Page 21 of The Hidden
“Little sparrow, can you hear me?” Zeph asks again, leaning down closer to my face.
“Your telephone pole dick is staring at me,” I croak, and I swear the thing twitches.
“Where are you hurt?” he demands, his voice abandoning the tenderness that was just there and falling back into familiar gruff territory.
“Everywhere,” I announce, but it sounds like a question.
“Rutting centaurs!” he exclaims, and it sounds like he’s swearing, but I have no idea what he just said. “I’m going to have to set your wing before it heals wrong and I have to rebreak it to fix it.”
I don’t respond in any way.
“Here’s the thing, little sparrow, you can’t scream. The forest isn’t safe on this side of the lake, and too much noise will bring a rut load of trouble down on our heads.”
Once more, I don’t say or do anything, and Zeph grows quiet. “Cum on a tree sprite,” he swears again, and I don’t know what he’s doing, but it’s making Heavy D and The Boys bounce around. I feel two large hands lift me up by the shoulders, and a shriek of protest pours out of me.
“Shhh, youhaveto be quiet,” he scolds me, but I fucking can’t.
Tears stream down my face as he picks me up and pulls me into his lap. His body is warm against my chilled skin, but every jostle feels like torture, and I scream through gritted teeth as he rests my head against his chest. He finally has a clear view of my left shoulder, and he swears again.
“Your shoulder’s out, too,” he informs me, his tone clinical, and I whimper and pant through the new wave of pain crashing through me from being moved. “Little sparrow, I know it hurts, but you have to be quiet. If they find us, we’ll be tortured and killed.”
I’m not sure who thetheyare he’s talking about, but the worry in his tone has me gritting my teeth and nodding my head. I turn my face into his heated skin and squeeze my eyes closed in anticipation. I’m not sure how much time goes by, but he doesn’t immediately reset my shoulder or wing like I expected. I relax slightly, and that’s when he thrusts my elbow up, and my shoulder pops back into place. The cry I can’t swallow back down is muffled against his skin. He doesn’t even give me time to catch my breath before his hands are on my wing, snapping things back into place and causing an inferno of anguish to blaze through me.
My vision tunnels, and I beg for unconsciousness. Just when I get a grip on the blackness and try to pull it over me like a comforting blanket, it slips from my grasp, and I’m left panting against Zeph’s chest. Pain laps through me, cresting and falling. My tears drip down my cheek and speckle his olive toned skin.
“Shhhh, little sparrow, it’s over. You did well. It’s okay,” Zeph coos at me as he wipes the tears from my face with his calloused thumb.
His rough fingertips feel oddly soothing, and a shuddering breath moves through me as I try to stem my tears. His hand moves from my face momentarily, and he runs it up my spine to the base of my neck. Familiar tingles move through the muscles in my back, and my wings fold up inside of me again, taking some of the pain with them. I gasp in momentary relief, and my eyes fly open. Zeph’s honey-eyed gaze is fixed on my face, and I stare into his stunning eyes, suddenly very captivated.
Short black lashes frame his intense stare as it drops from my eyes to my lips. I’m very aware that we’re both naked, but instead of being uncomfortable with that fact, I have to admit that I like it. Satisfaction hums through me, and I know I have Pigeon to thank for it, but beneath her contentedness,Ialso feel safe and glad to be in his arms. My eyes drop to his lips momentarily before they snake back up his gorgeous face. Heat unfurls in my core, and I feel him hardening against my hip, his length rising to skim both of my ass cheeks. When my gaze meets his again, I’m surprised by the desire I see floating in the thick honey hue of his eyes.
An image of me sitting up and straddling his lap pops up in my mind. I watch as I brush my mouth teasingly against his lips, pulling back a little as he leans in for a kiss. I want to watch his face as I slowly lower myself down on his cock. The tip of him easily parts my wet lips, and I moan as he starts to fill me up. Zeph growls, and I smile as I lift myself up, not letting him go any deeper inside of me. I roll my hips and bounce in his lap so that just the tip of him works in and out of me. I’m eagerly awaiting the moment that he gets fed up with just the tip of his dick getting wet and takes control, slamming his hips up hard and burying his delicious cock deep inside of me.
A distant screech pulls me from my naughty daydream, and Zeph’s heated gaze flashes up from mine to the sky. He searches for something, and I feel his body shifting from need to action.Why am I disappointed by that?I don’t even like this guy.Yes, I got a little swoony as he fixed me and gave me some petting, but he’s also the reason I was fucked up in the first place. Zeph rises suddenly from his crouch and starts moving swiftly through the forest. I bite down against the pain that strikes through me at the jostling of my arm, and hope that my shifter genes kick in soon and start healing me.
Zeph moves from tree to tree, his eyes darting from the path he’s tracking through the forest up to the sky, checking for whatever threat he’s anticipating. I stay quiet, not wanting to distract him or do anything that could clue whatever is hunting us in on our location. Another screech fills the air, this one closer, and Zeph’s muscles tense as he freezes under a canopy of branches and needles. He holds me bridal style, and his grip tightens as he turns and presses me against the tree. The bark against my slowly healing shoulder fucking hurts, and a whimper I can’t help sneaks out from my lips.
“Shhhhh,” Zeph’s deep whisper brushes over my face, his mouth a hair’s breadth away from mine. His gaze goes distant, and I can tell he’s listening for something as our breaths mingle and the drive to kiss him bubbles up inside of me.
“Not the time or the place, Pigeon,”I scold.“Your bullshit has caused enough trouble already,”I add, and then I wet my lips with my tongue and try to ignore the fact that if I just leaned in a little, I could claim his full lips as mine.
After a couple beats of silence, Zeph starts to move again, but the erection slapping against my ass as we run makes me horny as fuck and aware that Zeph is not unaffected by my naked body in his arms.Maybe I’m not as indifferent as I thought to this asshole. Or maybe I just need to get laid, and the position we find ourselves in would make anyone start to think dirty thoughts.I latch onto the second explanation, much to Pigeon’s dismay, but it has to be that. I know she’s attracted to him on some instinctual level, but on a logical level, I am not.
He’s a dick, and I can’t just excuse that because he happens to have a pretty one I would like to play with right now. We just need to make it through this fucked up episode ofNaked and Afraid, and then I’ll find some other pretty dick to play with. A growl rumbles in Zeph’s chest, and I look up in alarm to see what set him off. I search the sky like he’s been doing, but I don’t see or sense anything. My eyes dart to Zeph’s, and his stare is fixed on me. He’s angry, and his hold tightens on me. I wiggle uncomfortably until he stops squeezing me, and he looks away, irritation and fury in his eyes.
Yep, definitely need to start hunting for a pretty dick attached to a nice gryphon who’s down for a little no strings attached fuckery,I decide, and I stop myself from nestling into Zeph’s chest the way Pigeon wants me to as he starts running again.
12
“What is this place?” I ask, not able to help it as I’m carried deeper into a cave of red rock with black veins crawling through it.
“It’s a hidden shelter. We have them scattered around for situations just like this,” Zeph tells me as he makes his way further in.
Our voices crash against the rock and bounce back at us, but Zeph is talking, so I figure it’s safe to keep doing the same.
“And what exactly is it that we’re running from?” I press. He said it wasn’t safe on this side of the lake, but I still have no idea what’s going on.
“The Avowed patrol this side of the lake. It’s the furthest their territory reaches. You could have been spotted any minute, which is why I—”
