are more confusing.”
Ben started toward Millie. He couldn’t stop himself, despite his own admonitions about caution. “You need to explain. Everything.”
Millie didn’t move. Ben heard Rhianne behind him, her growl of annoyance that he wasn’t being more careful.
Ben halted in mid-stride, every danger signal in him flaring to life. Under his boot, the earth trembled.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ben demanded
At the same moment, a fissure abruptly split between him and Millie, one about five feet wide and who the hell knew how deep, like a mouth that wanted to swallow Ben whole.
Ben flailed as his feet slipped and slithered on the edge. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Rhianne’s strong hands closed around him. “Stop it,” she shouted at Millie.
Millie, clutching her bag tighter, backed away from the abyss. “This isn’t my doing.”
The crevice in the earth widened as though annoyed it hadn’t seized Ben in its first gulp.
The ground broke away under his feet. Rhianne’s grip on Ben slipped, and she screamed as gravity wrenched Ben from her, and he slid into the yawning gap.
Rhianne’s screams made her throat raw. Ben’s hands caught the edge of the hole, fingers clawing at the grass. He let his hands and arms change to those of the goblin, but even then he couldn’t pull himself out.
Rhianne caught his arms, holding on as hard as she could. A quick glance up showed Rhianne that Millie had turned and was running away.
“Wait,” Rhianne yelled. “Help me.”
Millie never turned back. She continued to run far faster than her appearance would suggest she could, faded under the trees, and was gone.
The sudden abyss was mystical, Rhianne knew, but it was also very real. A stink of evil wafted from the chasm as though many dead things were trying to escape from the earth.
Ben’s large fingers made furrows in the grass. Rhianne clung tighter, but when she started sliding toward the hole herself, Ben pried her hands away.
“No,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Run.”
“I won’t leave you,” Rhianne yelled.
“If you don’t we’ll both go down. Get out of here.” Mud and roots poured into the hole, battering at him, trying to take him with them.
Passersby in the park gathered, some frozen in fascinated horror, others yelling for people to keep away or find some rope. Someone shouted at Rhianne to get back.
She sprang to her feet, not to obey, but because her skin was burning. Her heart pounded scalding blood through her body, and her limbs ached and throbbed.
She couldn’t control what was happening to her, and this time, she didn’t want to.
Rhianne yanked off her T-shirt and then her jeans and underwear, her shoes toppling somewhere in the grass. She felt the wild thing inside her call, and realized the screeching cry came from her own throat.
There were plenty of people staring at her, but Rhianne couldn’t worry about them or halt the change. Her arms spread of their own accord as feathers burst across them, her fingers segueing into primary feathers. Her vision changed, becoming blurred around the edges but sharply focused in the center.
A rush of wind buoyed her, and with it came the lift of freedom. She wanted to catch the updraft and glide away, soaring higher and higher, far from the troubles of her life.
Her terror for Ben kept her grounded. Onlookers were trying to reach him, but the crumbling earth wouldn’t let them near.
Rhianne leapt, and her wings caught her. She wafted upward, high into the humid air. Clouds seemed to part for the wind, and she danced on it.
She became aware of nothing but herself and the sky, Ben barely visible now in the gap of the earth.
Rhianne didn’t know how to fly, but the eagle did, as Ben had said it would. Her wings took over, and she glided on a thermal, pivoting back to the very spot in which Ben struggled. Then she dove.
Ben was shouting but she couldn’t understand the words. The hole was closing on him, Ben being dragged slowly down, down into the devouring ground.
Rhianne righted herself, wings unfurling to their maximum to slow her descent. She spread her talons just as the earth began to pile around Ben’s head, filling his open mouth.
She closed her claws on Ben’s shoulders and yanked him from the belly of the earth.
Ben coughed then yelled as Rhianne lifted him into the air. She tried to keep her grip gentle, aware that her talons could dig right through him.
Ben’s curses in several languages assured her he was alive. Rhianne’s trajectory