WingSpan (Taken on the Wing Book 1) by Elizabeth Munro Page B

promise.”
    Then she brushes her fingers under Mark’s chin, pushing it up like Terry used to, and dashes out the door.
    “Are you alright?” Mark asks.
    Jenn can only nod. Three Oxy’s was a really bad idea but at the time the pain was too much.
    “Where’s your phone?”
    Mark thrusts her bag at her then gathers up the empty cans, filling them with water in the sink. No sooner does she have the phone out than he takes it and dials making his own phone ring. After a few seconds he ends the call.
    “Am I in trouble?”
    Mark glances at her. “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “You attacked Torrent on the street last night… the bad angel.”
    “I imagined that.”
    He doesn’t answer. Instead he grabs his wallet and keys from the counter and stuffs them in his pockets.
    “I need some things for the trip,” Mark gives her a stiff hug. “Do not leave the house and call me if anyone comes here. You’re safe inside.”
    It takes nearly five minutes for him to warm up the pickup and drive away but Jenn already has her bag packed. She’s in trouble for sure if she’s seeing angels even when she’s awake.
    After double checking she has everything she calls the cab company and asks for Ambrose.

    “Jenn?” Mark yells inside his empty house. “Shadow?”
    Fuck.
    The small set of human prints on the walk tells him she’s gone but he still hopes. If she walked away then it wasn’t with Torrent. A prisoner her size would have been carried off. He’d only been gone ninety minutes for supplies and now he has to find her before anyone else does.
    Mark weighs his options.
    A call to the bus depot tells him he’s missed her by only half an hour. He could outrun the bus and catch her in Edmonton but if she’s gone to the airport she could be a long way away.
    It’s clear there’s a gap in Jenn’s knowledge of what she is though it’s hard for Talon to believe. Talon first took wing around seven years old. How could she be thirty and not know what a gryphon looks like? Even if they grew up alone, it would have been difficult to ignore sprouting wings.
    If Torrent brings her before Sire Sher and Jenn can’t prove her royal blood her punishment will be severe. A month on hands and knees is nothing.
    Torrent can ask for her throat.
    Jenn’s phone goes right to voicemail so Mark plays the hunch she’s taken the bus and it’s off to preserve the battery for the long trip to Vancouver Island.
    Of course she’d answer. She’d never turn it off to ignore you.
    It’s all he’s got.
    Mark packs and transfers the supplies from the pickup to the rig as it warms up. The clutter of food, water and survival gear for two gnaws at the last of his patience as he pulls out but he doesn’t have another minute to waste satisfying his gryphon need for order.
    He’s got six hours to try and put the pieces of Jenn’s life together; to try and find some way to explain it to her.
    Last night it became clear her gryphon and human identities are far from connected. Shadow’s strength is balanced with Jenn’s ability to feel weakness like the balance between Talon and Mark. It’s like she’s belatedly going through gryphon puberty; erratic behavior, emotional withdrawal and one side of her personality in denial of the other. Like Jenn’s denial of Shadow even though when Shadow is dominant she sees Jenn for what she is like a loving parent and an immature child.
    But this, running off at the sight of a gryphon and calling her an angel, tells Talon it’s more than denial of her real self. He doesn’t know anything about the pills she took and can only guess what combination of perceived hallucination and fear made her flee.
    “I should have said ‘I love you,’” he whispers as he pulls onto the Yellowhead Highway.
    Shadow can only be descended from a magical royal blood line. It explained her ability to build a barrier to keep Torrent out.
    Talon has never known true fear in his life until now and he’s scared shitless.
    You’re