Page 14 of Bound to the Griffin
The whisper of leaves came again, and I thought it seemed closer. When I blinked, the darkness finally began to lighten—just a hint—enough for me to make out shapes: thick trunks crowding together, their bare branches clutching at a black sky with only the barest hint of stars. Between them, a pair of green, soft eyes blinked at me, a friendly point in the dark. Except they were so large, too large, and their pupils were narrow vertical slits.
“Come closer.” The voice came again, a visceral pull, invisible fingers hooked into my chest, tugging me forward. My feet moved; the ground was icy wet beneath my toes, soaking my socks. Something soft brushed the side of my foot, not snow, not leaves. It was firm and slick, like… the fingers of branches, but too low to the ground—or maybe a tentacle, or a grabbing hand. Horror at those thoughts squeezed at my throat, refusing to let out so much as a squeak or a sigh.
Branches creaked overhead, but there was no wind. It seemed as if something were shifting, weight moving from one limb to another. I caught the faint sound of breathing. Not mine. Deeper. Slower. All around me.
“Come to me.” The pull grew sharper, almost painful, dragging at me like a tide. My heart pounded, and every instinct screamedat me to stop, but my body kept moving.Stop this, go back,my mind screamed at me, but it seemed impossible to make my body obey. I was having a nightmare; this had to be a nightmare. Yet, thinking this was a dream did not snap me out of it. I couldn’t even make my hand move to my arm to pinch myself.
I saw the eyes again—closer now, and higher—watching from above. Something moved between the trees: a shadow, blacker than the dark or the deep black of the tree trunks with their paler branches. Long-limbed, but still somehow akin to a human, like a nightmare warping of what should have been a man. Then came the faint glint of teeth when it smiled.
My lungs seized.
I gasped awake.
Cold air sliced through me, and my bare feet were planted in snow. A faint, watery sun still shone behind a thin layer of wispy clouds, illuminating the path of my own footprints trailing into the trees. My breath came fast and sharp, white in the air. I’d sleepwalked. It had been a dream—a terrible, awful nightmare of a dream.
I bolted for the door, slammed it shut behind me, and fumbled with the lock using shaking hands. The fire in the hearth had shrunk to nearly nothing; I dropped kindling onto the coals, coaxing it back to life with desperate, clumsy movements. My fingers were frozen to the bone and now roared back with sensation that stung and tingled.
When I peeled off my socks, they were soaked through. The bandage around my ankle was wet and cold, so I unwoundit before I could think anything of it. My stomach dropped. Unmarked skin. No swelling. No bruises. Not so much as a cut. There was no bite, but I knew I’d been hurt. I remembered the pain, the torn skin, the blood in the snow when Jackson lifted me and carried me home.
My pulse raced from the dream, and now from this. Yet another thing that made no sense in this crazy town. My thoughts spun tighter and tighter until I thought I might choke on them. I wanted to call someone—anyone—and just say it out loud. Make it real. Have them say I wasn’t crazy—or maybe tell me that I was losing it, completely. The only name that came to mind was Kelly.
Kelly, who’d slept with my fiancé.
I pressed my hands over my face and sucked in a shaky breath. Alone in a strange town that already felt too odd for its own good, with a kiss still burning on my lips and eyes from the woods lingering in the back of my mind. This was another of those blows that I wasn’t sure I could take, and then I thought of Jackson’s steady eyes. That golden heat. Something settled in my chest then, easing, unwinding, and a calm took hold of me that I couldn’t quite explain.
Jackson had secrets—many of them—and one of them had to be related to how my ankle had gotten healed. He’d called for the doctor, this Arden, and he’d kept his eyes averted the entire time. He’d been there in my most dire hour; he’d swept into my life and tried to fix things from the start. Jackson, who had gone on a shopping spree to buy my favorite tea, and who’d defended me to his town. A guy who barely knew me but wanted to come over, in the dead of winter, and fix my leaking roof.
Okay. If there was one thing I wanted to believe—had to believe—it was that he was a good guy. So if I went from there… I eyed the dead phone lying on the side table. Yeah, him I wanted to talk to. I didn’t have his number, though, and I didn’t want to wade through the snow back to his home like a lost kitten. I had a feeling he’d be by soon, anyway. He’d kissed me, and it had been a promise of more, that teasing touch.
Leaving the phone behind, I went upstairs and changed into clean work clothing. I got rid of the bandage on my head too and thoroughly checked for any hint of a wound in the weathered mirror in the ancient en suite. Nothing, and I’d prodded at every inch of my hair too, just to be sure it wasn’t hiding under my brown locks. That “doctor” was a miracle worker, but leaping to “magic” was still a struggle, so I chose to keep myself busy instead. More windows needed to be weatherproofed; I was done with drafts. I started on another bedroom window, but that one faced the woods and the backyard, and it kept reminding me of my dream. Dreams, actually, because I’d been plagued with weird nightly images ever since I got here. The only time I didn’t have a bad dream was last night, when I’d slept at Jackson’s cabin.
I moved to work on the rooms at the front of the second floor instead and made far better progress on those than I had on the one bedroom at the back yesterday. They were all done by the time lunch rolled around. That had me scarfing down a sandwich with fresh jam from the mayor’s massive gift basket. Then I went to tackle some of the awful, moldy, and peeling wallpaper in a front-facing bedroom. That’s where I was—arm-deep in scraps and dust—when something thudded onto the roof and scrabbled against the slate tiles.
Spooked and on edge after the dreams and the burglar, I whirled, tripped, and tried to arrest my fall with my arms. They went through the old-age- and water-softened plasterboard like it was cotton candy. With a mouth full of plaster dust, I came up spluttering and coughing to my knees. Then I gaped in astonishment at what I’d discovered.
That’s how Jackson found me not much later: his boots thudding up the stairs and skidding to a halt by my door. It was weird, but I knew it was him by the sound of his footsteps alone—even though I was pretty sure I’d bolted my frontandbackdoor. “Are you okay? I heard a noise! What the…” he trailed off, his low voice incredulous. “Is that what I think it is, Gwen? How did you find this?”
Still stunned by my discovery, I turned slowly to look at the sheriff standing on the edge of the war zone I’d created. “I fell,” I said through numb lips. “I heard a sound on the roof, and it spooked me, so I tripped.” I vaguely gestured at the massive, me-shaped hole in the wall. A guilty expression flickered across his face, but it was quickly replaced by the same incredulous shock I was feeling.
“This must be what the burglar was after,” he said eventually. “Do you think Halver put it there?” The previous owner had not changed a thing about the ancient house in at least two dozen years. That much was obvious from the dated décor and fixtures. The bathroom and kitchen were relics, and the boiler so old that it had given out this winter, just before I’d gotten here. It was possible it had been there before he’d ever arrived. When I said as much, Jackson shook his head.
He stepped over the pile of torn wallpaper I’d created and dipped down. With his hands beneath my arms, he easily hauled me to my feet. Then he began dusting off my clothing with gentle brushes of his hands that set my blood on fire. Though he never touched any hotspots, hewastouching me, and I wanted more of that. He was kneeling by my ankles, brushing the dust off my legs, when he started talking, his face angled to the floor.
His voice rumbled between us, low and husky—a voice made for secrets. “No, Halver has been in the Hollow for over forty years. He came in one spring day, bought the inn with cash, and has never left. Never had much in the way of guests either.” He spoke as if he’d personally seen this transpire, but that was impossible. He must have looked into it after the burglar incident yesterday.
Then he raised his head, and even kneeling at my feet, he seemed larger than life. His eyes gleamed with a golden hue that shouldn’t have been possible, locking with mine with such intense sharpness that I felt like a fawn caught in the gaze of a predator. “You took off the bandages,” he said solemnly, and some kind of resignation flickered in those extraordinary eyes.
I nodded, my mouth going dry now that I had the perfect opening to ask him about it. He spoke for me. “You didn’t imagine those wounds,” he said, and the relief I felt at that was immense. Which was, again, perhaps not the best response. If the wounds had been real, that meant the doctor had healed them somehow. Which meant… magic was real. That was no sane conclusion, but I much preferred it over thinking I’d seen things that weren’t real. What was real, at this point, I didn’t know. I just knew that I appreciated that Jackson hadn’t lied and didn’t want me to think I couldn’t trust what I’d seen.
“So… what happened?” I asked, turning my head to once again look at what I’d discovered. The bricks of bills wrapped in plastic were undeniable, and, like Jackson had concluded, what the burglar who tore up my floorboards had been after. If therewasa burglar after this cash, that meant Jackson had spoken the truth about his town too. His people hadn’t pulled this stunt on me to scare me off, but theyhadpulled together to help me afterward. I found I rather liked that thought.
“I’ll tell you,” Jackson admitted. “Over some tea.” There was a boyish, cheeky smile then that made my heart flutter in my chest. I nodded, my mouth going dry when he rose and cupped my chin. Then he dipped his head, and our mouths met. This wasn’t just a brush, a mere tease. He lingered this time, heating my lips with his, tongue darting out to tease. His hand slid into my hair, fingers curling around the back of my head. This was a claim, a promise that there’d be more. I couldn’t wait.
Chapter 12
Jackson
She was curled up in the only lazy chair by the fire, legs tucked under her, steam rising from a cup of tea in her hands. Not just any cup, but bone china with a delicate gold band around the rim. It had to come from Liz’s private set; I’d know it anywhere. So our illustrious mayor had slipped a pair into that gift basket. Figures. Liz always did like to leave her mark—that was the way of the alpha—and she could also never ignore a person in need.
