Page 25 of Griffin Undone
Sun blinked, and a distinctduhflared in his eyes. Before it could travel to his lips, Grim interrupted.
“What do you know about the Anigma in general?”
“I know they weren’t as crippled after the Great War as the Archai believed them to be. They went underground. I followed their migration into the US—”
“Why?” Sun interrupted.
None of your damn business. Yet.
I kept my focus on the Aomai. “They’re divided into regions. Around three hundred years ago, the current leader here in the Southeast stepped in, started organizing, building their numbers.”
“Made shifters?” Grim asked.
I hummed an agreement. “The team I took out last night was fairly new. Trained, but new.” Shifters were either born from Archai females or made through a complex blood ritual. The offer of a change was rare, and rarely taken—there was no guarantee of actual shifting ability, with many males coming out the other side without an animal form, and the risks were higher than most were willing to face, including an 80 percent mortality rate. Given the number of males I’d fought, Maddox needed a lot of foot soldiers and didn’t care about leaving dead bodies behind. And at four-to-one odds, that was a lot of dead bodies.
“As his army grew,” I explained, “it also became more reclusive, until he all but cut the Anigma hierarchy out of the process—his men doing the changing, the training, the controlling.”
“Meaning?”
Grim already knew; I could tell by the tone of his voice. “Meaning his army is just that: his. He’s been building toward something big, and I think that something is about to explode.”
Sun sneered. “And this army just happens to show up, after all these years of successful hiding, in the same city as the largest Archai clan in the world, the King’s Clan?”
I met Sun’s sarcasm head-on. “They didn’t follow you here; you followed them. They’ve been here all along, and in far greater numbers.”
“Numbers we wouldn’t even be aware of without you.”
I bared my teeth at Sun. “Convenient, ain’t it?” And deliberate. I wanted the Archai to know about the enemy in their midst.
“Yes,” the prince said, “it is.”
“It’s called not being an ostrich. The Archai have become incredibly insular since the war. Peace at all costs, right?” I shook my head. “Idiots.”
“The question is,” Grim said, “if they aren’t here for the clan—”
“And that’s a big if,” Sun threw in, suspicion twisting the words. “We’ve seen no sign of them, but Arik takes out a whole team on a downtown street?”
Grim ran his fingers over his chin. “Are they looking to start another war?”
“If they are, you don’t stand a chance,” I said. Which was the point. Maddox’s numbers would decimate the clan that had betrayed me, and with Maddox’s army distracted, I could dangle the bait for Maddox and get an unobstructed chance to execute my parents’ murderer, hopefully with a little torture thrown in for an appetizer. Destroying everything Maddox had built was a bonus. Win-win-win—for me, at least.
A tiny corner of my conscience pointed out that the men in this room were the very ones I was talking about decimating, them and their loved ones. I should feel bad about that, but I didn’t. Nothing they did now could make up for the hell that had been my life.
Grim ignored my accusation. “What does Kat have to do with this?”
I shrugged. That bit of intel I wasn’t sharing; let them figure it out on their own. I’d never get Kat away from Sun and Grim if they realized exactly how powerful a piece of bait she would be for Maddox.
“To know what they’re planning,” Sun said, “we need to know the animal in charge.”
Smart thinking for once, brother.“I think Grim can answer that question.”
Grim shook his head. “Her memories of the attack are a blur.”
“You don’t have to see the attack. The bastard approached her earlier that night. He spoke with her.”
“I don’t…” But Grim’s voice was distracted, distant, his mind already tangled in the knot of Kat’s memories. I knew the exact moment he found what he was looking for. The Aomai’s focus gripped me like a fist around my throat. “God.”
“Who’s the murderer now?” I taunted. All these years they’d refused to believe me, refused to accept that Maddox was alive, but they couldn’t deny what Grim had seen in Kat’s memories. And yet, now that the moment was here, it wasn’t vindication or satisfaction I felt. Curiously, I didn’t really feel anything.
