My throat thickened, and I walked over to Griff before the crowd carried him away. My mate stood tall and proud, with a glow to him that I hadn’t noticed before, not when we had been alive, not on the walls of my cell, and not even during our second chance at life.Griff was whole.The magic that had been his by birthright shone through his eyes like beacons, bringing out the golden flecks in his irises. His newfound power radiated off his body and tingled across my skin. At that moment, the noise and the crowd disappeared from my awareness, and it was just Griff and me and our love.Griff cupped the side of my face. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”“This is your victory,” I murmured. “Congratulations.”He closed the distance between us and pressed a gentle kiss on my mouth. I let my eyes flutter shut as the roar of the spectators washed over us. Griff’s lips were soft, swollen, so the kiss was tentative. Even so, his touch filled my chest with warmth and love. I remained stil
Griff lowered me onto the mattress and climbed on top of me to press kisses on my cheeks, along my jawline, and down my neck. Each press of his lips on my skin made tiny detonations of rapture across my nerves.As he reached my collarbone and sucked on it, he tore open the front of my shirt. “Cathy,” he said in a deep drawl that made my spine tingle. “You’ve made every dream I’ve had since I can remember come true.”I glanced down at Griff, meeting eyes that reflected in the moonlight. The swelling on his face had completely healed now, his features communicating the depth of his desire. My breath quickened. He was so unfeasibly beautiful and so mine. It took every effort to say, “You couldn’t have defeated Malachi if you weren’t already capable.”With a happy growl, he tore open my shirt and sports bra.“I’ll never get tired of seeing you naked,” he snarled, his gaze caressing my bare skin. “You’re the most gorgeous sight.”Heat spread across my skin, and I licked my lips.Griff slip
“It’s been like that since the moment we met. I needed you so much that it burned. Now that I’ve defeated the bastard who stole my pack, I finally feel worthy of your love.”“I loved you with or without the position,” I said.He placed a soft kiss on my lips. “Even so, I finally feel like your equal. There’s only one woman for me, and that’s you, Cathwulf Aibek.”We exchanged slow kisses until our eyelids turned heavy, and I drifted off to sleep. My heart filled with warmth and joy, and I wasn’t sure if the feeling belonged to me or Beki. It was probably both. We were so close to achieving perfect happiness. All we needed to do next was return to Shifter City without attracting the attention of Hades.Out of the darkness of my mind’s eye emerged a dream of tall pine trees that stretched up to a bright sky without a trace of the sun. Pinecones and twigs cracked beneath my bare feet, and I glanced down to find myself in the body of a prepubescent boy.My heart skipped a beat. I was Grif
My chest tightened as Griff stormed toward the study, his veins burning with a mix of determination and fury. I had no idea when this had happened, and he had never confided in me that my men had been so hostile. I had no idea men could be so bitchy.One of the enforcers at the door knocked before letting him in. When Griff stepped in the wood-paneled room, his gaze drifted past the bookshelves and sofa and locked straight to the huge bay at the end, where a 1970s version of myself sat behind the huge wooden desk with Gerrison.Sunlight streamed in from the tall windows behind us, hitting my voluminous blonde hair, making it glow like a buttercup in the middle of summer. It curled outward at the front, defying gravity, and fell in dramatic waves down to my red shirt.Griff’s pulse quickened. His fingers trembled. He clutched the Tiffany box and inhaled a deep breath.The only way to describe how Griff felt at that moment was fluttery. Now that I knew him better, it was easy to see why
I sat on the edge of the bed, gaping up at Griff, who couldn’t even look in my direction. What on earth had the bond shown him? Just the part where I had cracked, or the lead up, where he had shattered my heart and humiliated me in front of all those women?He turned his back on me, but the muscles around his shoulders remained taut, as though he was readying himself for another physical altercation.“Griff,” I whispered. “You can’t believe what you saw in that vision. It wasn’t even the whole story.”“Which was why I did my research,” he said, his head nearly turning toward where I sat. “Mating bonds don’t lie, Cathwulf. You enjoyed my destruction.”My heart sank into my roiling stomach, and I clutched the edge of the mattress, trying to cling onto something solid before I toppled forward. “But it was a moment of madness—”“Several minutes,” Griff hissed. “I stood in your body, unable to escape it as you tortured me with every manner of violence. It lasted longer than last night’s ch
I called for Griff through our bond, but he’d found a way to block the mental link. I tried looking for him, but all the staff I encountered repeated the same message. Word had spread that I was their alpha’s murderer, and everybody wanted me out, including Griff. That, and the fact that he had told me to get out of his sight, told me it was time to leave the island.Hours later, I returned to London in a haze. The part of me that should have fought for Griff was crushed beneath a barrage of blame. Even if I could push through the guilt, I’d had no words to convince him to forgive my brutality.The sun had already set by the time the Shuttle pulled into Embankment Pier. I trudged out of my room down the black-and-white hallway and toward the exit, where a stream of passengers had already formed a line.The doors opened up to a glass walkway that offered an enhanced view of our surroundings. Further up along the river, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben loomed from one side of Westmi
The chief enforcer snorted. “I was a few years younger, but I remember you from the academy. Even back then, I knew you were destined for greatness.”My lips formed a tight line. I didn’t need to read his mind to catch his meaning. Randel couldn’t believe that a man like Griff was capable of achieving all those things without my intervention. As a member of Fenrir’s inner circle, he would have heard about our progress, but I couldn’t let him walk away believing I had done all the work.“Franklin Griffiths is more capable than any wolf. It was his knowledge and strength that got us through our trials, not just mine.”Randel nodded and continued toward the driveway.With a sigh, I pushed open the door and walked through the empty hallway. At this time of the night everyone had gone to bed, and my footsteps echoed in the silence. Damp air filled my nostrils as I descended the darkened stairwell that led to the basement, and I pushed the door open to find Fenrir standing beside the fighti
Cold shock barreled through my system, even as my chest exploded with streams of burning scorpions. The last week flashed across my mind, filling me with a painful realization. Hades had attached the curse to the bargain Griff had made with the faeries. He’d given us days five before it took control of Griff’s body and destroyed Shifter City.We’d spent the last five days scrambling around trying to break the curse and transfer it to someone else. We had spent all that time worrying about what was inside Griff and hadn’t given a thought to what Hades might have placed in me.Fuck. Griff and I were mates. Rumpel Kracknuts had even hinted that curses could go deeper than the soul of the afflicted. I’d been too concerned with his murder of the healer to even think that he was hinting that I carried the curse.Bloody Hades had turned me into his Trojan horse, and if I couldn’t find a way to stop the swarm, it wouldn’t just mean the destruction of Midgard. It could mean the end of Shifter