chapter 44
Griffin rushed toward Selene. He fixed his intense gaze on her. “You can’t marry him,” he insisted in a low undertone.
“Why not?” Selene demanded.
Dez rose to his feet and moved behind her. “Maybe I should leave,” he murmured.
Selene glanced over her shoulder. “Dez, wait—”
He stepped forward and placed a hand on her cheek and gave her a lopsided smile. “Now she calls me Dez.” He paused. “He wasn’t claiming you. Not until this moment.” He glanced over her shoulder at Griffin, giving him a hard look. Dez leaned forward and whispered, “I won’t come between te’sorthene. Not when there’s a chance for you. Be happy.”
He kissed her cheek and turned to walk away, only to pause and glance back. “As your friend, I should warn you…. The Council will never accept him. And likely neither will the Vyusher.”
“I know,” she said quietly.
Dez stared at her solemnly for a second and then nodded at Griffin.
“Gunther,” he acknowledged. With a curt grin, he walked out of the room.
Slowly, Selene turned back to Griffin. “You just stopped something that could’ve been beneficial for my people… and for me. Why? Why can’t I marry him?” She poked him in the middle of the chest.
Griffin’s mouth tightened and he just looked at her, a battle still raging in his eyes. She placed her hand over his heart.
“Please. Tell me,” she whispered.
Griffin covered her hand with this own, and she felt the thundering of his heart beneath her fingers. “You can’t marry him… because you are my bonded heart, my te’sorthene.”
Selene’s eyes narrowed. “But I told you I loved you weeks ago. And you’ve said nothing since then. You walked away from me. Again.” She turned away so he wouldn’t see the small tear slide down her cheek.
“I was waiting for the right moment to talk to you,” he whispered. “Somehow, with all this going on, there never seemed to be a good time.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and pulled her back so that he could look her in her eyes. “I could never walk away from you.”
She shook her head. “But you did. You –”
He put a single finger to her lips, halting her speech. “I thought that you needed the time and space to deal with your people and establish this peace.”
Selene stood silently for so long that Griffin gave her a little shake. “Please say something,” he pleaded.
It was the look of uncharacteristic vulnerability in his eyes that broke Selene’s silence, while at the same time healing the gaping hole in her heart.
“So you believe me? About all the stuff that happened before?” her voice wobbled.
Griffin understood the cryptic question. He tenderly wiped a tear from her cheek. “I knew that none of that was your fault the day we killed your brother. I just wouldn’t admit it to myself. You were tied too closely to the worst moment of my life, and I wouldn’t let myself get past that. Forgive me?”
“Do you forgive me?”
Griffin rested his forehead against hers and looked deeply into her eyes. “I know there’s nothing to forgive. How about we start over?”
Selene gave him the sweetest smile he’d ever seen. “If we started over, we wouldn’t know each other at all.” She touched his mouth with her fingertips. “And I wouldn’t know how these lips feel against mine.”
“Hmmm … I guess I would be sad to forget that. So – not starting over?”
Selene shook her head. “Just… moving forward.”
“I like that. But only if it’s together.”
“Together…” Selene rolled the word around in her mouth, testing it out. She had been so alone for so long that together had become a strange concept to her.
Griffin captured her chin between his thumb and fingers. “I won’t ever leave you again. I promise you.”
Selene could sense the strength of his intent, his conviction, and felt some small part of her give way. Not a dam bursting inside her. More like a chunk of ice falling away from the glacier she’d buried her heart in so long ago.
“You’ll have to teach me how to trust.” She looked up at him with such faith in her eyes that Griffin pulled her into a tight embrace.
“You humble me,” he murmured gruffly into her hair. “Despite everything that has been done to you in your life, the fact that you can still look at me and ask that of me…”
Selene hid a small smile in his chest. “You do have a bit of a suspicious nature,” she teased.
Griffin chuckled. “As with everything else, I suspect we will learn to trust each other together.”
“Together,” Selene repeated. The thought filled her with a warmth that did even more to melt the ice block around her heart. I like that, she thought to herself.
Griffin twitched in her arms. “Hey! I heard that!”
“Heard what?” Selene looked at him puzzled.
“Your thoughts. You like the thought of together.”
“Well… yes?” Selene was slightly confused by his gleeful response.
Griffin smiled. “Usually I can’t hear anything you’re thinking. You block me out. And I know that most of the time you do it without thinking or trying. I’ve only ever heard you when you’ve consciously let down your mental walls, and I can almost feel you will them away. But this I heard despite those walls.” His eyes lit up in a way that still had a crazy effect on her heart rate.
“Oh!” She chuckled.
Griffin gathered her into his arms and rested his chin on the top of her head. Both of them happily remained there, content to just be.