Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Lark
Avillage is under attack. So although I hate to leave Rafe, a sense of unexpected duty toward this unknown community commands me to do so.
Danger is a familiar old friend. I’ve been a soldier for all my adult life, dealing with raiders and thuggery of every kind while patrolling the lands belonging to Violet’s family, back in Hydornia.
During our travels, we’d sometimes clash with cutthroats.
Most of those encounters ended quickly once they realized we were not easy prey.
But it has been a long time since my blood stirred like this. Since I felt the looming weight of true danger, a village under threat, and innocent people in need.
I follow the griffins. My claws clatter against stone, unfamiliar muscles tightening with every stride.
I still don’t know what to make of the griffin bastards. Their methods are blunt. Arrogant. High-handed. They make my blood boil. Yet they haven’t harmed Rafe or me. Not really. If they’d meant to crush us, they could have.
There is something else, though—a strange pressure at the back of my mind. A low hum. Not from Rafe. Not from Violet.
From them. The pride.
It isn’t comfort, but it isn’t fear either, more a thin thread, taut and unfamiliar, tugging at something deep under my ribs.
Instincts tell me they will not abandon Rafe. Nor cast him out. Whatever else they are, they protect what is theirs. Through Violet, we have become theirs.
I force myself to focus. There’s battling to do.
I’d rather have Rafe at my side than any other, but that’s not possible right now. Freed from the chains, he’d likely slug Atlas in the jaw. My snout twists in a wolfish smirk. I wouldn’t mind seeing that.
We descend into a vast cavern. Stone slopes away beneath my paws, leading to an open archway and a forest path beyond. Weapons gleam in torchlight. Men move with sharp, trained efficiency, snatching blades from racks and vaulting into saddles.
Atlas halts beside me.
“You will go with them,” he says. “We will fly overhead.”
Not a request.
He doesn’t ask if I’m willing. Doesn’t need to. His eyes say he feels, through the bond we already share, the flicker of instinct coiling in my gut. An ancient readiness.
I don’t fully understand this form. But it feels deep boned. Like a memory from a life I never lived. Generations of direwolves thrumming beneath my skin, ready to guide me.
Atlas grips the fur at the back of my neck. The touch isn’t dominant, more… grounding, maybe even holding affection. And I hate how much I want to lean into it. This strange bond between us roots itself in instinct as much as thought.
Then he’s gone, sweeping after his lieutenants, leaving me with the human warriors mounting up.
The air shimmers.
The horses don’t even flinch when the griffins shift beside us, mighty wings unfurling with barely a ripple of wind.
New presences enter my mind.
Aldric. Darkan. Galeor. Not the human men, for they are separate, but the griffins themselves. Each one is a distinct being, while my wolf feels like the other half of me, and together, we make a whole.
The griffin side is less complicated. More ancient. Vast. Timeless.
They carry ages inside them.
It shakes me. I consider myself a simple male with average intellect.
Yet being near them makes my thoughts stretch to the breaking point.
Some things are not meant for mortal understanding.
Griffinhood feels like one of them. They are the realms of the Goddess herself, maybe even the old gods that some people still worship.
To behold them is terrifying. And humbling.
I am still on edge. And fucking furious about how they snatched us from the forest, forced us to rut Violet through her heat while they watched. Yet standing in the presence of such ancient magic, the kind that can make a man a griffin, my anger loses its edge.
I’m not at acceptance. Not yet. But I am moving toward it.
“Trust, young shadow-shifter,” Aldric says in my mind, his voice like the crackle of old parchment.
“Trust must be earned,” I growl back.
“True,” he replies.
Unlike his human side, Atlas, there is no mockery in him. Only truth.
My wolf decides he likes the griffins well enough.
I remain in wolf-form. No point riding a horse when I can outrun half the bastards here. A low, satisfied rumble builds in my chest. Heat prickles beneath my pelt—the promise of violence, of purpose. Atlas could have left me behind with Rafe. Instead, he chose to include me. To trust me.
We are part of this community now in ways I did not see nor understand before. And there is a rightness to stepping forward. Of being part of something. Something I never found in Hydornia. Not fully.
Home? Not yet. There are stones to shift first, yet it remains a possibility and one I have no aversion to.
I throw my head back and howl. The cavern amplifies the sound and sends it echoing off the stone. The griffins shriek in answer. Terrible cries that make every hair on my spine rise.
The human commander signals the charge. The ground rumbles beneath us as men, horses, griffins, and a lone direwolf surge forward. I sprint out front, paws striking earth, the forest path rising to meet me.
Overhead, winged shadows sweep the treetops.
And for the first time since arriving, something inside me settles.
Not loyalty.
Not belonging.
But readiness.
And the hope that someday, Rafe will fight beside me again.