Rise of the Gryphon (Belador #4)(36)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

A battered image of Petrina appeared on the floor not a foot from Evalle. Blood pooled around the body from multiple stabs.

He asked, “Does Tristan know about his sister yet?”

“He’s being told as we speak. You’re sure Evalle can’t communicate telepathically with Tristan?”

“No until she’s linked ta Kizira. ’Tis why I said to wait until all the Alterants become gryphons for Kizira ta bond with the new ones.”

“Are you sure Evalle will evolve into a gryphon if she kills another gryphon?”

“Yesss, Flaevynn.”

“If she’s so important, maybe we should have her kill a wyvern like Tristan did.”

“No. I have no told ya wrong yet. I had Tristan kill a wyvern just ta show you how this works, but Evalle is far more powerful. We can no make a mistake now. Give Evalle the sword, bloody the end of the blade and open the gate. ’Tis time she embraces her destiny.”

In the next moment, Evalle held a beautiful Medb sword that dripped fresh blood. She lifted the sword, studying it.

As the bars vanished, a roar echoed, gaining strength as it neared. Heavy feet pounded toward the arena, then Evalle’s opponent rushed into the room. Now in gryphon form, Tristan took one look at his sister’s body that Evalle couldn’t see and howled in pain, wings stretching wide.

Green eyes glowed with wrath from his eagle-shaped head.

Translucent scales covered skin the color of a thundercloud. Wings stretched away from his lion-shaped body when he reared up.

Evalle backed away a step, lifting the four-foot-long sword with surprising ease in her human form. She called out, “You get your kicks watching people die, Flaevynn? Because that’s what’s going to happen to your pretty pet.”

Tristan opened his jaws and released a cry of agony, then shot a stream of fire at Evalle.

She jumped backward, kinetic power allowing her to flip in the air before she landed on her feet. Her face and the front of her arms had been singed red from the blast.

She freed a hand from the sword and swung a hit of kinetic power at the gryphon, which only rocked the two-ton creature back a step.

He lunged at her.

She jumped high in the air.

Swinging her sword as she twisted, she sliced into a wing.

That sent the gryphon off balance. He hit as hard as a duck with bad landing gear.

Cathbad could see why Evalle was touted as not being one to squander an opening in a fight. She spun and leaped on the gryphon’s back, then shoved her sword down between his shoulder blades, straight to his heart.

He arched up and bucked her once, but finally flopped on the floor.

She pulled out the blade and stepped off the dead beast. Turning in a circle, she yelled, “Get your rocks off watching some poor thing get killed for no reason? You disgust me.”

Flaevynn snarled at Cathbad, “She didn’t evolve!”

“Wait a moment. Would be easier for her if she had already shifted into her Alterant beast form, but she will evolve.”

Evalle’s arms shook so hard that she dropped the sword. Her back hunched and she started growing. She screamed as if ripped in half. Her clothes shredded as the aqua-blue body of a lion took shape with a golden eagle’s head. Black outlined the predator green eyes and a blend of blue and green feathers covered wings that grew and extended from her back.

She stretched her neck, looking at her body and pulling a wing into view.

“She’s perfect,” Cathbad purred. “And that, Flaevynn, is the golden head each of the five chosen gryphons will have.”

A snarl vibrated through the arena.

Moving her gryphon form around awkwardly, Evalle froze when Tristan shook his head and wobbled to his feet.

Flaevynn murmured, “He isn’t dead.”

Realization climbed into Tristan’s gaze once he took in the Petrina vision and the Evalle gryphon. Wings back, claws extended on his paws, he was ready to kill.

Leaning forward, Flaevynn warned Cathbad, “Evalle’s not ready to fight. We can’t let them—”

Tristan opened his vicious beak wide and lunged at Evalle.

She raised a lion’s paw in defense.

Tristan hit an invisible wall and bounced backward.

Cathbad smiled. “She adapts faster than we could have hoped for. Took two days ta get Tristan ready ta fight, an’ he’s strong. Evalle will kill Brina an’ take Treoir for us.”

“She’s not going to be as easy to break as Tristan. We hold his sister’s life in our hands.”

“We do no need ta break Evalle, only compel her.”

THIRTY-TWO

Tzader stood on the walkway leading up to the castle entrance on Treoir Island, ready to break the doors down.

He was tempted to dive through that warding and test it, anything to get to Brina. She couldn’t be serious about marrying that guard. Was Macha pressuring Brina to do this?

How could Macha do this while knowing Brina had been his since they were teens? Maybe Brina had agreed to be engaged to buy her and Tzader more time to figure a way to be together. He wanted the truth from Brina herself. Sen had teleported Tzader so he wouldn’t have to ask Macha or Brina to bring him. He couldn’t cross the castle threshold, thanks to his and Brina’s fathers, but they could speak face-to-face at the castle entrance.

Guilt plagued him every time he got angry with his dead father, but what the hell?

A f**king ward on the castle separated him from the only woman he’d ever want.

Macha appeared next to him. “What can I do for you, Tzader?”

Since when did the Celtic goddess over all the Beladors act as a receptionist? “Where’s Brina?”

“Busy.”

“Doing what?” He shouldn’t take that tone with the goddess, but he fought day in and day out to protect humans and his Beladors. He’d never asked for anything in return.

That was changing. “I want to talk to her.”

“I told you she’s engaged. She has plans to make.” A granite bench with a white velvet cushion appeared and Macha sat down gracefully, her sea-green gown moving until satisfied with each fold and ripple. “What else do you want to discuss?”

Push the issue and get slingshotted back to Atlanta, or suck it up and once more deal with his duty?

He snorted at himself, a mean sound.

Like he would ever shirk a duty? “I think Evalle got captured by the Medb.”

The goddess turned statue still at that. “Why would you say that?”

“Because we have a report that she entered the Achilles Beast Championship and fought as an Alterant.” He wasn’t sharing anything that Macha wouldn’t find out and might even already know, especially when Sen had been the one to inform Tzader.

“She fought?” Macha said with a bite. “What happened to the other Alterants?”

“The Medb took them . . . and Evalle.”

“Evalle was supposed to bring them back, not join the enemy.”

“I’m sure she didn’t—”

“Oh? The way I understood the Medb deal was that they would take Alterants who accepted their offer of immortality.” Macha rose to her feet now, power glowing all around her.

Tzader stuck to his main concern. “Regardless of what the Medb offered, Evalle got caught and we have to get her back. I can’t do that if you don’t help me.”

Macha’s voice turned as cold as an Arctic night. “Evalle swore to me she did not want immortality. If she left with the Medb, she has broken her vow as a Belador and is now the enemy. You will capture her and bring her to me.”

This hadn’t turned out the way Tzader had expected. He stood, too. “Are you telling me she went there without talking to you about it, because that just doesn’t fit. Not Evalle, who is constantly trying to win your favor and find her place in our tribe.”

Yes, he was angry, but he’d had enough of Macha’s cryptic games with Evalle. And, if he was really honest, he was pissed that Macha hadn’t tried to help him and Brina get together.

Macha’s narrowed gaze warned him. “Evalle had a clear understanding of our conversation.”

Just one time, he’d like to get a straight answer out of the goddess. “But I don’t have a clear understanding of your conversation, which would help.”

Once again, Macha sidestepped Tzader’s request. “Bring me proof that she did not accept the offer of immortality and I’ll consider that.”

Tzader would not condemn Evalle without hearing her side. He believed in her commitment to the Beladors.

The castle door opened and Brina appeared just inside. “Tzader?”

His chest squeezed with pain at not being able to touch her. He searched for the right words, something he could say with Macha present, but another figure came into view behind Brina.

Allyn, Brina’s personal security . . . and fiancé.

The same man Tzader had witnessed standing too close to Brina and acting possessive the last time Tzader had entered the castle in holographic form.

Macha beamed a maternal smile Tzader quietly scoffed at. “Hello, Allyn.”

The guard bowed. “Greetings, Goddess.”

Turning to Tzader, Macha said, “Was there anything else?”

He sure as hell couldn’t say what he wanted with an audience present. Glancing at Brina, he could swear he saw longing in her eyes . . . and sadness.

“I’m sorry,” Brina said, backing away. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You’re not interrupting,” Macha cooed. “How are the wedding plans coming?”

Wedding? This was more than a phony engagement.

Macha rattled on as if every word didn’t shove a knife deeper in his heart. “Ask Allyn’s mother to help. What mother of the groom wouldn’t want to play a role in his wedding?”

Tzader’s mouth dried up. He couldn’t look at Allyn without lunging through the ward to kill him, and he couldn’t look at Brina without admitting he’d never stop loving her.

Mumbling that he had to talk with Quinn and the other Beladors guarding the island, Tzader stepped away, careful not to fall when his vision blurred.

Brina gripped the door frame so tightly that her fingers were white. She had to hold on to something to keep from running down Treoir’s steps after Tzader. All the fury she’d bottled up for weeks while she’d waited patiently for Tzader to fight for her she now turned on Macha. “How could you do that to him?”

“About the wedding? He knows.”

Brina had intended to tell Tzader, at the right time, as part of her plan to outmaneuver Macha so that she could be with Tzader, the only man she’d ever love. But Macha had interfered, as usual. What exactly had she told Tzader? Brina shoved a furious gaze at the goddess. “You might have consulted me first before announcin’ my engagement.”

Macha lost all lightheartedness. “What are you waiting on? It’s not as though you have other suitors besides Allyn coming to the door, now, is it?”

“We had an agreement. I am upholdin’ my part. There was no reason to be forcin’ my hand, as I still have time.” Brina had foolishly thought Macha would help her and Tzader find a way to be together in spite of the warding, but the conversation had backfired when Macha had accused Brina of not allowing Tzader to move on.

Macha thought Tzader would turn his back on the love he and Brina had shared since their teens, but Brina believed in him. In her heart, she was sure Tzader would never give her up without a fight, even with their impossible situation with the ward on the castle.

Shrugging off any concern over Brina’s anger, Macha said, “You might as well plan your wedding, since I don’t see Tzader interfering.”

Under no circumstances could Brina step outside the castle and risk dying, but Macha had allowed a loophole in her agreement with Brina. The only way to take advantage of that loophole had been to devise a strategy that was a high-stakes gamble, but Brina would risk all for a chance to be with Tzader.

She’d convinced Allyn to act as her new romantic interest to push Tzader along more quickly since she’d been forbidden from telling Tzader about her agreement with Macha. The Goddess contended that Tzader had too much honor to tell Brina the truth if he wanted to break off the doomed relationship. He would never hurt her that way.

Much as it had pained Brina, she had admitted that he deserved a fair chance to make that decision. That’s when Macha had twisted the situation around on Brina, gaining an agreement that had cut her heart into pieces only Tzader could put back together. What a tangled situation that had gotten out of hand.

Brina had put all her hopes on Tzader not being able to walk away. But he just had. He’d said nothing at hearing she would wed another man.

No reaction of anger or hurt. Could Macha be right after all?

For the first time since agreeing to do her part in the breakup, Brina felt true fear of losing Tzader. He was her life.

How would she breathe without him?

THIRTY-THREE

The woman he loved more than life was going to marry someone else.