The Hidden (Shadowed Wings #1)(40)

Ami nods, but I don’t miss the glint of amusement in his eyes. I renew my efforts to get to him, swearing and driven by the need to slap that twinkle in his eyes off his face.

“Ami, out!” Zeph orders, and the teenage prick hurries out the door.

I breathe heavily and work to settle the rage pumping through me. I feel Ryn drop his face to my shoulder and inhale deeply. I’m about to turn and ask him what the fuck he’s doing, when I spot Loa glaring at me. I tense and focus on her.

“What the fuck is your problem?” I challenge, and her lips pull back from her teeth, and she snarls at me. “Oh no you fucking didn’t,” I growl back, and Pigeon sits up inside of me, responding to the clear challenge Loa is giving us. My vision shifts, and I feel the tips of my fingers elongate and sharpen. Tingles run up my back, and my wings pop out, breaking Ryn’s hold.

“Rutting fairies!” he shouts and tries to get a hold of me again, but I’m already just out of reach and charging Loa. Pigeon preens, satisfied by the hint of fear we see in Loa’s gaze before she masks it, but we can still smell it seeping off of her.

“Loa, out!” Ryn roars as Zeph slams into me, keeping me from connecting with Loa. I snap at him and watch as Loa ignores Ryn’s command. A snarl sounds off behind me, and that finally sends Loa scrambling out of the room.

Zeph shoves me against the cool stone wall of my room and gets in my face. I don’t know why I feel so fucking volatile, but I do. Rage, challenge, need, the drive to protect pounds through me, and I feel like I’m drowning in it. I try to bite Zeph, but he just chuckles and presses me into the wall even harder.

“Naughty little sparrow, you know you don’t want to hurt me,” he coos at me, and he nudges his knee between my legs. Suddenly, that’s all I can focus on, and I spread my thighs to make room for more of him. I breathe him in deeply, and Pigeon and I both start to settle.

“Good girl,” he praises, and that has me growling at him again.

“You’ve got the touch,” Ryn snarks as he leans against the wall next to me.

Zeph glares at him. Pigeon settles inside of me, and my vision and hands go back to normal. I use my wings to push away from the wall and challenge Zeph’s hold. He looks surprised for a moment, but he lets go and scrambles back away from me. “What is going on?” I demand, my head pounding and my stomach groaning for food. “What happened out there?”

Zeph and Ryn shoot a glance at each other, and something about it irritates the fuck out of me. I take a threatening step toward them, ready to lose it. What the hell is wrong with me?

“You were having a reaction to the rope that you touched when you freed me,” Zeph tells me. “It was Trammel magicked, which keeps whoever is bound by it from shifting. When you broke the magic by cutting it, it must have done something to you,” he adds, and Pigeon comes rearing up inside of me.

I blink, and her eyes snap into place. She stares at Zeph and then Ryn, looking for something, but I don’t understand what. Ryn looks away, and eventually Zeph does too. Despair fills Pigeon, and she slinks back and releases her hold. I gasp at the devastation that fills me and rub at my chest.

“What just happened?” I demand, but I get nothing from her.

“What did you just do?” I accuse, and my eyes prick with unexplainable tears.

Ryn steps toward me, and I step back away from him, confused. He looks pained, and it’s clear there’s something going on here that I’m not understanding. Ryn turns to Zeph, his mouth open like he’s about to say something, but the look on Zeph’s face has Ryn shutting his mouth.

“I told you, after the assignment is complete, we’ll figure everything out,” Zeph tells Ryn cryptically.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I ask quietly, pulling my wings back inside of me with ease as I try and fail to figure out what is happening.

“You’ve been asleep for a week, Falon. You’re hungry and weak, and you should rest and recover. You shouldn’t experience any more discomfort now that the toxin has been cleared of your system. You should feel like yourself soon,” Zeph reassures me, and then he heads for the door.

Ryn stares at me a beat longer, something I can’t identify in his eyes, before he follows Zeph out of the room. His shoulders sag as he leaves me in his wake, and I feel a tug in my gut that wants me to follow him, before I shut it down.

“They’re assholes, Pigeon, but so are you for leaving me in the dark. I know that you know what’s going on, and I hope this teaches you that they’re not for us.”

I feel like shit, and I have no idea why. My gryphon is silently lamenting something which makes no sense since Ryn and Zeph are treating me just as indifferently as they always have. I know she likes them—fuck, even I was itching to get Zeph between my thighs—but it is what it is. Hopefully, Pigeon will get over her first failed crush and move on.

Through my whole bath, I try to reassure her and myself that everything will be okay. I focus on Zeph’s promise that he would get me home, and I work through everything I need to do as soon as I get back to my world. I hope my bike isn’t under a couple feet of snow by now. I get caught up in my worry about the space time continuum, as I get dressed and brush out my wet hair. What if I go back and like fifty years have passed? I was counting on selling my gran’s house and using it to open up my own shop. Fuck knows my old job at Roy’s isn’t going to be waiting for me after I’ve been gone for at least a couple of months, or worse, maybe longer.