Prologue
Warning growls and screeches reach out from behind us, making it clear that Pigeon and I are being hunted. We zip through the sky, but I can feel on the wind that one of our pursuers is gaining on the left. We veer to the right to avoid contact for as long as possible. The evasive maneuver seems to work, and Pigeon and I maintain our lead and continue to search for something that helps us get these fuckers off our tail. We round a mountain, and the bright flash of sun on water beams up at us. It’s momentarily blinding and keeps us from seeing the webbed mass that comes shooting up into the sky until it’s almost on us.
Pigeon shrieks and barely avoids the net, and I realize too late that we weren’t outmaneuvering the gryphons chasing us, we were letting ourselves be herded by them. Fuck! Another net comes screaming up into the sky, and by some miracle, Pigeon does this crazy tuck roll thing that keeps us out of its clutches. But as we recover from the epic dodge we just executed, a third net comes speeding for us, and this one hits its mark.
The net slams into us and wraps around us like a snake does its prey. Pigeon can’t extend her wings to catch the current, and we start to fall out of the sky, careening toward the water. We’re spinning as we fall, and the torque of it leaves me completely disoriented. One second I’m staring at the sky, the next I can spot the water we’re about to crash into any minute now. We’re rolling with such force that it steals all ability to make any sounds, and we can’t even scream as the water’s surface looms even closer, bringing with it promises of pain.
Pigeon and I crash into the water, and it hurts almost as much as when Zeph the sky shadow smashed us into the ground. The heavy net surrounding us immediately pulls us further down, and I feel the terror and panic that surge through Pigeon as we’re dragged against our will toward the bottom. I yank on the tether that connects us, demanding Pigeon’s attention, and try to pull her back into me. The squares of the net that’s doing its best to drown us look big enough for me to try and fit through, but I have to get Pigeon to relinquish control so we can shift and I can try to get out.
I slam against her a couple times, and it finally gets her attention. She quickly hands me the reins, and we shift back into me. I work to untangle the dense net from around me, and I lose the bag that was strapped to my chest. The map flashes in my mind as the bag sinks out of reach, but losing the map will be the least of our problems if I can’t get us out of the net. I’m just small enough to wiggle my way out through the mesh of the dense rope. I kick frantically for the surface of the water, my lungs burning and my head starting to swim with black spots.
I barely break out of the water before I gasp, breathing in air and water at the same time. I cough violently trying to purge my lungs of the lake I just aspirated. Strong arms pluck me from the rippling depths, but there’s nothing I can do to free myself from my captor as I work to clear my lungs of water and fill them with air instead. I’m flown to the bank of the lake, and I continue to cough and try to take in my surroundings. I can tell by how Pigeon has receded inside of me that she’s hurt, and I know that saving our ass is just up to me now.
I’m set gently on the sand of the shore, and I immediately reach back with my left hand and grab the junk of whoever is holding me. As expected, he drops his hold and reaches down to protect himself. This gives me the perfect opportunity to whirl around and punch him in the throat with my other hand. I’m up and sprinting away as he collapses in on himself, and I send up a silent thank you to Sutton and his training.
A massive gryphon slams down into the sand in front of me, and I shriek in surprise. I try to change directions, but another gryphon cuts me off. I stop and spin, looking for a way out, but I’m cut off by gryphons at every angle. A couple of them shift out of their gryphon form, and I take that moment to charge the smallest gryphon of the group. He snaps at me, which is exactly what I hoped for. I dodge his hooked beak, just barely, and land a punch to the side of his head.
I scream through clenched teeth as fire shoots up my hand into my arm. I feel like I just punched a fucking boulder. I lose the momentum of the attack as pain vibrates up my arm, and before the gryphon I assaulted can move to tear me apart, someone is pulling me away from him.
My arm is throbbing, but I unleash all of the fight left in me as I try to get out of the grasp of whoever is holding on to me.
“Caught a live one, didn’t we now,” an amused voice announces. Chuckles sound off around me, and I struggle even harder to break free.
“Go tell the commander we caught something interesting,” the same guy orders, and the gryphon to my right pumps its wings and flies away.
“Highborn from the looks of it. Is she marked?” another voice asks, and I’m immediately shoved forward.
I’m bent over at the waist, completely naked thanks to the sudden shift into Pigeon earlier. Whoever is holding me is also naked, and I feel his limp dick skim my ass and start to grow firmer. I release a warning growl that goes ignored as someone brushes hair from the back of my neck and checks the skin there.
“No mark,” the first voice declares, and I’m pulled back up. I’m brought face to face with another naked massive shifter who has long straight black hair, blue eyes, and a dimple in his clean shaven chin. He brushes the white strands of my damp hair out of my face, and his eyes light up with interest as he takes me in.
I snarl at him, but this only seems to amuse him. The guy holding me tries to stop my continued struggling to get out of his hold, and I wince when he yanks on my hurt hand. Note to self, if we survive this, never punch a shifted gryphon in the face again. The blue-eyed guy in front of me doesn’t miss my pained response, and he reaches out and grabs my chin in an effort to make me go still.
“You’ll just hurt yourself worse if you keep that up, flower,” he chides, his eyes locked on mine.
I’m still not sure if staring contests with gryphons hold the same weight as they do with wolves, but I fix my lavender gaze on him and refuse to look away. I stop struggling, the fight slowly leaving my body, and the absence of it invites shock and exhaustion to flood me.
“That’s a girl,” he tells me, the firm grip he has on my chin softening ever so slightly, but he doesn’t let go. “Now what’s a pretty purple flower like yourself doing way out here?”
His bright blue eyes run over my features like he’s searching for answers, and I internally cheer as he’s the first to break eye contact with me.
“You don’t look like a rebel,” he observes, picking up a strand of my hair. “And yet you bear no mark.”
I debate the best way to handle this situation. My initial instinct is to stay quiet, but as I subtly pull in a deep inhale of the blue-eyed shifter in front of me, it confirms my suspicions. He has the windy lilac scent of a gryphon, but that same hint of citrus that the hunters that captured me and Zeph in the woods had. I thought maybe it was because those gryphons were related somehow, but now I’m realizing that the citrus smell might be what the vow does to a gryphon’s scent.
These shifters are the Avowed, and maybe, just maybe, the truth of how I got here will work on them like it did with the Hidden. I stare into the curious blue eyes of the shifter in front of me and hope they don’t have an Ami that will see the parts of my story that I’m hiding. I’ll just have to deal with that later if it happens.