Page 61 of My Guardian Gryphon

Cal stepped forward and extended his hand, waiting for me to clasp his wrist before we would teleport to the tomb where I kept my own brother chained and wasting away, one millennia at a time.

I wrapped my fingers around his wrist, and then we blinked. Space folded around us in a rush of color and speed that made my stomach jump. Then we were there, in the dark tomb beneath what used to be the grandest city on this fucking planet—Babylon.

It had truly been one of the greatest wonders of the world. I’d felt the smallest splinter of remorse when I’d betrayed the city to the Horde. The poison I’d provided them had killed my entire race, except for Rose and Naram. Those two crafty Sentinels had evaded the barbarian soldiers and stolen the Sisters out of the temple without a sound.

Cal lit several torches on the wall, pulling one down to light the way. I crossed to the half of the palatial room that housed my dying brother. Rahim followed silently, blinking with Rose closer and closer and closer, working hard to keep her body steady in its precarious position.

“There.” I spoke clearly, allowing my voice to carry through the large room. Walking to them, I knelt down and wrapped my fingers around the hilt of the dagger in her chest.

Rahim stepped back to stand next to Cal a few feet away.

“Naram, you should drag your decrepit body out here to say goodbye to your mate.”

“Fuck you, brother.” Naram’s shout was more forceful than I’d expected after seeing him last time. The food from my last visit must’ve really helped raise his energy level.

“She’s the one that’s fucked.” I pulled the dagger from her chest, and Rose moaned softly, opening her eyes to meet my gaze directly. “You will die beneath the city you loved so dearly and with the man you loved more than anyone else on the Earth, but he will live on, seeing you rot and decay until only your bones remain to remind him of what he lost. Of what he could not save.”

“You’re a bastard,” she whispered, fighting for breath, fighting against the blood that would slowly drown her. The poison from the dagger would hinder her natural healing abilities.

Chains scraped the floor across the room, and Naram’s beastly form advanced slowly, each step a painful effort. The shackles had long since created sores on his ankles and paws. His head hung low, also chaffed and bloody from the dragon steel collar around what used to be a well-muscled neck. Now, he was thin and weak, hollowed from malnutrition and atrophied from limited movement.

“Rose.” He strained against his chains, leaning into the shackles and re-opening old wounds. Desperation strained his gaunt face in his futile effort to reach his mate.

I’d had Rahim place her just out of reach. The need to touch her, comfort his mate, hold his wife—everything inside him was driving him further over the edge of madness.

“I couldn’t feel you.” Rose’s voice broke with emotion. “Why couldn’t I feel you? I felt the connection between us die thousands of years ago.” A sob tore through her chest, rattling through her liquid-filled lungs like a pinball in an arcade game. She coughed, spewing blood onto the floor. “I would’ve kept looking. I’m so sorry.”

“Shh, it doesn’t matter now.” Naram knelt on the floor, stretching his lion’s neck as far as he could. Not far enough. She still remained at least three feet from even feeling his breath on her face. He shifted to his bedraggled human form and stretched his arm toward her—still unable to breach the distance between them. “I love you, Rose. You are mine.”

“And you are mine.”

I rolled my neck back and forth, enjoying the show of pathetic emotion. The torture on both their faces had been well worth the wait and effort of keeping Naram chained and on the edge of life for all these years. He’d died on the inside the day I told him I’d killed Rose, and now he would die a little more each day. Every time he looked at her body, he would blame himself for not being enough.

My brother’s downfall had been hoping he could get through to me, but Rose…Rose had been a worthy adversary, and a frustrating one. This was my reward, and I reveled in it. In the smell of her blood staining the floor. In the scent of death hanging over her like a shroud from Tartarus, waiting to carry her to the afterlife.

She would trouble me no longer. My vengeance was complete. What they’d taken from me was irreplaceable, and now Rose was balancing the scale with her death. Once Naram joined her in the underworld, I would focus solely on conquering the humans, one pathetic country at a time.

All would bow to me on Earth.

Then all would bow to me on Veil.

Even those fucking Drakonae pricks who thought they were invincible. Just because they’d taken down the Blackmoor dynasty didn’t mean they would have a shot in hell against me and my army.

Once the time arrived.

Once my children were born.

Chapter 23

GRETCHEN

Nothing hurt. My body was healed. Bailey’s blood and Bella’s pixie dust had done their work. I should be fine. I felt fine. I felt like I could jump off my bed at any moment and run from the room.

But I didn’t.

I just stared uncomfortably at Bailey and her mate Erick. Pulling the covers up to my neck, I shifted to my side and stared at the wall instead. Bailey looked like she wanted to talk. I didn’t want to talk. I just wanted to forget.

Forget the pain. Forget the terror. Forget how stupid I’d been for leaving Alek’s house. Forget how stupid I’d been for not listening to Rose’s warnings, to all of their warnings. Even Alek had said it was dangerous, but I hadn’t listened. I’d ignored them all, and I’d paid the price.

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