Page 8 of The Hidden
My fingers dig into the stone surrounding the opening behind me, and I momentarily snap myself out of my lecherous thoughts.What in the fuck is going on with me?I’ve been kidnapped, held against my will, and now they’re threatening to assault me. But apparently,myfucked up brain is cool with it as long as the one doing the assaulting is this hot as fuck Ryn asshole? Have I been drugged? I quickly look from Ryn to Loa, ensuring she’s still well out of reaching distance, and then I turn and dive out of the window.
So much for practicing a lot before doing this. Here’s to hoping I can shift and save my ass, otherwise this is going to fucking hurt.
5
Ryn bellows a “noooo,” but it’s quickly lost in the loud sound of whooshing air as it streaks past me. I swallow the terror that my free fall sends coursing through me and reach into where my gryphon is evidently having a nap. I have no fucking clue how to wake her up, and it’s starting to get easier to make out the details below me. A shadow falls over me, and I know exactly what that means. Like I’m swimming through water and not plummeting to a very painful crush injury, I use my hands and legs to flip myself over.
A furious looking Ryn, who clearly has no trouble getting his wings to cooperate, shoots straight toward me as fast as a bullet. A tingling runs up my back, and when it gets to my shoulder blades, huge black wings shoot out of me. Just fucking great; it seems they only want to come out and play in the vicinity of very hot assholes. The sudden appearance of my new feathered ebony appendages puts me into a spin in the air, and I try to fan out my wings as much as possible to stop the tornado-like momentum.
Ryn crashes into me and wraps his huge arms around my waist to stop me from spinning. I’m slammed back, but he holds me tightly against him, his grip vice-like as his huge gray and white wings shoot out to slow us down. An ache starts in my stomach, and I feel the drive to wrap my naked body around him and hold on tightly. So instead, I punch him in the face.
He grunts and then roars at me in frustration, and the angry sound shoots right to my clit. Clearly something inside of me is broken, and I ignore its cuddly prompts as I scratch and scramble to get out of Ryn’s embrace. I knee him in the stomach in a last ditch effort, and his grip loosens just enough that I can get my legs up between us and kick off of his rock hard abs to get away. I have just enough time to flip around and get my wings spread out to try and slow myself as much as possible before I slam into what I’m pretty sure is a fruit stall.
I cover my face with my hands and scream as wood splinters all around me, and the sound of fabric tearing fills my ears. Something smashes into my left wing, and I grunt from the pain and try to pull them tight against my back to protect them. I jerk to a stop suddenly, my leg caught on something, and I clench my teeth against the pain that shoots up my thigh. Something wet and sticky covers my skin, and I glance down, worried it’s blood. A light pinkish juice covers my torso and chest, and I look over and deduce it’s from the yellow fruit I just pulverized.
I groan and take stock of myself. Bruised but not broken, it seems, and I sit up and unwrap some dark blue fabric from around my leg. It looks like it used to be part of the canopy of the stall I just crashed through, and I pull at it until it rips all the way free. I brush shards of wood from my arms and legs and wrap the canopy fabric around me and tie it off. My body protests as I stand up. The fabric of the canopy I’m now wearing is short but thankfully covers all of my personal bits. I snap my wings out behind me, shaking them free of debris, and breathe a sigh of relief as they seem to be fine. There would be no escaping with a broken wing.
Shrill screams and hurried shouts break through my collision-induced fog, and I look up to find I’ve just crash-landed into some kind of marketplace. I’m surrounded by other wooden stalls that are housing food, fabric, jewelry and far too many stunned faces staring back at me. I scan my surroundings and see a group of people huddling around something. Part of a gray-tipped white wing is visible on the ground, and I realize they’re surrounding Ryn. I feel the urge to check on him, and a twinge of guilt shoots through me at the thought that he might be hurt.
I take a step toward the gathering crowd, but a man moves to get in my way protectively. The stranger’s block snaps me from my empathetic thoughts, and I start to back up and look around for an escape.
We’re in a packed dirt clearing, surrounded by houses with a tall cliff on one side and a forest on the other. I bolt past the wreckage I just caused and snake between a pair of houses. Shouts to stop sound off behind me, but I push my legs faster, hoping I can make it to the trees about twenty feet away. I don’t know why I feel like once I’m in the trees, I’m safe. I have no clue where I am or where I’m running to. These shifters acted like they’d never heard of America, and they said shit about a gate and something about Ouphe—whatever the fuck that is—so I don’t even know if I’m on the same planet anymore.
The trees look to be some kind of massive ancestor of a pine. I’ve never seen the redwood trees in California, but my imagination tells me these could probably be dead ringers. I’m panting and working hard to pull oxygen into my lungs, and I debate trying to hide behind a huge trunk and catch my breath and bearings for a minute. I don’t hear or see anyone following me, and I wonder if they were in too much shock. If they were, it probably won’t last long, so I push myself to keep moving.
Twigs, rocks, and other sharp things dig into my feet, and I wince with every footfall. My eyes bounce around my surroundings while simultaneously trying to pick the least painful path through the trees. My body feels run down and hollow, and I thank the adrenaline and fear still pumping through me, as that’s all I am currently running on. I try to pull my wings back in, but they won’t listen. I debate climbing to the top of a tree and trying to fly away, but I figure I’m harder to find here amidst the trees than I would be in the sky.
I step on another rock and bite back the yelp that wants to escape. Tears well up in my eyes, and I can’t help but chuckle humorlessly at their appearance.I crash into a makeshift building and brush it off, but a rock sets me over the edge?I look around and try to find a safe space to stop and catch my breath. I need to come up with a better plan than run and hope they don’t catch me. I look up into the insanely tall trees and decide I’d probably be safest up in the branches. The lowest offshoots from the trunk are easily fifteen feet above my head, and I ponder for a minute how the hell I’m going to get up there.
I mentally slam a palm against my forehead when I remember I have wings.Fucking hell, Falon, get it together.I spread out my ebony additions and give a couple test flaps. I crouch a little and then pump them harder, and I have to work hard to keep from whooping in triumph when I’m lifted off the ground and up into the air. I fly like a drunk pigeon but manage to get myself perched on some branches about thirty feet off the ground. By the time I get myself snuggled safely against the trunk and get enough fabric from my canopy dress under my ass to keep it from chaffing, I’m ready to have a serious heart to heart with my gryphon.
I don’t know where the hell she went, but we need to come to some kind of an understanding. She very clearly knows what she’s doing when I’m shifted and she’s in control. I didn’t have any issues with flying as a gryphon—well, not up until the sky shadow attacked us. I need to work hardcore on calling her or connecting or whatever the hell I need to do to master my shifts and winged abilities, because we need to get the hell out of here, and it’s not going to happen without my gryphon stepping up and showing me how to get shit done.
I sag against the tree trunk, the reddish-brown bark digging into my back, and rub my feet. Gradually my labored breathing slows, proof that I need to up my cardio game. The fight or flight that’s been hammering through my veins slowly fades, and with it goes any desire to move from this spot. I’m shrouded by clumps of pine needles the size of my forearm, and I feel hidden and protected. Logically I know I haven’t put enough distance between myself and my captors, and I know with every second I sit up here, they’re probably closing in. Which means I need to move, but I’m struggling to convince my exhausted body of that.
The sun sinks closer to the horizon, and the shadows in the forest wake up and stretch. I wrap my wings around me and breathe my warm breath into the cocoon I’ve made around myself. The temperature is gradually dropping—with the right clothing and gear, it’d be perfect camping weather—however, I’m one ripped up piece of canopy away from being naked, and the cooling air bites at my skin in warning.
Reluctantly I admit to myself that I need to find someplace warmer because this tree limb is not going to cut it for the night. Slowly I stand up, and my stiff muscles protest against the movement. I’m on the verge of unfurling my wings and figuring out how to fly down from this tree, when voices and footfall reach me. I go still.
I focus and try to listen past the sudden hammering of my heartbeat in my ears. They sound like they’re getting closer, and I’m not sure if I can outrun them. I inch closer to the tree trunk and bring my wings up to block me as much as possible. If they don’t look up, I’ll be fine. The voices grow louder. It’s definitely more than one person, but I have no idea how many. I’m tempted to shut my eyes and hope theif I can’t see you, you can’t see metheory works in this case, but I can’t seem to look away from the ground directly below my hiding spot.
Panic races through me as Ryn and a handful of other guards come into view, but it’s challenged by the sudden relief that tries to take over. I swat that emotion away. I shouldn’t care if the bossy gryphon shifter is okay. The longer he would’ve stayed out of commission from our crash, the better chance I would have of getting the hell away from here—wherever here is anyway. I don’t know if it’s empathy or my own shifter side pushing me to have the feels for these captor assholes, but I feel like I’m fighting them and myself, and it’s weird as fuck. I’m typically one to follow my instincts, but right now my instincts and my brain are at war, and I’m struggling to sort through the mess of emotions.
The guards are scanning the ground, looking for tracks, I realize. Ryn stops just past the base of my tree and bends over to pick something up. He looks around the ground and then slowly stands.Don’t look up. Don’t look up,I chant in my head on a loop as if it will somehow keep any of them from doing exactly that. I squint to try and see what Ryn now has gripped in his fist. I pale when I make out the black feather he’s now gripping.
“She definitely came this way, but it looks like she took to the sky here,” he announces, and then every one of them looks up.
Shit. Shit, shit!I internally scream and do my best to think invisible thoughts. The three seconds that they spend peering up past the trees feels like hours, and I’m terrified someone is going to hear the slamming of my heart against my sternum.
“Call off the ground search. We’ll double the air sentries. She won’t get far even with the storm rolling in to give her cover,” Ryn orders, and all but one of the guards turns around and heads back the way they came. The guard that didn’t move starts to look through the trees more carefully, and I know it’s only a matter of time before his hawk eyes land on me. I work to slow my panic-laced breathing and hope somehow I can outsmart or outfly the last remaining guard and Ryn. I stop myself from looking up to gauge how far I need to get before I hit treetop-free sky, knowing if I move even slightly, I might give myself away.
Ryn mumbles something to the guard, but I can’t make out what it is. A couple beats later, the guard stops his scanning of the massive trees around him and salutes Ryn before marching away. Ryn stands exactly where he is and scours the ground around him again. He pulls the charcoal-colored feather that clearly fell from one of my wings, through the palm of his other hand absently as he searches the ground for something. Each stroke of my abandoned feather through his strong fist sends a shiver higher and higher up my spine. It’s like I can feel the soft touch up my naked back and across the tops of my wings.
A slow heat starts to unfurl in me, and my brain and body start to war again. I want to jump down and replace the ghost of his touch with the real thing, and yet I know in my mind, that’s a dumb fucking thing to do. I bite the inside of my cheek and watch him crack his neck from side to side. He brings the feather up to his nose and pulls in a deep inhale. I can picture his dark gray eyes scanning everything around him, and I’m actively fighting against the part of me that wants him to look up and spot me.
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.
