The Hidden (Shadowed Wings #1)(38)
Why the fuck do I find this amusing?
We take a minute to glory in our kill and collect ourselves. Pigeon sniffs at the air and takes off in the direction that I just ran from. Worry fills her thoughts, and she flashes an image of Zeph to me and two shadowed figures. “Shit. I’m pretty sure that’s gryphon-speak for he’s been caught.” Pigeon stalks through the forest, and she moves so stealthily that I can’t even hear a pine needle bend beneath our paws and talons as we make our way to where we scent Zeph and his captors. I haven’t spent much time with my gryphon, but I’m discovering that she has some serious skills. Pigeon flashes an image of our reflection on the water to me, and I chuckle.
“And you’re fucking beautiful, too,” I agree.
Zeph’s scent gets stronger as we get closer to where he’s being detained, and we can make out at least two voices. That same unusual hint of citrus mixed with the breezy lilac scent that gryphons have tickles my nose. Why do they smell different?
“Where the rut is Sheridan? He left to take a shit ages ago,” a voice complains.
“He’ll just have to catch up. We need to get this one back to the city for questioning,” a gravellier voice declares, and then I hear a thud and a grunt as the owner of the voice kicks Zeph.
Pigeon completely loses it, and before I can even suggest that we come up with a plan of attack, she’s charging through the trees and pouncing on one of Zeph’s captors. His surprised scream is cut off as she once again displays her expert decapitating skills. We round on the other guy, ready to shred him to pieces, but he shifts into a massive walnut-colored gryphon in less than a second.
“Shit, Pigeon. He’s fucking huge,” I warn, like somehow she’s incapable of seeing that for herself.
Pigeon puffs up as the big brown gryphon roars at us in warning. I expect her to roar her challenge back, but instead Pigeon pounces, flapping her wings to help propel her forward even faster. The other gryphon doesn’t seem prepared for this insane plan of action, and that makes two of us. Pigeon snaps at him, but he jerks away from her razor sharp beak and tries to take his own chunk out of our neck. Pigeon rears back to avoid it and bitch slaps him with a talon-covered hand.
It knocks him off balance, and we’re on him before he can recover. We dig the claws of our hind paws into his back and go to work with our talons and beak. The walnut-colored gryphon swipes at us on his back and then releases a pain-filled bellow as we rip off his ear. We scrape up the side of his face, and I’m pretty sure he loses his right eye in the process. He rears back and pumps his wings to help flip him on top of us.
Our back slams into a massive tree trunk, and I feel a crack run up our shoulder blades. Pain flashes through us, but we ignore it and continue to claw at anything and everything we can. I don’t realize right away that the gryphon we’re trying to kill exposed his neck to us, but Pigeon does, and she goes right for the opening the big brown gryphon created when he reared back. We claw at his throat with everything we have, snapping at the back of his neck with our beak. Blood is everywhere, and it spurs us on. The big gryphon slams us back into the tree in one last ditch effort to get us off of him and then slouches to the ground.
Pigeon scrambles off of his back and immediately tears out what’s left of the walnut gryphon’s throat. The blood and life pour out of him, but we don’t watch it pool around the still body. Pigeon looks around for Zeph, worried that he hasn’t shifted and helped to deal with these guys. We find him tied to a tree by a black rope. He’s struggling to free himself, and the rope is cutting into his skin in multiple places, making him bleed. Pigeon makes a purring sound, and Zeph immediately goes still. She walks over to Zeph and drops her head, leaning her forehead against his. He closes his eyes and breathes us in. The exchange is odd to me, and I observe them, transfixed by the interaction.
Pigeon slashes through the rope and hisses as it burns our hand. Zeph looks surprised when the rope falls away, and he quickly unwinds it from around his body and his hands. As soon as he does, he erupts into his gryphon. He flaps his wings at us aggressively, and Pigeon growls at him. He charges us, and it pisses both me and Pigeon off. “We just saved your ass, you fucker!” I shout at him, and it comes out as a roar from our mouth.
He lowers his head like he’s going to use it as a battering ram, but as his honey-colored eagle eyes land on ours, he skids to a stop. Fire punches through me, and Pigeon and I both scream, scared and in agony. Pressure slams into our chest, and I swear if Zeph just hit us, I’m going to fucking kill him. I try to focus on our surroundings as Pigeon drops to the ground, submitting to the pain. I find Zeph locked in the same struggle we are, and it terrifies me. Did those guys do something to us?
“It’s just the call being answered, little sparrow.” I hear Zeph’s voice clear as day in my head, but it makes no sense.
Beyond the burning sensation working its way through my body, I can sense Pigeon’s happiness, which confuses me even more. I try to reach for her satisfaction so I can look at it more closely, but she retreats inside of me, and I can feel the shift working to pull her back inside.
“Pigeon, you fucker, what the hell is going on?” I demand as she pulls away, and her chuckle vibrates through me.
The next thing I know, my cheek is pressed against the ground, and dust plumes at my mouth as I pant through the hurt that’s radiating in every cell I possess. I blink, and my surroundings come into focus. I watch unfazed as Zeph’s big ass charcoal-colored gryphon fully rips off the head of the walnut-colored gryphon that Pigeon already took care of.