Page 61 of The Protective Gryphen

“Are you okay?” Ian asked, seeing that Gryphen wasn’t as happy as he had been.

At his question, Gryphen helplessly stared at the man he loved.

God.

How did he navigate this?

How did he pull this off?

He was doing battle with what he knew Ian needed, and what Gryphen wanted. That monstrous part of him was lurking close to the surface, and it was going to make a mess of this.

He already saw it happening.

Ian would walk away.

“Gryph?” Ian asked, staring up and into his eyes. “What happened? Is it Will? Did you hear something? Are we in danger? Please tell me,” he whispered. “I’m getting scared now.”

Gryphen sighed.

That was the last thing he wanted. Ian didn’t deserve to be afraid because he had very little control of that darkness.

Finally, he just spit it out.

“It’s not about Will. It’s about me.”

Ian didn’t like this.

At.

All.

“Are you okay? Are you sick? Did something happen to make you upset?” he asked, trying to figure out how this went south from everything being good to the phone call and it going bad.

Gryphen seemed to be slipping into a melancholy and for no reason.

That freaked him out.

In the stone hallway, there were antique chairs lining the walls periodically. So that they could talk, Gryphen picked one and sat down.

“It’ll be okay, Gryph. Just talk to me.”

He somehow doubted that. Gryphen knew he was being irrational, but that fear gripped him. It had him by the balls, and he knew what was coming.

A fight.

“You’re going to be angry.”

Uh-oh.

This was bad.

Ian didn’t like this.

“Are we leaving?” he asked. “Do we have to leave because it’s not safe?”

There were a million questions running through his mind, and he couldn’t figure out what had made this man get so worried.

Gryphen tried to work through it.

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