Quinn
She watched his snow-white form disappear into the sky, eyes stinging as she continued to shed tears until he was gone, no longer even a speck in the sky.
“Asher,” she said softly, hanging her head in shame.
He was right to leave her, to abandon everything they’d begun to form between them. There was no way she could blame him for that, and in no way did she plan to try.
Quinn had come to him under false, and very insulting, pretenses. Then, she had continued to keep those up out of fear, even after realizing that he wasn’t what she had expected. There had been several points where she could have told him the truth, and while they probably would have fought and he would have been upset, they might have actually worked something out.
But because she, in her stubbornness—and her fear, and her shame—had kept her mouth shut, she was now in this predicament. Asher wouldn’t come back. His final words had made that clear. He was going to stay away, and she was to go.
Back out there, into the wilds of Cadia. To the border, where she would have to sneak through it on her way out, or hope that any shifter that caught her would be willing to accept that she was lost and in need of a way out. Her less-than-bedraggled form would indicate she might not be telling the complete truth, but it was a solid twelve hours to the border by foot, judging by how far the mountains were in the distance.
By the time she walked that way, it would certainly look like she’d been out there for longer than she had. The afternoon sun was beginning to set, and if she left now, she’d reach there around dark again. That would help lend credence to her story of having gotten lost and not having intentionally tried to enter Cadia.
It was suicide, but Quinn didn’t have any choice. She couldn’t stay here anymore. That was wrong. Just as wrong as the reasons she’d come to Cadia in the first place.
She stuffed some food from the fridge into her mouth and a few other pieces of packaged goods into her pack, and then set off into the wilds, on a beeline course for the mountain. Thankfully she knew her geography, and could tell which two peaks it was she needed to stay between to get home the easiest.
Now all she had to do was avoid any unwanted attention, sneak away from patrols extremely adept in tracking down prey, and ensure she wasn’t killed instantly.
“Walk in the park,” she said with a self-deprecating snort, and set off.
The going was easy at first. There was a trail that passed by Asher’s house, and at one point not too far away it split, one path heading right and the other left toward the mountains. The plains around her would provide no cover, so her best bet would be to hope that she could see anyone coming from a distance, and perhaps avoid them. Or, if they were in the air, that they would assume she was a human. The trail—calling it a road would be overly generous—was packed down and made her going smoother. She could cover more distance this way.
There was a major thruway suitable for cars over the ridge to the north, but Quinn knew it would be heavily guarded. That’s why she was making for the gap between the next set of peaks. There was no real path all the way through, but as long as the rain stayed away, it would make the going fairly easy on her. Just then, that was all she needed.
Nobody appeared or called out to her as she walked. The mountains grew steadily larger as she approached them. But that didn’t stop Quinn from getting the feeling she was being watched. The sun was setting now, and the sky was darkening rapidly, making it hard for her to pick out any shapes that might be flitting around above her.
Quinn slowed as she approached the tree line, the forest around the foot of the mountains rising up in front of her. To the north, the huge Vallenwood trees rose higher than anything she’d ever seen before. They were magnificent, and she truly wished to be able to explore them, but she couldn’t.
Just like she couldn’t shake the sensation that something bad lurked in the trees.
“You can’t go back now. This is your only choice,” she muttered, and took a step forward.
A branch snapped in the dark of the trees ahead and she froze.
There was the sound of rustling, and then a beast straight from her nightmares walked out from under the canopy.
The clawed paws tore at the dirt as it menacingly came at her. Its wickedly hooked beak snapped at her, clacking together with enough force to show her it could snap her bones easily if it wanted.
“What do you want?” she asked, trying to inject some steel into her voice, to act as if she had a right to be there.
The powerful gryphon looked at her for a moment.
The feathers on its wings shook slightly, and as she watched, they melted back into the membrane of the wing. They folded in on themselves and absorbed back into the body. The transformation continued, the beak retracting until it became a nose attached to a much flatter, human face. The lion fur of its body became smooth skin, and suddenly a man was standing in front of her, leering.
“I knew that dragon shithead was hiding a woman. But imagine my surprise when he abandoned you, forcing you to run for it on your own. Now that I did not expect. But I’m not going to say that I’m upset. Oh no. Now he’s all but driven you into my arms.”
The look on his face told her that that was not a good thing. Quinn wondered if this was the same gryphon who had tangled with Asher and her the night he’d tried to get her out of Cadia.
“I was just leaving,” she said firmly. “He’s not doing anything anymore.”
“Oh, I know,” the man said with a jerky nod. “I know. You’ll be coming with me now.”
Her stomach, already in knots, turned to ice at his tone.”
“I’m going home,” she re-stated, shuffling to the side to try and go around him.
The gryphon shifter moved with her, preventing her from having a clear sight to the forest.
“Not so fast, sweetheart,” he called. “Don’t make this difficult.”
Quinn turned and ran.
Behind her, the shifter cursed and started after her. She had a good head start, and for a moment thought she might actually stand a chance.
Something hard hit her in the back of her calf and pain lanced up her leg. Quinn cried out and tumbled to the ground, rolling twice as the limb gave out under her, unable to support her weight. She immediately scrambled back to her feet, but her calf wasn’t responding. She couldn’t put any weight on it at all.
“All right,” the shifter said as he loomed up over her. “Now it’s time to show you what we do to unwanted humans around here.”
His hand reached out for her, and Quinn closed her eyes, preparing for the worst.