The Last Griffin

by Wendy L. Koenig

  Brian reached for her hand, leading her deeper into the woods. The tiger followed, softly growling, with his mouth open. She remembered cats often “tasted” the air for their prey. A fair distance behind him, she heard the rumble and stomp of bears. At a spot where the brush and trees narrowed and choked the ground, Tony halted and turned to face the oncoming beasts. He looked over his shoulder at Brian and Olivia, and she thought he might be laughing, but really, how could she tell if a tiger was laughing? Still, he looked happy as he crouched low, tail whipping, facing his adversaries.

  Chapter 19

  Brian’s heart soared. Olivia had made it clear that she cared for him. She’d even defended him from Tony. Even if it had been a reaction to his fight for her, a rescuing syndrome thing, she still cared for him. At least for now. He absolutely would take it.

  The dark blanketed them in softness, and the snow muffled their footsteps. On nights like this, Brian normally liked to walk these woods. They gave him a peace, unlike any meditation or exercise. Here, he could vent until all his angst left. He could, and often did, walk until any sorrow or heartbreak flowed out of him, leaving nothing but calm. Sometimes those walks took all night; he’d never been a saint.

  She spoke, keeping her voice low. “Does it hurt?”

  He hesitated. He’d been caught up in his own little world and was unsure of what she was talking about. He guessed. “The faster I change, the more it hurts. But a person gets used to it.”

  “So, was that a fast or slow change?”

  He almost smiled at his cleverness. He’d been right about what she wanted to know. “Fast with a stop in between.”

  “Can you heal yourself by moving to the other…you?”

  “Pure fiction, created by Hollywood. I’m as mortal as everyone else.”

  She was silent a moment, concentrating on climbing over an icy, felled tree. Then, “How many of you are there?”

  He hesitated. Talking like this was difficult for him. Not because he didn’t want her to know, but he didn’t want to worry or frighten her. Still, if there was any chance they could be together as a couple, he needed to be honest. “Of all of us? There are quite a few. Obviously, there’s no census taken. But there are several large families in the Boulder area. A little over three hundred of us, I think.”

  “Families. That’s what you call each…breed? Species?” She slipped on a patch of icy leaves and her grip tightened on his hand. He held her up, wrapping his arm around her waist.

  A grimace of pain shot across her face. “I think your magic medicine is wearing off.”

  “The adrenaline makes you run through it quicker. I’ll make some more as soon as we settle somewhere.”

  “I hope that’s soon.” She said nothing but one look at the deep furrows on her cheeks and the black hollows under her eyes and his heart crashed. She was in a bad way. The herbal remedy he’d learned in China could only do so much. He needed to find someplace she could rest, fast. He’d like to go for the truck, but it was too far. She’d never make it. They needed to stop and rest. Let her regain some energy. He kept his arm supporting her and scanned the trees and fallen logs, looking for a place to hide.

  Behind them, distant muted sounds of Tony’s throaty snarls blended with crashing trees. The noise echoed in near silent tones from the wall of frozen bark around them. Brian glanced again at Olivia. She gave no indication she heard. In truth, he wasn’t surprised. Most humans couldn’t hear what he and his brothers could.

  “Can you identify other…shapeshifters when they’re in human form?”

  “I wish I could. It would make our lives so much easier.” He helped her across a jumble of rocks and small boulders. The always present scents of the forest’s natural spice and musty leaves seemed to close around him. For the first time, they failed to comfort him. This was a conversation he didn’t want to have with Olivia.

  “What do you mean?”

  He sighed. He might as well confess. “We’d heard rumors about this guy gathering his family for something—we didn’t know what. We weren’t entirely sure the guys we saw were shapeshifters. But, we decided to follow them to find out, instead of confront them to find out. We saw them stalking you and stayed close, to stop anything they started. But, they didn’t stop you or say anything that would give us a clue as to what was happening. Instead, they were smart and followed you all the way to your apartment. That’s when they changed to bear and attacked you. We came in right away.”

  “So, you could have stopped it before it happened.” The accusation was clear in her eyes when she looked at him.

  He jerked his gaze away. His culpability in her near death dug deep into him. He tried again, and failed, to meet her glare. Again he sighed. “We thought you could be one of us. A shapeshifter could protect herself from these guys better than the average human. An attack on a non-shifter isn’t done. It’s too brutal with no way for the human to defend against it, except by gun. That’s why we hung back and followed. We thought we had time, in case we had to intervene.”

  Olivia’s movements were slow and disjointed. Noise came from every step she made. They’d be easy to track if Hall’s men got past Tony. Brian glanced back that direction, but neither saw nor heard any sign of pursuit.

  For a very long time she didn’t say anything. “So, who are these…people?”

  He squeezed her hand, glad the focus moved to something else and not to his failure to stop the attack. Still, he was pretty sure she would return to it. She had every right to hate him. He hoped she didn’t. He hoped she could understand their reasoning. But he wouldn’t blame her if she held him responsible for what happened to her. If she didn’t want him anymore. He wasn’t too fond of what he’d done, himself. “The man’s name is Carl Hall. He runs a construction company in Boulder. He and his buddies unofficially consider themselves the police for our kind. We don’t know why they want to hurt you.”

  “Hurt’s an understatement.”

  He had no answer to that.

  “I haven’t done anything wrong!”

  “That’s why we need to speak to him.” Before this war, or whatever it was, got even further out of hand.

  Chapter 20

  Brian and Olivia forged deeper into the park, threading through frozen vines, saplings, underbrush, and dense copses of aged trees. The latest punch of adrenaline had long since abandoned her. She stumbled over everything and nothing. Her vision, never good in the dark, narrowed to a few inches beyond her eyelashes. She felt crappy and her back and kidneys burned deep within her. Each jarring step churned her stomach. Bile scored her throat, and she swallowed hard to keep from vomiting. Throughout it all, Brian never let go of her hand and, though he had been injured in both fights, he let her lean heavily on him, even lifting her over difficult footing.

  His confession of how he could have stopped the attack kept her silent. She would have to think more on this, but not now. It would have to wait until later. She only had enough strength to concentrate on getting through the forest.

  They reached a large open area with a wide rushing stream, frozen only on the edges. The gurgle of the icy water sounded unnaturally loud in the silence of the winter night. Four to five feet off the bank, moonlight outlined lumps of snow in the shapes of a ring of stones and logs. Someone had camped there during the fall. Looking around, Olivia had no doubt it was a beautiful spot when warm. It was beautiful now. Snow graced everything on the ground, softening harsh lines into gentle swells. Trees stood tall, reaching for the stars, coated with ice. They reflected the purity of the moon with a peaceful ethereal quality, not unlike how crystals reflected the warmth of the sun in colors.

  Brian apparently didn’t notice. He led her all over the clearing, packing the snow, then into, and back out of, the woods more times than she wanted to count. She followed in a zombified state. She wanted a warm place to sit. After that, he took her to stand by the stream while he brought a handful of charcoal and ash from the fire pit. “Rub this on the b
ottoms and tops of your shoes and up your ankles. We’ll head upstream in the water until we can find a hiding place.” He busied himself, showing her the way to do it.

  Olivia barked a short laugh. The whole thing was beyond surreal. She was soon to be covered in ashes and protected from killer bears by a werewolf. All this at Christmas time. Truly, she could have read this in a fictional book. At his deep frown, she sobered. It would never do to let him think she wasn’t taking his rescue efforts seriously. She took the ash and stared at him. Was the man crazy? “Won’t the ash wash off?”

  He grinned and her mouth, on its own, smiled back. She couldn’t stop it if she tried. Something had changed between them since he’d become wolf. He seemed more open, as if hiding the secret of his alternate self had been holding him back. Now that it was out in the light, he acted more relaxed. She heartily approved of the change. He said, “Yeah, but it’ll add to the confusion of smells.”

  “You think they’ve gotten past Tony then.” Bending over wasn’t good for the dizziness in her head. She stopped and stood upright a moment to let her vision calm before bending again to work on her legs.

  “If they haven’t yet, they will soon. He’s fierce and strong, but there are too many of them. He’ll eventually have to give way.”

  “Have you ever fought him?”

  Finished with his task, he shook his head and reached over to help her put the final touches on her legs. “Tony? No. I’d prefer to stay out of that corner.”

  Done, they straightened. Olivia rinsed her hands in the stream and wiped them on the blanket. They still smelled like rotting ash: acrid and sour. She shrugged and said to Brian, “Just so you know, you were pretty impressive.”

  With a small grin, he dipped his head in thanks and took her hand. She looked around the clearing and the ice trees in the moonlight one last time, and then they were on their way again. The stream decidedly cooled her already chilled feet, flooding over the tops of her snow-soaked shoes. She couldn’t feel the sharp stones or whether she was lifting or placing her feet. She stumbled time and time again. Brian often glanced back at her, concern on his face. He seemed to be measuring how much more she could take.

  Twice, Olivia would have landed face-first in the stream if it hadn’t been for his hand balancing her. She had an earthquake going on inside of her, and she kept her teeth clenched to keep them from chattering. Icy dampness crawled up her legs as her surgical pants absorbed water into them. The blanket dipped again and again into the stream and weighed heavily on her. At last, he pointed ahead to a large fallen tree with a dislodged root ball that camouflaged a small opening. “You need rest. We’ll hide there for a bit.”

  The minute she opened her mouth to speak, the chatter broke out. “W-won’t they s-s-smell us?”

  “I’m hoping the trick in the clearing will convince them they can’t trust their noses. It should keep them frustrated and following the stream.”

  Brian and Olivia stayed in the frigid water until they were directly in front of the tree. Brian pushed her ahead of him as they cut straight across the land toward it. He held his hand on her shoulder as if he could keep her from falling that way. Though, remembering the size of the in-between stage of his, the werewolf, she suspected he might actually be able to do it. At the opening, she balked, pretty sure her temperature had spiked to well over a hundred by now, even though the ice bath probably cooled it. But she didn’t want to be first into their hiding place. She had a thing about putting any part of her body into someplace she hadn’t checked. Feet didn’t go into boots without inspections. Whole bodies didn’t go into underground caves without checking everything out first. Besides, it was dark in there. “I’m n-not going i-i-in there s-sight unseen. There m-might be s-s-snakes or s-something.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “Snakes. In winter?”

  Admittedly, it had sounded lame, but she felt crappy. Stubbornness abounded when she suffered. Even though she was warming, now that they were out of the water, and the shiver began to lift, she didn’t want to go into that dark hole. Olivia shrugged. The motion dislodged the blanket yet again and Brian caught it before it fell to the ground. He came close and bundled it around her, tucking it tight against her arms. Worry etched his handsome face. “You may not know what’s in there, but you definitely know what’s out here. Take your choice.”

  That was true, but she still hesitated. It wasn’t a girly thing. She preferred to think of it as a careful thing. With an exasperated snort, he pushed past her and disappeared into the hole. She heard him exclaim and suddenly he came out, pretending to wrestle with a root as if it were a python.

  In spite of how miserable Olivia felt, she laughed. She wondered if he’d learned one of her “special skills” or if sarcasm came naturally to him also. After working so hard earlier in the night to make him open up, she began to think she’d made a mistake. She’d never dealt with a wolf-man before. Maybe she’d bitten off more than she could chew. She said, “S-sarcasm will get you n-nowhere.”

  Her amusement ended as quickly as it came when she remembered his earlier confession. True, she was now safe because of him, but she’d also been injured because of his reluctance to stop Hall. Thinking on it, she felt like she was swimming in a deep well. It hurt her head.

  Brian’s face showed that he’d guessed where her thoughts had gone. Concern, grief, and guilt battled in the way his downturned mouth and brows set. Deep lines cut into his face. He opened his mouth to say something, then hesitated and finally closed it slowly. He looked away, staring at the skeletal tree branches around them. After another moment, he sighed deeply and brought his attention back to her. “We need to get inside.”

  Still she hesitated. Not because she didn’t want to go, but because she couldn’t quite get her thoughts marshaled again. The only thing she could focus on was what felt like a betrayal. She wanted to push it aside to think on later, but it didn’t want to go.

  He growled in a low and throaty voice, breaking through and forcing her full attention on him. Her bad feelings receded. The sound of his voice thrilled and also terrified Olivia. It was a do-not-test-me command. “Into that hallow. Now move.” He pointed.

  She went.

  The little cave was just that: little. And it smelled like wet earth. Not surprisingly. It was going to be a tight fit for both of them, but on the upside, it would build warmth quickly. Perhaps too much. Oxygen might become a problem. She broke off a piece of root and pushed experimentally in a few places where light glimmered through. She found a promising gap toward the back, made it bigger and huddled under it hoping there were no winter spiders. Her breath echoed harshly back at her. Brian, in the meantime, was busy outside, brushing fresh snow across their tracks. He also built a curved wall of snow about a foot away from the front of their entrance. Anyone looking from the stream, except at an extreme angle, wouldn’t see the opening. Or so they hoped.

  The opening dimmed as Brian wedged his shoulders through. He glanced at the space Olivia had left him and then met her gaze. She had no need to guess at his meaning. Six-foot-plus of man needed more space. She retreated to the farthest wall to give him room, mourning the loss of her tiny beam of moonlight. She tightened her blanket around her, trying not to think of creepy-crawlies that might not hibernate through the winter.

  It took a lot of shifting, bumping, and squeezing her against the dirt wall, but eventually, Brian settled beside her in their cozy earth abode. Any nasty little bugs that had been in there with them were probably squashed in the process.

  Beside Olivia, Brian sat hunched over in the small space, and her memory flashed back to him behind the wheel of his Fiat. She decided to offer a temporary truce in the matter of his wrong-doing. At least until she had brain power to do some serious thinking on it. She nodded to his snow sculpture outside their front door. “Nice wall.”

  “Thanks, Nice window.” He glanced at the air hole she’d made and grinned in the dusky light. She caught a glimpse of dimples making d
eep wells on his cheeks. Despite her recent confusion about him, she still liked what she saw. The werewolf was sexy.

  Chapter 21

  Brian pressed his finger to his lips. Olivia nodded to show she understood to keep quiet. He relaxed a little. She seemed to be making an effort to overlook his devastating mistake. At least for now. Still, sooner or later there’d be a reckoning. He was no longer afraid of her not accepting him. She’d accepted his greatest secret. Somehow, they’d work through this problem.

  She needed to regain her energy. Though her voice had been soft, he hadn’t missed the slur in her words when she complemented the wall he’d built. She’d reached the end of her reserves. He glanced at her in the tiny space. The moonlight coming in through the air hole she’d created shone down on her. Her eyes were brown pebbles in darkly pooled rings that stood out even more on her pale and drawn face. He tucked the blanket tighter around her, and she smiled weakly at him.

  Their earthen hiding place barely had room for the both of them. The curved dirt walls and jutting roots pressed them hard against each other, their faces inches apart. The closeness of their quarters held Olivia’s natural woman scent near him. As if that didn’t drive Brian’s pulse higher already, when he returned her smile with a grin of his own, her scent bloomed around them. It mixed with the deep base smell of damp earth and made for a heady intoxicant.

  He breathed long and slow through his nose, trying to calm his racing blood. In her condition, she didn’t need any romancing. Without a doubt he knew that, but all he wanted to do was to wrap his arms around her and hold her close.