“Fuck!” I scream, not ready for her to hand me back the reins, so I try to make the whip swords appear in my hand again. They don’t. Instead, I get someChronicles of Riddickshit that pops up in my hands, and I find myself squeezing two black grips with blades that curve around my knuckles like back-to-backJs.
Cree’s beak snaps out at my face, and on pure instinct, I shove my blade-covered fists out, the sharp black blades instantly connecting with her neck. Cree freezes, her gryphon face less than six inches from mine. My blades are buried in the feathers of her neck, warm blood now dripping down my fists.
We’re both panting and unmoving, as though someone hit pause on the battle and we’re waiting for them to hit play again. I’m completely surprised that Cree doesn’t just close the distance and rip my face off. I’m pretty sure she’d kill me before my blades could slice her head off, but maybe they’re sharper than I realized.
A familiar chuffing noise creeps out of Cree’s maw, and I realize that everyone around us is completely silent. No one is cheering or jeering. It’s as though they’re just as shocked by what’s happening as Cree and I are.
Cree steps back, and Pigeon and I tense, ready for her next attack. It doesn’t come. Only more of that gryphon giggle fills the pit as Cree distances herself from us, slowly loping toward her scattered pile of clothing and armor. I scamper as far away from the foggy-colored gryphon as I can. I move away until the side of the pit caresses the naked skin of my back. My Nike Swoosh shaped blades are still clutched in my hands, mostly because I have no idea how to get rid of them or really why I even have them in the first place. I watch Cree through suspicion-laced blinks and heavy breaths, feeling like this is somehow just another one of her tricks.
Her gryphon folds in on itself until Cree is all that remains, as naked as I am and surprisingly battered. Blood trickles down her throat, her shoulder, her back, her thigh. Her arm is fucked up, and I’m stunned to see the wounds of her gryphon have manifested on her body too. Pigeon’s pain and injuries always feel separate from mine, with the exception of our wings. Not taking my eyes off of Cree for a second, I run my fingers over my shoulder where I know she did her best to rip it apart, but there’s just smooth skin.
I can feel Pigeon hurting inside of me, and yet I bear no marks of what we just endured. I need to ask Wekun if that’s normal. I tense as two burly guard-looking guys jump into the pit and saunter over to Cree. She chuckles and bats at their hands as they wipe blood from her body and press their hands against her wounds.Not guards, I tell myself as I watch the exchange,healers. I’m reminded of the healer that Treno brought to me in Kestrel, and I find myself completely fascinated as I watch her injuries knit back together simply from the touch of these two males.
I flinch, and my attention is yanked away as a gargantuan body slams down to the earth next to me, and I look over to find an enraged Zeph ripping his shirt off and stepping in front of me. Ryn lands on my other side, and I feel Treno pound to the ground behind me.
Zeph fits the neck of his tunic over my head and threads my hands through the too long sleeves like I’m some inept toddler incapable of dressing myself. His touch is surprisingly gentle, but he doesn’t say anything as he works to cover me up. He doesn’t have to; the rage coating his countenance says quite enough. He’s fucking pissed.
The two healers finish up with a smiling Cree and turn in my direction. Zeph, Ryn, and Treno all tense, but shockingly they stay quiet. A large muscled arm snakes around my shoulders and chest, and I’m carefully pulled back against Treno. I’m so shocked by the possessive display, but there’s no time to really say anything before the two healers are standing in front of me.
Their eyes scan my body, and I see a flicker of surprise in both of their gazes when they don’t find me in a worse off state than Cree. “You’re not hurt?” one of them asks, lifting the hem of the tunic like he expects to find it hiding copious amounts of blood and gore. Ryn’s hand shoots out and clutches the male by the wrist, a low warning growl reverberating out of his throat.
“My gryphon is hurting more than I am,” I interject as the healer’s eyes narrow on Ryn. “I’m not sure if you can do anything about that.”
He refocuses his attention back on me and nods. “Where?” he asks, his periwinkle gaze roaming over my face.
“Do you need her to come out so you can see?” I ask, unsure how this works exactly. I sort of passed out the first and only time I came in contact with a healer in Kestrel City.
“No, we can reach her through you, but if you tell us where she’s suffering the most, that’s where we’ll concentrate our ability,” he explains.
I look back and forth between the two and realize they must be related. They have different shades of golden blond hair, one slightly darker than the other, but they have the same nose and the same blue-purple toned eyes.
“Our wings, her back, her hips, and her neck. I think she got whiplash from a couple of those swipes to the head,” I confess.
Treno’s arm tightens slightly around me, and the healing brothers both nod and step closer to me. One of them presses his palms to the sides of my neck while the other lifts Zeph’s shirt and snakes his hand up my back from the bottom. Treno doesn’t move away from me, and the healer has to wedge his hand between my back and Treno’s front.
It’s awkward as hell, but I keep my mouth shut, as everyone around me is feeling entirely too volatile, and I am not going to be in the middle of this shit show if it blows up. Out of nowhere, heat from the healers’ touch slowly builds and then gently pushes into me. I gasp at the sensation of their magic stretching out inside of me, and Pigeon unfurls as the warm tendrils reach her and start to do their thing.
Smoky billows of healing magic move through my chest, and I almost feel high from the sensation of all my minor aches and pains being wiped away alongside Pigeon’s wounds. My head lolls back against Treno’s chest, and every muscle in my body relaxes. It’s like this shit takes care of emotional wounds in addition to the physical ones.
“Damn, that’s some good shit,” I mumble, and one of the healing brothers chuckles.
Pigeon and I both feel all floaty and warm as a thumb grazes my jaw. I focus on the touch and stare right into a pair of periwinkle-colored eyes. The brother with the lighter golden blond hair gives me an inviting smile, and I return it without any thought as to what I’m doing.
Pigeon perks up in that way that I’ve learned to be very wary of, and it snaps me out of my floaty haze. I immediately sober and shoot her a glare.
“Don’t even think about it,”I snap at her.
She flashes me an image of the brothers and how she feels high as fuck, but I shake my head at her.“We’ve collected enough fucking trouble as it is,”I remind her, and she gets all pouty but thankfully doesn’t argue.
A large hand trails down my spine, and fingertips skim the side of my ass cheek, as the other healing brother pulls his arm out of my shirt. Another warning growl sounds off from behind me, and both Zeph and Ryn quickly join in. If I weren’t so shocked by the show of solidarity between the three of them, I’d tell them to cut it out.
The healing brothers step away, and one of them shoots me a wink that earns him a snarl in triplicate. He doesn’t seem bothered by the reaction of the big scary males surrounding me, which makes me question his sanity, because Ryn, Zeph, and Treno really aren’t the kind of males anyone should want to fuck with.
Zeph and Ryn both step in front of me, not blocking my view, but more taking up a protective stance. The level of menace seeping off of them makes the hair on my arms stand on end, and I’m grateful for once not to have that shit aimed at me.
Cree is completely dressed again, and she walks to the middle of the pit and raises her arms as though to silence the watching crowd. The only thing is, they’re all already quiet. You could hear a feather fall in this place.
She smiles, and the appearance of it makes her whole face light up in this genuine and beautiful way. “She’s worthy,” she announces quietly, and the emotion that pours into those words takes my breath away. Cree pauses like she needs a moment to gain control of the flood of feelings flowing through her. “We have waited for so long…” she starts again, her eyes shimmering with unshed hope, “and now it’s time.”
