Page 89 of Griffin Undone
Relief mingled with confusion. “I thought you wanted Sun and the clan to pay as well. For abandoning you when you needed them. For hunting you.”
Arik’s lips tightened into a hard line. For a long moment all he did was stare. “I did. I do. But I can’t have it both ways, not…” He shook his head again. “I just can’t.”
Nothing else. I waited for some explanation, something further, something maybe more…personal, but it never came. Finally, unable to take the silence any longer, I turned my hand beneath his, twined our fingers together like I feared he would run—a very real fear—and cleared my throat. “Arik…about last night—”
I couldn’t miss the deep breath he sucked in. Rushing ahead, fearful that he’d cut me off, I blurted, “What was that? Not my power, not the apartment…That.”
“That,” he repeated. He knew what I meant; I could see it in his eyes, feel it in the way his fingers tightened on mine before relaxing. “That was…a psychic connection.”
“Don’t we already have that when we use telepathy?”
He nodded, the skin around his eyes going tight. Why did I suddenly feel like I was asking him to explain the birds and the bees?
“A light connection, yes. Most Archai allow a shallow glimpse into their head when they open themselves up to telepathy. But the kind of connection we made last night was deeper, one shared by…lovers.”
Okay, lovers. I got that. “But it didn’t happen the other times we…”
His gaze dropped to our clasped hands. “No.”
He didn’t elaborate. I tried again. “Does it happen all the time? What causes it? Have you—” No, I didn’t want to know if he’d ever felt that before. The things I’d seen last night, intimate things I had no desire to study in detail, didn’t seem to indicate it, but I wasn’t going to pull out the memories and examine them. What I remembered was enough, thanks.
“It…it happens when there’s intense emotion.”
Intensewas such an inadequate word for what we’d shared. “I felt everything.” The words came out quiet, with a ribbon of awe I couldn’t quite hide. “It was like I was inside you, and you were inside me. Was it like that for you?”
Arik’s expression softened. He pushed my hair back, tucking it behind my ear before cupping my neck. “Yes. Yes, it was.” In his eyes I saw the shock, the surprise I’d also felt, the tinge of unease at the vulnerability we’d both been plunged into in that moment. Only the complete, pure, undeniable need we’d experienced could have urged two such wary souls to blend together, nothing held back. Neither of us was used to that. The question was, did he want it again, or was this a one-time deal? I’d read what I thought was everything last night, but his feelings for me… Try as I might, I couldn’t pin that down.
“So—”
He stopped my words by leaning forward and taking my mouth. The heat burning in his kiss lit me on fire. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, could only drown in the blaze that overtook me—that overtook us both, if Arik’s rough grip on me told the truth.
I wanted to know for sure, wanted to see if the connection we’d built last night was still there, but I couldn’t bring myself to try. If I did and Arik rejected me, turned away…I didn’t know if I could bear it.
Long minutes later Arik released me with a final nip to my bottom lip. Nose to nose, he smiled down at me, probably at the dazed look I was certain I wore. These were the moments I lived for, the moments when revenge and the past were stripped away and Arik was right here, with me, in the moment. But before the teasing in his eyes could escape his mouth, the computer beeped. An instant message popped up in one corner of the central monitor.
Arik turned, his hand sliding from mine, leaving me cold. A grunt left him as he opened the message.
I watched as he read. “Important?”
“Sun.”
I held my breath.
“I’ve been casing the Anigma base,” Arik told me. “I’d thought, between your skill and mine, it would be an easy in and out—not to take everything, but…” He frowned. “Anyway, we need more manpower, and Sun has it.”
I understood. He’d had one goal to accomplish, and it wasn’t to destroy the entire Anigma force. That be Sun’s job apparently. “So it’s no longer just Maddox you want?” I pulled my feet onto the seat and rested my chin on my knees.
“Oh, I still want Maddox. I want the chance to actually taste his blood myself.” His gaze ran down my arms, touching on the puncture wounds from Maddox’s claws, the mottled bruises from the shifter’s viselike grip. “He’ll still be mine; that’s part of the deal. Leaving the Anigma forces in the Southeast crippled—that’s a bonus.”
“One attack can’t cripple the Anigma. They’ve been around as long as the Archai, haven’t they?”
“Since before I was born, just before the Great War began. Shifters seeking power existed before, but the Anigma as a force to conquer the Archai jelled around then.” He drew one knee up, mirroring my position, but I didn’t think he noticed. “The Archai assumed at the end of the war that they’d damaged the enemy beyond the ability to regroup. They were wrong. The Anigma simply went underground until they could grow their power base once again. I’ve known all along that the Anigma still existed, but…” He shrugged, and I understood what he wasn’t saying, that the Archai would have needed to believe him about Maddox before they would believe him about the Anigma. They hadn’t. “Now Maddox has figured out how to find and harvest psychs—and if he’s figured it out, you can bet the rest of the Anigma have as well. There’s only one reason to do that: they’re ready for another war. That can’t happen.”
I didn’t understand why Arik cared about that now. He hadn’t wanted to hit the Anigma itself before, only Maddox and the Archai. What had changed that he now wanted to ensure the Archai were safe?
“So with Sun’s help, you’ll have Maddox, and the Anigma won’t be able to benefit from the leftovers if their southeastern forces are crippled.”
“Yes.”
