A cool horror coated across his skin at the realization of what that meant. Anadil’s words from before compounding with it.
He knew exactly where the Spade brothers were being taken, and it wasn’t good.
The guards filed out, slamming the door shut behind them.
Oleks pushed Dres further back. “Do you feel free?” He spat on Dres’s face. “How can you blame Griffin? You are the one who turned on their own. It wasn’t him. It was you. All of you. Leave him be. We will all rot together in this cage. Killing him will not change that.” Oleks kicked off the wall, finagling out of Dres’s hold and dropping to the ground.
Griffin attempted to get up, to thank Oleks, to warn him, but Oleks was pushing through the crowd around him and slinking further back into their prison, not giving Griffin another second of his attention.
Tears welled in Griffin’s eyes. But not from his physical suffering. For the very first time since coming to Violencia, he felt hopeless.
They were all locked away in a Government prison. Everyone had turned on him. And while he was thankful to see Oleks was still alive, it was clear the man no longer wanted anything to do with him.
Anadil was up to something.
Harold and Sharon had taken over the Redemption games.
And his brother… He still hadn’t heard a single word from his brother. Not even now.
Being a prince of Grypheem had afforded him nothing in this country, even when those in charge knewexactlywho he was. If anything it had made his existence worse.
He was a bird without wings.
A griffin without allies.
A lonely man who would never escape. Who had simply wanted to do right by his father. By the rest of the world.
A woman’s face flashed through his mind as the walls closed in around him as the realization that he hadno oneand nothing.
He held onto that face. Onto that single light in this darkness.
Raven.
Present Day - Grypheem
This isn’t the same as that. That was a prison in Violencia, this is a room in the castle I will escape.
Griffin cracked his neck, releasing as much tension as he could. Julian paced the small room humming with annoyance and concern.
“We have been locked in thismeetingroom for nearly an hour! Where is your brother?! Why are we here?! And how did you manage to leave Raven alone?” Maverick snapped, his voice echoing around the space.
He sat across from Griffin on the other side of the circular table.
Maverick turned his rage onto Griffin. “What are your brother's plans? I thought she was safe here. I thought beingmarried to the two of you was supposed to create a bubble of protection.”
“She was going to speak with that man…Matt. She knew him growing up and I didn’t want to stop her at a chance of normalcy.” Levi grunted from across the room, he leaned against the wall, his beefy arms folded across his chest.
“I was in there for a while, but then one of Drago’s men came and found me, dragging me in here.” Julian didn’t pause his pacing.
Griffin hadn’t been in this part of the castle before. It was a floor above his quarters, a restricted area that he had spent most of his life avoiding. Never questioning why this entire floor was off-limits. He hadn’t cared enough to. There was a large wooden table with chairs in the middle of the space and a metal pocket door on each side. One led back out, but the other he wasn’t sure about.
What he did know was once he was inside this room, the door behind him had slid shut and locked on its own. And the one leading to a mystery place was sealed shut as well.
They were trapped and had been for nearly an hour…while Raven was out there alone.
Because they were all idiots.
I shouldn’t have come here. I should have disobeyed my brother.
