When Raven raised her hand to knock, she looked back at them expectedly.
“We’ll wait outside.” Levi wasn’t making a request. He didn’t plan on being more than a few feet from Raven for the foreseeable future.
Especially not with Ivan out there.
Not until they could find him.
She let out an annoyed groan but didn’t argue further, nor did she knock, instead choosing to push open the door and slam it behind her.
Chapter 9
Future Griffin’s Problems
Griffin
Present Day – Catastro Sea
Griffin leaned back on his bed. He guessed one of two things would happen. He would either have to go hunt her down or—
His door whipped open and slammed shut again, a pink-cheeked Raven filling his view.
Or…she would find him.
Griffin’s lips curled up on their own. She still wore the thin gown from before, the one meant to symbolize his intentions to wed.
Raven opened her mouth, but then her attention truly landed on Griffin. He had the pleasure of witnessing the color drain entirely from her face at the sight of him.
His torn shirt was presenting most of his chest, but it was his face she caught on. The dried blood, cracked lip, and his already swollen eye, the star attractions.
“Who?” She scrunched her nose, rubbing her temples. “Julian I’m guessing. He was vibrating in rage.”
Griffin had felt that something was off since she woke up, and he sensed it again at this moment.
There was no passion behind Raven’s words. She wasn’t angry, outraged, or any of the other countless emotions he expected her to depict. Instead, she almost seemed empty.
Hollow.
“Have the others noticed?” Griffin asked, cracking his neck and falling onto his elbows.
Raven leaned back against the door, keeping her space from him. “Noticed what?” she bit out.
He would allow her. For now.
“That you aren’t acting yourself. You’reempty.” Griffin mulled over her aura, what he knew of Raven.
The woman who had kissed him and then bit his lip for good measure. The one who had survived every game intact. The one he had saved only to then endure her wrath.
But she didn’t speak, instead watching warily from her vantage point.
He didn’t like it. It wouldn’t do. This wasn’t the woman who would survive a war, this would be a victim. A martyr who was killed off because she was too weak to fight. “We’re going to be married. Three weeks after we arrive in Grypheem.”
“No, I need to go back to Violencia,” Raven argued, but there was no passion in her voice. Instead, a dull monotone thread that pissed Griffin off.
His rage had been building every second they spent in this room, and he couldn’t control it any longer.
Jumping to his feet, he ignored the aches throughout his body from his encounter with Julian. He ate up the space between them until he towered over her.
Reaching behind her, he locked the door.
