where she needed to be. Then I could fly, fly away forever, leaving everyone behind to wonder what happened to me, and they would be so sorry for all the years they missed and all the times I was left behind. The only things I would miss would be my wolves.
Chapter 7
I didn’t know how long I flew. It felt so glorious to have the wind on my face and the clouds through my fingertips. Was I supposed to be looking for something? I let the thought go. Being in the sky was so amazing. Peaceful. No one for miles upon miles.
Suddenly I dropped several feet. Panic erupted in my chest. I looked to my wings. They were losing feathers. Fast. I aimed for the ground. I had to land or at least get low enough that by the time the feathers were gone, I wouldn’t be hurt. I wanted to cry. Why were my wings falling apart? I wanted to have them forever.
The patch of forest below was dark; much too dark during the middle of the day. The trees looked like their leaves were black, and a dark mist rolled along the ground where bare bracken tumbled. I tried to bank right, aiming for a greener, sunnier part of the forest, when a screech shattered the air around me. Above me, three creatures with black wings circled, and then dove.
I tried to flap my beautiful wings, but they were too weak, too featherless to do anything more. One of the creatures struck me hard from behind, sharp talons clawing at my pack, trying to find flesh. I tried to struggle out of the pack, but my wings were in the way. A second creature struck at me. It snatched up my arm and I screamed as its claws bit deep. The third screeched and flew around me, under me. It looked up and for a moment I was able to clearly see what had attacked.
Harpies.
Ugly women with sagging breasts, wings for arms and powerful bird-like claws for feet. I kicked out at her, but she easily flew out of reach, shrieking at me with a mouth full of pointed teeth. Feathers drifted down in a shower of white now. The two harpies holding me flew toward a dead tree, black and gnarled, reaching toward the sky in its last throes of death. I jerked and shouted in their grasp. I didn’t care how far the ground was now. I didn’t want to end up on that tree. My wings were gone and my daypack was being shredded to pieces.
I twisted around to the harpy holding my arm and managed to get my mouth around her leg. I bit down as hard as I could. She shrieked and jerked. A dark liquid seeped into my mouth, the smell of rot invaded my nostrils. I gagged and spat it out. She only dug in her talons deeper, drawing another scream from me, and then they dumped me onto the tree.
The branch was wide enough for me to lie on, but I clung to it anyway. My arm dripped blood to the ground far below me. Too far. At least thirty feet. Far enough that jumping could mean a broken leg. The punctures in my upper arm throbbed, pain radiating from my shoulder to my elbow. The harpies landed around me, grinning around their ugly beak noses and hunching their heads down like vultures.
“We have not had a pretty one in a while,” said one. Her voice rasped like gravel on gravel, as if she hadn’t spoken in a long time. She had blood on her talons; she’d been the one to grab my arm.
“Certainly we have not,” said the one behind me. “What shall we do to her, my sisters?”
“Eat her!” screeched the third.
“No,” cried the first. She lifted her talon and licked my blood from it. She spat and made a face which made her even uglier like a shrunken head. “She is much too sweet yet. She will have to stay here for a time until properly ripened.”
What the hell did that mean? My head felt fuzzy. I wanted to fly, but couldn’t. I wanted to get out of here, but had no idea how. Climbing down the tree could be possible, but not with the harpies around. I winced and pressed my forehead against the blackened bark. One of the harpies cackled.
“See? Look at her. Already despair is setting in. I say she has a day or