Page 6 of My Guardian Gryphon
The Drakonae had taken a chance, but they’d been given the choice.
In all my years, no one had ever meant enough to sway me from my first goal—getting home. Getting revenge on those who had chased me from it in the first place and made my parents fear so much that they and many of their friends had shoved their children through the portal, hoping Earth would be kinder than the Incanti fire that burned everything it touched.
But Earth hadn’t.
“What were you and Gretchen reading today?”
Gretchen’s name tugged the cobwebs of the past from my mind. “Antony and Cleopatra, milady.”
“You’ll have to tell me the story one day.” Her voice carried across the room, pleasant and hopeful—not a hint of the stress plaguing everyone in town. She let a light sigh slip from her lips. “And you know I would prefer you to just call me Diana.”
I shook my head firmly from side to side. “I would be happy to recount any human history, but calling you D—” I couldn’t bring myself to say it even now. “It would not be proper. You have and always will be my queen.” Though my family had not lived in the capital city of Orin, the town of Rekar had been loyal to the Blackmoor Royal House.
“We are equals in this little town.” The tone of her voice held merely a wisp of a challenge. She knew what my answer would be. What it always was. We’d had this argument on more than one occasion.
“No one but your mates are your equals. I will forever be yours to command in this world, as my family served you in Rekar on the western banks of the Goddess Sea.”
“What about Rose?” she asked, a bit of the dragon within shining through her icy blue gaze.
This was new. She’d never asked about my allegiance to the Sentinel of the town, the Lamassu who’d saved the Sisters to begin with and recruited supernaturals through the millennia to help her protect the women who carried the visions of the future. They were the key to getting back through the portal to Veil.
“I will always carry out Rose’s orders to the best of my ability, but should you give the order, I would do everything in my power to see it through.” I bowed my head again, waiting to be dismissed.
“Thank you, Alek. You are a good man.”
“Not a good man, but a loyal soldier.”
She stepped forward and took my hand before I could move away from her. A chill cooled the air around us, pulsating from her body like a commercial grade freezer turned up too high. Her fingers were cool against my skin, but not uncomfortable. “Never doubt you made it through the portal for a reason, Alek Melos. Just because you cannot see the grand design does not mean the gods have not woven a beautiful path for you through this life.”
“You are too nice to an old warrior, milady. Please excuse me, I would like to leave before the castle awakens for the evening.”
She pursed her lips, but didn’t respond except to release my hand.
I bowed again and left the library through the door she’d used to enter. My feet echoed down the long stone hallway, empty but for the artwork the Blackmoors had studiously rescued through the years. A small reminder of the beauty this country had once valued and had cast aside due to their fear and ignorance.
So much had been lost because of the mistakes of a few. So many had died and many more would die before we found our way back through the portal to the world where we belonged.
By the time I reached the grand staircase leading down to the main foyer, the castle was already filling with guests from town. Sisters were decked out in filmy white gowns that mimicked ancient Greek robes—loose, gauzy, and strategically laced with rope to accent the female body. These were not their usual cotton sundresses.
“Alek,” a silky voice called from halfway up the right side of the grand staircases. “Are you staying for this evening’s Luck of the Draw matching? You never stay.” Kylie —one of the pixies who helped manage the club part of the castle—approached me one seductively slow step at a time.
Her dress, if it could be called that, was a light shade of green and utterly transparent, allowing me and anyone else to see her perfectly pink nipples and smoothly-shaved mound. Thin lines of red and pink and purple streaked through her white hair, reminding me of those children’s pony toys from over a century ago. All the pixies wore bright colors in their naturally white hair, some dyed it completely, and others, like Kylie, wore multi-colored streaks.
I yanked my attention away from her familiar nakedness. Strangely enough, I had absolutely no desire whisk her away to a bed. I just wanted out of this place tonight. Something in Gretchen’s tone had put my beast and my mind into an unsettled state.
Air free of female pheromones and perfume and a chat with Jared was needed to return me to my normal state of controlled calm. Right now, I could feel every molecule of the atmosphere. It itched and burned like someone had scraped the top layer of skin from my body and dipped me in a vat of chili powder.
“I’m on my way out.”
An understanding nod came from Kylie. “Another time, perhaps?”
“No,” I answered, my tone more gruff than I’d meant for it to be. I liked Kylie. She was nice, fun to be around, and sexy as hell, but I’d had less and less interest in being with anyone over the last few years. In fact, I couldn’t think of the last time my cock had felt more than the palm of my own hand.
I was nearly out the wide front door when Gretchen’s name fell from a female’s lips in the back of the foyer. Leaving was my goal. The last place I wanted to be when the humans arrived was the castle, but I also couldn’t help the pause in my step. Anything to do with Gretchen was important to me. Perhaps they knew why she had been so angry with me earlier. Something was going on. Something she wouldn’t come out and tell me.
“Gretchen’s going to have to choose a man soon. I’m really getting sick of her excuses.”
Choose a man. The instant image of Gretchen with a man between her legs nearly sent my afternoon meal spewing onto the polished marble floor of the foyer. She was still so young. I knew what the joinings were, but it’d never registered in my mind that Gretchen was participating. How old was she? I tried to count up the years in my head, but they ran together in a blur.