Free Whyt’s Plea by Viola Grace Page A

hand. Once she settled it on her head, she heard, “Running away from another match?”
    She wrinkled her nose at his back and debated on how to answer him. She finally settled on, “I am running toward something I have wanted my entire life.”
    “You want to be in the military?” His surprise was obvious.
    She gritted her teeth. “No. I want to fly. Unlike some of you, I can’t just shift and take off.”
    Whyt could feel him jerk in surprise; it was either her comment or her touch.
    “You can’t?”
    “No. I am a half-breed.”
    “But your parents—”
    “Don’t like to tell anyone that I was a contract breeding. My mother was unable to have children.” Whyt had all the details, including the knowledge that her birth mother was alive and well in Nathrin.
    “So, when you told me to stick my bloodlines in my feathers and fluff them…”
    “I had just listened to a lecture on what I owe my forefathers. I told my parents that my genes obviously had other ideas…and then, they sprung you on me.” She chuckled.
    “I see. So, my timing was suspect.”
    “Very much so.”
    “Why did you need my assistance tonight?”
    “Because, I want to try to fly at least once in my life. If I waited for them to seal the deal, I would be ground bound and wed to a man who is willing to take orders from my parents.”
    Something about not seeing his face made it very easy for her to speak to him.
    “I see. Well, I am taking you to the registry office and then to the test base. That should keep your parents guessing for a while.”
    “Just like that?”
    “You have been authorized as a candidate by Colonel Whisk. You are already assigned to a project. I have no idea why she has such confidence in you, but she does.”
    Whyt blinked. She would get to skip cadet training and go straight to work. “I have no idea why she has faith in me.”
    It was a small lie. Colonel Whisk was her birth mother. It showed faith in her own genes that she was assigning Whyt to a project, though she might know about Whyt’s parents coming after her and the colonel was trying to buy her time.
    “I am sure that she checked out the scores that Neewin submitted to the flight school. Your housekeeper is quite proud of your intelligence.” He seemed confused by it.
    “She is also my tutor. She considers herself responsible for my intelligence.”
    The sound of his laughter rang through the headset.
    She grinned and pressed her forehead to his back. Her one sentence had broken the tension, and now, she was much more comfortable huddling against him for body heat.
    They had been underway for ten minutes when he said, “Look.”
    She lifted her head and stared at the stars before lowering her gaze to the surroundings. They were a few thousand feet above the valley floor. Light gleamed and glittered on the river that wound through the green, lush fields and stony caverns.
    He laughed in the headset. “You looked up first, didn’t you?”
    “Yes. It has always been a reflex.”
    “I thought as much. You don’t have the look of a woman who keeps her gaze down.”
    “I always rejected that lesson. It seemed that everything worth seeing was happening over my head.” Whyt snickered.
    “It isn’t a bad reflex, but you must get used to looking under you as well. Enemies can come up from the ground as well as drop from the heavens.” His tone was lecturing, but he was quite animated in his driving. They shimmied around a mountaintop before plunging down a deep valley.
    Whyt kept her head to his back as they descended to where the air was not quite so thin, and she muttered. “Keep your eyes on the road, Commander.”
    He laughed again but stabilised their transport.
    At the two-hour mark, he set the skimmer down. “Take a walk, stretch your legs and do whatever you need to. I have water and a snack here for us.”
    Whyt unclenched her hands, flexed them and slid off the skimmer so that her companion could do the same. Her legs wobbled as she