Page 40 of Griffin Undone
At least until Fink slid through the door.
I raised a brow, refusing to give the Anigma HQ bureaucratic—and not so secret snitch—the satisfaction of releasing the snarl that crouched in my throat. Too obvious and too little reward.
“Get me the lead sheets,” I growled instead.
Fink squeaked like the weasel he was and scrambled to gather the stack of papers secured on a clipboard hanging nearby. Baer would search for my female until I could join them, but in the meantime, Anigma HQ expected deliveries. My troops would test the other females they’d been ordered to acquire in the area. Not that all of them would make it to HQ; some died, and some…well, what HQ—and Fink—didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
Not until my secession began, anyway. My hidden stockpile of females grew daily.
Fink’s gaze slunk to the now-closed door. “You never said how you so easily identified the griffin that attacked your team,” he mused.
I kept my attention on the paperwork before me. “I ate his parents for dinner a long time ago.”
That shut the weasel up.
Damn, I wished Feral wasn’t dead. The male had served as my second for decades. Just one more reason to find the psych: revenge, for removing my second’s head from his shoulders, for spilling my guts on the ground, and for leaving me stuck with this weak-spined traitor as my new right hand. If I hadn’t been planning my exit from the Anigma in the very near future, the aptly nicknamed Fink would be wolf food already. Just like Arik’s parents. Unfortunately the fool couldn’t die just yet. Wouldn’t want to draw attention to ourselves.
I had served the Anigma for nine hundred years, since earning my entry with Rivalen’s death. I had clawed my way to the top, only to hit the glass ceiling of Bricriuu’s death and the subsequent takeover by shifters so mired in bureaucratic bullshit they couldn’t tell the difference between real power and their own flatulent emissions. That choke chain had run the course of my patience long ago. My plan for independence was set; all I needed was the last of the psychs in the area under my control.
“A little behind, aren’t you?” a quiet voice asked.
Fink startled. The clipboard clattered to the floor, and papers scattered across the expanse of concrete, muffling his steps as he rounded one side of the desk, scrambling to put it between him and the unexpected guest standing in front of the door. The closed door that I’d never heard open. I snarled, both at Fink’s proximity and the presence of a stranger who had bypassed every security measure and entered my office with no warning whatsoever.
“Guards!”
The stranger smiled. “They are incapacitated at the moment. But you won’t need them.”
“Who the fuck are you, and what are you doing in my office?” Quivering with the need to attack, I scented the air. What I found forced a growl through my tight throat: Fink stunk of surprise, but underneath I found a fine film of anticipation. That meant the stranger was Anigma, brought in because Fink the Weasel had done what he did best: tattled. My lip pulled back from my fangs as another growl escaped.
Ignoring my display, the stranger settled into parade rest, confirming my suspicions. Bigger than any shifter I had seen, the male’s breadth and width spoke to a deadly animal form, while his electric green eyes screamednot humanto anyone who saw them. The scent of foreign power swirled into the room on a tardy breeze.
“Your deliveries are late,” the shifter informed me.
The voice slid along my mind like silk, at once taunting and mesmerizing. I realized I was shaking my head, refusing the lure of surrender. “I said, who the—”
“You walk a fine line, Maddox, not the least of which is the reckless nature of your…procedures.” The stranger blinked, a light going out, returning, tempting his audience, tempting me to submit. “If you didn’t want attention, wolf, you should’ve sent your deliveries to us on time.Allof them.”
I turned my head to meet Fink’s eyes, promising death with a look. So, time was up. What was a handful of psychs, anyway? I’d win either way. At least I wouldn’t have to tolerate my new second’s presence beyond tonight.
My werewolf crawled up my throat, clawing, calculating. The faint red glow of my eyes cast shadows across the desk. “Delays are inevitable in our line of work. If that’s why they sent you, the Anigma chain of command can go fuck itself. As far as I’m concerned—”
The stranger stepped forward, the strong jut of his jawline and that scowling mouth clear in the red-tinted light. Just one step, that was all, but something about the action cut my thought in two and left me silent, my animal’s howls filling my mind with its need for retribution.
The sound of a boot meeting concrete resonated in my brain, drowning out my wolf, locking my breath in my lungs.
For one sizzling moment, the stranger was there, inside me, reading all that I was and all that I knew, sizing me up and finding me wanting. No movement, no indication of awareness, just that searing instant of a scouring presence inside me, and then it was gone and my breath rushed out in near-soundless fury.
What he’d done was impossible. No shifter, even the most powerful healers I’d encountered, wielded that kind of telepathic power. And yet my brain felt like it had been stripped bare with a bucketful of steel wool. My animal raged harder, working himself into a frenzy behind the iron bars of my control. My eyelids slid closed for the briefest second.
Wait. Watch,I told my wolf.Our chance will come.
I raised my eyelids. One corner of the stranger’s mouth lifted a hair, his gaze holding me hostage. In the stranger’s eyes, I saw knowledge no one, not even my brothers, had managed to attain. I gathered myself, waiting for the ax to fall.
Only silence came. Those eyes held no surprise at the discovery of my hidden cache. Was the shifter here to demand compliance, or for something else?
Staring into those eerie green eyes, I realized I was leaning toward the something else.
“What do you want?” I finally asked, my words dripping ice.
