“No, absolutely not,” I denied.
“Then you lied?” he asked.
“No,” I answered. “But I can’t give it when I’m peeved.” I twisted to look at him again. “And make no mistake, Prince Noctorno, I… am… peeved.”
“You’re peeved a lot,” he observed.
“Learn from that, big guy,” I educated and twisted right back.
He chuckled.
I gritted my teeth.
Then I heard it.
My head snapped to the left and I peered into the trees at the same time Salem took two side steps and blew through his lips.
“Cora?” Tor called and my hand shot up.
“Sh!” I hissed and listened.
There it was again.
“Pull back on the reins,” I ordered.
“Pardon?”
There it was; I heard it again!
“Pull back on the reins!” I shouted then kept shouting, “Salem, stop!”
Noctorno pulled back on the reins and Salem stopped.
“What do you sense? Danger?” Tor whispered in my ear, his arm fiercely tight at my ribs.
“No,” I whispered back. “Aggie.”
Then I broke from his arm, slid off the side of Salem, landed on my slippers and immediately darted around the front of the horse and ran toward the trees.
“By the gods, Cora! Stop!”
I didn’t stop. Instead, I shouted, “Aggie! Aggie, is that you?”
I kept running and heard the hooves of a horse and the boots of a man behind me but I no longer heard the chirps.
“Aggie!” I screamed then let out an, “oof,” when my running was halted by an iron arm around my stomach and I was hauled into a hard body. “Let me go!” I yelled, pushing at his arm and pressing forward.
“Cora,” he ground out in my ear, “don’t ever –”
“Chirp, chirp, chirp,” I heard faintly and I knew it meant, “Cora, help me.”
Oh God.
I twisted in Tor’s arm to face him as he dragged me toward Salem who’d run off the road with Tor and I.
“Tor!” I cried desperately, tipping my head back to look at him, struggling against his arm and dragging my feet to stop him from dragging me. “I hear Aggie.”
“Who?”
“Aggie!” I yelled.
Tor stopped and stared down at me. “Who’s Aggie?”
“Aggie, Aggie, Agglethorpe! The bird!”
His brows shot together. “The what?”
“Bird!”
“Chirp,” which meant, “Help.”
“Tor! I think something’s wrong. We have to do something!” I lifted my hands to his jaws, got up on tiptoe, leaned in and begged, “Please!”
He stared into my eyes then he muttered, “Gods,” let me go, grabbed my hand and jogged into the wood, pulling me behind, Salem following on a trot.
“Aggie!” I called. “Chirp for us, sweetie, so we know where you are.”
I listened. Nothing.
I lifted my hand, cupped my mouth at the side and yelled, “Aggie, honey, please. Give us something!”
Then I heard it, a close, weak chirp right above us. I stopped, tugging on Tor’s hand making him stop and Salem stopped with us. I looked up and saw the bright feathers of Aggie about ten feet up in a tree.
“I see you!” I shouted, jumping up and down and shaking Tor’s hand as I did. “I see you! Hang on, Tor’s going to climb up and get you!”
“Chirp, chirp, chirp,” which meant, “Thank the gods.”
“I’m going to what?” Tor asked at my side and I turned my head to look up at him.
“You have to climb up and get him,” I explained.
He looked up at the tree and then down at me. “Who?”
“Aggie! That bird up there!” I cried, pointing up to the tree. “He sounds weak, I think he’s wounded. You have to go get him.”
Tor looked up into the tree again, squinted, I noticed when he saw him because he squinted harder then he looked down at me.
“You jest,” he stated.
“Do I look like a jest?” I shrieked, throwing out an arm. “That’s Aggie! You have to save him!”
“Cora, that bird is half dead,” he informed me evenly.
“Then that means he’s also half alive!” I yelled.
He stared at me for a long moment then he moved into me, pulling me into him with a gentle tug on my hand and he lifted his other hand to curl his fingers around my neck.
“Sweets,” he said softly, “are you attached to this animal?”
“Yes, no, uh… kind of. I’ve only met him once but he was cute. Does it matter? He needs help.”
“You’ve only met him once?” Tor asked.
“Yes, the morning I woke up in this world. He was in my room. He was there when the curse started. I’ve never talked to a bird before, he was my first and, um… only, I guess. But it was cool. You can’t talk to animals at home, I mean, you can but they can’t talk back. He talks back. I mean, he chirps back but in a way where I understand him.”
“Of course,” he replied.
Awesome! He got it!
“So you have to have heard him too! He’s in distress!”
His head tipped to the side. “No, Cora, I can’t hear small birds. Women can hear small birds, rabbits, deer, cats, mice and the like. Men can hear horses, dogs, wolves, birds of prey, snakes and the like. I can’t hear him.”
Whoa. Weird.
I wanted to hear more about that but just not at that particular moment.
“Okay, well, I can and he needs help,” I told him.
“Was this bird your pet?”
“Uh, I don’t think so. He flew in from outside.
He pulled in breath through his nostrils. Then he got closer and his fingers curled deeper into my neck.
Then he said, “Love, you can talk to the wild animals but you can’t form attachments to them.”
“What on earth? Why?” I exclaimed.
His face dipped closer to mine. “Because, my sweet, they’re wild and this,” he jerked his chin up slightly, “happens and you have to let it happen.”
I took a step back and declared, “Oh no I don’t!”
“Cora –”
“Please, Tor, I’m asking you to climb up that tree and save Aggie.”
“Love –”
“Please!” I cried.
“You shouldn’t –”
“I’ll kiss you,” I bartered.