WingSpan (Taken on the Wing Book 1) (14 page)

Jenn looks down, surprised to see her plate empty. Swift’s is as well so Jenn takes her purse and heads to the washroom. Jenn’s embarrassment over hiding in the bathroom makes her even angrier with herself. Now she feels like she owes Blondie something.

Blondie who sprouted big brown wings and claws and it was only a surprise to Jenn. Damn, maybe it was the Oxycontin which made her see that too.

When she returns Swift waits with a banana split and two spoons.

“I kinda set you up,” Swift admits. “But I want you to be in on it in case I made things worse.”

“Uh, okay,” Jenn accepts the spoon pushed her way.

“He’s staying at the hotel you went to when he saw you last month in Parksville. Gonna take the next ferry to Vancouver and be here by morning. I told him we’re meeting here for breakfast around eight but if you don’t want me around in the morning that’s fine.”

God, it all sounds so reasonable. Blondie has to be on the level if she knows about the hotel.

“It’ll give you the night to think about…” she rolls her eyes and takes another spoonful of the pineapple part. “Never mind me. Maybe I’m trying to make things right for me by making things right for you. I don’t know.”

“Swift?” Jenn waits until she looks up. “Thanks. I shouldn’t have called you a bitch.”

Blondie shrugs. “I was trying to piss you off.”

“Fair enough.”

It’s uncomfortable again and Jenn puts her spoon down. Blondie takes the last strawberry for herself.

“I feel like I should invite you to my room, maybe do each other’s nails or something.”

“Don’t push it, Shadow,” Swift’s smile doesn’t reach above her lips. She pulls out a couple of the new plastic twenties and tosses them on the table. “Don’t assume I got involved for you.”

In spite of the chill, Blondie gives Jenn a quick hug just outside the diner.

“I’m sorry,” she says before she hurries down the block.

Talon’s worry for Shadow wasn’t weakened by four days sparring in both the sky above and lower reaches below the Jasper Eyrie. The time on the wing failed to even distract him from the human emotions he indulges in as Mark.

Giving up his search for her is unconscionable but leaving her for Torrent to find instead is worse. Talon couldn’t risk being absent from the eyrie if he didn’t get to her first. She hadn’t been on the bus in Edmonton so he’d driven to Parksville. No sign of her there either. Her patio door had been unlocked so he’d let himself in but other than the smell of at least two unfamiliar gryphons there was no indication of trouble.

And nothing to suggest where she’d gone.

He drove to Jasper and left his rig at the transition house before making the two hour trip on the wing to the eyrie. The transition house is nothing more than a hotel owned by Royal Sire Sher, staffed by common gryphons and funded by legitimate human guests. Gryphons check in, leave their human vehicles behind and take wing on the roof to travel to the eyrie.

Word spread quickly that Talon was in the eyrie and the lower dens, usually sparsely populated by visiting rogues, were filling up with wandering males eager to prove themselves against him or at least watch him in action. And he was happy for the distraction. Anyone who’d trained under Master Sky for so many years had an obligation to teach and Talon had a knack for lessons, dragging out the inevitable defeat of his opponents.

A lesson learned in the sparring chamber could be a life saved in real combat. Alliances between eyries are fierce, divisions even fiercer.

Today Talon trained in the sky so he could keep an eye out for Shadow if she’d been caught.

The common baths are nearly deserted by the time he’s taken dinner and made his way down to the pools of cold spring water. Every eyrie has one, even high in the Rocky Mountains where it was completely incongruous considering how much further it felt from the centre of the Earth. On the wing, Talon doesn’t mind the water’s coolness anyway.

When he steps from the pool the water is cloudy with the chalk used in sparring. Much like paintball, he supposes. His hands were covered in chalk from the pouch he wore around his waist to mark where he’d struck his opponents. Many gryphons sparred only to mark. Talon made sure his marks stung.

Only a few steps from the baths the sound of two sets of barely stealthy feet reaches him from further along the tunnel that leads up to the common areas above. In the blackness his shifted eyes have no trouble seeing the pair as they round a bend ahead. Talon isn’t in the mood to be invited back to the sparring chamber so he keeps his head high to warn them off.

“Talon,” the larger of the two addresses him. Both males are in full armour and wear the mark of Sire Sher’s Royal Guard burned into their upper left arms. Dame Arden’s guard, many female, sticks mainly to the royal chambers in the upper reaches of the eyrie. The one who speaks also wears a black eye. He’d spent the afternoon monopolizing Talon’s time, tumbling to the ground with him over and over breaking away in time to catch the air and avoid crashing into the glacier below.

“Gryphons,” Talon offers a slight nod of acknowledgement.

“Sire Sher insists you voluntarily return to your den.”

Talon rubs at his wrist as a small itch becomes an uncomfortable burn. There is only one reason he’d be confined.

“What is the accusation?” Talon has the right to ask and be advised of the charges.

“It is believed you witnessed an assault on the royal gryphon Torrent and offered haven to the traitor accused in the assault.”

So that’s how it’s going to be. If Shadow is accused of treason it means Torrent seeks her death and by implicating Talon in the crime he could very well seek the same fate for him. The only good to come from their being charged together is they would both have the opportunity to speak. Had Shadow been charged alone it would be up to Torrent whether Talon would be heard.

“I shall of course comply,” Talon holds his head high.

The smaller guardsman leads the way while the bigger bruised gryphon follows with Talon keeping a wary eye on him. Gryphons they pass pretend not to notice his escort but he’s certain news of his custody is already spreading. By the time they reach Talon’s den the burning in his wrist is nearly intolerable and it can only mean one thing.

Shadow is in trouble.

The wrist that burns is the same one on which she wears his bracelet.

In his den he finds the other males who shared it have moved out which suits him fine. Once the curtain falls shut Talon drops to his knees as the two guards take station outside. He closes his eyes, tuning out the noises of the eyrie and the burning in his wrist to focus on his mate, hoping that when she arrives her feelings will reach him even from the royal chambers far above.

Chapter Thirteen

Three loud thumps get Jenn’s attention. She dreams Delilah gives her a stuffed eagle at some strange home party. Its unusually long thin tail is stiff with wire and she bends it around to see if it can hold its new shape. The other ladies from the bank pick at cheese and crackers on the coffee table and look at other stuffed animals making their way from hand to hand. Empty wine bottles litter the floor and Delilah’s husband is dressed in a tuxedo as he makes the rounds, topping up glasses in Terry’s small living room.

“This fellow’s name is Talon,” Delilah explains, glaring at the noisy front door.

The ladies ooh and aah.

“Pass him along, Jenn. Only a couple more and then we’ll get ordering and see what your hostess prize is.”

But Jenn doesn’t want to. The soft stuffed animal is hers and passing it along will take it closer to the door where another three loud thumps interrupt Delilah and shake Jenn awake.

In the blackness of her hotel room she sits and tries to remember where she is.

“Hotel security!” is followed by two more sharp raps on her door.

“Just a sec,” Jenn calls. She wears nothing but the t-shirt she’d worn at Mark’s and doesn’t remember packing it before she ran out. The hotel bathrobe is piled on the foot of the bed and she pulls it on as she goes to the door.

She peeks out the spy hole and sees two men dressed in matching dark blue clothes, some kind of badges over their pockets. Seriously? This place can’t be big enough to have much more than the night clerk and maybe someone else to run extra pillows to the rooms.

Jenn leaves the chain secured and opens enough to see out. They look the same as they did through the peep hole except she has to blink in the blinding hall light.

“Ma’am,” one of them says. They’re both big and it seems fitting for security. “We need your assistance. There’s been a break in down the hall and we believe the suspect is cornered on your balcony.”

“I haven’t unlocked it since I got here and checked it before I turned in,” Jenn explains, anxious to be rid of them. She’s not sure why they make her a little cautious, possibly Terry’s numerous run-ins with the police are to blame which is silly but she’s leery of them just the same. “Thank you but I’m safe.”

She lets the door fall shut and the other security guard puts his hand out, stopping it from closing.

“We haven’t been clear, Ma’am,” he says as the first one glances down the hall and licks his lips. Nervous maybe? Jenn can’t be certain but his uniform is newer so maybe he’s still pretty green on the job. “We need to access your balcony to take him in to custody.”

“You have to come in?”

“That’s what I just explained, Ma’am,” he says. “We have him cornered and need to go through your room.”

“Okay,” she concedes. A lot of security to be sure if there are more on the balconies. The guard moves his hand so she can close the door and unhook the chain. As she does there’s a soft thump on the glass behind her.

“I heard him!” she hisses, stepping aside to let them by. The newer one passes and as she turns to face the balcony the older one takes her elbows from behind.

“Wait here, Ma’am,” he orders but Jenn doesn’t understand why they don’t let her wait in the hall. Shouldn’t the senior guy help with the arrest or whatever they’re going to do? New guy is almost at the sliding glass door.

As she tries to get away his grip tightens too much and Jenn’s sure something is wrong. She pulls harder and takes a step onto his foot.

“Help me,” the guard behind her says and she kicks him, surprised how quickly she thinks. She has her feet and that’s about it and as long as they think she’s intent on struggling, the new guy won’t suspect she’s going to try and disable him. Unable to fight them both at once she’s got to take out half her problem or it isn’t even game on.

“What do you want me to do?” the new guy asks.

Jesus, Jenn is embarrassed for him. Terry taught her more about subduing someone than this guy appears to know. As he gets close Jenn’s confidence spikes and she swings a foot up between his legs as hard as she can but the men stop acting like incompetent thugs. New guy grabs her by the throat as her shin smashes painfully into what feels like a steel cup between his legs. He doesn’t even flinch as the man behind her replaces the hand with his bent arm and picks her up off her feet.

Jenn stops struggling as she grabs the arm to hold herself up and keep the pressure off her throat. One lame kick at the new guy only makes her neck hurt more.

“Let him in,” the rough voice behind her orders.

She can’t do any more than squeak for help as the door slides open and a massive shape enters, black wings silhouetted in the Jasper town lights.