Onyx Gryphon: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (Gryphons vs Dragons Book 4) Page 4

  And then, when I was close to giving up, I was chosen.

  *

  I showed up to the hotel as nervous as I’d ever been in my life. I’d paid a shitload of money in exchange for an illegal service. Cops would surely jump out from behind the lobby plants and arrest me for solicitation.

  But no cops appeared with guns drawn. There was only me, and the manager smiling politely, and the bartender cleaning pint glasses with a cloth.

  I walked to the bar on stiff legs and ordered a drink for courage.

  I doubted this would work. Whatever weird gryphon-totem-mate system Ethan insisted I was now part of, hiring an escort seemed like cheating. There were no shortcuts to superpowers, at least not in any movie I’d ever seen.

  But the totem in my pocket felt curious, almost excited to see what the weekend brought.

  I looked at my watch. I was still really early. I was about to order my second drink when she appeared.

  She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life. I know people say that sometimes, but I honestly meant it. An oval face with sharp cheekbones and eyes that tilted a tiny fraction. Silky hair the color of the night sky flowing down her head and back. She was mixed race, like me, though I couldn’t tell specifically what aside from it was a wonderful combination. Her dress clung to her body like a glove, tight down her breasts and over hips wide and luscious.

  I realized I was holding my breath as she approached. The totem seemed just as pleased, like Ethan said it would.

  We hit it off, more than just two people completing a financial transaction. I could feel our mutual attraction through the totem, and gradually that boosted my confidence.

  Yet I couldn’t be with her, not yet.

  I wanted to tell her about the totem. To warn her of what sleeping with me would mean. That was my plan: to do so over dinner, because even if she laughed in my face and thought I was crazy I would have at least tried to tell her.

  But then she was taking me by the hand and leading me away. Up the elevator, silencing my words with her full lips and pressing her body against mine, and she led me into the hotel room and unzipped my pants and was touching me with her hands, and I had to have her, couldn’t even think about anything until I had, and she rubbed her ass against my dick and rode me backwards while looking back through eyelashes as long as needles…

  I tried. I really did.

  And in the end? It worked. Ethan was right. Like all my teenage years of sexual frustration let out in five passionate minutes, the release was incredible. As soon as it was over I could feel the gryphon’s joy inside of me, like the collar had been removed and now it was time to let it out of the cage. I stopped sweating. My breathing calmed, and the fog left my brain.

  I put a hand on my chest and muttered to myself, “Oh, yeah. I can feel it.”

  She looked back at me from the bathroom doorway, dress still hiked up to reveal her plump ass and wonderfully thick thighs. “I felt it too, baby. We’re going to feel a lot more of that before the night is done.”

  “No, not that,” I said, struggling for the words. “It’s… well. It’s what I wanted to tell you about.”

  5

  CASSANDRA

  I was a good judge of a person. Right off the bat, like a golden retriever, I could sniff out the good ones from the bad ones. Maybe I was just hypersensitive to small details, but it came second nature to me.

  Miguel—no, Orlando, he was now telling me—was a kind person. There was laughter in his soul, and I didn’t think he could hurt someone if he wanted to.

  But there was something he was hiding, now, and the way he smiled made me nervous.

  “What do you have to show me?” I asked, ignoring the part where he said it would freak me out. Had he lied on his background check? Or faked his medical records? All the safeguards we had in place suddenly felt woefully inadequate. I glanced at my clutch: it was on the table in the lounge area by the front door. If I needed to I could sprint to it, but he could cut me off…

  “It’s…” He rolled his head back and forth. “Well, I can’t explain it. It’d be easier to show you.”

  I cleaned up in the bathroom, and when I got out Orlando was all dressed. He looked dashing in his suit, with the button-down shirt contrasting wonderfully with his dark skin.

  “Is what you wanted to show me at dinner?” I asked. I made jokes when I was nervous. “Because I don’t know about you, but I’ve worked up an appetite.”

  “Nope. Come on.”

  This time he took me by the hand and led me to the elevator. But instead of pressing the button for the lobby, he hit the one marked “RA.”

  Roof Access.

  I held my heavy clutch tighter. The excitement I felt for the weekend suddenly gave way to nervousness. That’s the part of being an escort I liked: there was always a taste of danger in the entire thing. Strangers meeting for the first time, to have a good time. It made the entire thing more exciting, more intense. A ghost pepper hiding in a bowl of chili.

  But it was usually only a taste of danger. The vague hint of danger. But now I was in the elevator, trusting Orlando while he led me to the roof. I was putting my trust in him. He could do anything. Hell, he could throw me off the building and I wouldn’t be able to stop him.

  I knew he wouldn’t, not with that pearly smile and the kind soul just behind his eyes, but the danger was still there.

  “What’s on the roof?” I tried to sound aloof, but probably failed.

  “I looked it up online. There are forums for people who like to explore roofs in cities, and this hotel is one that never locks the roof door. The only thing you have to do is hold down the button when you reach it.” I was about to point out that he was avoiding the question, but then the elevator stopped and he did just that, pressing his thumb to the “RA” button for three long seconds.

  The door opened, revealing the city.

  Chicago was a gorgeous city at night, but the fog coming off the lake gave it a ghostly feel tonight. I could see the glow of the neighboring skyscrapers’ lights, but nothing farther than that.

  And it was cold and windy up here. I wrapped my coat around myself tighter.

  Orlando turned and reached inside his pocket. He held it there for a second, then gradually pulled out a small object. It was a grey stone carving, with intricate details I could make out in the dim light, and it was adorned with a dark gem larger than my thumbnail.

  Ahh, shit.

  Getting extravagant gifts from men wasn’t unusual. In fact, it happened with annoying regularity. Necklaces, rings, earrings. It was like I was a prized cow and my dates wanted to mark me with jewelry.

  But it usually happened after our time together, not at the beginning.

  “Wow,” I said with faked enthusiasm.

  “It’s onyx,” Orlando said. “The gem. You can see the imperfections in the dark reflection.”

  “Oh,” I said, trying to regain my composure. “That’s beautiful. Is that… a tiger?”

  “It’s a gryphon,” Orlando said in an excited voice. “Half eagle, half lion.”

  He held it out in his hand.

  There was something about it. I guess it was because I was used to getting jewelry as gifts, not jewel-encrusted figurines. That made it different. Exotic.

  Orlando was staring at me intently while he held it out. Gauging my reaction. I wondered if it was a personal item to him, like a family heirloom.

  I didn’t want to take it from him. We’d already made a transaction: money for time. For me to take this now would be some new transaction that he intended, one which I wasn’t sure about. And I didn’t want to accept it so early in our date.

  But before I could stop myself, my fingers were wrapping around the cool stone and pulling it back to hold against my chest.

  “That’s not what I wanted to show you,” Orlando said slowly.

  I stiffened. “How’s that?”

  He gave me an apologetic smile. “I’m going to have to be nude f
or this next part.”

  “Dude,” I laughed, “if it were warmer I’d consider having sex on a roof. But not tonight.”

  “It’s not that. I promise it will all make sense in a minute.”

  And then he began stripping.

  It was such a ridiculous thing, me shivering on the roof while he removed his clothes, that I couldn’t help but giggle. Whatever he was going to do, it was going to be innocent.

  “Mind holding these for me?”

  He tossed me his jacket and then shirt, revealing a broad chest rippled with dark muscle. Then he kicked off his shoes, and stripped his pants, until he was in his boxer briefs.

  “Alright, that’s good enough.” He pointed to his underwear. “I can lose these in the process.”

  “What process?” I asked, still not having a clue what was about to happen.

  He took three steps back, widened his stance, then nodded at me. “Press it.”

  “Huh?”

  “The onyx gem on the gryphon. Press it. With your finger.”

  If this was some magic trick, he was barking up the wrong tree. Magicians didn’t impress me. But I shifted his clothes to one arm and held out the figurine, twisting it until the dark gem came into view. I cupped the object in my fingers and ran my thumb along the tiny bumps which must have been eagle feathers, until my thumb reached the smooth stone…

  “Do it,” Orlando whispered.

  It happened… strangely. Like, I didn’t really push anything; the black gem just sank beneath my finger at the tiniest fraction of pressure. Like it’d been waiting to do it. Eager to do it.

  The air between us shimmered and warped. Orlando’s face held a moment of surprise, and then twisted in immeasurable pain. He held his arms out to the side and clenched his hands into fists as he screamed, somehow remaining upright, fighting against invisible chains that wanted to pull him to the ground.

  And then I started hallucinating.

  His arms exploded like they were made of millions of kernels of popcorn, POOF POOF POOF, expanding and stretching with cartoonish speed. I heard a hollow snapping sound like bones breaking, one rib at a time, as his chest expanded and widened. His face smeared like sculptor’s clay, all recognizable features disappearing and changing and then being replaced. Hair grew everywhere on his body, long strands that stiffened like porcupine needles, and then the hairs grew outward and became feathers as dark as charcoal.

  And two wings burst from his back, stretching wide like a black angel.

  The animal before me was altogether identical to the object in my hand: half eagle and half lion, perched on his back paws like a good dog doing a trick. His bird eyes regarded me with curiosity, then satisfaction.

  He launched into the air with a powerful leap, and then his wings were taking over, great beats that created new wind to blow my hair around. He rose into the air like a giant raven before flying around in a circle above, partially shrouded in the thick Chicago mist.

  And then the blackness from his feathered body spread, and blocked out all other light, and then I fainted to the ground.

  6

  ORLANDO

  Hell yeah!

  I soared through the air like a mythical creature, because that’s what I was.

  The release of Cassie pressing the gem was enormously sexual. An orgasm that wracked my entire body and left me weak as the animal in my chest took over. After the pain, of course. The pain was excruciating, more than I’d ever experienced in my life, but already it was a fading memory.

  I was the Onyx Gryphon. Ethan was right.

  Deep down, I’d doubted Ethan and Sam a little bit. Could you blame me? I trusted them more than anyone else in the world, but this was still one hell of a story to believe. The past week, doing everything in my power to find a mate, had been excruciatingly frustrating.

  But now I was myself. As if the old me had been wrong for all my life.

  Remembering what Ethan had told me, I steeled myself for what would come next.

  I kept my height less than a hundred feet above the roof as I waited for the voice. My Onyx Dragon counterpart, who would now be alerted to my transformation and hone in on where I was with a booming voice so powerful it had literally knocked Ethan from the sky.

  I circled above the Chicago sky, tense and waiting, but the voice never came.

  It was a relief; a high school exam postponed for another day. I would have time to prepare for everything else. To spend time with Cassie, to get to know her more.

  Cassie. I could sense her on the roof below, her emotions thick in my own brain. I felt them dim, and when I looked down with my powerful eagle eyes I saw her crumpled on the ground.

  She’d fainted! Ethan had warned me of that, too.

  I wanted to remain in the sky and fly all night, to stretch these muscles that had been dormant for a century, but Cassie was more important. I needed to help her deal with this transformation.

  She was my mate now, and I had a job to do. No matter what happened, I would keep her safe.

  The hard part was over. It was all going to get easier from this point onward.

  7

  CASSANDRA

  I woke on the wet ground with a nude man standing over me.

  “You okay?” Orlando said, crouching to rest a tender hand on my cheek. It was warm and comforting.

  For a second.

  Everything came back to me. Going to the roof, not knowing what was happening. And then the horror I’d seen.

  “I’ve waited an entire week to do that,” he said, relief in his eyes. “Oh man, you have no idea how good this feels…”

  Panic shook me like a paint mixer, forcing me to scramble to my feet and grab my clutch. I unzipped it and reached inside, and my hand came away with my Ruger LC9 pistol.

  I pointed it at him with a shaky hand. “Stay the fuck away!”

  He froze, and slowly raised his hands. I don’t know what had happened to his boxer briefs, but he was completely nude now.

  “Hey…”

  “What did you do to me?” I demanded. I hadn’t taken any drinks from him; I’d been careful. I was always careful. “How did you drug me?”

  His eyes widened with surprise, islands of white against the darkness of his skin. “I didn’t… Okay. Let’s just relax.”

  “Relax? Like I’m the irrational one here?” I stabbed the air with the gun. “What did you give me to make me hallucinate?”

  Orlando closed his eyes for a second. He looked exhausted. Or maybe he was just calmer, now. “Cassie, I have some things to tell you. About the form I just shifted into. If you would put the gun away…”

  His tone set me off. “Oh hell no. Don’t talk down to me. I’m not crazy, and I’m not putting this away.”

  Orlando’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “Well. Can I get dressed first? As you can see,” —he gestured— “it’s cold out here.”

  Not taking my eyes from him, I crouched and felt around on the ground until my fingers touched clothing. I felt his pockets for a weapon, but came away with only his wallet and cell phone. I kept the latter, shoved the wallet back inside, and then kicked the clothes toward him with a heeled foot.

  “Thanks,” he said as he slowly got dressed.

  “Start talking.”

  “It’d be better if we went somewhere more—”

  “I said talk!”

  “Okay, okay.” He buttoned his pants and then picked up his dress shirt. “I tried to tell you. Before, I mean. First in the lobby, and then in our room. But then you were putting your hands on me, and your lips silenced my words.”

  My heart beat so fast I thought it might pop out of my chest and run away. I tried to steady my breathing. “So it’s my fault you drugged me?”

  “No! I didn’t…”

  This was a waste of time. I needed to get somewhere safe.

  I shoved his phone in my clutch, then backed away while keeping the gun trained on him.

  “Hey wait!” He shot out a hand. “Pl
ease, just let me explain…”

  God, I wanted to believe him. His eyes were disarming, and the part of me that judged men still thought he was harmless. But my flight instinct couldn’t be argued with. When I reached the door to the elevator room I jerked it open, continued backtracking, and then smacked the cold metal elevator door behind me until I felt the button click.

  And that reminded me of the gift he’d given me. It pulled my eyes away from Orlando; it was on the ground to the right, next to an air conditioner vent. I couldn’t leave it; I had to go grab it, to take it with me before—

  Stop it, Cassie. Focus. You’re not thinking clearly, probably because of whatever drug was coursing through your veins.

  I heard the elevator door open.

  “Cassie, you’re making a mistake,” Orlando insisted.

  “The only mistake was this date,” I said, closing the door to the elevator room and engaging the deadbolt.

  I fell back into the elevator car like an escaped inmate. The doors closed, it jerked, and then all I heard was the sound of unseen gears as it descended into the building.

  The lights were intensely bright in here. I tried to steady my breathing again. I’d never had a panic attack, but this felt like that. Was it the drug he’d given me, or adrenaline? Maybe both.

  God, I was shaking. The back of my dress was still wet from where I’d fallen on the roof. I felt like a mess.

  The elevator slowed to a stop at the lobby. I barely remembered that I had a gun in my hand in time to shove it back in my clutch before the doors opened.

  I took a deep breath, ran my hand through my hair, and then strode through the lobby like nothing was wrong.

  “Ms. Kim?” The manager’s face was a mask of concern. “Is everything alright?” He looked back toward the elevators as if they held the answer.

  “Thank you, James, but I’m fine.”

  “Do I need to call the police? Or your… agent?”