Shadow's End (Elder Races #9)

He felt a fierce kind of satisfaction that he wouldn’t have been able to explain to any other person. One way or another, he was going to get this fucker off his fucking back.

As soon as he had cleared the Elven residence, he flew a few more blocks then landed and shapeshifted again. Digging out his phone, he texted Claudia and Luis, Julian, and Constantine to meet in ninety minutes at the suite in the hotel. Claudia and Luis could contact Rune and Carling.

Then, unable to wait passively, he changed back to the gryphon. Flying back to the Elven residence, he circled it, watching everything. He felt obsessed, like some lunatic stalker, but he couldn’t stop himself.

The Elven residence was a three-story detached brownstone mansion in the fashionable Flatiron District. Despite the lateness of the hour, lights shone in several different parts of the house. In the back, the walled garden lay mostly in shadow, with a few security lights shining along the walls.

As he circled, he watched the balcony doors and windows that led to Bel’s suite. Lights shone there too, until suddenly they went dark. His adrenaline spiked. At last, she was on the move.

Swinging around to pass over the front of the mansion, he kept his flight pattern tight and small, until he saw the front door open.

Bel and Linwe slipped outside. They walked down the street, Bel’s dark head close to Linwe’s bright pink one.

Graydon felt the impulse to follow them, but he stayed on task, watching the mansion.

A few moments after they had left, another Elf slipped out the front door. For a moment, the front porch lights illuminated the Elf’s face.

It was a male, the same guard that had pulled his weapon along with Ferion earlier in Bel’s room. After the Elf checked both directions, he started down the street after Linwe and Bel.

As he left the mansion, he became harder to detect. He had started to cloak himself.

The Elf had one major disadvantage. He wasn’t nearly as good at cloaking as Graydon was at stalking.

Coasting silently around forty yards in the air above the Elf, Graydon watched him for a few blocks until he was quite sure. The male was, indeed, following the two women.

His predatory instincts roused.

It would be so easy to kill him. All the gryphon would have to do was plummet down. His paws flexed as he considered. His long claws would pierce the guard’s body before the Elf had a chance to draw breath and scream. He could carry the body away to dispose of somewhere else.

The decision shook through his taut body, but one thought held him back. He didn’t know if the guard was Ferion’s and innocent, or Malphas’s spy.

Even then, the guard could be innocent, and simply suffering from the same kind of coercion as Malphas’s many other victims.

At the last thought, sanity intervened. He pulled himself up and shot ahead to the women. Swooping down, he glided over their heads.

You’re being followed, he said in Bel’s head. Two blocks back.

She tilted her head back. He caught a glimpse of her face before his trajectory took him past the women. Pulling up, he swept around and glided over them again.

Gray? Bel said. I’ve explained things—partially—to Linwe. There’s a taxi rank up ahead, in front of a block of restaurants. Linwe will take a taxi to Times Square, find an all-night restaurant and wait to hear from me. Can you pick me up?

Absolutely, he told her.

As they turned a corner, they walked out of sight of their stalker. Graydon plummeted. He landed beside Bel and let his own cloaking spell fall away.

At the same moment, she said to Linwe, “Run.”

Giving him one spooked glance, Linwe darted toward the nearby restaurants and taxis. He noted in satisfaction that she was a fast sprinter. Despite the snow and ice, she flew surefooted down the sidewalk.

As Linwe raced away, Bel leaped onto his back.

At long last, the space between his shoulders, that spot which had been empty for so long, felt complete again.

Hold on, he said.

Cloaking himself again, he launched and drove into the air as high and fast as he could. Wheeling, he flew back the way they had come.

Below, on the street, the Elven guard raced around the corner. After looking around, he sprinted toward the restaurants and the taxi rank.

“Linwe got away!” Bel said. “Even if he gets a taxi too, all they need is a head start of a few moments, and she’ll lose him.”

Good enough, the gryphon growled. Feel free to praise me for not killing the guard. He felt rather than heard the soft laugh that rippled through her body. She stroked the back of the gryphon’s neck. “You did such an excellent job,” she told him. “Thank you for restraining yourself.”

It was not easy, he told her, even as the pleasure of her touch rippled down his body. I’m feeling particularly growly and predatory right now.

“With good reason,” she said. The smile had died from her voice.

Everything will be okay, he told her.

He willed that he was right, with every ounce of strength he had inside him. He would make sure that it was okay.