Mated to the Griffin (Elemental Mates 5)

She looked for the nose again. Almost. Three more steps to her right—and she was face to face with the rock. The nose of stone was directly above her.

She frowned. Had she been wrong?

The rock was covered by moss. There wasn’t a single opening in the wall, not even a tiny crack where a clue might be hidden.

Frustrated, she reached out to try and brush the moss out of the way—and her hand went right through it.

A small gasp escaped her.

“Here,” she said, kneeling down to carefully push what had looked like moss to the side. Beneath, there was a small opening.

A moment later, she was pushed away as two of Zane’s men took over. It took them only a few seconds to reveal the opening.

There was a hole in the rock. It wasn’t large enough for a grown man to walk through it—but it was large enough to crawl.

And crawl they did, one after the other.

It was dark inside. Chiara tried not to think about centipedes or spiders. Fortunately she wasn’t the first to go. They probably didn’t trust her enough for that. And as long as it meant that Lou was the first to step on a centipede, she was more than all right with that.

It turned out the tunnel wasn’t long. After less than a minute, the darkness grew lighter. Then, one after the other, they made their exit into yet another mountain valley that didn’t look much different to the one they’d just left.

Only this one wasn’t on any hiking guides. It couldn’t be reached by any paths. This was a part of the mountains that was inaccessible—unless you knew about the secret tunnel, she supposed.

Chiara took a deep breath, straightening and stretching her aching back.

Okay, what’s next? First the nose—then the tree.

It was weird, now that she thought about it. There hadn’t been any trees for a while. She didn’t think trees could grow that high up in the mountains.

Still, the map had been right so far. She had to trust in it. Or at least, she had to look like she knew what she was doing, because she had no doubt that Zane would get rid of her the moment she became useless.

Chapter Six: Jared

Jared had been flying for nearly an hour until he made it to where the dragon must have landed. He could see marks on the ground where claws had dug into the earth, and he could feel that Chiara was somewhere nearby.

There were footprints on the ground as well—several sets of them that his griffin could make out in the light of the morning sun. The shadow dragon hadn’t been alone.

He’d have to be careful. Jared was outnumbered, and he had no powers of his own to use against a dragon.

Still, he had his wings, and he was smart. If he could just find Chiara, they’d somehow make it out of here, no matter what it would take.

Jared shifted back into his human body. The mountain air was clear and cold, so that he felt grateful that like all mythological shifters, his clothes shifted along with him.

He wasn’t exactly wearing hiking gear—but it would suffice. Wings would be more useful up here anyway.

Now he just had to find Chiara...

He followed the trail up a tiny mountain path. Soon, there were no more footprints to make out on the rocky ground—but if they’d taken this path, there wasn’t really any other way to go.

In any case, something inside him still pulled him forward. As fragile as the connection between them was, his heart unfailingly pointed towards Chiara, like a compass of golden light inside his chest. He wouldn’t rest until he’d found her.

The sun had risen in the sky when the path finally came to an end.

It had led him to a small mountain valley—little more than a gorge, with walls of rugged stone rising high on both sides of Jared.

He ventured forward very carefully, but everything was silent. There was no one in the gorge he could see—and there was no way out of the small valley.

Had they taken flight from here?