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I woke up with a pounding headache and itchy skin.
It took a while to realize what the hell was going on. I was wet and uncomfortable, and my body had this dull ache—like when I healed a broken bone, only all over.
And something was pulling at my feet.
I lay there, staring up at the dark sky, while the waves tugged at my feet and the salt and sand drove me nuts as they dried on the upper half of my body. A boat. A pissed off kraken.
I sat up.
A thick arm was draped over my hips. I remembered the sensation of something grabbing me and squeezing. And that glowing light under the waves.
Not a kraken, there at the end. A really determined mage.
I lifted Halstad's arm and rolled him off me. He had a bruise on his temple, and a little gash that had already stopped bleeding. His broad chest rose and fell with deep, even breaths.
I shuffled to my feet, groaning as I bent down and got my hands under Halstad's armpits. Giving a heave, I dragged the mage backward, up the sandy beach, away from the water. He twitched and snorted, and his mismatched eyes fluttered open. He went tense, on-guard and ready for battle. But when he took in the situation, he slumped into my hands, limp and trusting.
"Jesus, Buddha, and Odin," he muttered. "Thought those sharks were back."
I raised an eyebrow as I continued to drag him up the shore—and he continued to let me. "Sharks?"
He waved it away. I saw he'd lost one glove along the way. And a boot. "Not my best moment, trying to keep your heavy ass above water when the fishies came looking for snacks."
We hit vegetation and I stopped, releasing him and flopping onto my ass beside him. "Thanks. I have no clue what happened."
He sighed and sat up, bracing himself with his hands behind his back, exhaustion written in every line of his body. "Well, we flew. And coming down into water from that high up is like falling onto concrete." He gave me a raw look, filled with a hint of terror. "I pulled up a shield to protect myself and absorb the impact. But you were too far away. You hit that motherfucking water like a ragdoll flung from a sling-shot." He shook his head. "I found you and dragged you up above water. Put a shield around us both. But it was a long ass way to land."
He flopped backward to lie on his back and stare up at the emerging stars. "Not sure what happened to the others. I could only focus on getting the two of us the fuck out of the water. You were bleeding pretty good there for a minute, and the sharks came." He laughed. "I blasted the fuckers with magic. Overdid it, apparently. Managed to make it 'til my toes could touch the bottom, and that's it."
I ran a hand over his face, smoothing his tangled, salt-crusted hair out of his eyes. "Thanks for saving my ass."
God, I really had hit the water hard. Felt like I'd broken every bone in my body. And probably some organs....
I froze as icy terror sank its claws into my heart.
Fuck. The babies.
I put my hands on my stomach and tried to sense if anything was wrong. But of course it was way too early for me to feel them moving. I drew my knees up and hugged them to my chest. I started to hyperventilate, everything going fuzzy around the edges.
Halstad sat up, and I felt his eyes on me. "Gryphon?"
I couldn't get enough air. The babies. What if the babies didn't survive all that trauma? What if I had to tell Hisashi I'd let his babies die? What if Hisashi wasn't even alive anymore and this was all I had left of him and now it was gone forever? My vision kept on closing in, tunneling to gray.
"Gryphon!" Halstad's gruff voice regained its usual commanding tone. "Head between the knees." He gripped the back of my neck and forcibly shoved my head between my knees, holding me there when I would have moved. "Breathe in," he counted out loud. "Out. In. Out. Slow down."
He held me there and made me breathe for what felt like centuries but was probably only a few minutes. The grayness receded from my vision. But the stupid tears wouldn't stop.
"Now," Halstad said, voice a bit softer once I was back in control. "What the hell was that? You worried about the others? They shielded themselves before they hit the water. The fox might have already pulled them back home to the bookstore, for all I know. But he was pretty drained from earlier. They'll be back to get us once the magic equalizes and he's up to the trip."
Right. Yeah. They were fine, probably.
But the babies.... I sobbed harder. Gods, I was a mess.
Halstad didn't seem to know what the hell to do with a crying woman. But he put his big boy panties on and wrapped an arm around me, pulling me against his side and making shushing noises. "Your pride's okay," he said again. "We're all fine."
At least he understood that part of me. He knew, apparently, that I cared deeply for every one of them. So much so that normally, the panic attack would have been worry over Kai, and Hisashi, and Oisin.
"It's not that," I managed to get out, hiccupping and gasping like a teenage girl crying over her first crush.
It was gross.
But right then, I didn't give two fucks about how silly it was to cry. I bawled my heart out. The thing I wanted more than anything in my life—I hadn't realized just how much I wanted it until right that moment. Until it was probably gone.
"My babies," I hiccupped. "The water."
His big hand on my back faltered for a minute, then resumed patting and stroking. "Babies?"
I snuffled and dragged a hand across my face. I was not a pretty crier. "I'm pregnant, Halstad. Twins. Or...I was...." The crying took over again and I couldn't force words past my aching throat and heaving diaphragm.
Halstad just kept patting my back and stroking my hair. "You're a gryphon, right?" he said calmly.
I nodded, not knowing what the fuck that had to do with anything.
"Gryphons aren't made of glass," he said firmly. "Sit up."
I did as he commanded, tucking my chin to my chest to gaze down at his hand as he placed the ungloved one under my shirt and over my womb. Magic danced over my skin, heat traveling from his palm to my guts and coiling there. He frowned in concentration.
"I can't sense anything wrong with you," he said, withdrawing his hand. His mismatched eyes met mine. "I can't do anything fancy, but I can do a little healing magic. Field stuff. Enough to sense when something major is out of whack. I would know if you were bleeding internally, or if something was broken."
He gave me a wry smile. "I know it's not much, but I don't feel any...disharmony in there."
I let out a strangled sigh.
"Does anything hurt? Any cramping or anything?"
I shook my head. "No. I feel...fine. Just stupidly fucking scared. I didn't even think of it at first. Then it just hit me."
He patted my back again. “If there’s baby shifters in there, they probably heal faster than you do.”
He was right, of course. Shifter babies were really hardy. You know, if Gryphon genetics didn’t kill them before they developed.
I stood. "Sorry for unloading all that baggage on you that way. I won't blame you if you have the urge to run for the hills."
He stared up at me. "The fae is right. It's obvious that blond color doesn't come from a bottle or a spell."
I narrowed my eyes at him and held out a hand to help him up.
"You should blame me, if I was that much of a dumbass," he muttered. "Run for the hills because the woman I love is pregnant? For the love of fuck. I might be an asshole, but I'm not that kind of asshole."
I snorted a laugh. "What kind of asshole are you then?"
He nudged my shoulder with his. "The kind who doesn't even care whose kid it is, because fuck, by all rights, I shouldn't have even lived long enough to see kids grow up. But now I just might."
I wrapped an arm around his shoulders as we shoved under some trees and followed an animal path into the forest. "Don't make me cry again, asshole," I said in a flat voice.
He stopped and pulled me into a real hug, wrapping his burly arms around my middle and pressing his forehead to my shoulder. "Gods, I never thought I'd say this, but I can't wait to go home with you and the moron crew."
I looped my arms around him and rested my cheek on the top of his head. "Aww...see, and you said stupidity wasn't catching. Looks like even all-powerful mages can be wrong."
We just stood there for a while, breathing. Glad to be alive.
Finally, Halstad shivered and pulled away. "Let's find some damned dry wood and a place to make camp. I'm fucking freezing and every inch of me is pruned."
I smirked at him in the dark. "Every inch?"
He shook his head and moved off, stooping to root around for dry branches and kindling, a softly glowing orb of mage light bobbing along by his feet. "I wouldn't be surprised, at this point. If I never see another body of water again, it will be too soon."
I chuckled and joined him in hunting and gathering. We lucked out and found some ripe avocado and the extra-sweet little bananas we’d eaten back on the siren’s island. As we headed inland, Halstad stopped to do some sort of divining rod thing with a forked piece of wood. It led us to a small spring-fed stream that flowed across the island toward the ocean. We followed the fresh water back to the edge of the beach and made a fire on the sand, where we could shelter under the vegetation, but not cause a forest fire.
We both stripped down with the roaring fire at our backs and washed off the saltwater and grime in the cold stream. With my belly full of sweet, sticky fruit, my skin baked by the fire, and nearly dry finally, I gazed up at the amazing field of stars appearing above us. "How long do you think it will be before they come back for us?"
Halstad poked the fire with a stick and held out his blue-scarred hands to the flames. "I don't know for sure. Maybe in the morning? Hopefully they're resting, not tiring their damned fool selves out looking for us and thinking we're dead."
I stared into the flames and leaned sideways, my head falling against the mage's shoulder. "They'll worry. It's what we all do. But they'll probably come to the conclusion that we're together. And they know you'll protect me, since I'm such a helpless little flower and all."
He scoffed. "More like they know both of us are too stubborn to die of a little thing like surprise skydiving, drowning, or shark attacks."
I murmured sleepy agreement.
Halstad shifted and stood to pull our clothes off the sticks where they'd been drying. He sent a wave of magic through them, using what was left of his own energy reserves to provide us with something dry to cover up with while we slept.
"You going to be okay overnight?" I asked, watching him add more wood to the fire.
It was probably the worst time ever to be noticing how hot he was. But I was noticed anyway. Halstad didn't have the innate, animal grace that the rest of my supe lovers possessed. If anything, he was built more like the men in my own clan—thickly muscled and...solid. There wasn't an ounce of fat on the guy.
And he was hung like a horse.
I smiled smugly to myself, and of course he chose that moment to look up. He froze, standing there naked with our clothes draped over one beefy forearm. "Enjoying the show, gryphon?"
I grinned. "Since you’re partly human, I was just wondering if you were going to get all fat and smooshy, now that you have the leisure time to sit around eating junk food and watching Netflix instead of working your ass off for the guild."
He rolled his eyes and came to join me in the little grass nest we'd made earlier. "I don't know," he said seriously. "How would I live with myself if a girl was more built than me? My manhood would curl up and die."
I laughed. "You'd be cute with a little beer belly though."
He shook his head at me, but a fond smile curved his lips upward. "You're such a weirdo, girlie."
I shrugged and lay down, using the shirt he offered me as a pillow instead of covering up with it as he probably intended. I was pleasantly warm, thanks to the fire and my shifter nature. I wasn't sure about Halstad though. He was essentially human, just with a little extra magic sparkles. "You going to be warm enough?" I asked him.
I tried to keep my eyes on his face, I really did. I knew he was hesitant about our relationship. I wasn't going to force him into anything. Even if this was the perfect fucking time to curl up and forget the world existed for a while.
Gold and purple eyes met mine, and a shy smile twitched at one corner of his mouth. "I was hoping you'd keep me warm? I'm not as sensitive to the elements as a human. But...I still don't like the cold."
I held out my arms in invitation. "I will bear the burden of being your heater,” I said grimly. “Somehow."
He shuffled around, placing things in easy reach just in case we wanted our clothes at some point. Then he slid into the nest with me, rolling to press his naked body along mine, treating me to acres of smooth muscle and pleasantly wiry chest hair. I slid a hand up his arm as he rested his hand on my hip and drew me in for a kiss.
Halstad didn't kiss the way I thought an angry, manly-man battle mage should kiss. Each time, I expected domination and force, but was met with a surprisingly gentle and vulnerable touch. Just like the rest of my pride, he left me breathless and reeling. But with Halstad, it felt...dangerous, somehow. Like he needed something from me that I was terrified I couldn't give him.
Maybe my brain was damaged in the fall earlier.
I pressed closer to him, dragging my fingers over his scarred, battle-hardened body as he kissed a path from my lips, along my jaw to my neck. His lips ghosted over the faint scar where my neck met my shoulder and he chuckled. Only a bite from another shifter would scar like that. "Fox bites?"
I blushed. Because apparently, I wasn't as immune to embarrassment as I thought. "Maybe," I said, sliding my hands down his back to cup his muscular ass. He wasn't going to freak out and go all possessive, was he?
Halstad ran his tongue over the faint scar where Hisashi had marked me. "Good," he breathed on a chuckle. "That boy needs an alpha like you." He pulled back and I was surprised and confused to see the lust lighting his mismatched fae eyes. "Did you...bite him back?"
I huffed a laugh as he rolled, pulling me over to sit astride his hips as he lay on his back. "Maybe."
He slid his hands over my body, the touch of his big, calloused hands surprisingly gentle on my hips and breasts. His big cock was trapped between us, pulsing with need. I leaned forward and kissed him, sucking his bottom lip into my mouth, then letting it go with a loud pop. He groaned under me, but didn't make any move to hurry things along.
I eased back and stared down at him. His long lashes lowered as he avoided my eyes. "I...will you bite me too, Gesa?” he breathed, voice barely a whisper. “Hold me down and dominate me? Fuck me like I belong to you?"
I stared at the mage in shock as his chest hitched and he stopped breathing, breath held, eyes averted, and just a hint of a blush staining his scarred, stubbled cheeks.
Something clicked in my head. Gods, I really am slow sometimes. When will I ever learn to stop judging a book by its cover? He tried to tell me, a while back. I just didn't get it.
"Halstad," I breathed.
His eyes met mine, and I saw the vulnerability and shame there. This was why he was so afraid of intimacy with me and the others? Gods, it would be hard enough to trust one person with this, let alone a whole house full of sarcastic assholes like my pride.
I braced one hand on his chest and leaned forward to run a hand through his hair with the other. Slipping my hand into his hair, I gripped it and tilted his head back, forcing him to meet my eyes. "I told you, whatever you need, right?"
He let out a shaky breath and his big body relaxed beneath me. It felt like he'd just surrendered something precious, put his life in my hands. He trusted me so damned much.
I sat back. "I'm not gonna lie," I said on a shaky laugh, "I don't have a fucking clue how this works. But I'll try, okay?"
He nodded, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed.
I looked down at this powerful, scary-assed mage and realized he was giving me everything. I had never been so glad my pride was so slutty and my friends were so weird. Because Oisin had told me about subs. Thanks to him and Orion the backward incubus, I had an inkling of what Halstad needed.
He was powerful as fuck. Big, gruff, often placed in unthinkable situations where he had to think on his feet. Strange as it was, he needed to lose control—not in the same way he did when he was following the guild’s orders. This was different, this wasn’t slavery, it was...escape. And he needed me to take on the burden of control for him.
Luckily, I was strong enough for us both.
"You tell me if I do something you don't like, got it?" I demanded.
"Freedom," he said, face open, and younger than he'd ever looked. He took my hands and guided them to his wrists. "It's my...safe word."
I swallowed down the growl that wanted to come out at that. But I squeezed his wrists. Pushing his hands flat to the ground. "Stay like that. Don't move until I say you can." I grinned. "And no talking."
I watched his eyes as I moved down his body, licking and biting. The mage didn't move a muscle. But his cheeks were flushed, and his cock was so hard it looked painful. I purposefully touched everything but his dick, enjoying the thrill of being completely in charge. No way would that happen with a male gryphon.
Halstad's depleted magic swelled. I could feel it under his skin, wanting to help free him, but he held it back. Just one more show of complete submission. Gods, he was perfect.
"I'm going to ride you now," I said, amazed I could still blush over dirty talk, even after life with Oisin and Kai.... "And you aren't going to come until I say so. Understand?"
He nodded. "Yes ma'am."
I paused. "I really don't want you calling me 'master,' but we need to work on that. 'Ma'am' is awful."
He twitched, but didn't move out of the position I'd put him in. "Understood."
His eyes were begging me to just get on with it. So of course I took my time.
I think he liked the torture just fine.
When we finally collapsed into the grass, we were sweaty, and shaky, and there was sand everywhere. I ran a hand over the warm pink curves of Halstad’s muscular ass. I’d never spanked a guy before. I kind of wanted to do it again. But it was hard to make sure I didn’t use my gryphon strength. “Did I hurt you?”
He snorted and rolled over onto his back. “Do I look injured to you, idiot gryphon?”
I smirked. No, no he didn’t. He looked well used.
"So," I said when Halstad folded his arms under his head and gazed up at the stars through the leaf canopy overhead, "you just made me a dom."
He smirked, the raw vulnerability from before gone, but not yet replaced by his usual mask. "We'll get you there."
I curled into his side and he looked over at me. "Most people don't understand," he said softly. "They see me, make assumptions. Then they get really fucking disappointed when I can't be what they want."
I stroked his washboard abs. "Welcome to my life," I said wryly. "I am never going to judge someone for not fitting into society's little box."
He huffed and pulled his shirt over his legs as the fire burned down.
"Warm enough?" I asked, already half asleep.
"Never felt so warm and fuzzy in my life," the mage whispered into my hair.
I think I smiled. But maybe I was already asleep.