Page 16 of Griffin Undone
Personally I didn’t trust anyone who never let you see his face.
Tension burned through the silence as the three of us made our journey from the Parthenon to the lair. Neither I nor Sun were willing to give the other an inch, and the healer—well, I guessed silence came naturally to him. The male didn’t speak until I wrangled open the locks on the door and led the two downstairs and into the room where the female lay bound.
She had twisted in her sleep—or what passed for sleep with a raging fever. Her face was turned away from us, but the way her red curls tangled around her head told me she’d been trying to move, maybe escape the heat of her own body as much as her bonds. Her arms lay at awkward angles, wrists coated in rings of fresh blood; she’d pulled on the cotton hard. The sight of that blood did something to me, something I didn’t want to acknowledge. Seemed to be a lot of that going around lately. I’d need to deal with that, I knew—an unacknowledged weakness was a deadly weakness—but later. For now…
The blanket that had covered her shoulders when I left was halfway down her back, revealing the rapid rise and fall of her breathing, the elegant curve of her shoulders, the bruises covering creamy skin. Those dark blotches allowed guilt to creep around the edges of my mind, but I refused it entrance. I’d only done what was necessary, not just to keep her, but to keep her safe.
The two shifters accompanying me didn’t try to control the impact of the scene like I did. Both males rushed the bed. “Release her,” the Aomai commanded in a tone that, despite its seeming calm, refused to be denied.
“You don’t want me to do that,” I assured him.
“Yes,” the healer ground out, “I do.”
I shrugged, an insolentit’s your funeral, and stepped to the opposite side of the bed, drawing my knife to slice through the strips around her wrists. I repeated the process at her ankles, throwing the bits of cloth onto the floor before sheathing my knife and taking care of the gag. I didn’t know why, but I reached for the blanket and pulled it up her body to tuck carefully beneath her arms, hiding the generous side view of the swells of her bare breasts. I grimaced as the heat of her skin seared my fingertips.
When I looked up, it was straight into Sun’s disbelieving eyes.
“A female? You triggered a female?” Disgust twisted through the words. “You know the laws of our clan. Why would you choose a female to feed from?”
“Be thankful she was chosen,” I pointed out, refusing to correct Sun’s assumption. “Maybe if we’d disregarded the law before now, we’d have known there was a latent psych hidden in the human population. Possibly more than one.”
“He didn’t trigger her,” the Aomai said. Holding the blanket in place, he turned the female onto her back, revealing sunken eyes, the rapid pulse at the base of her neck. Panting breaths. The savaged flesh at her throat, where the loosened bandage exposed deep gouges and torn flesh from Maddox’s bite, a mockery of the mark most females wore proudly after their talents were unleashed. “One of the Anigma did this to her.”
I didn’t know what brought the healer to that conclusion, but I didn’t argue it either. I had no need to defend what honor I possessed to them.
The Aomai leaned close, long fingers extending from the black sleeves of his cloak to stroke the area below the female’s wound. My gaze found those fingers, locked there. I tried to shake my head, step back, but the slow crawl of irritation up my spine immobilized me. My griffin rose, forcing me closer to the side of the bed instead of away. A glow spread on the blanket—light from my shining eyes. The frozen wasteland of emotion that made up my soul was breaking apart, cracking and crumbling around a growing shaft of pissed-off I didn’t understand. I wanted to rip the healer’s hands off my female, even knowing she needed him. I—
The Aomai bent closer, too close. To her lips, her skin, her body. My anger built to a roar in my chest. My griffin’s roar, clawing, clamoring, claiming.Mine!
I slammed my eyes shut, spinning the emotion back on my animal, pushing the griffin down, down, down until I could slam the door equally hard on that raging part of myself.She needs the healer, damn it!
The deep breath I took threatened to split my breastbone, but I held it as I opened my eyes.
The Aomai eased back. One hand went to Katherine’s hair to push the wild mass back from her face and neck. He peeled the bandage away completely.
I released the air in my lungs in a hard chuff.
And then Sun appeared at my elbow. All it took was the sight of Sun’s hand reaching toward Katherine’s bared arm and my limited control disappeared like mist. In a single move I slapped the male’s hand away and brought my knife high, point just below Sun’s chin. “Back. Off.”
The room itself seemed to hold its breath. I let it; I wouldn’t be the one giving in.
Anger burned like red flames in Sun’s glittering orbs. “Let us see her, Arik.”
I tipped my head in the healer’s direction. “Hecan see her.Youstep back.”
The prince reached out again. My knife point dented the flesh of Sun’s throat, dim light glinting off the metal. My hand was there before his, covering Katherine’s skin. The bright light of anger shone from my eyes, flashing a warning of its own.
“Is she your mate?”
The healer’s question broke through the standoff, his confusion clear despite the hood covering his face.
I hoped my snort hid the matching confusion in my mind. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters,” Sun said. “She needs the safety of the clan. She needs our healer. You can’t keep her here.”
I glared at the prince—my enemy—and aimed my answer with the same deadly intent I used to aim my weapon at Sun’s throat. “She. Is. Mine. She won’t be going anywhere, with either of you. Clear?”
Sun dipped his eyelids, that curiously birdlike blink he’d developed when we were kids. When his eyes opened, they revealed a blaze of rainbow-colored fire. Slowly, deliberately he leaned into the knife. The sharp edge severed his skin like a scalpel, hitting the vein with a quick spurt of blood. His smile was a dare.
