Page 17 of Bound to the Griffin
“Gwen,” I murmured, her name a hushed whisper in the shadows that filled her curtainless room. I cupped her cheek, feathered my thumb over her clammy skin, and tried to coax herawake. There was no response, not so much as a flutter of her lashes or a sigh.
Her hands curled into fists against her chest in a defensive pose, her whole body trembling. My chest constricted, worry tingling down my spine. This was a nightmare, and it had its hooks sunk deep. “Gwen. Wake up, honey.” I shook her gently, then harder, and still nothing. She was deaf to my voice and my touch, and that shouldn’t be.
Her skin was growing cold under my touch. Too cold. Panic clawed at me, warning that more was at work here than just nature. This was wrong, unnatural. I kissed her, hoping the shock of it would pull her through, whispered her name against her lips, pleaded. They were the longest minutes of my life, a battle that seemed impossible to win. Her lashes fluttered, but she didn’t wake.
The growl rose from deep inside my chest, unease the beastly side of me had no outlet for. I was a man of action, point me at a target, an enemy, and I could be a warrior too. This? This was a danger I could not fight, and Chardum’s words of warning tolled like bells in the back of my mind.The danger within.That’s what he told me, to watch for a threat I couldn’t see. It was here, all right, and I couldn’t fight this, and that made me feel powerless.
Light flickered over my skin, a sure sign that I was losing control of my instincts. Faced with an enemy I couldn’t fight, the beast in me rose, ready to strike. Fur shifted over my skin, feathers ruffled through my hair, and my shoulder blades ached as wings pushed to the surface. And my eyes, they stung as they too beganto shift. Then I saw it: eagle eyes, sharp and piercing even in the dark. They let me see what I couldn’t before.
From the corner of the room—the window, closed tight and sealed—blackness seeped through. It was not quite a shadow. This was not a trick of the faint starlight. They looked like tendrils of darkness, writhing like vines, curling toward the bed. Tentacles of some creature, or maybe vines. I could not see enough of them to make out what they were. I just knew they were bad, really bad.
Something in me snapped, a visible threat to direct my anger at. Heat and fury roared to the surface, feathers bristling under skin, bones shifting, tail snapping out to lash at the air. My claws tore through and ripped into the sheets. Then my voice broke into something not human; half eagle scream, half lion roar. It shook the air, rattled the panes, and the darkness recoiled, snapping back through the window as if yanked by unseen hands.
Only then did Gwen gasp awake, sobbing and shaking all over. I gathered her against me, my heart still hammering with fury. “I’ve got you. You’re safe. I’ve got you.” The instinct to shift even further faded with the disappearance of the shadows, and all my mate felt was skin and flesh, human, normal. There was nothing normal about what had just happened. I had never shifted in that way before: painful, partial, a fight for control.
She pressed her face into my chest, against the rapid beat of my heart. Her voice shook when she spoke, small, terrified. “It was just a dream,” she said, but it was as if she were trying to convince herself, not state a fact. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears when she raised her head to meet my gaze. “Itwas a dream.” Then, as if trying to grasp back the tatters of her composure, she added, “I’m sorry, Jackson. That was, well, I would like to tell you it’s a one-off, but I’ve been having those dreams ever since I got here.”
I hissed in displeasure, furious to realize that she’d been under siege bysomethingall this time. Something from my world, unnatural as it had looked. I had to get to the bottom of this, and she wasnotsleeping alone again, or in this house, for that matter. Not until I’d gotten to the bottom of it. She hadn’t had this dream at my cabin; I would have heard it, sensed it.
“Don’t apologize, honey. This isn’t your fault.” I frowned and twisted my head to glare at the window, which she’d weatherproofed well enough to keep out drafts. It looked closed, yet those shadowy fingers had reached in anyway. “What do you remember?” I asked, though I didn’t want to. She’d been terrified in her sleep, in the grip of thatthing. The last thing I wanted was to make her relive it, but how else could I find out what this was?
Her fingers curled against my skin, blunt nails pressing into my flesh. I relished the slight bite of pain because it meant we were both alive. I hoped it meant she was getting her fighting spirit back; she definitely sounded steadier when she spoke next. “I can’t remember most of it. Just… it’s dark. Cold. And someone’s always watching me.”
Rage simmered in my gut, unabated, even now that the danger had passed. Something had touched her, invaded her sleep—right under my nose—while she was under my protection. I wanted to drag her out of here this second, back to my cabin, where I knew I could keep her safe.
“Come home with me,” I said, sharper than I intended. Though I already knew the answer, I waited for it with trepidation. The cabin would be safe; it was nearby enough to make access to the B&B easy during the day. I ran through countless arguments in my head that might help convince her before her denial had even left her lips.
She shook her head, quick and stubborn. “No. This is my place, Jackson. I’m not leaving.” Despite the fury boiling in me, I almost laughed. No, of course she wouldn’t. This was Gwen Avery, with her fire and her damn heels dug in deep. Nothing short of hell itself could drag her from this B&B. Though that shadowy thing came awfully close.
“Fine,” I ground out, tightening my hold on her. “Then we do it another way.” The griffin in me was not entirely opposed to the idea of digginghisclaws in, too. My mate was building her nest here, so we’d defend it. Defend it down to every last scrap of moldy wallpaper and leaky pipe. I leaned back, forcing her to meet my eyes. “What came for you backed off when I shifted. If we’re going to stay here, you need to see me as I am—the beast in me—and you need to trust it.”
I hadn’t wanted to take that step before she’d had time to let her new reality sink in. Then she’d gotten her hooks in me, and passion and seduction had been all I could think about. Now, protecting her had to be my only priority. The town would understand.
Her lips trembled, her eyes red-rimmed but clear. Slowly, she nodded. “Show me.” Her breathing shuddered out of her on a long exhale, but she was more in control afterward, steadier. Definitely the Gwen full of fire and stubborn grit, the girl whotold my obnoxious friends she wasn’t leaving right after they tried to glare her out of their stores.
The words cracked something open in me: relief, pride, and the raw pulse of the bond between us. She’d faced the dark, and instead of running, she chose me. I wasn’t going to let her down; she’d soon know what it meant to be under the protection of a griffin.
Chapter 15
Gwendolyn
I was still a little shaky when we got dressed, tugging my sweater over my head with hands that wouldn’t quite stop trembling. Not from fear, exactly. This was nerves and excitement: too many things tangled together to name. My head was spinning as I thought about what we were about to do, and I was also still rattled from the dream. Another one.
I’d gone to sleep with him holding me, still sort of grounded in the world I’d always known was true and real. That world was without magic, without people who could heal with a touch, or a sheriff who could turn into a creature of myth. Now, in the aftermath of passion and terror—a combination that had left marks beneath my skin—I was stepping into a different world. This world was home to my Jackson, to the people in this town.
My heart pounded as I thought this through. Did I really want to do this? Become part of Jackson’s world? Yeah, I did. It felt like, for the first time in my life, I’d found where I belonged. He called this place a home for outcasts, and maybe I wasn’t magical like him, but I sure as hell felt like an outcast back in Chicago. Then Jackson tucked my hand into the crook of his arm, and I felt like I belonged. It wasn’t so hard to follow him down the stairs, through the creaky, moaning house.
We slipped out the back door into the night. Frost glittered across the yard, crunching faintly under our boots. The forest loomed behind the B&B, all shadows and silence, the air sharp enough to sting my lungs. Stars hung overhead, partially veiled by thin, wispy clouds. The moon had waned since my arrival intown; it was just a crescent now, draped in tendrils of clouds like the stars. I shivered, because the sight reminded me of something in my dreams, though I couldn’t quite recall what.
Then something caught my eye on the sill by the door: the dented thermos I thought I’d lost, its lid balanced neatly beside it. It glittered with silver and the faint green pattern embossed on it, faded by years of use. I reached for it, confused. “This was outside?” I was certain I’d lost it the evening of the wolf attack, a wolf attack I was starting to realize might not have been a wolf attack at all. Jackson had called it Kai’s attack, Kai making it up to me by fixing my floor. So, if Jackson was a griffin, was Kai a werewolf? I almost laughed at the absurdity that was now my reality.
Jackson’s mouth curved in that way of his, not quite a smile, but full of meaning. He was oblivious to the turmoil in my head, or perhaps his sharp eyes saw it and he was trying to distract me. “I found it for you,” he said. “But I didn’t have a chance to bring it inside. I meant to earlier, but it sounded like you fell, so I was in a bit of a rush.”
Warmth spread through me, cutting the chill in the air. Of all the chaos, all the danger circling us, he’d noticed a stupid little detail like that. He cared. He noticed everything, must be the eagle eyes that came with being what he was. I scrunched up my brow as I tried to recall exactly what a griffin was. Lion and bird of prey, eagle, right? Or was it hawk? Regardless, he probably had great eyes.
The warmth faltered when I glanced toward the tree line. The dark out there seemed thicker tonight, pressing in. Ever since the dreams started, I hadn’t let myself think too hard about whatthey might mean. A nightmare was just a nightmare. After I’d sleepwalked out here, I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe there really was something waiting in the shadows. Watching.
Jackson must’ve read it on my face, because he touched my arm, grounding me. “I’ll keep you safe,” he said firmly. “Whatever this is, I’ll find it. I have… sources you can’t even imagine yet. I’ll get answers.” He said it with such confidence that I believed him, and it became just a bit easier, again, to believe all this was true. It tingled across my senses and settled in my belly. Resources I couldn’t imagine? Yeah, I believed that.
