Page 159 of Griffin Food

Fine, I do scream, and back up into another… man.

“Where the fuck did you come from?!” I twist to eyeball the bastard who has me by the scruff of the neck. This one is no less impressively built, with short ash-blond hair… and a long, fancy silk jacket. “A little overdressed, aren’t you?” I snark.

Ash blond quirks a brow.

Black snorts a laugh.

“We are griffin shifters, lad,” ash blond says. “This is what I was wearing before the fae hordes decided to raid a peaceful community under our ward.”

His eyes are narrowed. I gulp, aware that I am part of the dark fae horde by association.

“A thrall,” the formerly grey griffin says tiredly—Atlas. “And scared witless. Put him with the others.”

“I am not fucking scared!” I announce, even though I am.

“He can’t go with the others,” ash blond counters—Darrion.

Gods, they are in my fucking head again!

Wait? Why can’t I go with the others? What special fuckery do they reserve for me? A sudden high scream redirects our attention.

Molly, her finery covered in mud and blood, thrashes against a soldier who is trying to carry her away. I don’t think—I react, shoving out of the griffin bastards’ hold and charging the soldier who has Molly.

Shoulder to his belly, I pitch a man twice my size away and drop to my knees in a mirror of Molly, hands up and out. “Molly! It’s me, Fenix.”

She claws frantically at her throat like she might get the collar off. “Stop, lass. You’re alright. These men are not going to hurt you.”

“Her master is either dead or fled through the portal,” Atlas says coldly, coming up beside me and motioning the soldier away. “So too whatever glamour he used upon her.”

“Get it off,” Molly sobs.

“Help her,” I demand.

Atlas rounds her. The air whooshes, and a giant griffin towers over us all. Molly barely notices. Two great talons hook the collar. Metal snaps like a dry twig, and the collar falls away.

She falls sobbing into my arms. “Tell me it is over, Fenix.”

I look to Atlas, once more a man, recognizing he is in charge.

“It is over,” he says. “We will take you back to our community, where the injured can be treated and given food and rest.”

“Before you make us another kind of slave,” I sneer.

“No,” Atlas says, his voice clipped like I have just slapped him with the gravest insult… which I suppose I did. “You are free to leave at any time, or now. But these mountains are unforgiving to the uneducated, and I would rather not have to rescue you again. My lands include many towns, villages, and farms where honest men and women can find simple work as befits their skills.”

“Well, alright then,” I say, feeling like a chump now.

A man approaches and addresses Atlas. “We’ve managed to salvage a few wagons and enough horses to get the injured to Acton Trussell. Their leaders and a few of their soldiers fled.”

“General Adharde?” I ask, not caring that I’m interrupting.

Something ancient brushes against my mind—feathers ruffling, a beak clacking in amusement.

Darkan? Darrion’s griffin. How does that even work? Why does his griffin have a different name?

Atlas glares down at me with the look of a man whose patience has been tested to the limit. “You are lucky our griffins like you.” Then he turns to the soldier at his side expectantly.

“The general has fled, my lord.”