It was hard to see much of the strange woman under the poncho, but when she pushed the hood back, she had a narrow face framed with very light blonde hair, almost silvery. Her eyes were pale green. She was one of the most ethereal-looking people he had ever seen.
He didn’t know her. But his griffin recognized her instantly.
Mate,it crooned.She is here. The one we’ve been waiting for. This is our mate.
Tyr stared at her, stunned into immobility. She was staring back in just as much shock, which meant she recognized him in return. She was a fellow shifter. She might even be a griffin.
“Are you folks all right?” the desk sergeant was asking, but Tyr barely heard him.
He had amate. He wasn’t alone. He wasn’t broken.
He stepped forward, reaching out for her, as she took a step toward him and her hand emerged from the poncho covering her. She reached for him in a desperate eagerness.
Tyr was aware, without fully being conscious of it, that her hand stopped short and started to pull back, but he grasped hers anyway.
And then jerked away with a shocked exclamation. It felt like a thousand bees had stung him all up and down his tattoo.
The ethereal vision looked at him and her green eyes filled with tears.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She whirled and pushed her way out of the police station.
CELA
Cela hadno idea where she was planning to go. This had been her last and only resort. She was exhausted to her bones, shaky with hunger and weariness. She had been on buses for two days. Most of the money Lirin had given her was gone.
Her tattoo still hurt, burning and stinging. This had to be part of the exile magic, another terrible thing no one had told her about. Of course they weren’t just going to let her seek help from another griffin, even a fellow exile. She had been an absolute fool to come here.
Her griffin was awake and alert for the first time in days, jarred out of its drooping misery.Stop! Where are we going? Our mate is there!
Our mate whom we cannot touch,Cela thought back.
The babies were hungry and tired too, squirming under her cloak. They were in need of a warm place to sleep and clean diapers and baths.
This had been her last resort. She had no idea what to do next.
“Hey. Hey! Wait!”
Cela turned back, hopelessness in every line of her body. Her mate had pursued her out of the human-authority building.
Of course he had. He was her mate. He would have followed her anywhere.
But as her first jarring burst of shock and disappointment began to fade, she realized that she was acting irrationally. Her mate was here. At the very least he must have a bed she could sleep in, food she could eat, a place she could rest until she could think clearly enough to decide what she was going to do. Even if the magic of the tattoo acted to keep them apart, she could still sleep at his house, couldn’t she?
She straightened her back so she could look at him.
He was very handsome, tall and strong.Of course he is,preened her griffin;he must be good enough for us! His hair was a tousled mass of dark red-brown curls, looking so touchable that she yearned to run her fingers through it. His eyes were brown with hints of gold, a common color among their people, much more so than her pale sea-green.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “Did I hurt you? I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened back there.”
“I do.” Cela tried not to sniffle. She had both hands busy keeping the babies pacified under her poncho now, and couldn’t spare one to wipe her eyes. “I’ve been banished. I?—”
“Shhh!” Tyr took a quick step toward her, reached out, started to put a hand on her poncho’d shoulder before stopping himself. “You can’t talk about that here.”
Cela glanced around. There were no humans nearby; her tattoo would have stopped her anyway, if so. But he was right, this was no place to be talking about secret griffin matters.
“Listen,” Tyr said, with his hand still hovering a fewinches above her shoulder as if desperate to touch her. “Let’s go back to my place. I don’t know what’s happening or who you are or why you’re here—youarefrom the island, right?”
The island she could never return to. Cela nodded, struggling not to burst into tears again. She was desperately tired of crying, and even more, she didn’t want her mate’s first view of her to be a sodden, weepy mess. But exhaustion made it hard to keep a grip on her emotions.
