He takes a deep breath through his nose, his mouth flattening. His eyes close and then open again, snaring mine. “I’ll let this go, Cat. For us. I’ll let all these weeks of deception go, and we can move on from here. Just promise me one thing—that there’s nothing else. Vow there are no more secrets between us.”
My gut clenches, and I look down.
Griffin instantly reacts. “What?” he demands. “What is it?”
Toxic words well up, a poison prophecy. “I’m not ready to talk about it.”
His eyes turn thunderous, and that tight muscle bounces in his jaw.
“It isn’t about trusting you,” I try to explain. “I love you. I trust you. It’s about me. About…trusting myself.”
He’s silent for so long that fear takes root in my belly. Then, so low I almost don’t hear him, “Fine.”
“Fine?”
He nods brusquely, curt and small, almost like it’s against his will. “For now. But at least answer this. Why did you leave the castle? How could you leave?”
I frown. “I thought you didn’t want me.”
Griffin growls low in his throat. He leans forward and presses his mouth to mine, gently at first, and then much harder. “Always want you.”
His words are a promise, his kiss a claim. I kiss him back, hardly taking the time to breathe, and with the first searing slide of his tongue over mine, Griffin conquers my body, my soul, and my bruised heart with no effort at all. They were his all along.
I shift in his arms and straddle him, wedging my knees on either side of his hips. His hands rake down my back to cup my bottom, squeezing in that rough way he knows I love—and he loves just as much. He gathers my nightdress around my hips, bunching it in his fists. When his hands move back up, they take the gauzy material with them.
Griffin breaks the kiss to draw the garment up over my head. Frowning, he tosses it aside. “What’s this?”
“A nightgown.”
“I know it’s a nightgown. Where did you get it?”
“Kaia gave it to me from her collection.”
“Kaia?” It’s always unsettling the way his voice can turn chilling without rising or falling a notch. “My fifteen-year-old sister, Kaia?”
“Yes, that Kaia. And Jocasta and I are the only ones who have ever seen her dressed like this, so you can stop plotting torture and imprisonment.”
“But…Kaia?”
“She’s fifteen, Griffin. Some girls are married by then. I’m surprised she’s not sneaking around and kissing the pages.”
His eyes darken dangerously. “Did you kiss the pages?”
“At fifteen?” I nod. “And fourteen. And thirteen…”
“If you say twelve,” he growls, “I won’t be accountable for my actions.”
I tilt my chin up and look at him through narrowed eyes. I’m learning to appreciate this man’s irrational jealousy. “Twelve…”
Snarling a curse, Griffin flips me underneath him. I land on my back, only getting in half a bounce before his weight presses me into the mattress, the hard, powerful lines of his body a delicious counterpoint to all my softer places. Braced above me, he closes his eyes and scrubs one hand down his face. Calluses scrape over stubble. “We’ll talk about this—and Kaia—later. Right now, we’re talking about us.”
I wiggle my hips. “We were talking?”
Heat flares in his eyes. His body answers me—his arousal growing thicker and harder—but his mind is still occupied by less pleasant things. “No, but we should have been.” He lifts off me enough to concentrate. “You thought I didn’t want you? How could you ever think that?”
The pain of our fight comes rushing back, and I stiffen. “It wasn’t an entirely absurd conclusion, you know. Your ‘I can’t be with you’ was a big hint.”
Griffin’s large hands bracket my head. His gaze troubled, he sweeps his thumbs over my cheekbones in a rough-skinned caress. “You misunderstood. And I wasn’t clear, which I’m sorry about. But that was never what I meant.”
“But I’m the enemy.”
Griffin’s eyebrows slam down. “Not my enemy.”
“A big obstacle, then! You want to take over the realms. You want to turn them into one kingdom and be their king.” It isn’t easy, but I slip out from under him and sit up, facing him. “That’s not what I want. I’ve never wanted that, and while I live, it’s technically not even possible. As a direct descendant of the Origin—Thalyria’s original king—I will always outrank you. I don’t want to rule a kingdom. I don’t want to be Alpha. For the Gods’ sakes, I don’t even want to be Beta. Or the consort. Or whatever!”
Griffin’s brow furrows. “I don’t care who’s officially in charge as long as we do what needs to be done. Together.”
I shake my head. “I think you do care. In the end, you will.”
“And I think you want to stick your head in the sand and only come out when you have to save someone you love. What about everyone else? The realms are going to the Underworld with these rotten Alphas. They have been for generations. People are suffering. They need help.”
“And that’s the difference between us!” What makes Griffin good and a leader, and what makes me…me. “I don’t want to risk war, and death, and destruction, and the total annihilation of every single person I care about for the sake of people I don’t even know!”