CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“I have a bit of a different task for you today, but one I think you’ll find solace in,” Bellan said. “We captured a stonetalon. Would you like the honor of ending the beast?”
A wave of hatred flared in my chest. “Absolutely.”
I surfaced from a deep sleep to soft light and warm blankets. I stretched like a spoiled cat and rolled over.
Griffon was sprawled on his back beside me.
The blankets had slipped to the tops of his knees as he slept and now bared a straining erection.
I bit my lip, heat instantly pooling in my core, and straddled his hips as smoothly as I could.
I took a moment to soak in the magnificent view before doing that thing I said I’d never do—I lowered myself onto him, and damn if it wasn’t undiluted bliss.
Griffon’s lids popped open and he drank in the sight of me straddling him. Fear was the first emotion to seize his eyes as he sucked in a wild breath. I froze.
He snapped his hands up in front of him, turning them over and over, before slumping back against the pillows.
His eyes drifted shut, his breathing evening out.
His hands fell to the bed. “I thought…” He shook his head and, when he opened his eyes again, it was relief that shone back at me.
“I haven’t woken up in Flesh in months. Mornings are—I shouldn’t have even brought you to my bed. I wasn’t thinking…”
I tried to shove aside the idea of him barreling to consciousness just to find himself drowning in Stone. Tried not to imagine his panic and fear every morning. But my chest still throbbed. I rocked my hips and buried the images in the moan it dragged out of him.
I moved slowly, my hands braced on his abs as I rose to his tip before sinking back down and pausing once I was flush with his body. “I personally think bringing me to your bed was—” My breath hitched as his tip dragged along that sensitive wall. “Was a…very, very good idea.”
His hands found my hips, his gaze scorching me even as mine shamelessly feasted on the planes of his deliciously honed body. “This is the only time I don’t have to fight,” he said, voice tight with the pleasure I wrung out of him. “When I’m lost so deep in you it can’t find me.”
Slow, aching tension built in me, and watching him watch me as I rode him absolutely set me on fire.
I surrendered to that hunger and grinded myself against him, my hips rocking faster and faster with every thrust. Griffon’s steady breaths grew erratic, his lips parted with so much raw pleasure I almost came at the mere sight of it.
He stretched and filled me as I seated him within me again and again, every stroke bliss, every brush of my clit against his body an explosion of pleasure.
His head tipped back and neck strained as he clenched his hands on my hips and tried to still me.
“Stop me and you’re ash,” I gasped, so close to that mind-blowing edge again.
“But—”
“Just come with me, Griffon.”
And he did, one hard jerk of his body beneath me all it took to fling me off that cliff.
I threw my head back and cried out his name as the orgasm consumed me.
I rode him through the waves of pleasure until I collapsed against his chest, my toes curling and fingers finding the soft strands of his hair.
“I always hated mornings,” I panted against his neck. “Until now.”
He chuckled and rolled us over, caging me within the circle of his arms. He brushed my wild hair out of my face as a slow smile worked its way across his lips. “You do look properly ravished, if I must say.”
Laney’s descriptor popped into my head and I snorted. “I imagine I look properly homeless.”
He dropped a kiss to one eyelid, then the other.
“Your home is with me, for as long as you want it.” His smile faltered.
“Or until…” His eyes dropped to my collarbone, his fingers tracing it as his expression crumpled.
“You give me so much hope that sometimes I forget, when I’m with you. That I have no future.”
I put my hand on his cheek. “You keep talking like that, but is it really so bad? You seem mostly okay.”
“I’m not.” He said it softly. Gently, and drenched with so much sadness that the hope in my chest died, snuffed like a candle in a brisk winter wind.
“It is taking longer and longer to find my way back to Flesh in the morning. Something about shifting while I’m asleep buries me so deep in it.
I have nightmares.” His eyes grew distant, his face pinched with fear.
“In them, I’m already da’kai. Just…a mindless beast. I’m still stuck in that nightmare when I wake up.
It’s why I didn’t sleep when we visited the phoenixes.
I didn’t want any of you to see me like that. ” His sad eyes focused on me again.
I tried to be strong for him—tried not to let him see how thoroughly his words were wrecking my heart.
“And then I spend the rest of the day fighting it. I’m starting to miss the conversations around me because I’m so focused on staying in Flesh.
You’ve given me some measure of control but…
” He shook his head. “I’m barely holding on.
” The cost of admitting those words was scrawled in his drawn features and tight lips.
The horror in those words percolated through every shred of hope that I had allowed to take root until I was drowning in it. “Why haven’t you told anyone how bad it is? Laney and Alexei—”
“No.” He shook his head sharply. “This isn’t their burden to bear.
It isn’t yours, either, but—it doesn’t seem fair to hide it, either, given what’s happened between us.
I’m so sorry, Lydia.” His chin fell to his chest. “I’m sorry I was too weak to stay away from you.
I’m sorry I took you to that greenhouse last night and said what I did.
I should have just let you keep hating me, but—”
His voice broke and tears trailed down his cheeks. I ran my thumbs over them, like scouring the evidence could somehow fix why they were there in the first place.
“You make me want to live. You give me something to fight for and…” His fists clenched on either side of me, his knuckles bone-white against the black sheets.
“I have no say and it kills me. This isn’t some battle I can win if I’m just fast enough, or strong enough or brave enough.
” His fist slammed into the mattress. “I finally found someone to spend my life with, and we’ll get months, if we’re lucky.
Months. We should have centuries. And I’m going to drag you down with me because I’m a selfi—”
“Griffon.” I grabbed his face and forced him to look at me.
My mouth opened. Closed. Opened. A hundred different thoughts warred to be first out of my mouth.
Every one of them was steeped in a truth I couldn’t even pretend to avoid; we had even less time than I’d thought.
My eyes narrowed, my biggest grievance winning out.
“So you were just going to let us all think you were fine, and then what? Just mentally check out one day and never come back?”
“A swift death seemed kinder,” he whispered, “than letting you all suffer with me.”
“Fucking martyr,” I spat. Fury barreled down my spine, the scent of burning fabric searing my nostrils. “No. I don’t accept this. You are going to fight, Griffon. You’re going to fight until we find a way to cure you.”
“There is no cure. You can’t fix this.”
“Watch me.” I shoved him off and dragged myself out of his bed. “And I swear to the gods, Griffon”—I jerked his shirt over my head—“if you give up, I will hate you for all eternity.” I stormed for the door and threw it wide.
“Lydia.” His voice was so quiet. I wanted to hear fire in it. Conviction. “Come here tonight. Please.”
I wanted to tell him no. I wanted to be angry with him. Wanted to make him fight for me—to play hard-to-get so he had something to cling to. Something to chase. But there wasn’t time.
We were out of time.
So I just nodded, instead, and left before I set something on fire.