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Chapter Fourteen

G riffin Wild

I should leave Seattle and return to my kingdom, to my people who need me. But I can’t bring myself to walk away again.

The city wraps around me like a foreign blanket as I stand outside GenTherapeutics, watching the lights still burning on the top floor where Maya works through another late night. Rain drizzles down, clinging to my hair, my shoulders, my skin. I hardly feel it.

All I feel is the hollow ache where our bond should be—where it still is, diminished but refusing to die completely.

Maya’s words echo in my mind: “Your people killed my mother, and you’re here to collect on a contract based around her?”

Did they? Did someone from my kingdom murder Helen Sorin? The thought leaves me cold in a way the rain never could.

I close my eyes, remembering that night. The search for the facility had been grueling, fruitless. We ultimately found the building—abandoned, cleared out. Evidence destroyed. Only the cells remained as grim testimony to what had happened there. Seven survivors, barely alive.

When we returned the next night, exhaustion bone-deep, the news of Helen’s death hit me like a physical blow. The cottage was reduced to ashes. Maya was gone.

Erik had found me standing in her empty lab. “She left late this afternoon,” he said quietly. “She wouldn’t tell anyone where she was going. I’ve asked around.”

I remember walking to what remained of her cottage, sifting through the charred ruins.

The dress—the beautiful red dress I’d chosen for her—was balled up on top of a pile of rubble, looking like it had been thrown there after the fact.

I took it with me, unable to explain the impulse that made me rescue it from the trash heap.

Now, with Maya’s accusations ringing in my ears, I wonder who gave the order to throw it away. Who conducted the investigation into the fire, the one I was told was already complete, neatly tied up with a conclusion of “faulty wiring”? Was I too consumed by grief, by duty, to question it?

“I wish I’d agreed to help Cassian. At least he didn’t burn my mother alive!”

Remembering the rage in her voice makes my wolf pace and snarl, desperate to fix what I’ve broken. I pull out my phone and dial Erik.

“Have you spoken to her?” he asks immediately, not bothering with formalities.

“Yes.” My voice sounds hollow to my own ears. “She refused.”

“Then, come home. We’ll figure it out some other way.”

I gaze up at the window where I know she works. “I need you to reopen the investigation into Helen Sorin’s death. Full access to all records. I want to know who conducted it, who signed off on the conclusions.”

A long silence stretches between us. “Griffin—”

I cut him off. “Maya believes her mother was murdered. And that I knew.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Erik protests. “Why would you—”

“She was told that we received a message about the fire and chose not to return.” My voice hardens. “Someone lied to her, Erik.”

I can practically hear his mind working through the implications. “I’ll look into it. But Griffin, you need to come back. The kingdom needs its king.”

“The kingdom needs a cure,” I counter. “And the only person who can provide it believes we murdered her mother.”

“And you think you can convince her to change her mind?”

I don’t answer.

“Griffin,” Erik sighs. “You’re not just the king. You’re her fated mate. If—”

“I know what I am. I’ll be in touch,” I say sharply, ending the call before he can argue further.

The lights finally go out in Maya’s office. Minutes later, she appears at the main entrance, her white lab coat traded for a dark jacket. She looks so small, so alone as she steps out into the rain.

I follow at a distance, staying in the shadows. Her path home is the same each night—past the coffee shop on the corner, through the park, to a nondescript apartment building twenty minutes from her workplace.

Tonight, she stops at a liquor store. Again.

It’s another pattern I’ve noticed in the days I’ve been watching her. She does this every night. She emerges with a paper bag that does little to disguise the two wine bottles inside it. I know that in the morning, the wine bottles will be in her trash outside.

Research tells me that the amount of alcohol she seems to be consuming is dangerous for a human—slowly killing her as surely as any disease. The thought of her drinking alone in that empty apartment, deliberately poisoning herself, makes something primal howl inside me.

But I keep my distance, respecting the boundaries she has drawn even as I break them by watching over her.

At her apartment building, she fumbles with her keys, shoulders slumped with exhaustion and what I suspect is already the beginning of intoxication.

Inside, lights come on in a third-floor window.

I settle in for another night beneath the cold Seattle sky, my eyes fixed on where she lives, wondering what I’ve done.

The prophecy flashes through my mind, then the interpretation I received from Isla: “Your fated mate will die once you mark her, and you will be the one who takes her life.”

I pushed Maya away to save her, convinced the prophecy meant I would somehow cause her death if I claimed her. But now I wonder if I’ve set her on a path to destruction by letting her go.

The young witch’s words haunt me: “The prophecies of the old bloodline are never wrong.”

But she also said prophecies can be misinterpreted. Twisted.

What if my absence is what’s killing Maya, slowly but surely?

The thought keeps me rooted to the spot long after her lights go out, long after the rain soaks through my clothes to the skin beneath.

For three more days, I watch. Each night, she follows the same ritual: work until exhaustion, alcohol, isolation. She speaks to no one outside of work except the occasional cashier or bartender. No friends visit. No phone calls last more than a minute.

The nights she doesn’t buy a bottle or two, she goes to a bar instead. A dive several blocks from her apartment, where the bartender knows her by name and starts pouring her usual without asking.

I’ve done this to her.

The realization sits like lead in my stomach as I watch her push through the door into the bar on the fourth night, shoulders curled inward as if against a permanent, invisible weight.

I need to leave. I’ve seen enough to know she won’t help, won’t return with me. My presence here is an invasion she never asked for.

Yet I find myself following her again when she stumbles out three hours later, her steps uneven, her path home a wavering line through rain-slicked streets.

She takes a wrong turn. And another. Suddenly, she’s in an unfamiliar alley, narrower and darker than her usual route home.

That’s when I smell them—three men, alcohol and adrenaline sharp in their scent, predatory intent unmistakable. My body moves before I can think, instinct overriding caution.

They’ve already surrounded her, laughing at something one of them has said. Maya stands frozen, just staring at them, her face expressionless. Why isn’t she moving? Why isn’t she leaving?

“Look, sweetheart, we just want to talk,” one of the men says, moving closer.

She doesn’t answer, doesn’t walk away. Just stands there, almost as if she’s waiting for whatever comes next. The lack of self-preservation in her posture finally hits me. She’s not going to fight. She’s not going to run.

“Get away from her,” I growl, stepping from the shadows.

All heads turn toward me. The men exchange glances, assessing. I know what they see—expensive suit, no visible weapon. One against three. They don’t recognize the warrior in their midst.

“Mind your own business, man,” one says, dismissive.

“This is my business.” I move closer, positioning myself between her and them.

“Griffin?” Maya’s voice is slurred. “What the hell do you want now?”

I don’t answer her. I won’t take my eyes off the threats surrounding us.

“Looks like the lady doesn’t want your help,” the tallest man says, grinning. “So, why don’t you run along before you get hurt?”

Something about his tone, the casual assumption that he has any power in this situation, makes my control snap. The growl that rumbles from my chest is barely human.

“Leave,” I order, my voice carrying an authority that not many humans can fully resist. “Now.”

Two of them hesitate. But the tallest stands his ground, pulling a knife from his pocket that gleams dully in the dim light.

“Make me,” he says.

I’m on him before the second word leaves his mouth. The knife clatters to the ground as I lift him by the throat, my fingers tightening just enough to restrict his breathing. His eyes bulge with terror as he finally recognizes what I am—something other than human, something dangerous.

“I could kill you,” I say softly, for his ears alone. “Break your neck before your heart completes its next beat.” I tighten my grip a fraction more. “Remember that the next time you think of hunting women in dark alleys.”

I throw him aside like the trash he is. He hits the wall hard enough to crack the brick and slides to the ground with a groan. His friends are already fleeing, survival winning out over loyalty.

Turning to Maya, I find her staring at me with wide, unreadable eyes.

“Are you hurt?” I ask, scanning her for injuries.

She stares at me before picking up her bag, which must have fallen at some point, and staggering out of the alley.

“Maya—”

Her feet trip over the uneven pavement.

I catch her before she falls, lifting her into my arms. She doesn’t protest, just lets her head rest against my shoulder, her eyes fluttering shut. The trust in the gesture makes my heart clench painfully.

“I’m taking you home,” I tell her, already moving toward her apartment building. Her lack of objection worries me more than any protest would have.