"I will be," the griffin woman said softly. "Lucy." It was the first time she had spoken Lucy's name. "I am Amarantha. I want you to close your eyes and listen for the voice of your animal."
Lucy obediently closed her eyes. In the red-tinged darkness behind her eyelids, she was more aware of all the other sensory input around her. The small rustles as Eren moved behind her. The smell of the woman's perfume, something woodsy and wild. The salt-and-metal smell of the sea, and the crash of waves on the shore. She was aware of her own pulse thrumming in her veins.
Listen for the voice of her animal. What did that even sound like?
She was with people who would know, and she knew which of them she would rather ask. Opening her eyes, Lucy said, "Eren, does your bear have a voice?"
"Sort of," Eren said. "It's not exactly words. It's more of a general sense of what it wants, what it's thinking and feeling. Sometimes it's like my bear is talking to me directly, but it's also my own voice. I don't know how to describe it."
The smooth dry fingertips still rested at Lucy's temples. "Usually I tell young shifters to try to focus on the part of themselves that gives rise to their instinctive urges," Amarantha said. "The automatic, emotional, intuitive part of yourself. If you don't feel like it has a voice, that's all right. You might just not have thought about it that way before."
Lucy closed her eyes again. The intuitive part of herself, she thought. Maybe that was the problem. Old Lucy had been very self-controlled and polite and good. Instinctive urges? She wouldn't have known what to do with them if she'd had any.
But New Lucy had plenty of those.
She recalled the rush of feeling when she had seen Eren for the first time. The anger she'd experienced on the plane, as the unfairness of her situation sank in. The exhilaration as the boat sped across the waves. Her own thrill of delight when she pushed forward the boat's throttle lever and felt it respond to her like a racehorse.
Deep within her soul, it was as if something rustled.
Lucy's eyes flew open, and the elusive sense of presence evaporated, but she was too excited to care. "I felt something! There's something there!"
"I know," Amarantha said. Her lips curved in a slight smile. "I felt it. I think you do have a shift animal, Lucy, or at least it's possible. I don't know if you'll be able to get it to come out at your late age, but there is a griffin in you. You are one of us."
The words filled her chest with a soaring joy.One of us.
Eren squeezed her shoulders supportively with both hands. She reached back to touch his hand with hers.
"Does this mean you'll help me?" she asked, hardly daring to hope.
"We will," Amarantha agreed. "You will be welcome as part of our covert—that's the name for a griffin clan. We can take you there immediately. We will teach you how to shift and everything you need to know to be part of griffin society. You will be safe on Griffin Island."
Lucy's heart pounded and she squeezed both of Eren's hands. She twisted her head back until she could look up at him. "Did you hear that? They'll protect us. We're safe."
"You," Amarantha clarified. "Only you. Outsiders may not enter our coverts. You can come with us, but this bear shifter must take his boat and leave."
Lucy felt Eren's hands go abruptly stiff and still on her shoulders. All of her exhilaration and radiant joy drained away, leaving her feeling cold and hollow.
"What do you mean, he can't come?" Her voice sounded small to her. "Of course he has to come. He's my mate."
Amarantha shook her head. "It's not allowed. This is an offer for you and you alone."
Lucy tried to think it through rationally, past the screaming voice that seemed to come from the bottom of her soul itself, telling her that to be parted from Eren was to die. "What if I—what if I come with you for a very short time, until my uncle stops looking for me?" She could stand to be away from Eren for a couple of weeks—couldn't she? It wasn't so very long.
"Griffins do not come and go from Griffin Island," Amarantha said. "Once you are within the walls of the covert, you'll need the elders' permission to leave. And it is rarely granted unless you have a duty to perform for the covert and come back immediately afterward."
Lucy stared at her. Amarantha spoke with perfect matter-of-factness, as if what she was saying was too obvious to need to be stated, and not manifestly insane.
"You mean I'd be aprisoner?" she said in disbelief.
Amarantha looked shocked. "Of course not. You will be well taken care of and very happy with your own kind."
"But you just said I can't leave. I call that being a prisoner."
"It's necessary for the good of the covert," Amarantha said. Her demeanor grew chilly. "We are offering you sanctuary; I would think you'd be more grateful."
"I am grateful," Lucy said quietly. She stood up off the boulder and gripped Eren's hand tightly. "And I thank you for your offer, and for offering to teach me more about being a griffin. But I think I will be just fine, and I'll learn well enough on my own. It was nice to meet you."
She strode away across the sand, with her fingers laced with Eren's. Glancing back, she saw both Amarantha and the other griffin elder watching them leave, making no move to stop them.