by Chant, Zoe
The Golden Griffin’s Baby
Shifter Dads, #3
By Zoe Chant
Copyright Zoe Chant 2019
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Chapter 1: Lila
Chapter 2: Flynn
Chapter 3: Lila
Chapter 4: Flynn
Chapter 5: Lila
Chapter 6: Flynn
Chapter 7: Lila
Chapter 8: Flynn
Chapter 9: Lila
Chapter 10: Flynn
Chapter 11: Lila
Chapter 12: Flynn
Chapter 13: Lila
Chapter 14: Flynn
Chapter 15: Lila
Epilogue: Flynn
A note from Zoe Chant
More Paranormal Romance by Zoe Chant
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Chapter 1: Lila
“Stay in sight, Sophia!” Lila called to her daughter.
“I am in sight!” Sophia called back. Then she darted around a tree. “Now I’m not!”
Lila drew in breath to yell, but before she could, the little dark head poked back around the tree. “Now I am!”
“In sight means all the time, kiddo,” Lila said firmly. “If you can’t obey the rules, we’re going to have to play inside.”
“No!” Sophia loved playing outside, even in the chilly November air, especially since their backyard was essentially an entire forest.
Which was the problem, of course. Lila made pointed eye contact. “So you have to...”
“Stay in sight,” Sophia chanted, although Lila saw her cast a longing look into the depths of the woods.
Lila sighed silently. Sophia was a daredevil, a child who had never known fear and was always looking for a new horizon to conquer. Which made Lila proud, and eager to see what she might accomplish when she grew up—
—but also caused her several heart attacks a day, since Sophia was still only five years old.
They’d recently moved from the big city to a rural area, and Lila had hoped that that might help with her constant fears that her daughter would heedlessly dart into traffic or get kidnapped by a stranger on the street...but now she was worried Sophia would get lost in the woods or eaten by a wild animal.
Or a not-so-wild animal.
Lila cast a grim look into the trees, aware that there were more than just native forest creatures out there.
In her arms, Grant struggled, leaning outwards with a squeal. Lila let him down, keeping her eyes on Sophia as she held on to one of his chubby little hands.
Grant was just starting to walk, and he was very excited to be able to do it in the grass, instead of inside on the floor like he’d started to back in the city. He stomped his little booted feet, giggling.
“You like that, baby?” Lila asked fondly. “Too bad it’s almost winter. In the spring you can go barefoot. I bet you’ll like that.”
Because they’d still be here in the spring.
Probably.
The three of them had moved here, to the tiny Appalachian mountain town of Oak Ridge, in an abrupt flurry a couple of weeks ago. Lila had been stuck in an apartment where she’d lived with Michael, her husband, when he died just over a year before.
She’d wanted to move, to get away from all the painful memories, go back to live with her mother maybe...but Michael’s pack had made it impossible.
Michael had been a lion shifter, and his pack alpha Victor was, Lila had eventually realized, a truly evil man. But she’d only figured that out after Michael was gone, and she was alone and without resources, living in an apartment owned by the pack, no income, no way to defend herself.
If her friend Cam hadn’t come to visit her, met some dragon shifters, and insisted that they help Lila and her kids out, who knew what might’ve happened.
But then, who knew what might still happen? Victor was still out there, and definitely angry. Just that morning, Lila had missed a call from the pack’s lawyer, Elizabeth, and was nervous about having to call her back. Was Victor planning something new?
“Come on back closer to the house, Sophia!” Lila called, shivering a little.
“Mommy,” Sophia protested, but she came closer. A little bit closer.
“Look, Grant’s walking!” Lila tried, pointing out the baby’s careful efforts to put one foot in front of the other.
“He’s always walking,” Sophia said, unimpressed by her brother. “When will he be able to run? I want to play tag.”
“Maybe he can catch you like...this!” Lila snatched up the baby and charged, holding him out like he was Simba in The Lion King.
Sophia shrieked delightedly and ran away. Lila chased after, doing her best to steer them in a loop around the house, rather than outward into the woods. Grant laughed and squealed, kicking his feet, and Lila laughed too.
Her husband might be gone, her life totally upended, her nights long and lonely and full of fear and uncertainty, but she could still laugh and play with her kids.
She stayed just behind Sophia for a while, until her arms started to burn with Grant’s chubby one-year-old weight; then she put on a burst of speed and set Grant down on Sophia’s head. “He caught you!”
Sophia tumbled to the ground, giggling, and Lila let Grant down on top of her. Sophia hugged her brother, and for a long minute they were all just laughing hysterically.
Lila tried not to let any anxiety or stress invade the moment, just loving her kids laughing and hugging together.
Then a flash of movement caught the corner of her eye.
She spun around, and froze.
A lion was sitting at the edge of the woods, right where the forest met the back garden.
It was a male lion, with a big tawny mane, and a particular brown-and-yellow pattern to its fur that Lila recognized. One of Victor’s enforcers, a man who’d used to be one of Michael’s friends. He was sitting quietly, making no move to attack. Just watching.
“Sophia, time to go inside,” Lila said. Without taking her eyes off the lion, she moved slightly so her body was in between it and the kids.
Not that that would do any good if it decided to attack.
“Mommy—” Sophia started to complain.
“Time for a snack, baby. Take your brother and go inside, please.”
Sophia was rarely allowed a snack this close to dinner, and she pretty much never got to take charge of Grant all by herself. Her incipient whine cut off immediately, and Lila could feel her standing up and starting towards the house. She wasn’t paying attention to the woods, hadn’t seen the lion yet. Not taking her eyes off of it, Lila backed away slowly.
She didn’t know if it was going to let them go. So far it wasn’t moving, but if it didn’t want to attack, what did it want? Was it going to wait until they were just at the door, and then charge? Just to be cruel.
Another lion appeared from the trees, padding up behind the first one.
Lila fumbled for her phone, still inching backwards, and glanced away from the lion just for long enough to pull up the number of Lachlan, her friend Cam’s mate.
Please pick up, please pick up—
“Hi, you’ve reached Lachlan Hayes. I’m not available right now, but if you leave a message—”
Crap. “Hurry up, honey,” Lila managed.
The first lion stood up.
Lila’s blood turned to ice in her veins. Turning, she grabbed Sophia and Grant together in her arms, ignoring Sophia’s sudden, startled protest, and ran for the house.
It wouldn’t be enough.
She knew it. A lion shapeshifter could easily outdistance one not-very-athletic woman holding two kids in her arms. Not to mention, even if she did get to the house, it wasn’t like regular doors and windows would stop a freaking lion.
Still, she ran. Grant was crying now. Lila’s arms burned with the weight of her children, and she regretted playing tag earlier, using up her energy when she needed it to keep her family safe.
She was almost at the door when heard a growl behind her. Please no, please no—
Then she was buffeted by a sudden wind. An ominous noise filled the air.
She stumbled, almost went down, and hit the front door with a sob, turning so her shoulder impacted the wood, and not either of her children. She fumbled with the doorknob, desperate not to drop either of them, although Sophia had slipped far enough down that she was dangling in the air, arms around Lila’s neck.
“Mommy,” she whispered, “it’s a griffin.”
Lila caught her breath in a ragged gasp, realizing now what the wind was. And the noise.
It was wingbeats.
She turned to see a massive creature landing in the backyard. It had the body of a lion, but its front half turned into a magnificent winged creature—a bird? A dragon?
And it was between her and the lions.
“A what?” she said faintly.
“A griffin, Mommy,” Sophia said with a hushed whisper. “It’s in the fantasy book.”
Sophia had a picture book full of fantasy creatures like dragons and elves and gnomes. She had it memorized, and liked to pretend to be any and all of the creatures inside it.
Lila had never thought she’d see any of the book creatures in real life.
The lion had been joined by a friend, but they’d stopped stock-still, looking warily at the...griffin in front of them. The griffin was easily twice as big as either of them, maybe more. There was no way they’d be able to get past it to reach Lila and the kids.
Were they safe now?
Lila turned and fumbled with the doorknob again, this time successfully getting it open. She tripped over the doorjamb, but finally made it in the house without injuring herself or her kids, and slammed the door behind her.
Sophia immediately ran for the window.
“Sophia! Get back here now.”
Sophia stopped—at least she was still affected by the I Mean Business voice, although Lila was grimly certain that it wouldn’t last much longer—and turned with an aggrieved expression. “I want to see what the griffin does!”
“The griffin’s protecting us, honey. We need to stay inside and stay safe until he says it’s okay to come out.”
Lila was talking out of the seat of her pants, of course; she had no idea what the right move was, or what the griffin was really trying to do. Come to that, she didn’t even know it was a he. It had just seemed—somehow masculine, in the glimpse that she’d caught of it.
“So we need to build a fort.” Sophia had followed that train of thought to a unique place of her own, as always. “To hide until the bad guys are gone! And we need a moat, and we need to have arrows we can fire at the bad guys while we hide inside, and—”
“Okay, honey. How about our fort is behind the couch?” Lila nodded at the big couch in the front room, which backed up to the wall. “Help me move it out so we can hide behind it, okay?”
If she put the kids behind the couch, if anyone came in the house, maybe she could distract them and they’d leave the kids alone. It was a faint hope, but it was all she had.
Sophia immediately ran to start pulling at the couch. Lila followed her, heart pounding in her chest.
Was this the right move? Was it stupid? There was no way to get to the car, parked at the side of the house, without coming in view of the lions again. And there could be more of them waiting for Lila to emerge.
Victor, Michael’s old pack alpha, had a ton of people working for him. He was furious at the Oak Ridge shifters already, and he couldn’t be happy that Lila had left. Foolishly, Lila had thought that he’d given up on trying to find her and get her to come back. Surely Victor had bigger fish to fry than one woman he didn’t like much, anyway, and two little kids?
Apparently not.
No, she couldn’t risk leaving the house—not to mention leaving the griffin who was keeping them safe. Maybe if it was just her and the kids and it was a last Hail Mary of an attempt to get away, but if they had someone protecting them here, then it was best to stay here.
So she pulled the couch away from the wall, and encouraged Sophia to scramble back behind it, plopping Grant down on the floor next to his sister. He’d stopped crying, at least, although he looked like he might start again any minute.
“Come on, Grant,” Sophia said in her important-big-sister voice. “Let’s start fortifying the walls!”
“I’ll go get some supplies,” Lila said faintly, and left the kids behind the couch to creep up to the window and see what was happening.
The griffin was still out there. Now there were three lions, but as she watched, the griffin charged forward, wings spread, and the lions scrambled backward.
They rallied after a minute, charging forward. Lila pressed her hands to her mouth as one of them lunged in, wickedly-sharp teeth snapping at the griffin’s side.
The teeth never connected. The griffin moved so fast he was almost a blur, catching the lion with a powerful blow from both his forelegs. The lion was launched into the air, flying a few feet to crash into one of its companions. As Lila watched, it fell to the ground, and its form blurred, leaving an unconscious man in its place.
The griffin snarled and lunged forward, and the lions scrambled back. That vicious-looking—what was it, a jaw or a beak? Were there teeth, or just a wicked point?—anyway, the griffin snapped at one of them, catching it on the side and leaving a deep gash.
The man on the ground groaned, pushed himself up to his hands and knees. When he lifted his head, he was staring right at the griffin, who reached out one deliberate paw, claws flexing.
The man jerked back, shifted, and turned tail and ran into the woods. His friends hesitated, watching the griffin, who looked back at them with an implacable stare. Slowly, they retreated, melting back into the trees.
Lila let out an explosive breath.
Then, before her eyes, the griffin—shimmered. Shivered. Then melted, its form dissolving into a man’s body.
A man she recognized.
Lila had only met Lachlan’s brother Flynn, who was an Oak Ridge sheriff’s deputy, in passing. She had been left with the impression of a dour and intimidating man who didn’t seem to like her very much.
Well, she was about to change her opinion. And as far as she was concerned, he could be as intimidating as he liked from now on.
As she watched, he bent down to pick something up from the ground, then walked up to the door and knocked.
“Ms. Russo?” she heard him say through the door. “Are you all right? Are your children all right?”
Slowly, Lila went to the door. She opened it—she hadn’t even locked it, she realized, angry with herself for not being able to think clearly in the moment of danger.
Then all the thoughts slipped out of her head as she looked up at Flynn.
He was even taller than she remembered, his shoulders broad and his expression just as forbidding as when she’d seen him before. His coloring reinforced the whole picture: his hair was jet-black, his stubble likewise. His features were strong, almost harsh, and his eyes were nearly black, glaring out from underneath thick black brows.
“Are you all right?” he repeated. His voice was gentler than she was expecting, and Lila started, having to pull herself out of whatever daze she’d been in there for a second.
“Fine,” she said, and then took a second to assess herself, see if she was telling the truth. Her shoulder throbbed a little from where she’d hit the door, and her whole body was shaky with adrenaline, but she didn’t think she was injured. “Fine,” she repeated.
&n
bsp; “May I come in?” he asked, his voice still quiet. Careful. “I need to make sure that the house is safe.”
“Oh.” Lila hadn’t thought about that. Suddenly she was picturing a man hiding in one of the closets, upstairs in the baby’s room, waiting for everyone to go to bed, and then shifting into his lion form and padding silently out into the house—
“Please check,” she said hastily, stepping back and letting him in. “Please.”
“Don’t be afraid,” he said over his shoulder as he went past her. “I can’t smell anyone else’s scent. I just need to be certain.”
“Of course,” Lila said. Don’t be afraid. Ha. That was a joke.
She wanted to follow on Flynn’s heels, be sure along with him, but that wouldn’t go very well if anyone were hiding, would it? So she kept control of herself, stayed at the bottom of the stairs while he went up. She could hear him going in and out of rooms, opening doors, and she reassured herself. He’s going to keep us safe. Even if there is someone there, he’ll take care of it.
And it was easy to believe that he could do it. After he’d faced down three lions, outside? The worst that could happen would be that he’d break some furniture when he shifted.
Slowly, Lila could feel her heart starting to calm down.
Still, she kept herself in the doorway to the front room. No one was getting past her to get to the kids.
“How’s the fort coming?” she called over her shoulder.
“Good, Mommy!” Sophia called back. “I made a moat with blankets!”
“Good call, honey,” Lila told her, eyes fixed on the stairs. “How’s Grant doing?”
“He’s eating the moat,” Sophia said, sounding a little disgusted. “Or I guess he’s drinking it, ’cause it’s water.”
“I guess he’s thirsty,” Lila said.
Flynn came down the stairs. “Sounds like the kids are okay?” he asked quietly.
Lila nodded, and he nodded back and went down the hall to the kitchen.
She had the chance to watch—from a distance—while he systematically searched the downstairs, and she was comforted by what she saw. He left no nook or cranny undisturbed, obviously alert to anything that could possibly be a danger. There was no way even a housecat could have escaped his search, much less a lion.
