Page 6 of Bound to the Griffin (Hillcrest Hollow Shifters #3)

Jackson

Having tea with the beautiful, stubborn Gwen could very well have been a mistake.

A mistake in the eyes of everyone in town, but not a mistake to me.

It felt like seeing the inside of Halver’s domain and discovering the little changes, the little hints of her character, had eased my mind.

She was going to be a perfect fit once the others got over their distrust and realized she was my mate.

They’d welcomed Rosy, but she was our nymph, so that had been worth a celebration or two, maybe three. And they’d welcomed Kess not long ago, though she was human, simply because she was Gregory’s fated mate. They’d do the same for Gwen, even if I had to order them to behave.

Darkness had fallen by the time I’d left through the B it had melted and refrozen into a crown.

Ears perked, eyes sharp, she didn’t move beyond the soft flick of the tip of her tail.

She just stared. “Liz,” I muttered. She huffed as I got close, and fog plumed through the cold air in thick white tendrils.

Then, in a shimmer of air and warmth—pink and bright—the wolf was gone, and standing in her place was Grandma Lizzie, wrapped in a purple knitted cardigan and enough bangles to start a wind chime choir.

“Well, now,” she said, brushing at her shawl.

“Took your sweet time, didn’t you?” Grandmotherly, with her gray curls and lined face, she had a certain youthfulness to her face and demeanor.

As the mayor of Hillcrest Hollow and the alpha of the local pack of werewolves, she was a force to be reckoned with.

I had no doubt that Kai, or more likely, his father Ted, had sicced her on me.

I sighed and pushed open the door. “Could’ve waited inside. It’s freezing.” My door wasn’t locked, and she would have known that; nobody locked their doors around here. Why would we? We all knew each other, trusted one another, and who would dare to steal from a beast?

Her footsteps made no noise against the floorboards as she followed me.

Every step she took was full of confidence and presence, like she owned the place.

Which, to be fair, she basically did. I’d known her since before I could spell “sheriff.” She’d helped raise half the town, and ruled over the other half with a smile and a sharp set of claws.

“Cold builds character,” she said, sniffing.

“Besides, I wanted to see how long it would take for you to stop brooding and realize I was here. You’ve got that faraway look.

The kind men get when they’ve started imagining futures they haven’t earned.

” She eyed the one chair by the desk, piled high with paperwork I still had to file, then the worn leather couch, with a blanket and an empty pizza box.

Straightening her cardigan, she wiped a nonexistent wrinkle from her skirt and elected to remain standing.

I stoked the fireplace, shoving in logs until the embers sparked to life.

“I’m not brooding.” I wasn’t bothered by the lack of seating options.

The rest of my home was neat as a pin; I took great pride in that.

But I worked a busy job and often worked long hours, I was allowed to be a little behind on one thing.

Besides, she was clearly here to scold me for disobeying the last town meeting’s decision. She’d understand once I explained.

“Mmhm. And I’m not a wolf,” she said, a hint of laughter in her tone that took away the sting.

Well, who wouldn’t brood a little after meeting their mate?

I needed to come up with the right tactic to win her heart.

So I didn’t answer. Just crouched in front of the fire and watched it catch.

When I waited, she would talk, and I didn’t have to wait long.

“You’ve been acting strange,” she went on with a regal tilt of her head.

Since her clothing was now as straight as a pin, she folded her hands in front of her body, bangles tinkling together in a melodic rhythm.

“Luther says you’ve bought out his store.

Mikael says you were smiling. Smiling, Jackson. ”

My gut twisted with a hint of guilt. Everyone had been on edge ever since Kess’s arrival and a whole horde of nasty mobsters tried to chase her down.

We’d fought, protected the town and Gregory’s new mate, but it hadn’t made us feel safe.

Add to that the danger of a possible evil on the loose, escaped from the prison our resident nymph and her dragon were supposed to guard…

Nobody wanted strangers here, and we’d all agreed on that.

Still, Gwen was no stranger, not for long, anyway.

I looked back at her, deadpan. “And that’s a crime now? ”

Her gaze was as steely as mine, not a hint of a smile at what would have normally made her laugh.

“For you? Unsettling,” she said, not even couching that punch in anything soft.

It was all claws and teeth. Unsettling? Just because I’d looked happy at Gwen’s side when I walked her from the general store back to Halver’s Haven?

Did I really smile that little? I wasn’t as old as some of the creatures that made this town their home, had I let life harden me that much already?

My mind flashed to the excited, eager grin on Drew’s face as he talked about driving the unwelcome stranger from our home.

I couldn’t recall the last time I’d looked like that.

Maybe she was right. As if sensing the turn of my thoughts, the she-wolf pounced.

She leaned in, her colorful bangles clinking.

“So, tell me. Why aren’t you pushing the new girl out like the rest of us agreed? ”

I stood slowly. Behind me, the fire crackled and its heat burned against the backs of my knees. That same heat seemed to smolder in my chest, an ember that, with the right kind of tending, would erupt into a blaze. “Because I think she’s mine.” The words hung in the air between us. Heavy. Final.

Liz blinked once. Twice. The warmth left her face as if someone had flipped a switch.

She shifted back on her heels, and then pity filled her eyes.

That was the worst look to be getting from the town’s self-appointed den mother.

Her voice went awfully soft as she said, “Oh, honey. No. That’s not possible. ”

“I felt it,” I said, quieter now, not willing to hear that.

“The second I saw her. It was like getting hit in the chest. Like something woke up that I didn’t even know was asleep.

” I thumped my chest with a fist as I said it, to emphasize the point.

There was no mistaking that moment; I was certain of it, but it was obvious Grandma Liz didn’t believe me.

Her eyes were still so full of pity. I couldn’t stand that, I wanted to claw that look right off her face.

That would be disrespectful, though, and she’d just claw back.

“No,” she said, more firmly now. “We’ve had three pairs already, Jackson.

Three. Do you know how rare that is? Do you know how many towns have none? The odds are—”

“I don’t care about the odds,” I snapped, the denial bubbling hotly out of me.

Normally, I was the levelheaded one. I stepped toward her, aware that I was looming over her much smaller frame, but she wasn’t threatened.

“I know what this is. I know what it feels like.” I couldn’t be wrong about this, there was no way.

You didn’t make up a feeling like the one that struck me each time I gazed into Gwen’s brown eyes.

She looked up at me, something in her expression folding in on itself. I didn’t like that. “You’re a good man. But even good men can be wrong. You’re drawn to her, sure. She’s new, mysterious, and beautiful. Anyone would be. But that doesn’t make her your mate.”

“You didn’t see her eyes,” I stubbornly denied, but it was hard to resist the truth in those words when she laid them on me with such confidence.

Liz had seen more centuries than I had—many more.

She knew things that even Chardum, the ancient dragon, did not remember.

What if she was right? I did not want to believe that.

But soulmates were so rare as to be a fable, a myth in most parts of the world.

Yet three couples now bore distinct mating marks and made this place home: Kai and Freya, Rosy and Chardum, and now the latest couple, Gregory and Kess.

She stood, slow and steady, the warmth in her voice edged with steel.

“And you didn’t see what this town looked like the last time a bond tore someone apart.

I’ve kept this place together, Jackson. Through wars, through blood feuds, through grief.

We are balanced now, barely. And if people think you’re choosing an outsider, it won’t be peace we lose. It’ll be everything.”

That landed hard because I hadn’t been here long enough to know all that, and I knew I had no right to disturb the peace everyone here came for. I said nothing, just silently watched her, even as my thoughts rebelled against the possibility that she could be right.

She reached up, cupped my face in both hands like I was still a boy, and looked at me with all the weight of her years behind her.

“Protect your heart,” she said. “But don’t mistake want for fate.

” Heavy words I didn’t want to hear, but possibly needed.

Then she was gone. Out into the snow. No shifting, no flourish. Just a door opened, and then silence.

I stood in the glow of the fire, felt the heat of it on my face, and felt.

.. cold. Maybe she was right. Maybe I was just tired and lonely.

Maybe Gwendolyn was just a mystery I wanted to solve.

But deep in my bones—down in the place that knows things, the part that shifts, flies, and feels —I knew better.

She was mine. No matter what the odds said.