The Hidden (Shadowed Wings #1)(29)

“Are you glad you can do that?” I ask, and I watch his face as he thinks about my question.

“I don’t like or dislike it, it just is. I’ve always been like this. I don’t know any other way,” he tells me matter of factly.

We fall into an awkward silence as Ami goes full Yoda mic drop on me, and I sit there and process his it just is attitude. After a minute or so, the drive to either move or talk has me opening my mouth again.

“So Sutton said you also had issues with your gryphon; was yours a lazy pigeon, too?” I ask, trying to make the question light and ignoring the undertone of tension that reverberates in my words.

Ami nods and releases a humorless chuckle. “Sutton will tell you that you need to be one with your animal because you are one. There is no us and them. We’re the same being inside when we’re in both forms, but it never felt that way for me. Maybe I just relate to my animal differently, or maybe for us it actually is different. It’s possible that for us, we are separate beings from our gryphons because we have more than one natural strain of magic pumping through our veins.”

“So if I can’t be one with her like Sutton is saying, how do I make this work?” I ask, gesturing to my body and the dormant gryphon getting plenty of beauty sleep inside of me.

“Your animal was locked away for how long?” Ami asks me.

“I’m twenty-five, and I just shifted for the first time almost four weeks ago. I mean, I could feel her before, more than I can now anyway, but I could never shift,” I explain.

“What changed to make her shift now?” he queries, curiosity clear in his tone.

“I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I suspect that my grandmother gave me a ring that kept me from shifting. It also made me look different. I never had the white hair and the lavender eyes until after it was destroyed and I woke up here,” I add.

Ami runs his gaze over my white locks for a second before bringing his light brown eyes back to mine. “What about your parents?”

“They died when I was five; I was raised by my grandmother.” I can see the question he’s about to ask, and I answer it before it can escape his eyes and fall out of his mouth. “She knew what I was. She had to. I suspect that she was a gryphon too, but I have no idea why she wouldn’t tell me the truth. She obviously sent me to that gate for a reason. Maybe she knew this would happen, maybe she didn’t, but I’m left trying to piece it all together.”

Ami nods in understanding and pulls his gaze from mine to look out over the water. I reach back, ready to eject another pebble out into the dark depths of the massive lake when suddenly, out of nowhere, I feel Ami’s hands slam hard against my back as he pushes me off the cliff.

I know without any shadow of a doubt that I have the last three weeks of training to thank for my now quick as lightning reflexes. They don’t stop me from going over, but they do help me to reach back and grab Ami’s forearm, which is the reason I’m slamming into the hard dirt and rock of the cliff instead of tumbling down into the crashing waves a couple hundred feet below. I grab onto the meat of Ami’s arm with everything that I have in me as I bounce back from the side of the cliff and proceed to dangle in the air. My weight pulls Ami forward, and it looks like all it would take is an angry breeze to send him toppling over me.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I scream at him.

My yell bounces back at me and dislodges a couple of rocks from the cliff face. They clunk ominously down the steep rocky ledge. Terror pulls at me, and I look up into Ami’s calm light brown eyes. My ability to judge a person’s character is clearly fucking broken. I did not pick up on any psycho vibes from this kid until now.

“I know this probably seems abrupt, Falon, but I promise you this is the best way. Your gryphon won’t let you die, and you have to force her hand,” Ami yells down at me, his voice lacking any of the panic and fear that mine has.

I scream bloody murder and struggle as Ami starts to peel the fingers of one of my hands off of his arm. “Please stop, don’t do that,” I beg as I try to tighten my tiring grip. “Ami, my gryphon doesn’t work that way. She doesn’t wake up when I’m scared or I’m falling,” I yell at him.

“Oh you won’t just be falling, I’ll be attacking you while you do,” Ami tells me matter of factly, and then his eyes change from light brown into the white and black of an eagle’s eyes. Something sharp stings my forearm, and I watch as talons start to pierce my skin from the tips of Ami’s fingers. A growl bubbles up out of his throat, and my blood speckles my face as I thrash, both wanting to get away from him and not knowing what will happen to me if I let go. There’s a chance Ami is right and somehow my gryphon will step in to save my ass. But there’s also a chance that won’t happen. It certainly hasn’t so far.

“Ami!” I scream in protest as talons dig deeper into my arm, and I watch helplessly as he slowly starts to shift.

“What are you doing?” roars through the air. Zeph flies up at Ami’s back and lands with a thud I can see vibrate through the rocks around me.

His honey eyes are livid as they meet my terrified gaze, and his black wings give an angry snap as he stomps toward us. Fury pours off of him as Ami turns to Zeph and growls a menace filled warning. And for some reason, that of all things punches my lazy pigeon of a gryphon right in the face, and she tears awake inside of me. I scream as the shift flashes through me, ripping me apart to make room for her. I’ve never been awake for a shift before, and it hurts a hell of a lot more than Gran ever told me it would.