Page 63 of Griffin Undone
Sun glanced up, face grim. “Gone?”
I nodded.
Sun grunted in response. The faint scuff of a boot against pavement pulled my attention to Baer. The werewolf didn’t even have time to sit up before Basile was on top of him.
“Where did he go?” the Archai hissed.
Pain sliced through my eardrums as the frequency of the words fluctuated through the air. Shit, a basilisk. A wet trickle of blood dripped from my ear to hit my neck as I ran toward the pair. “Sun!”
The prince was already moving. “Bas, stop.”
“Tell me where,” Basile demanded, the words followed by a hiss that tore through my brain like a serrated blade through flesh, driving me to my knees. The trickle became a stream.
Sun crawled forward, one hand pressed to his bleeding ear. “Bas, no. Secure him, now.” He threw a look farther into the alley. “James, Cale, come.”
The two males stepped forward, but Basile didn’t even look up. “Tell me!” he roared.
Baer’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped in Basile’s hold, blacking out.
“Damn it!” Sun lunged, grabbed Basile’s fists, and forced them to open. He threw the werewolf hard toward the opening of the alley. “Cale, secure the bastard,” he commanded. A black-capped warrior rushed forward, pulling Baer’s hands behind his back to secure with titanium bands. Sun spun back to Basile, capturing the shifter’s plunge toward the enemy. “No. Basile, no! We need him,” he yelled into the male’s beefy shoulder, feet sliding as the basilisk plowed forward. “We need answers. Listen to me!”
And all at once, the shifter crumpled, hands fisted in Sun’s black shirt, knees hitting the ground as sobs overtook him. I was aware of the one called Cale moving from Baer, past me to the shifter whose neck I had broken, securing him like his brother. The metallic scent of blood, fear, and the dry scent of death enveloped the alley. Warmth at my side told me the last of Sun’s warrior had joined us, but it was Basile’s massive form that filled my vision, even from several feet away, the male’s grief at once disturbing and all too familiar.
See,my parents’ ghosts screamed in my mind.See the devastation he causes, the pain? See what happens when you get distracted?It was like watching a tornado headed for someone’s house after your own has been annihilated, and knowing there is not a damn thing you can do about it—except it wasn’t a house that had been destroyed, and Maddox wasn’t Mother fucking Nature by any stretch of the imagination.
And yet…this was what I wanted, wasn’t it? For both sides to die?
The Archai next to me, tall, lean, and tough, spoke. “Thomas—” His rough voice cracked, broke. Wet tracks streaked his cheeks, glistening in the moon’s pale light. “Thomas was his adopted son,” he stated quietly, and another piece of my soul caved in.
“James,” Sun said to the warrior, “contact Demetri. Get a vehicle here. Have them ready a room for interrogation.”
The words pulled me back to reality. Baer and his brother held valuable information. The location of Maddox’s compound, I already knew, but Baer could help me get inside. Without his brother, though, there’d be no leverage to get the big guy to talk. “You’re not taking them anywhere.” I gestured to the door Sun had exited such a short time ago. “Question them here.”
“Forget it,” Cale barked, walking over to stand next to Sun.
“You are not leaving with those males. Maddox is mine, and they”—I pointed at the prisoners—“are going to lead me to him. So back off.”
The warrior’s voice filled with venom. “They should’ve killed you years ago when they had the chance.”
“What the fuck do you know about it?”
Cale pulled the black knit hat from his head before gesturing to his hair. “Take a good look, asshole. I know all I need to know about it.”
My breath choked off in my throat as faint light shimmered across the male’s white-blond hair. Nine hundred years had passed since I’d seen a male with hair the color of mine—nine hundred years with no family, no connections. And now, here, was a shifter obviously of my line.
Figures he’d be as ready to kill me as everyone else was.
Catching my stare, Cale allowed his griffin to surface, eyes glowing with deadly purpose as a warning growl rumbled out. Drawing his blade, he stalked toward me, seeking to force me back and away from the werewolves.
Idiot.
I watched the swing of the Archai’s walk, waiting until the closest arm hit the top of its arc, and lunged. My blade slashed across Cale’s undefended ribs in a swift drive-by. Cale jumped back to avoid losing his intestines and hit the brick wall.
I surged forward, spinning my knife blade out in midstep to extend my reach. Before I could follow through, clawed hands dug into my shoulders and jerked me onto my back.
I flipped back onto my feet the instant my spine hit the concrete. I crouched and spun, blade slashing toward my attacker’s ankles, hoping to catch an Achilles tendon. The male—Sun—leaped up and back. “Damn it, Arik, there’s been enough death tonight.”
“I doubt we’d care as long as it’s his,” Cale said, one hand clutching his bloody side. “Go ahead. Save us all some trouble.”
