WingSpan (Taken on the Wing Book 1) (34 page)

Feather’s wings flare and she erupts with a vicious hiss.

“My dead brother was a fool!” she yells. “Too much like our old fashioned sire.”

It’s the worst possible news Shadow could receive. Dead. Feather says he’s dead. It’s Terry all over and Shadow slumps into the wall.

“There’s no game, we can’t even hunt to feed ourselves,” she carries on. “Our males work in human businesses so we can shop in their grocery stores. Commons eat out of fucking cans! There’s no pride left. Where are the herds? The clean air? It’s Sires like yours who hold us in the past and shame us every day we have to serve humans.”

“No,” Shadow whispers, still reeling from the word ‘was.’ Feather believes every word she says. She’s as sincere about the lives of common gryphons as she is about her brother.

“He didn’t survive. You’d have been better off—”

“Feather,” Torrent’s hand on the back of her neck silences her. As his fingers work her voice fails and she licks her lips, eyes roll lazily with a feeling Shadow knows all to well. “Fetch her more meat, beautiful gryphon.”

“Yeth,” Feather slurs, unaware of the saliva collecting in the corner of her mouth.

Just because she believes Talon is dead doesn’t make it the truth.

Until Shadow sees his body she’s not going to believe. Torrent steps aside, guiding Feather to the opening before she can wander into the wall. She’s barely on her feet.

“Prisoner,” Torrent says as Feather shuffles down the corridor. “Talon was defeated and fell hundreds of feet to his death. He won’t be coming for you.”

“Liar,” Shadow hisses, certain Torrent, like Feather, only believes what he was told.

“But someone else is,” he condescends. “It seems Cloud followed you from the eyrie and we will see she finds her way here.”

“No!”

Shadow jumps to her feet to shut Torrent up but the chain is too short for her to stand and she’s brutally jerked to the floor. A hard landing on her elbow jars her shoulder and she cries out for Cloud and for Talon and everything Torrent has done to them.

“I’d thought her incapable of attachment to anyone but her long flight proves a deep connection with you.”

“You cheap piece of shit,” Shadow sobs, mindful of her tears. “You lying cheap shit.”

As she pushes herself sitting and tests her arm the back of Torrent’s hand knocks her down again. His boot on her braid holds her and he grinds his toe into the stone floor, pulling her hair and rocking her head side to side.

“Do you know what this place is, prisoner?”

“You pinfeathered—”

Shadow is cutoff by a fist to the stomach that leaves her frantically scratching at the steel collar as her flattened lungs spasm.

“Fifteen years ago I led a raid on this eyrie,” he gloats. “Much to my surprise there was one survivor. The gryphon who let her live said she told him ‘no’ and he walked away. Well, he did from her but not from me.”

Head shaking in disgust Shadow finally draws air. She knows why. Cloud’s persuasive magic worked even then.

“Quite by chance I spotted you twenty years ago when we went after your eyrie again. Just a child but I was quite certain I would make you my Dame when you were older. There was no guessing who your sire was since your twin looked just like him. Then I found you with Talon,” Torrent rolls his eyes. “Bonding with you so you would rule Jasper at my side would finish the job my friends started thirty years ago: destroying Lev’s eyrie. Without an heir, it will eventually die.

“Though my friends and I have dissimilar goals, in the short term erasing the steadfast traditional eyries serves us both. It expands my territory and reduces the number of eyries which object to the inclusion of democratic colonies in the grand council. They give me rangers and in return they will have the support of the Jasper Eyrie.”

Torrent’s thumb strokes the stinging red spot on Shadow’s cheek.

“But Talon had already claimed you and well, we all wound up in Jasper. He would be executed for treason and my dame would put you in my care with the noble goal of taming you. Then Sire Lev to the rescue but its all worked out.

“Talon is dead and you are here. You will never offer your blood at the entrance to Lev’s eyrie. It will remain dead.”

Shadow keeps her mouth shut and straightens the bandage on her nose as a kick cramps her thigh.

“The rest of your life is mine, little gryphon, and this is how it will be. You will keep Cloud in line or she dies. You will not upset Feather again. She’s not all there since losing her brother and if you hurt my consort, Cloud dies.”

Nod.

“You will be very, very good or I’ll teach Cloud how I like to hunt.”

“Son of a bitch, Torrent.”

Shadow closes her eyes as Torrent spreads his wings in threat. Whatever it takes, he’ll never get Cloud.

“Feather? Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” interrupts Feather’s humming and Shadow suspects Torrent gave her neck another dose of sedation before she returned with more meat. Feather is satisfied that Shadow’s split lip is clean and removes the dressing on her nose. Stupid thing to try for the last word with Torrent. Her eye feels as fat as her lip.

Feather had returned glassy-eyed and mysteriously happy. She’s pleased how well Shadow has healed even though the fresh pink skin is overly sensitive to every flicker of the fire.

Shadow’s nose burns inside with each breath and when it makes her sneeze she’s convinced her ribs are only bruised and not broken. When Terry broke his he followed each sneeze with harsh language and a shot of rye. She’s definitely not in that sort of shape. Not over her physical condition at least.

Jenn would have been a wreck after a beating like that. She was badly shaken by the break-in and being battered would have shattered the ancient teacup of self esteem she bore, saucer and all. Royal Dame Shadow on the other hand is surprisingly stoic about it. Or as much as can be expected: chained, frostbitten and knocked around, her concerns aren’t for herself. Until there’s real proof she’s lost Talon she’ll be ashamed to cave-in when there are two to serve and not to mention an eyrie waiting for her to return it to life. But without Talon and her own heir, its life will only be as long as hers.

Healing her bruises and looking after Cloud and Feather are no more than things to do to get the hell out of here. She’s not sure if finding Talon alive is on the list because that includes the possibility he isn’t. The small taste of love and family she crammed in to a few days is worth fighting for.

“Feather—”

“You don’t believe he’s gone,” she says.

“No,” Shadow puts a hand on her adornment. “Tawny’s mate passed and hers is gone.”

“True,” Feather says as she tosses Shadow’s used bandages into the fire. “But it doesn’t mean anything. A human found his hoard before he passed and her adornment disappeared.”

Shadow gives a slow nod.

“Come here,” Shadow shapes her wings like she’s seen the males do and Feather initially backs away, confused by the gesture. “Please?”

Then Feather accepts, resting her head on Shadow’s shoulder. She stiffens in Shadow’s arms but only at first then she lets Shadow stroke her forehead as the fire burns down.

“You said you went to the upper chamber,” Feather whispers.

“Yes.”

“Will you bless me Shadow, when I pass?”

Get me a gun, Nuke. They won’t let me die.

It’s the plea of defeat from a woman who’s lost everything. Although Feather looks calm on the outside, inside she’s torn with grief. And Shadow isn’t going to run from the need of a friend. If Torrent is right about Talon they’ll need each other.

“I’d be proud, Feather,” is Shadow’s choked answer. “But I will serve you for many years first.”

“Serve?” Feather laughs. “We serve. You rule.”

“If being a Dame was about rule and orders I’d shout until I get out of here. I serve, Feather. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I should be dead.

Talon stares up at the night sky. He hurts. His neck, head and shin ache and the big joint where his right wing connects is twice the size it should be. Other than the cold, he feels reasonably intact. Maybe the tumble down the hill fixed the dislocation but that was hours ago. The white stars above aren’t dulled by city lights.

“Stupid little gryphon,” he mutters, remembering Cloud’s passage through the morning sky above. “Where were you going?”

Due south? Talon lies in the Talon-shaped snow as he pictures her fly past. South-west.

“Good girl, Cloud,” he amends, warmed by a measure of affection.

Gryphon, she’s a gryphon now.

“Lead the way.”

Upright, he frees his left arm from his wing then his legs. Although there is still pain in his right side the movement doesn’t cause any more bleeding.

“Hot damn, Shadow,” there’s nothing more than a lump at the base of his skull where it should be shattered. “The truth was from your tears. And the pain that day? What did you do to my bones? You made this battered ranger unbreakable, didn’t you?”

Her magic is truth and protection and she gave him both. The burning in his wrist tells him Shadow is alive — in danger — but very much alive. If Torrent only wanted to dispose of her he would have already done it.

Bring her home, Talon
, he inhales and though her scent is gone, he turns south-west where his heart aches less.

But first he needs reinforcements and dials Lev on the satellite phone. A quick, clean extraction of Shadow and possibly Cloud isn’t a one gryphon job.

The Sire is as backwards about the state of the human world as traditional gryphons can be; he’s never even taken a human name but the gryph loves his gadgets.

“Lev,” is the one word greeting as Talon works his wings, beating them gently at first then stirring up a cloud of ice and snow as he tests the stiffness of his mysteriously relocated joint.

“Sire Lev, this is Talon,” he kneels in snow and gravel, partly from habit and partly in recognition of his botched escort job.

“You’re not at the eyrie.”

“No, Sire.”

More than twelve hours have passed since the battle; more than enough time for Lev to reach the eyrie on the west side of Vancouver Island and notice that Talon and Shadow aren’t there.

“Location?”

Talon mutters to himself as he remembers how the GPS in the device works and relays the coordinates.

“Where is my daughter?”

“Torrent took her, Sire.”

The string of ancient curses on the other end of the phone is impressive.

“Thoughts?” Lev asks when he’s finished.

“I was three hundred feet up when they dropped me, Sire,” Talon says. “I should be dead.”

“You have her tears to thank, ranger. Don’t let it make you reckless.”

“Yes, Sire. They went south-west,” Talon says. Cloud’s decimated eyrie is south-west of where he stands; south of Hope. Gryphons are superstitious creatures and would have stayed away. It’s the perfect hiding place for Torrent and the rogues who accompanied him. “She’s alive, Sire. I’ll know when I’m close.”

“You’re certain?”

“Certain, Sire,” Talon insists. The wind changes, giving him a hint of something he’s lost. “My guard?”