The Avowed (Shadowed Wings Book 2)

by Ivy Asher

  Lazza’s eyes light up with interest at my admission, and Treno’s narrow.

  “This is the Commander you introduced when I first met you. He’s also the person who choked me until I blacked out,” I add, and Lazza’s gaze dims with annoyance.

  I try not to look over at Ryn, but it’s fucking hard. I can feel Pigeon’s agitation even through my barriers. That, mixed with my terror, is not a good combination. If I’m not careful, I could slip and give Pigeon control, and then she’d shift and try to fight her way out of here. I can’t let her get us all killed unless we have no other choice.

  “So you were not aware that he was spying for the Hidden?” Lazza tries again.

  This time Treno speaks up, and my heart speeds faster with hope. “Brother, that’s my mate you’re speaking to,” he warns, his voice just above a growl.

  Lazza turns to Treno and studies him for a moment. “I have it on good authority that your mate is working with the Hidden. I warned you not to seal the bond until we knew more about her,” he snaps.

  “You keep announcing that you have acquired all of this information on good authority, but I’ve yet to see any proof. You’ve beaten your Third in command, a male we’ve known since we were children, and now accuse my mate of being a spy. Stop this tantrum and show me the proof!” Treno bellows, and Lazza’s eyes narrow ever so slightly.

  “Fine, brother, as you wish.” Lazza turns and looks behind me and once again drops his chin.

  I sneak a quick glance at Ryn who’s holding his side and panting. Fuck. He probably has broken ribs and who knows what else. His nose is definitely broken, his eye is black and swollen shut, and the other eye looks like it will be the same way with one more hit. There are gashes and bruises all over him.

  I stand there quietly, facing forward and terrified of who or what they’ll bring in next. I wonder if Treno can feel my fear or the bile working its way up my throat. Can he feel what I can now that we’re bonded? Does he know the truth that my mouth is denying but my body and emotions are confirming?

  Pigeon hammers at my walls, something setting her off so completely that she’s lost it beyond all recognition. I’m shocked by the violence she uses to smash against me, demanding I give into her. I feel someone step up behind me, and I’m instantly terrified it’s Zeph. I feel a sharp blade suddenly being pressed against my throat, and the wielder of the dagger leans down until they’re close to my ear.

  “Hello, highborn, we meet again.”

  16

  I don’t immediately recognize the voice, but the nickname and the smell are a dead fucking give away...Loa.

  Rage incinerates every other emotion inside of me, and I seethe. Treno shoots up out of his throne and immediately starts yelling at his brother.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he demands, trying to close the distance between us as quickly as possible, but the room is huge.

  His throne is positioned at the head of the football-field-and-a-half-long space, and the guards only deposited me halfway between the doors and the thrones. Prisms dance in Treno’s hair from the crystal dome above us, and I’d think it was stunning if the psycho traitor bitch, Loa, didn’t have a knife to my fucking throat.

  I force my face into a mask of fear and confusion. I don’t know what she’s playing at, but if this is Lazza’s source, it’s her word against mine.

  “Who is this?” Treno demands. “Lazza, I’m warning you right now, order your pet to remove that knife from her throat!”

  “Or what?” Lazza calls out. “Loa has more than proved to me the truth of her words. If you refuse to see it, that’s not my problem.”

  He growls, stoppings mid-stride and rounding on Lazza. “You would make an enemy of me today, brother?” he asks on a snarl. “You would accuse my mate of betrayal, threaten her, provide no proof, as is required by our laws, to what end?” Treno demands.

  Lazza studies his brother for a second and then huffs. “Lower your knife so my brother can stop thinking with his dick long enough to hear the truth,” Lazza orders.

  Loa does as she’s told and steps to the side of me.

  “Looks like you whored yourself out for protection here just like you did in the Eyrie,” she growls at me.

  Treno and his brother start arguing. I wait until they’re both fully consumed with yelling at each other and then drop my voice so only the bitch next to me can hear it.

  “If I recall correctly, Loa, I wasn’t the one in need of protection. Or did I imagine the Syta stepping in to save your worthless ass?”

  She growls at me and turns.

  “If you lay one hand on her, I will rip you apart very, very slowly,” Treno seethes, and Loa freezes.

  “Enough!” Lazza booms, and his voice echoes around the room. “It’s time Treno sees the truth.”

  “Yes, Syta,” she chirps.

  With that, Loa reaches behind her and threads her fingers through the long black hair at the back of her head. She fumbles with something for a second and then pulls out what looks like a bobby pin with gnarly looking teeth. She throws it on the ground, and it goes skidding toward Treno’s feet. It stops about a yard away, and we all just stare at it. I wait to see if it’s magically going to morph into video surveillance of me with the Hidden, or maybe it’s some kind of voice recording device.

  Nothing happens.

  Lazza starts to speak, and the hair on the back of my neck and arms stands up. My head snaps in his direction, and fear runs a cold finger up my spine. He’s spewing out power words. I recognize the cadence of them immediately, and they wrap themselves around me like old friends to then run off to do whatever it is Lazza is telling them to do. I can practically see the magic pour out of his mouth and slither toward the clip Loa threw on the floor.

  A black jewel glints in the light on one end of it as the magic wraps around the object. The jewel starts to smoke, and then all of a sudden like it was made of gun powder, there’s a pop and then it turns to ash. I’m still confused by what any of this means, but Loa gives a weird groan, and it pulls me from the whirlwind of questions circling through me.

  I look over to find that Loa’s face looks wrong. I watch as slowly she morphs from a massive broad-shouldered female, with straight black hair, into a slightly more delicate female with light brown hair and gray eyes.

  She looks triumphant as the magic in the room dissipates and the hair pin crumbles into dust on the ground. Treno squints at the revealed visage like he’s trying to put it all together.

  “Raquel?” he asks hesitantly, his tone bewildered like he can’t believe his eyes.

  Loa laughs and offers him a wide half-crazed smile that has Pigeon renewing her assault at my defenses.

  “How?” Treno demands. “You’re dead.”

  A low growl resonates through the room, and my head snaps in the direction of Ryn. He’s still on the ground, but his eyes are fixed on Loa, or Raquel, or whatever her fucking name is.

  “Silence, brother, you only have yourself to blame for this,” she snaps, and my eyes widen as the connection snaps into place.

  I look from Ryn to his sister, and it’s impossible now to miss the similarities in their face, hair, and eye color. Loa-Raquel is still too masculine to ever be called pretty, and even with a different face, I still want to rip her fucking guts out.

  Treno looks at his brother and then back to Loa-Raquel. “You knew she was alive this whole time?” he asks incredulously.

  Lazza rolls his eyes. “I had a chance early on to get someone on the inside. She volunteered, don’t look so offended. Things like this only work if you don’t tell anyone, so that’s exactly what I did. The information she’s supplied over the years has saved us and our people many times over. I trust her implicitly, and you should too,” he states evenly.

  Lazza gestures from Loa-Raquel to Treno. Taking that as her signal to speak, Loa-Raquel opens her mouth and starts selling me out.

  “Zeph found her wandering around the Amaranthine Mountains. He bro
ught her back to the old castle that was abandoned outside of Vedan, because she had initiated a call to his gryphon.”

  “Sound familiar, brother?” Lazza interrupts and asks Treno.

  I wish I could leap across this room and punch him. Treno looks to me, and I have to work to keep my face empty. I want to beg him with my mouth and my eyes not to listen. I want to scream for him to wait for me to explain everything so it’s not tainted by manipulation and war, but I can’t say any of that without risking more than just me.

  “Funny enough, he thought she was an Avowed spy. He ordered her cleansed and brought in his little mutt to test her. She passed, but you know Zeph, he doesn’t trust anyone except Ryn. He still mated her. From what I hear, she practically forced him to complete the bond. Then she set her sights on my brother. I put a stop to that, and she attacked me out of nowhere for it. Zeph stopped me from killing her, and then she up and went missing. When word trickled down that she had been spotted here, I knew that Zeph was trying to plant another spy,” she finishes, shooting me a triumphant look.

  I want to roll my eyes at her version of events, but I don’t. Instead, I fix Treno with a steady stare. I’m tempted to deny everything, to claim I don’t know her. But the truth is, if I do make it out of this...I will have to tell Treno the truth. I feel like denying anything now will just set him up to feel even more betrayed, so I say nothing.

  “Lazza, I’ve had enough. Do what you want with Ryn, that’s between you and him and your secret spy, but I’m taking my mate and leaving. Raquel’s word doesn’t hold weight with me like it does with you.”

  “Don’t touch her,” Lazza commands, and he stomps toward Treno. “You are not the leader of our people, and you do not give me orders. I am the Syta, and what I say goes. How can you be so shortsighted, Treno? If there’s even a small chance that she’s mated to Zeph, then we have him by the throat,” Lazza growls out.

  “And if you’re wrong?” Treno counters.

  “Then you get your mate back,” Lazza replies coolly.

  “We both know what you’ll put her through to prove one way or another who she’s connected to. I can’t allow you to do that to her. And how could you want to do that to me? Do you not see my marks on her body? We’re bonded!”

  Lazza snorts. “It’s early. Your gryphons haven’t solidified anything; this is what we’ve been looking for to end this war. She is the key. Sacrifices must be made!”

  Treno’s mismatched eyes fill with rage and hurt.

  “Not like this,” he snaps back, taking a threatening step toward his brother.

  “Are you challenging me?” Lazza asks on a snarl.

  “I’m challenging this decision to hurt my mate all on the word of some chit—”

  Out of nowhere, Ryn charges Lazza. I’m frozen, stuck watching it like it’s in slow motion, completely torn about what to do. If I jump Loa right now like I want to, Treno will know the truth. It’ll gut him. But if I don’t help Ryn get out of here somehow, they’re probably going to kill him, and I can’t let that happen either. I’m fucked no matter what I do.

  I take a step toward Loa-Raquel, who has her back to me as she watches Ryn charge the Syta of the Avowed. There’s so much space between them that the attack seems futile, but Ryn moves so fucking fast. His body readies itself for attack and starts to morph into his gryphon. I focus on my hand, willing it to partially shift and extend my fingertips into claws.

  Lazza’s eyes widen and then narrow as he snarls out, “Tamod hurvas aeyo!”

  Nothing happens, and Ryn slams into Lazza like a freight train, his size and form still changing. Treno sprints in their direction, and then we all freeze as pain filled screams fill the air all around us. The awful, soul-scarring sound wraps itself around me and rips out my heart while also stealing my ability to move or think. I feel a foreign buzzing in my body that doesn’t hurt but steals the air from my lungs. I grab at my throat and watch horrified as Ryn rises off of Lazza slowly. His shift stops and his feet lift up off the floor. He’s suspended in the air, clawing at his throat and turning purple.

  Manic laughter bounces around the crystal walls and ceiling, and Lazza stands up, his eyes crazed and his hand outstretched like he’s somehow choking the life out of Ryn.

  “You forgot, old friend, what I’m capable of,” Lazza snarls, spittle and madness spewing from his mouth as he does. “Did you think you’d be immune? That I wouldn’t bring you to your knees just like all the others?”

  Ryn’s clawing at his throat and struggling to stop whatever Lazza is doing to him slowly becomes more sluggish. Tears streak down my face, and black dots form at the corners of my vision. Movement to my right calls to me, and I look over to find Treno bent over, taking pain filled little gasps of air and staring at me, with pure shock and betrayal bleeding out of his gaze.

  He knows.

  The connection must be forcing him to feel a measure of what I am, and I’m suffocating just like Ryn is. My heart breaks from the pain and confusion I see in Treno’s eyes, and I wish I could reach out and steal it all back. I look away and watch Ryn’s fight slowly turn into twitches as his body accepts the inevitable death.

  Pigeon is slamming into me, keening and lamenting. I can feel her begging to take control, to put a stop to all of this. Lazza is laughing. Loa is staring, her eyes filled with excitement and horror, like she can’t decide if watching her brother being murdered is fun or fucking awful. Fire starts in my chest as I internally scream for all of this to stop.

  At first I think it’s my soul being ripped to shreds, but slowly the fire spreads until it’s consumed all of me. It reaches out to the borders of my body like each lick of flame is searing something into the individual cells that comprise...me. It fucking hurts, but it releases the invisible hold on my throat, and I gasp in a lung full of air as the molten heat suddenly condenses inside my chest again like it’s ready to explode. Ryn’s legs give a final twitch as he hangs in the air, and I turn to Lazza.

  I want to shred him. To make sure that no one has to stare into those evil eyes again and face death. I open my defenses to Pigeon. I clear the way for her to take over and do as much damage as she can before they kill us, but it’s not Pigeon that surges through me and out into the room. I scream, pain and rage pouring out of me, as a shockwave of purple explodes out of me. It moves through the room, obeying my will and slamming into everyone, blowing them back.

  I gape and stare down at my hands as if somehow they belong to someone else. What the fuck was that?

  Ryn drops to the ground with a sickening thud, and it snaps me out of my shock and confusion. I stare at him for a beat, but he doesn’t move. Dread tears me apart as the words too late echo around my head. I rush over to him and place my fingers at his throat and watch his chest. I hold my breath as I try to find the right spot on his neck, the one that will thump rhythmically and give me hope. Tears continue to stream down my face, and they drip onto the filthy shredded tunic he’s wearing. Halos of guilt, worry, and pain dapple the fabric as my emotions drip out of my eyes and all over him.

  Relief punches through my chest as I finally feel a faint slow rhythm underneath my fingertips. I let out the breath I was holding and watch his chest as if my exhale should become his inhale. My scalp lights up with pain as someone fists a hand in my hair and drags me away from Ryn. I shout out and scramble to try to get to my feet, reaching up to stop the hand from ripping any more chunks out than they already have.

  I expect it to be Lazza that I catch in my peripheral, yanking me around, but it’s not. It’s Loa, and from the brief peeks of her I’m getting, she’s well past the edge of enraged.

  “Do you see now?” she screams, her voice triumphant and furious.

  She swings me around violently, and suddenly I’m facing Treno as he gets to his feet about ten yards away from me. He takes me in, and fear and anger flash in his face. My stomach drops at the rage I see there, and I don’t know if there will ever be a way that I can make any of this
right.

  “Do you have your proof now? That she’s one of them...just like I told you she was?” Loa screams at him, and I can’t miss the hurt little girl that seems to bleed out of her voice.

  I scream for Pigeon, but it feels like she’s buried in my head somehow. I can feel her frantically trying to dig herself out and get to me, and I realize I need to buy her time. I focus on my hands and force my talons out.

  Loa laughs maniacally next to me, and Treno’s face loses color and his eyes go wide with terror. I just spot Lazza out of the corner of my eye nodding, but my attention is ripped away when Treno releases a horrified, “Noooooooo!”

  Confused by his reaction, I freeze. Instead of taking a swipe at Loa, I spend a split-second trying to figure out why he wouldn’t want me to hurt her.

  I realize too late that his anguished scream isn’t because of what I’m doing, but because of what Loa is about to do.

  17

  Warm metal touches my neck. I don’t even have time to process that it’s a blade before Loa slices across my throat with it.

  Pain explodes in my throat, and then I can feel warmth gushing out of me. I try to gasp, but the sound is a sick gurgling that hammers home the reality of what just happened. I press my palms to my slit throat, terrified by how quickly they’re covered in blood. I press at the wound and watch as Treno falls to his knees, his large hands clutching his own neck.

  The realization that he’s experiencing some fucked up echo of what I am flashes through my mind as I press at my wound and wonder how the fuck I’m going to survive this. I blink slowly, and it’s as if the world around me has exploded. It’s hard to focus, because my mind seems to only want to be aware of the fact that I’m bleeding to death. I feel like I’m moving underwater as I try to comprehend what’s happening.