The next morning the maids offered me entirely different attire: fitted pants, a shirt, and a pair of gloves. As usual, they avoided eye contact and made it clear they didn't want to talk to me. Korr, Itek, and Ethat had stayed downstairs after breakfast to talk about some envelopes that had arrived with the morning eggs.
Sure, they were pain in the ass mythological shifters, but they were also ambassadors. Or something.
I'd also woken up with Itek sleeping at the foot of the bed again, this time in his griffin form. He snored softly as he dozed.
"Why are you lot insisting on sleeping near me?" I had asked irritably. "Don't you have somewhere else to sleep?"
He'd shifted down into human form, which sported just his leather lion cloth and nothing else. "Just keeping an eye on you. Making sure you don't try to jump out the windows. Or have a conversation with a raven."
"I wish the curtains could be open," I had said, annoyed by the sunlight creeping around the edges of the thick curtains. "Are you really convinced the birds will spy on you?"
"Convinced? We know it. Eat breakfast and get dressed. You are the most interesting thing in the world to them right now, and we will deny them their entertainment."
"Why is everyone so interested in a mutt-shifter?" I prodded. "You all think I'm a shifter—"
"We're sure you're a shifter."
"But I can't shift."
Now he looked doubtful.
"Every shifter can shift. Even infants adopted by humans, and never meets a shifter, and everyone thinks it's a human baby but the kid shifts one day," I went on. Most kids learned to shift right around when they figured out crawling, but sometimes kids took a while, or they weren't good at it or it was difficult so they didn't do it much. But it just was, and it wasn't something that parents had to teach anymore than parents had to teach a kid how blow spit bubbles for fun. "I can't shift."
I'd never tried, never felt any urge to, never had anything weird happen. Everyone told me I wasn't human, and maybe I wasn't, but I also wasn't a shifter.
"If I can't shift, I'm not a shifter," I said.
"We're sure you're a shifter," he said. "We'd like to figure out what kind. Besides mutt."
"Well, like Korr said, I'm just such a mutt nobody can tell what I am anymore."
"Even then you should be able to shift."
"I can't shift. Knock it off, you're wrong. Deal."
"Now you know why you're so interesting. A shifter of an unknown variety that can't shift." He rolled off the bed and shook out his hair as he left the bedroom.
And that's how he left it. I fumed. This was stupid. I wasn't a shifter. I couldn't shift. Maybe I was some angelic descendent. Those were super rare. The angelic servants of the gods didn't normally tryst with mere mortals. Maybe some kind of demon-angel hybrid. Ooo, the secret fruit of a forbidden romance across dimensions...
I smacked myself with a pillow until I got the stupid out, then went in pursuit of some food, but not before Yanice and Delia arrived to dress me for the day's adventures... and in the process say as absolutely little to me as possible about where I was going, what I was doing, or even so much as a good morning.
"I thought people were... friendly with their maids and man-servants," I finally said to Yanice, because this was stupid. "And I don't mean friendly like my hands under your skirts friendly."
Delia busied herself changing the bedsheets, abandoning Yanice to answer my question alone. Yanice fussed with my cuffs for a moment before she said, "We're your maids, my lady, not your friends."
"You also don't believe in small conversation?" I hadn't liked talking to Tynn's mother, but when she'd thrown a few words my way if I got stuck serving breakfast, damn well I was polite to her and didn't act like the last thing in the world I wanted to do was speak to her or be around her.
"No, my lady. We don't." She bobbed in a curtesy.
"Why not?" I pressed.
"I don't believe we'd have anything to talk about," she said.
"The weather? What's in the market today? What's for dinner tonight?" Now she was annoying me. "I worked my entire life as a servant in a house."
"Yes, my lady, we know." She turned over my left hand to reveal all the callouses there. Then she turned over hers and revealed the palm: not an aristocratic's soft skin, but not rough, chapped, dry, and scaly like mine either. Now she made eye contact with me.
She bobbed again with a curtesy and resumed the intricate weaving of securing my cuffs around my wrists. I stared at the wall behind her. Delia had finished remaking the bed.
Among the household servants there'd been a hierarchy. As a kitchen maid, I'd been among the lowest of the low. Only the laundress and scullery maids and boys had been below that. The house maids got to keep their skin soft dusting, folding, serving small plates, or hiking up their skirts.
My hands and feet gave me away as a low servant, or a common laborer. She was a house maid in a noble house in Haven. I was a pet. She was employed to groom me and feed me.
She was probably from a good family herself. Maybe she was a fourth or fifth daughter, or a illegitimate one, sent off to serve in a prestigious house doing gentle work and making friends, allies, collect secrets, ingratiate themselves, and kiss all the right rings, asses, cocks, and clicks.
Lucetia had never hidden her mother had been the illegitimate daughter of a high-bred (that she'd declined to name) who the high-bred had secured a place for in another high house far away. It had netted the daughter an upgrade to favored mistress, until the favor had run out when a prettier, younger, more novel maid had come along to replace her.
Yanice bobbed once again, and gave me a serpent-lipped smile. "We don't care to be friendly with you. We care to be professional until they lose interest in you."
"Have there been other pets before me?" I asked, throat tight and tears beading on my eyelids.
She dabbed at a tear with a pretty kerchief. "No. Now please stop crying, my lady. Your masters will expect you to be as fresh and pretty as you can manage, since high-bred charm and conversation are not your skills."
Barb-toungued bitch.
"Since you cannot speak intelligently, and have the accent of a farmer, practice smiling prettily, feigning interest, and being silent," she advised. "You can practice with Delia and I."
She finished securing my cuffs and braiding my hair prettily, then gestured to the door. Throat too tight to come up with anything to snap back, and trying (unsuccessfully) to hold back a cascade a tears, I tried to keep my spine straight as I hurried down the stairs before I reached the bottom floor, grabbed the bannister, and doubled over as I drew in a huge, shuddering sob of a breath.
I straightened and wiped my cuffs on my face to mop up the tears. I took a couple of deep breaths, and managed to get the worst of the sobs under control. I wasn't going to bawl like a stupid baby. I'd do that in private later where those cows couldn't hear me.
My three masters (keepers? Owners? Handlers?) reviewed wads of paper in the study. Well, Itek and Korr did. Ethat was still in dragon form, and they were reading to him.
"Ah, she's ready," Itek said. "Good."
"You aren't wearing much," I said, voice quavering. He had on his loin cloth, which only covered the most intimate parts of his body, leaving his powerful hips and thighs on display, and my brain shoved a suggestion of what he'd feel like thrusting into me right to the front of my attention. Korr was in that infernal shift-attuned silk veil that basically screamed look at my cock, behold it
My maids thought I was below them, and my pussy was already getting wet for some married guys. There had to be a word for a piece of trash like me. I'd ask Maris at my next lesson.
Itek tossed the papers onto the table and came over to me. "Pet, you've been crying."
"What? No," I lied, not wanting to talk about it. But he seized my face in one hand and forced me to look at him. His sharp gaze missed nothing, peering deep into every wiped tear and trail, and the redness of my eyes.
Korr strode over as well to get a look. Ethat raised his neck high on his shoulders to improve his view.
"Why?" Itek asked.
"My situation hit me full force?"
"What situation is that? It seems you are faring better than you expected when you left home. Come to ask, why did you come to Haven at all?" Itek inquired.
I closed my mouth. I could have told them about Yanice and Delia, but not a chance I'd go crying to them about how mean my maids were. They'd just be replaced with maids who'd be just as mean and catty. And when these three shifters tired of me, and I was on the streets again, I'd officially be a snitch. A snitch who thought she was better than anyone else and stupid enough to think the attention of high-breds lasted.
Nope. Not that stupid. Not even close to that stupid. Tynn's interest in Aurore had lasted long enough to get her pregnant. Then he had fucked my best friend. And Asund had wanted my attention for all of two minutes while we sorted out our same-but-not Trinket situation.
"Why does any foundling with no family and no prospects come to Haven?" I retorted. "So where are we going, and why am I wearing the most clothing out of all of us?"
"Riding lesson," Itek said. Korr yanked open the curtains to the balcony doors, and pushed the doors open. The sunlight streamed inside, along with a blast of warm, slightly fetid sea air and the clamor of the city. Korr shifted, his blue-ice form resplendent and blinding bright. Korr launched himself into the sky.
I squeaked.
"Come on," Itek said, heading towards the door after Ethat followed his brother.
"Wait, I have to ride you again?" I asked.
"We have to go outside the city," Itek said. "Come on, I won't drop you."
"No," I shook my head emphatically. "Nope, nope, nope."
"You've already done it once," he said.
"Yep, and that's enough. I'll walk. Just tell me where to meet you."
He grabbed my hand and hauled me out onto the balcony.
"Please, no," I pleaded. "Let me just walk!"
Itek rolled his eyes. "There are a thousand people in this city that would beg for the privilege of a flight."
"I'm not one of them!"
He shifted, the sunlight shining off his gorgeous form. He flexed his hindquarters and swished his tasseled tail. His beak couldn't form human speech, but he clicked impatiently.
"No, please," I pleaded.
He stomped a talon. Above us, Korr and Ethat circled lazily, and below us, people on the street looked up to admire the circling ice and green dragons. Itek stomped again, and clicked/growled something at me that probably translated to do not make Korr come down here. He knuckled down on his talons, tail swishing.
Defeated, I grabbed handfuls of his ruff-feathers, and hauled myself up onto his broad back. The plush warmth and power of his body seeped into my thighs. I held tight to his feathers and closed my eyes, praying this time my body didn't get so damn excited riding him. He shifted a bit to settle me into place, with my legs braced against where his wings joined his body.
I screamed as he launched into the air, and pulled myself over his neck and smothered myself in his ruff so I didn't have to see this.
Fuck, this was not awesome, and I did not like it. I hated this. I hated it so much I sobbed uncontrollably into the wind. Especially hated his wingbeats pumping and lifting me against his spine. He seemed to fly up forever, and the only thing keeping me from sliding over his back adn to my death was his wings bracing me, and my hands clinging to his feathers.
But I could have pulled those feathers out. I fantasized about feeling those feathers pop out like he was an overgrown chicken and that was it. Bam, sliding my clit over that broad, muscled back of his and spiraling down onto the ground below. Falling, flailing, ass over head, screaming, pawing at the air.
It was an eternity before the air seemed colder, and I realized his wings hadn't moved in a while. Then one flap, and nothing. But the wind tore at my hair and shirt and threatened to push me back off him.
Okay, Theia. Open one eye. Just one. One. Two.
I forced myself to crack open one eye. I looked straight down.
"Oh no!" I shrieked at the dried-out grasses far below me. Far far far below me. The road into Haven looked about one finger wide, just a ribbon of smooth dirt cutting through scrub and grass, and in the distance, the glitter of water.
I smothered my face in his ruff. My shoulders and back started to ache, and my thigh muscles cramped.
Him swooping in for a landing was even worse. My weight shot forward over his neck, except there were no wings this time, and nothing to brace myself against except his lowered neck, and I had to sit up, which required opening my eyes and nope nope nope the ground rushing towards us—