The Hidden (Shadowed Wings #1)(31)
A growl rumbles out of my chest, and I’m sucker punched with intense anger. What the hell? I barely get the thought out before I feel her start to recede. “Pigeon, they’re dicks! Didn’t you see what they did to us, how they treat us? You should want more for yourself than a couple of cocky assholes.” My heart to heart falls on deaf ears as she continues to pull away from me. Apparently, she likes inconsiderate assholes. I suppose she wouldn’t be the first girl to have questionable taste like that.
I realize too late what happens when Pigeon retreats. One second, I’m soaring through the sky like a missile, and the next, I’m going down.
Motherfucker!
My wings, feathers, talons, tail, beak, and fur all seem to get sucked back into me. If I wasn’t suddenly pissed and diving into yet another free fall, I’d comment on the fact that shifting into me hurts a hell of a lot worse than shifting into a gryphon.
“Pigeon! Are you fucking kidding me? Get your ass back here right now!” I shout in my best angry-mom voice. Nothing happens. “This petty fucking bird!” I scream, but the wind rushing past me steals the angry words away. I fall through the misty white of a low hanging cloud and try not to panic at the sight of the water I’m about to slam into in about thirty seconds if I don’t do something. I spot trees in the distance and realize I’m almost to the other side of this massive lake. Man, how fast were we flying?
“Pigeon, please!” I plead, but she’s unfazed by my begging or the possible fall to our death. I decide if I were really going to die from this, she’d probably step in, but that does little to calm my fears about how badly this is going to hurt.
Focus, Falon! You can do this. When you laugh, she does. You can control that body too; you just have to figure it out. I focus on my wings. They’re the most vital equipment to stopping my fall, I’ll get them first and then try for the rest. I do a mental clap like I’m in a team huddle and someone just shouted break. I close my eyes and do my best to ignore the looming water and the wind whipping past me. I start a steady chant of wings in my head as I focus on my back and recall something Ami said. “It feels like an extra sense almost, something I can tap into whenever I want, just like I can with my other senses.” His voice replays in my mind. Even though he wasn’t talking about shifting per se, I decide the same theory should work...maybe...hopefully.
A telltale tingle starts at the base of my spine and starts to move up toward my shoulder blades. I whoop with excitement as I will my wings to spring from my back. I spread them carefully, slowing my fall until I catch a perfect current and shoot up and forward. I fly by my own power, aiming for the tree line that’s crawling closer in the distance. I flap my wings to gain speed, playing tag with the wind as I glide, drop, and rise again.
“Take that, Pigeon!” I scream triumphantly into the breeze. I reach the water’s edge and soar happily over the tops of the trees on the other side of the lake. “You can shove that temper tantrum right up your a—”
Something slams into me from above. It drives me down fast toward the forest, and I fight futilely against it. A growl rumbles through me as I struggle, but Pigeon doesn’t even stir, no big surprise there. I twist and catch a peek at black feathers and a gray and black beak. I can’t see Zeph’s golden honey eyes, but I have no doubt that’s who I’m dealing with.
What is with these fuckers always trying to take me out when I’m going for a leisurely wing flap?
“Get the fuck off me,” I growl as I struggle against his strong hold, but nothing I do stops him from taking me down with him.
He swerves and dodges trees and their limbs, and I feel like we’re in some fucked up video game where we’re moving too fast through the terrain, and a tree is going to pop up at any moment, and we’ll go splat as a huge game over pops up on the screen. I find myself chanting, “No game over,” as Zeph navigates us through the obstacles. I stop struggling, not wanting my efforts to cause me to splat myself against anything currently flashing by us. Zeph seems like he’s trying to slow down, but there’s not enough room for him to spread his wings out and angle them so that he can achieve that. I picture the flaps on an airplane and how they work, and I quickly realize that there’s not enough room for Zeph to engage his flaps.
He gradually gets lower to the ground, and I get the impression that he’s looking for a good place to crash land.
Fuck, this is going to hurt.
Two seconds after that thought goes through my head, Zeph suddenly flips us over, and we smash into the forest floor. He takes the brunt of the first hit, his back smashing into the soil and foliage. My back smashes into his chest, and the feathers there do nothing to cushion the blow. The air is knocked out of my lungs, and Zeph tries to hold me to his chest as we skid through the soil and trees. We slam into a small tree, and I’m wrenched from Zeph’s hold as he’s forced to a stop, but I keep flying forward.
A much larger tree stands in the path of my trajectory, and I can practically hear the splat as I crash into it. One of my wings crunches against the smooth trunk of the tree on impact, and an audible snap rings through me. If I had air in my lungs, I would scream from the pain. I slide down unceremoniously to the base of the tree and gasp for breath. My lungs fill, but I quickly realize what a mistake it is to try to breathe too deeply, as a stabbing pain shoots through my chest. I pant through the agony, certain my ribs are broken, my shoulder is fucked up, and I’m pretty sure I broke a wing.