Page 11 of My Guardian Gryphon

Yes, I had, and it’d felt damn good. I crossed my arms and leaned back against the couch cushion. They’d come into my space to make me feel bad for a choice that I deserved to make. No one had the right to make it for me.

Not even Rose.

The Oracle’s shoulders slumped, and her brow furrowed. “Rose makes sure the men are vetted, handsome, and kind before they are even allowed onto the bus into Sanctuary. What is there not to like?”

“I just need more time. I can’t just pick someone out of a lineup and force myself to have sex with them. There’s no talking. No connection. It’s not me.”

“This is the safest way to fulfill the urgency welling deep within us to have a child. Don’t you feel it, Gretchen?” The Oracle leaned forward to lay a reassuring hand on my knee. It burned and I wanted to slap her hand away. I wanted to run out of the room screaming that they had no right. That I already loved someone else and I had no desire to ever sleep with and bear a stranger’s child, no matter how hard the supernatural urge in my gut cried out for a baby.

“I know it’s a little awkward the first time, but these men are chosen because they are good to us.”

“Then you sleep with them. I made my choice, and the answer last night was no.”

I shook my head, thoughts of Alek bouncing around like the tennis ball I threw against the wall for hours each day, waiting for it to be time to go to the library and see him.

“I can’t do it. Maybe I’m just not ready.” Maybe if I wasn’t already utterly-completely-totally-unconditionally in love with Alek. Maybe then I could’ve chosen. Probably would’ve.

But I couldn’t now and hadn’t been able to since the moment when I’d seen the possible future I could have with Alek. That we could have together.

He was so lonely and quiet. He needed me as much as I needed him.

Astrid—the Oracle—glanced to Rose, who nodded her head, a silent confirmation that I didn’t want to have anything to do with the men coming in for the joinings and I wasn’t going to be bullied into it. Not that my stubbornness would stop them from trying.

The only man I desired was Alek, but broaching that subject at this point would not benefit anyone. I desperately needed these two women to accept that I refused to sleep with a stranger, no matter how much my genetically-programed desperation for a child reared its ugly head. That was my problem to bear, not theirs.

“Why is it so important for us to have children?” I turned my head and met Rose’s gaze head-on, deciding to try another tactic all together. “Why should we want so desperately to raise another generation in a prison of your making?” Maybe if I could piss Rose off, she’d leave me alone, like the unruly child who nagged until the parents just gave up.

A gasp slipped from the Oracle’s mouth, but she didn’t speak.

Rose’s brown eyes narrowed, and I felt the warmth of her magick rise through the room, creeping around me like a corporeal fog, but I wasn’t scared. We’d always been assured they wouldn’t force us to be with a man. Now I was merely putting that unspoken statement to the test.

“You are the last hope for the supernaturals on Earth. You will be our way back home. Without the Sisters—without enough children to keep the visions complete—there is no hope for any of us to ever get home. To ever get off this human world.”

“But I don’t belong in Veil. We are human.” I jabbed a finger at Astrid. “No matter the funky visions, we are still human. We belong here.”

Rose stood from her chair, her eyes turned white. Her voice deepened, taking on an ominous phantom quality. “You are the Oracles of the House of Lamidae. Your sole purpose on Earth is to fulfill the prophesy that will open the Veil, and allow supernatural beings the chance to go home.”

Each word thudded into the bottom of my stomach, one heavy declaration at a time.

All the urging and posturing in the world wouldn’t make me forsake my hope that Alek would be the first one to ever lie with me. The first man to ever kiss or touch any intimate part of my body. Not even Rose Hilah, playing the Wicked Witch of the West and trying to scare me back onto the proverbial yellow-brick-road, would sway my decision.

“Why do you even care anymore? What’s there for you?” Damn. I shouldn’t have said that. I knew I shouldn’t have, but once I got started, it was difficult for me to put a halt to my thoughts. “A stranger doesn’t deserve the honor of being with me first. If I have to sleep with someone, it should be someone I care about.”

“You do not get to have a typical life, Gretchen. You are special. You have a gift and responsibilities because of that gift.”

“Why can’t we just choose husbands? What could be the harm in a few men taking up residence in Sanctuary? You take in everything else. If it has fangs or fur or fantastical powers, it automatically gets a ticket to stay in Sanctuary. But me? I don’t get a say because I’m just a vessel. I’m not a person who gets to decide her fate. Who gets to fight for what’s right or wrong or make any kind of life choices.” Drawing a deep breath, I focused the anger welling inside me on her once again brown eyes, on her dispassionate, expressionless face. “What makes me worth less than any other person in this town?”

“You are worth more.” Her voice was steady and calm, but her gaze burned with an anger that made my insides squirm. “Everything we do in this town is to protect you. To make sure you can fulfill the destiny you were born to. What gives you the right to feel more important than any of the other Sisters here in this sanctuary? Only in a united group can you produce enough children to raise the magick back to a level where the last two Protectors can be found. Don’t you want to have a child?”

Of course I wanted a child. We all did. We all had this abnormal obsession with procreation, but maybe it wasn’t impossible to have one with Alek. Maybe they’d lied about that, too. If she was so worried about Xerxes stealing us to have children…

What if I could have Alek’s child?

The thought struck suddenly like a crack of thunder. My palms ran slick while the inside of my mouth dehydrated to the consistency of bread flour. I banished the urge to blurt those thoughts aloud.

Rose’s posture softened. “I do not do this for myself. I protect and care for all supernaturals who ask for shelter, be it from humans, or Xerxes himself.” Her warm magick flicked across my skin, like fingertips looking for a good place to take hold. “The sacrifice you make is not for me alone, it is for entire races of people. There are hundreds—thousands of supernaturals who have no desire to remain on Earth. They are the children of murdered parents, the orphans of a war that made them homeless. The time is almost here. We are so close to completing the prophecy, yet you purposefully shirk the burden placed on your shoulders.”

I shivered, casting a glance at the Oracle mother, but she offered no consolation or support. I’d vomited the mess, and I was on my own to clean it up.

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