Issues piled up in her head. Malphas, Ferion, and oh gods, if they both survived this coming confrontation, she was going to have to find some way to come to terms with that blasted dragon.
If they both survived.
Once her mind started thinking along that path, it couldn’t stop.
If Graydon went too far mating and something happened to her, neither one of them would survive. The realization sank some serious teeth into her and shook her harder than anything else had.
She had to let him go for now. She had to, until this whole nightmare was over, because she couldn’t do anything else. The thought of him mating with her, only to die if she did was unthinkable.
“We’ll have time,” she said. She hugged him again with all her strength. “Later—afterward. We’ll make time to figure this out. We’ll take all the time we need. We’ll have all the time in the world.”
He pressed his lips to her temple and told her, “Of course we will.”
Of all the conversations they’d had, that was the only thing she had ever heard him say to her that sounded like a lie.
Her legs loosened from around his hips. As he let her slide to her feet, she frowned up at him.
What the hell?
Something felt . . . incredibly off. She didn’t know what it could be. Everything was fraught with too much tension, driven by a lack of time and extremely limited privacy. Even though they had hardly begun to talk, they had to focus on other concerns.
If it was just a matter of pressing a pause button until they could talk at a later time, she could handle that. Her life had been filled with countless moments just like this one, where her personal concerns had to go on hold because of some other, more pressing matters.
What she didn’t think she could handle was the thought that everything she wanted, everything she had begun to dream about and hope for, might vanish again like an illusion.
“We will,” she insisted.
His expression hardened. “If I have anything to say about it, we will,” he promised. “We just need to fight hard enough, cleverly enough. There is a way to win though.”
Truth had come back into his voice. Relieved, she grabbed onto that thought and didn’t let go.
“I couldn’t have held on for so long if I didn’t believe that,” she said. She had to believe it. It was the only thing she had to hang on to.
He pressed his lips against her forehead. “Let’s call the others back in. We have a war to plan.”
She straightened her shoulders. Enough people in the group had such sensitive hearing that everything she and Graydon had said aloud to each other had been said virtually in public.
She wasn’t embarrassed, and she certainly wasn’t ashamed.
Still, as Graydon rapped his knuckles on the door of the suite and the others returned, she felt heat touch her cheeks.
It was hard to bare one’s soul to someone else. She had also just bared her soul to ten other people. The sense of exposure was unsettling to say the least.
Most avoided meeting her gaze, except for Constantine. He stared at her with the same mixture of curiosity and wistfulness that she had noticed before.
Her self-consciousness vaporized as Soren entered the room. He studied both her and Graydon with a piercing frown.
Soren said, “I have heard everything that the others had to say. Now I want to hear it from you.”
Biting her lip, she stared at the floor. Graydon said carefully, “If you’ve heard everything, you know there’s only so much we can say.”
“Not true,” replied Soren. “I can remove any connection you may have with another Djinn.”
Astonishment and hope flared. Her gaze flashed up and collided with Graydon’s.
She asked, “Can you do it without alerting the other Djinn?”
“I believe so. If you will allow me to do so, that is.” Soren raised his eyebrows pointedly at Graydon. “May I approach?”
SIXTEEN
The surge of relief Graydon felt at Soren’s words was painful in the extreme.
Imperceptible though his connection to Malphas was, it had become unbearable, as heavy as the shackle Ferion had said he carried.
Starting to nod, he forced himself to pause and consider every angle. He said tensely, “What if you try and fail?”
Bel twisted her hands together, her expression mirroring his feelings. They had come too far, and had gone too long, to screw this up now.
Soren’s brusque manner softened as he regarded Bel. He told them, “I will not fail. If I cannot remove the connection from you without alerting the other Djinn, I will not do it. But I am one of the oldest and strongest of my kind. I am also one of the most adept. I have removed connections before that have been deemed invalid, when I’ve acted as either a member of the Djinn assembly or as head of the Elder tribunal.”
“Yes,” Bel said suddenly. “I believe you. Please, do it.”
Soren inclined his head. He glanced at Graydon, and instead of approaching Bel, he held out his hand.
She strode over to him, slipping her fingers in his. Graydon tensed. He hated how close the other male was to her, and he fought the urge to knock them apart. Violent thoughts flashed through his mind, and his body knotted, muscles leaping with tension.
Vaguely he was aware that the other Wyr, Luis, Rune and Constantine, were all watching him closely. He knotted his hands into fists in an effort to maintain control.
Bel and Soren stood looking into each other’s eyes. Something happened, some tiny shift, that was too subtle for Graydon to fully assess.
Soren said quietly, “It’s gone.”
“You’re sure?” Graydon demanded.
Soren gave him a wary glance. “Yes, I’m quite sure.”
Bel’s composure splintered, painfully and completely.
Her face twisted. Bending over at the waist, she cried out, “We’ve got to stop Malphas! We have to kill him! He trapped and enslaved my son. Oh gods, he’s enslaved him for two hundred years. I need him dead!”
Her raw, anguished fury rocketed around the room. In response, Grace’s eyes filled, and Claudia and Luis flinched. Carling angled her face away, while Constantine and Julian stared at Bel, their eyes burning.
Soren turned to him. “Come, gryphon. Take your freedom.”
Graydon had to fight an almost overwhelming urge to step forward. The need to be free came close to eclipsing everything else. He shook his head and said harshly, “No.”
“Dude,” said Constantine.
Bel straightened to stare at him. “No?”
“We need to get Malphas onto a battlefield,” Graydon told her. “That means I need to be able to summon him. Then we have to hit him as hard and as fast as we can, so he can’t get away.”
“He’s right,” Khalil said. “Setting a trap will give you the highest probability of success. If Malphas goes on the run, waging war against him will be drawn out, miserable, and twice as dangerous. That’s what happened when we fought and killed Lethe.” When Khalil and Carling looked at each other, a shadow fell over both their faces. He finished quietly, “The damage from that war was very great.”
“I can help with that,” said Julian.
Graydon’s eyes narrowed. “How?”
“As Vampyres age, our attributes get stronger, just like any of the other Elder Races.” After returning to the suite Julian hadn’t bothered to sit again. He stood, arms crossed, with Melly at his side.
“Exactly what does that mean for you?” Soren asked. “What attribute do you bring to this confrontation?”
“I can hold onto my prey,” Julian told them. “If I can get my hands on Malphas, he won’t be going anywhere. Not unless he either frees himself, or I’m dead.”
Beside Julian, Melly’s face turned bone white. She whispered, “That’s ridiculously suicidal.”