“Not soon enough,” he interrupts, as though that one thing trumps everything else.
“So you’ll get better. We know he’ll give you opportunities no matter what he says; asshole is in that guy’s blood.”
Ryn snorts and tightens his hold on me, and I breathe him in.
“And you’ll stay...please,” he asks me, and I lean back in shock at the foreign word whose purpose I once had to explain to him.
His knowing smile lights up his face because he knows he’s got me. This hard ass just said please, regardless of how foreign the concept is to him, and if I needed more proof that things are exactly as they’re supposed to be, that’s it. I shake my head and chuckle.
“Please,” he says again quietly, his eyes alight with mischief and heat as he leans in, closing the distance between us. “Please,” he adds again for good measure before he threads his fingers through my hair and kisses me.
The back of my neck tingles like it’s reminding me of just one of the things this male has done for me, and I waste no time in fervently kissing Ryn back. Heat flickers through me as I move from simply sitting in Ryn’s lap to straddling him, our kiss scorching my lips and his touch sending a blaze of need through me. He sucks on my bottom lip, eliciting a moan from me, and I grind down on his hardening length as an inferno of desire sweeps through my body.
I pull away from Ryn’s lips.
Fuck, why is it suddenly so hot in here?
Ryn looks confused for a moment when my features fill with distress, and then all of a sudden, it’s like someone is taking a hot poker to the back of my neck. I scream and hear a matching panicked yell from Ryn.
One second I’m in his lap, eager to reconnect and claim my place in his soul, and the next, cold wind whips my hair behind me as I look up from the purple-dirt-covered ground I just landed on, right into the aqua eyes of the enemy.
“So glad you could join us, Falon Solei Umbra, although this probably won’t be as much fun for you as it will be for me,” Lazza sneers, and then he hits me...hard.
I taste blood in my mouth as I lurch to the side, but I don’t bother putting another foot down to steady myself. I completely pull inside of myself and give Pigeon all the room she needs to leap out and start ripping some cheap-shot-throwing motherfucker’s head off.
The roar of rage that bellows out of Pigeon as we erupt into feathers, fur, talons, and wings trumps any evil smile I could ever give. Her snarl raises every hair on my now incorporeal body, and I know shit is about to go down.
Pigeon leaps for Lazza, but a brown gryphon slams into us, keeping our razor-sharp beak from catching Lazza by only inches. Pidge screams and turns her fury on to the shit stain who’s also a fan of not fighting with honor.
We rear back at the same time as our attacker, but instead of swiping at them and getting this party of pain started, another gryphon attacks us from behind. Our wing audibly snaps, and pain rips through us, as what feels like two beaks snap one of our onyx wings. Pigeon and I both scream and whirl around to deal with the attacks coming at us from all angles.
There’s six gryphons immediately surrounding us, but we see more standing in the trees as though they’re waiting for their turn.
“Pigeon, shift! Let me slip us out of here!” I scream at her as she spins and snaps at anything that gets too close.
We’re cornered, and there’s no good reason why Lazza would want us alive.
There’s a part of me that shouts that this can’t be it. He couldn’t have stolen us away just to slaughter us in such a cowardly way, but the rest of me simply scoffs at how naive that is. Lazza doesn’t care about honor or fighting fair, he cares about winning.
Pigeon doesn’t listen.
She leaps at a white and tan gryphon who takes a swipe at us, and she manages to get the upper hand. She buries her beak in the gryphon’s throat and tears at everything that separates this gryphon from death. It feels good to tear into something, but unfortunately, we can’t kill and watch our backs at the same time.
Multiple bodies leap on us, beaks, claws, and talons ripping into us. Pigeon does this rolling maneuver, throwing the now dying gryphon away from us, the body slamming into other gryphons who are charging at us.
Snap!
Another bone in our already broken wing goes, and it hurts so fucking bad it’s hard to focus on anything other than the pain.
“Pigeon, shift,” I beg. “Let me try to get us out of here.”
Pigeon flips and spins, claws, and lunges as she tries to keep attacking gryphons from mortally wounding us. She flashes me my body, and I see how fragile it is through her eyes. Someone sinks talons into our flank, and we snarl and snap for them. Tears drip down my cheeks as Pigeon is slowly brutalized. She won’t shift, because she knows if one of those gryphons gets a hold of my body, we’re done for way faster than we will be if it’s her they have to work to shred apart.
Defiance thunders out of Pigeon with a roar, and as much as I want it to be a rallying cry, I know we can’t defend against who knows how many fucking gryphons at one time. Helplessness rakes through me, and in its wake, rage pours
