Page 35 of Griffin Food

There is a slight stiffening between his shoulders. “He got a lucky swipe.”

Darrion makes a scoffing noise from behind. I let my silence speak.

Fenix shifts his stance and side-eyes me. “Fine, it was not sensible to engage with said bear in griffin form in the thick of a forest. Is that what you want to hear?”

Footsteps ring out as Darrion, who had held back, steps up to Fenix’s other side. “That sounded like ‘I’m a reckless idiot with the mental acumen of a cub, and I’ll probably do something stupid again soon.’ You took three eyrie lasses to your bed last eve. How do you find the energy to brood?”

Fenix does not answer. He rubs absently at the center of his chest again, in a gentle way that I think might not, in fact, be due to bruised ribs.

“I need to fly,” he repeats. “There is something there. Not quite a threat…”

“We will go together, then,” I say. Fenix has ever been prone to dramatics, but he also sometimes has a sense for things beyond my understanding.

“Fine,” Fenix mutters. “Just don’t grouch if it turns out to be nothing.”

We shift as one, our clothing disappearing into the ether. Claws scrape against the ledge, wings unfurl, and we drop, seeking and finding the currents, letting them carry us in a lazy circle that takes us down.

Dusk is falling. It is my favorite time of day. Time for predators to play, and which we are undoubtedly the highest form of.

My tail lashes from side to side behind me, and my claws curl into my chest. I let Fenix take the lead.

“There’s something here,” he says, drifting closer to a known trail leading from the village. “A presence. It feels… magnetic.”

“Interesting,” I say. “Magnetic in a good way or a bad way? What other emotions does it evoke?”

There is a long pause. “Lust.”

If I could raise a fucking brow, I would. Instead, I chirp.

“Don’t need to laugh at me, bastard,” Fenix growls through the pride bond.

“And after three lasses,” Darrion muses.

“They are not what I want,” Fenix says.

This time, neither Darrion nor I offer a jibe.

We are driven by forces of nature as old as the mountains themselves. We seek battle, thrive on it, using it as compensation for that which is missing from our lives.

A mate.

Someone who would make us whole.

“Don’t you feel it?” Fenix presses. “Don’t you feel the pull?”

“I feel nothing,” I admit. I wish that I did.

“Neither do I,” Darrion adds.

“Change is coming,” Fenix says ominously, turning away from the path and following the regular pattern of a patrol. “Cataclysmic change.”

Chapter Ten

Rafe

The moment she returns to the camp, I know something is wrong.

She is dripping wet, for a start, like she has doused herself in the river. At first, I think her heat has started, but something is off.