Dragon Bound (Elder Races #1)(94)

She hadn’t envisioned having quite such an audience when she tried to shift again. She struggled to not let it matter but the terrible sense of exposure from earlier that day came back, turning her nervousness to fear.

Dragos walked with her to the center of the roof. Some signal passed between the men that she didn’t catch. The four sentinels shifted into gryphons. She lost all sense of fear as wonder overcame her and she stared. They had the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. No drawing of a gryphon she had ever seen had quite managed to capture their strange majesty or fierce dignity. They were smaller than Dragos in his dragon form but still huge to her eyes, each one’s sleek muscled body the size of an SUV.

Dragos’s Power shimmered at her back. She turned and looked up at the bronze and black dragon and forgot all about the gryphons. He bent his immense, horned, triangular head down to her. She spread her hands over his snout, eyes shining.

He gave her a very careful nudge and whuffled. She pressed a kiss to the warm hide between her fingers. He picked her up, gathered himself on powerful haunches and launched from the Tower.

Just as Dragos had promised, the flight was short, which was good since it was so unpleasant. She kept her eyes closed so she didn’t have to look at the cityscape scrolling by underneath. She breathed through her mouth in an effort to control the nausea that welled as they took to the air.

After five minutes or so the violent nausea subsided and she felt herself acclimate to the flight. They had already passed over the Hudson and crossed into New Jersey, the gryphons winging in a protective formation around them. It was not long until they banked and began to glide downward.

She tried to make sense of what she was seeing. The spray of electric lights that blanketed the land broke up ahead of them, and a darker mass rose up ahead of them against the night sky. She asked, What is that?

First Watchung Mountain, said Dragos. This is a short, tight passageway along a deep ravine. Hold on.

The sense of land magic came on fast. The gryphons fell back as he went into a steep descent and glided very low. They passed between trees that topped the edges of a ravine. She could have sworn Dragos’s wingtips brushed the rocky edges on either side.

The lights in the distance behind them wavered and disappeared, and she could tell they had crossed over to the Other land. Dragos climbed in altitude but just for a few more minutes. Soon they dropped into a large clearing.

She found her land legs as Dragos put her on her feet. She stared around, reveling in the wind and the quiet. The night sky on this side of the passage was strewn with filmy clouds. The shimmer of land magic was stronger than she had ever felt before. It called to her on a silver moon tide, rousing the caged creature that lived in her so that it wailed and threw itself against the inside of her skin, beating to get out. She stared at the etched silhouette of trees that rippled and swayed in the wind, wondering what this little jewel of a place would look like in the daytime.

Dragos shifted, but the gryphons didn’t. They took watch in four points around the clearing. Dragos walked up behind her. He put his arms around her, pulling her back against him. She breathed deep, crossed her arms over his and leaned her head back against his chest. Her blood ratcheted too fast through her veins. She said, “I feel like I’m at home and in exile at the same time. I wish I could settle down.”

“We have time. We’re not going to rush this. And this is not an all-or-nothing situation. If it doesn’t work the first time, we’ll learn from it and try again.” His voice was calm and quiet. He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I’m going to tell you some things now. Some of it is stuff I know, and some is just my opinion. I want you to listen to me: I am not asking you to do anything. If you want to turn around right now and go back to New York without trying, we’ll do that. All right?”

I love you, she almost said. She caught the words back just in time and instead gave him a jerky nod.

“You stand a greater chance of shifting if you give me your true Name.” His arms tightened, although she hadn’t moved. “I’m not asking you to give me your Name. We can try this without it. I’m just telling you that I can help you better if I know it. Sometimes half-breeds get caught in midtransition and they’re unable to complete the change. If that happens I can pull you over with your Name.”

“All right,” she said, her breathing choppy. “What else?”

“I’ve been giving this some thought. I know your mother has put protection spells on you. I could feel them right away when I first tried to beguile you. How long have you had them?”

“Ever since I can remember,” she replied. She tilted her head back to look up at him. His head was dark against the night sky, but she could see the faint lines of his face and the dark glitter of his eyes. “Mom was always worried that something might happen to her before I grew up. She was also worried about me being a half-breed, since I wasn’t as strong as she was and I couldn’t do half the things she could. I think she felt guilty for having me.”

His hand circled her throat underneath her chin. He kissed her mouth. “It’s clear she loved you very much and all she meant to do was keep you safe. She never meant to hurt you in any way.”

“She did,” Pia said.

Dragos continued, “I don’t know this for sure, but I’m guessing those protection spells are hampering your change. They’re very tightly woven around your core. So the way I see it, you have a couple of choices. You can try to shift just the way you are, and for all I know you’ll be able to. But if you want to give this your strongest shot, I think you should at least remove the protection spells while you try to shift. Sharing your Name is another issue altogether. It’s a pretty radical step. But I wanted you to know it’s on the table too.”