Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Rafe
Ihave no recollection of the bastards leaving. I only know that when I rouse, the room is quiet and empty around us.
Violet is asleep, her breath whispering against Lark’s chest in a soft snore that puts a smile on my face.
I stretch, wincing as spent muscles protest. The laceration to my arm is sore but scabbed over—I barely felt it during her heat. My dick is red, raw, and out for the count. Even her scent and the swell of her ass against my hip are not enough to rouse it.
I sit up gingerly. Lark cracks open one eye. I gesture for him to stay and force myself to stand.
I’m shaking all over from that little effort.
Food and drinks are still set on one side, covered.
I’m powerfully thirsty, but my attention does not linger upon the pitchers for it is snagged by an opening in the wall.
It is wide but maybe only a handspan high, resembling a window; instead of showing the outside, beyond it is a corridor.
I turn slowly. The room is circular, and along the entire circumference of the wall are open windows that reveal stone walls and flickering sconces beyond. The wooden door is still in place and closed.
The window-openings were not there before… or perhaps they were covered. It’s not like I was overly focused on the chamber when we arrived.
Voices near, footsteps approaching. My hackles rise, and my eyes search the room for anything that resembles a weapon.
Nothing. I put my body between the sounds and my mates…
mates? My tension surges when two faces appear at a window.
I do not recognize either man, but instinct tells me they are griffins.
Their eyes slide to peer beyond me to where Violet lies blissfully unaware, then swing back to me.
Low words are exchanged, and they move on.
Understanding blooms. My heart is blighted. We are like animals in a pen for our masters to watch at their leisure.
I’m still caught, fucking fuming, when the wooden door behind me creaks. I pivot to face it as it swings open. Lark and Violet start, scrambling to their feet, and I put myself between them and this new threat.
The big bastard—the leader—steps inside, followed by the other two, whom I recognize as his second and third.
“Good. I was told you were awake. I am Atlas Aldric, Pride Leader. This is my second, Darrion Darkan.” He indicates the male with ash-blond hair and an air of superiority, then the final man with red hair and restless hazel eyes. “And my third, Fenix Galeor.”
They are very fucking formal.
Atlas smiles. It does not reach his eyes. “You may address us by our given first name. Our second names are those of our bound griffins.”
Bound griffins? How the fuck does that work? Are they not one and the same?
“Now, let us talk,” he continues.
“Talk?” Lark’s tone is sharp. He gathers Violet close, and tucks the pelt around her more tightly, scowling. “Fuck off and give us our clothes. What kind of twisted fuckers would take them anyway?”
The taking of our clothes is probably the least twisted thing that they’ve done, but I don’t bother to point that out.
Darrion cracks his knuckles. “Insolent pup.” He turns to Atlas. “Let me see to his attitude readjustment.”
Atlas
I sigh heavily. I had hoped to avoid further conflict. We need to separate Violet from her wards, at least for now, and I can see that I shall have a godsdamned mutiny on my hands.
I cannot even blame our guests this time when Darrion is all surly aggression.
“We took your clothes away because they were filthy and covered in blood,” I say reasonably. “But perhaps we should proceed directly to a full explanation of your situation.”
No one speaks. Darrion and Fenix know better than to interrupt me. Darrion has already overstepped himself, but I will deal with him later.
The two men are wary. Their world has just been turned on its head. I caught their names during their capture and the heat. The broader-chested, older of the two is Rafe. His much younger counterpart goes by Lark. They are both holding secrets, maybe from themselves, or maybe only from their ward.
I shall need to deal with that promptly, too.
The young omega, Violet, is wide-eyed and pretty as she peeks at me between the walls of her two mates. She smells of them, which is displeasing, but beneath that, I can smell her slick heat, and it makes focusing difficult.
Still, I have ever been known for my iron will. While her ravishment is inevitable, I can yet temper myself. She does not know us, probably fears us, and the necessary steps we must take will likely increase that before we can gain her trust and submission.
But I want her. It is like a compulsion writhing under my skin, watching the mute shifter, Lark, fist her cunt had damn near tipped me over the edge.
Her scream of pleasure while he was all up inside her, ruining her needy cunt had me spewing my seed like a green whelp.
That I was not the only griffin present taking my cock in hand while I watched offers no comfort.
My wings have shifted. I don’t know when it happened, but they spread wide behind my back.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I ask of my griffin.
“We are displaying our assets,” Aldric announces imperiously. “We are the Pride Leader. Our wings are broader, more lustrous, than any other. We must present ourselves for her approval.”
Fenix side-eyes me. Darrion’s lips twitch, bastard.
I force my wings to retreat.
Aldric grumbles and turns his back… for all of a second. He is far too curious about the little omega. “I approve of her,” he announces. I want to roll my fucking eyes.
Instead, I steel myself for this period of adjustment.
Violet
I’m naked, save for a pelt wrapped around me like a poor excuse for armor. Lark and Rafe are likewise naked.
The griffins, though, are clothed.
Atlas stands like a warrior lord in his dark, well-worn leathers.
Darrion could be mistaken for royalty, dressed in a knee-length silk jacket embroidered at the collar, lapels, and cuffs.
His pants are black and fitted to his muscular thighs, tucked into his highly polished boots.
Fenix is different again with his vibrant red hair.
His loose shirt hangs half-open, and his leather pants are tucked into scuffed boots.
They are all distinct. All are powerful; their state of dress adds yet another layer to our vulnerability.
I wanted to see a griffin. A dream I carried since childhood, a pull I could never explain.
It drove me from my home and family, across the world, through one portal and then into another world.
Worse still, I dragged two men with me, tore them from their ordinary lives and quiet routines.
They didn’t choose this. I made the choice for them, blackmailing them, threatening them with my sister’s wrath, and leaving them no way out.
I told myself I had no choice either. And now… I love them.
And I’ve brought them here.
My lips tremble—a knot of dread twists in my stomach. Something terrible is coming. I can feel it, the silence before a storm.
Lark steps in front of me, protective as ever, but my eyes slide past him to the one whose mere presence dominates the room.
Atlas.
The leader.
He stands at the center of the room, a dark axis around which the others orbit.
His wings have gone now, snatched back into the magical ether, but I can still see them in my mind’s eye.
Glossy, dark gray feathers. His eyes are silver, and they pin me, predatory and unblinking.
The air of grace that surrounded him, his movements when he swept into the room so deliberate, coiled with barely leashed power.
He doesn’t need to shift for me to feel it. His dominance hums in the air.
I shouldn’t look. I shouldn’t want to. But I can’t stop either. On a deeper level than human intellect, my body recognizes my mate.
I’ve met shifters before. They are all predators of a kind.
But griffins… griffins are distinct. Different.
Enigmatic. If there’s a hierarchy of predators, griffins would be at the top, and Atlas is at the top even among their kind.
And now, I’m in their den—or eyrie, as Master Pugstone called it—deep inside, under stone, trapped, a heat pressing down on me.
I want to run.
Worse, I want him to chase me when I do.
I’ve just gone through a heat. In the wake, my world has been tilted, a dizzy blur of sensation and memories crashing together so fast I can hardly breathe. My body still aches, and between my legs is tender, the legacy of what I let Lark do—what I wanted him to do—burning through me.
There’s no easy way to take that in, no tidy way to fold it away in my mind. And it’s not even the first time. The memories are sharp, startling, and shamefully vivid, layered over one another until I can barely tell the past from the present.
And now a new terror waits beyond the walls of this room. My skin prickles with awareness, and even though the ache, the hunger, and the confusion linger, I know, deep in my soul that whatever comes next will not be gentle.
My lips tremble. The enormity of the moment is a mountain pressing down on us. Maybe this is fate or destiny. Or perhaps I’m just a foolish omega.
I rest my hand on Lark’s forearm, fingers curling against his warm skin. “Let me step forward,” I whisper.
He growls low, the sound rumbling through him.
His eyes glimmer, almost supernatural, like something peers out from inside him at me.
But then it passes, and they are blue again, the blue I know so well.
Only now do I recognize how bright they are.
Startling, almost otherworldly. Maybe it is this place, this room, with the strange light emanating from the very rocks themselves.
He’s young. Younger than me by three years.
And in that moment, a terrible guilt claws through my chest.