"I-I didn't mean—"
Santino backhanded David, making him fall over with a yelp.
"You lost one, you idiot! How many times do I have to tell you not to leave that door open? Now you're really gonna get it!"
I shivered, horrified. Santino wouldn't hurt him that badly, would he? After all, David was an alpha too. He must havesomerespect for his fellow alphas, right?
I knew if I stayed any longer, the injustice would've pissed me off enough to intervene, so I tore away from the scene and flew hard in the opposite direction. As bad as I felt for David, there was nothing I could do. In my current state, Santino could swat me down like a fly. I had to get out of here.
No alphas could control me ever again.
I was free.
Except for this shitty leg band. As long as I wore it, I was stuck in my finch form.
Now the problem was: how the hell was I supposed to get rid of this thing?
4
Quinn
Under the sweltering sun,I slowly made my way up the mountainside. It was too hot to be in my fox form, fur coat and all, so I made the journey on two legs instead of four. It would take twice as long but at least I wouldn't turn into a roast.
All the effort would be worth it once I got to the top and found Mistral, the air spirit. He had to be there. Where else would an air spirit be except closest to the sky?
There was a tiny seed of doubt in my mind. Zak and Kamari said they hadn't seen Mistral for months, not since their encounter with him back when they saved Nautilus. But it wasn't like Mistral had vanished. After all, air and sky and clouds still existed, and they were all fine. This wasn't like when Nautilus was injured and threw the coast into chaos. From the sounds of it, Mistral was just hiding.
Kamari’s warning echoed in my head. He told me that Nautilus and Mistral weren't the only spirits around. They had met a third one, a malicious one named Animus. But they hadn't seen him since the incident with Nautilus, either. Maybe he'd gotten bored of being evil and left.
Honestly, it all sounded like an overdramatic story to me. I knew spirits existed – Nautilus's descendants were the proof of it – but why would they drag us into their lives? It wasn't like we were particularly special. We were just a bunch of shifters living in the wildness, minding our own business.
Well, I guess technically Iwasn'tminding my own business, since the whole reason I was hauling my ass up this mountain was to meet Mistral and ask for his blessing. But if Mistral was so powerful, that shouldn't be a problem for him. And it certainly didn't make sense for some Lord of Darkness spirit to mess with me.
"This would've been a whole lot easier if I was born with wings in the first place," I mumbled, wiping the sweat off my forehead.
It wasn't like I was ungrateful for everything I had. I knew I was lucky. I had a caring family, a nice place to live, and plenty of food. Plus, I was born in the wild and didn't have to navigate a smelly, polluted city where the humans lived.
But I didn't feelwhole. Something was missing. I felt it like a hole in my stomach, as if someone had jabbed it out with a cookie cutter, and I craved that missing piece more than anything.
I saw the way my dad Orpheus looked at me sometimes, with pity in his eyes. It made me feel ashamed. Even though I put on a good show of being neutral about it, it killed me that he could fly and I couldn't.
But that would all change when I met Mistral. I was certain of it.
I slicked back my hair, damp with sweat. There was no temple dedicated to him as far as I could see. Just dirt, stones, grass and wildflowers dancing in the breeze. Nothing that particularly screamed 'air spirit.'
Complaining wasn't going to get me anywhere. I slapped my thighs in determination, preparing them for another round of mountain climbing, then kept moving.
Then something dropped out of the sky and landed on my head like a rock.
"Ow!" I cried.
Startled by the force of it, I staggered back and fell on my ass. I dug my fingers into the dirt so I wouldn't go tumbling down the entire mountainside.
A spot of pain bloomed in my skull. I touched it with one hand, afraid it was bleeding but thankfully it wasn't.
"What the hell?" I said.
My first thought was that a loose rock fell from above and hit me. But when I looked up, I saw that wasn't the case.
