Wingspan: Taken on the Wing, #1

Prologue

…kings of the land and sky we are; proud gryphons, Stalker stands; the epitome of pride. Naked and muscular, his wings widen and his feet dig in as if he alone restrains the Earth and supports the heavens, keeping the two ever separate.

"But you aren’t yet a master of the sky. Your body is still that of a human as is Feather’s. You will get on your hands and knees and ask the Earth to shape her ruby.

Only when the stone has been reshaped may you return home. When Feather forgives your theft she will accept it and in that moment she will have the stamina to fly true distances and I will be proud to call you gryphon.

Talon remains on the riverbed as Stalker turns and within a few strides is airborne; great wings take him away from his son. As Talon gets to his feet, he suppresses the urge to call out in spite of his terror which is worse than his sudden loneliness. He’s beyond lost in the wilderness the humans call Ontario.

Jenn’s motorcycle jacket is a little tight. The zipper comes down, letting her breathe and setting off a round of laughter from Terry.

Easy on the zipper, Sis.

She scowls and swings her boot nearly as hard as she can, catching Terry’s ankle. She does no harm to his sturdy boots though her message is clear. Comments on her weight are off limits even from her twin brother.

The wind catches his unruly blonde hair; a complete contrast to his sister’s tame brown braid. The usual joke that whoever mom was must have had herself a busy night because they can only have different fathers is understood. He’s big and loud where she’s petite and excruciatingly shy. Jenn has picked him up in the morning from the police station more times than she can count and he drops her off at her steady job as a bank teller before sleeping it off at her Parksville apartment or his. Terry is her best friend, father figure, confidant and conscience all rolled into one.

He’s also her only living family.

Maybe I shoulda bought you a man’s jacket.

This time it’s an elbow to the ribs. He only wears a t-shirt and grunts from more than just his sister’s displeasure. It’s only a few hours since he went to bed after a late one.

If a man’s jacket is too good for you then it’s too good for me, Terry.

Touché, he laughs but keeps his arm down in case she decides to strike again. The jacket is the last birthday present he’ll ever give her and his suggestion she get one for a man earned him the finger at the motorcycle shop. She’ll be damned if she’ll ever dress like a man just to get a jacket done up. The sleeves would be too long anyway since the five foot mark on the bank door is at eye level. She’s never been flashy so it’s plain and black but it’s also clear she has all the right curves.

Jenn puts her hands on her hips and purses her lips, daring him to speak.

You’re pretty, Shadow, Nuke interrupts. His eyes rake down her body. The compliment is only tame because her brother listens. Terry forbade him to speak her name so he calls Jenn after her ride, a 750. The handle stuck so long ago that at least half of today’s group doesn’t know her real name. Everyone calls him Nuke because there’s a good chance his engine will do just that before the dozen riders get halfway to Tofino.

Terry punches Nuke’s body armoured shoulder harder than necessary and knocks him off the cement barrier on which he sits. Nuke’s a big mouth on a small body and he doesn’t land too hard.

Fuck you, Nuke spits.

You’re still not my type, Terry lights a cigarette. But keep asking. You got nothin’ to lose.

Jenn shrivels at Nuke’s attention, leans behind her brother and tugs her jacket closed. Nuke thinks it’s a game, hitting on her to make her ‘pretend’ she’s not interested but she just feels dirty. Whether she ignores him or not it only escalates when her brother isn’t there to shut him down. Terry’s fingers tip her chin toward the sun.

Hold your head high, his big eyes smile.

Nuke walks away, kicking dirt and holding his tongue. He knows when his bike dies he’ll ride Jenn’s Shadow since none of the guys will give him a double and Jenn will spend the rest of the trip hugging Terry from behind. Terry’s boot scrapes his smoke into the gravel and he takes Jenn’s hand, tugging her to their rides and signaling to the rest it’s time to go.

So where’s mine? He reaches for her saddle bag. A week earlier Terry bid on a baseball and he’s still steamed about losing in the final minutes to someone else. He doesn’t know he lost to his own sister who spent her vacation savings winning it for his birthday.

You’ll get it later! Jenn pushes his hand away so he hugs her like it’s what he meant to do all along.

Port Alberni is nice but it’s thirty-five Celsius and she sweats in her jacket. A swim in the ocean is the only incentive to get back on the hot highway. Unlike her reckless t-shirt and shorts wearing brother, Jenn prefers to be protected if she takes a spill.

Terry pulls out first, Jenn close behind, and takes some satisfaction in cutting off Nuke. The roar of engines behind them is nearly deafening as they stick together as best they can through the traffic and lights and make their way out of the city.

Everything is drier this side of Vancouver Island. The cool rainforest they passed through before Port Alberni is gone and the road gets twisty. Terry pushes the group faster, speeding up and leaning over as far as they dare in the turns. Another group of riders comes the other way and he gets a hand out to wave then turns to Jenn, grinning from under his beanie. He loves this: speed, heat. Showing off. It’s a good day. There’s a place by the river to which they’ll go when they get back to Parksville: drinking, camping, and the sounds of sex from the other tents.

Jenn winces at a small explosion and checks her mirrors. Nuke isn’t losing any speed but there’s a vicious dark grey cloud for the riders behind him. Someone’s bitch seat girl mouths him off, her voice lost in the wind.

Jenn sets up for the next turn by moving to the center of the lane so she’s clear of anyone coming wide the other way and gravel near the shoulder but a pickup skids out of control into their lane.

Terry doesn’t stand a chance.

His brakes don’t light up though his bike wobbles as some part of him starts to react. Jenn has a little more time and manages to lose some speed. Her heart sticks in her throat as her brother makes a Terry sized dent in the truck’s front fender. His arms and legs beat the roof and Jenn catches the rear of his bike. He’s already out of reach when she tries to grab him and as she tumbles he lands behind the truck.

It stops half in the ditch.

There’s no pain so Jenn thinks she’s unhurt and when she looks for Terry she sees Nuke. He doesn’t even look at her brother and comes to her.

Jenn, Jenn, he cries. Shit, Jenn.

Terry, Jenn moans. Why don’t you help my brother, asshole?

Nobody helps Terry. There’s a lump under her shoulder so she reaches to pull it free but it’s a boot and it won’t move. Nuke takes her hand and holds it still as he looks at the wreck.

The driver gets out, unhurt. His passenger won’t stop screaming.

Don’t look, Nuke says but she has to. Through her deeply scarred visor she sees the big logo on the back of Terry’s shirt. The small one in front is out of sight. He faces her: jaw slack and eyes half open. It doesn’t make sense for him to put it on backwards without her noticing.

The air ripples and takes shape above Terry; half again taller than a man and gracefully tapered at the top. The mirage folds in the middle before straightening again and collapsing.

Thank you, Jenn sighs to the shirtless man approaching her brother. The hot breeze moves his long black hair as he touches Terry’s shoulder but only for a moment before he stands. The air around the man changes, thickening and spreading like wings slowly folding and unfolding. The angel’s wings darken then disappear as he walks away.

The police arrive before the ambulance and Nuke leaves Jenn’s side only long enough to throw up. The beautiful angel is gone. The knowledge he came for Terry is small comfort as she watches the police cover her brother with a yellow sheet and weigh it down with parts from his bike.

Chapter One

Jenn’s motorcycle jacket is a little loose.

Two years of choking grief will do that to a girl. She’s been sober for a week to make sure the booze and pills don’t make her feel so desperately alone.

They don’t.

Nuke came to see her once in the hospital after they repaired her femur with a gross amount of titanium. It had been broken in two places and bent beneath her in the crash. When he asked if she needed anything she asked for a gun to kill herself.

He didn’t come back.

Six months of surgeries and rehab get her back to work. Sleeping pills and alcohol take the memories away, at least for a while.

Insurance paid out Jenn’s Shadow and a nice smelling man Terry knew brought her papers to sign until his apartment belonged to her. At first she’s surprised her shoot first brother had life insurance but he always shot first when it came to his sister. Dollars don’t make up for being alone. They shared a soul and Terry took it with him.

The used 600cc sport bike Jenn owns now is the fastest thing she’s ever taken down the highway. The last owner put a lot of money into it before he knocked up his girlfriend and had to sell. It’s black and orange and covered in flames and sexier than anything Jenn would ever dare show on the outside.

Today it carries her south to a liquor store she frequents, out of town enough anyone local won’t see her stocking up.

Jenn rides free of the last knot of cars and finds a lone semi-trailer truck slowing for the lights at Northwest Bay Road south of Parksville. The speed limit drops to sixty as the highway descends in both directions toward the intersection. It usually fills with cars like a giant bowl but today it’s just her and the truck. A gas station covered with a big red roof looms to her left but all her attention is on the rig. It gears down noisily on the hill and she has to do the same to avoid nailing it from behind.

The number on the trailer gets Jenn’s attention, prompting her not to run the light. It has a T and a K. Terry Klein. And an eight and a two, the age they were when he died. Not eighty-two; they were twenty-eight. The trailer itself is dirty. Even its plates attached high above haven’t escaped the brown layer of filth brought up by the wheels.

Jenn glances at the stop line as she pulls up next to the cab, getting the toes of her boots on the pavement. Her mirrors say nobody is set to plough into her from behind as lemony diesel exhaust makes her nose wrinkle. The summer smells great; other vehicles at the red light, not so much.

Nice bike, comes from up and to the right.

Inside she cringes. Nobody is supposed to talk to her today. It’s her day off and she plans on a quiet drunk; the only regular companionship she has left outside of work. Interaction on the liquor store trip makes Jenn’s drinking problem too real.

The driver should be watching for the green light and thinking about where he’s taking the dirty trailer or if he’ll need the restroom in Nanaimo or if he can wait for Duncan. Maybe the air conditioning isn’t working and he misses the wife and kids; bills and the dog.

Jenn pushes her visor out of the way and turns, drawing her eyes up the clean black door and past a pair of painted-on gold wings to find a muscular arm bound in a tightly sleeved black t-shirt.

Nice truck, Jenn echoes. It’s one thing to keep her eyes down and her mouth shut out of shyness. It’s quite another to be rude and not answer. She hopes the lame reply is enough to end the conversation and presses her lips together, making her eyes wrinkle and giving the illusion she smiles inside her helmet.

His big ringless left hand closes around the metal bar holding the mirror. He strokes it, first away then toward the body of the truck. Jenn opens her mouth to touch the tip of her tongue to her front teeth and his bicep flexes, pulling his short sleeve tighter. His hand slides again over the smooth chrome before closing completely and her heart stutters as her gaze reaches his smile; warm and genuine even though she can’t see his eyes through his dark lenses.

Yeah? he leans closer. Curly shoulder length dark hair perfectly frames his jaw and Jenn leans in response, her right foot flat on the ground as the motorcycle tilts between her thighs.

As her pulse gets going again Jenn inhales his male scent and her skin prickles under the heavy leather jacket like sweat breaking out only her skin stays dry. It’s a little painful and feels so, so good. He smells of straw and sun but underneath there’s something raw and dangerous; a far greater lure than the quick buzz and blackout she still half looks forward to. It’s the scent of rebellion and she sets her jaw against the challenge. More than anything she’s overwhelmed with the urge to crush it.

Bet it’s nice inside, she ventures with a glance at the traffic lights. The cars turning left from Northwest Bay Road don’t have an amber yet.

The trucker looks her over and it’s not the degrading leer Nuke used to get away with. This guy seems to size her up more as an adversary and less like a piece of meat as he pushes the sunglasses onto his forehead.

Why can’t he be imperfect? Jenn wonders. Or less gorgeous? And what in the hell are you doing flirting at a red light? You’re a bank teller, idiot. Nice bank tellers don’t flirt!

Eyes so brown she can’t make out the pupils bore into hers and she stands a little taller, holding her head high and doing her best to look confident and tough. For a moment his expression is a mix of power and fear, mirroring the adrenaline and shaky nerves dueling inside Jenn then the warm smile returns.

You want to see, he states and calls out a couple of street names north of Duncan.

One o’clock.

A horn honks. Jenn startles as she feels her motorcycle roll backwards. She crushes the handbrake with her right and continues to roll as his rich laughter fills her ears. It’s the illusion of reverse caused by his truck pulling ahead for the green. The horn blares again as the motorcycle stalls and Jenn gets her trembling thumb on the starter. If he hadn’t stopped her heart already she’s sure the horn would have.

Jenn gets her motorcycle going, revving the motor too high as she mistimes the clutch and throttle for the shift to second. She’s going well over a hundred before she’s out of the sixty kilometer an hour zone, focusing only on getting some distance between herself and whatever the hell she set up with the handsome stranger.

The next few kilometers blur and she pulls into a Nanaimo mall, stationing herself at the far side of the parking lot. The kickstand is barely down when she drops to the grass and rips her helmet off, venting the laughter that’s turned her knees to rubber.

Two years ago Terry would have pulled up between her and the truck and given the guy a ‘hey buddy.’ The only men he approved of came figuratively pre-neutered or he offered to do it for them. It made dating hard but he’d headed off a lot of trouble. In spite of the predictably nice men who passed his inspection, the one relationship lasting more than a couple of month failed miserably.

Jenn watches the highway until the black truck with the dirty white trailer passes by then looks at the nearby coffee shop. She and Terry used to sit at one of the tables out front for hours at a time. Jenn stuffs her helmet over one of the mirrors and buys a coffee before taking a seat at their table. Terry’s seat is empty so she closes her eyes and imagines him there.

She senses his hand on her back, nudging her forward, rather than the more familiar protective brother vibe.

The coffee smells good so she wraps her hands around the paper cup and blows on the surface.

I don’t know, she whispers as she puts the cup down. He’s not like anyone you’ve ever wanted around me.

The breeze cools her skin and she realizes she’s crying. Maybe it’s simply the movement of tears running past her cheeks but she imagines her brother’s fingers under her chin.

Hold your head high.

Chapter Two

Mark Williams watches the unusual female pull away. Between gear changes he puts the window up halfway and pushes his hair behind his ears. It’s early enough for the morning sun to shine straight in, glare off the dash and warm his skin.

He doesn’t doubt she’s interested in him. Her nervousness is obvious and he suspects her age is partly to blame.

Yeah, but you’re still a kid, he laughs at himself. Not even a hundred.

The fact that she’s on her own could also explain her caution. Females rarely travel alone away from their eyrie and though she returned his advances he suspects she’s in a hurry to catch up to her father or brother; the only males who should be with her.

A nervous glance at the empty sky reassures Mark a rough encounter with them isn’t in his very near future at least. With his training he’s sure he could beat them both to pieces but honour requires he take his licks if they don’t like him. As he pushes the heavily laden rig through another gear he realizes she’s been away from her eyrie for a while if she’s learned to ride a motorcycle.

She could be a true rogue, abandoning eyrie life for the human world like he had years before. Many gryphons find satisfaction in service to the Sire and Dame, the hereditary royalty, but not Mark. As Talon, the gryphon male in his spirit, he trained for decades to be a ranger. A proud place in the elite royal guard was the only service he felt worthy of him but seeing bigger less talented males selected time and time again put him off.

Instead he indulged in a female who appreciated him and his fighter spirit. She was a larger western gryphon, nearly his height, but she was flighty and prone to wandering for months at a time with his own sister. They had all come to prefer the wind under their wings to the stone Jasper cavern they call home.

Talon managed to abandon courtship as well by never offering Swift his bite though there seemed no shortage to the tears she would offer, shedding them his way every time things seemed serious. Swift accused him of having commitment issues but in his heart he needed someone who saw him as more than an intimidating male to show off to her friends or escort her through some human shopping mall while she picked out something shiny.

But this little female is different. A demanding vulnerability in her scent commands him to win her; a line he never wanted to cross with another. Her size could drive him to be protective. Gryphons from this side of the continent are decidedly larger than those further east where he was reared but she’s truly tiny, her scent so exotic he can’t begin to guess where she’s from.

He never thought he’d find vulnerability sexy but in his little female it’s searing hot. Maybe he’ll find her motorcycle ahead, her scent and clothing leading him through the forest as he undresses and takes wing, becoming Talon as she flies above stalking him already. Their magic would hide them from human eyes as he finds a clearing and enough space to spread his wings and take off.

Talon’s strength and size would overpower her and he’d revel in her submission before letting her go, anticipating his own terror as her speed and agility let her get her claws to his exposed throat.

He hasn’t hunted like that with a female in years. The chance she’ll show up is slim. The chance she’ll stay interested long enough to hunt is even slimmer. In spite of the weak prospects, he’s excited with the possibility.

You’re in way over your head with this one, Talon, his human voice warns the unfamiliar gryphon need for a mate. One shot. You screw this up you won’t get another chance with her.

As he enters Nanaimo her scent grows strong and he leans toward the window, inhaling deeply. Mark groans with need, sweeter than when they first spoke. Light brown eyes, he recalls, and her long hair tied back. As he remembers the shape of her ass straddling the seat her scent disappears and he casts his eyes wildly about for any hint of her.

Damn it, he mutters, nearly tearing the wheel free in frustration.

It’s past one-thirty when Mark finally reaches the short strip mall and gas station north of Duncan. Even though he has half a mind to press on to Victoria to wait for his next load he’s still hopeful she waits for him.

That’s just your arrogant gryphon pride talking, Talon, he grumbles, though his human half hasn’t given up either. If she’s here it’s all about her and how she wants it and you know it.

As he pulls in he catches the smallest hint of her on the air. If she was here she’s probably gone but her scent gets stronger as he reaches the end near the pumps. Just past them he spots the front end of her motorcycle on the other side of an SUV. His pulse shoots up as he looks skyward hoping for a glimpse.

Instead she’s curled up on the grass behind her motorcycle. The helmet perches on the handlebars and her balled up jacket cushions her head.

She’s even more exquisite with the gear off.

A small strip of ivory skin fills the gap between the rise of her denim covered hip and the hem of her white tank top. As he kills the engine his eyes partially shift, improving his vision. He picks out a slim line of blue over her shoulder where the top slid toward her neck. Then there’s the thick brown hair piled loose behind her.

Mark checks the contents of the grocery bag at his feet: condoms, jerky and canned fish. Bottled water cools in the small fridge behind the passenger seat.

It’s clear she wants a human encounter and he’s glad he thought to run to the pharmacy for the condoms. He’ll be surprised if she’s not likewise prepared but he’s expected to show courtesy and bring some too.

The conception of a child in human form would be catastrophic for both of them. If by some miracle she survived and carried it to term the child would be human and abandoned. It would be a devastating loss for its dame though these days the human adoption system took responsibility. A century ago its sire would fly as far from the eyrie as he could, leaving the child to the elements and scavengers.

Mark pops the door,