Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Fenix
Lark remains in wolf form as we escort the food—I mean, Violet—back to her nest. My wings are out, broad and flapping lightly. Not a fucking chance I can get Galeor to take them back.
“She likes our wings,” he announces in the privacy of my mind. “She cannot take her eyes off them. They caught the light most becomingly when the mutt was slavering all over her in Atlas’s study. She accepted your touch. It is only a matter of time before we are allowed to eat.”
Food. That is what she is. Feasting upon her is darkly consuming my mind.
If she will let me.
I knew it would be worse once I touched her. And then I did. Couldn’t help myself. Atlas is all-restrained power. And Darrion—well, he knew he’d already overstepped by taking her into Atlas’s study alone. It was a perfect opportunity for me to step forward.
Atlas and Darrion are overwhelming her. I get that Atlas has his ways, and I know better than to interfere.
But also, fuck them. If there is a side, I already know I’m team Violet.
And that was before I touched her. Now that I’ve done so, the restlessness inside me, the one I’ve known all my life, has become an entity of its own.
She is quiet and subdued, peeking up at me on occasion, as the giant mutt pads along at our side. And then we are at the nesting chamber. I can still remember her mating vividly. Gods, the things they did to her…
I shouldn’t technically step inside the door.
It was understood that I was escorting her here, and nothing more.
But somehow, I’m inside with both Violet and her wolf, and the door just swings shut.
I tell myself I’m going to leave in a moment, but then the tiered seating catches my eye.
It would not be unreasonable for me to take a seat and watch.
No worse than looking through the window, is it?
I’m distracted from these possibilities by Lark’s sudden and vicious growl, which is when an unexpected scent hits me. I grin as I note Darrion’s handy work.
How the fuck did he get it here?
Ah, the servant we passed on the way to see Rafe.
The one he paused to talk to. He must have ordered them to collect his jacket from Atlas’s study and bring it here.
The same jacket that was laid over her on the couch before the mutt charged for her.
And here it is now, lying in her nest, taking pride of place in the very center.
“Oh,” she says inadequately, one hand flying to her mouth. “Lark—”
She puts a small, comforting hand against his shoulder. He growls deeper.
My grin grows broader. Darrion was always, as Atlas has often pointed out, a presumptuous prick. Still, it’s a fucking ballsy move, and I begrudgingly respect it.
Lark suddenly shifts to human, snatches Violet up, and drops her in the center of the nest, right over Darrion’s silk jacket. Her pretty dress is stripped from her in short order—the lass is lustful and impatient to help him in the task. It is almost like the two of them have forgotten I am here.
Well, all right then. I guess we’re getting straight down to it. Not a chance I can make myself walk out that door. Lark’s cock is already hard, dripping pre-cum over Darrion’s silk jacket as he pins his little omega to the nest.
I snort a laugh. Poor Darrion didn’t think this through. He probably had some vision of her snuggling her cheek against it as she slept, not her other mates getting their seed all over it.
I don’t realize I’ve moved until my feet hit the sandy pit.
“Oh,” Violet says for the second time in as many minutes, her wide, pretty eyes glancing up at me.
Her aroused scent suddenly saturates the air.
Interesting reaction…
Lark turns to snarl at me.
“It’s a good plan,” I say, gesturing to Darrion’s jacket. “Getting your seed all over it. It’ll piss him off no end.”
His scowl deepens. “I thought he was your friend?”
I shrug. “I like him well enough. But I’ve known him for a long time. And Darrion has his share of quirks.”
This seems to take him aback.
He glances from me to the closed door. “What the fuck are you still doing here?”
I indicate them. “Well, I’m hoping you’re going to fuck her and I get to watch.
Never came so hard as I did that time when you got your fist all up inside her.
Griffins don’t have a knot. We have… other things.
But you’ll have a knot now, and I fully anticipate it being even hotter than the fisting when you stuff that inside her cunt. ”
Violet makes a weak, strangling sound. Her aroused scent is so thick that I’m having trouble holding onto coherent thoughts.
“Can I touch her?” I probably shouldn’t have asked him that. Better if I’d waited until he was fucking her and distracted, and then moved in. But I’ve never been particularly good at abstinence, and her scent is like a fever crawling under my skin.
“The fuck,” he mutters.
“Lark—” she begins.
“Hush,” he says without looking at her. “Your fucking scent is already saying enough.” Then to me. “Only touch?”
“I’ll take anything I can get,” I say bluntly. My mouth is fucking watering. I want to taste all that sticky goodness her body is pumping out. To feed.
“Won’t that piss your leader off?”
I’d almost forgotten about Atlas, about Darrion, about the hierarchy and the order of things.
“It will. But I don’t care about him. I don’t even care about you. Unless Violet tells me to go, or Atlas turns up and drags me out, I’m staying.”
He huffs out a disbelieving laugh.
Violet
He’s in the room with us. I know that he shouldn’t be.
He knows that he shouldn’t be. Lark is similarly clued in, yet all of us are staring at one another.
And the air is loaded with so much tension it’s a wonder I don’t expire.
Only it’s not the dead kind of expiring I’m thinking about.
It’s the way my body has pitched into a kind of frenzied lust.
I’m looking at him—the red-headed griffin shifter with the magnificent russet wings.
Atlas is like a boulder, solid and unmoving.
His decisions are made like moving pieces upon a chessboard.
I sense that he sees things beyond human understanding—higher, broader, multifaceted.
The things he does to me are strategic, aimed at delivering me to a goal—my submission to him.
I know that’s what he wants. And I’m halfway giving it to him now. And yet still he holds back.
Then there is Darrion. Refined. Calculating, like he doesn’t want to want me, and yet he does.
The two of them are forces of nature. It’s hardly surprising I’ve given so little attention to Fenix—until now, when I’m here, enclosed in a room with him and Lark.
And I see the colors of him. Not the physical colors, but the ones inside.
The pattern. The shape of the man. But not all of it—just hints, like I’m looking through a moving window and seeing parts, knowing there is so much more.
He is beautiful, resplendent, and yet he harbors a strange, brooding darkness.
His tongue darts out to lick his lower lip.
There is a slight sheen to his face and throat, his potent pheromones filling the air.
He shouldn’t be in here. That is the bottom line. But Lark has not yet sent him away, beyond challenging him as to his intentions. I thought the griffins above us, and that we are subservient to them. And yet I reframe that opinion today. It is more of a collaboration that has yet to find its flow.
Fenix’s need is like a blanket. One that does not weigh me down.
It is light, gentle, and coaxing—the kind you want to snuggle into and never leave.
I have not met his griffin. Not in the way I met Darrion’s, however briefly.
I do not even know the name of Fenix’s griffin, but he peers out of Fenix’s eyes.
Strangely, they do not have Atlas’s predatory air.
They are hungry, yes, but they also hold a note of worship.
Like I am the altar he wishes to pray at.
The notion is fanciful, and yet it is lodged in my mind.
“I have no will to send him away,” I say.
Lark growls low. “We’re going to have a war on our hands if Atlas finds him in here.”
I do not claim to be reckless. And yet I have had moments of recklessness in my life, most of which came about since I revealed as an omega.
I am once more cognizant of the two sides of me: the sensible scholar who enjoys books and learning, and the sensual omega who follows instincts and patterns, and whose instincts are calling now.
And this griffin shifter with the pretty, whirling golden eyes, I believe with wholehearted clarity, will be my mate.
This place, this nest, this chamber with the windows where anyone might see. It is like stepping out of time. The moment feels small and fleeting. And I know not what tomorrow will bring. I only know that here I find escape from worries about what next.
Lark rocks on his heels and shifts to my side. He is no longer staring Fenix down, but looking expectantly at me.
This is my decision.
Darrion’s words play once more upon my mind. I can go anywhere I choose. I can have anything I choose.
And anyone.
Things become apparent as I drink my fill of the beautiful male with the stunning russet wings. They are waiting for me to choose. Waiting for me to choose them.
The sense of power is heady. It lands unexpectedly. With power comes responsibility, and I must choose wisely. For when I choose, it is forever.
I do not know yet this man’s soul, nor that of his griffin, whom he is bound to for life. I have seen good and bad. The terrible day we arrived, the fear that coursed through me then—the seeming cruelty of the griffins. And yet there is also no artifice in this man.
Darrion is a man of games. Atlas is not. Fenix is different yet again. He is blunt and open. He does not have subtext. With Fenix, what you see is what you get.