He nodded, and she pulled the curtain closed.
Dani struggled with her terror as much as the actual transformation. Most of it wasn’t much different from shifting from her Dire form, but she got a bit stuck with the wings. She gritted her teeth and visualized how Tyrez would fold the finger bones against the forearm before pushing the entire contraption between his shoulder blades. It was as painful as it sounded, but her body did know what to do—her mind simply guided the process in the right direction.
Finally, panting, she sat on the bed in her naked human skin.
Naked.
She shot a panicked look around her, but Gryphons didn’t require covers. Tugging on the drapery only proved that it was firmly affixed overhead.
Dani flinched when a hand emerged through the curtains. It was rather hairy, and it clutched a long trench coat.
“Perhaps this will help,” offered Jacques.
She sincerely hoped he wasn’t nude now. Dani snatched the trench coat from him and wrapped it around her, tying it firmly. Then she tentatively opened the curtains.
Jacques had retreated to stand against the wall. He was clad only in his shorts, and Dani kept her gaze firmly above the waist. The rest of him was rather hairy, and to her shock, horns pushed up beneath the bushy hair on his head. And long ears...
When her eyes widened, he grinned at her again. “Dragons see right through my glamor. I take it you have inherited that talent.”
Wow. She sensed his pheromones, but they no longer had any effect on her. “Thank you for the trench coat,” she said.
He waggled his eyebrows at her. With Jacques, everything implied lechery at some level. “I don’t mind you wearing it, but if you are a Dragon now, you don’t need it.”
She stared at him. “You think I could grow scales in my human form?”
He shrugged. “Can you?”
She pulled the trench coat tighter. “I have no idea.”
“Maybe your two new men can help you with that.”
The pain that shot through her threatened to double her over. “They aren’t my men.”
His eyes scanned her features, and his smile faded. “What have you done,mon chéri?”
She couldn’t meet his dismayed gaze. “Only what needed doing. And now, I need your help. I have to get back home.”
They were interrupted when Sparkle reappeared with a flash of fire. She landed on Jacque’s arm, and he pulled the message from the cylinder. His mouth straightened as he read it.
Dani’s gaze narrowed with suspicion. “Who is that from?”
The Satyr flashed her a look, considered for a moment, and then told her. “From Ash. He’s asked me to help you with whatever you need.”
From out of nowhere, tears. Dani angrily blinked them away, building the walls around her heart as high as they would go.
She’d done what she came here to do. Rindek was dead.
It was time to move on.
* * *
As Dani followed Jacques, she tried not to care that this was the last time she’d look out upon the rainbow grasses, but it was hard.
They weren’t the same, of course. Thick smoke still rose from the funeral pyres. Areas of the grasses between the Gryphons’ mountain and the portal were trampled flat, the earth beneath soaked with dark stains. And her nose told her tales of the carnage that had transpired here.
The Satyr seemed to know her thoughts. “I will leave you with the crystal shard. With it, you can access the gates in Cara’s garden.”
“It’s okay,” Dani said. “It would just make me a target on the streets. It’s better not to have anything of value.”
