Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Atlas
By unspoken consensus, we leave Rafe and return to my study. Here, Darrion and I reflect upon all we have learned and the growing concerns pertaining to the attack and Violet’s sister.
“She belongs in silk,” Darrion muses into the quiet pause.
She belongs in whatever I choose to put her in, but I am too tired from the battling, and conscious that I will have a different battle on my hands tomorrow as I seek to turn Rafe so I don’t rise to the bait and point this out.
“We always knew she was royalty,” Aldric states with insufferable smugness only a griffin can achieve.
He did not, in fact, know she was royalty; none of us did, nor could we suspect. Also, she could have been the offspring of pig farmers, and Darrion would still want to dress her in silk.
What she is, is intelligent, intuitive, and beautiful inside and out. When she submits to me on her knees, I find a higher purpose. The thought of anyone, especially an older sibling who should be a protector, bestowing cruelty upon her makes me seethe with rage.
As for her sister’s mate, I pray that nefarious alpha accompanies his Queen so I might have the pleasure of gutting him.
Only a weak male preys on unwilling women.
An alpha is well-versed with scent markers.
The scent of fear is very different from that of arousal.
It was not only Violet’s omega sisters he terrorized by all accounts.
He deserves an eternity suffering the Goddess’s wrath, and I am more than happy to deliver him to her justice.
“I’m surprised Fenix didn’t return here,” Darrion says, stirring me from my dark rumination. “Probably tired and returned to his quarters.”
My head snaps up.
Darrion’s eyes meet mine, and his brows bunch. “He wouldn’t…”
“Be able to fucking help himself,” I growl, already pushing back from my chair.
“He is particularly bold when subject to his instincts,” Aldric informs me. “And young. Like his griffin. They excel at insubordination.”
“Not fucking now!”
Before I can reach the door, it swings open without a knock, and Vander enters. “He’s on the upper entry.” His voice is a low rumble, but his eyes hold amusement. “And glowing like a beacon. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say he’s fed well.”
He doesn’t tell me who he is. He doesn’t need to.
I’m going to strangle the impudent fuck.
I emerge onto the upper eyrie landing platform, a seething mass of boiling rage. Darrion is hot on my heels. And behind Darrion is Vander, and if the passage of boots is any indication, the entire griffin contingent is following on. They’ve heard the news and come to see the showdown.
Fenix’s head swings around. The term “beacon” does not do justice to the otherworldly glow that emanates from my third. I might growl. It’s very hard to tell. The terror that enters his eyes as they widen would be comical under any other circumstances.
I shift. Snap my wings wide and issue a mighty screech. It triggers Fenix’s shift. He drops off the cliff, a glowing streak of red-gold feathers. As I drop down from the cliff after him, I’m caught somewhere between my rage and wonder.
“I am sorry,” Fenix says. His wingspan is half as long again as its normal length. There is no mistaking the power imbuing him. Still, he is no match for me, even so.
“We shall teach the insolent cub a lesson,” Aldric informs me. “Eating out of turn is simply not done.”
I want to roll my fucking eyes at his pragmatic insights.
Fenix dives to the right. I dive after him, folding my wings in for maximum speed.
“Did you fuck her?” I demand.
“No.” He executes an acute turn and narrowly misses the grip of my claws.
I bank sharply, feeling the strain along the length of my wings as they are buffeted by the wind, but determined, as Aldric so calmly intoned, to remind Fenix of his place.
Which is fucking third.
And then I’m on him. He swings around to face me. Our claws latch together. The glow streaming off him is near blinding.
“I only went down on her,” he delivers in a rush.
Only.
I put all my brute strength into my grip, using the momentum to swing him as I release him. Then I fold my wings and charge him, pounding him with the full force of my weight.
A shower of glowing feathers litters the sky.
“Try not to kill him,” Darrion says helpfully.
I’m vaguely aware that the other griffins have taken to the air and are circling, but I’ve not finished with Fenix.
This time, when he turns to meet my attack, I take him by the throat, and realizing how the ground now looms, slam him into the grassy bank.
I open my beak and roar out a screech. His griffin trembles, head turning to the side as he exposes his throat to me in an act of submission.
“You overstepped your place!”
“I know,” he says. “I fucking know.”
The ground thuds as griffins land around us. I ball my claw into a fist and slam it into the side of his beak, and then I spring off him and land a few paces away before shifting to human. He lies there, chest heaving and winded.
“Shift, cub, lest I be taken by the urge to thump you again.”
He shifts, rubbing his jaw, eyes wary as they rest on me.
Darrion lands beside me, executing a perfect shift to human at the last second. He folds his arms. “You got off lightly, Fenix.”
Fenix, never subdued for long, straightens his abnormally broad shoulders and glares at my second. “Yeah?” He smirks. “Wait till he finds out about your jacket that happened to find its way into her nest.”
Darrion’s smug expression falters as I turn to glare at him. “It would seem we are all feeling a little unsettled by the omega, and not entirely thinking straight,” he says baldly.
I slug him in the face.
He gives me a wary look and tests his jaw with a wince. “Thank you,” he says, sarcasm dripping from his tone. “That cleared up any confusion we harbored about our place.”