Page 53 of My Guardian Gryphon

I rotated my neck and peered down at the children on my back. They curled their little fingers into my feathers, instinctively realizing what I was about to do. With a leap, I cleared the charred remains of the house, and two powerful strokes of my wings later we were sailing over the burning town toward the castle.

Two black dragons sat in front of the castle, each of their solid bodies were close to a third of the building’s size. Their wings spanned the entire length of the fortress. One of them looked up at me from the ground and then focused back on the figures they were escorting inside. Miles and Eli Blackmoor knew every being in the town. They’d been with Rose for thousands of years. No one was getting inside that castle door unless they personally recognized him or her.

I braced myself for the bite of magick as I cross the threshold of the special barrier that guarded the castle. The children on my back cried out, but to their credit, neither one released their death grip on my feathered neck. I landed softly in the courtyard and was immediately surrounded by several pixies and one of the more recent additions to town—Killían North, an escaped Elf from the Veil.

“Come here, sweet darlings,” the Pixies cooed at the children, removing them from my back. “We’ll get you somewhere safe. Thank you, Alek, for getting them here.” One of the pixies rubbed her hand along my quivering neck, leaving a thin layer of shimmering dust on my feathers.

I pushed the beast back and shifted back to my human form. A white hot pain seared through my body. The runes on my upper arms lit up like someone had set off a nuclear bomb inside my chest.

“Alek, what’s wrong?”

I fell to my knees and roared. “Gretchen.” I could feel the connection calling to me, surging with life like the dam on a river had been broken. I breathed through the agony of her shared terror. I could find her. The pain shifted to a pulse deep in my chest, and it tugged at the beast inside.

“Rose.” The pixies scattered in multiple directions. “Rose.”

No. You can’t tell her. I opened my mouth to call after them, but another stroke of Gretchen’s fear silenced me. Whatever she was going through, we needed the Lamassu and I could weather the Sentinel’s wrath, especially if it meant finding Gretchen.

Moments later, the pissed-off Lamassu was stalking toward me.

I tried to stand, but her magick wrapped itself around my body, paralyzing me on the grassy lawn of the castle courtyard.

“Alek Melos, you have betrayed my trust. You have cost the House of Lamidae and every supernatural being waiting to go home. It will take decades and several new children to replace the power of a young Sister in the House. Was I not clear to you when we spoke?” Her voice doubled in size, and her dark brown eyes changed to a bright white. She brought her hand down on my chest, and I felt my heart slow under the burn of her palm.

The burning of the Runes surged again, and between that and the burn of her skin on my chest, I’d just about had enough. My Gryphon cried out from inside me, shaking the ground where we stood and the walls surrounding the courtyard. The marks on my arms burned like hot coals, and the light shined bright enough from them to make me squint my eyes.

“Mate marks.” Rose’s voice dropped back into the normal human decibel, and her eyes switched back to brown. Her magick receded from my body, and I sucked in a deep breath before rising to face her. My human form was double her size or more, but I knew better than to think I had any advantage over one of the most powerful beings on the planet, no matter how small she appeared as a human.

“You know what they are?” I panted for air, struggling to breathe through the overwhelming desire to shift and take flight. She’d yank me down even if I tried. “I can feel her. I have to go to her.”

Her face darkened, and an ache occupied Rose’s eyes. She looked at me with sympathy and regret, like she knew something I didn’t, but wasn’t going to share. “You’ll die, Alek. He’s called you with her runes. It’s a trap.”

“If you found Naram was alive, would you go to him, whatever the cost?” Sweat poured from my body, and my Gryphon swelled inside me, building toward another scream that might take down one the castle walls. “I have to go. This is not something I can ignore because you say he’ll kill me. If I have to die to save her, I will. It’s better than living without her.” The last part of the sentence was cruel, but I needed to go. I needed her to let me go.

“If we’re going to get her back, we need help.” She turned and shouted Eli’s name. The black dragon swung his head over the wall and gazed down at us, steam billowing from his nostrils, his pupils orange with flame.

“Gretchen is alive. She is Alek’s mate.” Rose’s amped-up voice carried through the courtyard above the din of the cries inside and outside the castle.

The dragon’s head tipped, and his massive black wings unfurled and pumped, propelling him into the sky.

Rose turned back to me. “Shift and follow the call of your Runes, Alek. They will lead you to her. We will follow you.”

I released the magick writhing inside me, and my Gryphon took over, shifting my body into a beast the size of a Clydesdale stallion. My wings unfurled, and I screeched in surprise when Rose took hold of my mane of feathers and leapt to sit on my back just in front of my wing base. I screamed an angry call to the sky above. There would be blood for their actions against my mate. Death would be their only reward.

Leaping into the air, I joined Eli in the sky and turned toward the low pulse tugging my body south. The link to Gretchen got stronger with each pump of my wings in her direction. Desperation spurred me forward, and guilt.

Some of the homes below us were burning. People scrambled left and right. They were being moved to the protected underground bunkers, and some were fleeing all the way to the castle.

If I’d known about what the runes could do earlier, maybe I would’ve been able to find her immediately. If I’d told Rose what happened, instead of hiding it from her…would Gretchen already be safe? Perhaps not in my arms, perhaps Rose would’ve killed me or banished me for my betrayal, but Gretchen might be safe. That was all that mattered. What had my ignorance cost her? What had my desire cost her? I could’ve sent her back the very moment she stumbled onto my porch.

Instead, I’d taken her and loved her, and then everything had changed.

We flew past the edge of town and lines of charred houses. A few people darted through the streets—patrols looking for stragglers. The barrier had been destroyed. Harrison and both his daughters were likely lost. Patrols had been slaughtered. The town was burning beneath us, and all we could do was save as many as we could and hunker down and wait it out.

There were too many. Xerxes had finally come for us, and we were woefully unprepared.

“Most of the town had been secured, Alek. We can’t leave Gretchen out there. We have to get her back or she… has to die.” The hesitation in her voice reminded me how much she did care for the women. How much had been sacrificed through the years to keep them safe. It didn’t make it any easier. “We cannot allow Xerxes to bring forth a race of Lamassu with the ability of Seeing. The world will crumble at his feet if he succeeds.” Her voice was quiet, but firm. She spoke the truth, and as much as it hurt, I knew she was right, but I still didn’t think I could end Gretchen’s life.

In a way, it was my fault. I had been the one who succumbed to temptation. Gretchen was my mate—whatever that really meant in a magick sense, I wasn’t sure—but I could’ve chosen to leave Sanctuary. I could’ve chosen not to interfere in the destiny intricately wrapped around her life and the lives of every supernatural on the planet.

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