“I do.”
They hadn’t talked of Griffin Island much. It was strange, he thought; the biggest thing they had in common, and they never talked about it. But all their memories of Griffin Island were too laced together with things they agreed with unspoken unity that didn’t want to think about—their shared exile, the people they would never see again, the painful awareness of decisions that could have been made differently.
But now, sitting with her on the window seat, he found that he was smiling. “Remember what it was like to watch the storms coming in off the Atlantic from above? The way you could watch the water change colors, from deep green to blue to gray.” It made him think now of the color of her eyes, that changeable hue that refused to be pinned down to anything specific.
Cela smiled, and he felt that he had finally said the right thing to make her happy. “Oh yes. Did you ever fly up into a storm? I only did it once, and I was scolded horribly afterwards. But it was amazing, the way the wind lifts you up and then drops you, throwing you around like a children’s game. I’ll never forget it. Terrifying and yet exhilarating.”
“No, I never have. I’ve flown in rainstorms, but nothing like this.” A clap of thunder shook the house, and as its echoes died away, he added half playfully, “We could go out there now.”
“Really?” She looked thrilled for a moment, and then glanced toward the kids’ bedroom. “We shouldn’t leave the twins.”
“They’ll be all right for a few minutes. They’re in the crib, and I just checked on them.”
Cela hopped off the window seat. Tyr started to offer her a hand, checked himself just in time. It was even harder now than it had been, he thought grimly.
Now that he knew her—every inch of her, the way she ran her fingers through his hair, the noises she made when she came.
Even if the mate bond had allowed them peace, there was no chance now of going back to the people they had been before. Not now, not after they had known each other as fully, as intimately as two people could. Tyr wasn’t sure if sex formalized the mate bond or not; he’d heard conflicting things about that. But in his case, at least, it seemed to have done something. He had been incapable of forgetting Cela before, but now she was knit into his bones and blood. In a thousand years, he could not have stopped feeling the touch of her skin, or yearning to feel it again.
At the doorway, she began to disrobe. Tyr’s throat grew tight—and his pants, too.
“You don’t have to take your clothes off to shift,” he pointed out, as if she’d somehow forgotten.
“I know,” Cela said, almost impatient.
She shucked her skirt, revealing a rounded behind that once again brought powerful sense-memories of those round buttocks thrusting, one of his hands cupped around each?—
“But I don’t want to get them wet,” she went on. She lefther underwear on, possibly out of deference to not making Tyr’s head explode.
Tyr followed her out onto the porch. He discovered immediately why she had thought taking her clothes off was necessary. The rain was blowing in sideways as gusts of wind rocked the house, stinging them with needle-sharp droplets.
Thunder cracked again, very close. The air had the charged intensity of a lightning storm. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Tyr asked. He had to speak loudly, almost shouting, to be heard over the roar of rain on the porch roof.
Cela turned to grin at him. Water droplets frosted her hair. “No, probably not, but when do you think we’ll have another chance?”
With that, she shifted, the woman melting into the glorious lean grace of her griffin.
Tyr followed suit. His senses shifted with his body, so that the pounding rain was louder but somehow less intense, and the smells of the storm surged into his half-open beak. Rain, wet grass, sodden flowers, small creatures that had gone to ground until the weather passed.
And Cela—his mate, his other half. He had forgotten he would be able to smell her so much more intensely in this form.
Cela bowed her head; Tyr bowed back. Abruptly playful, she bounded down the steps into the rain.
Tyr followed her. His fur and wings were instantly soaked. As they both found their rhythm with a loping stride that carried them away from the house, he was acutely aware of how exposed they were out here—to lightning strikes, blown-over trees, even the possibility of a passing car or neighbor seeing them.
Tyr didn’t think of himself as a terribly cautious person. But as the full fury of the storm lashed him, he realized how much he had allowed caution to override all his decisionssince leaving Griffin Island. Hiding who he really was, watching every word for fear of letting something drop or triggering the tattoo’s self-defensive magic.
It had taken Cela coming into his life to wake him up again.
Now she spread her water-heavy wings. Tyr wondered if they evencouldfly, laden like this—but with heavy wingbeats, they took off at nearly the same time. Tyr’s more powerful wings made up for Cela’s lighter body, so they were equally matched.
Together, they soared upward into the storm.
She was right, it was exhilarating. He was unprepared for how much. The charged air crackled along their wings. Rain beat on them; wind tossed them like a roller coaster. It was impossible to stay close together, at least without smacking into each other, which would have been disastrous. Tyr felt the almost overwhelming urge to protect his mate, but there was nothing to protect her from—at least nothing hecouldprotect her from. They were both at the mercy of the wild elements.
After the wind had tumbled them for a while, they dropped out of the sky as if at a signal, and found themselves over the road. It took a little flying back and forth before Tyr managed to figure out exactly where they were relative to the house, and set a course for it, flying low. In minutes they were swooping over the lawn to land in front of the porch steps.
The worst of the storm had already moved over them, the rain slackening to a drizzle. Cela shook like a dog, and Tyr, amused, shook himself too. They padded up the steps onto the porch and shifted. He discovered immediately that he was soaked; she had been right to take her clothes off.
