The Hidden (Shadowed Wings Book 1)

by Ivy Asher

Loa’s face mottles with anger. “Listen, you highborn little chit, you may be used to getting your way where you come from, but you are a prisoner here. You will do as you’re told, or your time here will become significantly more uncomfortable. We will not risk the safety of the entire pride because you have delicate sensibilities.”

  Tysa strolls through the entrance to the bathroom, carrying everything she was instructed to get. She cringes as she walks into the thick tension in the room. Loa snaps her fingers at me and points to the space in the water directly in front of her. She doesn’t say anything, but the command is clear. Since I’m not a puppy, I stay exactly where I am in the water. If she wants to cleanse me, she can bring her thick-ass in here and try it. This tub is plenty big enough to drown her in. I mentally snort at that thought. She’s massive and cut like a fucking boulder; I’m pretty sure if a drowning takes place in this bathtub, it will be mine not hers.

  We shoot eye daggers at each other for a beat, neither of us giving an inch.

  “Tysa, go collect some guards. It seems our guest prefers things done the hard way.”

  Tysa sets everything down on a counter housing a wash basin and hurries back out of the room. I have to visibly work to not cringe at Loa’s hard way statement. Having this bitch rub all over me is bad enough, but now I need to have some fucking guards thrown into the mix, too? I bite down on the wait that sits on my tongue. I can’t back down, I tell myself. She’s just another shifter. Yes, she happens to be a big scary half bird, half lion or something else, but a shifter is a shifter. And if you want to get anywhere and earn any modicum of respect from a shifter, you have to back up the dumbass things that come out of your mouth.

  Stupid mouth and stupid fucking pride. And fuck these stupid assholes and their cleansing bullshit.

  I shake out the unease that crashes through me and try to look as tough and kickass as I can. Screw this bossy bitch. Zeph attacked me. He smashed me into the ground and then brought me here. I woke up without any clothes and put up with their unwarranted hostility. I answered all of their questions honestly—even the white-eyed kid told them as much—and now they want to humiliate me even more with this shit. The hard way, it is.

  Adrenaline pumps through me, and a tremor starts in my hands from it. I feel light and shaky, and try to mentally prepare for whatever is about to go down. Loa has a glint of amusement in her eyes, and I debate if I can make it disappear by splashing hot water at her. The sound of heavy footfall reaches me in the tub and echoes in the bathroom. The thunderous stomping is almost perfectly synchronized with the hammering beat of my heart. The acoustics in the bathroom make it impossible to discern how many guards are about to march through the doorway, and I sink lower into the steaming water and ball my fists with anticipation.

  Tysa has a sheepish look on her face when she rounds the corner and steps lightly into the room. I get my don’t fuck with me glare set in place, but it cracks when Ryn rounds the corner behind Tysa, no other guards on his heels.

  “Can I help you, Altern?” Loa asks, flustered by his sudden appearance.

  “I was told you needed assistance,” he retorts, his deep voice bouncing around the stone bathroom and his eyes finding mine.

  “My apologies, Altern,” Loa tells him, and the scathing look she shoots Tysa could melt steel. “Tysa was supposed to fetch guards. This is nothing you need to worry about.”

  “I’m here now, so what seems to be the problem?” he barks, and Loa shoots Tysa another withering glare.

  “She refuses to be cleansed,” Loa finally tells him after a hesitant beat.

  “No, I refuse to let you touch me,” I clarify. “I’ll rub whatever you want on my own body; I don’t need some bitch I don’t know doing it.”

  Ryn watches me for a moment and then starts to undo the ties of his armor.

  “Altern?” Loa inquires, and my heart rate kicks up even more.

  Ryn shoots an irritated look at Loa. “You said you needed help, so I’ll hold her.”

  “Altern, this is a job for the guards, not you. I’m sure you have far more important things to—”

  Ryn silences her with a look, pulls his armored vest off and starts on the ties of his undershirt. Something akin to excitement lights up inside of me, and I study the unexpected feeling for a second. He’s going to get into this bath with me and hold me down while they scrub me clean with moss and pour potions on me, from the look of things. Why the fuck does his presence in this fucked up situation now excite me? I shake off the sudden onslaught of giddiness which must be a clear indication of the mental breakdown I’m suffering from, probably due to all of the shock that’s recently sucker punched me, and look around the room with panic. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I need to get the fuck out of here.

  I scramble to the back of the tub and push myself up and over the rim. Water splashes around me as I rush to get on my feet, and when I spin around, Loa is on one side of the in-ground tub and Ryn is on the other. They’re blocking my escape routes, and I back up to get as far away from them as I can. Loa’s eyes narrow at me, but Ryn seems to be tracking the water that’s dripping down my naked body. His pupils dilate as he runs his gaze down and slowly back up. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, and when his gray eyes find mine again, there’s surprising heat in his gaze.

  My back hits the sill of the window behind me, and a breeze rushes in from outside. White strands of hair snake in and out of my line of sight, but I don’t take my eyes off of my captors. I place my hand on the edge of the open window, and a deep rumbling sound fills the bathroom. Ryn’s eyes morph from molten to warning, and embarrassingly my body responds to his growl. My nipples harden, and a fluttering sensation works its way down my abdomen and settles between my thighs. Need pools inside of me, and the idea of Ryn having his hands all over me suddenly feels like a really fucking good idea.

  My fingers dig into the stone surrounding the opening behind me, and I momentarily snap myself out of my lecherous thoughts. What in the fuck is going on with me? I’ve been kidnapped, held against my will, and now they’re threatening to assault me. But apparently, my fucked up brain is cool with it as long as the one doing the assaulting is this hot as fuck Ryn asshole? Have I been drugged? I quickly look from Ryn to Loa, ensuring she’s still well out of reaching distance, and then I turn and dive out of the window.

  So much for practicing a lot before doing this. Here’s to hoping I can shift and save my ass, otherwise this is going to fucking hurt.

  5

  Ryn bellows a “noooo,” but it’s quickly lost in the loud sound of whooshing air as it streaks past me. I swallow the terror that my free fall sends coursing through me and reach into where my gryphon is evidently having a nap. I have no fucking clue how to wake her up, and it’s starting to get easier to make out the details below me. A shadow falls over me, and I know exactly what that means. Like I’m swimming through water and not plummeting to a very painful crush injury, I use my hands and legs to flip myself over.

  A furious looking Ryn, who clearly has no trouble getting his wings to cooperate, shoots straight toward me as fast as a bullet. A tingling runs up my back, and when it gets to my shoulder blades, huge black wings shoot out of me. Just fucking great; it seems they only want to come out and play in the vicinity of very hot assholes. The sudden appearance of my new feathered ebony appendages puts me into a spin in the air, and I try to fan out my wings as much as possible to stop the tornado-like momentum.

  Ryn crashes into me and wraps his huge arms around my waist to stop me from spinning. I’m slammed back, but he holds me tightly against him, his grip vice-like as his huge gray and white wings shoot out to slow us down. An ache starts in my stomach, and I feel the drive to wrap my naked body around him and hold on tightly. So instead, I punch him in the face.

  He grunts and then roars at me in frustration, and the angry sound shoots right to my clit. Clearly something inside of me is broken, and I ignore its cuddly prompts as I scratch and
scramble to get out of Ryn’s embrace. I knee him in the stomach in a last ditch effort, and his grip loosens just enough that I can get my legs up between us and kick off of his rock hard abs to get away. I have just enough time to flip around and get my wings spread out to try and slow myself as much as possible before I slam into what I’m pretty sure is a fruit stall.

  I cover my face with my hands and scream as wood splinters all around me, and the sound of fabric tearing fills my ears. Something smashes into my left wing, and I grunt from the pain and try to pull them tight against my back to protect them. I jerk to a stop suddenly, my leg caught on something, and I clench my teeth against the pain that shoots up my thigh. Something wet and sticky covers my skin, and I glance down, worried it’s blood. A light pinkish juice covers my torso and chest, and I look over and deduce it’s from the yellow fruit I just pulverized.

  I groan and take stock of myself. Bruised but not broken, it seems, and I sit up and unwrap some dark blue fabric from around my leg. It looks like it used to be part of the canopy of the stall I just crashed through, and I pull at it until it rips all the way free. I brush shards of wood from my arms and legs and wrap the canopy fabric around me and tie it off. My body protests as I stand up. The fabric of the canopy I’m now wearing is short but thankfully covers all of my personal bits. I snap my wings out behind me, shaking them free of debris, and breathe a sigh of relief as they seem to be fine. There would be no escaping with a broken wing.

  Shrill screams and hurried shouts break through my collision-induced fog, and I look up to find I’ve just crash-landed into some kind of marketplace. I’m surrounded by other wooden stalls that are housing food, fabric, jewelry and far too many stunned faces staring back at me. I scan my surroundings and see a group of people huddling around something. Part of a gray-tipped white wing is visible on the ground, and I realize they’re surrounding Ryn. I feel the urge to check on him, and a twinge of guilt shoots through me at the thought that he might be hurt.

  I take a step toward the gathering crowd, but a man moves to get in my way protectively. The stranger’s block snaps me from my empathetic thoughts, and I start to back up and look around for an escape.

  We’re in a packed dirt clearing, surrounded by houses with a tall cliff on one side and a forest on the other. I bolt past the wreckage I just caused and snake between a pair of houses. Shouts to stop sound off behind me, but I push my legs faster, hoping I can make it to the trees about twenty feet away. I don’t know why I feel like once I’m in the trees, I’m safe. I have no clue where I am or where I’m running to. These shifters acted like they’d never heard of America, and they said shit about a gate and something about Ouphe—whatever the fuck that is—so I don’t even know if I’m on the same planet anymore.

  The trees look to be some kind of massive ancestor of a pine. I’ve never seen the redwood trees in California, but my imagination tells me these could probably be dead ringers. I’m panting and working hard to pull oxygen into my lungs, and I debate trying to hide behind a huge trunk and catch my breath and bearings for a minute. I don’t hear or see anyone following me, and I wonder if they were in too much shock. If they were, it probably won’t last long, so I push myself to keep moving.

  Twigs, rocks, and other sharp things dig into my feet, and I wince with every footfall. My eyes bounce around my surroundings while simultaneously trying to pick the least painful path through the trees. My body feels run down and hollow, and I thank the adrenaline and fear still pumping through me, as that’s all I am currently running on. I try to pull my wings back in, but they won’t listen. I debate climbing to the top of a tree and trying to fly away, but I figure I’m harder to find here amidst the trees than I would be in the sky.

  I step on another rock and bite back the yelp that wants to escape. Tears well up in my eyes, and I can’t help but chuckle humorlessly at their appearance. I crash into a makeshift building and brush it off, but a rock sets me over the edge? I look around and try to find a safe space to stop and catch my breath. I need to come up with a better plan than run and hope they don’t catch me. I look up into the insanely tall trees and decide I’d probably be safest up in the branches. The lowest offshoots from the trunk are easily fifteen feet above my head, and I ponder for a minute how the hell I’m going to get up there.

  I mentally slam a palm against my forehead when I remember I have wings. Fucking hell, Falon, get it together. I spread out my ebony additions and give a couple test flaps. I crouch a little and then pump them harder, and I have to work hard to keep from whooping in triumph when I’m lifted off the ground and up into the air. I fly like a drunk pigeon but manage to get myself perched on some branches about thirty feet off the ground. By the time I get myself snuggled safely against the trunk and get enough fabric from my canopy dress under my ass to keep it from chaffing, I’m ready to have a serious heart to heart with my gryphon.

  I don’t know where the hell she went, but we need to come to some kind of an understanding. She very clearly knows what she’s doing when I’m shifted and she’s in control. I didn’t have any issues with flying as a gryphon—well, not up until the sky shadow attacked us. I need to work hardcore on calling her or connecting or whatever the hell I need to do to master my shifts and winged abilities, because we need to get the hell out of here, and it’s not going to happen without my gryphon stepping up and showing me how to get shit done.

  I sag against the tree trunk, the reddish-brown bark digging into my back, and rub my feet. Gradually my labored breathing slows, proof that I need to up my cardio game. The fight or flight that’s been hammering through my veins slowly fades, and with it goes any desire to move from this spot. I’m shrouded by clumps of pine needles the size of my forearm, and I feel hidden and protected. Logically I know I haven’t put enough distance between myself and my captors, and I know with every second I sit up here, they’re probably closing in. Which means I need to move, but I’m struggling to convince my exhausted body of that.

  The sun sinks closer to the horizon, and the shadows in the forest wake up and stretch. I wrap my wings around me and breathe my warm breath into the cocoon I’ve made around myself. The temperature is gradually dropping—with the right clothing and gear, it’d be perfect camping weather—however, I’m one ripped up piece of canopy away from being naked, and the cooling air bites at my skin in warning.

  Reluctantly I admit to myself that I need to find someplace warmer because this tree limb is not going to cut it for the night. Slowly I stand up, and my stiff muscles protest against the movement. I’m on the verge of unfurling my wings and figuring out how to fly down from this tree, when voices and footfall reach me. I go still.

  I focus and try to listen past the sudden hammering of my heartbeat in my ears. They sound like they’re getting closer, and I’m not sure if I can outrun them. I inch closer to the tree trunk and bring my wings up to block me as much as possible. If they don’t look up, I’ll be fine. The voices grow louder. It’s definitely more than one person, but I have no idea how many. I’m tempted to shut my eyes and hope the if I can’t see you, you can’t see me theory works in this case, but I can’t seem to look away from the ground directly below my hiding spot.

  Panic races through me as Ryn and a handful of other guards come into view, but it’s challenged by the sudden relief that tries to take over. I swat that emotion away. I shouldn’t care if the bossy gryphon shifter is okay. The longer he would’ve stayed out of commission from our crash, the better chance I would have of getting the hell away from here—wherever here is anyway. I don’t know if it’s empathy or my own shifter side pushing me to have the feels for these captor assholes, but I feel like I’m fighting them and myself, and it’s weird as fuck. I’m typically one to follow my instincts, but right now my instincts and my brain are at war, and I’m struggling to sort through the mess of emotions.

  The guards are scanning the ground, looking for tracks, I realize. Ryn stops just past the base of my tree and bends over
to pick something up. He looks around the ground and then slowly stands. Don’t look up. Don’t look up, I chant in my head on a loop as if it will somehow keep any of them from doing exactly that. I squint to try and see what Ryn now has gripped in his fist. I pale when I make out the black feather he’s now gripping.

  “She definitely came this way, but it looks like she took to the sky here,” he announces, and then every one of them looks up.

  Shit. Shit, shit! I internally scream and do my best to think invisible thoughts. The three seconds that they spend peering up past the trees feels like hours, and I’m terrified someone is going to hear the slamming of my heart against my sternum.

  “Call off the ground search. We’ll double the air sentries. She won’t get far even with the storm rolling in to give her cover,” Ryn orders, and all but one of the guards turns around and heads back the way they came. The guard that didn’t move starts to look through the trees more carefully, and I know it’s only a matter of time before his hawk eyes land on me. I work to slow my panic-laced breathing and hope somehow I can outsmart or outfly the last remaining guard and Ryn. I stop myself from looking up to gauge how far I need to get before I hit treetop-free sky, knowing if I move even slightly, I might give myself away.

  Ryn mumbles something to the guard, but I can’t make out what it is. A couple beats later, the guard stops his scanning of the massive trees around him and salutes Ryn before marching away. Ryn stands exactly where he is and scours the ground around him again. He pulls the charcoal-colored feather that clearly fell from one of my wings, through the palm of his other hand absently as he searches the ground for something. Each stroke of my abandoned feather through his strong fist sends a shiver higher and higher up my spine. It’s like I can feel the soft touch up my naked back and across the tops of my wings.

  A slow heat starts to unfurl in me, and my brain and body start to war again. I want to jump down and replace the ghost of his touch with the real thing, and yet I know in my mind, that’s a dumb fucking thing to do. I bite the inside of my cheek and watch him crack his neck from side to side. He brings the feather up to his nose and pulls in a deep inhale. I can picture his dark gray eyes scanning everything around him, and I’m actively fighting against the part of me that wants him to look up and spot me.