Page 9 of The Hidden
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 machoI got thisfeeling 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. TheI got thisattitude 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 afake it till you make itmantra 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 that 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 inthisfast?
“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 aboutthe 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.
