Chapter 22
Declan
Page three hundred and forty-eight of A Gryphon’s Curse was all I thought about as I breathed in Honey’s apple and cinnamon scent. I innocently positioned myself between her legs and kissed every inch of her to wake her up.
It left me too much time to think. That meal was extraordinary. She’d done it. The months of lessons worked. If anything, they made Honey and Momma closer. Both respected hard work, a blinding level of dedication to their craft. The balance of my concern for her felt ephemeral next to that.
Even losing my virginity in the most spectacular way possible didn’t seem enough to conquer Honey’s singular focus. How did she question whether I wanted to go to the ends of the Harrowlands with her?
How would I tell her I couldn’t?
“Dec?”
The last act of our story was now clear as day and it wasn’t happy. I focused on her sleepy, sexy voice instead. My new favorite song. My fingers memorized the texture of her skin. I tucked every moment of last night into my heart and looked up at her through my lashes.
“Can I taste you, please?”
Her eyes still closed, confusion filled her tone. “T-taste me?”
I nuzzled into the pillow of her thigh, laving my tongue over it.
“Oh! Oh. Um… I guess. If you want to.”
The depth of my want transcended language, needing actions.
I licked up her seam, filling my mouth with apples and cinnamon, suckling her cherry at the top.
A Gryphon’s Curse detailed the humming that came next with fervor.
Her hips bucked into my mouth. She didn’t pull away so I must have been doing it right.
I tongued the length of her again, flexing my hands into her soft thighs.
The cream that hit my tongue next told me I was definitely doing it right.
A tremor rippled her thigh and then her whole body.
“Dec stop!” She gasped out, pushing at my head.
I released her immediately, setting her fully on the mattress. Her back bowed.
“Stop. Please stop.” The pain in her voice wrecked me.
“I’ve stopped, Honey. Breathe.” My hands shook.
I reached into the bond and took what hurt I could.
My eyes teared and I locked my muscles with every fiber of my shifter strength so I didn’t immediately curl into a ball of agony.
Taking my own advice, I breathed with her as I rolled her over and applied some of the salve Noreen had left for me.
It stunk like a raccoon in heat, but Honey’s muscles relaxed and I recovered the use of my own limbs.
“Better?” I asked.
Sniffles replied. My hands played over her back, massaging more salve up her neck and over her hips.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled into the pillow. The crust of the Fever formed along her spine like frost and then retreated again. “I ruined everything.”
I slid down beside her, keeping my hands to myself, struck by her beauty, especially when she was in pain. She didn’t need to be a shifter for her eyes to glow like jewels in the morning light. Her resilience painted her features with glory.
“You didn't ruin anything.” I did. I should have laid all my cards on the table.
“Even flopping there and doing nothing is beyond me. My hair is the only thing that doesn't ache.”
A smile creased my face, my gaze soft. Plunging my fingers into her silky curls, I massaged her scalp. Each ringlet grasped my skin like a little hand. “I like this just as much.”
That silenced her. Braced for her to tell me I was doing this wrong too, I worked to remain calm.
“You don't have to be nice about it.” Her watery words didn’t hold much bite.
I flattened my smile to show her I was serious. “I'm not.”
Her disbelief was so strong it resounded across the bond. She slid from my grasp and out of bed.
“I feel better. Thank you. Let's see if anyone needs help with the cleanup from last night.”
The pack had taken care of it. They let me know throughout the evening, excited that I had whisked my mate off in such a dramatic fashion.
If the rest of the pack shouldered the search for the missing wolves for one more day.
We got dressed in tense silence and it killed me not to help her when she winced pulling on her wool leggings.
But she looked like she would shatter the Harrowlands if I offered to help.
The warm kitchen was full of the usual mix of pack members and siblings, all coping with the amount of wine and mead they had drunk the night before.
Fallon kissed me, despite the pain she was in, like we were real mates. After kissing Momma’s cheek, she walked over to the oven to check the bread baking inside. My gaze flicked to Momma’s stiff posture.
I scooped up poor, neglected Ned and held him in my lap like he was a much smaller dog. It didn't matter that he spilled off my legs. He put his head on my shoulder and everything was okay for a moment.
“Do you want to try that again with a little more conviction?” Momma slammed a cleaver into the butcher block in front of her. We all jumped.
The silence hung in the air as we all looked at each other. Momma grabbed Fallon’s arm and dragged her over to me as my stomach sank.
“I’ll miss you too, Anise, but I will do your legacy proud.”
That only tightened Momma’s features to the breaking point. Fallon’s single-mindedness was a curse at times. I should have better explained how the pack worked. She wasn’t a shifter, or a wolf of Old Magic. She didn’t understand the dynamics and that was my fault.
“You nearly had to kill your father to get him to withdraw and he didn’t even really think we should be mates. I know my son would never put us in that position again.”
Disappointment swamped me–Momma’s, mine. I hadn’t won my mate to my side and her wanting to leave would break the Old Magic in their eyes. Her slip-up at the dinner table snapped back on us.
Fallon froze. Everyone froze. That tone brought back our toughest lessons as children, when Momma was at the end of her rope. My stomach clenched.
“Oh,” Fallon breathed as she finally understood the ruse was over.
“I have nothing to say when my own mate didn’t live up to the title. I’m grateful my son found someone who loves him, even if you’re not mates.”
My heart rose into my throat as I searched the bond with Fallon.
Would she confirm that she loved me? I watched Fallon’s every twitch.
She looked at me as if a noose had just landed around her neck.
My heart crashed back into my feet. Not if that expression was any indication.
And now we were out of time. I gritted my teeth for what had to be said next.
Fallon placed a hand on Momma’s tight grip. “We didn’t want to deceive you. I genuinely needed your help and I couldn’t have asked for more than this. You’ve changed my life, Anise. But we need to return to our lives. That was always the plan.”
Momma looked sharply at me. To plot something so against our nature was unconscionable. Mates weren’t a game. The separate bedrooms were already a stretch of the imagination. Momma really had forgotten what lengths a mate would go to serve their fated.
“My son was correct that we do not give up our secrets easily. I hope you know that means we consider you family, no matter how this all started.”
“I will be! Declan and I will always come and visit. I wouldn’t pass up a sledding hill like yours.” The humor fell flat in the room. She tried again with a different tack. “I would never dishonor what you taught me. Evie’s kitchen will be the best in the Harrowlands.”
Momma snorted and eyed me with dismay. She all but rolled up her mental sleeves. With the certainty of prophetic vision, I knew what she was going to say next. If I could have reached out in time and frozen this moment when I was still Fallon’s hero, her lover, her best friend, I would have.
I cleared my throat, realizing I was stuck underneath Ned, who didn’t seem inclined to move in the slightest. “I can't leave, Fallon.”
Her brow scrunched. A quick squeeze and I had to set Ned down. She deserved no less than my full attention. I stood and faced her, ready for the end of us.
“I know it’s a tough time, but they don’t really need you, right? We would be out of the way.” She trailed off, reading the tension in the room. “I’m not saying I don’t care. Ward and Evie would help us search if you wanted.”
“If I leave, the Old Magic leaves. It’s already happened once when my parents broke their bond.
It returned with me so it’s tied to me. The wolves here will become part of the wood again, as we were at the beginning of time.
The snap of cold, the claws of branches against the moonlight would overtake our fairly young forms. Or worse, some of us would turn Ajak. ”
Her bewildered expression didn’t make me feel any better.
“That’s not how magic works in the Harrowlands. You’re just a shifter.”
There wasn’t any other way to say it. I should have just blurted it out. “We are Old Magic, Honey. And as their King–”
“KING!” She looked around the kitchen as if someone else would produce a different answer.
When none was forthcoming, she slowly sank toward the floor in slow motion. I hauled her into a chair before she hit the red tile. I kneeled before her, willing her to understand. The bitterness of her reaction was all I tasted.
“Why would you keep this from her?” Momma all but shouted.
My growl silenced her. “You will help or leave.” I told her in my most deadly quiet voice.
Her anger vibrated only slightly lower than Fallon’s.
“You’re not a King. Your head’s not even big enough for a crown.” The joke fell flat in the room and Fallon snapped her mouth closed.
I flinched. It was only an echo of what I also feared. Fallon looked at every wolf in the room and the disapproval on their faces gained weight. The pack closed ranks behind me, shifting into wolfie sentinels at my back.