Sacrifice (Gryphon Series) (19 page)

Gabe scooped the ring up and mashed it into my hand
.

“Don’t lose that,” he growled. His features
started to widen. His eyes glowed like polished topaz. Before the transition progressed further he leapt up and sprinted for the mountain range.

Rowan
flopped down on the curb beside me and whistled through his teeth. “Tense.”

I turned the ring over between my fingers, letting the light play across the
princess cut solitaire. “If we can’t have love or joy what can we have?”

I didn’t even realize I’d spoken these words out loud until
Rowan chimed in, “A pint?”

I snorted a
dry laugh completely devoid of humor. “I just … I don’t understand what we’re supposed to be fighting for. I’m the Chosen One, by definition I’m destined for a world of crap. I get that and I accept it. But I never wanted that for them. I thought I could protect them from it. Take it on for them—somehow.”

“Fate can only tear
it away from them if they let it. Which—sadly—it seems they are.” He held out his hand, offering me the relief I had come to depend on.

I stare
d at his offered hand and considered it. But in that moment I didn’t need an emotional fix. What I needed was a friend. I felt him tense when I leaned my weary head on his shoulder, yet he didn’t pull away. “No. For right now I want to feel it … and pray for a miracle.”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO

“Think Gabe can get his deposit back on their apartment?” Mom asked while her finger trailed along the rim of her coffee cup. “It seems so sad for him to move into it alone.”

At that moment w
e
should
all have been shimmying into uncomfortable formal wear and posing for umpteen-million pictures. However, no one had heard from the bride since the “incident” or the groom since he came home after midnight smelling of pine needles and wet cat hair and shut himself in his room. Wedding merriment looked extremely unlikely.

Grams
pursed her red glossed lips. “I refuse to think about that. Those two love each other. This’ll work out. I know it will. What do you think, Celeste?”

I drained the last of the sweet tea from my cup before answer
ing. “I think the fact that her engagement ring is dangling off my Gryphon statuette upstairs is a bad sign.”

Grams
shook her head and brushed the crumbs from her bagel off the table and into her hand. “I didn’t know she gave the ring back. Poor Gabe. I can’t even imagine what he’s feeling right now.”

I opened my mouth to say
, “I can,” but quickly snapped it shut. That was a conversation I didn’t want to start right then … or in front of my mother. Instead we sat in silence and listened to the wall clock tick off seconds as we waited for—
something
.



We tiptoed around the house and talked in hushed whispers most of the day. A chorus of honking horns interrupted our melancholy vigil around two o’clock. I pushed aside the curtain to see three deluxe travel buses parked in front of the house. The door to the lead bus slid open and out hopped Alaina and …
Rowan?

“Ah, crap. What did he do?” I grumbled under my breath
and scurried to the door. Mom and Grams rushed out after me.

Alaina met us at the stairs
. Her face gleamed like a freshly polished pearl. No traces of her sadness remained—which was suspicious considering her choice of company.

“Is Gabe here?
” she bubbled. “I really need to talk to him.”
              Mom, Grams, and I all answered in unison:

“Is the wedding back on?”

“Are you getting back together?”

“If you hurt him again I’ll break every one of your fingers and maybe a kneecap.”

Alaina winced. Grams and Mom shot me surprisingly similar looks that seemed to question my mental stability.

“What? I’m just
sayin’.”

“I’d really like to talk to Gabe first
, if that’s okay?” Alaina’s cheeks blossomed with the color of pink carnations.

“No problem!”
The heels of Gram’s wedges thumped against the wood porch as she darted back to the screen door and bellowed, “
Gabe Allen Garrett! Get your fanny down here
!”

Alaina’s
mouth fell open in shocked confusion. “I … I was kind of hoping I could go talk to him
alone
.”

“Oh, of course!” Grams smacked herself in the forehead with the palm of her hand then opened the door and held it open. “
Go on in, honey.”

“Thank you, Grams.” Alaina smiled meekly before
she trotted inside.

Grams watched her disappear up the stair
s before muttering out of the corner of her mouth, “Come on, Julia.”

“Yeah,
I suppose we could head into the kitchen and give those kids some privacy while they talk.”

Grams
crinkled her nose and gaped at my mom like she’d just declared animal print clothing should have an age limit. “Privacy nothin’. If we stand in the foyer we can hear every word they say.”

“Even better,
” Mom giggled and the two disappeared inside. It occurred to me that Grams might be a bad influence on my mother—and the general population.

I turned my
glare on Rowan and the entourage he brought to our doorstep. I narrowed my eyes and studied his face, wishing I were a mind reader instead of an empathe.

As I approached h
e shoved his hands into the pockets of his khaki pants and gave me his trademark smirk. “Something you need to say,
Mo Chroi
?”

I stepped in close
and hissed through clenched teeth, “Please tell me you didn’t brainwash the bride.”

“I didn’t brainwash the bride.”

“Really?”

“No, not really.
” He laughed. “But you told me to tell you that.”

“
Rowan
!”

“
What?” Palms raised, he shrugged. Clearly he wasn’t picking up on the line of questionable ethics that he crossed. “We both know she wants to marry the guy! I just gave her a … nudge. A little boost back to the land of common sense.”

My hands curled into claws and I fought the urge to throttle him. “You’re messing with people’s minds about life altering decisions. You understand that’s wrong,
right
? I mean, I know you’re thick headed and a borderline sociopath, but you at least
get that
, right?”

“We can
stand here and debate the grey area of my ability all day,
or
we can focus instead on the fact that your little sis is currently shimmying her way out of your bedroom window. Your call.”

I glanced over my shoulder
. A lime green Chuck Taylor emerged from my window, followed by the other.

I groaned and rubbed a hand over my face.
“Fine. But this isn’t over. We’re putting a pin in this conversation.”

“S
tupendous.”

Rowan
stayed put while I marched across the yard and waited for Kendall just below the window. She shimmied out the frame on her belly and dropped gracefully to the ground below.

She turned with a victorious grin that quickly vanished when she saw me. “Ah, crap.”

“Hey, Keni! Where ya goin’?” I chirped with mock exuberance. “And what the heck did you do to your hair?”

“No
t that either of those things are any of your business—” she huffed with her newfound obstinate nastiness and folded her arms over her crystal studded skull t-shirt, “—but I’m going out and I dyed it black. Deal with it.”

Her hair wasn’t
a pretty, glossy black, but the dull matte offered by cheap hair dye … or
Crayola
. She may have been going for butt-kickin’ Goth chick but the combination of the hair color with her rosy cheeks, big blue eyes, and skin the color of fresh fallen snow resulted in her bearing a striking resemblance to a very specific
Disney
princess. If I didn’t think it’d make her head spin around I would’ve pointed that out.

Before either of us could utt
er one more word that would’ve surely escalated things into a fight, Gabe and Alaina burst out the front door.

“The wedding’s back on!” Gabe thundered and swept his bride
-to-be off her feet to spin her in wide circles in the yard.

“What?” Grams feigned shock as she stepped back onto the porch. “Oh! It’s back on! What a surprise!”

Mom followed her out, rolling her eyes at the awful performance.

In between giggles and squeals
Alaina tagged on, “Oh, and you’re all going to need to pack a bag! Rowan turned our wedding day into a whole weekend event!”

“You are such a sweet boy, Rowan.
That is so considerate.” My mom cocked her head to the side and graced him with a maternal smile. “Where are we off to?”

Rowan
raked his fingers through his hair … and blushed a little.

What the heck parallel universe had I stumbled into?

“It’s a surprise. But a wonderful one, I assure you.”

“As long as it’s out of this Podunk town I’ll be happy,” Kendall muttered and stomped inside.

Grams
put her hands onto her hips. The fabric of her coral muumuu drifted a little higher up her thighs. “I’m going to go pack and I’m throwing in a whole box of
Midol
for her. And what’s with that hair? Looks like she should have seven little men scampering along behind her.”

“I’m hoping it’s a phase and we don’t need an exorcist.” Mom held the door open for Grams
then followed her in. I took a moment to silently pray that the joke wasn’t a reality.

More than a little uneasy,
I veered around Alaina and Gabe’s mushy-gushy love-fest of being lost in each other’s eyes and stalked across the yard to Rowan. I needed answers and I needed them now.

“Thi
s is a pretty big thing you’re doing.”
Captain States-the-Obvious, that’s me.

He picked a fuzzy off his
black t-shirt and rolled it between his fingers until it fluttered toward the ground. “Not really. I have resources and abilities. Might as well put them to good use on occasion.”

“
See, but that’s the thing.” I jabbed my finger at him. “
You
don’t put them to good use. Ever. So what exactly is your motivation?”

He
caught me completely off guard when he looked up at me with raw heat radiating from an intense stare. He moved in—body skimming close—and dipped his head down. Warm breath teased the delicate skin of my neck and earlobe. “Maybe I want you, Poppet. I’m hungry for a taste. And I knew that swooping in and being the knight in shining armor for your family was the only way to make you long for me as I do for you.”

Blazing heat
rose to my cheeks. I laid my hands against rock hard pecs (did he really have to be
that
buff?) and awkwardly pushed him away. “Look … uh … Rowan … I … ”

He
laughed as he played along with my shove and backed off about five paces. “Or,
Mo Chroi
, I knew the bird and kitty’s break up made you sad, and the sooner I can get you back to being a blissfully happy Conduit the sooner I get to stop being your emotional
Band-aid
.” He pulled a pair of sunglasses from his pocket and slid them on. “Now, I’m gonna go get a good seat on the lead bus and settle in for a nap. You may want to go splash a little water on your face before the trip. You look a bit—
bothered
.”

I didn’t know if it was possible to
kick someone hard enough to knock the cocky out of ‘em, but for Rowan I was willing to try.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

Our chariots for the next twelve hours for all the wedding guests willing to make the impromptu trip consisted of luxury buses with leather reclining seats, individual televisions for each passenger, fully stocked snack and beverage bars, and on board restrooms. We drove through the night, lulled to sleep by the motion of the bus. The next morning the squeal of the bus’s brakes and the hiss of the door as it opened woke me from a less than restful night’s sleep. I craned my stiff neck to the side to stretch it after sleeping with my face mashed against a window for about six hours. After subtly wiping the drool from my chin, I stood and stretched then joined the crowd filing off the bus.

In no way was I prepared for
the view that awaited me outside. The sun raised its head to the day in a celebratory explosion of perfect pinks, warm yellows, and streaks of brilliant orange as it burned away the light fog that settled over the sleeping earth. This provided a magical backdrop for the sprawling estate before us. I stared at the modern day castle with a soft grey stone façade, Colonial blue peaked and tiered roof, and acres of perfectly manicured lawn and flawless flowerbeds that surrounded it.