Embraced by Darkness (37 page)

Only patience had never been one of my virtues, and I was getting more than a little pissed off at being shot at so much.

I blew out a breath, then scrambled to my feet and ran on up the steep slope. The thick lushness of the island’s interior was giving way to a wilder, scrubbier look, and the wind was stronger, battering its way through the trees and chilling the sweat against my skin. It was an almost pleasant sensation.

The rise in the land sharpened abruptly. The leg that had been shot with silver previously was beginning to not only burn, but feel weak. Like the barely healed muscles just couldn’t go on. My limp was certainly getting more pronounced.

Sky came into sight, a pale blueness peeking through the trees, calling me on. To what was anyone’s guess, but it had to be better than this goddamn slope and the bastards hunting me.

Another bullet burned through the air. I dropped, winding myself even though I didn’t think that was possible, given my current breathless state. The bullet cracked past and disappeared into the inviting blueness. If I could get down the other side of this slope fast enough, I might buy myself enough time to find a way to separate them. And once I did that, the bastards were dead.

I surged to my feet and ran on, my gaze on that blueness and the promise it offered.

But I should have been looking at where I was going. Or rather, where the land was going.

Because I reached the crest and suddenly there was nothing underneath me.

No ground, no leaf matter.

Nothing but air.

And I was falling, tumbling, down into that emptiness.

Chapter 13

I
’d only been a pup when Blake had thrown me off the cliff. But even now, I could recall those moments clearly, simply because the world around me had suddenly seemed to slow. Oh, the wind had battered me full force and the ground had rushed toward me, filling my vision, filling my world, forever embedding itself into the worst of my nightmares. It was just time itself that crawled. The falling seemed to go on and on and on. The ground rushed toward me and yet never seemed to get closer. I’d screamed, I’d quaked, I’d fought to grab something, anything, to stop my fall or to at least break it. To no avail.

But never once in any of those long minutes had my life flashed before my eyes.

Maybe it was because I’d been so young, had done so little.

I was older now.

And as I fell toward the sparkling blue of the ocean and the jagged rocks that lined the cliff’s base, images of my past reeled drunkenly before my eyes—the flashes almost too fast for me to even see them. Mostly they were memories of good times. With Rhoan, with other people I’d cared about, and boyfriends of old. And there was Quinn, who could have been something more had he only played it fair.

But with all those memories came something else. Something deeper. Stronger.

Regret
.

For all the things I hadn’t done, for all the steps I hadn’t taken.

And the biggest of those regrets was Kellen.

I
should
have given him the time he wanted. Should have given him commitment.

I should have shoved the fear aside and made a grab for my dreams. He’d been right in saying that I was never going to find what I was looking for if I didn’t occasionally
stop
looking and take a damn chance on someone.

Dammit, I didn’t want to
die
!

Not now, not when there was finally someone in my life that I loved, someone who showed every sign of being the one. And even if it turned out that he wasn’t my soul mate, then at least I could say I gave it a go. At least I’d know the fear of being left broken hadn’t stopped me from living life to the full.

I twisted around, grabbing at the cliff as it rushed by. My fingertips scraped stones, finding no purchase on the slick surface. There was nothing here, nothing at all, that would stop my fall. No grasses, no branches, no tree roots sticking out of the sandy soil. Nothing but slick rock.

I swore and continued grabbing at the cliff face, refusing to give up, refusing to believe that this was the end. But the ocean and the rocks were rushing ever closer, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, I could do to stop it.

I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the death that was speeding toward me. The best I could do was hope that either fate was kind and made it a quick one, or that by some miracle I missed the worst of the rocks and somehow found the ocean.

God, how I wished I was a bird. Wished I could just shift shape and fly like the seabirds that drifted around the cliffs. Wished I had wings to ride the breeze, skimming the rocks and riding the wave-tops to freedom rather than splattering myself all over them.

Even as the thought crossed my mind, the tingling of shapeshifting ran across my body. Panic surged and I desperately fought to stop my body from shifting shape. My wolf form would have even less chance on the rocks below, her bones more delicate, more easily smashed.

But the shifting would not be denied. It surged on regardless, heedless of the danger, reshaping flesh and bone, until what was falling was something other than human.

Only it wasn’t my wolf.

This
form felt lighter, freer.

I looked at my arms, saw red-tipped wings—feathers—instead of paws.

A bird. I was a goddamn
bird
.

Oh God, the drug. It was changing me, as it had changed the others who’d taken it.

No
, I thought,
no
.

Then I shoved it all aside. Shoved aside the fear. I had no time for it, not if I wanted to live. I frantically pumped my newly formed wings up and down. But having a bird shape didn’t exactly mean I knew how to fly. Obviously there was an art to it, because I was flapping for all I was worth and still falling. I didn’t even think my speed was slowing.

I cursed fluently, but it came out as a weird croaking cry. A cry that sounded an awful lot like that of a seagull.

Great. I was going to die in the form of a creature considered little more than a winged rat.

The rocks were so close that the salty droplets of sea spray was splashing up from them and hitting me. There was little time—so little time—for a miracle.

And yet, it came.

The sea breeze hit me, battering me sideways, and momentarily lifting me upward. In desperation, I stopped pumping and spread my wings wide. The wind caught underneath, feathers fluttering as I was lifted up, away from the rocks and out into the deeper ocean.

There the wind dumped me. I landed chest-first in an ungainly, unsightly, and very un-birdlike way. It didn’t matter a damn.

I was
alive
.

I felt like flapping my arms and dancing for joy on the rolling waves. Against all the odds, I was
alive
.

But it was an exuberance that was short lived.

I might be alive, but the means by which I’d survived had been a dramatic one. The ARC1-23 drug given to me over a year ago had finally stopped making little changes and started making big ones.

I could take on
other
shapes, and that was the one thing I’d been absolutely hoping would never, ever happen. Because it meant that my hopes of escaping the Directorate and my role as a guardian were ashes. I was Jack’s girl now, like it or not. My only other choice was being sent to the military to join the other half-breeds who’d been affected by the drug in the research centers.

There was no way in hell that was going to happen. At least with the Directorate, I could have some semblance of a normal life—even if my job there could in no way ever be considered normal.

But at least not
all
my hopes were dead. When it came to Kellen, the
how
of survival didn’t matter. I was alive, and now had the chance to give him—to give us—the commitment we deserved.

Fate had booted me up the rear end with this fall, and I wasn’t going to ignore the warning. I was going to make a grab for what I wanted, and hope that it was right.

Movement caught my eye, and I looked up. High atop the cliff top, two figures had appeared. Both men had their rifles slung over their shoulders, but Jorn was looking a little worse for the wear, his arm and leg bloody and hair in disarray.

He’d be easy to track once I got back onto land. The scent of his blood would leave a lovely trail for the keen nose of a wolf to follow.

The two men argued on the top of the cliff for several minutes. I floated on the waves, paddling for all I was worth against the current to remain where I was. It was more tiring than I thought it would be, but maybe that was a combination of the short seagull legs and overall weariness from all the running I’d been doing up until the fall.

Yohan glanced at his watch, but neither of them moved, just stayed there watching the ocean, waiting either for signs of life or confirmation of death. Exhaustion was creeping over me, and the need to resume one of my regular shapes was growing.

And deep inside, the niggle of concern was beginning. What if I couldn’t resume my regular shape? That had been one of the main problems facing the others who’d been shafted into the military—the inability to resume human shape.

But then, they’d apparently gone through multiple shapes, exploring the width and breadth of their new skills, until the cells in their bodies could no longer remember original forms.

I had no intention of being that stupid.

I might explore this new ability, but it would be under controlled conditions, with Rhoan by my side.

Though the form of a red-winged gull was not exactly an enticing one. Why a damn gull? Why couldn’t I have chosen something more exotic? Sexy? Dangerous, even? Like a hawk, or an eagle. Hell, even a cockatoo had more appeal than a damn seagull.

Still, the wings of this gull had saved my life. And maybe, just maybe, it might ease my fear of heights. After all, if I learned to fly, I’d never again have to worry about getting pushed off a cliff.

The two men finally moved away. I waited for another five minutes, watching the cliff top, searching for any sign that they were merely in hiding rather than having left, but there was nothing.

I paddled sideways across the waves, riding the surges and letting the current pull me ever so slowly toward the cliff base. To the right of where I’d fallen, the steepness of the cliff eased and the rocks weren’t as fierce looking. I paddled closer and let a wave surge drop me on top of one. My webbed red feet gripped the wet stone securely, and I waddled away from the waves, shaking my body and fluffing my feathers to get rid of some of the water.

Once I was far enough away from the foamy fingers of water, I took a deep breath, then reached down, deep down inside, to where the shapeshifting magic resided, and called for my human shape.

For a moment, there was no response, and panic surged. I closed my eyes, fighting for calm, picturing my human shape in my mind, remembering my body shape, my scars. The funny shape of my toes.

My skin began to tingle, then the shapeshifting magic surged, sweeping across my body, remolding flesh and muscle and bone, until what was sitting on the rock was once again human.

A human shaking with relief and fear.

I hugged my knees close to my chest. Every inch of my body trembled, my chest felt tight, and my wounded leg felt like jelly. But I was alive, I was whole, and I was human again. I sucked in great gulps of air, and tried not to think about what I would have done if my body hadn’t responded, if the part of my soul that made the shifting so easy had suddenly forgotten the patterns of my humanity.

It was a good five minutes before the shaking stopped enough for me to concentrate on what I had to do rather than what might have been. What still
could
be if I wasn’t very careful.

I rose and looked up, studying the cliffs. God, it was a
long
fall. My stomach rose and my body began to shake. I gulped down air, fighting the rise of terror. I was here, I was alive, and I had a brother to save. There was no time for fear or panic right now.

Thinking about Rhoan helped. As the panic began to ease, I switched my gaze to the lower regions of the cliff, looking for some way up. There wasn’t even a track a goat could climb.

Not that I was intending to become a goat anytime soon.

I shifted, my gaze following the cliff top, seeing the gradual fall before the island dipped around to the right and disappeared from sight. Hopefully, there was a bay or something around that corner.

I made my way forward, leaping from rock to rock, carefully picking my way through the sharp rocks and shells but cutting my feet nevertheless. I ignored the wounds, trusting the sea would wash away any blood I left behind.

Right now, I just needed to get to solid ground, away from the cliffs and the sea.

When I finally rounded the corner, and saw that the cliff tops did indeed sweep down into a shallow sandy bay, relief flooded me. I jumped into the sea and paddled toward the shore. I wasn’t the world’s greatest swimmer, but I think I would have broken world records right then. I dragged myself up onto the sandy beach, then on into the trees. There I threw my hands wide and dropped down onto the ground.