Page 93 of Griffin Food

A servant arrives with a tray bearing food. The items rattle. She gives all of us and the direwolf a wary look before placing it on the desk before Atlas… and leaves just as promptly.

“Are you hungry?” Atlas asks Violet.

She looks small on his lap, blanket clutched tight, staring up at him like he’s speaking in riddles.

Galeor rumbles his amusement. This is a side of Atlas we have never seen. Softer. Attentive. I hope his griffin, Aldric, is giving him shit. He needs to claim her already.

The mutt has barely settled back in guard position in front of the door—Violet has yet to answer—when another knock sounds on the door.

The mutt rumbles and heaves himself back up.

This time, it is Rafe who enters.

I thought the room was already suitably tense, but with his arrival, it cranks up another notch.

Violet

Being in the same room as Fenix after what happened last eve has already gotten me in a flutter when the door opens for the second time, and Rafe walks in. Seeing him steals the air from my lungs. In a stark contrast to the last time I saw him chained up in the dungeon, today he wears simple leather trousers tucked into serviceable boots and what appears to be a new leather jerkin.

His hair is a little damp, and even his beard is neatly trimmed. He looks devastatingly handsome, and my belly gets fluttery as I take him in.

The griffin who brings him here, Vander, nods his head at Atlas and closes the door as he leaves.

Silence follows. I want to go to Rafe. Yet I’m aware that I’ve already overstepped boundaries and pushed matters with Atlas today. We are all on shifting ground. The dynamics between us are moving faster than any of us is ready for.

My face, already heated by Fenix’s presence, grows yet hotter that Rafe—who has been such a steady presence in my life—must witness me nestling on Atlas’s lap.

My eyes search his, desperate to know what he thinks of me. Whether he sees me as naught but a shameful hussy… whether he still loves me.

Only, he does not once glance at me. No, he’s staring directly at Atlas.

“Ah, Rafe. Excellent,” Atlas says. “I’m glad you’re here. Now we can begin.”

He turns to me. “Are you hungry?”

Hungry? He has already asked me that once before we were interrupted.

I am not hungry. At all. I couldn’t put food in my belly if my life depended on it. I shake my head quickly. I’m still clutching the blanket like a shield, trying not to breathe in the collective male pheromones lacing the air. The cushion he usually has me kneel on is propped against his desk. The thought of him putting me on it and feeding me while the others all watch—I might spontaneously combust. “No, thank you.” The words come out in a squeak.

His eyes narrow, like he believes I am hungry.

He must take pity on me, for he does not push the matter. Lark flops his big body down next to the door again, like it is his sacred duty to guard. Darrion rises, offers his chair to Rafe, and collects another one from the far side of the room, bringing it over to sit down himself.

“Good,” Atlas says decisively. And then he turns to me. “Violet. We have some news we need to share with you.”

The five distinct male scents filling the room are very distracting. I’m convinced he’s about to finally bed me—across his desk, maybe in front of the others. Or spread me out and spank my bottom. My thoughts are very wayward.

He does none of those things.

He opens the top drawer on his desk, takes out an item, and places it on the desk before me. I glance from it to Atlas and back again. It looks like a seal ring, attached to a long leather strip. I have seen captains sometimes wear such around their necks.

“I believe the seal is familiar,” he says at length.

I reach to pick it up, turn it over in my hand… and drop it.

Lark’s ears prick up. He curls his lip back and growls.

“Stand down,” Atlas says brusquely.