’s closed eyes. The sudden shut-off of his attention was so total it almost seemed like he’d fallen asleep standing up.