Page 23 of Bound to the Griffin (Hillcrest Hollow Shifters #3)

Jackson

Her hand slid into mine without hesitation. The relief that flooded me at that simple, quiet act damn near buckled my knees. I squeezed her fingers, grounding myself in the warmth of her palm, and, together, we stepped out into the cold.

Thorne’s house loomed behind us—glass and steel and sharp corners—gleaming like an idol carved for someone who loved himself too much.

The man called it a cabin, but to me, it was as sterile as a mausoleum.

No warmth in its walls, no laughter, no life.

Just silence and shadows and the echo of his arrogance.

A tragedy had chased him here—whispers in town said he’d lost a lover, though no one seemed to know how.

That might explain the grief hanging off him like a tattered cloak, but it didn’t excuse him working with criminals, selling spells to the highest bidder.

He denied knowing, smooth as can be, ready with a plausible denial.

I itched to cuff the bastard and put him away, but at the same time, hadn’t all of us come here because we were running from something?

His past was just a bit closer on his heels than mine.

I pulled in a breath of sharp winter air, the frost biting my lungs clean.

“Walk with me a while?” I asked in a low voice.

“If you’re up for it. We need to talk.” I dreaded the talk and needed it at the same time.

We needed to find out where we stood after that idiot had purposely thrown the word mate out there just to taunt me.

And how she was feeling after our flight together, that was another matter we needed to discuss.

She tilted her face up, studying me, her hair catching the faint dawn light like fire.

My chest grew unbearably tight at the sight.

Damn it all, she was beautiful. Her soft cheeks were flushed with cold, lips bitten from nerves, her eyes so clear and searching it nearly gutted me.

Beneath that beauty was a fear I knew too well: that what she’d heard inside, what Thorne had thrown out like a careless knife, was too much. That she’d laugh, or worse, turn cold.

She nodded, serious and steady, perhaps with a hint of a challenge in her big brown eyes.

“All right,” she murmured into the morning quiet, much softer than even my hushed tone had been.

That’s where the uncertainty showed. The worries running through her head just like they were through mine.

That settled me because I knew I was not alone, and talking was the only thing that could ease them.

We walked down the drive, snow crunching beneath our boots.

The road stretched ahead like a pale ribbon winding toward Hillcrest Hollow—about an hour's walk if we kept our pace. I didn’t mind, but I would have to make sure that she could keep up; it wasn’t like she’d had much sleep.

The quiet of the forest pressed in, pines heavy with snow, and our breath fogged the air in front of us.

I kept her close, my arm brushing hers, but words still stuck in my throat.

It was Gwen who broke the silence, always so brazen and brave. “Explain this mate thing that guy was talking about. It sounds serious.” She gave me a look from the corner of her eye, cheeks pink from the cold. She’d bitten down on her lower lip, dimpling the plump pillow and turning it pale.

Her pulse fluttered beneath my thumb as I brushed it over her wrist, and I knew how intensely she was waiting for my answer.

Gwen was still a mystery to me in so many ways, but I had already figured out that she was desperate to find her place in the world.

A place that would accept her for who she was.

She’d found it, even if she didn’t know it yet.

“It is,” I admitted carefully. “Supernaturals—shifters, witches, all of us—we’ve got a myth about soulmates.

True mates. Most never believe it. They’re so rare that it’s easier to think they don’t exist at all, but I know better.

” I knew, and I was never going to let anyone tell me otherwise ever again.

She was watching me, her breath misting in the cold, waiting.

That same steadiness with which she’d regarded me last night, when she’d asked me for answers—was there again.

I couldn’t see anything in her face that told me she was repulsed or frightened by what she’d seen and heard so far.

No, the sparkle in her eyes, I wanted to believe that was hope.

“There are three pairs here in town,” I went on, throat tight because I didn’t dare hope she’d accept this as easily as she’d appeared to accept my griffin.

“Three. That’s more than most places see in several centuries.

And…” I faltered, heart pounding hard enough it hurt. “And I believe we are too. Mates.”

The words tumbled out like stones, heavy and raw.

“The first time I saw you, in Luther’s store?

It was like lightning hit me, like I’d been struck in the chest. I knew.

” My lungs burned with the effort of breathing.

Idiot. Too much, too soon. She’d think me crazy, obsessed. A stranger spinning fairy tales.

My mind flashed with the horror stories of rejection and persecution we’d all been told from the cradle: Never share what you were, or they’d burn you at the stake. Then she whispered, so softly I almost missed it, “I felt it too.”

I stopped dead. “You did?” My voice cracked on it, disbelief sharp. Humans didn’t feel mate-bonds the way we did, not at first sight, not as sharply or brightly as a shifter. They simply weren’t sensitive enough, though I wondered if that part of the myth was true.

Kess had fallen fast for her minotaur, hadn’t she?

And my Gwen, she was turning to stand in front of me, eyes glowing with emotion.

She nodded, biting her lip, and I nearly groaned at how goddamn cute she was.

That nod was an admission that I was not alone in having some very intense feelings.

I thought she’d repeat what she’d said, but her next words abruptly yanked my brain in another direction.

“We… have another problem. We didn’t use protection last night. ”

For a heartbeat, I only stared, struggling to catch on to the quick change of topic.

Then a smile tugged at my mouth despite everything.

“You don’t have to worry. I can’t get diseases, and I can’t get you pregnant.

Not until we’re bound.” I hurried to explain, so she’d feel more at ease and wouldn’t think I’d forgotten something so elemental as protecting her.

“Shifters are only fertile when they accept the bond, when they mate for real.” Whether that was a soulmate bond of myth or a shifter bond created with raw, animalistic magic, it didn’t matter.

Relief flickered across her face and softened her shoulders.

We walked on, the silence—this time not sharp, but gentle.

Cozy, almost. The kind of quiet you want to keep, because you know the other person isn’t going anywhere.

She had slid her hand into mine once again, and I held it tightly, warming her cold fingers.

After a while, she glanced up at me, curious. There was that sparkle in her eyes again that I adored, fire, stubbornness, and an endless desire to fit herself into the situation, to adapt. “But… if mates are so rare, wouldn’t shifters have died out by now?”

I huffed a breath, shaking my head. “No. Soulmates are one thing, that’s rare.

But like marriage, shifters can form bonds if they choose, to have families.

It’s not the same. What we can have, what we will have…

” I looked down at her, meaning every word.

“That’s something beyond. A bond that transcends everything else.

” I wasn’t quite so worried she’d run off if I came on too strong now; she had yet to run, after everything that had been thrown her way.

That soft “I felt it too” I clung to that as if it was a declaration of love already.

The forest had gone quiet around us, the hush of snow as deep as sleep.

It would have seemed like the perfect morning for a winter stroll with one’s mate, but something had started to tingle at the back of my brain.

A scent curled sharply into my lungs, acrid and oily, making my hackles rise.

This was the worst moment for an interruption, but my instincts sharpened, and the need to protect surged to the front.

I stopped, drawing her to a halt beside me.

My lips pulled back in a grin that wasn’t nice at all.

“I got him,” I said. “Your burglar. Thorne did as he said he would, and lifted the spell. I can smell the bastard now.” To say the scent of the human thief was nasty would be unfair.

It was the burning away of the magic that had cloaked his trail that had done that, but that didn’t matter; it would just make him easier to track.

Her eyes widened, and her breathing quickened. There was a hint of unease, but no fear on her side, like she trusted me to keep her safe. “Let’s get back to town,” I told her, squeezing her hand steadily. “Time to hunt him down and get some answers.”

She nodded, and though I knew we both wanted to say more, the hunt was more important.

Getting hold of that burglar would finally give us answers, tell us where that money came from, and possibly explain why Halver had skipped town like he had.

When I let go of her hand and stepped back, Gwen’s eyes shone, and she began to smile.

“Are you going to change again?” she asked, her finger swirling into the air to indicate the branches above our heads.

Bare, they still provided a bit of a cage.

“You’ll hit your magnificent head if you try to take off here.

”That made her chuckle, and I appreciated the humor when my entire body thrummed with the need to hunt. She anchored me to the present.

I shrugged a shoulder. “I’m shifting,” I agreed with her, and raised an arm to indicate the gap in the branches, where more evergreens than oaks stood in a cluster.

It was downhill, though the slope here was very mild.

“We’ll take off there. I’ll have you in town in a few minutes, that’s a promise.

Get some rest while I eliminate this tiny problem. ”

She nodded. “Okay.” Okay, just like that, and still not a hint of fear in her scent.

I was beginning to believe that she really did accept all this, took it in stride in ways most humans simply couldn’t.

Then again, the times Liz spoke of, when mating bonds between supernatural and human had nearly destroyed a town’s peace once or twice, those were times from long ago.

My brave woman stopped me with a hand on my arm, just before I could let the shift slide through me.

“But after you get that idiot who tore up my floor, you’ll come back to me, yes?

You’ll tell me everything I want to know?

You’ll…” Her words faltered, and she took a deep breath.

“You’ll come back to me, and we’ll figure out this thing, this bond that’s between us? ”

“That’s a promise,” I swore without hesitation.

With urgency riding on my heels and the need to hunt—so that Gwen would be safe—pounding in my veins, I still found a moment for her: a slice in time to reassure her that I was hers, that we were more than words and empty gestures.

I cupped her face with one hand and tucked her cold fingers into my coat to press them against the solid beat of my heart.

“Gwendolyn Avery, I promise to return to you, always.” Then I kissed her, and she clung to me, eagerly letting me taste my fill and driving me crazy with the gentle brush of her tongue.

I had to draw back with a curse, my throat tight, my voice husky.

“Damn it, Gwen, you make me forget where we are and what I need to do. You make me fight for every scrap of discipline I have.” She was still laughing, heat dancing in her eyes and pink high in her cheeks, when I shifted in a flash of golden light.

This change was fast—a burst of power, and then it was gone—and I was landing on four paws in the snow, spreading my wings beneath the trees.

Twisting toward her, I watched the awed expression on her face and preened, lifting my beak into the air in a proud display.

Then I twisted my head around to rub against her arm and crooned at her when she burrowed her fingers into the pelt at my shoulders and scratched.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re beautiful like this,” she muttered with a laugh, “and your fur is really soft and your feathers really shiny.”

While proud of my sleek griffin body and the power inherent to being what I was, I could also appreciate the humor in her tone.

She was mocking me just a little for showing off; I deserved that.

When I lowered myself into the snow and nudged her to my back, she climbed on and cuddled against me.

“You are really warm. Aren’t you worried they’ll see you in town now that it’s light? ”

I shook my head, rose, and trotted down the hill to where oaks gave way to evergreens and the canopy opened up.

With a screech, I leaped skyward, Gwen clutching my fur to hang on.

This wasn’t a long flight for sightseeing and showing off; this was a quick journey downhill, coasting on my wings before landing in her backyard.

The house to one side of the B&B was abandoned, and in the other lived a supernatural who wouldn’t blink twice at seeing their sheriff in griffin shape.

I’d kept low enough to the treetops to remain invisible from the street beyond the houses.

As a flying creature, I was keenly aware of every sightline and angle.

It was the only way to keep a secret while still getting the much-needed flying hours to clear my head and do my job.

It was much harder to let Gwen slide from my back and walk into the house while I stayed outside.

I hugged her with a paw to my chest, tail lashing, and she giggled when she got a mouthful of feathers.

“Stop it, Sheriff. You have a job to do, remember? We’ll talk more later.

” Her tone implied we’d do a hell of a lot more than simply talk when I returned.

I pranced in the snow as I watched her hurry indoors, where it would be warmer than out here once she lit a fire in the hearth.

Only when she was safely behind locked doors did I leap skyward to fulfill my mission: find the burglar, capture him, interrogate him, eliminate the threat to Gwen, her B&B, and the town.

Simple. Now that I had a trail, I’d catch this guy in a heartbeat.

I’d be back before noon to cuddle with my mate.