WingSpan (Taken on the Wing Book 1) (2 page)

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 it isn’t the booze and pills that make her feel so desperately alone.

It isn’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 that 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 is on 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 feels her mouth open, tongue just touching the tips of 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 months had 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 the morning sun shines straight in, glaring off the dash and warming 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 that 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 called 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 be driving 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 and knowing she’s high 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.