?Behavior: Centaurs are known for being brutish and lustful, living in harmony with nature but without the refinements of civilization. The pursuit of pleasure is a leading factor in the psyche of a centaur.
Hmm, that kinda tracks, at least for Donovan, but I’d never describe Wes as brutish.
My heart stutters. Fuck.
Wes, my Wes.
A squelching sound snaps me out of my head. Turning, it’s hard to believe my eyes. The mottled fur and feathers of the Gryphon seem to be melting off his body. A body that is shrinking and convulsing as the form breaks down. It’s violent and looks so, so painful. I hold my breath until finally, my Alexis is staggering back in his regular professor form.
“Hey.” I rush over and place a hand on his back, then move it in small circles. “Just breathe.” The beat of his heart is fast under my palm.
“Thanks, pulu. Transforming is rough.”
“Let’s sit,” I take Alexis’s hand and lead him over to a small sofa to one side of the room.
“Shame about Quinlin’s no liquid rules,” he grins weakly at me. “Could really do with a pint of vodka about now. Fuck.”
I lay my head on his chest. “I wish I could supply that for you.”
We are silent for a moment, then I look up at his face. “You’re a very beautiful gryphon,” I tell him. “Like, intensely beautiful. Did you have any idea that’s what you’d shift into?”
Alexis grunts. “Not at all. I’ve not heard of a gryphon being in my family line, but as soon as I shifted, I felt my lineage.” He smiles. “Being a bastard, there’s quite a lot I don’t know about my father’s people, but now I know they came from gryphons.”
When he says that, I think about how there is stilleverythingto learn about my birth parents.
Suddenly, I get a full-body shiver.
I’m adopted.
Fuck, if I hadn’t had my parents, I could have ended up unwanted in an orphanage, vulnerable prey for the Conclave.
“Just think, a couple of weeks ago, the most challenging part of my day was getting up and meeting you for parkour.” I sigh. “The good old days, when everything was simple.”
“So simple,” Alexis replies, kissing the top of my head. “I know what you mean. The fate of the world resting on our shoulders definitely takes our lives to a slightly more complicated realm. Talking of realms, I have got so much knowledge in my head right now; the origins of Earth, Avalon. Amirene—all of it.”
“Shit, is that OK?” I ask, shifting to sit up and place a hand on either side of his head. “Your brains aren't going to explode or anything?”
“Not currently,” he grins down at me. “I’m actually getting a kick from being so filled with knowledge. I imagine it’s similar to how the Lumina inside you feels.”
Talking of Lumina.
“Was Amirene a God before she became Avalon’s keeper?”
Alexis immediately shakes his head. “No, Amirene is a Golem.”
“Amazing. I can ask you anything and you’ll know the answer? Like my own personal Nexus,” I laugh, naming Havengard’s most popular search engine.
“Ha, I’d run Nexus into the dirt in a knowledge battle,” my professor smiles. “Child's play. Gods, pulu, the histories I’ve learned, stories that humans have long forgotten, it’s indescribable.”
Being able to access all this knowledge is making my professor exceedingly happy.
“So, tell me more about Amirene. She’s a Golemandthe Guardian of Avalon?”
“There are two guardians; Amirene and Obex,” he corrects me. “Amirene was to keep the place light and peaceful, ready for Gods to use as a pleasurable retreat. Obex’s role was to tend to Amirene’s supply of Lumina, and dispose of the negative energy— basically, be her bitch-boy.”
That makes me snort a little. I imagine this is the first time in the history of everything that someone has been telling the historyof Avalon and used the phrase bitch boy. “Why aren’t the Gods sorting all this out then? Avalon is their place.”
“Good question. It seems Avalon was abandoned by the Gods because of a wager, though none of the annals have a record of the bet itself. The Gods abandoned the island as a result, leaving two caretakers until their return.”
