I frowned deliriously. “I don’t have time for pastries, Drey, I’m sorry. No matter how fucking amazing that sounds right now.”
Drey laughed, a great booming sound. “I can help in a different way, General Dark.” Bowing at his giant torso, he shifted, and I stared stupidly at the towering beast in front of me.
“You’re a griffin.” I gasped and then smiled. “Of course you are.”
Almost pure auburn aside from marbled feathers of gray in his wings, Drey’s griffin was a masterpiece. His great eagle head cocked to the side and regarded me with striking white eyes. Then he bowed his massive head and sighed his icy breath over my body.
The coldness of his power seeped in and I instantly felt my pain disappear. Finally able to stand fully, I removed my blood stained arm from my wounds, seeing completely healed skin.
A griffin’s breath had the ability to heal any creature…but only one time in its lifetime, and Drey—he chose me.
“Thank you Drey. I'm honored.” I choked.
His eagle head cocked to the side and he unfurled his marbled gray wings.
My brows rose. “Are you inviting me to fly with you? To reach Emon?”
Drey bowed his griffin head and then flapped his great wings with urgency.
I didn’t hesitate, scrambling on his broad lionlike body. Fierce wings pumped with royal elegance against the smoke surrounding us and I gripped his fur harder to stay astride as together we climbed up into Finlandia's lavender blue sky as I searched frantically for my soulmate.
“There!” I cried out against the rushing wind and pointed to the charred trail Ethereal had made. The panther was now out of the city and heading straight for the Red Cap Mountains, straight for wherever the location of the gateway was.
The griffin screeched back his acknowledgement and banked hard, his lion tale snapping to the side, to direct us straight towards the king of shifters. I gritted my teeth and clung low, edging with his turn.
My mind scrambled for something, anything to stop the raging panther. If he succeeded, there would be no Faerie, no us, no Riella.
Closing my eyes, I focused on the shifter I loved, searching for the shared bond between us.“Emon.”I pulled on our bond.“You are the light to my darkness. Come back to me,shifter.”
I had no way of knowing if he heard me but I sent my love through the bond anyway; images of him that I saw through my eyes, his snarky smile when I did something amusing, the roguish way he ran his hands through his hair, the way he watched his friends as if everyday was their last together, the soft touches that could soothe and light me on fire at the same time.
Tears streamed down my face while the wind instantly cooled them upon my fevered cheeks.“Come back to me Emon. You said we would do this together. Never alone.”
Still silence remained.
“Goddess fucking damn it, shifter. I will kick your dick in again for this.”A sob tore from my throat and the rushing air swallowed up my anguish like a hungry swarm.
Then I felt it. That slightest pull. The smallest whisper.
“Little umbra. I can’t stop. I can’t stop him.”
My eyes snapped and then narrowed on the Red Cap Mountains growing larger in the distance. They loomed over these lands, casting shadows over the valleys with its own personalized darkness as the sun set behind its towering peaks.
“Fight for me Emon. Fight it and hold on.”
I knew what I had to do.
I gave Drey a gentle pat to gain his attention. “I will need to stand. Please keep steady.”
Drey’s understanding griffin call pierced the dimming skies.
Breathing calmly, I slowly rose up to my feet, standing atop the great auburn griffin. Emon’s words from that night in his study echoed inside my mind.
“Did you really surf the skies upon the wings of the Roc?”
I hadn’t, but today…today I surfed the skies on griffin wings.
Lips thinning, I looked beyond the raging bloodlusting panther to the enormous looming shadows from the mountains. My hands rose and I felt beads of sweat drip down my back. I would need every bit of my concentration for this.
