KATO NOT ONLY LOOKS LIKE ADONIS, BUT HE HAS THE voice of a God. He puts the beast to sleep within minutes, filling its tunnel lair with the melodious vibrations of the golden lyre and the haunting, sliding tones of a southern lullaby.
Half mesmerized myself, I gather my blades, pull up the slack in Ariadne’s Thread, and then find the torch, relighting it. Neither of us wants to carry the lyre, so we leave it at the entrance to the sleeping monster’s den. When the torch eventually dies, we stop to eat and drink by the dim light of our cloaks, although neither of us has much of an appetite. Before we move on, Kato ties a new knot around my wrist, and we cut off the excess twine.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he says when we pause again some hours later.
My heart does something unruly in my chest. I’m thinking about Griffin. Loyal, selfless, determined, domineering, overprotective Griffin—a man of action, consigned to waiting. He’s probably aged a decade in a week.
I swallow hard. “What then?” My voice is almost steady.
Kato turns his back to me and then relieves himself against the tunnel wall, probably melting a line down the ice. “That it’s a good thing we’re not eating much because pissing is one thing, but there’s no way you want to share a latrine with me for anything else.”
Expecting anything but that, I burst out laughing. “Gah! You’re such a man.”
Kato turns back around, grinning. “Last time I checked, I had the right parts.”
And the last time I checked, my feet were dragging, and I was missing Griffin so much I was close to tears.
I shove Kato’s fleece-covered shoulder, still smiling. “You go first. Your cloak is brighter.”
We walk, and walk, and walk. Time moves slowly in cold, dark monotony, broken only by Kato telling me stories, mostly about Griffin, and by my sharing whatever thoughts come into my head. When we stop, we do so huddled together against the chill, taking turns sleeping, although Kato doesn’t get his fair share of rest, and I seem to need more than I ever have before.
Not having any clear sense of the passing of the days, it’s a shock to see the light from the first cavern, not only because it’s so bright to our unaccustomed eyes, but because it means we’re less than a full day’s walk from the exit.
My heart starts pounding so hard it steals my breath. “We’re close.”
Squinting into the light, Kato scans the gallery for Atalanta and her bow. Tension and wariness roll off his big frame. “The archer got me to her bed in about twenty minutes.”
I point to the tunnel we just exited. “She told me to go that way. So I did.”
“And you have the navigational skills of a four-year-old.”
“We’re inside a mountain! It’s pitch-black! And a labyrinth!”
“True,” Kato concedes.
“You didn’t freeze?” I ask.
“Atalanta had Fire Magic. Kept me warm.”
I’ll bet. I drop another armful of thread onto the frosty ground, cut off the excess, and then hold out my wrist for Kato to retie the knot. With the added light, he can see that my skin has been rubbed raw. Frowning, he reaches for my other wrist. When he’s done tying the knot, I unbuckle my leather armor and then strap it to the bag he’s carrying. I have plans for later today, and I don’t want the extra layer between Griffin and me when I see him again.
I start walking, eager to leave the labyrinth at last. “Let’s go before the archer shows up and starts shooting at us. I doubt she’d hit you. Me, I’m not so sure.”
Kato growls from somewhere deep in his throat. “If she comes anywhere near you, I’ll take one of her arrows and stick it through her eye.”
Well, I guess that’s settled, then.
We walk faster and don’t stop again. The closer we get, the longer the journey seems to take. Anticipation keeps me in an anxious, breathless state. The next time the tunnel brightens, my pulse roars, seeming to pound Griffin’s name through my veins.
“Come on!” I cut the knot around my wrist and then sprint down the tunnel, sliding and bumping into the icy walls at every turn. I don’t even feel the impacts, or maybe I just don’t care. “Griffin!” I shout.
After a terrifying moment of silence, Griffin’s deep bellow answers me back. “Cat!”
He’s there! Relief nearly makes me stumble. His voice is still far away. Always too far.
“Cat!” he roars.
“I’m coming!” And I swear to the Gods, the moment we touch I’m going to crawl inside him and never come out. I never want to be apart again. We’ll make love, eat, and sleep. Forget about ruling the world. That means nothing to me. All I want is Griffin.
Tears stream from my eyes as my vision tries to adjust to the increasing light. Sheer joy and relief add to the flow. I round a bend, bounce off the wall, and leave the tinkling of shattered icicles in my wake. My shoulder throbs, but I welcome the pain. Enduring it means getting to Griffin that much faster.
I finally see the men moving inward from the mouth of the cave, three large shapes silhouetted against the blinding light of day. We meet somewhere in the middle of that first tunnel, and I throw myself at Griffin, suddenly shaking uncontrollably.
His arms close around me, strong, hard, and almost crushing. Griffin’s inhale shudders, and then a hoarse sound catches in his throat. He exhales my name like he feared he’d never speak it to me again, like he was almost sure he wouldn’t.
I wrap my arms and legs around him so tightly that wild Centaurs couldn’t drag me away. Our lips collide in a frantic tangle of words and breath.
“I love you. I love you. I love you.” I can’t stop saying it. Our teeth bump because he’s talking, too.
“Kardia mou. Psihi mou.” One steely arm circles my hips and the other my back. He strides into the tunnel.
My heart filled to bursting, on fire for him, I cling to Griffin, my hands tangled in his hair and my legs locked around his waist. We pass Kato, and Griffin looks away from me only long enough to give his friend a nod.
I grin like an idiot, and Kato winks back.
Low and fierce, Griffin says, “I’m never letting you out of my sight again. That was the longest ten days of my life. I thought—” His voice falters in a way that jolts my heart straight into my throat. Then he forgets about talking and slants his mouth over mine as we round the first bend in the tunnel. There’s nothing sweet or soft about his kiss. It’s fear turned into aggression. Possession. His tongue sweeps into my mouth, claiming every inch of it, and I thrust back, greedy for more.
Finally lifting his mouth from mine, Griffin stops, looks around, and then sets me on a shelf of ice. He settles his hips between my legs, and with my cloak under me and Griffin at my front, I don’t even feel the cold. His chilled hands grip my head as he angles my face back to ravage my mouth again. Soft black whiskers lightly scrape the tip of my nose, my lips, my chin, and a husky moan rises in my throat. I trace the delectable curve of his upper lip with my tongue and then suck hungrily on the fuller bottom one.
Griffin’s ragged breath fans my fevered lips. “I thought you were never coming back. The days… They just kept going by, and you never came.”
I curl my fingers into his hair, holding him tight. “I will always come back to you.”
With a gruff sound, he settles his hands on my hips. “You should know better than to make promises you might not be able to keep.”
He’s right. He always is. But that’s a vow I’ll keep—in this life, or in the next.
Not answering, I lean forward and kiss him because he’s my hunger and my food, my thirst and my water, my air and my every breath.
Griffin drags me closer, and the feel of his arousal between us sends heat rushing up my spine. I wiggle to the very edge of the shelf, rubbing against him.
A soft groan resonates in Griffin’s chest. His fingers tighten on my hips. “This isn’t the place.”
His steely length is flush against my core, and white-hot desire is coiling deep in my belly. “This is definitely the place.” I tilt my head back, flicking a tangled mess of hair off my neck.
His face dips toward my throat. He stops. Pulls back. “What’s this?”
Uh-oh. “Nothing?”
Frowning, Griffin gently explores the tender ridges of my new scars with his fingertips. “What happened?”
There’s no use pretending he can’t see. Between our smoldering cloaks and the daylight filtering around the bend, it’s far from pitch-dark.
I take a deep breath. How does a woman tell her almost, maybe, probably husband she’s part fish? Apparently. “Do you find mermaids arousing?”
His eyebrows slam down. “What?”
“I almost drowned.”
“What!”
I wince, his near-roar still echoing around the tunnel.
Griffin clears his throat, trying again more calmly. “Would you care to explain?”
I consider. “No?”
“Cat…” he growls.
“Fine.” My shoulders slump in defeat. Not that I put up much of a fight. “The three-headed beast chased me over a cliff. It was really dark, and I didn’t know what was behind me. I was busy trying not to get eaten, or crushed, or clubbed, and then I fell. I turned to run because I was getting my ass kicked, but then there was nothing under my feet. Luckily, there was a lake at the bottom of this huge, black pit, which means I didn’t…” I decide not to finish that thought. Griffin’s expression is turning more frightening by the word.
“I hit the water, but I was too weighed down to swim. I had my clothes and cloak, Kato’s clothes and cloak, my satchel—which I dropped. But after that, I could hardly move because it was so cold. My fingers were numb, and I was woozy anyway because I’d just hit my head.” My hand automatically rises to the sore spot under my hair. “I couldn’t get anything else off me.”
Silent but clearly seething, Griffin runs his fingertips over my scalp, lightly moving them from front to back. Feeling the sizeable lump still there, his lips thin. “You sank.”
I nod.
Griffin takes a calming breath. Then another. It takes three to actually work. “I’m going to skip over your having Kato’s clothes and get right to the new scars on your neck.”
I glance down, fiddling with my belt. “I didn’t drown. I, uh…grew gills.”
“Gills?”
Nodding, I run a self-conscious hand over my neck.
“Did you pray to Poseidon?” he asks. “Call on an Oracle?”
I shake my head. “I was too panicked. Too muddled. No air. The cold…” I shrug. “I don’t know what happened.”
Gripping my waist, Griffin lowers his head and then carefully kisses the slashing scars on one side of my neck. “What happened after that?”
I shiver when he shifts to the other side, and his lips brush a soft, warm kiss over the first raised ridge. “I hit the bottom, wrapped both cloaks around me to keep from freezing to death, picked up my satchel, and then walked to the other side of the lake.”
A puff of breath hits my neck, and I think Griffin smiles a little against my skin. “My brave, brave Cat.” His mouth gently traces another scar.
“Definitely.” I shudder. “There were eels.”
“Where was Kato?” The careful levelness of his voice does nothing to hide its sharp edges from me.
“He was getting the golden fleece for the Ipotane Alpha. We’d already been separated for three days. Maybe more. It was hard to tell in there.”
Griffin straightens. His nostrils flare as he looks down at me. “He shouldn’t have left you.”
“He got what we needed. We both made it out. That’s what’s important.”
His eyes spark with anger in the dim light. “What’s important is keeping you safe.”
“Stop.” Sharp, the one word rings out loudly in the icy quiet of the tunnel. “Stop with this obsession. It’s not fair to anyone, especially me, and for the first time ever, I can honestly say you’re being a hypocrite.”
“A hypocrite?” he grates out, stiffening away from me.
“If your goal is to keep me safe, then take me back to Castle Sinta. We’ll dance, feast, spend hours in bed together, get fat, and have babies. Don’t take over the realms. Don’t try to change the world. Don’t throw us all into the paths of power-hungry, bloodthirsty Alphas. Don’t be responsible for anything except for me.”
Griffin blinks. He looks like I slapped him. “Are you asking me to choose between you and everything else?”
Shaking my head, I lift my hands and spear my fingers into his overlong hair. I don’t know how his hair stays silky and soft when I’m going to need a vat of olive oil to untangle mine. “I have a feeling you’d choose me, and I won’t do that to you. You’d end up hating me for it, and I’d hate myself. But I’m not a princess in a gilded tower. You have to let me do my part.”
“You’re on the Ice Plains. You went in there.” A tight jerk of his head indicates the dark tunnel leading into the labyrinth.
“I know. And I know that was hard for you. For everyone. But don’t be mad at Kato for doing his part.”
Griffin mutters a harsh curse and then stares at me, his expression like a herd of Centaurs on the verge of charging—explosion imminent.
I lightly cup his cheek in my hand. “I’m here. I’m safe.”
His eyes close. Slowly, he leans into my touch, and the anger and the stress start to drain from him. “It killed me. Every day, every hour, every minute, every bloody second, it killed me. Waiting for you. Not knowing if you were alive.”
“I know.” I lean forward and press my lips to his.
Griffin holds on to my waist, anchoring me to him. “There’s nothing left of you,” he rasps between kisses.
His large hands cover most of my sides. His fingers splayed wide, I know he can feel every bone.
“I can fix that by eating nothing but spice cakes for a year when this is over,” I tell him.
He chuckles. It turns into a groan when he slides his hands up to palm my breasts. I arch into his touch, and he increases the pressure. My belly tightens. Desire shivers through me.
“Then these would be a handful again.” The huskiness in his voice makes me think he’s really looking forward to that. “Plump and round.”
I laugh a little, the sound tangling with a rough exhale when his thumbs brush over my nipples. “Those would be plump and round, but my ass would be, too, and probably my hips.”
“Perfect,” Griffin growls, lowering his head to plunder my mouth again.
He steals my breath and melts my bones. Gripping my nape, he deepens the kiss. Urgency jumps from his tongue to mine. My spine curves, and he bends me even farther back, his fist tightening in my hair. My hips angle up, reaching for him, and our bodies connect right where they should. Griffin moans at the contact. A hot, liquid pulse throbs to life between my thighs.
Tension and need gather like a heady storm. “I want you.”
“Cat…” He groans low.
My legs clasping his hips, I push Griffin’s cloak aside and then run my hands over his torso, finding hard leather instead of a familiar chest. On a frantic quest for skin, I drop my hands to his belt, unbuckle it in record time, and then artlessly tug at the laces of his pants. His arousal springs free, and I curve my hand around the warm, hard flesh, squeezing as I stroke him from base to tip.
Griffin makes a guttural sound, biting out, “Cold hands,” even as he rocks into my grip.
“Fill me.” I kiss his scruffy neck and jaw as I swirl the pad of my thumb over the liquid pearling at the crown of his erection. “I’ll be hot.”
He shudders. “You feel so fragile in my hands.”
Is he afraid he’ll hurt me? I nip his earlobe. “I am not, never have been, and never will be fragile.”
Griffin lifts his head. His eyes flash with silver heat a second before he grabs my boots and tears them off. My pants follow, ripped down my legs with one hard jerk as I wiggle, helping to free them from underneath me.
Cold air sweeps across my bare skin. Griffin wraps my legs back around his waist, tucking them under his cloak again. Then his cool palms slide up my thighs and around my hips. He pulls me hard against him, and I gasp. This is what I want.
He kisses me again, his thumbs skimming along the creases of my thighs. Then one callused finger lightly traces the seam of my folds. The teasing touch gradually turns bolder, circling, pressing down. An explosion of sensation riots through me. I arch back, catching fire.
Griffin bends over me, kissing me senseless while his touch leaves me trembling and hot. I grip his shoulders and hang on, raising my hips to meet his hand.
“Griffin!” A storm races under my skin. I whip my hips, trying to spur him on.
“Patience, Princess.”
“Now, Your Stubbornness, or I swear I’ll start biting.”
Griffin slides one long finger inside me. “Is that a promise?” he asks, his voice low and gravelly soft.
A tremor ripples through me. “And kicking.”
“So hot.” His eyes slide closed.
“And screaming my head off,” I threaten breathlessly.
He looks at me again, his storm-cloud gaze half hooded by thick, inky lashes. “Then I must be doing something right.”
A second finger ratchets up my need to a nearly unbearable level. Griffin’s wide palm puts pressure where I need it most, and my breathing quickens.
“I want you inside me.”
“You’re making it damn hard to make sure you’re ready,” he says, sounding almost harsh.
“I’m ready!”
“Cat…”
I push his hand aside, take hold of his shaft, and then practically impale myself on his erection.
Griffin inhales with a hiss. Then he grips my hips and pulls me forward, joining us fully with a slow, deliberately measured thrust. Exquisite pressure builds low in my abdomen. He’s barely finished pushing himself inside me when my release hits. My thighs tense. The breath stalls in my lungs, and then I kick back my head and let out the loudest, throatiest, most breathless moan in the history of all history, going boneless in a blissful rush.
“Gods, I missed you,” Griffin rasps, holding me as I throb around him.
The high-impact tremors fade into sweet, lingering aftershocks. I look up at him with heavy-lidded eyes. My lips part, but no words come out. Even the drag of frosty air over my kiss-swollen lips is almost too sensual to bear.
Griffin quirks a dark eyebrow, looking smug. “That was easy.”
I grin, falling in love with him all over again. “Then do it again.”
Heat flares in his eyes. His lips curve in a slow, carnal smile as he slowly withdraws. Pleasure licks up and down my spine, the feel of him moving inside me thrilling me from my head to my toes. He thrusts forward again, and my exhale shudders between us. Griffin’s hoarse groan is all I need to rock my hips. He answers by rocking his. Our eyes meet with steady, burning intensity.
“You’re mine.” He strokes into me again, and thunder cracks in my heated veins. Lightning flashes around us. “I’m yours. Nothing will ever come between us.”
“Nothing,” I vow, the binding magic snapping in my blood.
Griffin pulls me off the ice shelf, holding me in an iron grip while he thrusts upward again and again. I wrap my arms around his neck, finding his mouth to claim his lips, his tongue, his breath, and more. He moves faster, harder, driving up into me as I grind down. Release swells inside me again, cresting like a great, unstoppable wave.
I start to shout, and Griffin clamps his mouth down on mine, muffling the sound as I tumble over the edge of another shattering climax. My muscles clench his shaft, begging him to join me as hot bolts of pleasure spark and twist through my body. Griffin’s grip turns crushing. He goes still, shudders, and then groans against my mouth, finding his own release just after me.
Our lips cling. Neither of us moves. I couldn’t even if I tried. Only Griffin’s arms are keeping me upright. When he finally lifts his head, my lashes flutter up.
Dreamily, I say, “If you put me down, I’ll fall.”
Griffin smiles faintly. “I would never let you fall.”
Overwhelming love pushes at the confines of my ribs, making my heart feel too big for my chest.
A shrill whistle comes from somewhere beyond the curve in the tunnel, a sudden reminder of the others waiting for us. “If we want to get off this mountain today, we have to leave now,” Carver calls.
“How do you feel?” The concern in Griffin’s eyes is evident even in the dim light. Or maybe it’s his voice that gives it away.
“Honestly?” I grimace, touching the bump on my head. But instead of saying, “Occasionally dizzy with mild to not-so-mild bouts of nausea,” I just say, “Exhausted,” which is also true. Oddly, I was feeling much the same even before I got tossed headfirst into a wall.
“We camp here until tomorrow,” Griffin calls back.
Carver grumbles something unintelligible in assent.
“We should get dressed.” I yawn, utterly unmotivated to move.
“Then I’ll have to put you down.”
That is a drawback. “All right, but only for a second.”
Griffin slides me off him and then deposits my cloak-protected bottom back onto the ice shelf. Still half hard, he rights his pants and buckles his belt. On his way down to retrieve my clothing, he stops to inspect the healing cut on my left thigh. “What happened here?”
I yawn again. “Monster claw.” The slice wasn’t deep and healed over quickly, leaving a line across my leg that’s only a little sore. “I don’t even feel it.”
His sudden, tense silence speaks volumes, but I ignore it. Griffin chooses to let it go, probably because there’s no point arguing with a person who is half asleep and who doesn’t care about the cut anyhow.
Mostly thanks to Griffin, I end up dressed again before he gathers me into his arms and then sits, settling his back against the tunnel wall. With me in his lap, he wraps our smoldering cloaks around us both. The soft light flickers over the hard angles of his face.
I lift a heavy hand and trace my finger along the prominent bridge of his nose. “I love your nose.”
His mouth curves in a dubious smile. “It’s big and hooked.”
I sigh. “I know.”
I let my hand fall and then tuck it between us, resting my head under Griffin’s chin. I fall asleep almost instantly, warm, happy, and safe for the first time in days.