“You can’t fight him,” she cried, not sure which of them she was speaking to.
It almost seemed as if her voice goaded Kav to attack, as if he intended to do the opposite of anything she said. The two collided with a grunt from Tyr and a snarl from Kav, forced out strangely through the bird’s beak.
For a few minutes there was nothing but a series of fast skirmishes followed by the two combatants withdrawing from each other. There was blood on Kav’s wings and a wet gleam along Tyr’s flank. Both of them had scored blows on each other.
“You can’t let this happen!” Cela shouted at the watching elders, but they responded no more than they had to her pleas when she was exiled.
Another collision between the combatants, and this time Tyr made a pained sound that tore at her heart.
But she was starting to realize that he might win. It appeared that the two were evenly matched, far more so than she had expected. Kav had the advantage of size and experience, but Tyr fought with unmatched determination that more than made up for his disadvantages.
He could win—but there was always the all-too-real possibility that he might be maimed or even killed in the attempt. He might win but suffer lifelong disability because of it.
“Peyton, stay where you are.”
“What are you going to—oh no,” Peyton said, but Cela heard it through feline ears, for she had shifted.
If her mate was going to fight for her, she planned to be right by his side.
She sprang from the rock into the middle of the duel.
TYR
Tyr was tired,breathing hard, and bleeding freely from a dozen small wounds. But he seemed to be holding his own, and in fact he was starting to feel as if he was getting the upper hand—or paw and beak—in a way that seemed strange.
Kav was definitely fighting seriously, but it was as if his heart wasn’t in it. He wasn’t losing on purpose, at least Tyr didn't think so. But time and again it seemed that he failed to notice openings left by Tyr’s inexperience.
“Fightme!” Tyr snarled. Given that he was shifted, it emerged as an avian shriek.
Kav clouted him in the head with a paw. Tyr staggered, and his ears rang. No, Kav wasn’t throwing the fight. Kav would kill him if he got a chance. But he didn’t seem to be fighting all out—why?
And then Cela landed in the middle of the action.
They were both so shocked that Cela got in a good beak-slash on Kav’s wing before he recovered. Kav retreated, apparently unwilling to fight her. Cela had no such inhibitions.She went after him, snapping and slashing with all the fury of a griffin fighting for her mate and family.
Tyr glanced in the direction of the enforcers and elders, but no one seemed prepared to interfere. His sister had her hands clasped anxiously, the knuckles white.
Having Cela in the middle of the fight made it complicated in more ways than one. Tyr didn’t want to accidentally hurt her, either by mistakenly clawing her or brushing against her and tripping the tattoos’ curse.
Instead he took advantage of Kav’s distraction to move in from behind. Although they had never practiced it, he and Cela settled into a hunting partnership with as much ease as if they had been doing it all their lives. Cela shrieked in fury and buffeted Kav’s face with her wings, while Tyr was the one to position himself and spring from behind.
He landed with his full weight on top of Kav, flattening him to the rock. For a moment, with Kav limp under him, Tyr thought he might have broken his rival’s spine. Tyr placed a great clawed paw on Kav’s throat.
After a frozen moment when Tyr wondered if he was really going to have to kill him, Kav twisted and shifted human again.
“I yield,” he panted through bloodied lips. “I yield.”
Cela shifted so she could talk. She put her foot on his throat beside Tyr’s paw, carefully not touching Tyr. “Set us free, Kav.”
Kav stared up at the two of them, breathing harshly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Cela pressed harder, making him cough. Tyr shifted as well. Now he was crouching on Kav’s chest with a hand around his throat. “This,” he snapped, and with his other hand gestured at the tattoo. “Whatever it was that you and the others did to stop us from touching each other. Undo it, or tell them to undo it.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Kav retorted. “I don't know what you mean.”
Cela made a feral-sounding growl and ground her booted foot into his collarbone. Kav winced.
Tyr started to put a hand on her foot, remembering just in time. “I think he’s telling the truth.”
