Page 160 of Griffin Food

“He needs to pay.” I nod my head at Molly, who still clings to my arms. “He was the one who put Molly in a collar.”

“Sentiments we share,” Atlas says. “You are not the first raiding party he has brought into our lands, and nor will you be the last. They come to top up their thrall ranks, to steal our people, gems, or both. The dark fae are portal masters, and General Adharde has eluded us for many years.”

“I want to join the fight.”

Molly sobs quietly, and I comfort her as best I can, keeping my hands gentle the way my mother once comforted me.

“We believe you, lad,” Darrion says dryly.

Present day…

A century of waiting. And it is done.

I have carried Molly’s face with me longer than most humans live. The girl with the brown eyes and the gold collar. The girl who, against all odds, married a baker and had grandchildren and died warm in her bed surrounded by love.

She deserved that ending. And Adharde deserved his.

But there is someone else now. Someone who felt my rage tear through the bond like a blade and has no notion of why. She will be frightened. She will have questions. And she has earned the truth of me—all of it, even the parts I do not speak of.

Especially those.

Violet

I rode back with Atlas. We are home. And how good it feels to acknowledge it as such.

“Your other mates are waiting in our quarters,” Atlas tells me.

Tomorrow, I will shore up for the road ahead as Pride Queen, supporting our people as we all deal with the fallout of the war. But today, and now, my heart is in turmoil. These events will take time to reconcile. But I also accept that I am at my limit mentally and physically, and that I need rest, and to connect, even if briefly, with my mates.

As we enter our quarters, I find Rafe, Lark, and Darrion already present. Then they part, and the final piece is revealed—Fenix.

His posture is guarded, but his pretty hazel eyes hold mine without reserve.

“Come,” Atlas says, guiding me over, and then speaking to the others, “Let us give the two of them some time.”

Fenix steps forward, and everyone else steps back as though by silent cue. “You have questions. And I will answer them as honestly and plainly as I can.”

Hearing the passage of feet and the closing of the main door, signifying that we are alone, I reach out and take his hand.

He looks down at it, then lifts it to his lips and kisses it in an unusually gallant gesture for a man who is not gallant at all.

And then he sweeps me into his arms, heads over to the comfortable couch before the window, and sits me on his lap where he tucks my head against his shoulder.

“For Molly!”

I sense the restlessness in him. My heart is beating too fast, clinging to his actions in holding me now. “You don’t have to tell me, if it is painful.”

“Yes, I do,” he says bluntly. “And even if Atlas had not just warned me to make this right or else…” There is a hint of humor, and it settles me somewhat even as I brace for what is to come.

“I do not talk about it often. Almost never. But I was not born in these lands. I was born into servitude, as were my parents and their parents before. Our home was the fae citadel, in another land through a portal, far from here. I don’t remember my father. My mother died when I was six. I worked in the kitchens mostly. My only other duty was feeding the captured orcs.”

A sting pricks the back of my eyes, and a single tear trickles out to dampen his shirt.

I already know this tale is not going to be good.

“I witnessed how they make the rocklings. Force-feeding orcs tar from the Raba swamp. It changed them. Broke them. Made them huge, monstrous, and unfeeling. They called them pets. But rocklings are soulless beasts who follow the orders of the dark fae generals and lords they are bound to for life.”

“Humans, orcs, we were all worthless and expendable to the dark fae. They used us until we had no use left… and if some of the younger ones should take their fancy, they’d keep them as a different kind of pet.”