Shadow's End (Elder Races, #9)(59)

She moaned, “You’re going to kill me.”

She hadn’t meant anything by it, but for some reason, he reacted poorly. He recoiled. Then, closing his eyes, he leaned his forehead against hers.

He whispered, “Not if I have anything to say about it, I won’t.”

She stared at him in perplexity. What an odd thing to say. She wanted to tell him, no, of course not. That wasn’t what I meant.

But before she could say anything, he gave her one more brief, swift kiss. He told her, I’ll see you outside in an hour or less.

Yes.

His arms fell away. She had a moment to mourn the loss, and for the first time, she felt the cold December wind. He turned, jumped onto the railing and leaped into the air. Just as he had on the beach, he shapeshifted into the gryphon and then disappeared in the next moment.

Staring after him, she sighed in equal parts pleasure and frustration. Then she turned to go back inside. Part of her wanted to worry at Graydon’s odd reaction, like a dog with a bone, but that would have to wait until later.

For now, she needed to change into sturdy walking clothes, summon Linwe and get out of the house.

? ? ?

Graydon exploded into the night sky with the kind of fury that came out of desperate longing.

Leaving her.

He was always leaving her.

That fact had been all but unendurable from the very beginning. Now it tore at him like harpy’s claws. The memory of her soft mouth moving under his, her slender body aligning against him, the small, sexy sound that had come out of her. His soul felt lacerated, his skin raw.

He needed to stay with her, but he shouldn’t. He needed to protect her from what came next, but he couldn’t. People were going to die, and it was always possible that one of them would be Ferion.

Or her.

Everything inside of him rebelled at the thought.

Not bloody likely. Not if he had anything to say about it.

This time, when his vision came, it slipped into him with the stealth of an assassin. White snow. Black rocks. The red of heart’s blood.

Ah, at long last, the vision felt close, very close.

He felt a fierce kind of satisfaction that he wouldn’t have been able to explain to any other person. One way or another, he was going to get this f*cker off his f*cking back.

As soon as he had cleared the Elven residence, he flew a few more blocks then landed and shapeshifted again. Digging out his phone, he texted Claudia and Luis, Julian, and Constantine to meet in ninety minutes at the suite in the hotel. Claudia and Luis could contact Rune and Carling.

Then, unable to wait passively, he changed back to the gryphon. Flying back to the Elven residence, he circled it, watching everything. He felt obsessed, like some lunatic stalker, but he couldn’t stop himself.

The Elven residence was a three-story detached brownstone mansion in the fashionable Flatiron District. Despite the lateness of the hour, lights shone in several different parts of the house. In the back, the walled garden lay mostly in shadow, with a few security lights shining along the walls.

As he circled, he watched the balcony doors and windows that led to Bel’s suite. Lights shone there too, until suddenly they went dark. His adrenaline spiked. At last, she was on the move.

Swinging around to pass over the front of the mansion, he kept his flight pattern tight and small, until he saw the front door open.

Bel and Linwe slipped outside. They walked down the street, Bel’s dark head close to Linwe’s bright pink one.

Graydon felt the impulse to follow them, but he stayed on task, watching the mansion.

A few moments after they had left, another Elf slipped out the front door. For a moment, the front porch lights illuminated the Elf’s face.

It was a male, the same guard that had pulled his weapon along with Ferion earlier in Bel’s room. After the Elf checked both directions, he started down the street after Linwe and Bel.

As he left the mansion, he became harder to detect. He had started to cloak himself.

The Elf had one major disadvantage. He wasn’t nearly as good at cloaking as Graydon was at stalking.

Coasting silently around forty yards in the air above the Elf, Graydon watched him for a few blocks until he was quite sure. The male was, indeed, following the two women.

His predatory instincts roused.

It would be so easy to kill him. All the gryphon would have to do was plummet down. His paws flexed as he considered. His long claws would pierce the guard’s body before the Elf had a chance to draw breath and scream. He could carry the body away to dispose of somewhere else.

The decision shook through his taut body, but one thought held him back. He didn’t know if the guard was Ferion’s and innocent, or Malphas’s spy.

Even then, the guard could be innocent, and simply suffering from the same kind of coercion as Malphas’s many other victims.

At the last thought, sanity intervened. He pulled himself up and shot ahead to the women. Swooping down, he glided over their heads.

You’re being followed, he said in Bel’s head. Two blocks back.

She tilted her head back. He caught a glimpse of her face before his trajectory took him past the women. Pulling up, he swept around and glided over them again.

Gray? Bel said. I’ve explained things—partially—to Linwe. There’s a taxi rank up ahead, in front of a block of restaurants. Linwe will take a taxi to Times Square, find an all-night restaurant and wait to hear from me. Can you pick me up?