by Ivy Asher
I’m not a dragon, I realize, as white feathers and a black...beak? Yep, that’s most definitely a beak shining back up at me from the surface of the smooth water. I have ears that are long and angle back from my face like a horse’s ears do when it’s angry. Large purple eyes stare back at me, the same stunned confusion swimming in them that’s coursing through my insides. My wings are massive and covered in obsidian feathers that almost appear to soak up the light all around them.
The white feathers on my face continue down my neck, stopping just past my chest to make way for velvety white fur. The sun reflects off the lake, and it makes my coat shine and gleam. My arms, or front legs, are snow-feathered to the forearm, and my hands resemble a bird’s feet. All five of my fingers are tipped by lethal looking black talons, but my back legs look like white furry paws, with a hint of black claws that are sheathed and waiting to be called on.
What in the flying fuck am I?
The lake ends abruptly, and I twist so that I can turn around and stare at myself some more; see what else I can find that either adds to this fucked up puzzle or helps put everything together for me. A shadow falls over me, and if I hadn’t just witnessed my own shadow fall over the lake as I blocked the sun from its surface, I wouldn’t know that something huge just blocked the sun above me as it flew past.
Fuck, please don’t let it be a dragon!
There’s a shift in the air above me, and whatever the fuck I am knows that is a really bad thing. I hold on for the ride as my literal fight or flight instincts take over. My wings fold in and I’m instantaneously diving through the sky. I drop like a downed plane, and if I weren’t sure some big scary thing was trying to eat me right now, I’d really fucking love the speed I’m achieving. Suddenly my wings shoot out, and an updraft grabs ahold of me, redirecting my trajectory from falling to rising. I pump my powerful wings frantically, ascending, as the current helps me to move even faster. I know somehow if I can make it to the clouds, then I’ll be safer, shrouded, and much harder to spot.
My speed feels supersonic, but it must not be fast enough, because just as I’m about to reach the white fluffy underbelly of the clouds, a screech-laced roar fills the air around me. The shadow attacks me from the side, and I feel like a seal that’s been body slammed by a killer whale. I twist and my feet and hands dig into something hard, as I fall backwards. My own scream-screech is torn from my throat, and I rear back to avoid the black and gray beak that snaps toward my neck. Pain digs into where I’m pretty sure my stomach is, and I kick out at whatever this thing is that’s hurting me.
A fluffy white furry tail—I didn’t realize I had until now—cracks out and pummels the sky shadow, and I slash, kick, and hit it in an effort to get it to disengage. The ground is quickly screaming up toward us, and I can’t tell if this thing is trying to rip me apart in the air or smash me to pieces against the ground. I scream again in frustration when I can’t get it off of me, and we spin violently with disorienting g-force as we fall from the sky. The black-tipped beak snaps for my face again, and I manage to get a talon-capped hand up and press the attacking beak down and away from me.
Eyes the color of honey land on mine from a black feathered face, and I realize quickly that whatever I am, this thing is one too. I don’t know what happens in that moment, but a fiery warmth roars through my body, and the sky shadow doesn’t try to snap for my neck again. It almost looks... surprised.
I scream out at it in my head for it to get off me or we’re about to fucking die.
Like it can hear me, the honey-hued eagle eyes move from mine to the threat of the rising ground at my back. The sky shadow’s wings shoot out and catch the air. It releases me from its hold and—I think—tries to flip me over, but I’m falling with such force, and at such an awkward angle, that I can’t get my wings out to stop myself.
The animal above me shrieks, and I can hear the panic in the sound. The next thing I know, I’m slamming into the unforgiving ground. And for the second time since I simply tried to follow my gran’s wishes and spread her ashes, I feel my bones break and shatter before everything goes black.
I release a tired groan and stretch the stiffness out of my limbs. The sheets are cool against my skin, and a gentle breeze caresses my face and arms. My muscles feel tight, and I give a little screech as I flex my arms and legs and then let them relax. The sound bounces around the room and then slams back into me, bringing disjointed memories with it. I look down at my arms in awe. The last time I saw them, they were massive, muscled, feathered, and tipped with sharp ass talons. I flip my hands over, studying my limbs like somehow I’ll be able to see whatever it is that I am just under my skin.
I take stock of how I feel, and I’m shocked to find that none of the overwhelming agony I felt before I passed out seems to exist anywhere in my body anymore. Nothing feels broken. I slip out of the massive bed to make sure there are no residual twinges of pain. The pale yellow sheet falls away from my body, and the cool breeze roaming all over my skin confirms that I am, without question, naked. I reach for the sheet on the bed and wrap it around me, the soft linen trailing behind me as I look over the room in search of my clothes.
The huge bed I woke up in is the only piece of furniture in here. The floor and the walls are the same soft cream color. They look like they’re made out of marble, but this stone somehow looks softer. Vines have been carved into the stone at the corners of the room, and they reach up to a Gothic cathedral-style ceiling. The room is bright thanks to the massive open archways that make up the whole wall to my right. A balcony stretches out on the other side of the openings, and I’m assaulted by green trees and plants that make up the cliffside across from me.
The red-purple hued mountains I was flying through earlier flash through my mind, and I rush out onto the balcony to see if I can spot them. My heart falls when they’re nowhere in sight, and I’m left even more disoriented about where I am. I turn to take in the building my balcony is attached to. The pounding sound of water surrounds me, and I stand open-mouthed and take in everything my gaze lands on. The balcony and room I’m standing in have been built into the side of a cliff. In fact, a whole castle seems to have been carved into the stony side of this massive mountain. There’s so much intricate detail to the structure, though, that it almost looks like the cliff grew around a castle, swallowing it up and only leaving hints of it exposed to the world. A huge thundering waterfall pours off the cliff top, and I can feel some of the mist brush against me as I stand out here, exposed and reeling.
Did I die and wake up in a Lord of the Rings movie?
The distinct sound of a heavy door being opened reaches me on the balcony, and I slip behind a pillar just to my left, to hide. Boots tromp into the room, and then panicked voices float out to me.
“Where’d she go?” a masculine tenor voice asks.
Someone else groans loudly with obvious frustration. “He’s going to kill us,” a second, deeper voice declares, as heavy footfall quickly makes its way toward me. A man storms out to the soft looking stone banister and starts to search the sky. I take a deep, quiet inhale and catalogue his scent. I’ve met a plethora of different kinds of shifters in my life—wolves, pumas, even a skunk once—but I have never smelled anything like this guy.
He’s huge. He’s probably got a foot or more on me, and I’m six foot even. His back is broad, and tapers down nicely to a trim waist. His clothes look like they’re some kind of soft gray leather that’s smooth in some places and braided and more armor-like in others. It hugs his muscles and frame very closely, I observe, and then I try to shake away the heat that thought threatens to stir in me. The seam on the side of his pants and top are laced together, and the leather armor looks like it can be removed with just a couple pulls of the ties. He has two swords crossed in an X over his back, and the handles stick up over his shoulders.
“Cum on a tree sprite!” he shouts over the balcony. “How did the guards not see her escape? Zeph is going to gut both of us!”
If Jamie Dornan and Brad Pitt were shoved into one body, it would look like this guy, well, minus the pissed off look this dude’s face just morphed into. The very attractive, scruffy, and dangerous looking man shakes his head at me.
“Found her,” he announces, his tone flat, his gaze now cold.
I can feel his icy assessment against my now fevered skin, and I don’t know what to make of any of this. I pull the light yellow sheet tighter around my body, needing more between me and whoever this man is. Not a man, I tell myself as a flash of him searching through the sky streaks back through my mind. Not only does he not smell human, he was looking for something that could fly. I quickly bring my arm up to my face and smell it. The same lilac-on-a-warm-breeze scent fills my nose, and my mouth pops open, stunned. I’ve always smelled like wet soil and pine.
Like a wolf.
Anger bubbles inside of me, and I curse the shit out of my grandmother in my head. “Where am I?” I ask, as another person joins the guy with the angry storm clouds for eyes on the balcony.
“The Eyr—,” the other guy starts to answer, but Gray Eyes gives him a glare, and he promptly shuts his mouth and drops his gaze.
“And where is that exactly?” I ask, running the half-name through my head and trying to place where the hell I am. East somewhere? I quickly dismiss that thought. These guys do not look like they’re from anywhere in Asia, and I’ve never heard of a red-purple mountain range there—or anywhere else for that matter.
Gray Eyes scoffs. “Like we would ever tell you that,” he declares, and then he leaves the balcony and storms back into the room. “Bring her to the Hall of Eyes. Zeph wanted to speak to her as soon as she woke up.”
The now very angry, gray-eyed, broad-shouldered stranger disappears out of the room, and I stare at the now empty doorway, confused. What the hell is his problem? I’m the one that just woke up naked in a strange place with no idea how I got here or where here even is. If anyone should be having a tantrum, it’s me.
“Yes, Altern,” the light-haired man still standing across from me replies. “Come,” he instructs, and then he walks away.
“Wait, where are my clothes? I can’t go anywhere like this,” I tell him, gesturing to the sheet wrapped around my body.
He says nothing, just walks right out the door, his back to me. I wait for a second and then decide the answers I’m looking for are probably wherever he’s supposed to lead me. I let out a huff of irritation and then look down at the yellow sheet I’ve wrapped around me. I undo the towel tuck that’s keeping the bedding on me and pull the whole thing behind me. Time to get resourceful.
I pull the sheet tight against my ass and bring the top two corners forward. I move the opening of the sheet to the side like it’s supposed to be an intentional slit, and crisscross the corners of the sheet at my waist. The bed this thing fits is huge, and that works in my favor as I have plenty of fabric to cross the corners of the sheet behind my lower back, bring them forward to cross over my boobs, covering them, and then tie everything off behind my neck. I look like someone who’s trying way too hard to be sexy for some frat toga party, but it will have to do.
I scramble out of the room and catch up with the none too chatty guard. I try to keep track of the empty hallways I’m led through, but it’s hard to stay completely focused on that task as I try to make sure this fucking sheet doesn’t fall off somehow. After maybe five minutes of winding down too many halls for me to possibly keep track of, we arrive at a pair of tall dark wood doors. There are things carved into them, but I don’t get much of a chance to see what as they’re flung open and I’m ushered through. I trip over some of the sheet that’s pooled at my legs and feel the tie around my neck get pulled tighter. The ends don’t come free, but the sheet isn’t secured as tightly around my top as it was before.
The back hangs loose down my back, and my breasts are barely covered now by small ruched strips of fabric. I look like the toga edition of what not to wear, which is just perfect because, when I look up, there’s a table of seven men staring at me. I recognize Gray Eyes, who is sitting to the right of a man who looks like the love-child of Kit Harington and Josh Duhamel. He’s big and bulky, a touch larger than Gray Eyes but not by much. They’re the biggest men I’ve ever seen in my life and the two largest at the table in front of me, although that’s not saying much as all of the guys staring at me seem larger than the average human and much fitter at that.
My eyes roam up the muscular arms of Kit Duhamel, and I freeze when I land on his honey-hued gaze. My heart starts pounding, and an echo of the heat I just felt in my limbs back in the room with Gray Eyes warms me.
“You!” I say, and I can’t tell if it’s an accusation or a need for confirmation.
3
“Name and Clan?” Kit Duhamel demands, and everyone at the table glares at me even harder.
I look around the large room and try to piece together what the hell is going on. “Uhh…my name is Falon Solei Umbra,” I tell them, like some nervous soldier reporting for duty. “And I’m from the um...thought-I-was-a-wolf-shifter-until-the-whole-wings-thing-happened clan.” I bite down on my tongue to keep myself from rambling on about my secret-keeping bitch of a grandmother too. These guys don’t look like they’re messing around, and I can feel tension and menace in the air, mingling with their breezy lilac scent.
“What the rut does that mean?” Gray Eyes demands, and the hostility in the air kicks up another notch.
What the rut? I repeat in my head, trying to figure out what the fuck he just said.
“Maybe some time in the cells will strip you of your insolence,” a beefy red-bearded man on the end tells me.
“You’ve already got my clothes, now you want my insolence, too?” I mutter to myself, but it’s clear the whole table heard me. Fuck, Falon, they’re shifters. Every whisper around them might as well be a low key shout. I clear my throat and look around again, like somehow answers or help are going to detach from the wall and everything will suddenly make sense. That doesn’t happen, and I settle my gaze back on the table and every big ass motherfucker sitting on the other side of it.
“Before I get the whole cell tour, would one of you mind filling me in on what I am, where I am, and just what the hell is going on?” I ask, trying to keep my tone casual as I stomp down on the frustration brewing inside of me.
A blond guy next to Gray Eyes starts to laugh, but it’s not at all friendly or bouncing with entertainment. It’s cruel and resentful. My stomach flips a little, and I remind myself that as annoying as all of this is, I need to watch myself. Shifters live by a very different code than humans. Killing and fighting are commonplace, and judging by the unlit candle chandeliers above me, this place is probably working with an archaic set of rules.
“Are you really trying to convince us that you don’t know what you are, let alone who you are or exactly where you find yourself?” the blond man questions and then punctuates it with another humorless chuckle.
“Yes...” I put my hand out and motion in the shape of a circle. “All of that, exactly.”
A small rumble escapes the honey-eyed sky shadow who is now wearing a man body, and his shoulder length black curls sway as he shakes his head. “Summon Ami,” he commands, and his voice sounds like the deep rumble of a volcano that’s on the verge of erupting.
No one moves from the table, but I hear the door open and shut behind me as a guard from the door goes to find whoever Kit Duhamel just asked for. I stand there awkwardly, taking in the open windows and what looks to
be endless blue water beyond them. I contemplate for a second diving out of them if things get too bad in here for me, but I have no idea how to make whatever I am just come out. I have zero experience with actual shifting, and I’ll need to practice a shit ton before I attempt something like that. Maybe I can do that in the cells.
A growl fills the room, and I look back to find an angry honey stare fixed on me. I glare at him, not able to put my annoyance in check fast enough. I wish they’d start mumbling shit to each other so I could maybe catch a word here or there that would clue me in, but they all sit there like silent judgy fucking gargoyles.
I stare back at the light amber irises sparkling angrily at me, and it’s like I suddenly feel his claws at my stomach and his hooked beak snapping at me. I breathe through the onslaught of panic that fills me as I remember falling and the feel of my animal smashing into the ground. I try to pant discreetly through the flashback, never taking my eyes off of the shifter responsible for it.
His nostrils flare slightly, and he seems almost satisfied by the anxiety he must scent in the air. That pisses me the fuck off. This asshole attacked me for no reason. He almost killed me. And now he’s going to get off on my fear when he should be apologizing for what he did or explaining why he did it. Instead, he smirks at me, all high and mighty, forcing me to stand here practically naked in front of a handful of other judgmental pricks. Rage pumps through me, replacing the panic, and I welcome it.