by Zoe Chant
He kissed her closed eyes, taking away her tears. He was so gentle. She didn’t know how anyone could have ever looked at him and not known how purely good he was. He shone with a kind of internal light she’d never seen in anyone else.
“We’re not going to die here,” Cooper said. He wrapped his arms around her more tightly than ever, cradling her against his chest, against the fresh, clean smell of his skin. Gretchen listened to his heartbeat. Against all odds, it was reassuring.
When he said, “I’m going to get us both out of here,” she actually believed him.
14
Cooper was acutely, painfully aware of the ticking clock.
As soon as he’d opened the door to go outside, he had sent the temperature in the car plummeting down even further and faster than before. Whatever time Gretchen had left before the cold got the best of her, he’d just cut it in half, especially since he’d left her without a shifter space heater. All she had now was her own failing body warmth, the clothes she’d put back on, the two hand-warmers (which wouldn’t be doing nearly enough), and Martin’s fleece blanket.
And while this was much, much lower on his list of priorities, he had to be realistic about his own prospects, too. He’d taken his coat—Gretchen had insisted on it, despite his protests—but he was still standing out in sub-zero temperatures and dealing with wind that cut straight through his clothes. Gretchen might not be able to survive waiting inside the car much longer—and he might not be able to survive waiting outside it, either.
If he was going to find his griffin, he had to do it fast.
And this was already too slow.
He closed his eyes. It might or might not help him concentrate, but it would definitely keep the hard, icy snow out of them, and that had to be a plus.
He felt scattershot. He needed so badly to save her that it was like his head was filled up with a sound and fury that drowned out even the storm. He knew it wasn’t helping, but he couldn’t seem to make it stop.
Then, out of the darkness, something in him did stop it.
Prison sucked in a lot of ways. Almost every way. But it did teach you how to be calm, Coop: it taught you how to stay calm even when everything around you was hell and chaos. It made you so good at controlling yourself that you locked away the part you most need to reach, so it’s a mixed blessing, but that’s the kind of calm you need right now. That’s the kind you need for Gretchen’s sake.
But what if Roger was right? What if his griffin was gone for good?
Are you really going to believe Roger over Gretchen? When it comes to something as important as your own soul?
No. No, he wasn’t.
Even if his griffin really could die inside of him, he was going to have to believe that it wasn’t dead yet. If Gretchen needed any part of him, he was determined to give it to her, even if he had to drag it out of some early grave.
He had to stop thinking about the ticking clock. He had to find that calm. If he didn’t, he was going to just keep messing himself up. If you let yourself get eaten up by worry about whether or not you could do something, you’d never relax enough to get it done. He had to just trust that Gretchen was right—once a shifter, always a shifter.
He breathed out and concentrated, reaching into the darkness inside him, the darkness that had felt so empty for so long now.
He couldn’t do anything about his sharp, persistent fear of how Gretchen was doing, but he could use it for motivation. She was why he needed to reclaim his griffin now more than ever. He had to help her.
I know you’re there, Cooper thought. You’re part of me.
Silence. Darkness.
I was hurting. It was hard to hold onto you when you wanted to fly—when I wanted to fly—and we couldn’t. You reminded me of everything we’d lost, and I couldn’t deal with it. I hid you away for so long that I forgot how to find you, but there’s no way you’re lost for good. I need you. I always have. And more importantly, Gretchen needs you.
There was something there... a sound inside him that was almost like wings rustling.
She’s great, buddy. She’s funny and gorgeous and brave. She shook my hand like there was no reason she shouldn’t have, and she saw something in me that no one else ever did. She believes in me. She didn’t have to do any of that, and as far as I’m concerned, that makes her the nicest person in the world. And now she’s in trouble. She’s freezing, and I need to get her somewhere warm. I’d carry her myself, but I wouldn’t get there fast enough.
It still wasn’t enough.
He added, I love her.
It had become the central fact of his existence. Something more important than everything else.
He loved her, and he could almost believe that she loved him back. If she did, then he was someone worth loving. Maybe he was still broken, but he wasn’t incomplete.
Gretchen was right. He hadn’t lost himself... and so it was impossible for him to have lost his griffin. All he had to do was reach far enough and grab on hard enough.
He’d thought hope had kept him alive in prison, but it had really just been the faintest, dimmest shadow of a hope. Now hope—certainty—lit him up from the inside-out.
It broke through the darkness down in the bottom of his soul.
And it found his griffin.
You’re mine, Cooper said, claiming that presence. You’re me.
He didn’t know if he would have ever realized that without her.
Gretchen, his griffin said in a rumbling voice.
Finally, after all this time, it reached back for him, opening its liquid gold eyes.
Come on, Cooper said, easing into that shape. We’ve got work to do.
Wings burst from his shoulders, unfurling until they were stretched out to their fullest span. His hands formed the wickedly curved talons that would have to hold Gretchen with the utmost care. A blend of golden fur and slick feathers covered him, protecting him a little from the worst of the storm. For a few seconds there was enough pain to make him dizzy: it was like the shiv was tearing into him all over again, finding a new body to cut into. But he still had a good range of movement. He didn’t think flying would be a problem.
He used one wing to brush the snow off the backseat window, hoping Gretchen would see him and come out.
Nothing.
How long had he been out in the snow? How much time had it taken him to find his griffin again?
The ripple of fear that sent up him was even colder than the wind. He opened the back door with one talon, trying hard not to just rip it off the hinges and send it flying. If they had to take shelter in the car again, for whatever reason, he didn’t want it to be completely open to the elements.
Inside, there was Gretchen, curled up beneath the fleece blanket. Her face was so white with the cold that it looked almost bloodless. She was unnaturally still, like she’d been carved out of marble.
Cooper tumbled back into human form, snapping back to it faster than he ever had before. He reached for her.
She was so cold, so icily cold.
But she was breathing. When he held his hand in front of her mouth and nose, he could feel her breath stir against his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” Cooper said, gathering her up in his arms. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I have to put you down in the snow for a second so I can pick you up as a griffin. I got it back, Gretch. We’re going to fly away somewhere warm.”
He laid her down on the snowbank and transformed again.
He grasped her as delicately as he possibly could and held her close to the warmth of his body. Flying would cut down on the amount of time they had to spend outside, but they’d still be out in unprotected weather that would feel even colder as they whipped through the air. The ticking clock was still ticking. This was either kill or cure.
And he was mostly flying blind. It was almost a pure whiteout, obscuring everything around him in a constantly whirling blend of sleet and snow, and he was going off memories he’d had of a road trip
he’d only made once or twice. But he was almost sure, dammit. He could see the low-slung motel, an old-fashioned motor court, in his mind’s eye. It had looked drab but clean, the kind of place that could sometimes cling to a half-life forever, as long as it got a few customers every year. It had had a sign that was boasting about the rooms having cable TV, not free wi-fi or even HBO. He could almost see the color of the curtains.
His wingbeats sounded like they were counting down the time, marking the minutes and seconds as they slipped away.
His talons didn’t have enough sensation to feel Gretchen. He didn’t know whether she’d woken up enough to grasp onto him or whether—
He couldn’t think about it.
Just a few miles to the exit, and then it’s right there. Just a few miles and then it’s right there.
And then, magically, there it was, materializing out of the flurry of snow—a solid, dark shape in all the white. It was almost like the optical illusions that pilots were prone to seeing after going snow blind, but Cooper trusted his griffin’s eyes and, even more than that, its sense of overwhelming relief.
He banked in towards the motel and came down softly and carefully, laying Gretchen down against a snowbank before he shimmered back into his human form. For the first time in his life, he relished landing more than flying. He lifted Gretchen up in his arms.
She was even colder than before. Her cheek was icy to his touch. But once again, he could feel her breath, warm and gentle against his neck, and even though it wasn’t as strong as he would have liked, he’d take it. He’d take any sign of her being alive.
He tried the door, but it was locked. Shifting Gretchen in his arms, he hammered his fist against the glass hard enough to make the whole door rattle in its frame.
He was waiting two seconds, and if no one answered, he was breaking in.
But someone came into view. It was an elderly, white-haired man with a close-trimmed beard, using a walker with cut-up tennis balls on the floor posts.
Cooper suddenly remembered exactly what he looked like right now.
A big guy in a maximum security prison jumpsuit, cradling an unconscious woman who, on the other side of the glass, could easily have been mistaken for dead. The old man wasn’t going to let him in. He was going to call the cops, and the cops wouldn’t come for hours, and if Cooper tried to break in now, all that would happen was he’d make this poor old guy have a heart attack—
But then the old man unlocked the door.
“Well, come in,” he said in a creaky voice. “You’ll suck all the heat out of the place. You picked a bad time to escape from prison, son.”
Cooper got in quickly, before the man could change his mind, and he laid Gretchen down on the couch in the lobby. He knew you weren’t supposed to chafe someone’s hands if they could be suffering from frostbite, but aside from that, his mind felt horribly blank.
Finally, something clicked: get the snow off her. All it was doing was keeping her cold and wet. He brushed the snow off her jeans and onto the floor, undoing her coat so that the warmth could reach her.
“Do you have a blanket?”
“Yes,” the man said, “in the little room behind the desk, but it’d be faster for you to fetch it yourself. These days I make the damn DMV look efficient.”
“Will you look after her?”
“Sure. She doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.”
Cooper hightailed it behind the desk and into the room the man had mentioned, which was basically a little cubbyhole: he guessed the owner holed up in there on night shifts to stay within easy reach of the bell in case they got a surprise guest. There was a ratty couch and a plaid fleece blanket.
He took the blanket back out to Gretchen and gently wrapped it around her, tucking it up over her ears to warm them up too. He knelt down beside the sofa, stroking her hair.
If the old man asked, Cooper was just trying to comb the snowflakes out. He didn’t have to know that Cooper would have been doing it anyway.
Suddenly the old man’s gnarled hand landed on his shoulder, startling him.
“Here,” the man said gruffly. He handed Cooper a steaming mug of coffee. “It’s only instant, but it’s better than nothing. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it or not, son, but you’re dripping ice all over my lobby and shaking like a leaf. You need to get something warm in you.” He followed the coffee with a big wad of gauze stuffed in a roll of duct tape. “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig, and blood’s hard to get out of the carpet. I don’t have much in the way of first aid supplies, but this should help you tape yourself up.”
This was really a day for people being nicer to him than he’d ever expected. He cleared his throat. “Thanks.” He lifted up the hem of his shirt and looked at the bloody mess he’d made.
Thank God for accelerated healing.
He flattened the gauze against the wounds and strapped it down.
“Duct tape will do everything,” the old man said, watching him. “They say that, and they’re right. Now I’ll go make up some soup for you and the lady.” He took a few steps and then paused, turning back over his shoulder to scrutinize Cooper again. “Did you just break out of prison?”
Cooper smiled. “No, they’re just moving me from one to the other.”
“And the lady?”
“She’s my ride. A United States Marshal.”
“Well, that’s all right, then,” the man said, and he went away again.
Cooper went back to stroking Gretchen’s hair. “It’s all right, Gretchen. We made it.”
Her eyes fluttered open, and for a second, he was just unbelievably relieved to see her waking up.
Then it was like fireworks went off inside him, a cascade of lights and sparks that he’d never, ever felt before.
She was his mate.
His griffin had been buried too deeply inside him for him to recognize it before, but now that he’d found his way back to his own soul, a single look was enough for him to know that she was his destiny.
No wonder he hadn’t been able to look away from her. She was always going to be the true north on his compass, and he would love her for his whole life and with his whole heart.
He had worried about letting her tie her heart to his, but they were tied now. He didn’t have to worry or wonder. It was almost a relief to know that he could just love her, because there would be no way to get himself to stop. They belonged with each other.
Except—
Except she wasn’t a shifter. She was looking at him now with nothing more than a beautiful, slightly sleepy smile, like she was still only half-awake.
He couldn’t ask too much from her, especially not right away, when she wasn’t even completely conscious. They could have this conversation once she was safe.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Right now, all that mattered was getting her warm again.
“Coop,” Gretchen whispered.
He brushed her cheek, relieved to see a little color creeping back into it. “I’m right here.”
“This is all I wanted.” She closed her eyes again. “Get you somewhere safe. Get you back to being you.”
“We’re safe, I promise. No one’s getting through that storm.”
“No one but you,” she said softly. “You’ll be fine, Coop.” She turned her head to press her lips against his fingers, and then consciousness seemed to smooth out of her face again. She’d slipped back out of consciousness again.
That worried him. All the hot soup and coffee in the world wouldn’t do her any good if she wasn’t going to be awake to drink it. He needed to get her body temperature back up, and his options were limited.
Seeing her so cold, pale, and still, like some kind of white marble statue, scared the hell out of him. She was supposed to be vibrant, thrumming with life and energy, crackling with intensity. This was almost like she was dead.
The thought made his chest tighten up.
He kicked off his shoes and slid behind her on the sofa, bracin
g her in the V of his open legs and cradling her back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, willing as much of his body heat as possible to flow into her. Willing his life to flow into her, if necessary.
“Come on, Gretchen,” he said under his breath. “Come on, sweetheart. Come back to me.”
The motel owner returned, this time with a tray attached to his walker. Two bowls of soup rested on it, with steamed-up plastic lids keeping their contents from spilling as the movement jostled them around. Cooper would have admired the efficiency of it all a whole lot more if he hadn’t been so worried about Gretchen.
The old man took in the sight of this federal prisoner cuddling a US Marshal and pursed his lips slightly. “She still not warming up?”
Cooper shook his head. “I don’t know what to do. You must have called 911, did they say—”
“Why would I have called 911?”
Of all the questions he might have expected, that wouldn’t have been one of them.
“Because a guy in a prison jumpsuit just demanded to come into your motel?”
“Son, it would take a lot more than that for me to pry into something that’s none of my business. If you tried to take the girl back out into the cold with you, then I’d call 911. But I don’t think you’re going to do that, do you?” He didn’t even wait for an answer. “Besides, the phone lines have been down for over an hour now. No cell signal right here, and the phone wires are so damned delicate half the time they go down if a bird shits on them wrong. You don’t need to worry about cops swarming down on you.”
“I’m not worried. I just need paramedics to swarm down on me. I’m not a doctor. I don’t know what she needs.”
“You’re awfully concerned about a woman taking you to prison.”
Cooper was too tired to come up with anything but the truth. “I love her.”
The old man just nodded. “I was thinking it had to be something like that. You knew her before?”
He shook his head. “Just met her earlier today.”
“It was like that with me and my wife, God rest her.” He cleared his throat, and Cooper looked up just enough to notice that the man’s red-rimmed eyes were shimmering with tears. He still wore a wedding ring, one tarnished with age. It looked at home on him. “If she’s still so cold she can’t even shake to get herself warm again, you’re going to need more than just that one blanket. Come on and I’ll get you a room. You can use the blankets and the comforter in there.”