by Faith Gibson
“What if I don’t remember who that Ryker is?”
“Then let her remind you. Rhi is—”
“She’s gone!” Mac ran out the door. “I can’t find her anywhere.”
“Hounds!” Ryker shouted, and the other males were back by his side within seconds. “Rhi is missing. Spread out. She couldn’t have gotten far.” The males took off running in different directions, but Ryker went to his daughter. Mac was shaking. “Mac—”
“No! You go find her. You did this, and only you can make it right.” Mac ran back into the house, and he followed.
The first place he went was to the bedroom where Rhi was supposed to sleep. The door to the closet was open, but it was empty. The bathroom was void of toiletries, and the dresser drawers were open, also empty. All her things were gone. His Gryphon roared inside his head, and it was all Ryker could do to keep it from taking over and shifting. That wouldn’t help the situation. At all. Ryker ran back downstairs to the office where Lucy’s security monitors were.
“I don’t see her anywhere,” Lucy muttered. The screens showed the outside of the property. She tapped the keyboard a few times, and the screens switched over to the inside of the house. The feed blurred as Lucy rewound it. There on the monitor was Rhi with both bags. She hurried down the steps and turned down the hallway which led to… “The basement. Shit! She took the tunnel!” Lucy jumped from her chair and took off with Ryker on her heels. The bookcase was angled away from the wall, so in no time, he and Lucy were racing down the passageway. Before they reached the door at the other end, a scream rent the night, somewhere on the other side of the door.
Ryker’s lion roared, halfway shifting. His sharp canines elongated, and his mane shook around his head. Ryker wrenched the door open, afraid of what he’d find on the other side.
“Let go of me!” Rhiannon yelled, and Ryker lost control. His lion was fully formed as he bound down the path where a man was dragging Rhi through the woods. The man – James – turned, Rhiannon in front of him as a shield, his arm outstretched.
“Ryker, no!” Lucy yelled.
Too late, Ryker saw the gun. The bullet slammed into his side, knocking him off course. He landed hard, but his Gryphon wasn’t about to give up. It tried to shift, unable to fully do so. Rhiannon screamed, and James pointed at him again.
“What the fuck?” James asked as Ryker shifted back into his human form.
“No!” Rhiannon shoved against his arm, and the next shot went wide. A large eagle flew down from the trees, talons grabbing onto the man’s hand holding the weapon. Rhiannon dropped to the ground and crawled over to where Ryker breathed through the pain. Having shifted without thought, he was naked.
“Oh, goddess. Please, please, please,” Rhi chanted, pressing both hands against the wound. Ryker hissed, and Rhiannon jerked her hands away. “I’m sorry.”
“No! Keep your hands on him!” Lucy yelled. Ryker turned his head toward his niece’s voice. She had the man on the ground, a knee in his back, and a talon clutching his neck. Rhiannon put her hands back on Ryker’s side, and he did his best not to pass out.
“What are you?” she whispered. “Y-you’re not human.”
“We’re Gryphons,” Ryker managed to choke out. Several eagles flew overhead, and one lion bounded through the woods. “Pop,” Ryker groaned upon seeing the white fur of his father. The lion padded over to Ryker and nudged his face. “I’m fine. Go help Lucy.” Sutton disappeared into the trees, and a minute later returned in human form, wearing nothing but jeans.
“Anna! Get away from him! He’s a monster!” James yelled.
“No! You’re the monster,” Rhiannon returned. The heat from her hands was like a soothing balm. The pain had lessened as soon as she touched him. Right. The blood loss had him imagining craziness.
“I’m your husband, and I command you to get over here and help me.”
“You are not my husband, and you never will be. These people have shown me more care in the last twenty-four hours than you have in the last few years. I’ll take my chances with them.” Rhiannon looked down at Ryker. When she smiled at him, something inside shifted. Before he could figure out what it was, Hayden and Kyllian were at his side. Kyllian dropped a shirt over his groin, covering him from Rhi’s gaze.
“You can move your hands now,” Kyllian told Rhi. When she did, Kyllian pressed a cloth of sorts against the wound, and the pain returned in full force. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
“No. Call… Rev.” Ryker didn’t want the police involved, and that’s exactly what would happen if he went to the emergency room. Zareck “The Reverend” West was a doctor and one of the Hounds.
“I did, but you’re losing a lot of blood, Brother.”
“Not… hospital,” Ryker choked out. His eyes were getting heavy. Too heavy. He focused on Rhiannon who had tears rolling down her pretty cheeks. “S’okay, Angel,” he muttered right before he passed out.
Rhiannon
Rhi was pretty sure she’d fallen and hit her head. That, or James had drugged her. There was no way men could turn into lions and eagles and whatever it was Ryker had been. He said he was a Gryphon, but she didn’t know what that was. It was like his body couldn’t figure out if it wanted to be a lion or an eagle, and it was trying to be both at the same time. But that wasn’t possible. Except it was, because she was awake, Ryker was bleeding, and Lucy had an eagle’s talons clutching James’s throat. Hayden, Kyllian, Sutton, and four other men Rhi had never seen were all wearing nothing but jeans. Ryker had called the white lion “Pop,” so that meant Sutton was a Gryphon too.
“Ryot, stay with me.” Kyllian slapped Ryker on the cheek, trying to get him to wake up.
Rhiannon crawled around to the other side, ignoring James and whatever Sutton was doing to him. She focused her energy on Ryker, placing her hands on his arm. Rhi closed her eyes and asked the goddess for help. She ignored the yelling behind her and focused her energy on Ryker. Ignored the blood. Goddess, there was so much blood. She squeezed her eyes closed and imagined every good thing in the world, sending the positive vibes into Ryker’s skin. A new voice met Kyllian’s as they inspected the wound, but she still concentrated. It was something her mother had taught her to do with a dying plant. Daisy had brought many plants and flowers back from the brink with just a thought. It had been ten years since Rhi had tried it. No, that wasn’t true. She had done it at Haven, and that’s when the name-calling started.
“Rhi.” Kyllian was trying to get her attention, but she had to focus. “Rhiannon, you can let go now.”
“No. Need to concentrate.”
“No, you don’t. Look.”
Rhi opened her eyes to find Ryker staring at her. “Hey,” he whispered.
“Hi. I, uh…” She looked down where the bullet punctured his side. The blood had stopped flowing, and a man she’d never seen before was staring at her as well.
“How did you do that?” the man asked.
“Do what?”
“Stop the bleeding. I mean, it was a through-and-through, so the bullet wasn’t lodged inside, but it should still be bleeding. You stopped it, didn’t you?” He wasn’t accusing her, exactly.
“I just wanted to help. I was trying to take his pain away.”
“You did,” Ryker said. “When Kyllian replaced your hands with the T-shirt, the pain came back. It was like magic. Your magic.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it magic. More like transference of positive energy. My mom taught me how to do it with plants, and I hoped it would work with you. I’ve never tried it on a human before. Or Gryphon.”
“She knows?” the stranger asked.
“She knows,” Ryker replied, still staring at her. Then he smiled. It was the first time she’d seen it, and it was glorious.
“I still need to get you stitched up. Let’s get you back to the house. It’s going to hurt because we’re going to have to carry you.”
“I can walk, Rev,” Ryker argued.
“You
probably can, but you shouldn’t.”
Rhiannon stood and looked around. James was nowhere to be seen. “What happened to James?”
“They took him back to Lucy’s to interrogate him,” Kyllian answered. “I hate that he shot Ryker and almost kidnapped you, but now we’ll use him for information.”
Rhiannon didn’t want to know how they planned to get said information from him, but she honestly didn’t care. He had tried to take her, and he shot Ryker. For that alone, she hoped the others roughed him up a bit.
With a lot of fussing on Ryker’s part and a little coaxing on Rhi’s, Rev and Kyllian helped Ryker back through the tunnel after giving him a pair of jeans to put on. When they reached the door leading inside, James was yelling. As soon as Rhi stepped into the room, he stopped cursing and began begging.
“Anna, please. You have to help me. Your father—”
“My name is Rhiannon. And David stopped being my father the moment he took me to Haven. Do yourself a favor and cooperate. Or don’t. I don’t care.” She ignored his further pleadings and followed Ryker and the others up the stairs to the bedroom she’d been given. That seemed like a lifetime ago. Mac and Lucy were standing on the far side of the room, and when she entered, Mac raced to her, pulling her into a hug.
“God, I’m so glad you’re okay,” Mac mumbled against her hair.
“Me too.” When Mac released her, Rhi looked down at the blood on her hands. “I need to wash up, but my things…”
Mac pointed to her bags on the floor by the closet. “Go. I’ll keep my dad company while you shower, then you and I are going to have a long talk.”
“Okay.” Rhi didn’t care if Mac yelled at her. She had been stupid for running. She deserved a good scolding. By the time she was out of the shower and changed into clean clothes, only Ryker and Mac remained in the bedroom. Ryker was propped up against the headboard, still shirtless, and Mac was sitting beside him, holding his hand.
“Mac, will you give us a minute?” Ryker asked.
“Sure.” Mac leaned over, kissing her father on the cheek before standing. “Rhi, I’ll be in my bedroom. Come find me… Or don’t.” She smiled at Rhi before closing the door behind her.
“Rhi,” Ryker started, but paused. She had never seen him unsure. Mad, yes. Stoic, yes. Hesitant? She didn’t think so.
“I’m sorry. I never should have run. Wait, is it safe to talk in here? I thought I was supposed to be quiet.”
Ryker held out his large hand, and Rhi stared at it for only a couple seconds before she slid her smaller hand against his palm. Ryker tugged her closer, so Rhi sat down on the edge of the bed, mindful of his injury. What she saw didn’t make sense. “Your side is… Where’s the hole?” Rhi reached out to touch his skin but yanked her hand back at the last second.
“That’s one of the perks of being a shifter. We heal quickly. But not this quickly, normally. I think whatever it was you did to me helped speed the process along.”
“I didn’t do anything,” she lied. Her mother had warned her to keep her gift a secret.
“I think you did. I could feel the warmth from your hands. And like I said before, the pain receded when you touched me. It was amazing.”
“You’re not mad?” Rhi kept her eyes lowered.
“Why would I be mad? You have something special inside you, and you used it to help me. I’m grateful is what I am.”
“Oh. Okay, then.” Having to tamp down her gift for so long had become second nature. Josiah hadn’t appreciated it. Had called it sinful even. Rhi wasn’t used to being praised for it.
“As for talking freely, one of the Hounds came in while we were dealing with James and checked the house. All the bugs have been moved down to the dining room for now.”
“Then can I ask about Gryphons? That’s what you called it, right?”
“Yes. I have to say you’re taking the shifter thing awfully well.”
Rhi shrugged. “I saw the evidence with my own eyes. When you were hurt, your body was changing, like it couldn’t decide whether to be a lion or an eagle.”
“Gryphons are both. Fully formed, our upper body is that of an eagle and the lower half is a lion. We can shift into either depending on the situation.”
“Your wings were blue. Are they all that color? They were really pretty.” Rhi had only seen them briefly, but she thought they were spectacular in a scary, something-out-of-a-science-fiction-movie way.
“Not all. Gryphons have the ability to call on one of the elements, and mine is water, thus the blue wings.”
Rhi still hadn’t looked at Ryker, afraid of what she’d see. She hadn’t forgotten why she took off in the first place.
“Rhi, look at me.” When she did as he asked, she was surprised by the softness in Ryker’s eyes. “I’m sorry for what I said about babysitting you. I promise I don’t feel that way. What I feel is complicated.” Ryker blew out a breath and looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds before returning his gaze to hers. “I’m under a lot of pressure. My family tells me I’m too stern. Too focused, but it’s the only way I know to be. I feel responsible for every single member of both my family as well as the club, and I take that responsibility seriously. My feelings for you are conflicted. I felt drawn to you the moment I saw you in that dumpster, and I didn’t like it.”
“I’m sorry. I understand I’m just some girl you rescued.” When Rhi tried to pull her hand out of Ryker’s grip, he tightened the hold, and Rhi stopped talking. She turned her head so he wouldn’t see the tears forming.
“No, you are the woman I rescued, but it’s more than that. I had a wife, Mac’s mom. She was taken away from me by Josiah. Given to his brother where she was forced to live much the same way you and Mac were. Mac was taken from her mom and eventually given to her adoptive parents so that Gideon could keep up the charade of being a good man. Juliette also ran away, but unlike you, she lost her life. That was twenty years ago. I was informed she died in a fire. For the longest time, I mourned the loss of my wife and unborn child. I was angry. Angry at myself for not being here when she needed me. Angry at Zeus for taking them away from me. Just angry period. I started seeing someone not too long ago. It wasn’t serious. We hooked up once a month for sex. Nothing more. Then I found out she was using me to get back at someone else.” Ryker stroked his thumb across the back of Rhi’s hand, and that little bit of affection helped stem the tears.
“Before I knew she was using me, it was a perfect relationship, if you can call it that. It was sex with no strings. No attachment. I didn’t want the feelings that go along with a relationship. I wasn’t ready for that. Even after twenty years, I thought Juliette was the only mate I’d ever have.”
“Mate. I’ve heard that more than once. Is that what shifters call their partners?”
“Yes. Some are true mates where we complete a bond, and others are wives, husbands, girlfriends, or boyfriends, the same as human partners. The bond isn’t as deep. Juliette was my mate. My bonded mate, and I thought that was it for me. But my brother Warryck, he found his bonded mate twice. Once with Lucy’s mom, and now with Kerrigan. When I saw you, I felt something I haven’t in a long time, and it scared and confused me. When I lost Juliette, I resigned myself to being alone the rest of my long life, then I saw the most beautiful woman hiding in a dumpster. My Gryphon claimed you then and there, but I fought with it.”
“So it’s part of you but it isn’t?” Rhi didn’t understand how all the shifting stuff worked.
“Sort of. The Gryphon can act and think for itself and usually only does that when it’s not in agreement with its human counterpart. When I saw James trying to take you away, my Gryphon took over. All it cared about in that moment was getting to you. To keep you safe.”
“I take it Gryphons are a secret from the rest of the world?”
“Mostly. There are a few humans aware of our existence who aren’t mates.”
“Aren’t you worried about them exposing you?” Rhi shifted so her thigh was touch
ing Ryker’s. He was still holding her hand, and she took that as a good sign.
“Gryphons have the ability to alter human thoughts. If we fear someone will ‘out’ us, we wipe what they know from their mind.”
“Does that mean you can make someone have feelings for you that wouldn’t normally be there? Or take away feelings you didn’t want someone to have?”
“Absolutely not. We only remove the knowledge of us being shifters. We use our ability for our safety or the safety of the human. I will admit I used my voice on you when you were in the dumpster. I convinced you to let me get a hotel room. I only did it because I needed to get you somewhere James wouldn’t find you, and you didn’t know me enough to trust me. I would never use my voice to take away your free will.”
“That’s comforting. You mentioned a long life. How long is long?”
“Most Gryphons live a few hundred years if they aren’t taken out by, say, a bullet.” Ryker smiled, and Rhi couldn’t help but return it, even if he was playing off him being shot by James.
“How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I’m forty-eight.”
“You sure don’t look it. And your parents?”
“My dad is one hundred five, and Rory is one hundred three. The sisters I told you about are all in their eighties. They don’t look any older than I do.”
“That’s—” Rhi couldn’t hold back the yawn that escaped. She covered her mouth, then shook her head. “Sorry, that’s amazing.”
“You’ve had a long day. I’m going to let you get some sleep. Tomorrow, I’ll probably be taking you to Tamian’s parents’ place. It’s more secure, and Josiah knows nothing about it. You’ll be safe there until we can take down Haven.” Ryker pulled Rhi’s hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “We’ll talk more later, okay?”
“Okay.” Rhi wanted to ask him to stay, but she needed time to think about everything she’d learned about him and Gryphons. She had so many questions, but they could wait.
Ryker slid off the bed and turned down the covers. Once Rhi was snuggled underneath the soft sheet, Ryker leaned over and pressed his lips to her forehead.