Kim Knox - Emergence

The door shut behind us, and I headed down the wide corridor to the steel-fronted lifts. It pinged as I approached, and the doors slid open. The soft scents of carpet and polish brought back searing images of standing there the night before, of wanting to devour him. I sucked in a breath and stepped inside. Kaden followed me, and the doors closed with a soft hiss.

“Roof access,” he murmured, and the indicator flashed through the floors. It stopped, and Kaden caught the door before it opened. “Remember, from now on I’m the envoy and you’re the new gryphon.” His lips pursed and his face became sombre. “I can’t guarantee who the driver will be…so when these doors open, it will be beneath you to talk to me.”

I stared at him. “What?”

“I’m a non-shifting menial, you’re a gryphon. Even half-blooded, you can shift-”

“What?” This made no sense. Power flowed from him, hell, his mythoi had a mind of its own…and he couldn’t shift form?

“There is no time to question this. Just believe me. I can’t shift.” He lifted his chin. “Ready?”

I let out a bitter laugh. “No.”

“Good enough.”

He released the door and sharp river breezes lifted my hair and blew hard against my cheeks. I focused forward, determined not to look down over the edge of the building into the river. Heights. I hated heights. A black fleet car already squatted on the wide pad, the golden emblem of the First Dragon-a single dragon twisting through a large crown-gleaming over the doors. A fist tightened in my gut as the driver door lifted and a tall, blonde human woman dressed in the black and gold livery of the First Dragon climbed out.

Kaden strode forward. “Amanda.” The woman’s name came out with a smile wrapped around it, and the fist in my gut squeezed just that bit tighter. Even my gryphon stirred. Oh, yes, I was going to be good at acting as if Kaden was beneath me if jealousy bit so hard. “How did you swing the return trip?”

“Everyone else is shuttling gryphons to Jura. I’m low enough in the pecking order to get the grunt work.” She grinned at him before her gaze slid to me. She performed a short bow, her features slipping into a more professional mask. “Lady Jaime.”

I twitched a smile, watching as Kaden swung my case into the rear storage, and willed my feet to move forward. The large passenger door lifted, and Amanda waved me inside. I settled myself against the soft leather. A harness snaked over my shoulders and hips to click into a buckle below my breasts. I wiggled, trying to find a comfortable position in the padding and wanting to ignore the fact that Kaden had climbed in after me.

Amanda couldn’t hide the brief flicker of surprise that crossed her features. “Want to ride in luxury? All right.” Her palm pressed against the door and it began a controlled descent. I didn’t miss the hardness of her narrowed gaze just before the door clunked into its metal frame.

The soundproofed interior felt heavy, its silence a weight on my spinning thoughts. My gaze flicked over the smooth fabric of the walls, the wide tinted windows, anything rather than acknowledge the insanity of my emotions. I didn’t want to feel jealous, but the tight knot in my stomach wouldn’t loosen. Shit. At least a solid partition separated us from the driver. “Has she worked for Lord Sinon as long as you have?”

Kaden gave a soft chuckle and stretched his legs out over the pale carpet. “No one’s worked as long as me.”

I stared at him, at his profile cut with morning light from the window. Kaden Rhodes looked to be a man in his late thirties. Amanda looked the same age. But she was human. Some mythoi didn’t age at the same rate. Or so I’d heard. My meeting with others of my race was limited to the bar on the dockside, and they were hardly the best examples of my kind. “So how old are you?”

A wicked smile touched his mouth, and I forgot about the bar, about Amanda, hell, about my question. “Old,” he said.

The gryphon in me stirred, recognising his rise of power. She was becoming as fixated as I was. Shame I couldn’t use her as Kaden used his shadow…though it was doubtful her razored beak would be as welcome as his shadow’s clever tongue. I swallowed, trying to will myself to speak and not simply jump him. “How old?”

Humour shone in his eyes. He enjoyed teasing me. Bastard. “I was born in this reality.”

The knowledge that this precious time would be the last we had spiked me, but I fought it to play his game. “So…your top age has to be two hundred years old-”

“Secure your harnesses. We’re about to take off. Travel time to Wormwood Tower is forty-five minutes.” Amanda’s smooth tones cut through my words and the car lifted smooth, quick from the pad and swept up into the clear morning sky. “Enjoy the flight.”

Kaden pressed a panel stretching dark against the cream fabric. “Thank you, Amanda.”

“You’re very welcome, Kaden.”

He rolled his eyes and secured the panel. The car banked, and I grabbed at the armrests, wincing as the windows showed the familiar jumble of buildings and roads that made up the city centre. Squeezing my eyes shut didn’t block the knowledge that I streamed hundreds of metres above the ground in a tiny, black car.

“You were guessing my age.”

Kaden’s soft, deep voice broke into my panic, and his hand closed over mine. The heat of his palm soothed me, eased the cramp from my stomach. I opened my eyes. “Yes, I was, wasn’t I?” I pushed out a breath and focused on his face rather than the disturbing view of the snaking red-brown roofs of terrace houses far, far below. Shit, I was a gryphon. I could fly. But this…the lack of control terrified me. And I had to admit, for a fearless terror of the air, I was absolutely petrified of heights. “Two hundred is the cut off. So…one hundred.”

“No. Try again.”

“Higher or lower?”

His head tilted, and the spark in his eyes caused a quick smile to grow on my mouth. “Older.”

I blinked. “Older?” I couldn’t help it, I searched his face for signs of his age, but he still looked like a man in his late thirties.

“You won’t find a clue in my face.”

I laughed. “Or on the rest of you.”

“Did you look hard enough?”

“Funny.” I bit my lip, thinking. “You’re part gryphon, so that increases your longevity.” My half-breed status projected another two hundred years onto my life. Maybe a lot more. Maybe a lot less. There’d never been anyone like me. Gryphons didn’t breed outside their species. Except Kaden belonged to the rare gryphon-human group too. “Hundred and fifty.”

A smile curved his mouth. “Maybe once, long ago.”

“This is crazy. You can’t be older than that!”

“I’m two hundred years old this year.”

The words stopped my breath. He’d been born in the year of the emergence, probably one of the first. “Are you a gryphon-human hybrid?” I had to know, because his fate could be mine. My stomach turned over, excitement mixing with terror. I could live for hundreds of years. “Is that what you are?”

Kaden closed his eyes and shook his head. For too long a moment, he was silent. “No,” he said. “I’m a corruption.”

A cold shiver skittered down my spine, and my gryphon shrank away. I willed myself not to pull my hand out from under his. He was still Kaden Rhodes, the same man before he’d said the word that all mythoi feared. “Corruption?”

“My mother is a gryphon. My father…” His mouth thinned and he shook his head. “I can’t say. But I wanted you to know.” His hand slid from mine, and his fingers curled into a white-knuckled fist. “What I am should make it easier for you.”

“To what?”

His laughter was quiet, bitter. “You reacted to Amanda. You can’t do that.”

Heat flared in my cheeks. He’d noticed my stupid burst of jealousy. “Are you and she…”

“No.” He muttered the word with a sharp shake of his head. “Mixing with humans brings a harsh penalty.” He wiped his hand over his mouth and his eyes met mine. “And the morals of humans…” He cursed. “How the hell do I explain this?”

My gut twisted. What was worse to him than admitting that he was a corruption, the dreaded mixing of two species of mythoi? I put my hand over his and squeezed. “You don’t have to. I’ll be careful.” I stroked my fingertips over his straining hand as it pressed against his thigh. “What can I say? I can be possessive.”

“And now you can’t be.” He straightened and his chin lifted. Serious eyes held mine. “I’m sterile. Which makes me safe from repeating the mistake of my birth. If one of his gryphons performs exceptionally well, then Lord Sinon favours them.”

Lead sank into my stomach. “With you.”

“With me.”

I would have to watch as Lord Sinon farmed Kaden out to any and every gryphon he thought worthy. Pain knifed me and I breathed past it. The few words he’d spoken held so much. One stood out, more than the abuse from the First Dragon, more than my own bitter hurt. He was sterile. I closed my eyes, feeling the pain for both of us. “I’m so sorry.”

“You have to know this going in, Jaime. It’s rare, but it happens. Be prepared.”

“Yes.” It burned me to say it, but he was right. Ultimately, Lord Sinon decided who we slept with. Our lives weren’t our own. I sank back into the heavy padding of the seat, and my fingers laced through his. Silence hung heavy again, the muted vibration of the engines the only sound. We flew through wisps of cloud now, white streaks flickering against the windows. A chill came off the thick glass, and a shiver ran over my skin. I’d never flown at high altitude. Even with vast wings, I tended to be a groundling, happy to skim the tops of trees, but nothing beyond that.

I forced my mind to focus. “What happens when we reach Wormwood?”

Kaden let out a slow breath. “I’ll take you to the tower room, Lord Sinon’s office. We kneel. He will examine you and then you’ll be judged by the senior gryphon. It’ll be fast. They want all gryphons in the air.”

“And that’s it?”

“Amanda will turn this car around and take you to Jura.”

“Right. Good.” A soft laugh escaped. “All right, maybe not good.”

I watched a scurry of thin cloud as it reflected my chaotic thoughts. Lust shouldn’t have my gut tight and tears burning. It made no sense. I knew nothing about him, nothing…yet the thought of Kaden with someone else stabbed at me.

Damn it, I was falling for him.

My head fell back into the heavy padding of the headrest, and I almost let out a groan. How completely fucked up was my life?

“Jaime?”

I tapped the heavy buckle resting above my belly and fixed my gaze on the solid partition separating us from Amanda. My mouth pursed before I looked at him and then down to the panel near his armrest. “If I unbuckle this harness, can you stop it from showing on Amanda’s dash?”

Kaden frowned. “Yes, but…”

“Do it.”

He ran his fingers over the panel, pressing out a quick combination. I sprang the clip and, with a quick twist, turned, hitched up my skirt and climbed onto his lap. It wasn’t elegant-my knees jammed hard into the sides of the seat, and my head almost scraped the curve of the roof-but it didn’t matter. My mouth covered his, a soft, sweet tasting that dropped molten heat low in my belly.

Kaden grabbed my hips in surprise. “Jaime.”

I pulled back, just far enough to hold his gaze. “What? You never made out in a car?” I frowned. “On second thought. Don’t tell me. This is the first time you made out in a car.”

A genuine smile broke out, gleaming in his eyes. “Yes. It is.”

“Good.”

I ran my hands down the smooth material of his jacket until I reached the heavy harness buckle. A single press released it, and Kaden shrugged free. “Are you sure about this?” Even as he asked the question, his mythoi shrouded us, my gryphon rising up to meet him. “Because-”

My mouth smothered more words, and Kaden’s soft, satisfied groan encouraged me to slip my fingers over the buttons of his shirt. I pressed my palms to the heat of his bare skin, his taut muscles flexing. He tugged at his tie and I chased my fingers up his chest, meeting his as he attacked the top buttons.

I couldn’t get close enough to him. His warm skin tasted clean. A hint of expensive soap, cologne and the delicious flavour of him burned against my tongue. The melting passions of our mythoi swept around me, hot, wanted, and I fought my way out of my jacket, found his hands on my stomach and ribs as he tugged the silk of my top over my head.

It tangled in my hair, and I laughed, meeting his grin before I found his mouth again. Damn, he tasted nice. Especially with my breasts pressed against his hard, bared chest and my fingers caught in his hair.