Page 92 of Griffin Undone
My eyes shot up to his, wide enough they ached. Arik appeared equally startled, but the moment was lost as a massive male stepped around the corner of the building.
“They’re waiting,” the male said, his voice containing a faint hiss that sounded odd to my ears.
Arik inclined his head toward the Archai. “Thank you, Basile. Please lead the way.”
“You know him?” I whispered, forgetting all about telepathy as we followed the hulking shoulders clearing a way through the dark.
“We’ve met,” Basile said, then turned into an alcove at the back of the building that protected the rear entry. He opened a heavy steel door that definitely didn’t fit the neglected air of the property, and gestured for us to enter.
Arik walked inside. I followed, sandwiched between the two males as we made our way through an empty storage room into what looked like the ruins of the main selling floor. Thick, black-painted plywood covered the windows, caulk around the edges keeping all light in and darkness out. The wide room, though brightly lit, felt tiny from the sheer bulk of the shifters taking up the space. I reached out a shaking hand, feeling like a coward as I gripped a belt loop near Arik’s hip, but I needed the connection to drag me forward when my feet would have frozen to the floor.
They all stared…at me.
Every Archai fell silent when Arik and I entered the room, more than a half dozen males and one female turning their undivided, uncomfortable attention on me. It would’ve been too much for anyone, all that aggression and intense concentration, but for me it was paralyzing.“What the hell are they looking at?”I asked Arik, voice shaking even in my head.
Arik reached back and tugged my hand off his fatigues, securing it in his grip. Every pair of eyes dropped to our clasped hands. I was beginning to sweat when Sun appeared from another hallway.
The relief was so intense my muscles wilted. I focused on the only familiar shifter in the room and prayed he at least would act normal. “Sun.”
Arik stiffened in front of me.
Sun rounded a square of long tables in the center of the space and hurried toward us. His broad shoulders cut off the view of everyone else, thank God. “Kat!” He took the last few steps, boots thumping on the concrete floor, to stop a couple of feet before Arik, a relieved smile on his face, arms wide open. I started to circle Arik.
He stepped to the side, blocking me.
Not his decision to make. My free hand on his side, I gave him a subtle push with my power and darted around him, though still well within reach. Sun gathered me quickly into a bear hug, nearly squeezing me to death before he finally eased back.
“You look better than the last time I saw you,” he said, swirling eyes taking in every detail of my appearance—the bruises, the shallow cuts that still hadn’t fully healed. At least my winter clothes hid the damage to my body. Considering the last time he’d seen me, I’d blacked out after making my apartment explode, I probably did look better, but despite his words, his expression was tight with concern.
Arik cleared his throat behind me. Sun’s focus shifted over my shoulder to Arik before glancing to the side, and his eyes went molten.
I turned my head in that direction, meeting the gaze of a tall blond warrior as it bored into me. Uncertain, I looked back at Sun, only to find anger darkening the prince’s rainbow-colored eyes. Without warning his arms clamped down tight around my body.
I winced. “S-Sun—”
Sun nodded sharply in the warrior’s direction.
Behind me Arik growled, low and angry. The next instant, everything shot to hell. A blur of motion, shouts and growls and hisses, Arik’s desperation shooting through my mind. I fought, heart hammering my ribs, but to no avail. In seconds Sun had me across the room, my back to his chest, his grip solid. Shock held me still as I watched four shifters securing Arik to a chair against the opposite wall.
They were taking me away from him. Taking me away from my mate.
My mate.
Arik fought, his snarls filling the air. I saw the moment he tried to surrender to the change, but Basile, the male who’d escorted us in, grasped his chin and snarled right back. “Don’t,” he warned. His strangely reptilian gaze shot to me, and whether it was a threat or not, Arik seemed to take it as such. He subsided, shaking, expression nearly feral as he stared at the shifter nose to nose with him.
“Sun, no!” I jerked fruitlessly against the prince’s unbreakable grip. The bruises and cuts on my body stung, but I ignored the pain, ignored everything but the compulsion to get free and get to Arik.
Sun’s hold remained firm, but he didn’t harm me. His voice boomed across the room, clear enough to be heard by every shifter present. “Arik Rand, son of the honored male Rivalen, kidnapped a female Archai, taking her from the safety of the clan and the care of our healer. Threatening the life of a female is a crime punishable by death.”
A wave of pain and terror engulfed me. I was drowning, dying. “No,” I gasped. “Arik!”
Sun continued without a pause. “The female Katherine Lane will be returned to the clan. Azrael, come. Take her.”
The warrior who’d stared me down earlier stepped forward. Fisted hands. Cut jaw. Chilling black eyes. It all registered in the split second it took for Sun to push me toward the male; then he was there, his long fingers biting into my arms. I kicked out, terrified at the idea of going anywhere with this shifter, of being taken to a place where I knew no one and nothing. Among strangers,without my mate.
“My mate.”That voice, the one from the last time I and Arik had made love, growled in my mind. Roared. Mixed with my anguish and panic. The combination churned into a volatile weapon. Without thinking, I forced my hands up, laying them against the warrior’s heavy chest, and half cried, half screamed my command. “Stop!”
The shifter flew backward. The disruption provided the cover I needed to get across the room without being stopped. Only the quick rise of four weapons, all aimed directly at Arik’s blond head, halted my progress.
