Chapter 33 Tattoos
Tattoos
Griffin
Just Over Two Years Ago - Grypheem
He had been back in this castle for two years and he had already gone half-insane. He was stuck on the grounds, forced to exist. Nothing more and nothing less. Drago had strategically removed any of the communication devices he could use to contact the outside world.
All that had kept Griffin sane were the monthly envelopes delivered to his quarters like clock-work.
The ones from Anadil. Except she never wrote anything to him, she simply sent him pictures of Raven. Of Julian. Of Oleks.
Tormenting him, forcing him to learn the cruelties they all faced, the evil they all endured. His heart was breaking for a woman he had chosen to despise over and over again.
Both keeping him sane and leading him closer to the edge of insanity.
He was back to his quarters now, a picture of Raven tucked in his breast pocket. Of her in another disguise, a single word beneath it.
Shadow.
His brother had mentioned the name on more than one occasion, but it was clear he had no idea who the Shadow was. Just that she was causing issues for him with his endeavors back in Violencia. The ones Griffin was kept locked out of.
Opening his door, he froze.
Every piece of surface was covered in wooden griffins. Carved figurines strewn across the ground, his bed, the couch.
Is this a threat? Or…
He had made a lot of enemies in his time in Violencia, but so far it had been quiet. Were they just biding their time?
He ran into the room, turning to shut the doors but paused at the sight of one his brother’s advisors, Charles, on the other side.
The advisor raised a finger to their lips, their sleeve falling just a bit.
Griffin slammed them the rest of the way, but he swore as he did, he made out a familiar tattoo.
He didn’t let the thought land, making quick work of tossing the figurines into the fireplace.
Present Day - Grypheem
“Prince Griffin—”
“Sir!”
“Prince!”
“Sir Griffin—”
Julian laughed as Griffin clasped his hands over his head. He hated this, the attention, the buzz of noise.
He wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed with Raven, to wrap himself around her and…
An older man he recognized as one of his late father’s advisors approached him. They were in the center of the great hall, and Griffin and Julian were working hand-in-hand to answer decorating questions.
A waste of my fucking time.
“Prince Griffin.” The man offered a deep bow, his nose nearly touching his knees, which was made more impressive by his formidable age.
But looking at him, it would be hard to think this man was over thirty.
A laboratory-born. An unnatural.
They always appeared younger than their age. Many had shunned these citizens for the difference, but Griffin’s father had employed them. Kept them close.
Raised one as his own son.
“Phillip.” Griffin acknowledged, offering a smile. “Rise please. This is Julian, he is to be my, uh—”
My husband.
Griffin gulped down the insanity of those words.
Phillip straightened before offering Julian the slightest of bows as well, it was more than anyone else had done at this point. A show of respect where most others had ignored Julian entirely. Philip’s bright gray eyes flickered in amusement but then he focused his intensity on Griffin.
“Please know, Prince, you have support in corners you wouldn’t expect.” Phillip tucked some of his platinum hair behind his ear, offering a quick view of a griffin tattooed there before letting it fall forward again and marching away.
The sight caused Griffin’s mouth to dry. While griffins were the emblem of their country, getting a tattoo of one…well, it wasn’t the norm. A body was to remain unmarred.
Tattoos across the Sacred Trinity were frowned upon for that reason.
The fact that Phillip had one was surprising in and of itself, but with it being a griffin...
Griffin’s attention bounced across the room, to all the men who were hurrying around them.
Were there more tattoos hidden? Was what I saw all those years before exactly what I thought?
“We must take our leave!” Griffin advised, grabbing hold of Julian and dragging him along as he fled the room, but he didn’t stop there, continuing until they were outside, a fresh dusting of snow crunching beneath his boots.
It was too much.
Too much responsibility. Too much to take on.
“What’s going on?” Julian panted, his face quickly turning pink. “Fuck, it’s cold.” He wrapped his arms around himself.
Griffin released him, continuing towards the hedges, needing to be out of sight, needing to breathe. The cold was nothing to the flames of anxiety that licked up his throat.
He didn’t expect to see two people already in his hiding space in the maze of hedges, and he froze in horror.
He didn’t want his meltdown to be witnessed.
Oleks was the first to reach him, to wrap him in a light hug, to rub methodical circles on his back. “Breathe.” The word was a hypnosis, a forceful proclamation that his body responded to.
Griffin allowed the man to comfort him. Just as they had each other for years. “I thought you despised me.”
Oleks froze for a single instance before starting the circles up again. “It took a single day of being here to understand you are nothing like them. I forgave you years ago for your deception. For not informing me that you were exactly who we fought against.”
“Griffin?” Raven’s voice was a soft lilt that infiltrated Griffin’s anxiety.
Her hands found him next, wrapping him in a half hug.
His breathing calmed and he heard the crunch of boots in the snow as Julian caught up to him.
“What’s going on?” Raven asked. He noted she and Oleks were both wearing masks, and he was grateful at Oleks’s forethought.
“A man showed us his griffin tattoo and then Griffin was dragging me out here,” Julain explained.
“Julian and I were imprisoned for a short while together, and after that, I returned here. Determined to never have any part of the Griffin gang again. But then rumors of what I had been doing spread. The wooden carved griffins started showing up in my room. I thought it was a threat. And then I caught sight of what I thought might be a griffin tattoo…but I don’t want to do this again.
I don’t want to lead men to their doom. I don’t want to…
” Griffin didn’t want to be King, he had never wanted that kind of power.
He had wanted to make a difference but on his own terms. And if there were men pledging their allegiance to him, getting that tattoo…
He had imagined Raven as his queen, but not in the literal sense.
“We are going to war. It is inevitable,” Oleks advised under his breath, staring up at Griffin. “Their capturing of Levi has solidified that.”
Raven released him next, flicking her attention between the three men. “We need to rescue Levi. When are we doing that?”
“After the wedding,” Griffin replied easily.
He would rescue Levi for her. As everything he did was for her.
He wasn’t sure when his heart had changed, when she had filled it, but now he was singular-minded in keeping her safe.
Bending down, he plucked a wilted hibiscus from the ground, rolling it in his fingers, focusing on it.
Allowing the distraction to calm him. These flowers were the only ones that survived the weather here.
“Will that be before or after your brother leads us to war with Violencia?” Raven’s voice was harsher than Griffin expected, and he whipped his eyes up to her. “Did you know he came for my blood today?”
Griffin frowned. “Why would—” He shook his head, the reason compressing him into the ground, the flower falling from his fingers onto the snow. “To check. It’s only been a few days, the Priestess must be applying pressure. That isn’t good.”
“When will the pre-marital ceremony be? And what exactly is it?” Raven’s questions this time were harder than the last.
Griffin choked on his own tongue.
“You need to tell her. She needs to be prepared for it,” Julian moved around him, walking to Raven and wrapping his arms around her from behind.
She leaned back against him, but her attention didn’t leave Griffin. Her chin jutted up in defiance. “Tell me.”
Griffin opened his mouth, shutting it and repeating the motion a few times before the words finally came out. And then he was explaining exactly what was expected of her.
Exactly what he and Julian would need to do.
The sky opened up above them as he explained. White flakes began to fall slowly down on them, but even still, they remained frozen out there.
Raven’s face turned a deeper pink as Griffin told her exactly what they would have to do.