Sky Knights (3 page)

"If you're going to do
that
, I'm leaving," Meow grumbled from where he'd settled in the corner, and he disappeared quickly.

Ira ignored him in favour of moving around to get herself positioned on top of Dounia. Dounia was warm from being under the covers, and Ira tried to get closer. Dounia finally helped by turning onto her back and pulling Ira on top of her. Ira settled onto her and leaned down to kiss her again.

"We shouldn't be doing this now, too many people are still awake," Dounia murmured, but didn't pull away.

"There's a storm. No one else is out in this weather, even if they are awake."

Dounia argued no further, getting her arms up around Ira's back and tilting her head up to deepen the kiss that Ira had started. Dounia's mouth was warm and soft and Ira hummed happily into the kiss. She was in no hurry to get anywhere tonight.

Dounia had other plans, apparently, spreading her legs so that she could wrap them around Ira's hips, pushing up against her and demanding attention.

"Something you wanted, dearest?" Ira asked, laughing softly.

"You know what I want," Dounia said, huffing and arching her hips up again.

Dounia was already slick and open with desire, and two of Ira's long fingers breached her opening easily. Dounia squirmed underneath her, urging her deeper. Ira nuzzled at Dounia's neck, tilting it to the side so she could lick and nip at the soft skin. Dounia threw her head back and shoved a hand over her mouth to keep quiet.

Ira grinned and curled her fingers against her warm inner wall, pushing up at her swollen nub with her thumb. Dounia's hips shuddered up against Ira's hand, and her teeth bit into her own hand in an effort to keep the noises inside. Dounia moaned low in her throat, a rough, needy sound barely contained.

Ira pressed herself up against Dounia, and Dounia helpfully pushed her knee up between Ira's legs, giving her a warm surface to writhe against.

Panting and covered in sweat, the two of them collapsed together in a sated pile, with barely enough energy to settle themselves in for sleep.

"I'm tired," Dounia said, and she sounded drained.

Ira had been trying to distract her from the argument that Dounia had just had with Tanya, but it looked like Dounia was still worried about it.

"Maybe things will be different tomorrow," Ira offered.

"I doubt it."

"Sleep,
kotyonok
," Ira said softly.

Dounia relaxed into their embrace and her breath soon evened out, slow and deep. Ira pressed her face into Dounia's hair and breathed, Dounia's scent calming her. Dounia wasn't the only one who worried about her loved ones.

Dounia saw a flash of familiar black hair and heavy-lensed frames and immediately hid behind the corner. She was somewhat ashamed of how she was avoiding Tanya, but she didn't know what to say anymore. Things were complicated.

"Are you hiding again?" Meow asked grumpily from around her neck. "This is getting to be annoying, Dounia. You need to talk to her."

"You sound like Ira," grumbled Dounia, shoulders stiffening.

"Ira is right," Meow said. "You do need to talk to her. She leaves in the morning."

Dounia hadn't known that.

"To the front?" she asked in a whisper.

"Where else? She hasn't changed her mind just because you won't talk to her."

Dounia bit hard on her lip and didn't say anything else. She didn't want to tell Meow that she'd very childishly been hoping that Tanya would feel guilty about Dounia avoiding her and do exactly that. Apparently Tanya was made of sterner stuff than she'd thought and wasn't backing down. Dounia should have realized she wouldn't. If she wouldn't listen to their parents, there was no way that she would listen to Dounia.

Meow made a sharp noise and jumped down off her shoulder. "If you're going to be this silly, I'm going to find Ira."

Dounia was avoiding Ira as well. Not as much as Tanya, but only because she had to work with Ira still. But outside of practicing manoeuvres and doing more nightly bombing raids, she wasn't talking much to Ira either. Ira kept trying to talk her into making up with Tanya, and Dounia just didn't want to do it. Nor did she want to talk about it or why she didn't want to talk about it. Or anything to do with feelings, really.

Dounia knew she was bad at explaining feelings, and didn't like talking about them in general. It was causing problems now, and had in the past as well. It was not her most endearing quality.

The best part about the whole situation was that Dounia knew she had this problem and was still adamantly refusing to try and fix it. Never mind that Tanya was the younger of the two; Dounia was the one being childish.

Dounia peeked around the corner again and sighed. Tanya was sprawled on the ground with several of the other pilots and navigators of the regiment, one of whom was Ira. Ira and Tanya were sitting together and chatting.

"So are you going to go talk to them yet?"

Dounia stifled a yelp and jumped back, glaring down at Meow, who had snuck up behind her. Meow flicked his tail and regarded her with a flat, unwavering stare, as only cats can.

"I can't talk to them," Dounia hissed. "It's not as if Tanya would listen to me anyway. She's already made up her mind to go."

"So you're not going to say goodbye to your sister just because she's not doing as you say?" Meow asked. "What was the last thing you said to her? Do you want those to be your final words before she has to go into dangerous territory?"

"Now you're really sounding like Ira," Dounia growled. "Why is she taking Tanya's side in this? Ira's
my
lover, not hers."

"Yes, and Tanya's
your
sister. Everybody is yours and because they are yours, they are only allowed to do what you want. Also, you might want to keep your voice down, someone might hear you."

"I'm pretty sure they already know," Dounia grumbled.

"Assuming something and hearing it said aloud are two different things," Meow said. "No one can accuse you based on an assumption. But if you say it, then you've just admitted it, and an admission can be court marshalled."

"See? You're worried about me, right?" Dounia asked, making a sharp gesture with both hands. "I'm worried about Tanya. She could get hurt! She doesn't know what she's getting into."

"Neither did you when you first joined up," Meow pointed out.

Dounia heaved a heavy breath and looked at the ground. "Who could have ever expected this when we volunteered to fight? Nothing could have prepared us for the sights we have seen or the things that we have done in the name of the motherland."

"And you do not want Tanya to have her eyes opened to this," Meow finished.

"No, these eyes have seen too much, and I want her to be spared," Dounia said, peering back around the corner to watch Tanya talk to her fellow aviators. "Look at them all, they're congratulating her. How could they? She is going straight into the mouth of hell. It looks bad enough from the air."

"She is not a child. It is her own choice, as it was yours. She's the same age now as you were when you first joined."

Dounia didn't say anything, because Meow was right. She had no right to keep her sister from doing exactly as she herself had done when women were first admitted to the Soviet forces.

"I want to know what they are saying," Dounia said. "Will you let me listen, brother?"

Meow flattened his ears, but agreed begrudgingly. "I should not be enabling you in your avoidance manoeuvres, but maybe if you could hear what they were saying, you would cease to act so foolishly. It is a good thing I love you,
solnyshko
, or I would refuse to put up with this tiptoeing around."

Meow padded off, and Dounia sat down and leaned back against the wall behind her, closing her eyes and concentrating. Or, rather, not concentrating. She had to let her mind free, set it loose to wander and it would be drawn to Meow's head like a moth to flame.

She and Meow shared blood, after all.

Sometimes they could see or hear through each other's senses. She'd gotten Meow's night vision and his ears. Meow had gotten her vocal chords and colour vision. No one who had taken part in the experiment had thought their blood would mingle so much, and it was agreed that they wouldn't try again on a human subject until they were sure it would work as planned.

It was a good thing that Meow was a witch familiar. Who knows what would have happened if they'd used an ordinary cat. What if their brains had been switched? A familiar had similar intelligence to humans and sometimes formed empathic connections with their chosen witch. Meow was the only proof ever uncovered that familiars actually understood the human language.

Meow's mind glowed green and violet in her mind's eye, and she followed it until they connected. Each time Meow blinked, the scene around him came more into focus and sound filtered in slowly. She was next to Ira's feet, encased in over-large combat boots worn out from numerous night missions.

"I've tried everything, Ira, and nothing is working. Any time I get close to her, she runs away and hides."

That was Tanya's voice from somewhere above them.

"You have to be patient. She likes to be chased you know. But if you pull away from her, then she'll come to you," Ira said.

"Is that how you got Dounia, in the end?" Tanya asked curiously.

"Of course. All the chasing around in the world, and my Dounia was reticent as ever. As soon as I turn away and start ignoring her, she comes to ask why I'm not interested anymore. Of course, I never stopped being interested. And you still want to talk to her, but you must let her come to you."

"If she would just come back, I would tell her that if she really wanted, I would ask to be reassigned," Tanya said with a sigh and shake of her head. "But she must ask me, I am not just going to do it because I know she wants me to!"

"Both so stubborn," Ira shrugged. "I have done what I could, but now Dounia is avoiding me as well."

"And me," Meow grumbled, and his voice sounded very loud in her head.

"She can't avoid us forever. This part of the camp isn't that big!" Ira pointed out. "She will run into one of us eventually."

It sounded like everyone was against her, then. Fine! Did they not think she could find a way to avoid them? She could do a lot better than that. Even Meow would have trouble finding her if she left the camp.

Getting stiffly to her feet, Dounia marched hurriedly in the other direction, towards the edge of their camp. Their regiment was staying in one place, but they were still a part of the 4
th
Air Army, which included several other squadrons. The air base itself was huge, and if they thought she couldn't avoid them among all that, then they were very much mistaken.

It took her only a minute to remember why she never went outside the camp.

First of all: she had cat ears. The rest of her regiment had heard the stories and were used to seeing her with them. Her ears were very difficult to hide in normal circumstances, as they tended to move by themselves. The story had been kept as quiet as possible, and although there had been rumours, nothing had ever been confirmed.

Second: there were only two other all-female regiments, and the rest were all men. The majority of them had the tendency of making unsavoury remarks about their female comrades, even though they were on the same side.

Dounia put her hood up to hide her ears, but nothing would hide how short she was. Rebellion burning in her belly, Dounia refused to turn back and kept on her way, marching past supply tents and other various semi-permanent structures. It had snowed in the night, and everything was dusted in a fine layer of white.

Mostly, the men were ignoring her. Dounia was short, and kept having to walk around people, not wanting to draw attention to herself by refusing to move out of the way. Somewhere in all this hubbub were two other female regiments, and wouldn't care if another woman was wandering among them.

"Ah, what have we here? A little mouse?"

Apparently it was too much to ask to simply be left alone. Dounia had been solely among female crewmembers for so long that she had forgotten what men were like. Some liked altercations and humiliating other people just because they could, and many of them picked fights or disparaged their female counterparts.

"Leave me alone," Dounia said flatly, ducking her head further into the hood. "I am on an errand. I do not want any trouble."

Someone grasped the back of her hood and pulled hard.

"Oh, a little kitten! My mistake!"

There were three of them, all leaning on each other and laughing. She saw it in their eyes. They had been looking for a target, and here she had presented them with the perfect one. They were all wearing bomber jackets similar to hers, although theirs fit better, having been sized properly.

One of them reached out and grabbed one of her ears, saying, "Oh, do you need these––"

Dounia grabbed his hand and twisted.

"Ow, there's no need for violence, little cat," one of the pilots said.

"You were going to pull on my ear!" Dounia snarled, backing away.

"It's just a bit of fun," his fellow continued. "If you didn't want to play, you shouldn't have worn them!"

Oh dear. These idiots thought that they were fake and not actually attached to her head. That pull had hurt! Dounia rubbed her ear and glared.

"A black cat. You must be one of the witches."

Well, no matter what derogatory name they wanted to call them, Dounia was a part of the night bomber regiment, and they did some damn good flying if you asked her.

"So I am. What do you want?" Dounia demanded, ears flattening.

"I want you to go home to your mama. War is no place for little girls."

"This 'little girl' is worth an Iron Cross to the Germans. How about you?" Dounia retorted, bristling.

"It just means you're annoying," one of the men said.

"It means the Germans want to pin a medal on anyone who can put women back in their place," another added.

"It means," a new voice added, "that the women are better flyers than you and the Germans know it. Stop harassing this lady and get back to work. You're going back up in half an hour, and if you could land half as well as the girls, maybe you would all come back in one piece."