Chapter 9
Future Griffin’s Problems
Griffin
Present Day – Catastro Sea
Griffin leaned back on his bed. He guessed one of two things would happen. He would either have to go hunt her down or—
His door whipped open and slammed shut again, a pink-cheeked Raven filling his view.
Or…she would find him.
Griffin’s lips curled up on their own. She still wore the thin gown from before, the one meant to symbolize his intentions to wed.
Raven opened her mouth, but then her attention truly landed on Griffin. He had the pleasure of witnessing the color drain entirely from her face at the sight of him.
His torn shirt was presenting most of his chest, but it was his face she caught on. The dried blood, cracked lip, and his already swollen eye, the star attractions.
“Who?” She scrunched her nose, rubbing her temples. “Julian I’m guessing. He was vibrating in rage.”
Griffin had felt that something was off since she woke up, and he sensed it again at this moment.
There was no passion behind Raven’s words. She wasn’t angry, outraged, or any of the other countless emotions he expected her to depict. Instead, she almost seemed empty.
Hollow.
“Have the others noticed?” Griffin asked, cracking his neck and falling onto his elbows.
Raven leaned back against the door, keeping her space from him. “Noticed what?” she bit out.
He would allow her. For now.
“That you aren’t acting yourself. You’re empty.” Griffin mulled over her aura, what he knew of Raven.
The woman who had kissed him and then bit his lip for good measure. The one who had survived every game intact. The one he had saved only to then endure her wrath.
But she didn’t speak, instead watching warily from her vantage point.
He didn’t like it. It wouldn’t do. This wasn’t the woman who would survive a war, this would be a victim. A martyr who was killed off because she was too weak to fight. “We’re going to be married. Three weeks after we arrive in Grypheem.”
“No, I need to go back to Violencia,” Raven argued, but there was no passion in her voice. Instead, a dull monotone thread that pissed Griffin off.
His rage had been building every second they spent in this room, and he couldn’t control it any longer.
Jumping to his feet, he ignored the aches throughout his body from his encounter with Julian. He ate up the space between them until he towered over her.
Reaching behind her, he locked the door.
This room was small, but larger than hers. Griffin had attempted to put her in it, but Drago vetoed his efforts. She was Cherished, and therefore, she must be kept away from the crew, out of sight, hidden below deck, or so Drago had declared, much to Griffin’s chagrin.
The bed was in the center of his space. To the right, a desk built into the ship, and on the other wall a door led to a private bathroom.
He had half a mind to throw her over his shoulder and dump her into the shower, turning the cold water on to pull something from her.
“What do you want from me?” Raven angled her head up, meeting his gaze.
But her eyes were listless, her energy lacking any power. She reminded him of countless victims he had met in Violencia. The ones who had lost all hope.
“What happened to you? Shouldn’t you be angry?”
Raven expelled the air from her lungs, her breath intermingling with his. “I’m tired, Griffin.”
His name on her lips was a comet landing between them. Destroying any semblance of cohesivity. He ducked his head further, his lips pressing to hers. She was soft, pliable, sweet.
A dessert that he wanted to gorge on.
He wrapped his arm around her waist, his hand fanning her back, as he brought her closer to him. As he felt every curve of her body against his.
She wasn’t fighting him.
She wasn’t kissing him back.
He released her. “What is wrong with you? What has happened?”
The glassiness in her depths stole his breath, but he tempered himself. She opened her mouth but closed it again. Indecision marring her face.
He reached up, squeezing her chin, demanding her to stay in this moment with him.
“You will not survive like this. You went through those games with the intent to win. Well, think of it like that. You’re still in the games, Raven.
You still need to win. You need to have that driving force.
Otherwise you will die. Otherwise we will all die.
What about Sparrow? Don’t you want to return to her?
” He knew he had gone too far, but it had the designed reaction.
Her slap was sharp against his face, an additional sting overlaid onto the already forming bruises there.
“There's a quiet beat that comes in the absence of pain. When you aren't feeling what you should be.” Raven panted, ripping her chin free from his grip and physically pushing him back. Caught off guard, Griffin stumbled until the backs of his legs hit the bed.
But it had worked. There was anger in Raven’s voice. Distress.
“When your grief and sorrow leave your body, and instead of that deep abyss, you are left in a puddle.
It is manageable, you can stomp and splash in it.
But then there's the guilt. Why is this pond so shallow?
Why aren't your emotions trudging you downwards further, filling up the space around you?
Why are you okay when you shouldn't be?”
Griffin opened his mouth to speak but quickly closed it again.
“I am numb, Griffin. Numb to what has happened. To what is happening. It has been too much. I have to keep myself in this state, between good and bad. Pain and pleasure. It is how I will survive.”
“The shadow.” Griffin realized what had changed. This wasn’t Raven before him. This was her persona. The one he had learned about. A person who changed faces and emotions as required to survive. “You need more than that.”
Raven turned her head, refusing to look at him. “I have nothing else to offer. We aren’t going to marry. I will play along with this pretend wedding game, but once I am able to, I’m heading back to Violencia.”
Griffin bent forward, reaching for her wrist, grateful when she didn’t fight back. He dropped to the bed, tugging her gently with him. She landed next to him bowing her head, her hair falling forward. A curtain separating them.
He didn’t like that.
He tucked it carefully behind each ear, his fingers lingering longer than needed.
“Raven, the Cherished in my country, sacred or otherwise, are labeled as protected, but they are not. It is the most dangerous title you can have. But being a princess will keep you safe.” He chose not to explain further.
To not elaborate. How could he tell her having another to protect her was part of his plan?
That he had no intention to allow her to travel back to Violencia?
That there was a completely different country he wanted to tuck her away on until the world sorted itself out?
She was silent for several minutes before heaving a sigh. “I will play the part,” Raven obliged, her head lifting, allowing Griffin to see the anguish that danced across her face. “But it will be a part. Another persona. And I will only do so if you promise me that it will lead us to Violencia.”
Griffin held his tongue. There was a lot she needed to know, even more she would hate, but she could find out later.
That would be future Griffin’s problems.
“Nightingale has already set into motion targeted attacks.” Maybe if she knew the danger, she would forgive him.
Raven’s sharp intake was followed by her nails digging into his arm as she reached for him.
“Sparrow and Jayce will be kept safe,” Griffin continued quickly.
“Until they serve their purpose,” Raven’s voice pitched.
Griffin watched as she physically gathered herself, shaking her head and leveling him with a weighted look.
“What is the first step?”
He accepted the diversion. “Tomorrow we will land. You and I will be side-by-side and must present a united front. The people of Grypheem need to recognize you as my betrothed, it will garner you a semblance of safety.” He chose to leave out the man who would be on her other arm.
“The Sacred Cherished…they’re mothers?” Raven asked softly, her hand drifting towards her stomach.
Griffin watched her in a trance. A singular flash of their future landing in his mind. Of her pregnant with his child, of them together living out their life in peace.
He had never hoped to dream for a family, and he wouldn’t now. Not until this was all over.
He wasn’t sure he would survive what was to come, but Raven would be his prize if he did. “Yes, they’re mothers. And they are kept away from the population until they are chosen by their husbands.”
It was clear Raven didn’t like that answer, but also that she didn’t know the questions to ask, her mouth opening and closing a few times. Griffin hated it even more. Another piece of his country that needed to change.
“What of Ivan?” Raven jerked her head up, her eyes meeting his.
Griffin wanted to lie to her, but he physically couldn’t. “Drago’s men did not find him on the island. Nightingale’s people have not located him with the other players that arrived back in Violencia.”
Raven inhaled a sharp breath. “Where is he? How could he have escaped?”
Griffin didn’t want to tell her his suspicions, but he recognized that he needed to.
That her other men would keep it from her.
To protect her. “He… He is probably enroute to Grypheem…with us.” Ivan’s uniform being found had been just the tip.
34’s murder had launched his concern, her broken neck too familiar to ignore the connections.
But they had already searched the ship, there hadn’t been any sign of a stowaway. And Oleks continued to follow his trail with no luck. However, that didn’t mean he wasn’t on their vessel.
Just that he was good at hiding.
And that was what Ivan was known for. What he was best at. Hiding in plain sight.
His reputation preceded him.
The founder of the Retrieval Faction who then betrayed his own people.