Sakina flapped her wings in double time, knowing she had mere minutes before Ceallach was on her tail. Rooftop swoops allowed for the mixing of her scent with several other shifters in the hopes of throwing the single-minded raven off her trail.
How could he have found her? She’d used every technique for evasion in her very long memory. She’d done everything from changing the name she gave to other people to dying both her human hair as well as her feathers. And still he’d caught up with her.
Exhaustion weighed heavy on her delicate wings, pulling her down to perch in the privacy of an arborvitae. Had she been a finch or a chickadee this would have been the perfect hiding place, but the weight of her dove body dragged the limbs of the ornamental tree down towards the ground.
It’s not that she hadn’t wanted to do as Ceallach had instructed those long ago nights, she had. She’d followed every order, every instruction and every movement his hands had made of her body, but still he wanted more.
The chips and chirps of the small birds broke through her reverie. They were both scolding and warning of the danger that approached. On the ground below the what-to-be tree, five little dachshunds barked and yapped, hoping she’d fall and become a tug toy and meal.
Sakina took flight, scrapping the underside of her wing on the poky branches, leaving blood on the wood and droplets staining her pure white feather. She was compromised now, putting off a blood scent that would attract all manner of shifter. She needed to fly through to her tree, her protection and care for her injury before leaving town again in search of a new, safer home.
It was heartbreaking to leave, for Talbot's Peak had potential as a sanctuary to the group of traumatized individuals she’d left hidden across the Canadian border. Her group of hunted shifters needed a home and protection. After days of study, it appeared as though this town could have been a shelter in their storm.
Darn the Raven of Pain! Darn her deeply intimate need of him.
***
Ceallach waited quietly for his prey to return, sure in his knowledge and total dominance. She would be his once more.
