He winced at my words and pulled me closer to him. "I can't lose you, Rose. I just can't."
"Then he has to come with us." I had a feeling Talon could hear every word we spoke. He could be the squirrel in the tree next to us or the bird flying overhead. He changed shape with a breath, blending into the world around him so effortlessly it spooked me.
I shivered and moved into Derek's arms, relishing the feel of him holding me, of his hard body, strong and tall, wrapped around me.
"Isn't there anyone else?" he whispered into my ear, perhaps sensing that we weren't alone.
"You'd know that better than I would," I reminded him. "Is there?"
I looked up into his eyes, waiting.
"No. None of us even knew he existed. Which begs the question, why you? Why now? Why risk his identity if he's stayed in the shadows for so long?"
A bird landed in front of us and grew into a man. Talon stood there, naked and unashamed, perhaps even unaware of his nudity. I tried to avert my eyes, but was mesmerized by… well… his horns and hands weren't the only parts of his body that had taken on the form of an animal. At some point I thought he must have been a horse.
I couldn't help but blush at these thoughts and forced myself to concentrate as Talon spoke.
"I felt Rose's pain and knew I had to help. Never in a thousand years has there been another like myself, and I couldn't leave her to suffer as I had."
With those few words, he shrunk back into a bird and flew away, leaving us all speechless for several moments.
Bishop Alaric cleared his throat. "We should get going. We don't want to get caught out here after dark. There's a plane waiting in the city to pick us up and take us home. Should only be a few more hours of hiking."
"Why don't we just shift?" Derek asked. "It would be faster and we don't have Ryder as prisoner this time around."
They both looked at me. Was I ready to shift? Could I stay in wolf form? It would be warmer, that was for sure. I nodded, hiding behind a tree as I undressed, and closed my eyes, focusing on the one form, dipping into that room I'd found in meditation and allowing the light to shine only on my wolf.
My body contorted and changed shape. For a moment panic gripped me as my bird started to push into the mix, but I turned away from her and focused all my will on my wolf. When I opened my eyes, they were the eyes of a wolf, seeing and smelling and tasting and feeling the forest around me with new lenses. I howled and nipped at Derek, who stood in wolf form next to me.
Alaric's wolf looked too human and I turned away, not used to the unnatural site of the werewolf form.
And then we ran, loping and dancing through the trees and brush, sailing over rocks and digging our paws into the cold snow, but feeling it all through thick fur and tough skin.
We shifted back to human before we reached the town. Alaric had carried all our clothes in a bag and I changed behind a bush, feeling still part animal as we left to find our plane and head home.
I slept on Derek's shoulder the whole flight home, still exhausted from everything that had occurred on our trip. I'd nearly forgotten about Sam and Drake and everything they were going through until we arrived at Elysium and I saw Drake for the first time. He looked different somehow, more ethereal, his skin almost glowing with a very faint aura of gold, particularly around his shoulders. His normally tan skin had paled a bit and his blond hair shone with that same golden light. His blue eyes now had a golden circle around each iris.
He and Sam seemed… shy around each other and I knew something had happened, but he looked healthy and was alive. He'd survived the attack. I hugged Sam first and then hugged Drake. "It's so good to see you both well. We've been worried about you, Drake."
Derek hugged Drake in that half hug, half handshake way guys do. "Good to see you up and about, dude. Thought we'd lost you."
They talked so casually, but I knew what it would have done to Derek to lose his best friend. He'd always been a loner until he met me and we met our friends at Elysium. These people had become our family.
"It's good to be alive," Drake said. An odd look flashed across his face and with my power I felt a shift in his energy, but I couldn't figure out what it meant. Whatever they'd had to do in order to save him had clearly changed him.
"How did you survive?" I asked.
"My father, Beleth. He… gave me his blood."
There was more to it then that. But that told me something. Beleth was Nephilim, we'd discovered. Which meant…
"You're becoming Nephilim. Full Nephilim?"
Drake nodded and Sam averted her eyes.
"Ah. Well, that's going to be interesting," I said, rummaging my brain for what we'd all recently learned of these angel/human hybrids.