by Ivy Asher
Ryn tucks my feather inside the waist of his pants. I trace his shirtless torso with my eyes, caressing the dips and peaks of his muscles as he turns to follow the direction the guards disappeared in. Loss blooms inside of my traitorous body, and I hold in the relieved exhale that wants to escape out of my lips. I stand frozen against the tree trunk for probably way longer than necessary, but I can’t bring myself to move too soon. The thought that somehow this is all a trap keeps flashing like a warning in my mind, and I worry that as soon as I jump down, I’ll be pounced on by a bunch of guards.
I listen closely to the sounds of this strange forest all around me, but I don’t hear or see anything that makes me think my paranoia is justified. The sun drops even more, and the growing chill in the air finally spurs me into action. I step away from my hiding spot and scan the forest floor one more time before spreading my wings and jumping off the thirty-foot-high branch I’m standing on. My wings slow my rapid descent a little, and a surprised noise sneaks out of me when I land on my feet. This agile, land-like-a-cat thing is new, but I push past my awe and focus on what’s around me. I fold my wings back behind me and wait for any hint of a trap to reveal itself.
When nothing moves toward me and no new sounds of pursuit reach my ears, I sprint in the opposite direction Ryn and his guards went. I wince at my sore feet and slow a little, trying to pick my path better. I can’t afford to get hurt because I’m rushing, and I decide a steady brisk pace is probably smarter. I make sure to stick close to the massive trees surrounding me so the sentries in the sky can’t spot me easily. My body is sticky and gross from the residue of whatever fruit juice I got myself coated in when I crashed into the fruit stall, and my makeshift dress keeps trying to fall off.
I stop to tie it more securely, and I notice the faint sound of rushing water in the distance. My mouth goes even drier, and my body makes its demand for hydration known. Apparently, just the thought of water has my body moving toward it. I tie the too short, inadequate dress tighter around me and quietly make my way toward what sounds like a waterfall. I try to be as alert of my surroundings as I can be. So far I haven’t run into any scary animals, but I’m all too aware that I have no idea what exists in this forest. I weave between house-sized tree trunks, whose branches and needles hide me from the sky, until I reach the end of the tree line.
I stare out between two massive tree trunks at a small waterfall that feeds a daintily flowing stream. Steam rises off of the water, and that same unfamiliar musky scent the water in the bathroom had drifts over to where I’m standing, studying the foreign terrain. It must be some kind of hot spring, which explains where the warm water for my bath came from. Oddly, this water lacks the telltale sulfuric odor that the hot springs back home always seem to have. There’s a collection of small pools on either side of the narrow river, and I stare at them longingly. This isn’t the cool stream I was hoping for, but the steam rising off of this water beckons me all the same.
Warmth laps at my hiding spot, and my skin prickles, caught between the promised heat of the water and the cooling air of the night. The forest has welcomed dusk into its embrace, and the shadows stretch out, eager for the night. The light around me is fading fast, and everything is cloaked in the promise of more darkness with each passing minute. The sound of water plummeting from the small cliff above me fills my ears, and I slowly start to put together a plan. I can wash off, warm up, and either climb up into a tree and rest as much as I can for the night, or I can work on my shifting. If I can coax my gryphon into cooperation, then maybe we can make a break for it under the shroud of night.
An image of my reflection bouncing back up at me as I flew over the lake creeps into my mind. I recall that, even though my wings are black as night, the rest of my gryphon form is white. I huff out the worry that bubbles up inside of me with that realization. Ryn said there was a storm coming, maybe my gryphon knows how to be stealthy as fuck, or better yet, maybe she can kick some serious ass and fight her way out of here if she needs to. I try not to roll my eyes at that thought. I remind myself that when Zeph attacked after my first shift, my gryphon and I didn’t go down without a fight. We held our own pretty well, I tell myself, and I stand a little taller and embrace the macho I got this feeling as it rears up inside of me.
I step slowly away from the trees, painfully aware of how exposed I suddenly am. There’s no canopy of branches, needles, and leaves to hide me away, and I suddenly feel hunted. The I got this attitude I was just wrapping around myself tries to make a break for it, but I reach out and snatch it back. I apply a solid stranglehold around the faux reassurance, and chant a fake it till you make it mantra until I’m standing at the lip of a steaming pool of amazing smelling water.
The hot spring is about the size of an above ground pool the neighbors down the road used to let the neighborhood kids play in every summer when I was growing up. Thankfully, I can see through the water to the bottom, and relief fills me when nothing creepy is swimming around in it and it doesn’t look very deep. There’s no sign of boiling or anything else that would hint that this water is dangerous, so I hold my breath and dip the tip of my dirt crusted foot in it. I exhale the tension holding my body hostage when my foot doesn’t melt off and nothing slithers out of the surrounding rocks to try and eat me.
My foot stings a little from the heat, but I dip it further in; I can’t waste too much time out here in the open. I look around me and up at the sky again to make sure I haven’t been spotted, and then I untie the knot holding the canopy fabric around me and set the dark blue bundle on a rock just to my right. It has some fruit juice residue on the side that met my skin, but I can flip it around and use it to dry off and wear when I’m done. I slip into the warm water and hiss as the stinging sensation I felt on my foot lights up all over my now mostly submerged body.
The water is just a little too hot for my cold skin, but I know I’ll adjust in a couple of minutes. I swim out, away from the edge at my back, and find I can’t touch the bottom of the pool. I tread water and stare at the ripples all around me, making sure I’m still safe and alone. I quickly wash the sticky layer of dried fruit juice from my skin, and my gaze flits from the water to the surrounding forest, up to the sky, and back again as I do. The warm water suddenly feels amazing, and it’s very tempting to just sit here and prune out, but I’m too exposed. I twist back and forth in the water, hoping the agitation is enough to get my wings clean.
I take a deep breath and drop under the warm water, scrubbing the sticky out of my tangled hair. My feet touch the bottom of the pool, and I realize it’s about six inches deeper than I am tall. White strands of my hair float around me, and I run my fingers through it and try to get it as clean as possible. My lungs start to burn with the need for oxygen, and I slowly surface and swim for the rock that I left my towel-dress-combo on.
Time to move onto phase two of my escape-and-evade plan. I freeze in the water when I realize that my towel dress is no longer crumpled on the rock where I left it.
“Looking for this?” a deep voice questions, and I whirl around in the water to find Ryn standing on the other side of the pool, holding my tattered piece of blue canopy.
Adrenaline hammers through me as his stormy gray eyes meet mine in challenge. I can practically hear him encouraging me to just try to run. I say nothing as I attempt to quickly come up with a plan to get out of the water and away from him as quickly as possible, which is probably delusional, wishful thinking, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.
6
Ryn is fully dressed now. He has a fawn-colored shirt under his gray leather armor. The swords he had crossed at his back are missing, and he’s holding a brown leather bag in the hand that’s not fisted in my makeshift dress. I ignore my body’s response to him, and as soon as my back hits the edge of the pool, I reach back and push myself out of the water. I don’t take my eyes from Ryn, but his steel-coated gaze drops down my body like it did in the bathroom. I start to back away, hoping somehow t
hat he’ll be so distracted by my hardening nipples he won’t notice I’ve made it to the tree line where I can try to make a run for it.
Surprisingly, my plan seems to work. Ryn doesn’t make a move for me as I steadily back away from him. He’s transfixed, not even muttering a sound of warning or disagreement as I calmly inch closer to escape. Ryn’s gaze meets mine just as I slam into something large and unmovable behind me. I know I’m nowhere near the tree line, and judging by the nonplussed look on Ryn’s face, he’s either unconcerned by whoever I just walked into, or doesn’t care if I’m about to get eaten by something.
“Did you get everything we need?” Zeph’s deep voice rumbles behind me, the vibration of it moving from his chest into my wings where they’re pressed against him.
I take a stride forward in an effort to sprint away from the mountain of a shifter at my back, but he reaches out and grabs me by the nape of my neck, like some naughty kitten, and pulls me back into him. I growl my displeasure at being manhandled, but I’m no match for either of these guys, and we all know it. I search the depths of my soul, shouting for my bitch of a gryphon to wake the fuck up and help a girl out, but all I manage to rouse is a satisfied warm feeling that crawls through me as Zeph and Ryn talk with each other.
If it wasn’t for the wings that I can’t seem to put away, I’d wonder if I was in fact still a latent. Maybe I just imagined myself as a gryphon, because I sure as fuck can’t get her to work with me when I’m clearly in a state of crisis.
I never did like fucking birds.
Not even my attempt to piss my animal off results in anything, and I check back into the here and now, where I’m being held against a strong body and doing my best not to like it.
“What are you guys going to do?” I ask, as I watch Ryn kneel down and start to pull things out of the brown leather bag he’s clutching. I ignore the ring of excitement I can hear in my voice and immediately question whether Stockholm syndrome kicks in this fast?
“We’re going to finish what you tried to stop in the bathroom,” Ryn tells me as he pulls out the same items that Tysa had clutched in her arms.
I expect Loa—and the guards she threatened would hold me down—to come stomping out of the forest, but to my surprise, it doesn’t happen. I squirm to get out of Zeph’s hold, but he just grips my neck tighter. His domination stirs something inside of me, and at first I’m not sure what it is. My vision sharpens, and a prickle moves through me, and I immediately recognize the signs my grandmother used to tell me about the shift. The feathers on my wings ruffle and fluff up, and I welcome the stubborn bitch of a gryphon inside of me to wake the fuck up and take over.
Finally!
Ryn’s head snaps up from where he’s arranging all the vials and bowls on a rock. “She’s waking,” he announces, his tone laced with warning.
“I know, I can feel it,” Zeph tells him.
“Well, if you don’t want to—”
I don’t hear the rest of what Ryn has to say, because the next thing I know, Zeph is leaning over me, and his lips are inches away from the shell of my ear.
“Shhhh,” he soothes. “I’ve got you now, little sparrow, no one is here to hurt you. You’re safe in our hands,” he reassures, and just like that, I can feel my gryphon sinking away.
“No,” I yell in objection, and I start to work harder to try and get away from Zeph. We are not okay; do you not see that I’m naked and being manhandled? We’re about as far from being okay as it fucking gets! Where are you going? I scream at my gryphon, but she disappears all the same.
I try to stretch out my wings to break Zeph’s hold and wiggle away, but he just pins me tighter to him. My gryphon doesn’t respond to anything that’s happening to me this time, and impotent frustration barrels through me. I kick, claw and punch at anything I can, but Zeph just chuckles in my ear, pissing me off even more. I grit my teeth and screech out my anger. I pull a solid bitch move and grab a fist full of his black wavy locks and yank hard.
Zeph bites me.
Not hard enough to draw blood, but he chomps down on where my neck meets my shoulder and applies pressure until his meaning is clear. He’s seen my bitch move and raised me a bitch move.
I let go of his hair, and he releases his teeth from my neck. He starts to frog-march me back to the water’s edge, his big body herding me exactly where he wants me to go. I pretend the goose bumps that rise all over my body are from the cold and not in any response to his dominant behavior. I’ve always liked some fight in my partners, but I’ve never experienced anything like this before. In the past, I’ve always ended up being the dominant person in my relationships, and as much as I’ve fantasized about finding a big alpha asshole, now that one is holding me by the nape and marching me somewhere I don’t want to go, I can’t say I’m a huge fan of it.
“Don’t move,” Zeph warns me when we get to the rocky lip of the pool I was cleaning up in previously, and his grip loosens from my nape.
I immediately dash to the right, but Zeph reaches out and plucks me back to where he wants me. We repeat this a couple more times before I accept that I’m not getting away. I stare daggers at him as he reaches down and starts to unlace the black leather armor he’s wearing. I can’t seem to look away as he unties his vest on one side and then slips it and the black undershirt off. I take in all seven plus feet of him, every inch hard muscle covered in soft olive-toned skin, dusted with black hair on his chest, arms, and the happy trail that leads into his pants. He reaches down and starts to undo the laces at his crotch, and my fascination turns into panic.
A weird keening sound escapes me as terror bubbles up my throat. My wings seem to spring into action of their own accord and start to flap furiously in an effort to get me the fuck out of here. Zeph’s honey-dipped gaze snaps up to mine, and his eyes widen at the fear he must see there. He takes a step toward me as I lift off of the ground, but arms wrap around me from behind, and I scream and thrash to get out of Ryn’s hold.
“You’re okay,” he tells me over and over again. I fucking hate that tears start to stream down my cheeks as I rage and swear and fight as hard as I can to get away. My gryphon doesn’t even stir, and I curse her and them and my grandmother for getting me into this situation. I’ve never felt so fucking helpless in my life, and if I make it out of this alive, I will do everything I can to never feel this way again.
“I will fucking die before I let you rape me,” I screech at them, and I slam my head back, hoping it connects with Ryn’s face somehow and breaks something, but the fucker is too tall, and all I manage to slam into is his muscled chest.
Zeph freezes, and his eyes flash with something as a growl slips out of his mouth. “We would never dishonor a woman or ourselves in that way,” he tells me, and I think I catch a flicker of hurt in his eyes before indignation snuffs it out.
“Then what the fuck are you doing?” I ask, confused, my eyes dipping to the untied laces of his pants.
“We have to cleanse you,” Ryn tells me, and his hold on me loosens ever so slightly.
“Yeah, you keep saying that, but what the fuck does that mean?” I demand.
“We have to make sure you’re not here to hurt us or the pride. We can only confirm that by making sure you and the truth aren’t cloaked in magic somehow,” Zeph tells me, his voice a deep rumble. “Every inch of you will be washed with the tears of clarity, and then you’ll be scrubbed clean with verity moss. Once that’s been done, you will take a tincture made from axiom leaf. We will question you again, and then the truth in what you’re saying will be certain and unquestionable,” he tells me as if it’s all so simple.
I picture his hands on my body as he works to rid me of magic I don’t even have, and heat flutters through my stomach. “Fine,” I tell him, and Zeph’s mouth hangs open for a second in surprise. “I’ll bathe in whatever you want, but I can do it myself. I don’t want either of you touching me.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Ryn starts to say, but I cut him off.<
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“Then you do dishonor me,” I accuse, using the term that Zeph did and trying to ignore the fact that I sound like the dragon from Mulan.
Zeph growls and steps into me, pressing me deliciously between him and Ryn. “I will not risk the lives of many for the discomfort of one,” he snarls at me. “This is a necessity, not an act of gratification,” he declares, and the look he gives me as he does has me feeling like a bug he’d rather crush under his shoe than touch.
I look away from the scathing judgement in his eyes. “And when this is done, I can go home?” I ask, my voice small as the fight in me slowly drifts away.
“We’ll do what we can, yes,” Ryn tells me, and he drops his strong arms from my body.
I don’t miss the fact that what he just said wasn’t actually a yes, but I don’t challenge it. “Fine,” I consent, and I side step out of the gryphon sandwich I’m currently liking way too much. I spread my arms out in invitation and wait for them to do whatever they need to do.
Zeph gives a slight nod to Ryn, who picks up a glass bottle of clear liquid. He grabs the now empty brown leather bag that he brought everything in and bends over to fill it with warm water from the pool. He hands the waterskin to Zeph who grabs it and holds it in front of Ryn. Ryn pours some of the clear liquid into the pouch of steaming water, and Zeph cinches the top with a meaty hand and shakes the water inside.
“Tip your head back,” Zeph orders me, but I just stare at him unmoving.
“We will start with your hair, then your face, arms, torso, hips, legs, and lastly your feet,” he informs me, and I swear his voice gets deeper with each listed part of my body.