I snort. “I’ll stay invisible until Beta Sinta learns to control his urges.”
They laugh. Except Griffin. He’s not laughing at all.
I shiver even though I’m the exact opposite of cold.
Carver ambles over and sits on my rock. On me.
“Get off!” I grumble, kicking him.
He gets up. “So this is your rock?”
“They’re all my rocks! Go away.”
Carver clasps his hands over his heart. “And leave our loyal soldier? The one who slays Dragons?”
I roll my eyes. Too bad no one can see. “Cerberus killed the Dragon.”
“You had Cerberus.”
“Not anymore,” I say sullenly.
Carver frowns. “How did you have Cerberus?”
“Hades.” Which explains everything, and nothing at all.
“Cat’s better than loyal.”
My heart jolts at the sound of Griffin’s voice. Things tug in my chest, and tiny, winged creatures swarm my belly, dive-bombing left and right. I hate him. Hate, hate, hate him!
“What’s better than loyal?” Flynn asks.
“Loyal and self-sacrificing,” Griffin announces.
I feel myself blanch. Me? Self-sacrificing? Gag!
CHAPTER 15
I can’t bear to face Griffin after that kiss. My maturity level is apparently that of a five-year-old because I stay invisible for two whole days, until Panotii starts to protest. I’m there, but I’m not, and it starts making even my calm, reliable mount nervous. Steadiness only goes so far, and you can only ask so much of a horse.
His blue eyes twinkling, Kato heaves a sigh of relief when I finally reappear. “That was the strangest two days of my life. It was like talking to a realm-walking spirit.”
“With an attitude,” Flynn remarks.
“You could have just pretended I wasn’t there. That’s the point of invisibility.” Instead, they’d hammered me with questions. Royals, realms, Magoi, magical creatures, the Ice Plains, the Lake Oracles. My voice is hoarse from talking when all I’d wanted was to be left alone. I need to think about Andromeda, what might come next, what I’ve gotten myself into with the Sintans, and not at all about Griffin’s kiss.
Not. At. All.
No.
At least all this talking has filled me in on a thing or two concerning the new Sintan royals. It turns out Carver isn’t Gamma Sinta like I’d assumed. He’s Delta Sinta. There’s a brother, Piers, between Griffin and Carver who’s in charge of the army when Griffin isn’t there. After Carver, there are two younger sisters, Jocasta and Kaia. Their parents, Anatole and Nerissa, are still alive. Anatole led their tribe for forty years, making it one of the most powerful in the realms, before passing the reins to Griffin.
The idea of buttercup Egeria being Alpha while her father is still alive and she has strong, warrior brothers shocks me to the core. It doesn’t work that way. How could a warlord from the south sweep in and shake up everything so thoroughly, including me?
Panotii tosses his head, protesting my death grip on the reins.
“Sorry,” I mutter, patting his neck and trying to relax.
“I’m happy to see you,” Griffin says, his unhurried gaze roaming over me and snagging on places that make my temperature rise. “I didn’t fancy introducing my family to a person they couldn’t see.”
We’re two days from Sinta City and a future that promises to be sheer torture. “I have conditions.”
Griffin smiles with just enough resigned humor to make me want to kick him in the teeth. “Why am I not surprised?” he asks.
I open my mouth and sparks fly out.
“Steal that from the Dragon?” He doesn’t even look impressed. He’s relaxed, in a good mood. They all are. Carver is even whistling. They forced me out of hiding after eight years. We fought off thirty men and survived. We killed a She-Dragon driven by Alpha Fisa, by far the most powerful mortal in Thalyria. We could be attacked at any time by only the Gods know what. What is wrong with these people?
“Your fire won’t work on me,” Griffin says. “You’d end up frying Brown Horse, and then I’d have to ride the chestnut.”
“Panotii. At least my horse has a real name.”
“Panotii? Because of his ears?” He studies Panotii’s head for a few seconds and then chuckles. “Maybe he’s part donkey.”
“Shhh! Don’t say that. You might hurt his feelings.”
“He’s a horse.”
“He’s my horse. Any attack on him is an attack on me,” I say frostily.