Chapter 1 #3
It was a humiliating biological glitch. And the seventeen times I had tried to run away from the settlement had been a waking nightmare for that exact reason.
Getting caught meant getting carried back.
Being hauled through the sky pressed against eight hundred pounds of hard muscle, coarse lion fur, and beating wings had left me shaking, breathless, and aching in places I refused to acknowledge.
My traitorous nervous system didn't care that he had a beak, talons, and a tail, or that his father was married to my mother.
Whenever Plumak touched me, my body reacted like a starving animal, which was why I spent twenty - four hours a day keeping a ten - foot perimeter between us.
And now I had to let him carry me seventy feet straight up a tree.
I stopped right in front of him, staring at the center of his golden - brown collarbone to avoid looking up into those intense predatory eyes.
Even hunched down to fit under the front beam of my lean - to, he dwarfed me.
The short, dense fur covering his pectorals rose and fell with his steady breathing, and the curved black talons at the ends of his thick fingers flexed once at his sides.
"Let's get this over with," I muttered, my voice tight.
Plumak moved with immediate, deliberate speed.
He backed out of the narrow opening into the gray light, straightening up to his full, towering height among the giant ferns.
When I stepped out into the mud behind him, he reached down.
His massive hands spanned my waist, his dark claws curving with practiced precision so the sharp tips stayed an inch away from my jacket while his broad, rough palms locked onto my hips.
With an effortless flex of his thick biceps, he lifted me off the ground and tucked me sideways against his chest, sliding one heavy forearm under my knees and clamping the other around my back.
The contact hit my bloodstream like a match dropped into dry brush.
I sucked in a sharp breath, my fingers flying up of their own accord to clutch the thick muscle of his shoulder.
Underneath the short, coarse coat of tawny lion fur, his flesh felt like sun - baked stone.
The furnace warmth pouring off his torso soaked straight through my frayed jacket and damp shirt, chasing away the chill in my bones and replacing it with a heavy, syrupy heat that sank straight toward my stomach.
My backpack dangled awkwardly from my elbow, forgotten, as my nose brushed against the stiff, rust - colored feathers where his neck met his shoulder.
Plumak took two long, powerful strides away from the roots into a small clearing between the ancient trunks, his bare lion paws sinking silently into the wet yellow leaves.
The steady autumn drizzle pattered against my head and darkened the golden fur along his arms. "Hold on," he rumbled right above my ear.
His colossal wings snapped open to their full, breathtaking span, blocking out the slate sky in a blur of copper, dark gold, and deep crimson feathers.
He crouched low on his powerful hind legs, the muscles in his furred thighs bunching like coiled steel cables beneath those dangerously low leather shorts, and launched us upward.
The downward stroke of his wings hit the damp air like a thunderclap, flattening the tall ferns around us in a circular wave.
Gravity slammed into my chest as we shot straight up toward the towering canopy.
A gasp tore from my throat, and I buried my face into the hollow of his neck, wrapping both arms around his thick neck and hanging on for dear life.
The first violent thrust of his flight sent an electric shockwave ripping from the base of my skull all the way down my spine to the soles of my boots.
Every powerful beat of those massive wings drove a heavy, rhythmic shudder through his broad chest and straight into my ribs, shaking my whole frame until my teeth clicked together.
The cold mist whipped across the back of my neck, contrasting wildly with the scorching heat of the monster cradling me against his heart.
My body went haywire before we even cleared the lower branches.
Each time his wings swept down, his muscular torso expanded against my side, and his heavy forearm tightened under my thighs, pressing my hip harder into the coarse fur of his stomach.
A sharp, dizzying jolt sparked behind my navel, followed by a sudden, molten rush of heat between my legs.
My breath hitched, turning shallow and uneven as my nipples pulled into tight, aching peaks that scraped against the rough cotton of my bra with every jolt of our ascent.
I squeezed my eyes shut, mortified, trying to clench my muscles and stop the reaction, but my body ignored my brain.
The combination of the terrifying altitude, the raw physical power vibrating through his chest, and the intoxicating smell of wet feathers and warm male predator hijacked every nerve ending I had.
My thighs trembled in his grip. A heavy, throbbing pulse started deep in my core, clenching around nothing as a hot gush of slickness soaked right through the thin cotton of my panties.
My face burned hotter than my campfire. I pressed my forehead harder into the dense feathers at the base of his throat, praying to whatever gods ruled this damp forest that he couldn't smell what his proximity was doing to me over the rain.
Below us, the muddy floor of the woods vanished into a swirling sea of gray fog, while above us, the giant woven teardrops of the gryphon village loomed out of the golden leaves.