WingSpan (Taken on the Wing Book 1) (7 page)

Shadow gestures left as they pull out.

“Run in and pack a bag. We’ll spend the night at my hotel so your dad doesn’t catch us and run me off.”

Shadow laughs at the ridiculous statement. She and Terry grew up in several foster homes, taking the last name of the Klein’s, their first foster parents. They didn’t keep in touch with any of the families they grew up with.

“If you think I’m kidding then humor me.”

“Then what?”

“We stop at my room so I can change and then I’m buying you dinner.”

Shadow points at a small apartment building on the opposite side of the street and Talon expertly turns the truck around so she doesn’t have so far to walk.

“Overnight bag,” he reminds her. “I’ll get you back here before work.”

“Then what?” she asks his empty seat as the door closes and he runs around to open hers.

“I have a few days. If you want we can do it again tomorrow.”

Talon takes her elbow as she slides out and dashes to the front door.

“Shadow?”

If he dried at all he’s soaked again already, standing there oblivious to the West Coast winter. His shoulders broaden in challenge to the weather.

“Ditch the panties.”

The memory of Talon’s sire’s large calloused hand on his shoulder tells him he’s finally fallen asleep. He knows he’s dreaming and reliving a possible solution to his puzzle.

He can’t lie to Shadow.

Not even to uselessly deny something which is plainly true.

I’m not ticklish.

Easy to think, easy to say as long as it’s not to her. The only answer is magic and it has to be his. No eyrie would ever let a royal female, a descendent of a very magical matriarchal bloodline, run loose as a rogue. Shadow’s birth would have been as common as his.

The only real magic they possess binds them as mates. Talon can call on a small amount of magic, a symbiotic male way of shaping the magic in the Earth, but it’s in no way his. The Earth can choose him and he can have a say in what it does but without its power he has as much magic as a human.

The Earth is a serious ally and she always demands something in return.

Like honesty.

His sire’s phantom hand won’t relent to let him doze in peace.

“Talon,” Stalker says. “Get up, child.”

Sire’s pinfeathers,
Talon silently curses. He’s seventeen and still called ‘child.’ Talon’s twin Feather had become an adult gryphon three years earlier. After Feather’s first season she attended a ceremony where the females prepared the spirit of a dead old rogue for the hereafter. The rite of passage meant she was a
gryphon
and no longer a child like him. All Talon knows is becoming an adult male would wait for his sire to have time.

He holds back his excitement that the time may have come and slips from the mat he shares with his sister. The first indication his sire was in the den was usually the quiet ‘inside-voice’ coupling of his parents in the other room but the sound of his dame’s snore suggests his sire has come only for him.

“You will need your pouch and your dagger, child.”

During his sire’s last visit Talon had been given the items and forbidden to touch them. Feather received a raw ruby in a pouch like his and she never complained about the lump it made under her side of their mat.

“Steal your sister’s ruby.”

Talon freezes. Is this the test? Is he willing to break one of the cardinal rules of the eyrie? Or does committing the crime mean he’ll wait months for his sire to give him another chance and the test is of his willingness to disobey Stalker?

His sire nods sternly toward Feather.

Talon doesn’t hesitate again. She stirs but does not wake and he bounds silently after Stalker taking position at his left wing, the position of protection. Only a gryphon sworn to protect Stalker with his life would stand at his right. He follows with his leather sheathed dagger in one hand and the pouches in the other and soon they climb toward the eyrie entrance. Stalker’s heavy armour and proudly positioned wings remind Talon how very far he has to go before he’s an adult.

The distance from Feather worries him but he holds his head high as they pass other gryphons up tending to things in the night. Talon slows as he’s struck with the sudden urge to run for his den and replace the stone. The guilt he feels for his crime is overwhelming. When she wakes to find him gone and her ruby missing his betrayal will devastate her.

Stalker turns and grabs Talon’s elbows, pulling him so they stand chest to chest. They’re the same height, Talon nearly as broad, but his muscles seem soft and his limbs ungainly in comparison to his sire’s powerful presence. The big rogue doesn’t speak; instead puts his fingers under Talon’s chin and pushes it up in praise.

“Yes, sire,” Talon says, feeling stronger inside. Self-doubt will only work against whatever Stalker has planned.

As they near the entrance, Stalker directs him into one of the many rooms leading off the entry corridor.

“Undress,” Stalker orders as he removes his own armour.

Talon’s heart-rate picks up. Are they leaving the eyrie? As a child he’s never been allowed to leave the mountain. There are several caverns large enough to learn the basics of flight and he only saw outside when he snuck to the hole in the stone to do it. All he wears is a pair of child’s trousers, not even a gap in the rear for a tail, and he folds them neatly beside his sire’s armour.

“Take wing, Talon.”

Stalker waits as his son imagines heavy muscle and bone tearing free. In seconds Talon’s body responds: first a mouthwatering tingle in his skin as his knees lock to bear the extra weight then light headedness threatens as the frames of his wings extend nearly nine feet in each direction. It hurts but not so bad that he might spoil the moment with a shameful whimper. Finally long golden brown flight feathers form from the air. The rest of his body remains bare.

Stalker assesses his son, walking around behind before grabbing hold of his wings. Talon hisses in response. No gryphon, child or otherwise, ever wants to be disadvantaged by an adversary in the rear.

“Silence,” his sire whispers and Talon snaps his mouth shut though he keeps a sharp eye behind him. “Tail.”

“Sire,” Talon acknowledges and imagines his spine getting longer as his back straightens. He quickly feels the coarse hair of his own tail brushing his calves. He’s never been permitted a tail and marvels at the sensation of being completely winged as Stalker expertly binds the dagger to Talon’s upper left arm and ties the pouches around his waist.

“Follow,” he orders and together they approach the entrance. On the wing, Talon doesn’t mind the cold even though he’s naked but for the feathers and hair on his wings and tail. His sire points to the opening. It’s night and Talon’s shifted eyes make out the terrain in the distance.

Before Talon can think Stalker’s foot is on his ass, pushing him into blackness.

“Fly!”

Talon tumbles through a second of forever before he catches the air and coasts, reveling in the swell of his wings. He beats, climbing higher, and hurries to join his sire. What the hell are they doing? He’s stolen and now he’s running away.

At dawn they follow a large river north over snow covered forest.

“The humans call all this land Ontario,” his sire says but before Talon can try the strange word on his lips Stalker dives and Talon tucks his wings in to go after him. By the time he reaches the ground his sire has shifted further. Stalker’s clawed hands and sharp teeth have a deer by the throat.

Talon watches every move his sire makes, sure it’s important.

“Quickly, your dagger,” Stalker points. “Here. Drink.”

Talon bares the blade for the first time, slicing into the deep artery then covering it with his mouth. He swallows again and again; a primal growl in his chest as he gulps air as greedily as blood. Talon’s wings beat against his sire’s, their nearness with the deer between them is undeniably intimate considering it’s two big males with food.

Mine, get away
, he thinks before he remembers the kill is Stalker’s. As Talon pulls away to share his head is pushed roughly back into the wound.

“Your kill has bonded you to your blade, son,” Stalker whispers in his ear.

Pride fills him at being called anything other than child. He can hear it in his sire’s voice. It is only then Stalker releases Talon. The deer is butchered and they eat, the taste of fresh warm venison is nothing Talon ever dreamed of and he feels his strength return from taking wing and the flight.

They fly for days, killing and sleeping, Stalker teaching his son the pleasure of the hunt.

Late in the day Talon feels drawn to a spot below.

“Sire?” he points and they descend, landing on a bend in a cold river.

“What do you feel, son?”

Talon’s nostrils flare with the scent.

Gold.

“The Earth chooses who finds her treasures,” Stalker explains. “I scent nothing here. If you do then she wants you to have it. She will exact a price, however.”

His sire pushes him to his knees and places his hands in the gravel. Talon hides his apprehension. Being on all fours before anyone is a punishment which can go on for days or weeks. He’d rather receive a few licks to the butt as the price than assume the position of apology.

A gryphon never apologizes. To do so shows weakness.

“She is your first lover, son, and you must be close to her. You will not eat or sleep until the gold rises,” Stalker says in the old language. “You may speak to her but in the old words. When she feels you have suffered enough, you will receive what she has offered.”

With that Stalker flies off, leaving Talon alone.

On his hands and knees the weight of his wings quickly becomes unbearable. He’s built to be suspended beneath them, not hold them up like this, and even after days of flying and hunting building lean muscle and strength nothing could prepare him. Though his aching body begs for relief or even a small break, Talon whispers to the Earth praising her with thanks for bearing his weight and feeding his body, for sustaining the deer that will fortify him for his journey home and for sheltering his sister in the warm stone of their mountain.

As darkness falls the sound of wings announces his sire’s return. Stalker consumes fresh venison before him, making Talon’s mouth water and stomach ache. Talon is still weakened from the afternoon’s travel and keeps his mind busy thanking the Earth for the deer and the trees which shelter Stalker’s sleeping form.

Morning finds Talon muttering endlessly on the ground.

Stalker speaks, gnawing on half frozen venison. To Talon the distraction seems an act of pity and at first he tunes him out, refusing sympathy and struggling through his agony on his own but eventually he falls into the old words. He learns how to bond with a mate, the ritual of exchange, and that he may only share the ways of harvesting the Earth’s treasure with his own son.

Unnourished far too long, Talon shivers in the cold. Even moving his wings no longer makes heat in his muscles nor releases his pain. He refuses to give up even when the shakes blur into violent shudders that chafe and cut his already bruised knees on the rock.

Then something subtle changes beneath him; the gravel bed vibrates in his hands and even tilts. Stalker squats expectantly nearby.

A new pain fills Talon, blinding him. He forgets about the ache in his back and shoulders. He’s aware of Stalker’s roaring laughter as the rogue falls over holding his full belly.

Talon blinks furiously and as his sight returns he can see a nugget of gold an inch and a half across covered in his dripping blood. Several smaller chunks pop to the surface nearby but none with the vigor of the big one which has given him a deep cut and black eye.

“Well done, Talon,” Stalker pushes himself upright. “Although I should have warned you to turn away.”

Sitting upright is agony but Talon allows himself a grin at his amused sire.

“Wash, eat,” Stalker orders as he tosses the deer’s back end to his son and Talon’s stiff fingers remove the leather pouches and his dagger. The freezing river bites as he scrubs the dirt and blood away and the swift current kneads the feeling into his limbs. He washes the blood from the big piece of gold and puts it with the others.