Page 18 of My Guardian Gryphon

I left Cal in the main hallway and continued through the maze of doors and magickal barriers to the rooms set aside for Lila and her nurses. The pleased giggle of a baby’s laugh greeted my ears once I passed through the very last barrier—soundproofed even to a supernatural level. I opened the door and stepped into the pale room filled with a few brightly colored blankets, toys, and a swing. Things her nurses insisted the baby needed for proper development.

I raised my hand, using my magick to lift Lila from where she lay on a blanket in front of a nurse. The woman was silent and bowed prostrate on the floor. The baby, however, continued to giggle. The corners of my mouth turned up, mirroring the tiny grin on her face. Her eyes sparkled with life and joy, completely unaware of how scared she should be and of what some might call a terrible situation. I was, after all, considered a monster.

And I was.

But I could still take care of a baby, especially one that would be very valuable to me in the future. She was provided with anything the nurses requested and now had four nurses who rotated in shifts around the clock to care for her. She was never alone.

Her brown eyes reminded me of the child I’d lost. The one stolen from me, who’d put everything that’d happened over the last four thousand years into motion. I’d simply been a man in love with a woman, excited to start a family. We’d known it was forbidden—love between a Lamassu and a Sister of House Lamidae—but it hadn’t stopped us. Our baby had been beautiful. Perfect.

And then it wasn’t. My family betrayed me, and I vowed to make them all pay for what they’d stolen, and I had, except for Naram and Rose. They evaded the massacre and took the Sister’s with them. Rose had killed the woman I loved and my child. In return, I’d taken her husband and made it look like I’d killed him. For four thousand years, she’d had to live with the belief and that I’d killed my brother.

I’d given her the option to let me have Cera and the baby, but she’d stabbed them through the heart with a Dragonfire blade, telling me what I wanted was impossible, that I would ruin the entire prophecy by taking Cera away from the rest of the Sisters.

Fuck the prophecy.

I traced a fingertip along Lila’s chubby cheek. “You are the only being on the planet that does not fear me. Yet.” There would come a day. I knew it was inevitable. I’d lost whatever conscience I possessed along the way to seek revenge against my people. Against Rose. Against my brother. Though I hadn’t killed him, he’d practically been reduced to a beast over the course of the passing millennia.

This baby would fear me, too. The whole Earth would one day tremble at just the mention of my name. Once the Earth bowed to me, it would be time to return to the Veil and take the thrones away from the Drakonae. Lamassu had reigned from the great stone thrones of Orin since the dawn of time, and history would repeat itself. I would make sure of it.

“Take her to the lab for the final procedure.” I floated the baby across the room and placed her gently on the floor in front of her prostrate nurse.

“Yes, Master.”

I left the makeshift nursery and rejoined Cal in the main hall.

“General?” His tone even and slow, waiting for direction.

“The tomb.”

Cal bowed then extended a hand.

I took it, and we jumped. A second later, we were inside a tomb beneath what had been the most powerful city on the face of the Earth. Babylon had fallen when I betrayed my kind to the Horde, but it’d taken many secrets with it.

Chains rustled in the back of the shadow-filled room. No natural light had touched the stones surrounding me since they’d been fit together thousands of years ago. I slipped a flashlight from my pocket and clicked the button on the handle. A beam of bright light flooded the massive room. This tomb held the bodies of many kings.

It also held my brother.

A huff of air stirred the room, and I cast the light in the direction of the sound.

“Kill me, brother.” His voice rasped, filled with pain and void of any hope.

It was rare that I saw him in anything other than his Lamassu form. Today was no different—not that it mattered. His white eyes still glowed with the same hatred they’d had since the day I’d informed him that I’d ripped out his wife’s heart with my claws and eaten it while she took her last breath at my feet.

Naram’s lion-like claws clicked on the stone floor with each limping step across the room. His body had been the size of a 747 jumbo jet when I first locked him down here in this massive cavern. He hadn’t even been able to unfold his eagle-like wings completely.

Now with his magick and essence waning from near-starvation, his shifted form had lessened.

Less power. Less Lamassu.

When he stepped into the beam of light, I saw a wretched beast barely the size of a horse. His wings drooped at his sides, dragging the ground. Wings that used to span the entire breadth of the ancient temple.

“Kill me,” he repeated. His human-lion head rose to face me straight on. Every muscle in his body strained and shook with effort.

“I came to feed you. Your time is close, brother, but is not here yet,” I answered, speaking in the ancient tongue of the Babylonians with the same ease as I had four thousand years ago.

He shifted in front of me, morphing within seconds from the bedraggled beast to a weak, useless, dirty man. His shirt barely held together at the seams. Long ratted filthy hair hid part of his face. Pale skin gleamed in the illuminated light, and his hollow eyes had sunken so far into his face he reminded me of a mummified corpse.

“Kill me. You allowed every other of our kind to rest.” The chains on his wrists and ankles clanked with each hobbled step he took toward me.

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