“You chose me for Cat.” Griffin’s voice vibrates with something very close to anger. “You changed me for her.”
My stomach suddenly feels off-kilter. I didn’t like this the first time we heard it, and I like it even less now. Griffin’s expression remains mostly neutral, but the mask looks close to cracking and revealing something dark and irate underneath.
Nerves build inside me, and words pour out before I can stop them. “I’m so sorry, Griffin. They forced this on you. You didn’t ask for any of this. For me…”
His eyes shift to me, hard as rocks.
“Griffin was selected before you were born based on his own potential merits,” Persephone explains, “and then enhanced to fit the future Origin’s needs.”
Griffin’s mouth twists in fury, and a horrible, sinking feeling carves through me, hollowing me out. The same fear I felt the day Piers betrayed us comes roaring back, this time doubly gut-wrenching because Griffin isn’t fooling himself anymore. I can see it in his face. His anger is terrible to behold.
He’s given me everything—command of Beta Team, the crown, his body, his devotion. His child. He’s loved me unconditionally, despite my many faults, because he convinced himself that I was made for him, not the other way around. If that illusion somehow hadn’t fully shattered before, it has now. Persephone just crushed it and threw it to the four winds.
I stop breathing at the angry flush spreading across Griffin’s face.
“You waited this long to bring me to her?” His voice turns low and livid. “Why all this wasted time? I could have been healing her broken heart, protecting her, giving her a family! Do you have any idea how unsatisfying my life was without her? Without my missing piece?”
Stunned, I watch him rage.
“And you…” He turns to me, his eyes shockingly bright.
Goose bumps wash over me in a wave.
“If you still doubt me—doubt us—then clearly, I have things to prove.” The promise in his eyes is unmistakable. And scorching. “Because I swear to the Gods, you’ll never doubt me again.”
Pain laces his incensed words, and guilt slams into me like a hard punch.
Why did I doubt him? “What is wrong with me?”
It’s only when Griffin answers that I realize I spoke out loud. “You still don’t trust yourself, and that makes you incapable of trusting anyone else.”
CHAPTER 16
“I trust you!” I cry, stung. No, worse—hurt.
“Insofar as you’re capable,” Griffin answers stiffly.
My jaw drops. I want to say something, but nothing comes out. Is he right? He’s usually right.
“You’re wrong!” Damn it! I slap my hand over my mouth.
Both Olympians abruptly disappear, apparently leaving us alone to fight. The magic that gets sucked from the air, vanishing along with them, is staggering. I didn’t realize how much it weighed on me until it was gone.
“You want to know why your magic doesn’t work?” Griffin asks.
I lift my chin, knowing I’m not going to like whatever he’s about to say, and that it’ll hit me straight in the heart. “Why, then?”
His eyes flash with gray fire. He doesn’t even try to contain his emotions, and Griffin without his usual calm in place is a formidable sight.
“It doesn’t work because you don’t trust yourself. Because you think it’s going to backfire. Because you’re so sure you’re going to hurt someone you want to protect!”
“Oh, and that’s never happened!” The sudden spike of adrenaline in my blood sets my heart to pounding. “The fire in the woods? Flynn under the arena? I burned a hole through his leg with a lightning bolt!”
Griffin reaches out and grips my upper arms, squeezing just enough to keep me still. “I am not Eleni. Little Bean is not Eleni. None of us are Eleni!” he thunders. “And what your mother did to her wasn’t your fault!”
My already hammering heart goes into overdrive. My throat tightens, closing over. Suddenly, I’m burning up and freezing cold, and the whoosh of blood in my ears is deafening. Pounding. It’s all I can hear. Weight seems to press down on me, crushing me from the sides, squeezing me all over. I don’t know if I’m going to pass out or throw up, but everything blurs, and I can only see one thing: Little Bean is Eleni. She’ll just have black hair.
Black hair. Blood. Seventeen years old. A knife in her heart. Dead.
Panic beats through me in dark waves. There’s no air.
Griffin’s expression goes from fuming to anxious. “Cat?”
My chest squeezes painfully as I wrap my arms around my middle, caving in on myself and searching out Little Bean’s spark. She’s still there. And she’ll be here—until the day she’s not.
“I can’t protect her.” My pulse pounds too hard, too loud, too fast. My breath saws in and out. “I can’t protect her. She’ll die. She’ll die. She’ll die, and I can’t protect her.”
“You can,” Griffin says, holding me fast.
I clamp my eyes shut and shake my head.
“I’m sorry.” Griffin pulls me close. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
I shudder against him, leaning in, and his hand curves around the back of my head.
“Shhh. Nothing will happen to our baby. I swear it.”
“Don’t make…promises…you can’t…keep,” I gasp out against his chest.
“I swear it,” he repeats, gripping me firmly.
I shake my head again. For the first time ever, I don’t believe him, even though no lie burns through me. I can’t, and not even the sternness in his voice, the strength of his embrace, or the solidity of his body will make me.
But his steadfastness and gentle hands do eventually help me to stop shaking and to breathe again. Griffin breathes with me, cradling my head and stroking my back. The sharp, wild panic from before starts to recede, leaving me raw and aching and oddly detached.
Or maybe not detached. Maybe this is just the other side of the overwhelming dread, the side where I can finally think and function again. It feels as though I’ve run through an entire night, scared and hurting, but then dawn broke and gave me a second wind. Daylight and Griffin don’t quell all my fears, but they help, just like they always have.
He holds me, and I hold him back. We stay like that for a long time, quiet.
“I’m tired,” I eventually say, the horrors of the day catching up with me, physically and emotionally.
“I know.”
“I love you.”
He kisses the top of my head. “I know.”
“You don’t have to know everything,” I mutter.
He pulls away enough to look at me. “I don’t know everything, but I know what this is. I’ve seen it happen, even to the best, most seasoned warriors. Sometimes there’s an obvious reason for it, and sometimes it’s just a scent or a sound, but it triggers something that no one can control. Panic does awful things to the mind and body, Cat. You’re strong, but you’re still human. The future is scaring the magic out of you—possibly literally. And Little Bean is a huge change—for you, in you—and you love her so much already that it’s paralyzing you.”