Extraits

I gesture to the water. “There’s not anything that lives in there that’s going to, like, eat me?” I ask, eyeing the lake now like it just might be poison. “Anything that’s going to try to crawl into an orifice and lay eggs?” I add, feeling like that’s a good one to ask about too.

All hope that others would accept the match have quickly crumbled to ash in my heart. They want me dead. They want him dead. Tension between the Gryphons and Ouphe come closer to boiling over every day. Neither side has a firm grip on power, and things here are getting very dangerous. My lady’s maid, Sedora, thinks she has found a way for us, but I’m terrified to get my hopes up. I feel certain that one day we will need to run, but I worry that once we start, we will never be able to stop. May the stars watch over us and guide us to safety.

I don’t know where to set my feet down or what to point my wings toward. I don’t know what’s safe or how to spot the threats. I feel fucking hopeless.

“Get out, or I’ll let her,” I bellow and feel my body start to shift as Pigeon rams against my control like a feral animal and it starts to crack.

Resignation bleeds into Ryn’s stunned gray stare, and he starts to back away. Pain rips across his face, but I’m too focused on trying to keep him alive and in one piece to care. I may not want him to die, but that doesn’t mean whatever the fuck is going on is right. I keen and beg Pigeon to stop as Ryn reaches for the door, and she goes at me even harder. My senses and size change, and I know I’m seconds away from losing this battle.

“Go!” I scream, the sound a terror-filled demand.

I look around in awe, and I can’t get over the magical feel saturating this place. It reminds me of an echo of something I felt in Vedan when I sat with Nadi in the overgrown gazebo. There, it was like I was feeling the loss of something, but here, I’m overwhelmed by how alive it all feels.

I’ve never seen a fairy before, and I can’t seem to tear my eyes from it. I can barely make out the flit of wings; beyond that, it looks like a ball of light bouncing around the plants and water like it’s tending to them. I scan the rest of the magical waterfalls and pools, but I don’t spot any other little balls of light.

Chapter One

Well, well, well, what do we have here, soldier?” Ryn asks, and the other gryphon shifter with the blue eyes and chin dimple chuckles.

My gaze snaps from Ryn for a second to take in the amusement that lights up the blue-eyed shifter’s gaze, but I don’t watch him long enough to gauge what that amusement means. I focus on Ryn as he steps closer to me, confusion warring with a warm feeling that moves through me. I expect Pigeon to wake up and flood me with some unwelcome feeling of desire or happiness, but she’s quiet. That alone has worry coursing through me as I search Ryn’s gray gaze for some sign of recognition... There is none.

I’m tempted to ask what the fuck is going on, but thankfully, I still have some sense intact. If this is Ryn—and not some evil twin he forgot to mention—my announcing that I know him isn’t going to go over well for either one of us. Instead, I activate damsel mode. I shy away from Ryn’s large form like I’m terrified of him. It’s not a hard stretch from how I’m actually feeling. I have no fucking clue what is going on and just what I’ve landed myself in the middle of.

I bump back against the large shifter who is still holding onto me from behind. All that does is remind me of the erection he has pressed into my back. I immediately arch as far away as I can from the unwelcome boner and lean toward the large black-haired, blue-eyed shifter in front of me. I don’t miss a flash of what I think is satisfaction in his bright blue gaze before he clears it and turns to answer Ryn’s question.

“I’m not quite sure yet, Commander,” he responds with a curious almost sarcastic inflection in the word commander. “This female ran from a patrol that spotted her flying east of here. They moved to apprehend and she ran. She was netted and then fished from the water. She’s unmarked and has a lovely tale about how she’s not from here and is just trying to get home,” Blue Eyes finishes, a sly smile stretching across his full lips.

“Is that right? And where exactly is home?” Ryn asks, leveling me with his stormy gray gaze.

I watch as anger strikes through his eyes, quick as lightning, before giving way to a cool indifference. Shit. Maybe this is an evil twin, or maybe that look is because I’m here and not back in the Eyrie like he expects me to be. My nostrils flare as I try to scent him again now that he’s closer. It smells like Ryn, but not...and I have no fucking clue what that means.

“Some place called Colerdo,” Blue Eyes supplies when I don’t make any effort to answer mystery Ryn’s question.

The maroon Narwagh armor that mystery Ryn is wearing squeaks as he motions for the gryphon who’s holding me to move. My erection clad captor releases me and moves away. Ryn steps around me, and an odd sensation tingles through my body when his fingertip skims over my shoulder and slowly moves the hair away from the back of my neck. He’s armed to the teeth, which should probably set off some kind of alarm. Instead, I have to tamp down on the shiver that courses through my body, and I’m trying—and failing—to keep my nipples from morphing into diamonds, and goose bumps from rising in the wake of his touch.

“So we’re to believe that the Amaranthine Mountain spirits are gifting us with beautiful, highborn, unmarked females now?” Ryn asks, his featherlight caress moving from my neck and trailing suggestively down my spine.

Snickers sound off around me, and I work not to show how uncomfortable I am right now.

“All hail the Thais Fairies if that’s the case,” Blue Eyes announces, and more laughter bubbles up from the gryphon soldiers surrounding me.

“No wonder the rebel scum have been spotted more and more in this area. Who can blame them with such gifts wandering about?” someone out of sight comments, and Ryn is so close to me now that I can feel the laughter vibrating from his chest into my back.

Unease unfurls within me, and the jeering laughter all around me makes me want to run.

Mystery Ryn bends so that his lips are inches away from the shell of my ear. “Too bad, little sparrow, that I was always taught never to trust anything that seemed too good to be true,” he announces, and panic roars through me.

I’m not sure exactly what sets it off—maybe it’s the use of Zeph’s nickname for me or the thinly veiled threat he just mock whispered in my ear—but everything slows. Before I even know what I’m doing, I reach back and pull a dagger that’s strapped to Ryn’s side from its sheath. I surge forward and press the newly acquired blade to the throat of the massive blue-eyed and dimple-chinned gryphon shifter in front of me. The amusement quickly fades from his sparkly blue gaze, and I watch the shock seep in as I press my dagger into his corded neck.

Everyone around me freezes.

I look around, terrified as other shifters press closer, and I scream at them not to take another step closer.