"My name is Lucy," she said. Her voice rang out across the beach. "We've come a very long way to talk to you. I think that I might be a griffin myself, or at least of griffin heritage. It runs in my family. I believe my uncle is one of you, and my father may have been."
There was a waiting pause. Then, without warning, both griffins shifted.
The tiger became a tall, elegant woman with peaches-and-cream skin and red hair braided into an elaborate style, streaked with gray. The cougar became a tall, elegant man with deep mahogany skin and gray locs cascading over his shoulders and down his back. Both of them wore heavily embroidered cloaks with the hoods pushed back. They looked as if they were in their fifties or early sixties, two imposing elders of their people.
They both made Lucy feel very small and poorly dressed and out of place.
Eren, however, had a different issue. His surprise was obvious. "You took your clothes with you!" he said. "How?"
After a pause, the woman answered in a low alto voice. "Because we are mythic shifters. Are you also a shifter of some sort?"
"Bear," Eren said.
"Oh, a bear." She seemed a bit sneering, as if a bear shifter was something very much beneath them, and Lucy found her hands balling into small, tight fists under the too-loose sleeves of the raincoat.
"These are my friends," she said. "You will treat them with respect, please."
"You can't demand anything of us, little half-griffin," the woman said. "Tell me something. Can you shift?"
"Not that I know of," Lucy admitted. "But I can—"
"What are the names of your uncle and father?" the other griffin interrupted.
Lucy was starting to wish she had never come. But now that she was here, she refused to leave without getting answers. "Rodric and Ian."
The two griffins conferred briefly. "Exiles," the woman spat. "They were sent away from the island long ago."
"Why?" Lucy asked. "Did they commit a crime?"
"The one called Rodric was never happy, never satisfied. If there was something another owned, he coveted it. He was unable to live in peace on the island, and finally it was determined that he should be sent to the mainland."
Yes, Lucy reflected glumly, that sounded like her uncle. "What about my father?"
Another brief conference. "He went to seek his mate," the male griffin said. "He had not found her on the island, and believed that she might exist in the outside world. Because his brother was going too, he believed that he might go with him to seek his future in the outside world. It was made clear to him that, should he leave by his own choice, he would never be allowed to return, and if he found a human mate, she could not come here."
Lucy was shocked. "But that's unfair."
"It is our way," the female griffin said matter-of-factly.
"What happened to them?" the other griffin asked. He sounded curious, and Lucy realized that these two were easily old enough to have known her father and uncle. Maybe they had even been friends.
"He died a long time ago," Lucy said. "My mother is also gone. But my uncle still lives, and he is hunting me in order to—"
She stopped. She didn't know how to explain to these fierce, proud griffins that her uncle wanted her inheritance. She didn't even know if they had money.
"They want to hurt her," Eren said. He had stepped up beside her, his broad shoulders stretching against his rain slicker. The threat was obvious:touch her and I will stop you.
"We hoped you could help," Lucy went on.
"Help how?" the red-haired woman asked. She sounded as if she had been requested to perform an unpleasant chore.
"I don't know," Lucy admitted. "Make him leave me alone, maybe? He's got to be breaking some of your laws."
"At the moment, he is not," the woman said. "Our authority stops at the sea. Once exiles have left the island, what they do afterwards is none of our concern."
"But he's dangerous!" Lucy protested. "Even if you forget about me, he's got hired thugs working for him. Sooner or later they're going to hurt or kill someone."
"That is not our problem."