AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I take in their handsome eyes and the regal wings. They are massive and powerful, and they are more than men.
Then, just as they begin to flap their wings and take flight, I find my body shifting too.
It doesn’t make sense, of course, but none of this does. One moment I’m Lark, the next time a literal lark. A bird. My plumage is streaked brown, body marked in white. I have a beak and claws. My heart beats the same but I’m no longer the woman I once was. The hawks look at me with awe, and they let go as I spread
my wings as if it is the very thing I was born to do.
“It’s impossible,” I say, realizing my words are nothing but chirps and calls.
The hawks circle me, watching me so intently that I lower my face, nervous suddenly, to be seen like this.
Like them.
“No, it is possible,” Arrow tells me. And I realize his caws make sense in my ears. His sounds match the thrumming in my heart. He may be a hawk and I may have shifted into a lark, but we are the same species.
“No, it’s impossible,” I repeat.
It’s not real, to be able to shift from a woman to a bird in the blink of an eye. Just slip on a ring and draw a lightning storm. To have a mother who was here and now is not.
“This isn’t a dream,” Sawyer tells me, flying by my side. “Look below you. You are flying, Lark.”
I blink back tears, wanting to know how this is happening.
Why this is happening.
I wanted answers and maybe I’m finally getting some.
Is this what I did the day Tennyson died? Put on this ring and drew a source of power from the sky, killing her?
Part of me wants to fly somewhere safe, take shelter some- where far away. But another part of me wants to fly straight into the eye of the storm.
“How is this happening?” I ask again. I look down, truly having a bird’s-eye view of Las Vegas. The bright lights of the casino seem larger-than-life, and the billboard that shows me flying seems like another world. And it is. Especially now that I’m a fraction of my regular size.
“We don’t know,” Arrow tells me. “But we don’t have to know.”
“The storm is coming for us,” North says. We look ahead, and the lightning splinters across the barren desert. Massive daggers breaking through the sky.
I’m terrified, but also exhilarated. Feeling free for the first time in forever. Yes, I can fly across the stage for a few moments at a time, but this isn’t flying.
This is soaring. This is what I was made to do.
“There, up ahead, an eagle,” Brecken calls. “And he is... oh, shit. The lightning. It’s coming from him.” Brecken dips his body down in such a sexy, fluid motion my breath catches. The breadth of his wings is majestic, and I am in awe to be flying – actually flying – with my hawks.
Who are these men and why are they here for me?
Together, we follow Brecken’s lead, and I move faster toward the eagle. Suddenly, my heart pounds with adrenaline.
I must see the eagle. Look into his eyes.
He is a massive force to be reckoned with and he is the source of the lightning.
He is my enemy.
I gasp, watching he shoots lightning from his talons: it’s elec- tric and magnificent.
“Turn back, Lark,” Vaughn screams, but I don’t listen.
Maybe the idea of an eagle being the lightning source is scary to my men, but it isn’t scary to me. This eagle came looking for me. I put on the ring and it attacked.
Twice.
He knows about my connection to my mother my sister. My heart breaks all over again as a new truth hits me.
Mom covered me in so many spells last night to keep me safe. She said she cloaked me in herself. Switched places with my energy.
I was the one who should have died–not her. This eagle had been coming for me, not her.
It’s my fault she is dead.
And it’s my fault my sister is dead.
The madness will only end if I do something to try and stop it.
“What are you?” I scream. “Who are you?”
He answers by showering the sky with lightning. We watch the lightning hit the ground, the desert cracking with each strike, the air smelling of burned ozone.
“He’s gonna start a fire,” Arrow warns. “We’ve got to get Lark somewhere safe.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not going anywhere,” I tell him. “Besides,” North says. “It’s too late. The fire has already
begun.”
I keep flying toward the eagle, desperate to get a closer look.
“Who are you?” I scream. “Oh, God,” I shout, looking at the ground beneath me. It’s become a blazing red furnace.
The lightning has struck the dry desert and the fire is building.
