Page 30 of Griffin Undone
“Can you just spit it out, please?”
Arik stared me down for a minute, that impassive look concealing whatever he was thinking. I forced myself to wait, to let him see whatever it was he needed to see. He must have found what he was searching for, because he finally spoke.
“Okay, no taking it easy with the new girl. Got it. So…the Archai have fewer females than males—long story,” he said as I opened my mouth to question him again. “You don’t need a couple thousand years of history right now. The point is, we have trained females before, but I’ve never worked with one that has your level of power. I’m not even totally sure what your gift is. But once we get a firm handle on it, we can lock down a training schedule that will benefit you.”
What did he mean,your level of power? This was sounding more and more surreal. “We?”
“You and me.”
So not Grim or Sun. I dropped my head into my hands, a groan escaping as a thousand more questions popped into my mind.
Arik standing distracted me. He lifted the tray from my lap, the sympathy in his eyes providing temporary relief from my frustration. “You’ll have answers, Kat; I promise. There’s just too much to cover in one sitting. Why don’t you grab some fresh clothes from the dresser over there, then come find me, okay? I’ll show you around.”
“I’m not sure I can handle this much new information,” I told his back as he crossed to the door.
The wry grin he threw me over his shoulder said my sarcasm was received—and summarily ignored, if the follow-up wink was any indication.
I caught a glimpse of more bare gray walls and dim lighting before Arik’s broad shoulders blocked the view. The realization that I was about to be alone again brought a surge of panic.
“Arik?”
He tucked his head back inside, one eyebrow quirked up. I swallowed hard.Come on, Kat. Get a grip.“Thanks,” I finally squeezed out.
“Anytime.”
The door closed with a firmclick. I threw back the covers. Ready or not, it was time to face my new life and get what answers I could.
ChapterFourteen
Sun
“Unfortunately we’re long on questions and short on answers,” Basile said, confirming what the ten Archai in the conference room already knew.
I nodded at my second in command’s assessment of the situation as if I wasn’t seething inside. Kat was incredibly valuable, precious, the first known female Archai outside of the limited births among the clans in centuries. And she’d been snatched from beneath our noses by a male I couldn’t, wouldn’t trust.
A murderer had returned to our midst. Whether that murderer was Arik or Maddox, I still wasn’t certain. Both had been my childhood friends. I’d mourned Maddox right along with Anna and Rivalen, the Archai general I’d known all my life. Wrapping my head around the fact that the werewolf still lived was proving even harder than letting go of Arik’s guilt.
That was why I’d gathered the Warrior’s Council, that and the Anigma threat. An attack from an Anigma army twice our size—or more—could be disastrous if my people weren’t prepared. I wanted every voice under my command to weigh in on our options. For the first time since the Dark Ages, we were facing the enemy, but most of what we knew was how much we didn’t know.
“Where is Arik now?” Cale asked, his voice raspy evidence of his animal’s disquiet, his eagle eyes burning with amber fire. The overhead light glinted off his shoulder-length hair, a motley mix of every shade of blond under the sun. A griffin like Arik; his cousin, in fact, born many years after Rivalen and Anna had been murdered. Left with the aftermath of the tragedy and its scars on their family’s legacy, Cale was battling both the news of his long-lost cousin’s return and the memories it dredged up.
At Cale’s question, I threw a smoldering glance toward the end of the long table where Grim sat, hands folded as if in prayer, eyes cloaked by his black hood. “We don’t know. He snuck her out right under our noses.”
Cale grimaced in disgust. “You mean he poisoned you and left you for dead.”
True, even ifpoisonedwas a bit strong. I sighed, trying hard to blow away the anger and focus. “Just a little something to help us sleep, Cale. It must’ve been in the food.” And the lair must’ve had a hidden escape tunnel, because even with the short-lived influence of Arik’s herbal supplement, neither I nor Grim could have missed the male carrying Kat through that tiny front room.
“The fault was ours,” Grim said quietly. “We trusted too easily.”
“We were too distracted,” I countered. Keeping Kat alive had been our sole focus.
Lyris spoke for the first time, interrupting my train of thought. “How powerful is she?”
The only female member of the council, Lyris, like the others, was dressed in battle gear, but unlike them, it didn’t help her look more of a threat. She was average height and weight in a world where males were bigger than life, sometimes literally. Also unlike them, she was one of only a few of her kind, a female Archai, fully born, and the oldest known psych warrior. She and her brother, Demetri, sitting beside her, had served the council almost as long as Solomon had been king, and as a warrior Lyris out of all of them would understand best the danger Kat might pose.
“Very,” Grim said. “More so than any female I’ve triggered, ever.” At Lyris’s shock, a thin smile curved his lips. “She is exceptional—and exceptionally volatile.”
“Can Arik contain her?” Jacob asked. A normal, his pale-as-death skin looked nearly translucent under the overhead lights.
