“You can go,” Natalia said, sitting on a boulder. “Leave me here.”
He looked alarmed. “No, my lady. Your mother would kill me.”
Natalia sighed. “I suppose she would. And it would be my fault. The gods save me from my keen sense of responsibility.”
Bahl patted her shoulder in compassion. “Not everyone’s path is easy.”
“Especially a gamekeeper’s whose mistress wants to go on damn fool expeditions.” She gave Bahl a tired smile. She wondered why she thought she could find Ochen. It had taken Delia’s two hunters years to find him, and he’d be doubly careful now.
“Don’t worry,” she said, an emptiness inside her. “We’ll go back.”
She stood up to turn around, and slipped on mud that sent her plunging to the edge of the gorge. Bahl grabbed at her and missed, his face terrified. Natalia scrambled for a hold then felt herself being lifted in strong, bare arms.
Her feet left the ground and she rose, high, higher still, to the very tops of the trees. Bahl grabbed a rifle and pointed it skywards, but didn’t fire.
Ochen deposited Natalia on a huge platform in the trees, held by strong boughs around a mighty trunk. She whirled around and stared at him, shocked and out of breath.
Ochen’s face and body were completely healed. He looked as gorgeous and whole as he had when he lay on top of her in her dream, and he was wearing just as little. The dream had been but a taste of the real Ochen. This was his solid, beautiful flesh.
But he was glaring at her, not looking pleased to see her. “What are you doing here? Having a society outing?”
“Not . . . Not exactly.”
“You were hunting a Dream Catcher.”
“I was looking for you.”
Ochen stopped. He studied her, his silver eyes regarding her in suspicion. It unnerved her.
“I didn’t know you could fly,” she said.
“I can do many things.” He looked her up and down, and she knew she didn’t look half as good as he did. She was sunburned, bug-bitten, scratched, sweat-stained and worn out.
“Were you looking to relive your fantasy?” he asked.
“No,” she said tartly. “I came to ask why you haven’t come back. I remember you promising you’d come to me.”
“I did,” he said. He folded his arms, which did nice things to his shoulders and biceps. “I went to you, and you weren’t there.”
“Because I was here. Didn’t you know?”
“You didn’t leave a note.”
“But I thought...” She stopped and rubbed a hand through her dirt-streaked hair. “You would know where I was.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Natalia. I read your fantasies and your dreams, yes, but I have to be within a certain range. I knew where you lived, but didn’t know where you’d gone.”
“Well, I’m here now.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to be with you.” She got to her feet, trying to adjust to the fact that she was hundreds of feet off the ground-in a tree. “I got tired of waiting.”
“You didn’t wait very long.”
Natalia jabbed her finger into his chest. “That’s not true. I’ve waited all my life. I’ve waited for someone who saw me, the real me, and didn’t find me disgusting.”
He stared at her. “How could anyone find you disgusting?”