Breath of Fire

by Amanda Bouchet

  Griffin’s ragged breath fans my fevered lips. “I thought you were never coming back. The days… They just kept going by, and you never came.”

  I curl my fingers into his hair, holding him tight. “I will always come back to you.”

  With a gruff sound, he settles his hands on my hips. “You should know better than to make promises you might not be able to keep.”

  He’s right. He always is. But that’s a vow I’ll keep—in this life, or in the next.

  Not answering, I lean forward and kiss him because he’s my hunger and my food, my thirst and my water, my air and my every breath.

  Griffin drags me closer, and the feel of his arousal between us sends heat rushing up my spine. I wiggle to the very edge of the shelf, rubbing against him.

  A soft groan resonates in Griffin’s chest. His fingers tighten on my hips. “This isn’t the place.”

  His steely length is flush against my core, and white-hot desire is coiling deep in my belly. “This is definitely the place.” I tilt my head back, flicking a tangled mess of hair off my neck.

  His face dips toward my throat. He stops. Pulls back. “What’s this?”

  Uh-oh. “Nothing?”

  Frowning, Griffin gently explores the tender ridges of my new scars with his fingertips. “What happened?”

  There’s no use pretending he can’t see. Between our smoldering cloaks and the daylight filtering around the bend, it’s far from pitch-dark.

  I take a deep breath. How does a woman tell her almost, maybe, probably husband she’s part fish? Apparently. “Do you find mermaids arousing?”

  His eyebrows slam down. “What?”

  “I almost drowned.”

  “What!”

  I wince, his near-roar still echoing around the tunnel.

  Griffin clears his throat, trying again more calmly. “Would you care to explain?”

  I consider. “No?”

  “Cat…” he growls.

  “Fine.” My shoulders slump in defeat. Not that I put up much of a fight. “The three-headed beast chased me over a cliff. It was really dark, and I didn’t know what was behind me. I was busy trying not to get eaten, or crushed, or clubbed, and then I fell. I turned to run because I was getting my ass kicked, but then there was nothing under my feet. Luckily, there was a lake at the bottom of this huge, black pit, which means I didn’t…” I decide not to finish that thought. Griffin’s expression is turning more frightening by the word.

  “I hit the water, but I was too weighed down to swim. I had my clothes and cloak, Kato’s clothes and cloak, my satchel—which I dropped. But after that, I could hardly move because it was so cold. My fingers were numb, and I was woozy anyway because I’d just hit my head.” My hand automatically rises to the sore spot under my hair. “I couldn’t get anything else off me.”

  Silent but clearly seething, Griffin runs his fingertips over my scalp, lightly moving them from front to back. Feeling the sizeable lump still there, his lips thin. “You sank.”

  I nod.

  Griffin takes a calming breath. Then another. It takes three to actually work. “I’m going to skip over your having Kato’s clothes and get right to the new scars on your neck.”

  I glance down, fiddling with my belt. “I didn’t drown. I, uh…grew gills.”

  “Gills?”

  Nodding, I run a self-conscious hand over my neck.

  “Did you pray to Poseidon?” he asks. “Call on an Oracle?”

  I shake my head. “I was too panicked. Too muddled. No air. The cold…” I shrug. “I don’t know what happened.”

  Gripping my waist, Griffin lowers his head and then carefully kisses the slashing scars on one side of my neck. “What happened after that?”

  I shiver when he shifts to the other side, and his lips brush a soft, warm kiss over the first raised ridge. “I hit the bottom, wrapped both cloaks around me to keep from freezing to death, picked up my satchel, and then walked to the other side of the lake.”

  A puff of breath hits my neck, and I think Griffin smiles a little against my skin. “My brave, brave Cat.” His mouth gently traces another scar.

  “Definitely.” I shudder. “There were eels.”

  “Where was Kato?” The careful levelness of his voice does nothing to hide its sharp edges from me.

  “He was getting the golden fleece for the Ipotane Alpha. We’d already been separated for three days. Maybe more. It was hard to tell in there.”

  Griffin straightens. His nostrils flare as he looks down at me. “He shouldn’t have left you.”

  “He got what we needed. We both made it out. That’s what’s important.”

  His eyes spark with anger in the dim light. “What’s important is keeping you safe.”

  “Stop.” Sharp, the one word rings out loudly in the icy quiet of the tunnel. “Stop with this obsession. It’s not fair to anyone, especially me, and for the first time ever, I can honestly say you’re being a hypocrite.”

  “A hypocrite?” he grates out, stiffening away from me.

  “If your goal is to keep me safe, then take me back to Castle Sinta. We’ll dance, feast, spend hours in bed together, get fat, and have babies. Don’t take over the realms. Don’t try to change the world. Don’t throw us all into the paths of power-hungry, bloodthirsty Alphas. Don’t be responsible for anything except for me.”

  Griffin blinks. He looks like I slapped him. “Are you asking me to choose between you and everything else?”

  Shaking my head, I lift my hands and spear my fingers into his overlong hair. I don’t know how his hair stays silky and soft when I’m going to need a vat of olive oil to untangle mine. “I have a feeling you’d choose me, and I won’t do that to you. You’d end up hating me for it, and I’d hate myself. But I’m not a princess in a gilded tower. You have to let me do my part.”

  “You’re on the Ice Plains. You went in there.” A tight jerk of his head indicates the dark tunnel leading into the labyrinth.

  “I know. And I know that was hard for you. For everyone. But don’t be mad at Kato for doing his part.”

  Griffin mutters a harsh curse and then stares at me, his expression like a herd of Centaurs on the verge of charging—explosion imminent.

  I lightly cup his cheek in my hand. “I’m here. I’m safe.”

  His eyes close. Slowly, he leans into my touch, and the anger and the stress start to drain from him. “It killed me. Every day, every hour, every minute, every bloody second, it killed me. Waiting for you. Not knowing if you were alive.”

  “I know.” I lean forward and press my lips to his.

  Griffin holds on to my waist, anchoring me to him. “There’s nothing left of you,” he rasps between kisses.

  His large hands cover most of my sides. His fingers splayed wide, I know he can feel every bone.

  “I can fix that by eating nothing but spice cakes for a year when this is over,” I tell him.

  He chuckles. It turns into a groan when he slides his hands up to palm my breasts. I arch into his touch, and he increases the pressure. My belly tightens. Desire shivers through me.

  “Then these would be a handful again.” The huskiness in his voice makes me think he’s really looking forward to that. “Plump and round.”

  I laugh a little, the sound tangling with a rough exhale when his thumbs brush over my nipples. “Those would be plump and round, but my ass would be, too, and probably my hips.”

  “Perfect,” Griffin growls, lowering his head to plunder my mouth again.

  He steals my breath and melts my bones. Gripping my nape, he deepens the kiss. Urgency jumps from his tongue to mine. My spine curves, and he bends me even farther back, his fist tightening in my hair. My hips angle up, reaching for him, and our bodies connect right where they should. Griffin moans at the contact. A hot, liquid pulse throbs to life betw
een my thighs.

  Tension and need gather like a heady storm. “I want you.”

  “Cat…” He groans low.

  My legs clasping his hips, I push Griffin’s cloak aside and then run my hands over his torso, finding hard leather instead of a familiar chest. On a frantic quest for skin, I drop my hands to his belt, unbuckle it in record time, and then artlessly tug at the laces of his pants. His arousal springs free, and I curve my hand around the warm, hard flesh, squeezing as I stroke him from base to tip.

  Griffin makes a guttural sound, biting out, “Cold hands,” even as he rocks into my grip.

  “Fill me.” I kiss his scruffy neck and jaw as I swirl the pad of my thumb over the liquid pearling at the crown of his erection. “I’ll be hot.”

  He shudders. “You feel so fragile in my hands.”

  Is he afraid he’ll hurt me? I nip his earlobe. “I am not, never have been, and never will be fragile.”

  Griffin lifts his head. His eyes flash with silver heat a second before he grabs my boots and tears them off. My pants follow, ripped down my legs with one hard jerk as I wiggle, helping to free them from underneath me.

  Cold air sweeps across my bare skin. Griffin wraps my legs back around his waist, tucking them under his cloak again. Then his cool palms slide up my thighs and around my hips. He pulls me hard against him, and I gasp. This is what I want.

  He kisses me again, his thumbs skimming along the creases of my thighs. Then one callused finger lightly traces the seam of my folds. The teasing touch gradually turns bolder, circling, pressing down. An explosion of sensation riots through me. I arch back, catching fire.

  Griffin bends over me, kissing me senseless while his touch leaves me trembling and hot. I grip his shoulders and hang on, raising my hips to meet his hand.

  “Griffin!” A storm races under my skin. I whip my hips, trying to spur him on.

  “Patience, Princess.”

  “Now, Your Stubbornness, or I swear I’ll start biting.”

  Griffin slides one long finger inside me. “Is that a promise?” he asks, his voice low and gravelly soft.

  A tremor ripples through me. “And kicking.”

  “So hot.” His eyes slide closed.

  “And screaming my head off,” I threaten breathlessly.

  He looks at me again, his storm-cloud gaze half hooded by thick, inky lashes. “Then I must be doing something right.”

  A second finger ratchets up my need to a nearly unbearable level. Griffin’s wide palm puts pressure where I need it most, and my breathing quickens.

  “I want you inside me.”

  “You’re making it damn hard to make sure you’re ready,” he says, sounding almost harsh.

  “I’m ready!”

  “Cat…”

  I push his hand aside, take hold of his shaft, and then practically impale myself on his erection.

  Griffin inhales with a hiss. Then he grips my hips and pulls me forward, joining us fully with a slow, deliberately measured thrust. Exquisite pressure builds low in my abdomen. He’s barely finished pushing himself inside me when my release hits. My thighs tense. The breath stalls in my lungs, and then I kick back my head and let out the loudest, throatiest, most breathless moan in the history of all history, going boneless in a blissful rush.

  “Gods, I missed you,” Griffin rasps, holding me as I throb around him.

  The high-impact tremors fade into sweet, lingering aftershocks. I look up at him with heavy-lidded eyes. My lips part, but no words come out. Even the drag of frosty air over my kiss-swollen lips is almost too sensual to bear.

  Griffin quirks a dark eyebrow, looking smug. “That was easy.”

  I grin, falling in love with him all over again. “Then do it again.”

  Heat flares in his eyes. His lips curve in a slow, carnal smile as he slowly withdraws. Pleasure licks up and down my spine, the feel of him moving inside me thrilling me from my head to my toes. He thrusts forward again, and my exhale shudders between us. Griffin’s hoarse groan is all I need to rock my hips. He answers by rocking his. Our eyes meet with steady, burning intensity.

  “You’re mine.” He strokes into me again, and thunder cracks in my heated veins. Lightning flashes around us. “I’m yours. Nothing will ever come between us.”

  “Nothing,” I vow, the binding magic snapping in my blood.

  Griffin pulls me off the ice shelf, holding me in an iron grip while he thrusts upward again and again. I wrap my arms around his neck, finding his mouth to claim his lips, his tongue, his breath, and more. He moves faster, harder, driving up into me as I grind down. Release swells inside me again, cresting like a great, unstoppable wave.

  I start to shout, and Griffin clamps his mouth down on mine, muffling the sound as I tumble over the edge of another shattering climax. My muscles clench his shaft, begging him to join me as hot bolts of pleasure spark and twist through my body. Griffin’s grip turns crushing. He goes still, shudders, and then groans against my mouth, finding his own release just after me.

  Our lips cling. Neither of us moves. I couldn’t even if I tried. Only Griffin’s arms are keeping me upright. When he finally lifts his head, my lashes flutter up.

  Dreamily, I say, “If you put me down, I’ll fall.”

  Griffin smiles faintly. “I would never let you fall.”

  Overwhelming love pushes at the confines of my ribs, making my heart feel too big for my chest.

  A shrill whistle comes from somewhere beyond the curve in the tunnel, a sudden reminder of the others waiting for us. “If we want to get off this mountain today, we have to leave now,” Carver calls.

  “How do you feel?” The concern in Griffin’s eyes is evident even in the dim light. Or maybe it’s his voice that gives it away.

  “Honestly?” I grimace, touching the bump on my head. But instead of saying, “Occasionally dizzy with mild to not-so-mild bouts of nausea,” I just say, “Exhausted,” which is also true. Oddly, I was feeling much the same even before I got tossed headfirst into a wall.

  “We camp here until tomorrow,” Griffin calls back.

  Carver grumbles something unintelligible in assent.

  “We should get dressed.” I yawn, utterly unmotivated to move.

  “Then I’ll have to put you down.”

  That is a drawback. “All right, but only for a second.”

  Griffin slides me off him and then deposits my cloak-protected bottom back onto the ice shelf. Still half hard, he rights his pants and buckles his belt. On his way down to retrieve my clothing, he stops to inspect the healing cut on my left thigh. “What happened here?”

  I yawn again. “Monster claw.” The slice wasn’t deep and healed over quickly, leaving a line across my leg that’s only a little sore. “I don’t even feel it.”

  His sudden, tense silence speaks volumes, but I ignore it. Griffin chooses to let it go, probably because there’s no point arguing with a person who is half asleep and who doesn’t care about the cut anyhow.

  Mostly thanks to Griffin, I end up dressed again before he gathers me into his arms and then sits, settling his back against the tunnel wall. With me in his lap, he wraps our smoldering cloaks around us both. The soft light flickers over the hard angles of his face.

  I lift a heavy hand and trace my finger along the prominent bridge of his nose. “I love your nose.”

  His mouth curves in a dubious smile. “It’s big and hooked.”

  I sigh. “I know.”

  I let my hand fall and then tuck it between us, resting my head under Griffin’s chin. I fall asleep almost instantly, warm, happy, and safe for the first time in days.

  CHAPTER 21

  The Hydra is real—unfortunately—and judging by the scattered bones, clearly an effective guardian for the narrow entrance to the Phthian Gap. The creature sits half submerged in the shallows of the la
ke, its gigantic, oblong body only partially visible. At the tops of a dozen towering necks, heads whip and twist and tangle and roar. The snarling gets louder the closer we get. I’m guessing humans aren’t welcome here.

  I push my cloak back from my shoulders, already sweating from the balmy temperature. The Hydra is no fool. In a land of snow and ice, it lives in a place riddled with hot springs. No wonder magical creatures winter here. With the Hydra in front and formidable mountains protecting the entrance on either side, the Phthian Gap then descends into a wide, verdant valley. The inviting vista winds its way from where we now stand to not-so-far-off, cloud-capped Mount Olympus, rising majestically in the north.

  Nerves jangle in my belly. “I need more heads,” I conclude after conducting a thorough inspection of the Hydra.

  Griffin angles himself in front of me. So does Flynn.

  Next to me, Carver says, “Do I even want to ask?”

  Of course he does. “If we’re going to keep facing creatures with multiple heads, I need more. You know, just to make things fair,” I explain.

  “One head is enough.” Griffin stops me with a steely arm in front of my chest when I try to come up next to him again. “And I told you to stay back.”

  I stretch up on my toes and whisper for Griffin’s ears only, “I could get creative with my extra mouths.”

  He ignores that. The grump.

  “You know what I love about you, Cat?” Carver draws his weapon. We all do. It’s for the best—big monster and all.

  “Is this a trick question?” I ask.

  He smiles. “You can make jokes while looking a creature like that in the eye.”

  “Which eye?” I cock my head and study the Hydra. “There are a lot to choose from.”

  That earns a chuckle from everyone except Griffin. He’s still being a grump. Probably because he knows I get flippant and verbally reckless when I’m scared.

  I nudge his arm. “Do you have a plan, Your Grouchiness?”

  Griffin levels a flat look on me. “Do you, Princess?”

  I shrug. “Tiptoe? Go around? Quietly?”

  “On that?” Flynn eyes the one-person-wide, narrow strip of ledge butting up against a sheer cliff that appears to be the only way around the Hydra and the steaming lake. “You do know it’s already seen us?”