“The Gods are gone.” I look around, just to make sure they haven’t come back. “I still had questions.”
“Like what?” Griffin asks.
“Like how to get rid of these wings. And how to make sure my lightning will work when I need it to.”
Griffin takes my hand and starts leading me toward the barn. The sky is darkening, and not only because of the smoke from the still-burning house. “I’m pretty sure they’ll be around,” he says. “You can ask them later.”
“I want to know now.”
He turns to me as we walk, his dark brows lifting. “Right now?”
“Yes, now!”
He nods. “I see what you’re doing. You’re giving me practice for when Little Bean turns two.”
My mouth falls open. I pinch his side. “That was completely uncalled for.”
He slides out of my grip. “So was the pinch.”
I give him the evil eye. Actually, I give him two. “So, Your Arrogant-I-Know-Everythingness, how doyouthink I get rid of the wings?”
Griffin’s gaze roams over me in a way that makes my heart start to race. His voice gains a husky resonance. “I like the wings.”
I feel myself flush. “Fine. Great. But I’d like to control their sliding in and out.”
Heat sparks in his eyes. “Sliding in and out?”
I press my lips together to keep from smiling, but warmth spreads through me, and my blush deepens. “Griffin!” He’s incorrigible. Insatiable.Thank the Gods. “This is serious.”
He instantly puts on his warlord face and answers earnestly. “I think the wings are like the lightning. Both come straight from your Olympian blood, but while the lightning is magic, the wings are inherent to the framework of your body. Theoretically, you should be able to control the in and out of both—the lightning with your will and your mind, and the wings with your muscles and bones, almost like raising an arm or reaching out.”
“Theoretically?”
“Yes, although the lightning has proved temperamental so far. The wings might, too. But then again, so have you.”
I snort. Loudly.
His hand smacks down on my bottom, and he hauls me up against him. My front collides with his bare chest, and I grip his shoulders, reveling in the heat of his skin.
“The warlord face is an act, isn’t it? You have other things on your mind.” I know I’m starting to.
“Warlord face?”
I nod. “The scowly, serious one.”
He grunts, and then his mouth descends on mine. I kiss him back, deep and hard, desperate to get closer still. When we pull apart, our breathing is ragged, and Griffin’s eyes gleam with want.
“Keep kissing me like that, and we won’t make it to the barn,” he says thickly.
“I don’t need a barn. I need you.” We came so close to losing each other today. I need to feel him, touch him, to know that he’s okay.
“Cat.” He leans his forehead against mine, his quick breaths fanning my lips. His eyes close but then pop open again almost instantly, looking haunted.
He swallows. “I can’t stop seeing you crash through that window. Fall…” His hands fist in the back of my tunic, gripping hard. “I forbid you to die. Or to ever scare me like that again. Do you understand me?” he demands, his voice so low I barely hear the tremor in it.
I shiver, but I shake my head. “I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise you that. You know I can’t.”
“I put you in danger. I forced you out of hiding. I brought you to this.” His expression turns pained. “You were safe before you met me.”
