“Nightingale has already set into motion targeted attacks.” Maybe if she knew the danger, she would forgive him.
Raven’s sharp intake was followed by her nails digging into his arm as she reached for him.
“Sparrow and Jayce will be kept safe,” Griffin continued quickly.
“Until they serve their purpose,” Raven’s voice pitched.
Griffin watched as she physically gathered herself, shaking her head and leveling him with a weighted look.
“What is the first step?”
He accepted the diversion. “Tomorrow we will land. You and I will be side-by-side and must present a united front. The people of Grypheem need to recognize you as my betrothed, it will garner you a semblance of safety.” He chose to leave out the man who would be on her other arm.
“The Sacred Cherished…they’re mothers?” Raven asked softly, her hand drifting towards her stomach.
Griffin watched her in a trance. A singular flash of their future landing in his mind. Of her pregnant with his child, of them together living out their life in peace.
He had never hoped to dream for a family, and he wouldn’t now. Not until this was all over.
He wasn’t sure he would survive what was to come, but Raven would be his prize if he did. “Yes, they’re mothers. And they are kept away from the population until they are chosen by their husbands.”
It was clear Raven didn’t like that answer, but also that she didn’t know the questions to ask, her mouth opening and closing a few times. Griffin hated it even more. Another piece of his country that needed to change.
“What of Ivan?” Raven jerked her head up, her eyes meeting his.
Griffin wanted to lie to her, but he physically couldn’t. “Drago’s men did not find him on the island. Nightingale’speople have not located him with the other players that arrived back in Violencia.”
Raven inhaled a sharp breath. “Where is he? How could he have escaped?”
Griffin didn’t want to tell her his suspicions, but he recognized that he needed to. That her other men would keep it from her.To protect her.“He… He is probably enroute to Grypheem…withus.” Ivan’s uniform being found had been just the tip. 34’s murder had launched his concern, her broken neck too familiar to ignore the connections.
But they had already searched the ship, there hadn’t been any sign of a stowaway. And Oleks continued to follow his trail with no luck. However, that didn’t mean he wasn’t on their vessel.
Just that he was good at hiding.
And that was what Ivan was known for. What he was best at. Hiding in plain sight.
His reputation preceded him.
The founder of the Retrieval Faction who then betrayed his own people.
Griffin reached for Raven, needing human contact. Needing her specifically. She shook under his touch as he stroked her wrist, up her forearm. Following the path of the scars she had left.
Raven claimed Griffin had saved her.
She never should have told him that, it had grown his possessiveness past the point of control.
In Grypheem, once a Sacred Cherished was claimed, there was no sharing.
At least not yet.
However, regular Cherished women? Or those crafted in laboratories?
While outwardly it was still frowned upon, he had heard the rumors of the underbelly of his country. He was glad to havenot witnessed the atrocities in the Sacred Trinity, but he had seen proof of them in Violencia. In the disgusting nature of the people of the Sacred Trinity. Of what they did to the citizens of Violencia.
“You had a run in with Ivan?” Griffin had wanted to know the whole story, he had gathered bits and pieces, but he needed to hear it from her.
Understand why Ivan was risking everything to journey with them to Grypheem.
