Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Attempting to leap out of the bed, I got wrapped up in the sheets and tumbled to the floor. I landed on my shoulders, causing a deep ache to run up my arms as the covers shifted, exposing my bare ass. I’d never felt so clumsy before, and of course, it’d happen now. I didn’t want Griffin’s mom walking in and seeing me like this.
Sterlyn! Griffin said with concern as his head popped over the side of the bed and he took in the disheveled heap of me on the floor.
This was not a good look for me in so many ways.
He stood up, bare-ass naked, not even pretending to be bothered that his mom was here. Are you okay? He squatted next to me and lifted me into his arms.
Yeah, I ’ m peachy. My cheeks felt as if they were on fire as he sat with me on the bed. Your mom is here.
His hazel eyes sparkled with mirth. Yes, I ’ m very aware.
A knock on the door made my stomach do somersaults.
“Griffin, I decided I couldn’t wait to meet her, so I wanted to surprise you two.” She sounded so happy. “I mean, this is the woman who’ll be giving me grandbabies!”
Wow. Even though that statement was true, I hadn’t thought that far ahead in our future. With everything we were going through, the farthest I could picture was probably a year's time.
“You didn’t think to tell me you were heading here?” he called through the door and chuckled, his face filled with adoration as he watched me.
She huffed. “I thought I’d surprise you two.”
“You succeeded,” he replied, then laughed outright, making me want to punch him.
The asshole knew why I was freaking out, and he was teasing me. Not cool. I bared my teeth at him. Maybe sometime in the near future, I’d find it funny, but not so much now.
“Oh.” She sniffed. “I smell that.”
Please, someone, kill me and put me out of my misery , I chanted to myself only. Even before I met his mother, she was smelling the scents of our desire from just a short while ago.
“Well, no time like the present to get started on those babies,” she said, and giggled. “I’ll wait for you in the den.” The clatter of her heels grew fainter as she moved away from the door.
I punched him in the arm. You enjoyed that way too much. I’d rather hide in here the rest of the night, but she was waiting for us. If I didn’t go out there, that would only make seeing her tomorrow even more difficult. I was stuck.
“Ouch.” He smiled as he rubbed his arm. “Keep that up, and I’ll have to punish you. Mom can wait, after all.”
“No way.” I stood and hurried across the room to grab my clothes. “That will not be happening. This is embarrassing enough.”
“Stop it.” He rolled his eyes and pouted. “But I’m serious. If you don’t want to see her yet, I can keep your mind occupied.”
He might be sexy as hell and able to make my body do things that brought such immense pleasure, but I wouldn’t be able to focus on anything but the sound of his mom’s shoes for the next little while. “Don’t worry, I’ll punish you later.”
“Later, huh?” he asked and smirked as he watched me dress. “I could get behind that.” He waggled his eyebrows, driving the innuendo home.
“Behave.” I pulled my shirt over my head and ran my fingers through my hair to at least make it look somewhat tame. I didn’t need to walk in there with sex hair since we’d already announced what we’d been doing clearly.
“Fine.” He pouted but quickly dressed.
Once we were both somewhat put together, he opened his bedroom door. Mom has been excited to meet you. I should ’ ve realized she might come home early, but the thought of having you in my bed was a little too tempting.
I wasn’t about to complain about the sex. Hell, I was all for it, but had I known there was a possibility of her coming home early, I would’ve gotten dressed before I started drifting off to sleep.
With each step closer to the den, my heart pounded harder. I hadn’t liked nearly every person I’d met from Shadow City. They were pompous and only out for themselves. Rosemary seemed to be the one exception. I feared that Griffin’s mom would be the same way, which could cause problems between the two of us. We had enough of those.
Hey, it ’ s going to be okay. Griffin grasped my arm, pulling me to a stop. He cupped my face and looked into my eyes as he continued, There ’ s nothing to be nervous about.
That was easy for him to say—she was his mother. If you were meeting my father, how would you feel?
His face slipped into a mask of indifference. Okay, I ’ d have been nervous, too, but I swear there’s no reason to be. There were only two things that my parents wanted for me. The first, and most important, was finding a mate who made me a better man. He pressed his lips to mine. And you ’ re even better than that—you ’ re my fated mate.
I inhaled slowly, calming myself. If that was his parents’ first wish, then maybe I was overreacting a tad, and freaking out would make me look bad. Dad had told me to pretend to be confident even if I was the furthest thing from it. Pretending would bleed into truly becoming secure. It was some sort of mind-over-matter trick that he was always teaching me. But he’d been right about almost everything else, so what did I have to lose? And the second thing?
Becoming the alpha that Shadow City needed. He shook his head as he dropped his hand. I always assumed he meant the alpha of the wolves, but I ’ m beginning to think you and he were more similar than I realized. He wanted to unite the races the same way you do and not have us all be seen as separate beings.
Be careful who you say that to. I took his hand. If you aren ’ t careful, Sierra will start accusing you, in some demented way, of sleeping with your father.
Since she isn ’ t here, you had to go there for her. He wrinkled his nose and booped mine. But don ’ t worry. That won ’ t prevent me from ravishing your body again when we get back to my room. After all, I did promise you a punishment.
My body betrayed me, and the spicy scent of arousal wafted from me.
I see you have no complaints. He smiled.
Refusing to give him any more satisfaction, I marched off in the direction of the living room. I entered the room to find an ash blonde woman standing in the center.
She ran her hands along the sides of her pewter sweater as her light champagne lips formed a warm smile. Her sapphire-blue eyes scanned me, but not in a critical way. Her gaze was more curious. She placed her hands in the back pockets of her dark jeans as she leaned on the high heels of her black shoes. “Sterlyn,” she said. “It’s so nice to finally put a face with a name.”
That was when I realized I didn’t know her name. Griffin always referred to her as Mom. “Hi.”
“Ulva,” Griffin interjected. “Mom’s name is Ulva.”
“But you can call me Mom, if you'd rather,” she said a little too earnestly.
I wasn’t sure how to respond. No, thanks, I already had a mother would sound too rude, but I didn’t feel comfortable calling her that, either.
“Isn’t that a little forward?” Griffin asked as he placed an arm around my waist. “You haven’t known each other for a minute yet, and you’re asking her to call you Mom.”
“Ugh, you’re right.” She tilted her head back and sagged her shoulders. “I’m sorry. It’s just…I haven’t seen Griffin this happy before.”
“Wait.” He hadn’t gone back to Shadow City since we’d gotten together. “Seen him?”
“Yeah, the night he had to bring Luna here when she was so drunk.” Ulva sat on the couch. “I had to come to the gate to let her in since her parents weren’t answering their phones. She was ranting that Griffin forced her to take a cab and refused to let her inside his house in Shadow Ridge. That her mother and father wanted them to be together, and why couldn’t he just accept that? She deserved to be staying in his house with him. Didn’t Griffin know who she was and what her father was capable of?”
That sounded about right. I’d met Luna only a handful of times, and each time, she’d left a worse impression than the previous one. Granted, she’d tried to kill me on the night Ulva was referencing. Griffin had said he’d gotten her a cab, and obviously, it was true. He’d just left out the part where he’d accompanied her to the gate, but he was right. She wouldn’t have gotten in otherwise.
“He told me he was sorry to dump her on me, but he had someone to get back to before he messed things up even more.” She looked at her son with a soft expression. “And that’s when I realized someone had stolen his heart. When he informed me that you two were fated, that was just the icing on the cake. This was exactly what we’d hoped for him to find.”
Kindness radiated off her, confirming her words. I sighed in relief, realizing that she was truly a good person. I needed that; I’d been worried that there weren’t many great people in this city. “Well, Griffin thinks the world of you, too.”
“Atticus and I were more friends than lovers, but we worked, even to Saga’s horror.” She chuckled and gestured to Griffin. “That’s one reason why we only had one child. The sex was—”
“Mom!” Griffin exclaimed with wide eyes.
“Sorry, you’re right.” She swatted her hand. “I just meant that we wanted Griffin to find the kind of love that we hadn’t been able to find ourselves. It’s one part of why Atticus wanted so much to open the city. He wanted our son to find his fated mate. He’d be so happy to see that wish came true.”
My heart grew for a man I’d never get to meet. He’d loved Griffin so much. I’d known that Griffin’s mother and father were chosen mates, but I hadn’t thought about what that meant.
“So, who’s Saga?” I wanted to learn more. I wanted every single detail about Griffin and his family that I could soak up.
“Dick’s chosen mate.” Ulva smiled. “One of my close friends. The four of us grew up together, and, boy, Saga did everything she could to get Atticus for herself. But he and I were best friends, and he said he trusted only two people in his life—me, most of all, and Dick. I thought that it would cause a wedge between Saga and me, but when Atticus asked for me to be his mate, she surprisingly backed down, and she and Dick realized that they were compatible as well.” She smiled sadly. “Atticus was so relieved. He was always wary of her back then, and he protected me, probably a little too much. He was a wonderful man and a good father.”
“Mom, I hate to cut this short, but it’s late.” Griffin made his way over to her and kissed her forehead. “Tomorrow morning is going to be nasty, so we need to get our rest.”
“You’re right. I’m exhausted.” She yawned.
He squeezed her hand and straightened. “You know you don’t have to come to the meeting, right?”
“I refuse to let you protect me like your father did.” Her face pinched as she shivered. “I wish I’d known that Dick was trying to use you as the scapegoat. You need every person who supports you there. The more people you have behind you, the stronger a leader you’ll look, and I want to see who all the traitors are.”
That was something my father would say. Despite Atticus and Ulva being chosen mates, she was strong, which must have been one reason he’d selected her.
“Okay.” He nodded. “Fine. I just hate for you to watch someone else you love get hurt.”
That was an odd thing to say. What do you mean?
She and Dad were at Dick’s having dinner when he died. Griffin scowled. She saw the entire thing.
They’d been eating at Dick’s? That was a little convenient.
“I understand, and I love you for it.” Ulva headed toward the hallway, leaving the two of us behind. She spoke quietly, but I was able to hear her with my silver wolf ears. “Maybe if I’d been more involved and paying attention, he wouldn’t have died in the first place.”
I wanted to ask her what she meant, but I was pretty sure she didn’t know I was a silver wolf with extra-sharp hearing. If she had, she probably wouldn’t have said the words out loud at all, assuming Atticus had shared with her what he knew about my kind. I bit my tongue, but only because I wanted to protect her. The more she knew, the greater the chance she would be harmed.
“Night, Mom,” Griffin called out as he winked at me. “I love you.”
“Love you, too,” she said with longing in her voice.
Once the door closed behind her, Griffin returned to me with a salacious smile. “Now, let’s go have some fun.” He bent down and threw me over his shoulder, and took off to his room.
However, I wasn’t able to laugh or fully enjoy the moment. My mind kept replaying what Ulva had just said.
Ulva met me in Griffin’s bedroom the next morning with a black suit in her hands. “This should work.” She placed the clothing on the bed, along with a lavender lace shirt.
The suit bottom was a skirt instead of pants, but I didn’t want to complain. I didn’t have my own clothes here, so I would graciously borrow whatever she was willing to loan me. “Thank you.”
Griffin was on the balcony, waiting on me to finish getting dressed. He’d pouted when I made him leave the room, but after last night, I didn’t want to be naked in the bedroom with him while his mom was here. I needed at least a day’s buffer before that could happen again.
She turned to leave the room but paused. “I want you to know I meant everything I said last night.” She looked over her shoulder, locking gazes with me. “I already see a difference in him. Before you, he never would’ve been brave enough to face the council like this.”
“I’m doing nothing.” She must have been able to see that. She didn’t need to give me credit for something Griffin was doing on his own. “He didn’t even ask if I thought we should run. He’s making these choices, not me.”
“Oh, I know.” She pivoted and tilted her head. “But you helped ground him. He was struggling, messing around, just trying to get by. You stepped into his life and gave him purpose again.”
“Maybe, but he’s made me a better person, too.” I was meant to be a warrior, and that would never change, but he’d made me softer. Not in a weak way, but the opposite. I was able to open up to Rosemary because of him…and see things in the ways that my father had because of him. “I guess that’s why we’re fated mates.”
“They’re meant to bring out the best in each other.” She nodded. “And being locked in here, the wolves and the other races have lost that way because we were rarely able to find ours anymore. But things are changing, and people fear it. You and Griffin will be an excellent example of a positive change resulting from rejoining the world.”
“I have a hunch that the people trying to blame Griffin for the crystals are the ones who want to close the borders again.”
She nodded. “You’re exactly right. Several council members think we have the strongest supernatural races within these walls, and we shouldn’t have to deal with petty problems caused by shifters who weren’t worthy to live here to begin with.”
“Sterlyn. Mom,” Griffin called out. “We’ve got to go, or we won’t get there early enough.”
“They’ll crucify him if we can’t figure a way out of this.” Ulva frowned. “We can’t let that happen.”
I placed a hand on her arm and leaned forward, dropping my voice. “So...there’s only one thing we can do.” I arched an eyebrow. “We take them down. Are you in?”