“Big sword.”
Chuckling, Griffin swats my bottom. “There’s more where that came from.”
I look up at him through my lashes. “I sure hope so.”
He grins. “I think you just managed coy.”
“Good Gods! Has the Underworld frozen over?”
“Next, Centaurs will fly.” He brushes his lips over mine again, not lingering, and when he lifts his head, his black hair ruffling on the faintly sulfurous wind, the teasing gleam is already absent from his eyes. “You’re sure there’s nothing else?”
“Nothing besides Little Bean wreaking havoc on my moods?” I shake my head. “But I wanted you before. I want you always.”
He lifts his hand and brushes his thumb across my lips. Then his fingers fall away, trailing lightly down my arm until I shiver.
“You’re the air I breathe,” he says without a trace of humor in his voice.
My whole chest clenches hard, squeezing a tight, almost painful beat from my heart. “I admire you,” I reply. “I need you. I love you with all my heart.”
Griffin offers me a different kind of smile this time, small, lopsided, gentle, and so entirely genuine. It fades almost immediately, though, and he straightens to his full, imposing height, abruptly pinning me with his warlord stare. “If you feel anything off here, we leave, with or without the potion we came for. You’ve got great instincts, Cat. Trust your gut.”
I nod. I will. I always do.
“And trustme,” he adds, everything about him turning urgent all of a sudden. “Don’t trust anyone but me. Ever.”
“You don’t mean that. What about Flynn and Kato? Carver? He’s your broth—”
“Mybrotherbetrayed me. He tried to rip you from me!”
I freeze, taken aback by the burst of rage in his voice. After weeks of granite features and near-silence on the subject, it looks like Griffin is about to erupt. It’s fitting, since we’re at Frostfire, and there’s a volcano under our feet. Like the hot center of the world, a person can only stew and boil and brood for so long before the fire comes surging up.
“That wasn’t Carver,” I say, unsure of how to tread these turbulent waters with which I’m largely unfamiliar. My family’s solution to squabbles is murder. Not exactly an example to live by. “That was Piers.”
Griffin’s jaw hardens to stone. “If Piers could do it, anyone can. And Carver… He’s not the same anymore. He’s…”
“He’s my friend, which Piers never was. He’s also sad, and maybe a little angry, because we have what he doesn’t. What he wants. That’s his right, Griffin. We can’t change that. And it doesn’t mean he’ll betray us.”
Griffin glances away from me, his face screwing up. “The closer you and I get, the more distance Carver puts between us. Looking back, I realize it started happening almost from the beginning. Then, after the Games and seeing Konstantina in the Underworld, he just caved in on himself. I never know what he’s thinking anymore.”
“He’s thinking about how the woman he loved chose someone else and then died. He can never win her back. It’s too late, and that’s eating him up inside. He could live with it until he started being faced withusevery day, and our happiness. That’s hard for him. It has to be.”
“It’s changed him. He’s sullen. And drinking again.”
Again?I don’t like the sound of that. “Lately, you haven’t exactly been a stranger to dark moods, either. And that’syourright. We all change. I certainly have. Look at me, I’m almost responsible. Give Carver time. He’ll come around.”
“I can’t predict what he’ll do.” Griffin’s eyes turn even more troubled. “I’m not sure you’re safe.”
“With Carver?” I stare at him in shock. “Are you kidding me?”
Griffin grunts, and I’m not sure what that means. What I do know is that he’s looking for betrayal where there is none, where I know down to the very marrow of my bones that there never will be. Carver would die for me, and he would kill himself before he ever hurt me. He would do the same for Griffin, for any of his family, for Kato or Flynn. But Griffin trusted a core group of people with his life, with me, witheverything, and one of them kicked a hole straight through his heart. A person doesn’t just get over that, not even someone as balanced and confident as Griffin.
“Piers didn’t think he was betraying you. In his mind, he was protecting you. Protecting his fam—”
“Don’t.” Griffin cuts me off, his glare ice-cold. “Don’t defend him. He’s dead to me.”
I bite my lip to stop from saying anything else. Right now, the finality in Griffin’s words is flat-out undeniable. Their veracity snaps inside me like a barb-tipped whip, almost as painful as a lie igniting a fire in my bones. With Griffin, a hard truth always sets off the flip side of my Kingmaker Magic. He’s only ever lied to me once, and that was just to prove the truth—that he was in love with me.
“Fine.” For now. “Just be careful not to convict Carver of crimes that aren’t his.” And for Griffin’s sake, I hope he’ll find a measure of peace with his memories of Piers, because that’s all he’ll ever have.
