Page 4 of Scars Like Wings
“Shh.” Everett put his finger to his lips. He looked around the forest ahead of us. His muscles coiled in anticipation, ready to take on whatever he heard out there.
Trying to hold my sobs in, I attempted to listen through the raindrops falling around us. I wished I really was a dragon already, just like I used to say as a kid.
“Why can’t we just kill her already, boss?” a muffled, male voice finally said loud enough for me to hear.
“Yeah!” Another male voice. This one strained, gruff. “She’s killed so many of our men, maimed so many of them. She doesn’t deserve to take another breath!”
A deep voice boomed through the meadow. “She’s worth more this way. Don’t let your thirst for vengeance make you forget the real reason we’re here.”
Uncle Everett lifted me up like I weighed nothing and stood. Being a griffin-shifter, and thus part lion, Uncle Everett was able to walk through even the loudest environment with the utmost silence. Even now, he carried me through the dead leaves with ease and without making a sound. If I wasn’t so terrified, I would be jealous.
He stopped just before a small clearing surrounded by trees. He set me down to crouch next to him. There, people of varying builds, sizes, and genders stood around something in the near center of the clearing. They were all dressed in camouflage, wearing heavy boots and thick gloves. The faces I could see were masked, with dark, thick goggles over their eyes. They each carried a weapon of some sort: a massive assault rifle, a crossbow with a quill of arrows on their back, and even afreakingsword like this was Medieval Times. All of their weapons emitted a strange, pale glow that made fear pool in my stomach. They looked like hunters, but I knew from Pops and Everett that there were no approved hunting areas this deep in the forests near our home. Besides, their weapons were magicked. That was the only way to explain that glow. What were they hunting that required magical weaponry? What had they actually captured? What were they talking about?
Carefully, I rose from the ground, wincing as I stood on my sore legs and leaning against a tree to get a better view of the scene.
I had to cover my mouth to swallow my shock.
Bodies. Bodies littered the ground of the clearing. How had I missed that before? How had I missed thescentof it all before? It scorched my nostrils and made me gag. There had to be at least twelve bodies of men and women. Some were bleeding from long marks running down to their bones, almost splitting the body to shreds. Some were bent, their bodies crooked in impossible ways. Most, however, were burnedbeyond recognition. Their bodies were covered in a thick layer of what looked like lava. Raindrops sizzled as they landed on the hardening, cooling magma. The smell of burning flesh and charcoal was horrid. I had never smelled anything like it before. It was like something from a horror movie, one I knew I would never forget and would always regret seeing.
But that… That wasn’t the worst part.
In the middle of it all was my mom.
My mom, the dragon.
Well, sort of.
Mom’s real, true dragon form was stunning and larger than life. Engulfed in magical flames to shift, she grew from five-feet-five to over thirty feet from her nose to the tip of her tail. Brilliant ruby red scales with golden shimmers flowed across her body in a gorgeous cascade, consuming her dark sepia skin. Her neck extended, her black curls flowing down the length of her new neck, with golden horns growing from her forehead and ending in a curl down near where her head met her neck. Her jaw lengthened to a muzzle full of long, razor-sharp teeth, and her usual candy-red nails lengthened into long black talons. The best parts for me were her tail and her wings. Normally, her tail swirled down the entirety of her leg and her wings filled her back as detailed, realistic tattoos. But when she changed, her wings and tail came to life. Ink unfurled from her skin and became tangible things, like a storybook coming to life. A spiky tail, double the length of Mom’s human body, came into existence and her wings stretched to reveal a massive wingspan of dark garnet.
Usually, Mom’s form was a spectacle. Mom maybe let herself shift once a year, just to allow her dragon to breathe. When Mom changed, I was always enamored. It was like a holiday in and of itself. Pops was also a dragon-shifter, his form an earthy ash wood color with accents of aquamarine, topaz, and emerald,but Mom’s form was always prettier to me, more inspiring. Perhaps it was because Pops showed his more often. But Mom was what normal humans imagined a dragon to be, and that wasawesome.It made me look forward to when my own dragon manifested. I couldn’t wait to feel my own wings, see what color my scales were, see what my dragon form looked like.
But in this moment, Mom’s current state scared me beyond belief. This wasn’t her. Itcouldn’tbe her.
Mom wasn’t fully transformed. Instead, she was partially turned, in a state between human and dragon—a form I had never seen her in. Her condition was no better. Her skin had dry, peeling patches of scales across it. Her scales were faded. The golden shimmer, that usually out-dazzled the sun, was dulled to a pale yellow, the vibrant ruby to a lifeless maroon. Whole arrows and broken ones were sticking out of her human and dragon skin. She was missing a horn and a few of her talons on her hands and feet. Behind, her wings were broken and hideously crooked. They were torn, with holes in them like a moth-eaten blanket. Her powerful tail was limp and still. Mom sat on the ground, weary and exhausted and…broken. Blood flowed out of her, too much, all at once. I could see the shimmers of it from my place at the end of the meadow, mixing with the mud and rain. Mom was gasping for her next breath, fighting to last another moment.
No…
Uncle Everett growled softly beside me. So, it was real. Mom really looked like this. This wasn’t just some bad dream. I gripped Mom’s necklace so tightly the corners of the pendant chewed at my hand.
Another hunter spoke through their mask. “We just need patience. She’ll bleed out soon. Look. She’s almost dead as is. Once she’s gone, we can take her.”
Dead? No. Take her where? No. This couldn’t be. None of this could be happening.No.I didn’t know if I wanted to vomit or sob or punch the tree I stood behind. Instead, through shaking hands, I whispered—no, begged, “Mom,please.”
Mom’s pointed, elf-like ears perked up. She turned to exactly where I was hidden. Her dark sard slitted eyes met mine. I saw fear race through them. I had never seen that before—my mom scared. I would have thought that Mom never felt fear.
With a mouth more full of fangs than teeth, Mom’s yell came out as more of a roar than her actual voice. Raw, feral, deep, and powerful.
“RUN!”
Her voice reverberated through the woodlands, shaking the trees and making the earth quake.
I wanted to stay. My heart wanted to stay. I willed my body to stay with every ounce of my being. I wanted to make this all end differently, to make this go some other way. But Mom’s command gave my body a mind separate from my own. It was a command that my legs couldn’t disobey.
“Byrd, go! I’ll hold them off as long as I can! Get out of here!” Uncle Everett snarled as he took off his shirt and tossed it aside. His massive eagle-brown wings unfurled out and around him. Then he pushed off on the ground and up into the air. There, he shifted into his griffin form to take on the hunters.
But I had no time to admire his form or see what he planned to do to the hunters. Just before I turned around and took off, I met the eyes of the hunters as they turned to see what caused Mom to speak and summon a griffin-shifter upon them.
My veins went ice cold.