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“Listen Talon, I was thinking of perhaps the two of us going on a little trip soon ourselves. To my home on Moravia. Would you like that? I just have to contact my parents, and they’d have to send a ship big enough to transport you.

It would take a few days to do that, but I think I could get them to do it.

Would you like to go to my old home with me? Back to where I used to live.”

“Yes, of course. I always want to go with you,” he said. “Do you want to go for a ride now, though? We could go to the lake, and you can lie in the sun. You like to do that, and maybe it will make you feel better. And I can swim and catch fish! You can talk more about the trip to me.”

I laughed a little at how happy the idea of a splash in the water made him, and maybe I needed something to distract me and take my mind off the terrible argument I’d just had with Quinn as well.

“I’ll go grab something to eat too, then. And maybe we’ll just stay for a little while. I don’t want to be stuck here all day by myself. Again.”

I ducked into the barn and told a couple of his handlers who were lounging around the door, probably listening to us, to get him cleaned up a bit and put his harness on, and that I’d be back in a few minutes.

Then I went back to the house and quickly ate a little fruit and some fried bread the cook had made for me and asked her to pack me some food.

I told her that I was going out and might be gone for most of the day.

By the time I got back to the enclosure, bringing my cloak and rain gear because of the puffy clouds that were around, the ones both Sulamon and Talon loved to fly through and get us wet, it was getting late, and I was anxious to be on the way.

Quinn preferred it if one of the handlers went with me, but they were lazy and tried to get out of it when they could.

It was just as well to me, because I liked to swim wearing only my breka or nothing at all, and I couldn’t do that if a handler went with me.

Well, I could , but Quinn would kill both of us.

I thought briefly about calling my grandparents to see if they might possibly still be in the area somewhere, but I told myself they were surely already nearing home by now.

Besides, I really needed time to think about this and not just react out of pure anger—which I was still feeling.

And as mad as I was, I didn’t want to stir Davos up.

He was very perceptive at times, and he’d know if I was unhappy.

Maybe I’d wait and see if Quinn called me that night as he usually did.

He might apologize. Or he might call just to berate me some more. Either way, I hoped he’d call.

The truth was that I didn’t like being so at odds with him.

I was aching a little in my chest, and I remembered my omak telling me that my uncle Anarr had pain in his stomach whenever my uncle Renard was angry at him.

Horvathians prided themselves on not being quite the “animals” that Lycans were, as they never transformed into Lycan beasts.

But maybe there were some vestiges of that beast inside them anyway, and it was now inside me courtesy of that bite Quinn had given me.

I still had the marks of it on my neck. He’d told me when he’d done it that it meant we were mates for life.

That there was no going back, and that he would never share me with anyone.

I guess I’d thought then that it was mostly just sex talk. I guess I’d been wrong.

He had also told me I could never leave him.

It still didn’t mean I had forgiven him for a damn thing though, and I was still mad as hell at the way he’d spoken to me earlier that morning.

I was brooding about that as we flew through the warm air that day, when Talon suddenly spoke up in my head.

“Are we looking for a new lake, Rylie? There are some nice ones ahead, I think. I can see them in the distance. Ones we’ve never been to. ”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“We passed the one we usually go to a while ago and you never told me to stop. Are we going to a new one?”

“Oh dear, I guess we must be. I was preoccupied and didn’t notice it. Do you want to go back or just go on to the next lake?”

“We can keep going,” his little voice chirped at me. “It’s a nice day to fly.”

I didn’t want to go too far, though, because all I needed to do was to get lost out here in these mountains.

I’d never hear the end of that. I began to pay closer attention to what I was doing.

Before long, we passed over a slightly smaller lake, probably five or six miles beyond where we usually swam.

There weren’t many convenient rocks to lie on like at our old lake, but the shore was well defined, and it even had a bit of a “beachy” area.

He landed and I unstrapped myself from the harness and jumped down, moving over to some patchy land near the southern side, while Talon dipped and swam and paddled about, eating his fill of fish.

I could see that the water was really clear and because it wasn’t too deep, it was lovely and warmed a little by the sun.

I took off my clothes, all except for my breka and waded in the water a bit while Talon swam.

He splashed me playfully and I splashed him back, and I even rode his back in the water a little while as he went out to a deeper part of the lake.

He dove down into its depths until the water turned colder and colder.

After a while, I needed a breath, so I pulled on his neck to get him to come up.

I climbed off him then and swam over to sit on the beach.

It was much warmer there in the sun and I found myself dozing a little.

All the adrenalin from the fight I’d had with Quinn earlier had sneaked up on me.

I fell asleep and only realized how much time had passed when Talon came out of the water and shook himself beside me.

I realized then that the sun was sinking lower in the sky, and that we’d better make our way home before it got any later.

I could already hear Talon’s stomach rumbling with hunger even though he’d eaten a lot of the little fish in the lake.

I got dressed quickly, and he extended his leg so I could climb up on his back. He flew up into the sky and turned away from the sun and flew in the direction of home.