Page 71 of Into the Night

Ignoring Jack’s irritation, Griffin wraps me up in his arms and presses kiss after kiss where he bit me.

“Does it hurt?” His lips brush the spot carefully, while his hands stroke up and down my arms. The change in his tone is telling. The beast kept his word.

“You’re back.” Smiling, I twist around and stare up at him, getting lost in the dark brown pools. “It doesn’t hurt. Actually, it feels amazing.”

Griffin’s brows are knitted together, unconvinced.

“I’ll give you one of your own later, then you’ll know I’m not lying.”

The rumbling vibration in his chest tells me Griffin likes that idea.

Resting my forehead against his chest, I savour this moment of peace in the middle of all the chaos. I’m mated. Griffin’s here. Both of them are. We’re safe.

“Go. Find out what’s going on.” I order as I hear Ben and Jack’s deep voices up above. “If we have the chance to leave now, we should take it.”

Griffin hesitates, not wanting to leave me.

I pick up an old blanket and wrap it around myself like a toga.

“I’ll get cleaned up a bit. Go. Talk to them. Let’s get this straightened out and go home.”

40

GRIFFIN

Scrambling up the rock face, it isn’t lost on me that the beast has gone quiet. Diplomacy is not his strong point. Now that the fighting and marking is over, he has conveniently disappeared, leaving me to deal with the fall-out from his actions.

Ben and Jack wait a distance away. They don’t want to disturb Kali with what’s about to be said. Or done.

There was no time for discussion before, but from the look on Ben’s face, he’s decided now is the time to have it out.

“You took her? You knew where she was all along?” Ben lunges for me, his fingers just tangling in the front of my shirt, when Jack steps between us, using his big body to keep Ben away. “We were freaking out. The whole town was out looking, and you just let us?”

“Ben, you agreed only two seconds ago not to attack him!” Jack hisses, using his shoulder to shove Ben back.

I shake my head at Jack, and he loosens his hold. It would probably feel pretty good to get decked by Ben. Kali’s too nice to hold what I did against me.

“I didn’t know.”

My quiet words don’t register with Ben. Instead, he gets in my face and shoves me hard, sending me stumbling back a few steps. My beast remains silent. Me getting into a fist fight with her cousin isn’t what she needs right now.

“She could have died up there. You wasted everyone’s time and lied to our faces, when we’d already been through hell over John and the missing girls.” Ben is furious, and rightly so. “What the fuck were you thinking? What if Jed had found her while you were pretending to search with the rest of us?”

Ben isn’t trying to attack me anymore, but his eyes still glow, showing he’s on the verge of it. Jack remains between us but stares at me too, jaw clenched and expression distrustful.

“I didn’t know,” I repeat. “I had no idea he’d taken her. He knew I wouldn’t be on board, so he locked me out.”

Ben and Jack exchange a look before Ben starts to growl again, deciding that I’m full of shit.

“I know that sounds ridiculous, but I didn’t even know about beasts until I met Kali a few days ago. Why do you think I have so little control?”

Both men gape at me. That has their attention. “You’d never shifted until a few days ago? That’s not possible.” Jack looks horrified as he stares at me through new eyes.

“I don’t know what to tell you.” Shrugging my shoulders, I throw my hands up. “I was getting more and more violent and out of control. John suggested I come up here and work with him, that the outdoors would help me. I’m presuming he knew what I was and wanted me to meet all of you, be with my kind. Except then he went missing.”

Ben nods, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “Sounds about right.”

John was a good man. Ben knows that's something he would do.

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