Rise of the Gryphon (Belador #4)(22)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

“I have my own mixed bag of powers.”

Thickheaded man. She wanted to beat some sense into him. “I know. I saw you rip the head off a demonic troll, but you knew what you were up against. At the Achilles Beast Championship, you would face Alterants with no learning curve in your favor, because I doubt any two of them will be exactly the same. One bad injury and you’ll be at the mercy of the next fighter. An Alterant has tremendous recovery ability in beast state.” She put her hands up to each side of his face. “Please don’t make me watch you get bloodied.”

A growl started deep inside Storm, rumbling up through his chest. His shoulders tensed with unleashed frustration. “I won’t be the one getting bloody.” He huffed out a sigh that blew fine hairs around her face. “Stop thinking I’m going to die.”

“So now you’re immortal?” What was it about men, especially alphas, that made them believe they were indestructible?

“Of course not, but you know I’m the best choice and I’ll survive.”

That burrowed under her skin and started irritating her with a burning need to have the last word. She crossed her arms and should probably leave this alone, but the harder he pushed her on this, the more she was determined to win. “If you’re not immortal, then technically you can’t say you won’t die, or you’d be lying. Right?”

He crossed his arms, too, and leaned down, shoving his dark gaze at her to make his point. “You don’t have an argument. Bottom line? You aren’t going inside that place without me.”

“Since when did you get it in your head that you’re calling all the shots?”

“Since you came back with that damned bone on your arm and no backup from VIPER.”

“That’s my problem, not yours,” she shouted, shoving up in his face. She needed this stupid bone for any hope of getting into the the beast battles as an observer and not revealing her Alterant status. Did he really think she’d give it up? “Bottom line? I’m not taking it off.”

“The hell you aren’t,” he blasted right back at her. He raised his hands in a sign of frustration and muttered, “You’re making me insane.”

She opened her mouth to give him another dose of her anger and he grabbed her shoulders, crushing his mouth to hers. A demanding kiss, so unlike Storm. One filled with both hunger and caring. After a moment, he moved his hands to cup her face, holding her in place, easing the kiss until he took her on a ride through heaven with his mouth.

Slowly, her anger simmered down, muscles relaxing under the onslaught of new nerves bursting to life. When his fingers smoothed over her face and down her arms, she dropped her forehead on his shoulder, content to just be for a moment in her life.

She let out an earthy sigh.

He growled near her ear, gripping her shoulders again. He eased her away from him, cursing softly. “We can’t . . . do this.”

“Why?” She blinked, trying to focus. “You’re blurry.”

Taking a couple of ragged breaths, he told her, “It’s the damn bone influencing you. I don’t want to increase the spell I wove around you, so work on calming your thoughts.”

She did, and once her breathing evened out, she could see him clearly, right down to the vexation on his face. “Sorry about blasting you just now.”

“No, this time the short fuse was my fault as much as the bone’s.”

Lifting her eyebrows at that, she asked, “Is the Volonte affecting you, too?”

Storm gave a harsh chuckle. “No, sweetheart. You’re affecting me.”

“If you don’t want to get your head bitten off, then just stay away from me.”

“That isn’t going to happen.” He reached over and touched her chin with his fingers. Warmth flooded his eyes. “You piss me off more than anyone else is capable of—”

“Careful or I’ll get all tingly,” she muttered.

“—but that’s not what has my animal on the edge of ripping out of my body every time I’m around you.” His eyes took on an unholy gleam of hunger. He leaned in close. “I’m out of my mind, wanting you so much it hurts, and my jaguar wants to be uncaged to release what I keep holding inside.”

“Oh.” What could she say to that?

He sighed and took another breath. “I’m not going to touch you until that armband is gone, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to feel your skin under my hands and to bury myself so deep inside you we turn into one. I want to taste every inch of you.”

Her br**sts puckered again in total agreement with everything he was saying.

She grasped his hand, pulling it to her lips, then she kissed his palm and looked up to find a firestorm building in his eyes. She whispered, “I told you, the minute this bone is gone, it’s on. We’re on.”

He kissed her forehead. “Damn right.”

Smiling, she stepped back. “Tzader needs help now with this infection problem, and I hear you on the beast championship. Just give me some time to figure out what I need to do, okay?”

“I’ll have my SUV warded against the sun. You have to leave no later than four tomorrow to reach Cumberland Island in time for me to register to fight. Until then, I’ll get in contact with Tzader and help him find as many Langaus as I can before we leave.”

To avoid getting into that conversation with him again, she shifted the topic a little. “I have yet to find out exactly how to get from St. Marys to Cumberland Island.”

“Like Imogenia said, private boats. The host will have one specific dock where boats owned by locals capable of ferrying our kind over there will port in. Those captains will know where the drop point is for sponsors and fighters, and they’ll have instructions on how to reach the championship site. That keeps unwanted guests, like VIPER, from showing up.”

“Where’d you find out all that?”

Storm just smiled. “This is not my first beast rodeo.”

“You’re not going to tell me where to find the boat dock, are you?”

“I don’t have that yet, but worst case I’ll be able to locate it by tracking the others. So just remember that you do need me all the way on this.” Then he asked, “Where will you be until I pick you up?”

Another question that could trip her up.

Evalle hoped he wouldn’t press for more when she tossed her head at the SUV and said, “My life as a babysitter. The things I do for friends. I need to go feed her and check on Feenix.”

“What are you going to do about her for tomorrow?”

“I’m working on that. Thanks for helping Tzader.”

“You’re welcome.” He pulled her to him and kissed her one more time with enough heat to make her want to chew her arm off to get rid of the armband. When Storm lifted his head, intense dark eyes pinned her. “I’ll see you at four. Be. There.”

“I liked you better when you weren’t so arrogant and demanding.”

Storm’s lips curved up on one side. “No, you didn’t.”

He kissed her once more and strolled away, disappearing into the stairwell.

She’d be halfway to St. Marys by the time the clock struck four tomorrow afternoon and inside the Achilles Beast Championship before Storm could catch up to her on Cumberland Island.

Would that kiss be their last?

SEVENTEEN

Where was Grady? Evalle made another hike around Grady Hospital in downtown Atlanta, searching in every direction for the old ghoul, who could normally be found here at midnight. She refused to believe he’d shaken hands with a Langau.

It wasn’t as though he would die. He was already dead. But she didn’t want him caught in some torturous half state. She slowed along the quiet back street that separated the hospital from the interstate humming with light traffic.

“When’d you start playin’ Secret Service agent and drivin’ big black SUVs?” The deep voice boomed so close behind her that she flinched, then whipped around. Cool air brushing her skin dropped another ten degrees with the presence of her favorite pain-in-the-butt Nightstalker.

Grady’s translucent form almost took shape, faded, then came back as a thin old man with skin the color of brewed coffee. A week’s growth of whiskers stubbled his bony jaw that generally had a stubborn kick to it. He wore his usual red-and-black plaid shirt, short sleeves regardless of the season, and loose pants that might have been his Sunday best at one time.

Ghouls didn’t suffer wardrobe dilemmas.

She cocked her head at him. “Where’ve you been hiding, you old goat?”

“Where’s my bag?” His eyebrows waggled over warm eyes full of teasing.

She’d normally have a McHappy sack of hamburger, fries and water to drink, but Grady could be a tough negotiator when it came to dealing intel. His idea of a happy sack included a fifth of Old Forester. “I brought your favorite.”

At that, his keen eyes focused on the bag she gripped, and he wiped his mouth with his hand, alcoholic hunger glazing his eyes. “What do you want?”

Any other time she’d indulge him and negotiate, but she couldn’t shake with Grady, even if he swore he hadn’t touched a Langau. She’d broken rules for the old ghoul once and shaken longer than allowed so that he could see his granddaughter get married. That had resulted in his being able to take corporeal form on his own sometimes, and for extended periods.

Seeing him translucent now stirred her pot of worry. “Can you take solid form?”

“Nah. Did it too much yesterday and ain’t been able to turn solid since. Just zoned out.”

Maybe that meant he hadn’t been infected. “So you haven’t shaken hands with anyone?”

“No, siree. I’m what you’d call primed and ready. I’ll give you a deal.” He stuck out his hand. “Shake and you git three questions. Kind of like a genie but you have the bottle.” He grinned at his pun.

“Can’t, Grady.”

His face fell. “Why not?”

“There’s an infection going around. Nightstalkers have been catching it and passing it along. VIPER has ordered no contact with Nightstalkers until they get it contained.”

“Are you kiddin’ me?” He scowled and stomped around. Silent stomping.

“I’m sorry. I’ll leave the bottle hidden for you, but I need information.”

“Nuh-uh. Not givin’ up a word without a handshake.”

He could be ornerier than a junkyard dog. “This is important, Grady.”

“So is gittin’ my handshake. It’s the only thing important in my world. Why you stink?”

“Insulting me will cost you this bottle.” She waved the brown bag and bottle.

He jutted out his chin with his meanest look. “You tryin’ to make me mad?”

“No. I’m trying to get some help.”

“How come you got a dead smell about you?”

Now she understood. Evalle slid her sleeve up. “It’s probably this bone.”

Grady backed away, looking at her like she’d shown him a two-headed demon. “You got a Volonte attached to your body? Are you crazy? Get rid of that nasty thing.”

“I’d like to, but it’s locked on my arm. That’s why I need your help.”

He grumbled and floated a little farther away.

“Get over here and stop floating around.”

“Don’t be yellin’ at me,” he snapped, but he did move close again.

She grabbed her head. “Sorry. I can’t help it. This stupid bone takes whatever I’m feeling and amplifies that emotion or desire.”

“Then you better stay away from that Injun. I seen the way you been lookin’ at him.”

She locked her jaw to keep from telling Grady, again, not to call Storm an Injun or remind him that her relationships were none of his nosy business. When she could talk without shouting, she asked, “Do you know anything about the Achilles Beast Championship?”

His eyes went to the bracelet around her arm. “Nah.”

This was a waste of time. “Guess you can’t help with the infection either.”

“That I can help with.”

“Really? How?”

The old coot just stared at her. Evalle waved the bottle in front of him.

He scowled. “Saw a Nightstalker fadin’ in and out. She was jerkin’ back and forth.”

A sick ghoul. “Where is she? Did you see anything else that was suspicious? Storm says the host that’s infecting the Nightstalkers is something called a Langau.”

“If a lawn-gal is a demon livin’ in a dead body, then I know where she is.”

Tzader was going to love this. He’d texted Evalle with a message that Storm had contacted him and Tzader had assigned Beladors to support Storm. All info had to be reported to Storm.

“ ’Bout two blocks over that way.” Grady pointed his thumb over his shoulder toward the south. “Brunette walkin’ around all sexy lookin’ in a red dress and heels. You ain’t gonna miss her. She’s moseyin’ around, callin’ out for Nightstalkers.”