The Golden Gryphon and the Bear Prince: An Epic Fantasy Romance (Heirs of Magic Book 1)

by Jeffe Kennedy

  She snorted at him, wanting to tell him where to shove his orders, but she choked, bloody water coughing out of her beak and nares. That couldn’t be good. “She has to shift or she won’t make it,” Astar said to someone else.

  “She might not have the energy.” Gen. Gen was her friend. “Can Stella heal her?”

  “Stella and Salena are both out cold,” another voice said. Rhy crouched down, gently stroking her head. “Good news is they destroyed the giant. Jak is standing watch over them, but we’d have to either take Zeph to them and wait for Stella to wake up, or bring them here.”

  “I don’t think we should move her with that bad wing,” Gen said. Her gentle fingers patted Zeph’s side, and she whimpered like a broken kitten.

  “I don’t think I can carry her gríobhth weight, even as the bear,” Astar said, still holding her head. Blood dripped down his face, and not just from the cut on his cheek. “I guess that means bringing Lena and Nilly here. How long will it take?”

  “Too long,” Gen cut in before Rhy could speak. “She has broken ribs and they must’ve pierced her lungs. That explains why her breathing is so labored, and the blood bubbling out of her nares.”

  Rhy cursed softly. Astar frowned, but wiped the blood clear of her nares, getting that determined look in his eye. “That settles it. Zephyr, you will shift and shift now. Don’t try to heal. Just shift to something smaller so I can carry you. Do it now.”

  She whimpered, unable to imagine the effort involved. The possibility of being anything but what she was, wracked with pain and gulping for air, seemed as far away as the moon. She would just lie where she was and have a lovely nap. The cold had let up, leaving her nicely warm and comfortable. Letting her eyes drift close, she relaxed against the ground.

  “We’re losing her,” Rhy warned. Gen stifled a sob.

  “Zephyr, open your eyes and pay attention.” Astar’s crisp order penetrated her fuzzy brain. She forced her eyes open—not because he’d told her to, but to tell him off. His Highness the Crown Prince could suck it. “Shift,” he told her. “Unless you’re too lazy and talentless,” he added with a sneer. “What’s the easiest shift? She’s already in First Form. Human?”

  “Yes,” Gen said. “That’s also First Form, in a way.”

  “Human body, Zephyr. Right now.”

  She couldn’t. Just… couldn’t. Vaguely she considered that she had promised to ask for help, even if she thought she didn’t need it, but that had never seemed like an option.

  Astar leaned in close and dropped his voice. “Shift to human—and if you do, I’ll have sex with you. You can do whatever you want to me. Or you die here in a pitiful broken heap, never knowing what could have been. Your choice.”

  He did not say that. Throwing her own ultimatum back at her. Offering the one temptation he knew she couldn’t resist.

  “You need a human body if you want to have me,” he coaxed, taunting and seductive. “I’ve never broken a vow in my whole life, so you know I mean it. I promise you an entire night with me. I’ll give you anything you ask for, let you do anything you want to me—if you’ll take human form right now.”

  He thought she wouldn’t take him up on it. That she’d forget and let him off the hook later, but he was wrong. Never make promises to a gríobhth. They never forget—and their victims always pay up. With that last bit of fire, she reached for human form, hitting a blazing wall of agony.

  She plunged on, fighting for the shift, knowing if she lost it partway, her death would be even more swift and terrible. Few fates frightened shapeshifters more than bungling a shift and ending up as something in between.

  It hurt, like knives slicing her very cells apart. And she remembered Aunt Zynda’s tales of how she’d been unable to shift for so long after the dragon Kiraka immolated her. Fear is a wall, Zynda had often reflected. Fear of pain is more powerful than we realize. Well, Zeph refused to let a little pain stop her—especially with the promised reward on the other side. Astar. An entire night with Astar, and she could do whatever she wanted to him.

  With a final, desperate push, she found human form and transitioned—a howl of agony shrieking from her throat before blackness claimed her.

  Astar carried Zephyr’s limp and broken body—wrapped in Gen’s fur cloak—as carefully as he could. They’d crash-landed farther upstream than he’d realized and the walk back to Gieneke and the confluence was taking forever. Rhy had flown ahead, scouting in raven form, periodically circling back to check on them.

  “We could try horseback again,” Gen said, trudging beside him. They’d tried at first to have Gen take horse form with Astar riding, Zephyr cradled in his arms. But even with Gen picking her way as smoothly as she could, the bouncing had pained Zephyr, making her whimper and pale even more. Blood still occasionally dripped from her nose or leaked from the corner of her mouth, and her breathing remained shaky, and far too shallow. He’d love to get her to Stella faster, but speed would kill her before they got there.

  He shook his head, remembering to reply to Gen. “We’ll have to hope that slow and steady really does win the race. We got her this far.”

  “True.” Gen sighed, exasperation and worry in it. “I can’t believe you promised her sex to get her to shift.”

  “It worked.”

  “It just figures that Zeph would be motivated by the chance to finally debauch you.”

  He slanted her a look. “She saved my life.”

  Gen held up gloved hands. She’d come back from horse form wearing a different cloak, while Astar was still freezing in his shirt and pants. He’d be so much warmer in his grizzly body, but he couldn’t walk that far on his hind legs carrying Zeph. Besides, the exercise was keeping him reasonably warm.

  “I’m not saying anything against Zeph,” Gen protested. “She’s my friend, too, and I’m just as afraid for her as you are.” She was silent a moment. “Maybe more, because either way I worry there’s pain ahead for her.”

  “Nilly is waking up and can heal her.” He’d been feeling his twin’s gradual return to consciousness for the last little while, and with profound gratitude.

  “That’s not what I mean,” Gen pressed. “What happens if, once Zeph has you, she doesn’t want to let you go? You know how possessive that gríobhth nature is.”

  I never asked for forever, Zephyr had said. She hadn’t and she never would. It was his heart that would be broken by giving her up. A small price to pay, given the alternative. “Gendra,” he said, making sure not to sound unkind. “I get that you’re concerned, and that you love both of us and want the best for us, but I’m going to ask this of you once and once only. Stay out of our relationship.”

  She flashed him a wry—and fortunately unoffended—look. “When your relationship goes up in flames, I can only hope we can all stay out of it. It didn’t work that way with Rhy and Lena.”

  “At this point, I’ll take any pain, as long as Zephyr lives,” he retorted gruffly.

  “You’re right.” Gen was quiet a few steps. “I apologize. I just feel so helpless.”

  He understood that perfectly. Rhy arrived just then, landing on the road ahead of them and shifting into human form. “Stella is awake and will fly here after she recovers just a bit more,” he informed them. “She’ll be here soon. I scouted a sheltered spot up ahead. We figure we need to stay put overnight. Gen, if you’ll come with me, we can be horses to carry Jak, Salena, and supplies back here.”

  Astar’s arms burned with exhaustion, as if his muscles had heard he could set Zephyr down and already wanted to let go. “Or you could fly to the carriages and have them drive up to meet us,” he said, scanning for the spot Rhy had mentioned and hoping it was close.

  Rhy shook his head, falling in beside him. “They’re on the wrong side of the river, and the ferries aren’t operating yet. Probably won’t be until tomorrow at the soonest. There’s a lot of damage.”

  Astar nodded wearily, thinking longingly of his trunks of clothing back at the carriages.
And his Silversteel sword. He’d left it behind since he’d planned to shift to grizzly form and he was no good at keeping things in a metaphysical cache, not like Zephyr and the others were. It would make him feel better to have a weapon in human form. “Find me a sword or dagger, and some warmer clothes, would you?”

  Rhy shivered in sympathy. “You and me both, buddy. Want me to carry Zeph for a bit? You look wiped out.”

  “I’ve got her,” he replied, knowing he was being unreasonably stubborn, but also feeling physically incapable of handing her over to anyone else.

  Rhy nodded, not arguing at all, which said something right there. “It’s not far now. Good thing, as it will be night soon.”

  They walked on just a bit farther, the light definitely failing, he realized. From pale gray to dark gray. He focused on putting one foot in front of the other, while Gen and Rhy consulted quietly on supplies they’d need to pass a comfortable night. Their discussion of food had him salivating.

  “Right here,” Rhy said, putting hands on his shoulders to physically turn him toward a path leading off the road. “Surprise.”

  Astar took in the little cottage with considerable surprise and relief. “Unoccupied?”

  “Apparently. I checked it every time I flew past,” Rhy said. “If the occupants show up, we’ll pay them or something. It’s small, but I figured having a fireplace and a roof would make up for the size. And some of us can always sleep out in some cold-weather tolerant form if quarters are too tight.”

  Astar followed him up the narrow walk and in through the door. It was warm inside, blessedly so, with a fire burning hot in the fireplace and a teakettle whistling on a hook nearby.

  “There’s a bed through there,” Rhy said, “but it’s also cold, so I put these blankets by the fire. Thought you could put Zeph there.”

  “Good idea,” Astar grunted, sinking to his knees—more of a controlled fall—and laying Zephyr gently on the blankets. Gen took the whistling kettle and set to concocting something on the nearby table. “You said nobody was here all afternoon—did you light the fire and put the kettle on?”

  Rhy jerked his chin in self-conscious acknowledgment. “Yeah. I figured you both needed to warm up. And I went back and forth a lot of times. I kept an eye on the place.”

  “That’s a lot of shifting in a short span of time,” Astar noted, eyeing Rhy and seeing how drawn he looked. “How tired are you?”

  “Not enough to be on the edge of death,” Rhy shot back. “Let me do what I can. I know my limits—and I could stand to push them, according to everyone.”

  “All right then,” Astar acknowledged. He’d never thought it was fair, the way everyone rode Rhy about working harder, practicing more, acquiring more forms, doing better. Better than anyone, Astar understood what it was like to grow up under the weight of enormous expectations. He and Rhy had a lot in common that way—and very different styles of dealing with the pressure. Astar had chosen a crippling sense of responsibility and obligation to duty, while Rhy had chosen the polar opposite.

  “Stella is here,” Astar announced, the arrival of his twin feeling like hot broth on an empty stomach. “You two go ahead. Be careful, though. We’re all exhausted and coming down from a battle like that leads to a crash eventually. That’s when people make mistakes and we don’t want that.”

  Gen and Rhy exchanged a look. “You sound just like Ursula,” Gen commented, pushing the hot mug into his hands. “Drink this. We’ll be back soon.”

  The door opened and Stella came in, expression composed and eyes storm dark. “How bad is she?” she asked, coming straight to Zeph’s side as Gen and Rhy slipped out.

  “Bad,” he replied, hating to admit it. He studied his twin, assessing her physically and the feel of her magic. “But are you up to this?”

  She flicked an opaque glance at him. “I have to be because we’re not going to let Zeph die. Help me peel this cloak off her. It’s sticking.”

  “Blood. Frozen and dried.” He reached to help, wondered why a mug was in his hands. Shaking his increasingly muzzy head, he went to set it aside, but Stella stopped him with a hand over his.

  “Drink it,” she told him gravely, her gray eyes dark as the underbelly of a storm. “You’re not in great shape either, and that will help. You know Gen’s tonics are always good.”

  Unable to muster the will to argue, he took the easiest path and drank. Whatever Gen had whipped up, it was creamy and sweet—almost enough to disguise the bitter herbal flavor. Gen had spent time with her father’s family outside Ordnung, learning mossback herbs from her grandmother, aunts, and older cousins. Distantly, he wondered what she’d dosed him with, blinking when Stella slipped the cup from his hands.

  “Lie down and rest, Willy,” she told him gently.

  “I need to help you.” His tongue felt thick and he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

  “I can handle this on my own. You did your part. I’ll do mine. Lie down before you fall down.”

  He was already leaning, so it was easy enough to let himself crumple the rest of the way to horizontal. He turned to his side, though, to keep an eye on them both. That was something he could do lying down. “Love you, Nilly,” he said thickly, tears pricking his eyes for no reason.

  “I love you, Willy,” she answered, giving him a warm smile as she laid her hands on Zeph’s bared collarbones, green healing light flowing out. “I’ll take care of your Zephyr. Trust me. You can sleep now.”

  Because he trusted his sister with not only his life, but with Zeph’s, he let his eyes close and sleep drag him under.

  ~ 15 ~

  Astar only slept a few hours, waking to the welcome commotion of too many people in too small a space attempting to be quiet cooking food when most of them had no idea what they were doing. With a rush of love for all of his great-hearted and cantankerous friends, he lay there a moment just listening to their whispered bickering.

  Jak archly informed the group that, as he’d never been able to hunt for food in animal form, he was vastly more qualified on the topic of mossback cooking. Lena took exception to that, pointing out that she wasn’t a shapeshifter either. Then Rhy chimed in, teasing her about how she was a princess and everyone knew princesses never lifted their dainty fingers on household tasks. Lena launched into a blistering breakdown of life in the Aerron Desert and all the tasks she’d bloodied her fingers on. Rhy made a salacious suggestion about her talented fingers, resulting in a wordless screech from Lena—and Astar decided maybe he should lever himself fully awake and enforce peace before they woke Zephyr.

  Zephyr.

  His eyes popped open with a spurt of pure panic, the tight anxiety in his chest relaxing as he took in Zephyr lying on her back in front of him. Her delicate profile looked too sharp, her complexion pale beyond even her usually fair skin, but the blood and terrible bruising was gone. Someone had laid a blanket over her, and the faint blush on her cheeks indicated she should be warm. Someone had put a blanket on him, too, though his body felt stiff and heavy as a rock from lying on his side, apparently unmoving all that time.

  On the other side of Zephyr, Stella lay on her side, too, head pillowed on the crook of her arm, and she smiled at him. She looked so at peace that he knew Zephyr would be all right.

  “Our friends do not excel at being quiet,” she subvocalized to him, eyes a lighter, silvery gray now and sparkling with amusement.

  “Fortunately they have other redeeming qualities,” he replied, immensely grateful for her in his life. “Zephyr?” he asked.

  “Healed,” she answered. “She’s sleeping it off is all—and will likely sleep all night as her body finds its equilibrium again. Anything I wasn’t able to repair, she should be able to fix the next time she shifts.”

  Though he’d been nearly sure of that answer, he sighed in relief, restraining the urge to reach out and touch Zephyr, just to reassure himself. Stella watched him with a sad and wise smile, making him wonder what she saw for his future. No happy ending for him
and Zephyr, that much was certain. “What about you—shouldn’t you be sleeping off the healing, too? Along with whatever magic-working you did.”

  “I’m all right,” she replied, “and we have problems. Word of your promise to Zeph got around and Rhy apparently decided Willy’s Moratorium is off. He made a move on Lena and she is not happy.” A crash sounded from the cooking area and she winced. “Perhaps you should…”

  “Perhaps I should,” he agreed, and sat up with a bearish roar to stifle the argument. “Everyone knows,” he said, getting to his feet, “that I am the best at cooking meat. Give me those steaks.”

  A while later, the six of them sat crowded around the one small table, everyone stuffed with only partially burnt steaks, thankfully supplemented by fluffy rolls baked by Gen—who’d apparently been studying more than herb lore—and root vegetables Lena had discovered in the cellar and roasted over the fire. They’d moved Zephyr to the lone bedroom, covering her with blankets and keeping the door open a crack in case she woke. The others had argued that their noise would wake Zephyr and they should shut the door, but Stella backed him up, saying that nothing would wake Zephyr before her body was ready.

  He was grateful to seize on that rationale. He mostly didn’t want Zephyr to wake up alone in a strange place and be frightened, even for a moment. Not that anything seemed to scare the bold and courageous shapeshifter, but he still worried. Mostly he wanted to crawl under those blankets with her and be there when she woke. He couldn’t allow himself that—regardless of the bargain they’d made—but he could sit where he could see her sleeping, a slant of warm light falling over her gently rising and falling breast.

  “We should debrief,” he said into the lull created by tired bodies finally warm and sated enough to sleep. “While our memories are fresh.”

  Rhy groaned and dropped his forehead onto folded hands. “Do we have to?” he mumbled.

  “And shouldn’t we wait for Zeph?” Lena asked, glancing at the darkened bedroom with a concerned frown. None of them would be completely reassured until they saw Zephyr up and about again.