Chapter Seventeen
Neith
To be honest, that whole conversation filled me with intrigue, and I desperately wanted to know who these people were.
Especially since from the way that he said it, it sounded like it was someone who had far more power than anyone at HID, and Ty spoke of them pretty fondly too, which means that there’s a human in power who doesn’t share the usual hatred toward supernaturals.
However, my inquiries were shot down with a finality that told me I’m most likely never going to be privy to that knowledge. So I’ve let it go.
For now.
I’m insatiably curious, there will no doubt be a time when I circle back to that. Hopefully, the opportunity to investigate will conveniently appear, and then I can call it a happy accident.
Where was I?
Right, listing everything that we need to do, that’s what I was doing.
We have taken down the sales, which is a massive win for us, although The Owner has still escaped. That’s taken away Casimir’s easy access to supes to experiment on, and he knows we’re actively hunting him, so that’s made him more cautious.
I suppose we aren’t going to know anything for sure until he makes his next move. I am hoping that he takes a while to make another move. We have other things that we need to deal with, and I would like to have the time to deal with them properly.
The one chess piece that I wish we could move off the chessboard is Murray.
We know that she helped Derek, which means that she was most likely helping other people as well, bad, assholey people, but we don’t know why.
The fact that she could be being controlled by Casimir, especially since we know that there was a shared history there anyway, is concerning to say the least.
Murray is powerful, I mean, she has to be in order to be the leader of the witches and warlocks of her territory. It takes a hell of a lot of power to keep them in line, they have a reputation for not taking life very seriously, even when they should.
Actually, now that I think about it, Ransom doesn’t seem to have those qualities.
We’re assuming that Pete and Murray may be together, or that Murray is on her way to Pete, since she’s gone missing since we freed Merrikh from his prison in the basement of Derek’s house and broke the spells that she had personally cast in order to keep him in there.
Which means that she had alerts built into them.
I have no idea if those alerts let her know who broke the spells or simply that they had been broken, which means that Merrikh had most likely filled whoever freed him in on who helped to put him there in the first place.
Which made her disappear just in case. I don’t even know if her disappearance will have any consequences for the witches and warlocks that she’s supposed to be in charge of.
Either way, that’s something else that we need to do sooner rather than later.
Find Pete. My father.
Yikes.
Hopefully, Kar is going to work his magic, literally, and we’ll have a location for him within a week.
We need to warn Pete, and I have a few questions that I need to ask, although if you asked me what they were right now, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.
I know that there are things that I should want to ask, things that I probably need to ask, but I don’t know what they are.
I’m sort of hoping that they will all hit me when I see him, but there’s no guarantee that they will.
Maybe I should start writing them down when I do think of them. That’s a great idea.
If I’m being honest, I am kind of struggling to reconcile the Pete that I know with the fact that he is supposed to be my dad.
I still have no memory of him or my mother, and if I’m being completely honest with myself, again, I have been avoiding thinking too much about it. Which hasn’t been hard because we’ve been so busy with everything else, and we continue to be really fucking busy.
The list that I’ve just made in my mind in order to stop myself from feeling so nervous about meeting Griff’s family doesn’t even cover everything that it needs to.
There’s more, and there are always things that we’re adding.
“They’re going to love you, stop worrying,” Griff says close to my ear, shocking me because I had no idea that he was that close to me.
He chuckles at my reaction, so I do the mature adult thing and move quickly to lick the side of his face.
“Ew, Neith,” Griff chuckles as he wipes the side of his face.
“Technically, that was your fault,” I point out with no logic whatsoever and a giant smile.
“Of course it was,” Griff agrees, his eyes dancing with amusement.
“We’re nearly at the shore. What's the plan?” Reed asks Griff.
“We’re most likely going to be surrounded pretty fucking quickly, but because we came by the clan boats, it should at least give them pause.
Let me do the talking,” Griff says. His eyebrows are furrowed and his chocolate eyes dark with worry.
He’s clearly not happy about the way that we’re doing this, but there is no other way to do it.
Everyone in our boat nods, and Van sends a quick text to the other boat to let them know the plan.
“The wards that they’ve got around this place are really strong and old too. They are older than any that I have felt for a while, and I have definitely never felt them on this scale,” Ransom says as he looks up. “They’re pretty far out too.”
Griff nods, “I think there is a five-mile perimeter around the island before the wards start. It means that they will be alerted well in time to get to the beach before we arrive. I’m hoping that someone recognizes my energy, but with there being so many of us, it will mix our magical signatures, so it’s unlikely. Hence the caution.”
“Understood, we’ll follow your lead, man,” Reed replies, and as we get closer to the shore, I feel him pull his magic in, locking it down tightly.
Our boat hits the shore first, and the guys begin to drag it up to the rocky beach as the other boat arrives, and they jump out to the same.
“Incoming,” Baz says tensely, his eyes on the sky.
We abandon our bags in the boats and turn to face the woodland in front of us. As we all move closer to Griff, he stays at the front of the group. He looks up, a huge smile on his face as ten gargoyles appear and drop to the ground.
Thankfully, I see recognition light the eyes of the one who lands first, but it confuses me when he points a spear at Griff. The spear is the only slightly archaic thing about him, he’s otherwise dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt. It’s quite a juxtaposition, really.
“Who dares step foot on our land?” The guy asks gruffly.
We all tense.
Griff just chuckles and bats the spear out of the way, “Fuck off, Lachlan. You don’t recognize your own brother?”
A twinkle enters the other guy, Lachlan’s, eyes, “Well, maybe I would if he visited more than once a fucking year. Ma’s going to lose her shit, you’re in for it. Actually, that may be punishment enough. Come here, you fucker.”
Griff chuckles as he pulls his brother in for a hug and then waves at the people behind him.
“It’s been a while,” one of them says with a grin. “What brings you back?”
“We need to talk to the Chief, actually,” Griff says.
Lachlan’s eyebrows rise as he looks over Griff’s shoulder at the rest of us, his eyes lingering on me with curiosity for a moment, “Aye, in that case, you’re probably going to want to see him before Ma catches wind of you being here, especially since you’ve brought a lass home with you.”
Griff chuckles and glances back at me with a warm smile, and then tugs me under his arm, making Lachlan’s grin widen even more.
“Aye, that’s probably a good idea,” Griff agrees with a grin. “You remember the guys, right?”
Lachlan nods, “Yes, apart from you two.”
“Coen,” he introduces himself. “And this is Baz.”
“Nice to meet ya, come on. The word will spread pretty quickly when we get back to the village, and then there will be no escaping Ma,” Lachlan chuckles. He looks behind him at the group of gargoyles and instructs them to head back and let the Chief know that we’re coming.
His accent is pretty strong, but it’s not so strong that I can’t understand what he’s saying. I’m pretty sure he’s doing it for our benefit, but I’m grateful.
I’m also grateful because it means that Griff’s accent is coming out a bit more.
Holy sexy gargoyle batman.
Weird analogy.
“Should I be worried?” I ask Griff quietly.
He glances down at me with concern, “About what?”
“Your mom?”
He grins, “Oh no, she’s just going to be happy to meet you. I’ve, er, never brought a girl home before.”
“You haven’t?” I ask with a confused frown.
“Nope,” he replies simply, clearly not willing to explain any more, and I suppose that’s fair despite how insanely curious I am.
“Are we walking?” Lachlan asks.
“Can we use our magic now?” River asks with a grin.
Lachlan returns it and nods, “Aye, it’s safe now we know that you are here and that you aren’t a threat to us.”
“In that case, we can fly. I presume that’s quicker?” Reed asks.
Lachlan nods, “Definitely.”
“I’m going to run, if that’s okay?” River asks.
“Sure, no problem. Don’t get fucking lost,” Van replies.
River grins and hops from foot to foot, “I make no promises.”
Baz chuckles, “I’ll go with him.”
“Are you sure you can keep up, old man?” River asks.
Baz just smiles and shakes his head with amusement.
“Alright, let’s go,” Griff says. He looks at me, “Neith, you’re with me.”
I nod. Message received loud and clear. I am being carried and not using my wings. That’s fair enough, they’re pretty unique, and if Griff would rather I didn’t use them, then I’m going to trust his judgment, especially since this is his territory.
Plus, I’ll never say no to being carried by Griff.
“Whoa,” Lachlan mutters as Coen transforms, and those of us who can’t fly jump on, along with the bags that they’ve gathered from the boat. “I was not expecting that.”
Griff chuckles, but doesn’t say anything as he launches himself up into the air with me in his arms.
After a moment of flying, and with Lachlan at the front flying next to Coen and talking to Van on his back, asking a million questions, I figure that it’s safe to ask Griff a question.
“Is there a particular reason that I should know about why I can’t show my wings? Is it just my wings or my other shifted thingy’s too?”
Griff looks down at me, his eyes full of mischief as he replies, “Oh, there is no reason. I just wanted to hold you for longer.”
I burst out laughing and then kiss him, trusting him to keep us in the air and not to let us crash into anything.
When I pull back, I ask, “Okay, so just to clarify, if the opportunity arises again for me to fly, then I’m okay to do so?”
Griff nods, “Yes, you should be, but trust your instincts. I’m not home enough to be able to say one hundred percent that it's safe for you to do that here, and would rather that you were more cautious than not.”
I nod, “Understood. I like being carried anyway.”
“Good,” he replies with a happy smile before he kisses me again. “I have no intention of stopping carrying you, and I know that the others don’t either.”
I quickly get distracted from our conversation when we fly over the gargoyle village.
It’s beautiful, consisting of all stone buildings of various shapes and sizes, and with the wisps of smoke rising up from chimneys, and the freshly fallen snow, it all looks rather magical.
The village is bigger than I thought, and judging from the number of houses that are here, there are actually a lot more people living here than I thought too.
This is not a small place, but that makes sense.
Griff’s clan has been living here for hundreds of years, and from what I’ve gathered, they weren’t a small clan when they decided to settle here in the first place.
I also learned that most gargoyles are quite happy to live and work here, preferring to be around their own kind, and with a good distance between them and humans.
There’s a fearful cautiousness that surrounds that part of their history.
Despite the number of houses below us, there aren’t many people around, either in the air or down below, and that makes sense too because the sun is beginning it’s decent, and the chill in the air that was pretty brutal anyway has upped the ante.
Damn, it’s fucking cold.
I turn my face into Griff’s chest, even more grateful that he’s carrying me, and I’m not trying to fly while this cold. Despite the fact that he’s flying, he hasn’t completely shifted, and he’s radiating heat. Blessed heat.