Gryphon's Pride

by Kaye Draper

  He lifted his hand, and I released his arm, letting him reach out to pull me down so our foreheads touched. "Whatever happened to you, it was not your fault. You can't fight off every enemy on your own, Gesa. Sometimes they take you by surprise. Sometimes they are just plain bigger or stronger. But that doesn't make you weak."

  I huffed and rolled away, collapsing on my back.

  He followed, stretching out along my side like a supple feline. "And just because someone is stronger than you, doesn't mean they will hurt you." He trailed a finger up my ribs, making me jerk and snort. "I could do all number of horrible things to you, darling. But I won't. Because, despite what others may say, I'm not a monster. And whoever hurt you...he definitely was."

  I turned to look at him. "We were supposed to be having an amazing, meaningless fuck right now," I said, voice mournful over that lost opportunity.

  He waved a graceful hand. "Yes, yes. Deflect and avoid."

  I sighed and went to sit up. Clothes were probably a good idea. But a hand slid around my waist. "Don't tell me you're giving up? I thought gryphon's never accepted defeat?"

  I flopped back down, hope warring with confusion. After all this disgusting emoting...he still wanted me?

  "Tell me what you want, Gesa," he breathed into the hallow of my throat, lips brushing my skin. "Anything you need, to make you feel safe. I promise it's okay."

  I would have thought my libido was done for the day. But at those husky words against my skin, it flared back to life. He wasn't lying. He would give me whatever I needed, without judgment. I turned my head to sink into a deep, biting kiss, pulling him to me like a life preserver. I didn't want to think anymore. The fear had fled. I wanted to lose myself. I wanted him to make me forget. Erase it all.

  Perceptive emerald eyes met mine and that familiar smirk tilted his soft lips. "Oh, like that, is it?"

  I growled.

  Oisin moved over me once more, worshiping my body with smooth hands and a wicked mouth, the intermittent sting of his sharp canines and soft scrape of nails across my flesh leaving me gasping. He didn't pause this time. He trusted my decision, not questioning me or coddling me as someone else might.

  And I loved him for it.

  I laughed when he produced a condom from out of nowhere and waved the shiny packet at me in question. I wasn't sure if he'd riffled through my stuff at some point, or if the fae was so randy he just carried them in every pocket. I nodded. No way was I ever having kids. Much to the fury of my whole clan. He sheathed himself and covered me once more, still not showing a hint of reservation.

  I bucked my hips in invitation, sighing with pleasure as he buried himself to the hilt inside me in one graceful, fluid motion.

  Sex with the fae was so different than the male domination of my previous encounters. He was alternately giving and receiving, soft and hard, bossy when it suited, pliant and agreeable at other times. And small though he might be, he was able to meet my gryphon strength, thrust for thrust. I lost track of the number of times I shouted his name, falling apart under his fluid touch.

  He really did mean it when he said we'd try everything. Though, as I lay there afterward, completely exhausted and sated, the lithe, beautiful fae draped over my chest like a banked flame, I couldn't help but think of all the things we didn't get to...and hope there would be a next time.

  I was such a sucker.

  I thought he was sleeping, but his smooth voice, made languid by sex and satisfaction, startled me out of my contemplation.

  "Who hurt you, my gryphon?"

  I shouldn't be surprised that he wanted to know. Most men would. But I just didn't figure he'd care. I let out a breath and raked my hand through his tangled hair, where it spilled over us like a red lava flow. "Does it matter?"

  He lifted his head enough to gaze at me with brilliant green eyes as hard as diamonds. "It will matter, if I am ever in his presence. I need to know who needs to bleed out on the ground like a pig. Saves me having to just kill every male gryphon I happen to meet for the rest of my life."

  I should have been disgusted by the blatant, feral bloodlust I saw in his eyes. He would kill for me. Easily. But I wasn't foolish enough to be flattered. Praising a fae for being deadly was like praising a house cat for catching mice—it wasn't a gift. It was in their nature. Thinking a wild animal was a pet was a mistake.

  I bit my lip, surprised to realize it wasn't so hard to tell him. "The mayor's son, back home."

  He showed sharp canines. "The son of the man you were employed to protect?"

  I laughed, short and bitter. "Yes."

  "And he wasn't punished." He didn't ask. He could probably read the answer in my every breath.

  "Not by the counsel or the courts," I said in a flat voice. "They...they said I was lying."

  Oisin pushed himself up farther on his elbows so he could see me more clearly over the mounds of my breasts. "But...you're gryphons. You all have the ability to sense lies, yes?"

  I kept stroking his hair, my own deadly pet, as comforting as any pampered cat. "Yes. But only if we try. We have to sort of...turn it on, I suppose. You can only see the truth if you look for it." And thanks to the rape and my subsequent shunning, my lie detector was now permanently "on." I saw the truth all the time now, whether I wanted it or not.

  He shook his head. "They all deserve whatever pain you choose to inflict on them."

  I gave him a crooked grin. "It took him tranqing me, and even then, two of his cronies had to help hold me down until the drugs kicked in."

  I hadn't gone down easy. It took three male gryphons and a dart. But my body still went tense with the memories. Feeling my heart rate and breathing go haywire, Oisin pushed himself up my body, sliding up to catch my face between his soft. but steely. hands, forcing me to look at him as he pressed our foreheads together. "You are here with me now."

  I nodded, as much as I could, my arms coming up to wrap around him. I shouldn't be comforted with us in this position, his weight on top of me, his unnaturally strong hands holding me still. But I was.

  After a couple deep breaths, I pulled back. "I nearly killed him," I said softly. "After I was able to walk again, when the drugs wore off and I pulled myself out of the Mayor's hallway—they did it right in the open, like they had something to prove—I dragged myself up and showered. Then I tracked him down, dragged him out of his fancy house and beat him to within an inch of his life in the middle of the street with my bare hands. Gryphons heal fast. But he was in a coma for a week. He might never walk again."

  Oisin grinned at me, his eyes sparkling. "Of course you did. That's the Gesa I adore."

  I sighed. "Then he told everyone that I attacked him. And of course, I had cleaned myself up and have great healing abilities, so there was no physical proof of rape by the time anyone got around to investigating, not that they even pretended to investigate that." It had all been a sham. A room full of creatures with the ability to sense lies, and they sat there and professed to believe the man who had attacked me.

  Oisin lay back down, his head over my heart. "I would offer to make them all regret the day they decided to wrong you so, but I know it would be a wasted offer."

  I snorted. "Because I'm too soft."

  "No," he said quietly. "Because if you wanted them dead or punished, you are fully capable of taking care of them on your own."

  He started humming in that low, melodious voice of his, and my eyes grew heavy. "Rest, my scary beast."

  That sounded like and excellent idea. I sank into my soft bed, Oisin's comforting weight holding me to the earth, covering me like a blanket as his song lulled me to relax.

  Chapter 9

  I must have dozed off for a while. I woke to a tickling sensation on my ribs, and an annoying little tapping on the top of my breasts. I cracked an eye open to find a beautiful fae smirking down at me, his long hair tickling my skin as he leaned over me to walk his slender fingers over the swells and chasms of my chest like a marching army in unexplored territory.r />
  I swatted him away and stretched, noting a pleasant ache in some rather overused muscles. Oh my Gods. I'd gone and done it. Him. Whatever.

  Oisin chuckled. "Have a nice nap, darling?"

  I snorted. "It was nice. Until someone woke me up." I sat up over the edge of the bed, pulling the sheet with me in a wasted effort to cover up the goods. "Why aren't you still snoring it off, like a typical male?"

  He moved to kneel behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his head on my shoulder. "I want to go hunting," he said, like a child asking to open gifts on Yule.

  I tilted my head to glare at him out of the corner of my eye. "I told you, seducing me will not get you a spot on the monster hunting squad."

  He laughed. "It needs a better name than 'monster hunting squad.' Especially now that I'm a member."

  I shrugged him off. Did he really think sleeping with me was required to help me hunt? Fae and their games.

  He ruffled my hair and sat back. "Oh stop growling, Gesa. I'm only teasing. Fucking you was purely selfish pleasure. Promise."

  I stood, leaving the sheet behind to saunter to the dresser for a clean change of clothes. "I'm going to shower. Then we can go hunting." I arched an eyebrow at him. "I assume you'll be in the mood to actually give me information when I get done?"

  He flopped back on the bed, arms stretched overhead and engorged dick at full attention. "If there is one thing fae love more than debauchery, it's the hunt," he assured me.

  I swallowed. Hard. "Jesus, Buddha and Odin," I muttered under my breath as I made for the shower. I should not be aroused by a person who was aroused by the thought of hunting down other people.

  Tell that to the lady parts.

  When I emerged from the shower, armored up in jeans and a black t-shirt, Oisin was in the kitchen. I followed the smell of something burning and found the impeccably dressed redhead frowning at a pan on the stove. My smoke detector was sitting on the counter with the battery removed.

  "What the hell are you doing, trying to burn my house down?"

  He turned his frown on me. "If I was trying to do that, I'd just use magic," he said sweetly. "It's been a while since I cooked."

  I glanced at the trashcan, which was steaming a little from where he had dumped something black. "What did you murder?"

  He managed to wrangle a passable-looking omelet onto a plate and plunked it down in front of me. "This one turned out fine, don't be such a baby."

  I took the fork he handed me and sat on a barstool at the counter. Was he trying to be nurturing or...caring or something? I took my life in my own hands and took a bite.

  It wasn't terrible. Not good, but not terrible. Certainly no worse than my own cooking. Which, let's face it, wasn't saying much.

  "Thanks," I said, waving my fork at the plate. "Aren't you eating?"

  He shook his head. "I figured a big beast like you needed fuel. But I just want to hunt."

  He was practically vibrating, shifting from foot to foot. Apparently with one desire sated, it was on to the next bit of fun. "There is something seriously wrong with you," I observed.

  He waved a hand at me in a "get on with it" gesture. "I haven't been on a good hunt in ages. Food. In the mouth. Now."

  I arched a brow at him and made sure to chew extra slow. "We aren't going anywhere until you tell me what you found out from your coworker anyway."

  He nodded and perched on the stool next to mine, brushing a loose lock of hair behind one long, pointed ear. How had I not noticed how pointed those ears were before this? I should have pushed myself to look past his glamour the first time I saw him. Those ears were sickeningly adorable. And sensitive, I remembered fondly. Which did not help with my focus.

  "Your glamour is slipping," I said calmly while I polished off the eggs.

  He shrugged. "Didn't see the point of it at the moment."

  "Your points are distracting me from my point. Which is that you should make with the info now. Because I'm almost done eating and if you have nothing to add, I'm not taking you with me."

  He snorted. "Maybe clack your beak at me too, just for good measure."

  I rolled my eyes.

  I was not enjoying this. Really. Not much.

  It was just that...I expected things to be weird after what we'd done. And what he knew about me. But it was as if nothing had changed.

  "It was a supposition, really," he said, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms. "Not actual intel. I asked Jen at the bar if she'd seen that kappa around lately. She mentioned that the last time she saw him he was with Derek White and said that he was probably lying in an alley somewhere with two broken legs."

  I squinted at him, trying to make any of that make sense.

  "Why would White go around breaking kappa?" I mean, they could be obnoxious, and okay, sometimes they did drown humans. But I couldn't see someone like White giving a flying fuck about that.

  Oisin took my plate and dropped it off in the sink, clearly wanting to move. "Well, he owns a bunch of casinos and clubs. What if the kappa owes him money?"

  I sighed. "You're right. That is all just a bunch of what if. But it does make sense, I suppose. If the guy is in debt with a dude who basically controls the cash flow in the whole city, he would have to do something desperate to raise that kind of cash. Like kidnap humans and sell them to other supes—ones who either can't come out in the open to catch their own or don't want to get their hands dirty."

  Oisin waved the theory away. "The better part is, Jen does this volunteer...thing. She said she knows a guy who hangs out at the shelter and the underpass who might have seen someone get snatched."

  I stood and slipped into my leather jacket, strapping on my gun and knife. "And you got a name?"

  He smiled, slow and wicked. "Of course I did, darling. What do you take me for?"

  I heaved a put-upon sigh. "Easy. Snarky. Bored. Probably dangerous."

  He held a hand to his cashmere-clad chest as if he were wounded. "Where is the tenderness?"

  I rolled my eyes. "We fucked, Oisin. That's all it was. No reason for me to be all sentimental."

  Even though I had pretty much bared my freaking soul to him.

  For just a moment, I thought I saw something real behind that mask he always wore—something like hurt. Then he dropped his hand and his usual smirk slid back onto his face. "Of course. Did you forget what I am, Gesa? Sex is like breathing to fae. We are incapable of disgusting things like feelings, or attachment." He shuddered and wrinkled his nose as if he smelled something foul.

  I shook my head and turned to go, feeling him glide out the door behind me without a sound.

  I had some fun. I over-shared about my stupid past. It didn't mean anything. This was the freedom I wanted when I broke from the clan. I could do whatever I wanted, no attachments, no obligations. I was free.

  But then, what was this unsettled nagging feeling in my gut that felt like...disappointment?

  Chapter 10

  We found him at the underpass. Concord Sousa was one of those guys you could walk right by and never notice, if he didn't want to be noticed. Glancing around the small camp of cardboard boxes and tattered humanity, I had my eye out for someone shifty. The type of person who made a living off "noticing" things and taking advantage of it. That was the type of low-life I usually pumped for information on the sorts of minor assholes I hunted.

  Luckily, I had a ridiculous redheaded weirdo with me today.

  Oisin nudged me as we walked down the cracked sidewalk toward the underpass where a group of homeless were sheltering from the light mist and rising wind. "Keep it cool, Gesa. If they think something important is going on, they might spook."

  I snorted. "You are really one to talk, you—" I stopped talking when I glanced at him. When we started our excursion, he was wearing designer clothing and looked like some effeminate runway model. But the fae was gone. The man walking at my side now was still redheaded and pale, but his features were rounder, smattered with f
reckles. His short hair was a messy riot of waves, and he was dressed in worn jeans, beat up sneakers, and a hoodie with the local college logo stamped on the front. He looked about eighteen. Tops.

  "What?" He turned an innocent, wholesome smile up at me. "Stop glaring at me, mom."

  Fae glamour. One more reminder, as if I needed it, that Fae were just one big walking lie. I checked the urge to slap him. "How old do you think I am?" I said instead. "Clearly we're siblings." Siblings with a twelve-year age gap...but whatever.

  He grinned, a bit of his usual feral smirk showing through the act. "Of course, Grannie."

  I rolled my eyes, forcing my face into some semblance of normal as we approached the underpass. Thirty wasn't old. Even though, to my mother, it meant I should have started expelling cubs from my womb five years ago, after my coming of age. Gryphons are long-lived, but that just means more chances at boosting the population.

  I dismissed my angry thoughts and tried to appear pleasant and nonthreatening. Though, knowing my degree of resting bitch face, it probably looked like I was here to murder them all.

  An old man with skin the color of teak and a grisly beard like steel wool stared at us with weary, blood-shot eyes as we approached. His fingers clenched in his ratty blanket as if we might snatch it away. I crouched down next to where he sat on a pile of cardboard, out of the worst of the wind.

  "Hey there," I said, in the voice I reserved for wounded forest creatures. "We aren't going to hurt anyone. My name is Gesa. I'm looking for a man named Concord?"

  The guy stared at me, then his eyes flicked up at Oisin and back. "I don't know no Concord."

  Half-truth.

  I sighed, trying not to show how impatient I was. "Look, you don't have to protect him. We won't hurt him. I'm a bounty hunter, of sorts. I hunt monsters, not good guys. I want to help keep you guys safe, and I heard this Concord person saw something pretty scary."

  Oisin crouched down and held out a fifty-dollar bill. "My sister wouldn't hurt anybody who didn't try to hurt her first."