A Captive of Wing and Feather A Retelling of Swan Lake - Melanie Cellier Page 0,51

over the wolves who lay in the shade.

“What is this?” Gabe whispered.

Our eyes met, him on a slightly higher branch than me, and I could see a fear there that I had never seen in him before. It wasn’t so much the fear of a man who felt concern for his immediate well-being as it was the instinctive fear of someone confronting something utterly unnatural.

A deep rumbling growl flooded the clearing, drawing my eyes toward the trees to one side of the lake. Another dark brown head appeared, but this one seemed to have some sort of strange protuberance.

Several more steps brought the new bear fully onto the cleared land, and I gulped. He wore a harness that had been rigged across his back, over his shoulders, and down his chest. With it, he pulled a cart filled with several large terra cotta jars. A bear. There was a bear pulling a cart.

A second bear followed the first, his cart filled with what looked like sacks of food. Just as I was wondering who could possibly have attached a harness to a bear, five men stepped from the trees. Three of them broke off—one to greet the wolf pack by the trees and two to wade among the mastiffs.

The animals welcomed them, the mastiffs showing the most animation, several of them lifting their front feet into the air in a partial jump. Another growl ripped through the space, but the animals seemed too distracted by the newly arrived humans to notice.

The harnessed bears came to a stop, and the two remaining men freed the carts and began removing their harnesses. None of the men called to each other, the two with the bears working with smooth, efficient motions that suggested they had completed the task many times before. The bears seemed a little irritated, but neither made any aggressive movements toward the men, accepting their efforts with equanimity.

I was so entranced by the sight that it took me a moment to notice Gabe’s attention had turned elsewhere. Following his gaze down through the branches, I sucked in a startled breath, wobbling for a terrifying moment before I clamped onto a branch and regained my balance.

Apparently the five bears around the lake were not the only ones in the area. In my absorption, I had failed to listen to the sounds of the forest around me, and a sixth bear had approached on our side of the bushes. He whuffed an audible breath through his nose, his great head swinging around before slowly turning upward—straight into the branches of our tree.

I froze in place, even my breath stopped, but clearly the bear had caught our scent and decided to investigate. He loped toward us as Gabe abandoned any effort at quiet.

Clasping the trunk in a hug, the bear gripped the bark and began to pull himself up. Gabe swung down from the branches far faster than I would have thought possible—more a controlled fall than a climb. I lurched into motion, trying to follow him, but in my haste, my foot caught in my skirt. I grabbed wildly at a branch but couldn’t save myself.

My hands reached out, blindly grasping at anything they touched, but I couldn’t catch a secure hold. I fell, whacking against branches and leaves.

Instead of hard ground, I fell into strong arms. For half a second, Gabe cradled me like a baby. But before I caught my breath, he dropped my legs and pushed me away to stand on my own. Clasping my hand, he took off running, dragging me behind him as I struggled to get my feet under me.

Rustling and huffing sounded behind us. How long had it taken the bear to descend from the tree? As soon as I gained my balance, Gabe let go of my hand, and I risked looking behind us.

The bear was only steps away, and I barely held back a small scream. We were running at full speed, but Gabe’s hands still managed to reach for his bow and quiver. He knew we weren’t going to be able to outrun the bear now that it was on the ground again, but I wasn’t sure he could take it down with just his arrows either. Certainly not when it was so close. And I couldn’t imagine my borrowed sword would be any help at all.

I willed my legs to move faster, but my breath was already burning in my lungs, my muscles straining. At any moment I expected to feel