Acceptable Risk (15 page)

I’ve trained the past seven Swan Kings,
including Sophia’s father, Raul. I know him well, and I know he
loves his daughter. However, he still feels such pain over his
wife’s slaughter, and I worry about the decisions he’s making.

There is precedence amongst some other
supernatural species for keeping Sophia in seclusion, finding a
suitable King, and not giving her a choice in who she’ll marry.
However, watching the toddler play and laugh and flirt, my heart
hurts with the knowledge she’ll grow up with no control of her
major life choices. Or, likely the minor ones, either.

She’s such a happy baby, so full of life and
adventure. I hope her life turns out better than most fairy
tales.

* * * *

Ten years later, my heart aches as the court
Herald announces me into the Swan King’s mansion for Sophia’s final
unchaperoned lesson. I’ve been coming to the mansion once a week
for a four hour session since she was six, but this must stop once
she becomes a teenager, which in Swan lore makes her a woman.

I’ll be allowed to come four times a year for an
all-day review session, but will never again be alone with her.
After today she’ll have a chaperone or minder with her anytime
she’s with a man besides her father — or husband, once she’s
married.

I’m going to miss my time with her. In my busy
life, my half-days with the Swan Princess have been the sunshine of
my week. Sophia is a special child — so smart, so willing to learn,
and a joy to be around. My heart is happy when I’m with her, and we
most often go to our spot near a manmade waterfall on their
property so we can talk without worrying so much about being
overheard. Someone from the house can see us, but our words are
drowned out. Sometimes, though, my favorite part of the day is her
smile when I arrive and she skips to me for a hug. Today will be
the last time she’ll be allowed to hug me for no reason, just
because she’s happy I’ve arrived. My heart hurts as I wrap my arms
around her and tell her I’m happy to see her.

We walk to our spot, sit on our rock and I open
a few books as I give her another to hold. The rushing waters may
provide white noise to block our voices, but we still need to
appear as if I’m teaching her.

“You know this is the last time we’ll be alone,
right, Soph?”

Sophia looks down, takes a breath, and raises
her gaze back to mine. “I know. I’ll miss my time with you.”

“And I’ll miss you, but you’re a Princess and
one day you’ll be Queen, so this is the way it has to be. I’ll be
back to review the important stuff, but there are some things I’ve
taught you that I won’t be able to review with you out loud. I’ll
try to write it in a notebook and let you read it, so you’ll
remember, but there is some danger in that so I won’t do it every
time.”

“Why take the risk? If I’ll never rule, never
make a difference, why put yourself in danger?”

“Because I’m grooming you for power, Princess.
No one knows for sure what the future holds, and to fully do my job
I can’t just teach you the palatable parts of your history. I
understand your father wishes to shield you and protect you, but I
can see the strength in you.”

Sophia sighed. “I’ll still see you at social
occasions? Not just the four times a year you’re allowed to come
for review?”

“Yes, and I may or may not be allowed a dance
with you. I will certainly not be able to take you outside for a
conversation.”

She nodded, and I carefully said, “Sophia, if
ever you find yourself in need of a protector, get a message to me.
Your father and Cyrano will look after you, but if you find
yourself without their protection I hope you’ll feel comfortable
letting me keep you safe.”

Shaking her head, Sophia said, “Cyrano scares
me. My latest governess tells me when I’m a woman I’ll appreciate
him for his strength and resolve, and I must remain meek and quiet
around him while I’m a child.”

I wanted to wring Cyrano’s neck for frightening
her, as well as the governess’s for giving crap advice, but I had
to walk a fine line. “I’m sorry he scares you, Princess. I would
advise you to speak to your father about it, see if he can
intercede on your behalf.”

“You always do that.”

I tilted my head and let my eyebrows rise, and
Sophia explained. “When we’re just talking, I’m Soph or Sophia, but
when you’re thinking politically, you call me Princess.”

“Yes, because this is the way an elder speaks to
someone of royalty. I’m your teacher, I know more than you, but I
must also show respect. It’s a balance, Sophia.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what you are,
and my father either doesn’t know or won’t tell me, but I’m
positive you’re royalty, too. I’ve learned to tell the difference
between someone with their own power who addresses me and my father
as an equal while using all the right words, and someone with no
power who addresses us with the same words but a completely
different energy.”

I hoped my smile showed how pleased I was with
her insight. “You make me proud, Sophia. I hope you’ll keep your
suppositions to yourself, though.”

She nodded. “Of course, and I hope someday
you’ll trust me enough to tell me what and who you really are.”

I needed to be sure she understood my offer, so
I repeated it. “Do you understand what I’m saying, Soph? If you
ever need help, a protector, a friend, an advisor…If you’re ever in
trouble I hope you’ll find a way to get a message to me.”

Sophia

I’d been planning my escape for eleven years,
and tonight I’d either fly to my freedom or die trying.

I was to be married to Cyrano on my twenty-fifth
birthday, in seventeen days. However, I was determined it was never
going to happen.

Tomorrow, my governess was meeting with people
in Charleston on my behalf to assure the wedding would go off
without a hitch. Since I was never allowed off my father’s
property, if someone couldn’t come to me then I had to send my
people to them, and the caterers had decided they couldn’t make yet
another trip to go over last minute details.

I knew they wouldn’t, it was part of my
plan.

I’d sent my governess away earlier this evening
so she could stay in a hotel and be present for the seven o’clock
meeting tomorrow morning, and then make surprise visits to check in
with the florist and a few other vendors.

I’d brought books up from the library to my
bedroom, asked for my tea service a little early, and told everyone
I wasn’t to be disturbed.

I’d been nervous and anxious for months, so no
one paid any attention to my scent anymore. I was perpetually on
edge.

It was eight fifteen, and I figured I’d have
until the guard shift change at three in the morning before anyone
realized I was gone. My current guard wasn’t likely to decide he
needed to put eyeballs on me, but I knew they’d look in on me at
shift change. They always did.

Swan shifters need to
change
a minimum of
four times a year, at both equinoxes and both solstices. However,
since my father didn’t want me leaving the property, when I
changed
they immediately turned me back human. I’d never
been allowed to even
try
to fly. The rest of the time I wore
an anklet my father had brought someone in to create especially for
me — it kept me from turning into a swan any other time of
year.

I’d spent years combing through the books in our
extensive library, and was convinced I’d found a way to defeat the
anklet. Years ago, I’d also learned from one of our servants that
it was possible for a virgin to
change
without the normal
flogging to rip enough skin away so we could shift into our swan
form.

She said one could use a knife to cut a seam
from one foot, up the outside of the body, from armpit to fingers
on the bottom of the arm, and then fingers to shoulder on the top
of the arm, over the head and scalp, skip the right arm and go down
the body to the right foot, and then as the left foot comes out and
forms, use the claws to rip a seam in the skin from the right arm
so it can pull free.

I had a very sharp crafting knife and hoped it
would do the job.

Meanwhile, I’d long ago figured out how to
defeat the alarm system at my window so I could at least open it
and get fresh air. I used a screwdriver to carefully remove the
contact from the window’s hardware, taped it to the stationary
contact on the window frame, and then slowly opened the window,
making sure everything stayed put.

Taking a breath, I poured the hot water from my
tea service into the plastic bin that normally held items in the
storage area of my closet.

It’d taken me years to assemble the herbs and
roots without arousing anyone’s curiosity, and I now dumped them
into the bin and stepped into the scalding water. Trusting the
concoction would do its job, I bent with the knife, stuck it into
my foot just under my ankle bone, and began the excruciating task
of literally skinning myself.

I’d known it would hurt, but this was worse than
the traditional flogging a virgin must undergo in order to
change
. I was more than determined, though, so I did it fast
and didn’t make a sound, even though I wanted to scream and
cry.

Halfway through the process I knew I’d been
wrong about having hours until my escape was discovered. They were
used to smelling fear on me, but not pain, and certainly not blood.
I was going to have to fly for my life and hope they couldn’t keep
up. I cut faster, and my blood flowed into the hot water at my
feet.

As the knife finally reached the outer edge of
my right foot, I stood and imagined myself a swan, thought of how
it felt to
change
after I was flogged, and breathed in
relief as I felt the transformation happening. The herbal
concoction worked, and the anklet would end up in the water once I
turned into a swan and it could come off my foot. As I
changed
, it only took a few slices with my claw to rip the
skin on top of my right arm enough for it to come free of the skin
and turn into a wing, thank goodness.

I made it onto the window sill, looked out at
the Waccamaw River, and knew if I couldn’t figure out how to fly
within a few minutes, and the crash landing didn’t kill me, I
needed to find an alligator and hope he was hungry. I was going to
either escape or die — I couldn’t live the rest of my life trapped
in this house, and being forced to marry Cyrano was the final
straw. People might make fun of the Princess trapped in the mansion
with anything her heart desired at her fingertips, but
this
Princess preferred freedom to riches.

I jumped from the ledge, stretched my wings, and
breathed in relief as the wind caught them and I soared instead of
plummeting. I beat my unfamiliar wings, pointed my head the
direction I wanted to go, and it just somehow
worked
.

I’d spent years on borrowed tablets from various
servants, looking through Google Earth so I could find my way to
Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the offices of Drake Security. I had no
idea where Aaron Drake lived, but figured I could find him at
work.

I followed the coast to Savannah, Georgia,
fighting the ocean breeze, and figuring out how this brain parceled
the information I’d taken in with my other brain. I managed to
access what I needed to make the journey, and I followed the coast
as I learned to soar, turn, dive, and climb. The winds coming in
off the ocean were brutal at times, fluffing my feathers the wrong
way until I lost control and only regained it by luck. I soon
discovered I needed to get higher to keep from being buffeted by
the sea breeze, but going too high made it hard to see landforms
well enough to navigate when there weren’t many lights.

I didn’t know how much of a head start I had, so
I kept moving even as I experimented, terrified they’d find me and
haul me back to my father’s house.

When I reached Savannah, I found what I was sure
was the interstate and followed the line of lights north. I was
exhausted when I reached what had to be Macon, and I continued
north a little ways before making a right turn, hoping I could find
the wildlife refuge and a relatively safe place to get some rest. I
was so tired, and terribly uncomfortable in this body, but needed
to stay a swan until I made it to Chattanooga. I wasn’t sure I
could cut myself open again, and besides, I no longer had the
knife.

I only rested a short time in a tree top before
I flew north, once again following the interstate. I was sure this
wasn’t how swans normally navigated but it was the best I could
manage. I breathed a little easier as I went over Atlanta, knowing
my journey was close to an end. I often swam miles a day in either
the lap pool or the endless pool, but I’d never been so tired in my
life.

When I made it to Chattanooga I headed towards
the Tennessee River, followed it until I recognized their unique
Aquarium building, and then followed the streets out of the
downtown area to the old school building that housed the Drake
Security offices. My landing was far from graceful, but I made it
into the woods across the street, found a tree limb I hoped would
be safe, and waited.

If you enjoyed Acceptable Risk, you may also
like the other books in the
Chattanooga Supernaturals
series. Also, check out the sister urban fantasy series,
Only
Human
, as well as the
Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club
series if you’d like to read Gen and Duke’s story.

Chattanooga Supernaturals
series,
paranormal romance:

• The Dragon King (
  Aaron Drake’s story, and the
  first time we meet Duke and Brain
  )
  

• Riding the Storm
  

• Acceptable Risk