Clanless (31 page)

The shadowed man didn’t seem to hold any weapons, typical of the Kodiak who preferred to kill with their bare hands. He was certainly large enough to be a Bear.

But he wasn’t. Somehow she knew it.

Zo didn’t understand the strange pull of her body as she pushed aside her tattered blanket and rose to her feet.

Who are you?
She wanted to ask, but couldn’t manage the words.

He lifted a hand to the light and beckoned her to him. She shook her head but inched closer to the fire just the same. Again, he waved her toward him, this time with more urgency then before. Ikatou stirred, the fire cracked, and Zo stood frozen, not daring to move any closer.

The shadowed man dropped his hands by his sides and Zo had the distinct impression she’d let him down somehow. He shifted forward enough that a small amount of light touched his form. She blinked against the heat of the flames, searching the stranger’s darkened face, but the fire lit only his whiskered chin. The gleam of a short sword peeked through the folds of a dark, hooded cape. A Ram blade.

Zo stepped back and inhaled to scream and wake the sleeping Kodiak, but it was too late. The man jumped over the flames of the fire.

In one graceful motion, he covered her mouth with his large hand and wrapped his arm around her waist.

There was something about the man’s touch. Something she recognized.
But it can’t be
. Zo’s legs melted but the phantom before her didn’t let her fall.

Gryphon?

It wasn’t possible.

Yet, even his smell was familiar.
It couldn’t be.

Someone in the camp groaned. Gryphon’s ghost didn’t waste a second. He threw Zo over his shoulder as if she were a sack of grain and jumped back over the fire that blocked their exit from the rudimentary cave.

As they ran, Zo beat upon the ghost’s back to get him to stop, but he didn’t listen. Behind them shouts echoed off stone. Ikatou’s voice rose above the rest. What if they thought she’d abandoned them?

Blood rushed to her head. She couldn’t catch her breath to scream. Pain from the jostling of her hands and the pressure on her stomach mixed with a dizziness of being upside-down. This man ignoring her battle couldn’t be Gryphon. Was her mourning so great that she’d attached his face and smell to another man?

He could have been a Ram scout. That made a lot more sense than any other explanation she could dream up. She kicked harder, grasping for branches of passing trees, unable to fill her lungs enough to scream.

Eventually her fight dwindled to a few sporadic fists against his back. Her eyes drooped closed, the running motion carrying her in and out of consciousness to a place of dreams, of loss and pain and longing so real her heart broke all over again.

Gryphon hugged Zo’s legs as he ran wild with fear through the night. Joshua sprinted ahead of him, darting around trees, scouring the area for some place to hide, constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure Gryphon and Zo were close behind.

Thankfully, Zo stopped fighting Gryphon’s hold a few minutes into the run. He’d refused to put her down so close to the camp in case she was too injured to run, and—even more vehemently—refused to consider why she fought him to begin with.

Zo was smaller than he remembered, lighter, but that didn’t lessen the ache sprouting in his shoulder from supporting her weight. He winced and adjusted his hold, but it didn’t help.

Slowing to a walk, he leaned forward and let her body shift so he cradled her in his arms. He couldn’t decide if she was unconscious or simply sleeping. Had she lost too much blood from the cuts on her hands?

Why didn’t she come when he beckoned? What did those savages do to her?

Her eyes fluttered open, but swiftly drifted shut again. Blood was smeared across her cheek and her head lolled back to face the dim light of the crescent moon. How could beauty be so frightening? It reminded him just how unworthy he was to even hold her, let alone try to claim her heart. Rejection from her would wound him in a way that a sword or spear never could.

Gryphon didn’t realize he’d stopped walking until Joshua approached.

“I’ve found a place, Gryph,” said Joshua. He reached out and touched his fingertips to Zo’s where they hung limp in the air. The poor boy looked ready to fall over. “It’s not the best, but—”

“Lead the way, kid. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” They needed rest and couldn’t afford exposure to the Kodiak and possibly Zander.

Joshua led them to a tight cluster of trees, heavily furred, with boughs hanging close to the ground. Gryphon dropped to his knees still cradling Zo to his chest. Joshua cleared the ground of rocks and pulled a bedroll from his pack.

“This reminds me of the tree I woke up under after Zo healed me,” said Joshua. His words slurred with need of rest.

Gryphon’s throat tightened at the memory of being with Zo under that tree. The kiss they shared. Zo had called him her family. She’d clung to him with such intensity at the time, he’d had no doubt of her affection. Or was it merely gratitude?

He shook his head and bent over to lay her unconscious form on the bedroll. He cleared the ground next to her and unrolled his own blanket. “Here you go, Joshua.”

Joshua shook his head. “I’m not taking your spot.”

Gryphon dropped to the open ground near the perimeter of the tree to keep watch. “It’s not my spot.”

He’d trained himself long ago to soak in as much rest as possible without actually falling asleep. Tonight it wouldn’t be hard to stay awake. As exhausted as he was, he doubted he could sleep even if he tried.

Rays of light kissed Zo’s eyelids, but she wasn’t ready to wake. A soft sensation caressed the skin around the wounds on the backs of her hands. Though her hands were still tender from the blood oath, she welcomed the touch, considering it just another form of light kissing her skin.

She’d dreamt of Gryphon working beside her on hands and knees, thinning a patch of beets. He didn’t carry any weapons. His dark hair was tied back with a strip of soft leather. He looked over his shoulder and gave her a contented smile then went back to his task, the muscles in his forearms moving beneath his skin as he worked.

Zo became aware of the hard ground beneath her, the sun filtering through the branches of the tree overhead. She wasn’t ready to wake up. Adjusting into a new position, she inhaled the scent of pine, and then slipped back into another dream to be with Gryphon. The farm was gone. Now she sat under the tree with Gryphon outside the walls of Ram’s Gate. “I never left you,” he said.

“Zo?” A voice, soft and deep. “Are you in any pain?”

Zo gave in to the morning and blinked against the light filtering through the needles of the fir tree above her and groaned. Painful pressure behind her eyes from exhaustion and the ever-present ache of her hands made waking unwelcome. She needed rest. She needed more time with Gryphon.

A gentle touch caressed her hand—a welcome contradiction to the pain from the cuts of the blood oath. Her eyes sank back into sleep, until her memory of the night before forced its way to the front of her consciousness.

The blood oath. The man who kidnapped her from the Kodiak! The Ram sword he carried!

Zo’s eyes flew open. But what she saw made her think she was still dreaming. Lying on his side next to her, his head resting in his hand with a tentative smile playing about the corners of his mouth, was Gryphon. The sun hit his face in splotches, highlighting his eyes while shadowing his mouth.

“This isn’t real.” Zo frowned. She reached out and threaded her fingers through his chin-length brown hair. He leaned into the touch and her hand found his cheek. His jaw clenched beneath her fingers. He hesitated then turned his face to kiss the tender skin of her palm.

“Zo, stop,” she commanded herself out loud, squeezing her eyes shut and pulling away. A tear rolled down her face. “Deep breaths and it will pass.” She covered her face with her hands and curled her knees up to her chest, as if doing so would protect her heart.
Wake up wake up wake up.

“Zo?”

Her head whipped up at the sound of his voice. That voice! The way he said her name. It couldn’t be. It simply wasn’t possible. Wasn’t this figure just the product of her fatigued body and mind?

“G-Gryphon?”

He nodded.

“But … but you died,” she gasped, tears blurring her vision. She thrust her hands out to feel along the boiled leather vest he wore to protect his chest. “A spear. Gabe told me. He said Ram spears never miss.”

Zo sat up and ignored Gryphon’s shock as she pushed him onto his stomach, face to the soil, and examined his back for a spear wound.

“I’m fine, Zo. I got away.” She nudged him to roll back onto his back and fanned her fingers along his shoulders, his arms, his legs. Tears rolled down her cheeks, her breath coming in strangled spurts. “Ram”
gasp
“spears”
gasp
“never miss.”

Gryphon took her by the shoulders and gently shook her from her delirium. “I escaped them, Zo. Now will you please breathe?” He wiped her tears and took up her hands and kissed them, one knuckle at a time, all the while fighting a little boy grin.

“How is this even possible?” she sobbed and launched herself at Gryphon, throwing her arms around his neck and knocking him onto his back. His deep laughter made his chest rise and fall—Zo along with it.

Gryphon was alive!

He trapped her in his arms, his chin resting protectively above her head. “You’re safe now. Everything is going to be fine.” He played with the long strands of her hair, occasionally kissing the crown of her head. With her ear pressed to him, each strong
thump
of his beating heart brought new hope. A joy that thrummed energy throughout her own body. Gryphon rolled onto his side, taking her with him so she rested in the crook of his arm, staring up at him in wonder.

How could she, in only a few days, have forgotten how attractive he was? Dark brown hair framed his chiseled jaw. Heavy shadows rested beneath his golden brown eyes.
Such kind eyes.
His Ram nose had a knot at the bridge from being repeatedly broken, but even that added to his rugged charm. “You’re alive.” It needed to be said. Shouted. Over and over again. That knowledge alone made everything bearable, as if a boulder had been lifted from off her chest and she could finally breathe again.

“What happened to your hands?” he asked, taking one up and kissing her palm. Zo closed her eyes at his touch and sighed. Joshua and Tess would be so happy.

“Joshua!” said Zo. “We need to get to the Allies. Joshua and Tess think you’re dead.”

“No I don’t,” a familiar voice approached the tree and Joshua dropped down to his knees, a ridiculous grin plastered to his face.

“I don’t understand.” Zo looked back and forth between the two. “Tess?”

“Safe with Stone and Eva and the rest of the Nameless. By now they will have made it to the Allied Camp. Joshua came with me to get you back. We’ve been tracking you.”

“Oh, no.” Zo remember the Kodiak and the blood oath she’d made. Ikatou would stop at nothing to find her. She was his only hope of freeing his family. If they discovered she wasn’t really kidnapped, that she didn’t leave with Gryphon and Joshua against her will …

She looked down at her hands and grimaced. How could she tell him about her promise? Especially now.

“Your hands, Zo,” he said, mirroring her thoughts. “What happened?”

The truth would ruin everything. She wanted nothing but to reach out to him. To take his weathered face in her hands and brush away the deep shadows beneath his eyes. To trace the strong lines of his jaw and smooth the wrinkled concern from his brow.

“Can you still run?” asked Joshua. “Once those Kodiak discover our tracks, it won’t take them long to find us.”

This was an opportunity to escape her promise to Ikatou and the others. They’d have a difficult time finding the Allied Camp on their own. She could be free of her blood oath! No more Barnabas. No more leaving loved ones. Gryphon was alive! This was a second chance to have him in her life, and she refused to squander it.