For some reason, I picture a big black dick inked on the back of my neck, and I can’t help but snicker. I blame the shock of everything that’s happened and hope to fuck this isn’t some messed up prank. Although at this point, I’d take the big black dick over the real Vow mark any day. I’m shaky as I stand up, and my borrowed shirt slips off my shoulders. I hold it in place against my chest and groan. Of course my only piece of clothing is once again in fucking tatters. It’s like this world wants me to be naked all the time.
No one comes in to retrieve me, and I have no clue what to do now. Thoughts of escape float through my mind. Oddly, the fake Vow sits heavy on the back of my neck. As much as I’d love to figure out how to get out of here, it’s probably not smart. The seer’s warning rings in my mind again, solidifying my thoughts. If I try to run and they try to stop me, I could give myself away. I don’t want to be responsible for blowing hundreds of people’s cover. I also have no idea where I am and how the fuck to get out of here, so there’s that too.
This bullshit tale is way too frustratingly familiar. It’s like being back at the Eyrie, but with more people who look like me, and I’m rocking a tattoo now. Fucking hell. I sit down in one of the stone pews and stew in silence. I’m one fucked up, ragamuffin-looking gryphon shifter who can’t currently shift and just went from the frying pan into the motherfucking fire. Or maybe I’m just in a bigger frying pan...I guess time will tell.
I run my tired hands over my face and feel utterly overwhelmed and exhausted. Devastation slams into me out of nowhere, and my eyes prickle with unshed tears. How is all of this happening to me? I rub my face, refusing to let any of the tears fall. I’m so fucking sick of crying and feeling helpless. I try to think through the lessons that Sutton taught me, but thinking about him makes me think of Zeph...and then Loa and how he stepped in to save her. Then I’m forced to think about what happened between me and Zeph because of it, and all of that just pisses me off.
Lying asshole.
He’s pretty much the fucking reason I’m here, and I swear on everything, if I ever see him again, I’m going to deck him so fucking hard it will break his face. I give a humorless snort. Who am I kidding? That would probably just turn him on and shatter my hand in the process. I look down at my punching hand and flex it. It’s all healed up from my loss against the gryphon’s face earlier when they pulled me out of the water.
Stupid, stupid, stupid me for getting caught.
I rest my forehead against the back of the pew in front of me and try to think through the now what that’s swirling inside of my head. I have a fake mark that apparently will trick everyone as long as I keep my head down, and Ryn said he’ll get me out of here. So I’ll just lay low and try to figure out what the fuck to do around here until my asshole in shining armor can whisk me away.
Anxiety creeps in and starts to strangle that plan. Ryn will take me back to the Eyrie of the Hidden, and I can’t go back there. If Zeph doesn’t try to kill me, I might just try to kill him. Either way...it’s a bad idea. Maybe I can convince Ryn to help me get home? I immediately dismiss that thought; Ryn has never been game for the I’m going to leave plan, and I don’t think he’s going to go out of his way to help me now.
So that means I’m back to square one. I need to either find my own way home or go track down the mysterious Ouphe that were marked on the map that’s now sitting at the bottom of some lake. It’s possible that they might be more on board with the let’s activate the gate and get the fuck out of here plan, but not before I give them what they want first. And in there lies the issue. I have no clue how to do that.
A door opens quietly, but I don’t even bother to lift my head to see who has come in. It’s probably just a guard ready to drag me off to whatever hovel they’ve decided I can now occupy...now that I’m one of them.
Fuck my life.
I miss my bike and my freedom and...hamburgers. I’d fucking kill for a big ass burger and a pile of fries right now.
“Who are you praying to?” a warm voice asks me, and a massive body sits down in the pew on my left. A tree trunk sized leg rubs against mine, and I tense.
Shit.
Pretty sure the flower-loving, dimple-chinned male, who happens to be Lazza’s little brother, is square in the category of Lazza cronies that I’ve been warned to stay away from. I peek over at him. He’s about Ryn’s height, which means he towers over me by at least a foot, but he’s bulky like Zeph. I take in his mismatched eyes and his silky white hair, and mentally compare it with the disguise he wore earlier. Surprisingly, I prefer him like this. I shake that thought away and release an empty chuckle.
“I was praying for a hamburger the size of you and an even bigger mountain of fries. Not to any god though, there’s no way those assholes exist, or I wouldn’t be here right now,” I tell him, turning my head away and letting the cool stone of the pew against my forehead soothe me.
“Ah,” he states simply, like he actually understands what I’m saying.
The room falls quiet again. I’m not sure how long we sit in companionable silence, but I’m pulled away from my thoughts when I feel his fingertips tracing the mystery mark on the back of my neck. I tense, and his fingers pause their perusal. I should slap his hand away, but I don’t. I just sit there. After a beat, he continues to trace the mark that’s there. Maybe I want to see what he traces so I can better understand what’s there, or maybe I just need a comforting touch in this moment, but I do and say nothing as his hand draws out the symbol now on the back of my neck.
He traces what feels like the arc of a rainbow and then moves his hand lower and traces an upside-down rainbow. It’s like a circle almost, but the two sides don’t connect. His fingers gently move to the middle of the two arcs where the shape he reveals feels like an eye that’s missing the iris and pupil. A long vertical line comes down through the middle of it all, and a dot at the bottom is pressed into my skin by his soft touch. His hand goes still for a moment before he traces a new line slowly down my spine.
Goose bumps spring up on my arms, and for some reason, this touch feels different than the one that was just tracing symbols on my neck. I sit up and scoot away from him. My movement seems to snap him out of some kind of trance, and he clears his throat and sits up a little straighter. A flicker of apology fills his eyes, but he blinks it away and runs his mismatched gaze over my face.
“You must be tired and hungry. I’m to escort you to your new quarters and make sure you get settled in,” he announces somewhat formally, and the warning the green-eyed seer spy who marked me rings in my mind again.
“Why you?” I blurt and then instantly regret it.
Nice, Falon, the goal is to stay under the radar, not piss off the royal family two seconds after you get your bullshit mark.
“I mean, it seems like a menial task that I’m sure any old guard would have been perfectly capable of,” I add in an effort to seem less rude.
“True, but then you’re not just any old female, now are you?” he states with a wink and then stands up.
I have no clue what the hell that’s supposed to mean. My initial instinct is that he knows somehow about my time with the Hidden or the dangerous power I’ve been told I hold, but that seems like an overreaction. If he knew all of that, I don’t think he’d be calmly escorting me to my new house or quarters or wherever he just said he’s supposed to take me. Then again, this could all be some fucked up elaborate trick, and I’m about to end up back in the dungeon on some sicko’s torture table.