Fearless (Nameless #3)(55)
“I love you,” she whispered, before she could stop herself.
Simple truth, and right as calling summer grass green, but she hadn’t meant to speak the words aloud. A violent blush rushed to her cheeks and she had to look away. They sat close enough that, as she turned, her cheek brushed his and the usual smell of pine that clung to him made her shiver. When his breath caught at the connection, she sensed his longing mix with hers.
Longing and hesitation.
Because I am a Wolf? Because he has a guilty conscience?
It took every ounce of her will to turn back to the bride and groom on the dais. Gryphon put his arm around her back and dragged her closer to his side. “I will always love you, Zo,” he spoke into her hair. “No matter what the future brings.”
“Gryphon?” she said, breathless. Again, the words spilled unbidden and unwanted from her mouth. “You didn’t start that fire, did you?”
In one question, all of the heat of their exchange turned to ice. Gryphon startled, angling his body away from her, and she instantly wished she could call the words back. His jaw clenched along with his fists and his eyes focused intently on the couple on the dais.
The crowd burst into applause and cheers. Zo glanced up to find Eva wrapped in Stone’s determined embrace as they kissed, unabashed by the audience. Stone lifted Eva into his arms, lips still locked with his new bride as he walked her off the platform.
“No matter what you want to believe,” said Gryphon, “a part of you will always see the Ram in me as someone you can’t fully trust.”
Zo batted away tears and Gryphon left her sitting alone on the bench, ashamed to admit he was right.
Chapter Nineteen
Gryphon sat up in his bed panting from the nightmare. His forehead dripped sweat. He looked around the dark tent, chest heaving to catch his breath. It took him a few moments to process that his dream really had been a dream. But when he closed his eyes again, he saw Zo’s body lying at an odd angle covered in her own blood, a spear pinning her stomach to the ground. Her lifeless eyes stared up at him, seeming to beg the question, “Why didn’t you stay?” and “I thought you loved me.”
Gryphon suddenly couldn’t breathe. He yanked on his boots and stepped over Sani’s body—his little Raven guard dog—to push away the tent flap.
“Where are you going?” Sani asked, still half-asleep. Joshua snored on the opposite side of the tent.
“Just need some air,” Gryphon wheezed. “Go back to bed.”
For once, Sani didn’t protest or make a comment about Gryphon’s safety being his concern. He simply nodded and let his head fall back down to the pillow.
Gryphon set out at a jog through the sleeping camp, trying not to think about Zo doubting his character. Hiding from the reality that she was right to doubt him.
He’d lied to her by not disclosing his plans to leave. His betrayal was every bit as cold as her mistrust. But pain was pain, whether a person deserved to feel it or not.
He tried to draw air into his lungs, but his windpipe was still too constricted by his own panic to allow it. He passed through the training field and up into the foothills where he’d spent time with Zo. When he finally reached the top, he dropped to his hands and knees and gasped and sputtered on the little air he could draw in. An angry, guttural sound escaped his lips. So weak. He hated himself for feeling.
He collapsed on the ground and felt his racing heartbeat against the rocky soil beneath him. Turning his head to one side, his cheek pressed against the dirt, Gryphon’s breathing relaxed and he finally managed to slip into that numb place he’d known well from a childhood filled with beatings and systematic starvation.
He didn’t know how long he lay there, shirtless and cold in the foothills, before the startled cry of a man ripped him from his semi-conscious state.
Pushing to his knees, Gryphon strained to listen. If he wasn’t mistaken, he thought the sound came from the slot canyon at the north entrance of the valley.
Another shout. Maybe a hundred yards off. Definitely by the north entrance.
Gryphon shot to his feet and sprinted in that direction, cursing all the while that he didn’t have any kind of weapon on him. He considered shouting to wake people from the camp below, but that would cost him the element of surprise, and he had no idea what enemy—if any—he’d face. He could only imagine it was the menace who started the fire and had been doing other damage to injure Gryphon’s reputation.
Not again.
Gryphon slowed the closer he got to the north entrance. From somewhere in the slot canyon, a man cried out in pain, the sound echoing softly off the stone walls, too faint to be heard by the sleeping camp below. Another man—who Gryphon assumed to be an Allied soldier—sprinted out of the slot canyon, pressing a horn to his lips to signal for help. But the horn only sputtered. The man unable to draw a full breath as he ran.
Stop, you fool. Blow the horn.
Behind the Allied runner, silhouetted like a lithe demon, another man gave rapid pursuit, a spear held just above his shoulder and a shield strapped to his back.
Ram.
Before Gryphon had time to react, the Ram hitched up his front leg and launched the spear.
Gryphon bolted from his place in the brush and sprinted toward the Ram. Below them, the anticipated cry of the Allied soldier sounded right before Gryphon opened his arms wide and lunged at the spear-thrower.