Page 37 of My Guardian Gryphon

“In the back,” I answered, catching the water bottle Miles tossed across the room. The cold water refreshed my parched throat, but now that I wasn’t hitting anything, the anxiety over Gretchen crashed back down around me, filling my brain with frustration and anger and plans that would either get me killed or kicked out of town.

Jared strolled through the hallway, nodding a silent greeting to Miles. “What went down?”

“Rose is a bitch.” The words left my mouth like arrows launched from a steel bow.

“We knew that already. All leaders want what promotes their cause over anything and everything else. Some have more morality and integrity, but mostly, they just want their way.” He sighed, leaning against the sheet-rocked wall of our training room. “Rose is no different. She has integrity. She doesn’t typically lie through her teeth…at least that I’ve noticed. And she truly seems to be on the side of the supernatural races, but otherwise, yes, she can be bitchy.”

“Well said.” Miles’ voice was low and filled with solemnity. “But back to the basics. Have you ever felt about a woman the way you feel deep in your soul about Gretchen? Finding a mate for a supernatural is a thing that can’t be dismissed.”

“A mate? Who the fuck said Gretchen was his mate? How can a Sister be…?” Jared’s mouth remained open as his words drifted away.

“I don’t know if she is…” I started, growling again, and I ran my fingers through my sweaty, spiky hair. “I’ve spent hours with her every day for over a decade. She was just a child, but I—” Damn it. I’d wanted to be with her from the very beginning. Needed to be in her presence. Needed to be close by. She brought my weary soul comfort and peace like I’d never had in my life before.

“You know it, don’t you?” Miles asked, his eyebrows raised questioningly. “It’s something you can feel. Something palpable in your soul.”

“She’s a baby.”

“She’s a grown woman in human years, a woman who’s been in love with you for a decade. Her pain was as genuine as her desperation to be with you.”

“If she sleeps with another man, I might go insane.”

“She won’t be able to go through with it,” Miles said, downing the last bit of his water before tossing it into the garbage can next to the fridge.

“I heard her agree to the terms.” My skin crawled like someone was dragging knives along it. My beast wanted out again. It would take her away from this place, but I couldn’t let that happen. Not with Xerxes’ Lycans and Djinn literally beating at Sanctuary’s doors.

“What did she agree to?” Jared asked, concern flashing in his eyes. “Why would she sleep with someone else?”

“Rose said we could be together if she participated in the joinings and got pregnant.”

Jared fumed, and flames flickered in his irises. His skin illuminated. Fire licked at the edges of his fisted hands.

“Hey, man.” I nodded, drawing his attention to his combusting skin.

He inhaled and exhaled several times. The flames disappeared and he sighed. “Sorry, but did you say Rose is going to require her to get pregnant by another before what…you can see her at all? Does she think you’re some seventeen-year-old boy who can’t control himself?”

“If Manda was in the building across the street, how would you behave?”

“Point taken,” Jared said, defeat filling his voice.

“If Gretchen truly is your Gryphon’s mate, being alone with her and unable to claim her would be a torture worse than any enemy could devise.”

“What do I do? I want Gretchen, but I believe in Rose’s goal of getting us back to the Veil. I want to go home. I need to know if any of my family—my people—survived.”

“I want to get home as much as you, man,” Jared said, his tone heavy. “But if it came down to saving Manda or going home, I wouldn’t be able to leave her.”

Miles nodded. “When the choice comes, you will do the right thing. Fate does not make mistakes.”

I chucked the sweaty gloves into the plastic crate by the wall. Fuck. “Fate sure likes to twist things around.”

“The gods have their own agendas. It is not for us to decipher, merely to react in the wisest way possible to stay strong and protect what is ours.”

“Our gods aren’t even in this dimension.”

Miles cracked a half-smile, looking like a man who knew the answer to the riddle everyone was trying to figure out. “Our gods are always with us. Why else do you think the humans around the world struggle to settle on one pantheon?”

“Because they have short lives and are shortsighted,” I said, spitting out the words as if they burned my tongue. I’d never liked humans—not until Gretchen. They were frail and easily broken. I was better off not investing time or emotion into a being that wouldn’t live more than seven or eight decades.

Technically, Gretchen wasn’t all human.

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