Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races #3)(45)

She looked at the ground. Her attenuated, nimble shadow fled before her, as if trying to escape the nightmarish haunt she had become.

What if her shadow was the only real thing that was left of her? Had she, in the end, become nothing more than just the exercise of Power, the will to survive? If she removed the spell of protection, she would erupt into flames, but unlike the phoenix, she would not undergo a rebirth. Like a struck match, she would simply flare out of existence.

She could do it. She could go out, not gently into that good night but in a brilliant sunlit blaze, with no one around to witness. Her death might be solitary, as so very much of her life had been, but it would be her choice, her decision. Hers. She would own it, like she had claimed ownership of her life.

A cloud passed over the sun, so dense it eclipsed her shadow. She looked up.

It was no cloud but a great gold and bronze gryphon, soaring overhead. She could not imagine the kind of strength it must take to keep that heavy, muscled body of his aloft, and yet he made his flight seem so effortless.

Her fists clenched. He was a rampant impossibility, an enormous freak of nature.

He was such a stubborn ass.

She sucked in a lungful of air and screamed wordlessly at him. A harsh wrathful eagle’s cry sounded in reply.

The whole damn island wasn’t big enough for both of them. Okay fine. She already swore she was going to do it, and anyway, she was perfectly capable of being the one to leave if he wouldn’t do so. She took a sharp left, picked up speed, and sprinted at full strength over the edge of the cliff.

The wind whistled in her ears. As she fell, she was already making plans. She would swim back to San Francisco. Julian wouldn’t like her return. They had reached an understanding, she and the Nightkind King, when she had come to the island to die. But Julian would have to adjust, and Rhoswen was perfectly capable of making the crossing with the dog on her own.

Carling rolled in the air to dive headfirst and watched the foaming white-capped water rush toward her. She reached out to it with both arms, anticipating the cold shock of the plunge into water with grim satisfaction.

Hard claws jerked her upward with gut-wrenching force just before she hit. Son of a bitch. Her head snapped back. As the universe wheeled, she caught a glimpse of the gigantic lion paws that curled to grip her by the shoulder and thigh. The edge of tremendous bronze wings hammered down on either side of her.

She shouted at Rune, “You did not just do that!”

His deep voice sounded overhead. “How is that disbelief working out for you?”

The need to do violence caused her fists to shake. He swooped up with her to the top of the cliff and dumped her on the ground. With a twist of her hips, she flipped onto her back and drove her fist upward as hard as she could. Before she could get the blow to full extension, he knocked her hands aside and pinned her by driving his claws deep into the ground on either side of her arms.

He imprisoned the rest of her body by the simple expediency of lying down on top of her. It felt like she had a Hummer parked on her chest. While she might have the strength to shift a Hummer—she didn’t know, she’d never tried—she sure as hell didn’t have the strength to do it without any kind of leverage.

Outrage steam-whistled. Not in thousands of years had anyone dared to try to lay a hand (or paw, as it were) on her without her permission. She felt like she was about to blow a gasket. “YOU BASTARD! Let go of me!”

“Shut the f**k up.” His growl vibrated through her body to rumble in the earth beneath her.

Sunlight blinded her as she glared up at him, turning him into a towering blur overhead. She scrambled mentally for a spell and sucked in a breath—

—and the towering blur plummeted toward her. It resolved into an immense, sleek eagle’s head the length of her arm, with a long wicked hook of a beak that snapped at her. Rune tilted his head to stare at her with a blazing fierce eye the size of a headlamp. He roared, “DON’T YOU DARE!”

It was like having an F-16 bomber take off in her face. Her hair blew away from her face.

The spell died on her lips as she stared at the enraged gryphon. She had never seen him so close in his Wyr form before. His sheer magnificent size and regal barbarity were overwhelming.

She refused to get swept away by such bizarre perfection. She said in a cold, precise voice, “I would dare.”

His head lifted. She felt him struggling with his own anger. Then he said, “Will you at least calm down enough so we can talk about what happened? You are one righteous hellcat when you decide to get going, do you know that? Way to throw an all-over hissy fit, Carling.”

She ground her teeth. How dare he lecture her? “If you ever try to do anything to restrict my movements again, you’ll find out I know how to hold a grudge too,” she said between her teeth. “In fact, I have a real talent for it.”

“I’m sure you do,” he said. “Goddammit.”

In a startlingly humanlike gesture of exasperation, he shook his head and shifted his body off of her. He did not deign to glance down as he carefully pulled his claws out of the sod and shifted his paws to one side. She watched as he did it. Those retractable claws were curved like scimitars and sharp enough to pierce steel. He settled on the ground beside her and looked out over the water, a predatory leviathan wearing a ferocious frown.

She didn’t move. She looked up at him again, at that broad, strong feline chest to the long, graceful, strong column of his neck, and she lost whatever she had been about to say. Even though they were no longer touching, the great, heavy sprawling length of his body radiated warmth that began to sink into her bones.