Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

~~Prologue~~
~Anachronism~

~Sengoku Jidai~

-=0=-

“Hentai!”

“I’m sorry, Sango!”

Kioshi turned slowly to watch as the taijya glared daggers at the monk in question. Traveling through the forest, he could only shake his head. It was simply a matter of time, wasn’t it, until something like that happened. After all, Miroku had been a little too well-behaved for the duration of the journey.

Akira stopped, too, setting Kumiko on the ground. The little girl ran over to her brother and clapped her hands as she bounced on the balls of her feet. “Nii-chan! Are we there, nii-chan?”

Kioshi smiled at his young sister and ruffled her dark brown hair. “No . . . Miroku got himself into trouble again.”

The nearly four year-old girl heaved a sigh and shook her head in mock dismay. “He’ll never learn,” she remarked sagely. Kioshi tried not to smile.

“Some things never change,” Shippou, the kitsune who traveled with Miroku and Sango, commented with a disgusted shake of his head as he stomped over to Kioshi and Kumiko. Though on the short side by youkai standards, Shippou still stood almost as tall as Kioshi, who, at nearly seventeen years old, wasn’t even close to fully grown. “You’d think he’d learn his lesson, but no . . .”

Kioshi shrugged off-handedly, unable to control the grimace that twisted his countenance when the taijya’s hand cracked soundly against the monk’s cheek.

“That’s going to leave a mark,” Shippou sighed in disgust.

“It was the curse of the hand,” Miroku maintained, following after an irritated Sango as the exterminator stormed past the waiting youkai.

“Save it, monk!” Sango growled pinning her husband with a significant glower before reshouldering Hiraikotsu.

Miroku sighed, catching Shippou’s disapproving shake of the head. “She won’t stay angry,” he asserted then offered them an apologetic bow. “Pardon my interruption.”

Akira narrowed his gaze on the itinerant monk. “You are a strange one,” he allowed slowly.

“You have no idea,” Sango muttered under her breath.

“Shall we move on?” Miroku cut in pointedly, rubbing his cheek to alleviate the sting left behind by Sango’s love-tap.

Shippou wrinkled his nose and rolled his eyes. “Once a lecher, always a lecher,” he muttered.

Kioshi scooped Kumiko off the ground and settled her on his shoulders as the colorful entourage moved on through the forest.

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

The village was quaint, quiet, and not at all what Kioshi had expected. As picturesque as it seemed, though, he couldn’t help but wonder just how safe they really were—just how safe anywhere was these days. Akira had agreed to aid the newly rebuilt village of youkai-exterminators. Though he’d never said as much to Kioshi, he knew that it was because of Kumiko and him. Rumors of uprisings against otherwise peaceful youkai had been swirling on the winds, and even the Inu no Taisho had become less visible overall. Guns presented a very real threat, and as the weapons spread, so did the tales of uprisings against youkai.

Still the peace that they’d found seemed false to Kioshi. Shippou had taken to staying close to the slayers’ village, and Kioshi had been cautioned to do the same. Uncomfortable enough that he opted to live on the outskirts in the forest near the village but refusing to move his family into one of the dwellings inside the stout wooden barricade, Akira had built a modest dwelling in a network of caves at the base of a small mountain with Kioshi’s help, and while Akira accompanied the slayers nearly every day, he expected Kioshi to remain nearby in case his mother or sister needed him.

“It’s your birthday!” Kumiko sang as she sped out of the dwelling and into the yard where Kioshi was scanning the horizon for signs of trouble. “Birthday, birthday, birthday!”

Sparing a moment to glance at his sister, Kioshi shook his head and rolled his eyes but couldn’t repress the little smile that quirked the corners of his lips. “A nuisance, as ever, Kumi,” he grumbled, his eyes taking on a heightened glow of amusement as she scampered off toward the sakura trees.

Using her claws, the girl scampered up the tree, grunting and fighting to reach the first thick branch. Swinging her legs over the limb, she scooted along, holding on with one arm as she reached for the nearest blossoms. “Catch me, nii-chan!” Kumiko hollered.

Kioshi lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the bright morning sun filtering through the leaves and blooms. “Don’t you dare—oof!” Grunting as he caught the impetuous child, Kioshi pinned her with an irritated scowl as he set her on her feet. She giggled happily, skipping around Kioshi’s legs as she clapped her hands and gathered the flowers she’d dropped in her fall. “You could have hurt yourself,” Kioshi pointed out.

“Birthday flowers . . . birthday flowers . . .” Kumiko sang, completely ignoring her brother’s obvious annoyance. “Sit down, nii-chan! I’ll give you the flowers!”

Heaving a sigh—she never did listen to him—Kioshi knelt down and waited for the humiliation of his sister’s annual birthday gift to him.

Her face contorted in intense concentration as she wandered around him, examining him from every conceivable angle. Pausing every now and then to lace flowers into his short, shaggy hair, she didn’t stop until she had placed every last blossom, giggling happily as she hopped back and thoroughly examined the results of her efforts. “Seventeen flowers for seventeen birthdays!” she exclaimed, bouncing up and down on the balls of her bare feet. “I got a new kimono,” she said suddenly, holding out the skirt of her yellow silk outfit. “It’s pretty!”

Kioshi chuckled—he never could stay angry at the four year-old—plucking a flower out of his hair and tucking it behind his sister’s ear as her giggling escalated. “It’s my birthday . . . why are you getting a new kimono?” he asked.

She shrugged, her black eyebrows rising to hide under the fringe of her dark brown bangs. “You got special clothes,” she reminded him. “Hahaue says I’m not old enough yet.”

“Kumiko-chan!” their mother’s voice drifted out of the humble hut.

“Better run,” he told his sister as she careened around to dash away.

Watching her go with a tolerant little smile gracing his lips, Kioshi let out a deep breath and plucked more flowers out of his hair, staring at the delicate pinkish blossoms before dropping them onto the ground. His father had made a huge deal six years ago when he’d presented Kioshi with his youkai raiment. Created from the thin pelt of numerous pitch-bats, the clothing had special properties that protected him against the effects of base elemental attacks and blunted more advanced techniques. The black clothing was the only thing Kioshi ever wore . . .

A sudden shift in the air brought Kioshi to his feet. The scent of his father permeated the clearing as Akira strode out of the trees. “Almost a man,” Akira mused when he spotted Kioshi, altering his path and heading straight toward his son. He didn’t smile, but his deep brown eyes shone with a brightness that bespoke his pride. “Nice flowers,” he remarked, reaching over to pull an errant bloom from his son’s hair.

Kioshi grimaced, cheeks pinking as his father’s smile finally surfaced. “Kumiko,” he explained with a shrug.

Akira nodded as the girl in question sped out of the dwelling only to launch herself onto her father’s broad back. “Chichiue! You’re home! You’re home!”

“Yes, I’m home,” he agreed, peeling the child off his back and setting her back on her feet before ruffling her hair. “You shouldn’t be sticking flowers in your brother’s hair,” he chided. “He isn’t a girl.”

Kumiko scrunched up her shoulders and shot her father a winning smile. “It was a birthday present,” she insisted. “Birthday flowers for nii-chan!”

“Any news, chichiue?” Kioshi asked, watching as Kumiko ran off to gather more flowers though hopefully not for his hair.

Akira sighed and rubbed his temple, slowly shaking his head as he scanned the horizon in much the way Kioshi had been doing before Kumiko’s unceremonious interruption. “Tensions are rising,” he admitted. “Humans distrust what they do not understand.”

Kioshi shook his head, unable to understand exactly why they would be mistrusted when they’d helped the villagers time and again. “But we—you—have helped them . . . that’s why we’re here.”

Akira nodded slowly, pondering Kioshi’s words. “True, but there have been whispers . . . It would be unnatural not to worry.”

Digesting that in silence, Kioshi scowled as the wind blew strands of his long brown bangs into his eyes. “Do I . . . need to worry?” he asked at length.

Akira stared at his son for several moments before affecting a wan smile and slowly shaking his head. The fleeting thought flashed through his mind, and he knew somewhere deep down that Akira didn’t really believe what he was about to say. The tension that Kioshi could sense in the very air . . . it was real, after all . . . Still, his father put a hand on Kioshi’s shoulder and squeezed in an effort to reassure his son that everything was going to be fine. “No, Kioshi . . .” Akira said. “No.”

Chapter Text

~September 27, 2064~
~Bangor, Maine~

~X~

Isabelle Izayoi drummed her claws on the antique cherry desk, scowling at the computer monitor as she struggled to make sense of the information on the screen.

‘It’s hopeless,’ she admitted with a dejected sigh. ‘I can’t do it . . . damn!’

‘This is exactly what you get for telling your father that you could handle this when you weren’t entirely certain that you actually could,’ her entirely too-pragmatic youkai voice remarked.

With a grimace, Isabelle rubbed her eyes and adjusted her reading glasses, scowling at the scanned pages of the journal once more as she gnawed on her bottom lip and refreshed her grip on the ink pen in her hand.

“It’s all written in this strange language. No one’s been able to figure out what it is,” Kichiro Izayoi had said as he leaned over Isabelle’s shoulder, deep lines of concentration marring his brow. Sitting in a chair beside the huge windows that overlooked the Montana landscape of Gavin Jamison’s ranch where the family had congregated to celebrate Jillian Zelig’s wedding, she stood with the opened journal in her hands. Isabelle’s eyes widened in surprise when she recognized the first few lines scrawled in the book. “Cain said it looks like some sort of Indian dialect—”

“Like in Windtalkers?” Isabelle mused absently as she scanned the first page.

Kichiro shook his head. “That old movie?”

She nodded. “I . . . I can read this line . . . It’s Abenaki . . .”

“Abenaki?”

“Yes . . . they were part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. Native Americans,” she clarified.

Kichiro’s frown deepened as he stared at his daughter. “How do you know this?”

“I learned about it in Ancient Linguistics class in college. It’s been awhile, but . . .” She shrugged. “It says here that this is Dr. Carl Carradine’s journal as pertains to his and his brother’s medical research.”

He nodded as though it all made perfect sense. “So this is whatever they were working on . . . at least, what they were working on when Kennedy died . . .”

“That’s what it looks like,” she agreed.

Kichiro scratched his chin as he leaned back against the desk and regarded his oldest daughter carefully. “Do you think you can translate this?”

Isabelle peered at her father, tucking a long strand of golden bronze hair behind her left ear and nodded slowly without taking her eyes off the first page of what appeared to be a journal. “I . . . Yes,” she said. “But . . .”

“But?”

Carefully closing the book, Isabelle rubbed her hands together. “I can do this,” she stated again, “but if I translate it, I want to be the one to complete the research.”

Kichiro didn’t smile, but his eyes brightened as he took in the steady light in Isabelle’s gaze. “Let me talk to Cain,” he finally said. “And you’re positive you can do it?”

“I’m positive,” she assured her father, a glint of sheer determination igniting in her eyes. “If this was important enough that they put the bio-chip in Jillian’s body to hide it . . .” Trailing off and nodding stubbornly, Isabelle pasted on her most reassuring smile. “I wouldn’t say I could if I couldn’t do it . . . and you taught me everything you know about researching, Papa. I can do this.”

Blinking away the remnants of the memory with a disgusted sigh and a grimace, Isabelle pushed herself to her feet and paced the floor of her living room. Sunlight poured through the huge bay windows that overlooked the coast of Maine and the late September sky, but she rubbed her forearms idly, absently as the dog curled up on the floor beside the desk lifted his head to eye Isabelle curiously.

‘Maybe you should call your father and tell him that you can’t do it, after all,’ her youkai blood prompted.

She sighed again, stopping beside the windows and sinking onto the cushioned window seat, curling her legs up to her chest, draping her arms around her ankles as her chin fell onto her raised knees.

It would have been fine had the journal been written in standard Abenaki. It wasn’t. Parts of it were written in a dialect that she couldn’t decipher, and others? Well . . .

If there were someone else in the family who could translate the information, she’d march right over to her grandfather’s house and hand the work over. The trouble was that no one else could, either. Most of her family resided in Japan, and the rest of them lived here in Maine. She, herself, had moved to the United States to finish her medical training—at least, that was what she’d told her family. The other reason? Simple . . . She’d wanted to escape the overwhelming shadow cast by her father. In the youkai world, he was considered the authority on youkai medical research.

She wrinkled her nose, grimacing at the perceived callousness of her thoughts. She loved her family; of course she did. Her father, Kichiro was one of her biggest supporters, and her mother? Isabelle smiled despite her bleak thoughts. Bellaniece Zelig Izayoi was difficult to define. Having just finished her own schooling to become an OB/GYN in Tokyo, she was Kichiro’s main research assistant, and the two of them made one hell of a team.

Maybe the added stress of being the oldest of Kichiro and Bellaniece’s three daughters had led to this: her ultimate failure. Having lived her entire life always being asked if she was going to follow in her parents’ daunting footsteps, always being the one that her younger sisters looked up to, Isabelle had jumped at the opportunity to do something that might offer her a little notoriety of her own, and maybe that was the real reason she’d so recklessly volunteered.

Pressing her lips together in a thin line, she rubbed her forehead in a weary sort of way.

The research . . . the research . . . Her cousin—or aunt, depending on who one asked—had been kidnapped to get the information on a bio-chip housed in her body from before she was born. Jillian was a model, and her new mate, Gavin was her childhood hero. She also didn’t understand why her biological parents would put the chip in her to start with, especially knowing that it contained information that might potentially put her in harm’s way. Isabelle had been horrified when she’d heard the story. Jillian was one of the sweetest people that Isabelle knew, and for her to have been saddled with such a burden . . . well, it didn’t sit well with Isabelle, not at all . . .

And that was another reason why Isabelle had wanted to complete this research. If it was important enough to hide for so long, then maybe completing it could ease Jillian’s upset over the entire situation. She could do that much for Jillian; of course she could.

Scowl deepening as her gaze came to rest on the computer monitor across the room. Her cousin as well as being Jillian’s brother, Bas—Bastian to Isabelle—had scanned all the documents in order and sent them to her since it had been considered best to keep the original books and notes in the vault at the Youkai Special Crimes headquarters. The man who had kidnapped Jillian had been caught, but still her grandfather hadn’t wanted Isabelle to have the actual documentation since no one actually knew exactly what was contained therein.

‘No sense putting it off,’ she thought with an inward sigh as she uncurled her legs and pushed herself to her feet. She might as well call and tell her grandfather, the North American tai-youkai, Cain Zelig that she couldn’t translate the information, after all.

There was no shame in admitting failure, she knew. No, the real disappointment was in having to admit that this was just too big for her, and Isabelle had never liked being forced to admit that she wasn’t up to snuff. Grabbing her cell phone off the coffee table, she weighed it lightly in her hands for a few moments, swallowing back the bitter disappointment in her perceived shortcomings.

‘Wait, Isabelle . . .’

Pausing for a moment as she scrolled through the numbers stored in the cell phone’s memory, Isabelle sighed. ‘What?’

‘Okay, so let’s think about this. You can’t read all of the journal, right?’

‘Right, and thanks for the reminder . . .’

‘Focus, please? No one else in your family can even do that, so you’re still one step ahead of the game, right?’

‘Right . . .’

‘But you’re forgetting one very important thing.’

‘Which is . . .?’

‘. . . Bet Dr. Marin can translate it . . . or at least point you in the direction of someone who could.’

Isabelle’s chin snapped up as her eyes widened in late realization. ‘Dr. Marin . . .’

She shook her head, making a face full of self-disgust. Dr. Marin, her ancient linguistics professor . . . she’d taken three years of his courses just to be in his class—the reason why she was able to translate even part of the journal to start with. Dr. Marin, the Kodiak bear-youkai that had fascinated her from the first moment she’d clapped eyes on him . . .

Dr. Griffin Marin . . .

If anyone could help her, he could; she just knew it. A soft little giggle escaped her as she darted over to her desk, sparing a moment to scratch her dog’s head behind his ears. Snapping her laptop closed, she unplugged the unit and tucked it under her arm, pausing long enough to grab her purse off the stand beside the door before hurrying out of the house.

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

“Your mother . . . Liza . . . she was something else,” Dr. Avis said as he set a cup of tea before Jillian on the coffee table in the modest little apartment on the outskirts of Perth, Australia. Sparing a glance at Jillian’s mate, Gavin, who was leaning against the wall with a dark scowl on his face and his meaty arms crossed over his chest as he tried his hardest to look completely intimidating, Dr. Avis sat down and leaned forward a bit nervously.

Jillian didn’t touch her tea, her eyebrows drawing together over the bridge of her nose as her pale blue gaze rose to meet the doctor’s. “Sounds like you knew her really well.”

Dr. Avis shrugged his thin shoulders, cheeks pinking as he smiled sadly. “I suppose . . . she was my best friend growing up. We did everything together—well, we did until she met your father.”

‘Like Gavin and me?’ she mused then shook her head. ‘Not exactly . . . Gavin is my best friend, but he’s also my mate . . .’ She sighed. “You cared about her, didn’t you?” she asked softly.

Cheeks deepening in color, he managed a wan smile and shrugged once more. “It was hard not to care about Liza.”

“What kind of youkai was she?”

He seemed surprised by her question. Sparing a moment to glance around the humble contents of the small house that had been given to him by the Australian tai-youkai, he nervously twisted the shiny black band that encircled his wrist. It looked like a watch, but Jillian knew better. It was a tracking device used to monitor youkai who had been exiled. Ofuda encased in the unit circumvented removal, and in the event that the youkai in question did manage to cut the band, a hunt was automatically issued, no questions asked.

“Liza . . . she was a ribbon-seal-youkai,” he said. “I didn’t realize . . . of course you didn’t know . . .”

Jillian digested that in silence, casting Gavin a quick look. He intercepted the glance and nodded his silent approval. He always seemed to know what she needed, didn’t he? It was one of the many things that she loved about him. His gentle encouragement gave her strength when hers failed, and she bit her lip, twisting her hands together in her lap as she scrunched up her shoulders and forced out the one question she’d traveled from New York City to Perth to ask. “Did they . . . I mean, I just wondered . . . do you know . . . did they . . . want . . . me?”

Dr. Avis blinked in surprise, obviously taken aback at her question. “Want you? Your parents?” He barked out an incredulous chuckle. “Of course they wanted you . . . I never saw Liza so excited, and Kennedy . . .” trailing off as he scratched the back of his neck, he nodded. “Kennedy was really involved in his research, but . . . I remember . . . he would drop everything if Liza needed him. He was constantly checking her—checking you . . .” He smiled reassuringly though the smile seemed a little strained. “They laughed a lot after Liza got pregnant with you . . .”

Jillian fell silent, unable to reconcile what she knew with what Dr. Avis was telling her. The same parents that wanted her according to Dr. Avis were the same ones who had implanted the bio-chip in her, too. It didn’t make sense, did it? How could her biological parents do that to her when it could potentially put her in danger?

She sighed as Gavin put his hand on her shoulder. “I think maybe this is enough for today,” he said gently, squeezing Jillian’s shoulder as she slowly got to her feet. “Would it be all right if I brought her back tomorrow? If that’s what she wants . . .”

“Absolutely,” Dr. Avis assured them. Though Jillian and he hadn’t exactly gotten off to a great start, the youkai genuinely seemed to like Jillian, and while Gavin still harbored reservations about the entire affair, he knew and understood that Jillian didn’t.

“Thank you,” Jillian said automatically, trying her best to smile but failing.

Dr. Avis stood up, stuffing his hands into his pockets, and he looked like he wanted to say something and was struggling to figure out exactly how to do it. “They did want you, Jillian. I know they did.”

She nodded and leaned against Gavin as he slipped his arm around her waist. Sparing a moment to shake the doctor’s hand, he opened the door and escorted her into the hallway.

She didn’t say anything as they stepped outside onto the small porch that ran the entire width of the house. As much as she hated being here—as much as she despised the negative emotions that threatened to overwhelm her, she knew in her heart that she needed this. Coming to terms with her past was difficult, and yet somehow, someway . . . if she could just find some answers . . .

Gavin held her hand as they descended the stairs. Not for the first time, Jillian grimaced as the sharp pang twisted her stomach. She felt horrible about dragging him halfway around the world, especially after he’d just given up two months of his life to protect her from Mickey B, the stalker who had been threatening her longer than she’d realized. Gavin had always been the one to protect her, hadn’t he, and for that, she’d love him forever.

“If it’s too hard for you, you don’t have to go back,” Gavin said quietly, giving her icy fingers a reassuring squeeze.

Peering up at him, she smiled when she saw the obvious concern lighting the depths of his aqua gaze. “I think I need to do this,” she admitted sadly.

He scowled, and he looked like he wanted to argue with her. In the end, he sighed and nodded, instead. “Okay. I’ll be here with you.”

She leaned on his arm and sighed, smiling just a little as he stopped on the bottom step that led onto the porch to kiss her forehead gently. Taking her hand, he shot her one of his endearingly shy smiles and led the way onto the sidewalk, waving his hand to hail a taxi.

She scooted into the vehicle as Gavin climbed in beside her.

Neither had noticed the lone figure standing below a streetlight on the corner. Hidden by the passing crowds of faceless people passing by, he stared at the nondescript apartment building, his face lost in the shadows cast by the baseball cap that was pulled down on his brow. Hands buried in the deep folds of his tan jacket, he smiled coldly as the taxi pulled away from the curb.

‘Checkmate, Dr. Avis,’ he mused as the smile dissipated. Pausing another minute, he turned on his heel and walked away.

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Hanging the towel over the wooden rod suspended from the bathroom wall, Griffin Marin scowled as he carefully tugged at the corners of the cloth to align them perfectly to air-dry. After brushing out his shaggy brown hair, he meticulously picked the vagrant strands out of the brush and tossed them into the trash can before slipping the brush into the drawer beside the sink. After one last look around for anything out of place, he turned out the light and slipped out of the bathroom.

He’d been awake for hours, sitting patiently on the wide patio behind his house with a cup of tea that he’d set on the rough wood table beside the thick oak rocking chair as he waited for the sun to rise. It didn’t matter how many times he watched the darkened skies grow watery gray and pallid, didn’t matter how often he’d seen the first hints of color creeping over the horizon, the trees. The beauty of that singular instant was never, ever lost on him. He’d made a habit out of watching the sun come up. Even on days when the skies threatened rain, there was a singular simplistic beauty in the burgeoning day. Then he’d gone on a four hour walk through the forest and along the banks of the Penobscot River before coming home to take his shower and feed the squirrels.

He headed for the kitchen, pouring himself another cup of freshly brewed dandelion tea and adding enough honey to blunt the bitter taste, he rinsed the spoon off in the sink before grunting softly as he knelt down and opened the cabinet below. Pulling four ears of dried corn from the paper sack, he made a mental note that he needed to stop by the local grain elevator to pick up more before carefully rolling the edges of the bag back down and closing the cabinet door, pausing only long enough to retrieve the cup of tea sitting on the counter and shuffling toward the doors that led outside.

His feet barely made a sound as he negotiated the sliding glass doors and set the cup of tea on the table beside his rocking chair. It didn’t take long to make the rounds, either, pulling the empty cobs off the squirrel feeders he had stationed around the perimeter of the yard. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the subtle movement. The squirrels were already gathering though they wouldn’t approach the feeders until Griffin was safely on his porch once more. Tossing the cobs into the pile beside the adobe kiln next to the porch as he passed by, he grasped the railing and climbed the four steps, heaving a heavy sigh as he sank down in his rocking chair once more.

The squirrels peeked out of their hiding places to make sure that all was clear. Skittering down the tree trunks and scampering across the yard, they climbed the poles to claim their breakfasts. Griffin almost smiled as he watched the animals attack the dried corn. Picking up the cup of dandelion tea, he sipped it slowly, enjoying the start of another beautiful day.

Saturdays were always a little boring. He rarely had anything to do on those days, having been told long ago that it was a good idea to keep one day of the week to himself, no matter what. It had been sound advice at the time, and between teaching at the university, his work with the nature center, and teaching his Sunday school class for some of the local children whose parents didn’t believe in established religions, Griffin figured that Saturdays were the only days he could afford to do absolutely nothing.

Too bad he hated doing absolutely nothing. It gave him too much time to think.

Draining his cup of tea, Griffin shook his head since the squirrels had managed to strip the ears of corn unnaturally quickly. Sitting on the posts as they cleaned their little faces, they kept glancing at Griffin as if they were asking him for more. “Don’t be hogs,” he mumbled, leaning heavily on the arms of the chair to push himself to his feet.

He needed to look over the plan for tomorrow’s Sunday class, he supposed. He took the children hiking or fishing and sometimes he just led nature walks—the same sorts of things that he did with the preschool kids in the nature center program, but the Sunday classes weren’t confined to preschoolers, and most of the fifteen children that consistently showed up at his house on Sunday mornings around nine o’clock were the some of the same children he’d taught there. It wasn’t religious, and that was the thing that the parents liked. Instead of spouting drivel about gods and devils, Griffin taught a general appreciation for the natural things in the world: the forest and the rivers, the wildlife and the diminishing way of life where simplicity took precedence and all true necessities were provided by the earth and the elements.

Tomorrow’s lesson was slated to be an indoor thing since the skies were carrying a hint of rain, just the barest scent of moisture that he could feel in his very bones. Teaching the children how to gather and create a meal without having to spend a dime was in the plans though he might have to do some quick thinking since the children weren’t likely to be very appreciative of some of the things that Griffin ate regularly. Dandelion greens were excellent though they tended to be a little bitter, and most children were too used to the sweet things, like candy and snack cakes, jarred peanut butter and jelly that came off a store shelf and which most children had little or no conception as to what, exactly, went into them. Natural peanut butter made minutes before it was eaten . . . maple syrup roasted pecans . . . a fresh salad created from greens that grew naturally in most people’s back yards . . . and a homemade paste of apples and dates instead of jelly or jam . . . Even if the children didn’t try to make these things at home, Griffin wanted them to understand the base concept of where food ultimately came from.

The crisp knock on the front door drew him out of his reverie, and with a frown, he lumbered off to answer it. No one ever bothered him on Saturdays, and he wasn’t very happy about the interruption, either. Peering out the long, narrow window beside the door, his frown deepened as he caught sight of the late model disgustingly bright yellow sports car sitting in the driveway. He didn’t recognize it, but he did recognize the youki reverberating on the other side of the door.

He was seriously considering ignoring the unwelcome visitor when the knock sounded again. He sighed. If he could sense her, then she very likely could sense him, and if she sensed him, she’d never go away. She was rather like a parasite that way . . .

With a frustrated grunt, he jerked open the door just enough to glower at the dog-hanyou standing on his front porch. “What do you want?” he growled.

Isabelle Izayoi smiled brightly, her golden eyes wide, friendly as she shifted from foot to foot in a decidedly nervous fashion. “Dr. Marin . . . just the man I was looking for.”

Griffin snorted, knowing in the pit of his stomach that whatever brought the woman to his house was probably something that he was better off not hearing. “It’s not time for Girl Scout cookies,” he stated flatly and started to push the door closed.

Isabelle stuck her foot in the crack to stop him. “Please . . . I just wondered if you could help me with something—or at least tell me someone who could.”

“Help you with what?” he asked against his better judgment.

She smiled in a completely catty sort of way as her eyes traversed the length of his body. “Oh, I don’t know, doctor . . . do you have an itch that needs scratched?”

“If you drove all the way out here just to—”

She wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry, Dr. Marin . . . I just can’t help myself around you. I swear I’m here on the up and up . . . just hear me out?”

“I’m busy,” he informed her, jamming his foot against hers and pushing her out of the opening.

“I have a journal and some research notes . . . I thought it was just written in Abenaki, but it’s not, and I can’t translate it!” she blurted quickly, pressing her hands against the thick wooden door as he tried to push it closed.

Griffin paused for just a moment, scowling at the floor, shaking his head slowly as he rubbed his right eye. ‘Abenaki . . .’ he repeated in his head. ‘Damn . . .’

“It’s really important,” she called through the door. “You’re the only one who can help me . . . or at least give me a name of someone else who can?”

It went completely against his better judgment to open the door and look at Isabelle again. She was nothing but trouble, and he knew it.   Spoiled, pampered rich girl . . . and for some God-forsaken reason, she seemed to think it was vastly amusing to needle him. Muttering a string of expletives under his breath, he cautiously opened the door again and held out his hand. “Give it.”

She looked surprised, and she nodded, holding up a finger as she dashed off the porch and over to her hideously-colored car. Rummaging around only to pull a notebook PC out of the passenger side, she hurried back up the path and onto the porch once more. “What’s that?” he grumbled, nodding at the computer in her hands.

“It’s the research,” she murmured, lifting her leg to balance the computer on her knee as she carefully opened the cover and retrieved the information she wanted him to look at. “Here,” she said, grasping the computer as she dropped her leg and carefully turned the machine so he could see the monitor.

Griffin narrowed his eyes on the small screen for another minute before scowling at the screen. “I need my glasses,” he grumbled. “Wait here.”

“I could come in,” she offered, her tone taking on an innocent falsetto.

He snorted loudly and shook his head. “You’ll stay here,” he reiterated.

She heaved a sigh designed to let him know exactly what she thought of the idea of being left standing on the front porch. Closing the door in her face, he strode across the living room to grab the wire-rimmed spectacles off the rough hewn desk against the far wall.

‘This isn’t really a good idea . . .’

Grunting at his youkai’s annoying habit of stating the obvious, Griffin slipped the glasses on and yanked the door open again. Isabelle was sitting on the steps with the notebook PC on her lap. Stifling a sigh as he asked himself just what he was thinking, Griffin shuffled outside and grimaced as his knees popped when he hunkered down behind her.

“It’s a journal,” she said, pointing to the first line of the scan. “I got that much before I realized that some of it is written in something else.”

Reaching over her shoulder, he plucked the computer off of her lap and stood up, turning away when she scampered to her feet and tried to retrieve the device. “You can’t take my computer!” she complained.

“Tough. You want me to look at this or not?”

“Okay,” she agreed. “That’s fair.”

He snorted as he scanned the page. No wonder she couldn’t make heads or tails of it. From what he could tell from the first few pages alone, whoever had written this had done so using a mix of about five different Native American languages—dead languages, at that, and while Isabelle might have been able to discern the Abenaki language from having taken his classes, the others were far more difficult to discern. It would have been simple enough to find someone who was familiar with one or two of the languages, but all of them? Griffin’s scowl deepened. There was only one person he knew of that had that sort of knowledge . . .

‘We think we have isolated the insular gene in the youkai DNA structure . . .’ he read. He glanced at Isabelle. Standing on the porch looking out over the lonely stretch of dirt road that led to the cul de sac where his house stood, she had her arms wrapped over her stomach and was staring into the distance with a measure of contrived calm, as though she were willfully attempting to keep herself from being too anxious. “Where did you get this?” he asked, his tone brusque, almost scathing.

She blinked and slowly turned to face him, reaching up to rub the back of her neck. “My cousin—Jillian Zelig—she had a bio-chip implanted in her with a location on it. This is what they found when they went in and looked around.”

“This is? This journal?” he asked, sparing her a narrow glance.

She shrugged. “This journal along with a few notebooks—three of them—those thick ones . . .”

“So you’re telling me you have all the research.”

She nodded. “Yes, I think so.”

“This sounds like some fairly significant stuff,” he murmured. “Isn’t your father the big medical genius?”

“Of course he is,” she exclaimed quietly.

“Then why isn’t he trying to get this translated?”

She flinched just before her cheeks blossomed in a light blush that seemed completely unlike the brash young girl he’d come to know. “I, uh . . .” Clasping her hands before her, staring at her entwined fingers as though they were of sovereign interest, she scrunched up her shoulders and slowly shook her head. “I thought . . . I thought I could translate it,” she confessed, her cheeks pinking just a little more. “I mean, I could translate the first bit of it . . .”

Leaning back, narrowing his gaze, he nodded slowly as the rest of what she didn’t say fell into place. “And you’re too proud to tell your family that you were wrong?”

She grimaced, opening her mouth to argue then snapping it closed with a curt nod. “Something like that.”

Griffin nodded slowly. “Ever hear the phrase, ‘pride goeth before the fall’?”

She swallowed hard. “Of course I have.”

“I suggest you go tell them you bit off more than you could chew.”

“Yeah,” she agreed quietly, but suddenly shook her head. “Maybe . . . I mean, if you could just direct me to someone who might be able to help me, I’d be greatly appreciative,” she went on. “I could pay someone to do it if I knew who to ask.”

Griffin shook his head as he scanned through a few more pages. “I don’t know of anyone else who can do it,” he mumbled.

Isabelle’s disappointment was palpable. “Oh . . .”

He sighed, snapping the laptop closed and eyeing her carefully. Brows furrowed over the delicate lines of her countenance, she looked like she was attempting to gather her waning bravado, and she let out a deep breath as her smile resurfaced. “Right . . . well, thank you . . .” she said, reaching for the laptop again.

He turned away, pretending that he hadn’t seen her hands inching forward. “Hold on, grabby,” he muttered with a shake of his head. He didn’t really understand why he was about to offer to help her. Maybe it was the challenge. It had been a long while since anything had intrigued him this much. That had to be it . . . It certainly had nothing at all to do with the bitter look of disappointment that had been impossible to ignore.

“But you said that you didn’t know of anyone who could translate this,” she said slowly.

“I said that I didn’t know of anyone else who could translate it,” he growled.

She caught her breath, staring at him with a measure of cautious optimism. “You mean . . . you . . . could . . .?”

Griffin wasn’t nearly stupid enough to say ‘yes’ right off the bat, though. “First, you’re going to agree to my terms,” he stated.

“Terms? Okay . . . I could pay you, if that’s what you want . . .”

“There will be no coming on to me while I’m translating all of this,” he informed her. “None.”

“. . . None?”

His scowl darkened. “None.”

She smiled impishly, her golden eyes sparkling with mischief. “But you like it when I come on to you, Dr. Griffin.”

He snorted indelicately. “No, I really don’t.”

“So you say,” she countered, fluttering her hand dismissively.

“Do you want my help or not?”

She grimaced then nodded. “Okay, okay . . . completely professional; I get you.”

He snorted again.

“I don’t have a lot of money, but I can pay you something for your work . . . and you’ll be completely credited for your translation when the research is published,” she went on.

Griffin caught her arm and pulled her around to face him. “No.”

She shook her head. “No?”

“No money. I don’t want my name anywhere on this, either.”

“But—”

“I mean it.”

She nodded slowly, her expression plainly stating that she didn’t really understand his reluctance to be acknowledged.

That said, Griffin turned on his heel, striding back into his house, leaving the front door wide open and Isabelle standing on the porch. Peering out of the corner of his eye long enough to see her lingering in the doorway with an unsure look on her face, he grunted. “Either come in or get lost but don’t stand there with the door hanging open,” he growled.

That galvanized her into action. Hurrying into the house, she carefully closed the door. The sound of the latch clicking into place sounded distinctly like a death knell in his head, and Griffin shook his head.

He still wasn’t sure why he’d volunteered to help her, and he really didn’t want to think about the reason, either . . .

Chapter Text

“I’ve always wondered what the inside of this place looked like,” Isabelle mused as she set her purse on the table just inside the door. The place was dark despite the sunlight filtering through the many windows. Hulking, clunky wood furniture with mud brown cushions . . . barren hardwood floors stained a deep chestnut color and without the shine of any polish . . . naked rafter beams over her head also stained dark . . . wooden slat ceilings with dark brown drop fans . . . The only real concession appeared to be a threadbare faded area rug in front of the sofa. All in all, it brought to mind a bear’s cave—decidedly apropos, considering. Pressing her lips together in a thin line, she figured that laughing just wasn’t in her best interests, all things considered . . .

“Don’t get comfortable,” Griffin rumbled as he strode over to the decidedly old-fashioned looking desk and set up the computer. It didn’t take too long for him to open the laptop and connect it to his printer.

“It’s very nice . . . very archaic in the color scheme . . . a little über-macho, if you ask me, but nice just the same,” she decided.

“I didn’t ask you to critique my home,” he remarked acerbically as he fussed with the computer long enough to send the document to print.

“I could copy the files for you,” she offered, wandering over to him.

“Don’t like reading off the computer,” he mumbled.

“Give you a headache?”

His head lifted almost imperceptibly for just a moment before he resumed his perusal of the documents. “Something like that.”

“I really appreciate this,” Isabelle went on, smiling sweetly as she perched on the corner of the desk.

Griffin made a broad sweep with his arm, trying to push her off the desk with a grunt. “If you need to sit down, do it over there,” he said, jerking his head back to indicate the vague direction of the sofa. “Keep your fat ass off my desk.”

Isabelle blinked in surprise as a little giggle slipped from her. “Fat ass?” she echoed, scooting over once more and drawing a formidable scowl from the bear-youkai. “Mine?”

“Yes. It’s huge.”

She laughed again. “I’d be hurt if I didn’t know damn well that I have a hella fine ass, Dr. Griffin.”

“. . . If you say so.”

“Want to feel it for yourself?” she quipped, leaning to the side to present him with a better view of said-fine-ass.

“I’ll pass,” he muttered dryly, ducking his chin but not before Isabelle saw the telling blush that filtered into his cheeks.

“All right, but if you change your mind . . .” she went on, biting her lip in an effort to refrain from laughing outright at his very real discomfort. ‘You’d think the man’s never been flirted with before . . .’

Yanking the glasses off his face and tossing them onto the desk as he sat back to scowl at Isabelle, he snorted loudly despite the high color in his face. “Need I remind you of the terms of my agreement to translate this for you?” he snapped.

Isabelle waved her hand and pushed herself off the desk. “I’m sorry; I’m sorry . . . I just can’t help it when I’m around you . . .”

Griffin snorted indelicately. “Don’t blame me for your lack of self-control,” he grumbled.

She sighed, giving up for the moment since Dr. Marin’s patience was wearing rather thin. “Thanks again for helping me with this,” she went on, wrapping her arms over her stomach as she wandered aimlessly around the humble but neat living room. “If you hadn’t agreed to help me, I don’t know what I’d have done . . . I mean, if you couldn’t translate it, I don’t suppose anyone else could have, either.”

He grunted in response.

Stopping before a rough wood shelf, Isabelle reached out, running a fingertip lightly over the cloth bound books. Those were rare nowadays; those kinds of books with the gold gilt lettering that smelled of musty old paper that was somehow reassuring even as the smell tingled in her nostrils. “You’ve got a lot of old books here,” she mused, smiling absently as she read some of the titles to herself. ‘War and Peace . . . The Iliad . . . The Comprehensive Works of William Shakespeare . . . Very nice, Dr. Marin . . . Very nice, indeed . . .’ He’d never struck her as the kind of man who would spend time reading the ancient classics, and yet . . . and yet wasn’t it rather befitting, after all? For someone who knew as much about history as Griffin did, it shouldn’t have surprised her that he would gravitate to the archaic scripts. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“Stop babbling, will you? I’m trying to read this.”

Glancing over her shoulder, Isabelle blinked then smiled. Hunched over in the desk chair, his brow was furrowed in concentration as he scanned the first page of the stack of papers that he’d printed out as he stubbornly jammed the glasses back onto his face one-handed.

“Is it bad?” she asked when his scowl shifted into something more akin to a grimace.

Griffin shot her an unwelcoming glower. “It’s a damn mess,” he grumbled, shaking his head as he flipped through the pages, pausing only long enough to scan them over before moving onto the next. “Medical research, you say?”

Isabelle nodded, wandering back over to him and tapping a pointed claw against her chin thoughtfully. “Well, we can’t know for certain until we get it completely translated, but judging from what was stated in the bit of the journal I was able to translate, yes, that’s what it looks like.”

Griffin sighed. “I see.”

“Verdict?”

He snorted, dropping the stack of papers onto his desk followed by his glasses before leaning back in the chair and rubbing his eyes with a slightly trembling right hand. “It’s going to take awhile.”

‘That’s better than nothing,’ she decided despite the slight deflation of the cautious optimism she had been feeling. “Awhile, huh? I can live with that,” she allowed but couldn’t help the impish grin that surfaced moments later. “So tell me, Doctor . . . Is it really going to take that long or are you just making up reasons to keep me hanging around?”

The look he shot her quelled a little of her teasing. “Would you rather that I don’t help you?”

She waved her hands to cut him off. “Okay, you’ve made your point. Bad Isabelle. Gotcha.”

“I think you’re beyond ‘Bad Isabelle’,” he grumbled but picked up his glasses once more.

Isabelle sighed as she checked her watch, cursing the silent fact that she had less than thirty minutes to get to work. ‘Damn, damn, damn, damn,’ she thought ruefully. ‘First time I get Griffin’s full attention—ever—and I have to leave for work . . .’

“Whatever you’re plotting, forget it,” Griffin stated flatly.

Isabelle blinked. “Really, Dr. Marin, you have so little faith in me.”

“I have faith in you,” he argued. “I have faith that you’ll find something else entirely inappropriate to say to me, so before you bother, I’m telling you to forget it.”

She shook her head but didn’t argue his logic. “As much as it pains me to say, I have to get going.”

She didn’t miss the suspect eye he cast her. “So what’s the unlucky guy’s name?”

Isabelle wisely hid her amusement at his surly question. “Hmm, well, there are so many of them . . .”

He snorted.

“Bangor Memorial Hospital,” she added.

He blinked, and she didn’t have to look at him to know that her answer had earned her a surprised glance, and he grunted yet again.

She dug a cream colored business card from her purse and set it on the desk beside him before digging her sunglasses out and slipping them into place. “See you, Doctor.”

“What’s this?” he demanded. She almost smiled when she glanced over her shoulder in time to see him holding up the card and narrowing his eyes, as though he were having difficulty reading it.

“It’s my cell phone number,” she replied.

“Yeah, I won’t need that.”

Rolling her eyes—a completely worthless expression since he wasn’t looking at her, and even if he were, she had the oversized sunglasses in place so he wouldn’t have seen it, anyway. “Well, you have it, so if you do need it then you’ve got it.”

“Yeah, fine, thanks,” he mumbled, tossing the card onto the desk before turning his attention back to the stack of papers once more.

“I’ll stop by later to pick up the laptop,” Isabelle said, wiggling her fingers in a jaunty wave as she grasped the door handle and blinked at the sudden wash of sunlight that blinded her for a moment. A tiny smile broke over her features, and she couldn’t help the little giggle that slipped from her lips as she strode across the porch and down the steps.

‘And why are you in such a good mood, Bitty?’ her youkai voice demanded, using the nickname that most of her family were fond of. ‘Bitty’ was short for ‘Bitty Belle’ since she had been named after her late grandmother, Isabelle, and mostly since her mother was most commonly addressed as ‘Belle’ by family and close friends. The only exceptions were her great uncle, Sesshoumaru, who didn’t shorten anyone’s name, and her cousin, Mamoruzen—Gunnar to most people—who had always called her ‘Izzy’.

‘You mean you really have to ask?’ she mused, climbing into her car and starting the engine.

‘You’re either persistent to a fault or you’re incredibly dense, you know . . . You’ve been after that poor man for years now, and he’s never, ever so much as given you the slightest indication that he even likes you, let alone wants your constant attention.’

Pulling out of the otherwise empty driveway—Griffin didn’t own a car—Isabelle sighed though her optimism didn’t falter. ‘I’ve told you: it’s simply a matter of time. He’s going to realize eventually that we’re meant to be together. He’s just being stubborn; that’s all.’

‘Persistence is a virtue, but you’ve also got to know when to admit defeat.’

Isabelle wrinkled her nose. ‘So you say; so you say . . . All that man needs is a good woman to shake the starch out of his sails . . . and I’m the perfect woman for the job.’

Her youkai sighed—a long, pronounced sound. ‘It’s not just that, Isabelle, and you know it. There’re things about Griffin that you cannot possibly begin to understand.’

The first discernible lines of worry formed between her eyebrows as Isabelle’s expression shifted into one of astute concentration. ‘That’s not true. I’d understand him if he’d let me.’

‘Yeah, well, just remember: youkai don’t normally scar.’

The worry deepened in Isabelle’s expression as she turned off of the quiet neighborhood cul-de-sac onto one of the busier roads that led toward the center of Bangor. That was true enough, she had to agree. Her grandfather, InuYasha had been in countless battles way back when he and her mother, Kagome had been trying to hunt down the shards of the Shikon no Tama, and he didn’t have a single blemish on his body that she was aware of, and she didn’t even try to delude herself into believing that her great uncle, Sesshoumaru hadn’t been in many fights, himself. Even her grandfather, Cain Zelig, the North American tai-youkai had to have had his own fair share of fights, and none of them bore any residual scarring, and yet . . .

And yet Griffin, she knew, did have some quite severe ones—ones that ran the length of the left side of his face, almost forcing his left eye closed . . . scars that twisted and carved deep paths in the flesh of his hands though his right hand looked far worse than the left one, and she realized with a scowl that she’d never seen Griffin wearing anything other long sleeved shirts with the cuffs fastened securely around his wrists . . .

‘Whatever happened to him . . . it doesn’t matter. I’m not so superficial that I find him any less attractive with those scars than I would if he were completely unblemished.’

‘That’s just it, Bitty . . . some scars go deeper than just the surface.’

‘Maybe,’ she agreed with a shake of her head as she drummed her claws on the steering wheel, waiting impatiently for the traffic light to change from red to green. ‘See? That’s why he needs me!’

‘Because you think you can ‘fix’ him?’

‘I could do it.’

‘If you say so. Just don’t come crying to me when he proves to be even more stubborn than you.’

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Gavin Jamison scowled as he peered up through his eyelashes at his preoccupied mate. Pushing her food around the plate with a fork held in her listless hand, she didn’t seem at all aware of the ardent perusal. Jillian normally had a very healthy appetite, and that she had yet to even take a bite of her food spoke volumes in his opinion.

“We could go home,” he ventured quietly, yanking the cloth napkin off his lap and dropping it on the table beside his barely-touched plate.

“Hmm?” she murmured, glancing up at him with a startled expression on her pretty face. Pale blue eyes lit with seriousness, she shrugged in an over-exaggerated, offhanded sort of way as she cut off a tiny bite of steak and lifted it to her lips. “I’m fine, Gavvie,” she insisted with a forced smile.

Not for the first time, he had to wonder if it hadn’t ultimately been a mistake to give in to Jillian’s request to visit with Dr. Avis. Both Cain, Jillian’s adopted father, and Bas, Jillian’s eldest brother, had asked him to reconsider. Even Jillian’s much more laid back brother, Evan had voiced doubts about the idea, but in the end, Gavin had thought that maybe it was a good idea to let Jillian meet with the doctor. After all, Dr. Avis was the only living link she had to her deceased parents—her father having died well before Jillian was born, and her mother having died just after giving birth to Jillian. The woman had traveled all the way to Maine to entrust her infant daughter to the care of Cain Zelig, the North American tai-youkai, and while Jillian didn’t exactly pine for her biological parents, Gavin knew that there would always be a small part of her that wondered about them. It couldn’t be helped, could it, just as the pain he’d caught glimpses of in both Cain Zelig as well as his wife, Gin’s expressions, though never when Jillian was looking, couldn’t be helped, either . . . Gavin supposed that was natural, too.

“We could go home for awhile and come back in a few months or so,” he offered.

Jillian set her fork aside and sat back, her eyebrows drawing together as she pondered Gavin’s words. “No . . .” she finally said, shaking her head as she scrunched up her shoulders. “If I ran away now . . . If I did that, I’d never come back,” she admitted.

And Gavin could understand that, too. Jillian had spent her entire life being cosseted and protected by her parents and by her older brothers . . . and by him, as well. They’d been close growing up despite the nearly five years’ difference in their ages. Gavin had always been Jillian’s hero, and as much as he hated to admit as much, it bothered him more than he cared to admit. He couldn’t really protect her this time.

Dr. Avis had been more than forthcoming with the information, though. It seemed he loved to talk about Jillian’s mother—they’d been childhood friends, as well. In other circumstances, Gavin might even have liked the older youkai. Too bad Dr. Avis had paid some thug to kidnap Jillian just days before Gavin and Jillian’s wedding just over a month ago. Because of that, Gavin was certain that he’d never fully trust Dr. Avis, nor would Gavin allow Jillian to be alone with him, ever.

Still, the visits, as pleasant as they tended to be, were taking their toll on Jillian. She’d become so quiet the last few days that Gavin normally had to cajole her into talking. He figured she was struggling to put some sort of perspective on the information she’d been given. Gavin just hated that she didn’t seem to want him to help her.

“Tell me what you’re thinking?” he prodded, giving up all pretenses of dancing around the subject.

Jillian’s gaze ventured toward the plate glass window that overlooked the ocean, a sadness in her eyes that killed Gavin somewhere deep inside. She sighed, oblivious to the other patrons in the restaurant. “It’s nothing,” she lied, managing a fake smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“You can’t start lying to me now,” he countered gently.

She flinched and shook her head. “I just . . . all these things that Dr. Avis has said . . . they don’t make sense in my head.”

Gavin motioned for the waitress as he dug his credit card out of his wallet. “Come on,” he said, handing the card to the woman and standing up. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Jillian nodded, waiting for Gavin to pull out her chair before rising to her feet. He slipped his hand under her elbow to escort her through the restaurant. It only took a minute for the waitress to hurry back to return Gavin’s credit card along with a receipt. He mumbled a few parting pleasantries and led Jillian outside onto the generous sidewalk in the waning light of the early evening.

“He talks about her like she was some sort of saint or something,” Jillian said quietly. “Both of them, really—my mother and my father. I mean, the things Dr. Avis has said . . . but he can’t be right, can he? If the things Dr. Avis said were true, then . . . then why . . .?”

Gavin grimaced, understanding the question that Jillian just couldn’t bring herself to ask out loud. ‘Why did they do something so horrible? Why would they implant that bio-chip in the child they wanted so badly . . .?’ He sighed. Unfortunately, Gavin wasn’t sure he could understand that, himself. “Jilli . . .”

She cleared her throat, unconsciously moving closer to Gavin’s side as the two wandered down the sidewalk toward the empty docks. During the day, the docks were bustling with activity. At this time of day, though, they were mercifully abandoned aside from a few stragglers who were working on little boats or standing idly, watching the sunset over the water.

Jillian pulled away from Gavin, veering over to the side of the pier and sitting down, unmindful of the havoc she was wreaking on the pristine white cotton skirt she wore. Gavin followed suit, smiling absently when he noticed that her feet weren’t anywhere near touching the water’s surface. Water had always given her comfort, probably because she was a water-based-youkai. She scowled at her distorted reflection, kicking her feet back and forth.

“Was I just . . . a throwaway baby?” she asked quietly, her voice barely above a whisper.

“No,” he insisted, unable to contain the vehemence in his rebuttal. “Don’t you ever even think that again.”

He regretted the harshness of his tone when tears filled her eyes moments later, but she let him draw her close, settling her temple against his shoulder as he kissed her forehead, pushing the hair back out of her face. “You’re not a throwaway,” he muttered, his voice much gentler.

She sighed and relaxed against him. “I love you, Gavvie,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here . . . You’ll stay with me, right?”

“Of course I will,” he assured her, biting back the irrational surge of anger that welled up inside him: anger that anyone would make Jillian doubt herself—doubt him. “Forever,” he stated.

“Forever,” she repeated, and to his relief, she smiled: weak and thin, but a smile, nonetheless.

Gavin swallowed hard, pulling her into his lap as though she were little more than a child. “Don’t worry, Jilli . . . no matter how the chip got in you, it’s not there now, and I . . . I’ll never let anything hurt you like that again.”

“I know,” she murmured, closing her eyes for a moment as the tight hold of her upset started to loosen its grasp. “I know . . .”

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

‘This is quite possibly the stupidest things you’ve ever, ever done, Griffin Marin.’

The frown on Griffin’s face deepened as he dropped the ink pen onto the neat pile of papers and slowly flexed his aching hand. He’d been sitting there for the better portion of the day since Isabelle’s departure, and his body was screaming its own brand of protest at the confines he’d inadvertently instituted.

‘Crap,’ he thought with a wince, planting his hands on the arms of his chair to push himself to his feet. He’d turned on the lamp sitting on his desk at some point, but he hadn’t quite realized just how late it really was. Pausing long enough to retrieve a thick plastic tumbler from the cupboard, he filled it with tap water from the kitchen sink before lumbering toward the back doors.

It was pitch black outside, the sky overcast, unwilling to let even a single star shine down from the night sky. He could smell rain carried in on the desolate breeze, and he smiled at the absolute irony the weather presented as he lifted the cup to his lips.

‘I mean it. Are you listening to me?’

‘‘Course I’m listening to you,’ he thought with a sigh. ‘Pretty near impossible not to listen to you, isn’t it?’

The voice of his youkai blood sighed. ‘If you’re listening to me, then tell me: just why did you do a damn fool thing like agree to help Isabelle Izayoi with her research?’

He frowned, slowly sipping the water as he pondered the question. ‘Who else could’ve?’ he countered, latching onto the first decent answer he could think of.

‘Who else, indeed . . .?’

‘It’s true,’ he countered, setting the cup on the table before grasping the railing and descending the steps into the yard. ‘There isn’t really anyone else proficient enough with all of those languages to do it.’

‘What about Dr. Howard?’

Griffin snorted at the mention of his colleague, another professor at the University of Maine who specialized in ancient Native American linguistics. ‘He’d be good enough if it were nothing but Abenaki and maybe Caddoan . . . Those documents were written in some sort of mishmash of those and a few others, as well . . . I can’t tell if the guy really knew what he was doing or just thought he did . . . Either way, those notes would be nearly impossible for anyone else to decipher, and you know it.’

‘Hmm, wow . . . You really gave your rebuttal some thought, didn’t you?’

Pausing for a moment as he methodically worked the latch holding the rough wooden gate closed, Griffin snorted. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing, nothing . . . just that your answer was very well-presented—almost too well. If you wanted to help her—’

‘I didn’t.’

‘—All you really had to do was say so—’

‘Except that I didn’t.’

‘I mean, she isn’t that hard to look at—’

‘Your opinion.’

‘—And you might as well appreciate the scenery, as it were, since you were ‘noble’ enough to tell her that you didn’t want paid for your services. As far as that being my opinion, let me remind you, friend—’

‘Friend now, is it? Since when?’

‘It’s a figure of speech. Anyway, since I’m merely an extension of you, then you find her attractive, too, and you know it . . . and you hate it, by the by.’

Griffin snorted. He had the distinct feeling that his youkai would be laughing in his face if it were a separate entity. Deciding that he was far better off to ignore the pestering voice, he set off toward the blackened shadows of the forest behind his yard. He wouldn’t go far, no, but he desperately needed to stretch his legs before the dull ache that had set in awhile ago grew worse.

Mercifully, though, it seemed that his youkai was finished, at least for the moment, and while he didn’t even try to tell himself that it was the last he’d hear on the subject, he couldn’t help but feel a little relieved.

The forest was peaceful, soothing in the night sounds that comforted him. The singing crickets’ song . . . the soft whisper of the wind in the treetops . . . a lone owl calling out in the distance, and Griffin smiled a little sadly as he stopped to look around.

“Why do the owls only call out at night?”

Grimacing at the skeleton of a voice that echoed through his head, Griffin clenched his fists, feeling the all-too-familiar ache stab at his chest—his heart. Long ago, he used to think that the pain would lessen, given time. It hadn’t. If anything, it had taken on a duller edge, more like an ache than a cutting bite, and that was worse, wasn’t it? After all, didn’t it hurt far worse to be hacked at with a dull weapon than to be sliced clean through with a sharp one?

He dug his claws into the callused flesh of his palms, smiling in grim satisfaction as the coppery tinge of blood filled his nostrils. Why, indeed . . .?

The nights were the hardest, weren’t they? Surrounded by the echoes of screams, unable to escape the burning stench of ominous flames . . . charred flesh . . . rivers of blood . . . All he had were sleepless hours spent reliving the past, and even in the carefully contained environment he’d striven to create . . .

He just couldn’t change the past, could he?

And he, better than anyone knew . . .

If he couldn’t change the past, he couldn’t have a future.

Chapter Text

“You’re late,” Jordan Winters mumbled in Isabelle’s ear as the two resident doctors reached for the same clipboard. “Guess I’ll let you take this one.”

Rolling her eyes at the cheeky smile he shot her, Isabelle lifted the board and glanced over the preliminary information. “Five minutes,” she countered absently. “Not that late.”

“Late enough, Dr. Izayoi.”

“Stomach pains?” she said, shifting her quizzical gaze to meet his.

“Yeah . . . old man Hiller again. Probably gas.”

“Be nice,” she chided.

“I am being nice,” Jordan argued, falling into step beside her as she headed down the hallway toward the cubicle where Mr. Hiller was waiting. “Anyway, I had a dream last night, and you were in it.”

“Was I?”

“Yes. Care to hear exactly what we were doing?”

Casting him a chagrined look, she shook her head moments before she broke into a smile. “I don’t think I would,” she replied easily.

“One of these days, Isabelle, you’re going to admit that you want me.”

She laughed despite herself. “Will I?”

“Yes,” he maintained stubbornly. “You will.”

“Now, Jordan . . .”

He grimaced. “Don’t tell me you’re still stuck on Professor Marin,” he complained.

“Dr. Marin,” Isabelle corrected, “and I wouldn’t call it ‘stuck’ . . . That implies a certain level of hopelessness.”

“But why waste your time on that grouchy old bastard when you could be with a sexy young bastard, instead?” Jordan quipped.

“Oh, I don’t know . . . I’ve always thought Griffin was pretty damn sexy . . .”

Jordan shook his head slowly. “It’s the scars, isn’t it? You love the mysterious type.”

Isabelle just smiled. “Maybe . . . too bad you’re as easy to read as a picture book.”

Jordan grimaced, clutching melodramatically at his chest. “Cold words, Isabelle. Just cold . . .”

Isabelle moaned and rolled over, burying her face in her pillow as the cold, wet nose nudged her cheek. Whining softly, Froofie tried again, licking Isabelle’s face since the playful nudging didn’t gain her attention. “Okay, okay,” she muttered, rolling over and sitting up, sighing heavily when she realized that she’d ended up sleeping on the sofa—again. “You want to go outside, Froofie?” she asked, grabbing the dog’s head and rubbing it back and forth as she leaned in to kiss his forehead.

The huge brown dog whined, his tail thumping against the coffee table so hard that made the empty glass on the table slide.

Sparing a moment to stretch, Isabelle stumbled to her feet and shuffled toward the back door, stepping on the long ends of the lounge pants she’s put on after her shower. Crossing her arms and leaning in the doorway as she watched the huge dog gallop around the yard, Isabelle yawned then made a face. It had rained in the night, which meant that Froofie was going to be a mess when he came back inside since he never failed to run through Isabelle’s small flower garden on the edge of the patio despite her scolding him a thousand times for the transgression.

She’d wanted to head straight over to Griffin’s house after she’d gotten off work, but it had been nearly four a.m., and she’d had to remind herself that he was probably sleeping. With any luck, he’d gotten some of the documents translated, and she was dying to see what all it said . . .

Still she supposed that she ought to try to get a little more sleep before she headed over there. She didn’t have to go in to the hospital until midnight tonight. Making a face as she ducked back inside to grab a towel for Froofie’s paws. She wasn’t sure why she’d decided to take the emergency room physician job at Bangor Memorial Hospital, and it seemed to her that whoever did the scheduling had it in for her since she tended to end up with the graveyard shift way too often, in her opinion.

The dog ran up onto the patio, whining softly as Isabelle hunkered down to wipe the animal’s paws, and he followed her back inside to sit patiently beside his huge bowls for his breakfast and a cold drink of water.

Isabelle hit the ‘retrieve messages’ button on the answering machine as she passed the telephone on the way to the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water.

“Hi, baby,” her mother’s voice greeted, the smile that she normally had on her face coming through in her voice. “I just thought I’d call and see how you’re doing. You don’t call as often as you should, you know . . .”

Snapping the seal around the cap of the bottle, Isabelle chucked the bit of plastic toward the recycling bin and knelt to dump the contents of the bottle into Froofie’s dish. She’d have to call her parents back later. It was true enough. She’d been so preoccupied with the research that she hadn’t called them since she’d seen them at Jillian’s wedding, and the times when either her father or her mother called her, she’d missed them.

Stifling another yawn with the back of her hand, Isabelle dropped the empty water bottle into the recycling bin and shuffled out of the kitchen. If she were smart, she’d start looking for a staff position at one of the local clinics. At least then she’d have normal working hours . . . ‘Oh well . . . at least I’m hanyou,’ she mused on her way through her home. Working such unrelentingly long hours had to be much, much worse on her human contemporaries . . .

She meant to grab a change of clothes to wear after she took a quick shower, but the sight of her bed was just a little too inviting, and she crawled under the soft tan coverlet, savoring the coolness of the cotton sheets against her naked arms, her bare feet.

‘Just a short nap,’ she told herself as she buried her face in her pillow.

She was asleep within moments.

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Griffin closed the door behind the last of his Sunday morning visitors and let his breath out in a long gust. He’d almost forgotten about the children’s weekly visit since he’d been up all night working on the translation of what appeared to be a journal. After his walk, he’d meant to lie down awhile, but that wasn’t meant to be. Against his better judgment, he’d paused beside his desk, which had led to sitting back down; jotting translation notes in the margin areas of the papers, mulling the possibilities over in his mind until he locked onto the one that made the most sense. A couple of languages that were slurred together appeared to be two different dialects of Abenaki, and while the languages were basically the same, there were a few differences—enough to completely change the meaning of any given sentence, and while he could get most of the translation correct based on context, there were a few places where that wasn’t really an option.

It was the challenge, wasn’t it? That was the real reason he had accepted the task. It certainly had nothing at all to do with the woman, did it? What did he care if she’d looked entirely vulnerable—a completely unsettling expression on the woman-child he’d come to know when she was a student at the University of Maine. The light of panic that had illuminated her bright golden eyes had nothing to do with it, nor did the sense of resignation when he’d told her that there wasn’t anyone else who could help her. No, it was the challenge, right? It’d been a little too long since he’d felt that surge of adrenaline . . .

‘Sure, it is, Griffin.’

Deliberately ignoring the voice of his youkai blood, Griffin lumbered off toward the kitchen to fix a cup of raspberry and mint tea. His hand shook as he pulled the mud-brown earthenware mug from the cupboard. It’d been shaking since the night before. His joints were stiff, and he set the cup aside, lifting his hand and flexing his fingers with a wry grimace. The built-up scar tissue on his right hand made writing difficult, and he’d done so much of it the night before that it was only natural that he was suffering the effects brought on by the overexertion.

He carefully measured out two scoops of the dried tea mix, dumping them directly into the mug before pouring boiling water on top of the grounds. The chirping birds drew his attention, and he paused for a moment to glance out the window over the sink, his eyes clouded as he scowled into the brightness of the midday sky.

Adding a slow trickle of honey to the concoction in the mug, Griffin stirred the tea absently. As much as he wanted to go back to the translation, he knew better. His eyes still ached from staring at the printed out copy of the notes for hours on end. Better to take a break before he ended up with a migraine headache brought on by eye strain.

Pulling the spoon from the hot liquid and slowly running the edge of the utensil against the rim of the mug, Griffin took a moment to rinse it before carefully laying it on the saucer he used as a spoon rest beside the sink. Then he squeezed his eyes closed for a long moment, sighing softly as he considered and discarded the idea of taking some aspirin to ease the throbbing ache in his temples.

Grasping the mug’s thick handle, he headed for the doorway that led to the basement.

‘You know, this place looks more like a bear’s den than the living room does,’ his youkai commented.

Griffin grunted, balancing the tea as he slowly descended the cold stone steps. ‘That’s not funny.’

‘The truth rarely is.’

He grunted again, trying to ignore the truth of the observation. More of a cavern dug out of the earth than a real room of the house, the basement was lined with rough wood shelves against the far wall. A long work table ran the length of the open stairway with a huge stone fireplace charred black with soot and ash at the end. A threadbare, mud-brown sofa faced the hearth, and he set his mug on the stout end table, sparing a moment to turn on the lamp before slowly scanning the room for anything that might have been out of place. Nothing was. Nothing ever was. The shelves that held a menagerie of roughly carved wooden animals stood just as he left it; the pile of neatly stacked wood hadn’t changed, either. The half-formed deer he’d worked on last was setting in the middle of the work bench, and he wandered over to retrieve the project before heading back toward the sofa once more.

There was something entirely soothing about carving the little statues. Over time he’d amassed quite a collection since he rarely gave them away. It wasn’t that he was trying to hoard them; he just didn’t really have anyone to give them to. He gave the children he taught one of them at Christmas time every year, but it hadn’t made a real dent in the number of finished sculptures. They were all animals he’d seen through his lifetime, all of them in poses that he remembered. Occasionally, he carved intricate totem poles, and he’d made a lot of the furniture in the house, as well.

It kept him busy, and that was as good a reason as any to devote so much time to a hobby, in his opinion.

Besides, it also helped when he needed to clear his mind when he needed to gain a new perspective on something.

It gave him a fragile sense of peace, didn’t it? It was something that was hard to come by for a man like him. After the darker days when he’d been so consumed by anger and hatred, he’d finally found a semblance of peace, and while he wasn’t delusional enough to believe that the serenity that he’d sought would last forever, he’d stopped looking over his shoulder every time he took a step forward, too. He loathed his very existence yet looked for the simple beauty in things, from the chattering squirrels early in the morning to the whisper of the wind rustling through the trees.

He owed a lot to them—everything he was, in fact. As close to family as he would ever have, they’d taught him so very much in the time long past. In the annals of his mind, he could still hear her laughter; he could still see the solemn light in his eyes. They had saved him physically, emotionally . . . they’d taught him that not everything was as he wanted to believe.

Wrapping his hand around the lump of wood, he carefully shaved away at it, taking special care not to cut too deeply around the deer’s delicate legs.

It was cold when they’d found him. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed. He could only recall the unsettling feeling of his cold-numbed body, could only recall disjointed days of wandering, of making his feet move him forward as pain wracked every part of him. He was dying, he supposed. The knowledge didn’t hurt as much as it should have. Traveling through the terrain, searching for a good place to end his journey, he thought he had found it. Next to a small lake, he’d collapsed on his back, staring at the dried leaves carried on the bitter wind; at the vast sky above him that was mercifully free of billowing smoke. ‘It’s a good place to die,’ he thought. He might have even smiled as his weary eyes drifted closed. ‘Only hell awaits the damned . . .’

He hadn’t thought he’d wake up again, so it was rather shocking when he did, eyes flashing open when the warmth of a dry hand touched his face, and he remembered wanting to stop them as they fashioned a stretcher out of tree branches lashed together by her unraveled scarf. He didn’t want them to take him in. He’d wanted to die; that had been his wish, and though he’d tried to tell them, they hadn’t understood, or maybe they’d thought that he was simply delusional. They’d saved him, and he . . .

He would never forget.

Attean Masta and his common-law wife, Maria . . .

She was a gentle soul—a human who had come to the New World with her parents as emigrants from Spain. At first, Griffin had believed that she, like Attean, was Indian. It wasn’t until later that Griffin was told the story of how Attean—a deer-hanyou—had been shunned by his tribe, the proud Koasek—for taking a white woman as his mate after he’d struggled for years to gain acceptance because of his own mixed heritage. Though he was still considered a member of their society, he lived a distance away from the main concentration. He said it was safer that way, especially for Maria.

The first morning he’d opened his eyes to see the sun filtering through the cracks in the window shutters; it had taken him awhile to figure out where he was. He could discern the crackle of a healthy fire burning on the hearth, and he grimaced as he turned his head, absently taking in the humble but neat furnishings in the small dwelling.

She knelt by the fire carefully stirring something in a big black spider oven, holding back the edge of her shawl in one thin hand. Soft black hair shone in the warm light, and she was humming a low song under her breath as she worked. The smell of the cooking food made his stomach lurch unpleasantly. Under ordinary circumstances, he supposed he might have thought it smelled quite good, but the deep, angry gashes that traversed his body hurt too badly to even consider eating anything.

‘H . . . human . . .’ he thought dizzily, squeezing his eyes closed as he gathered the last of his strength before he tried to sit up. Body still wracked by agonizing pain, he gritted his teeth and shoved the coarse blankets aside.

Hearing Griffin moving around, Maria glanced over her shoulder only to drop the wooden paddle-like spoon she’d been using to stir the simmering stew as she stood up and hurried across the rough plank floor. She said something—her voice soft, gentle, despite the obvious censure in her tone—pushing him back with a firm but compassionate hand. He didn’t understand the language she spoke, and it must have shown in his expression because she shook her head and smiled apologetically. “Hurt, yes?” she said, the use of minimal wording telling him plainly that English wasn’t her native tongue. She had a thick accent—he’d later come to understand that it was Spanish—but her dark eyes were bright and friendly despite Griffin’s obvious reluctance to let her touch him. “I clean . . .” She paused, as though she had to think about the word she wanted to use. “Injuries.”

He tried to push her hands away. “Leave me alone,” he rumbled, his throat dry, rasping. “I don’t need your help.”

The woman sighed softly, carefully pulling the dressing covering his stomach away. Griffin couldn’t stifle the groan that slipped from him when the material pulled on his rent flesh. The wounds had been seeping, bordering on infection, he supposed. She’d put some sort of plant paste on them to draw out the impurities, and as much as he wished it were otherwise, he could feel his body finally starting to heal.

“I said no,” Griffin growled, pushing her away with a sweep of his arm. Maria fell off the stool, landing on the floor with a heavy thump.

“So you really do want to die.”

He didn’t turn at the sound of the intruder—Attean. He hadn’t heard or even sensed the hanyou’s intrusion. His senses were just too dull, he supposed.

Maria took her mate’s hand, slowly getting to her feet. She murmured something to Attean before wrapping another shawl over her shoulders and grabbing the pail beside the door. Griffin heard the door close behind her, accompanied by the frigid blast of wind that punctuated her departure. Attean waited until she was gone before approaching the bed. Seeing Griffin struggling to sit up, he helped him only to stick a tin cup of water into Griffin’s shaking hands. “I don’t need your help,” Griffin muttered, anger simmering just below the surface; irritation at his inability to be afforded the basest of comforts, such as choosing his time and place to die.

“I thought as much when I saw you. As serious as your injuries are, they are not life-threatening for our kind.”

“I am not your kind,” Griffin lashed out before he could stop himself. “I am youkai—youkai. You’re nothing but a hanyou—a half-breed.”

“I am hanyou,” he agreed, his solemn façade devoid of anger or hatred at the ruthlessness of Griffin’s words. “So you despise humans,” he concluded with a sage nod.

“You’ve got it backwards,” Griffin allowed. “Humans despise me.”

The soft trickle of water sounded in Griffin’s ears as Attean wrung out a cloth in a basin beside the bed. “A couple of youkai were here,” he said at length, carefully avoiding Griffin’s direct gaze as he gently wiped the salve from Griffin’s stomach. “Said they were looking for a bear-youkai.”

Griffin grunted, keeping his vision steadily trained on the ceiling. “Should have let them take me.”

“So they were looking for you?”

He grunted again.

“The infection was pretty bad,” Attean went on neutrally as he reached over to retrieve an earthenware bowl from the rickety table beside the bed, sparing a moment to stir the contents—more of the salve, Griffin supposed. “You frightened my wife when she found you beside the lake. She thought you were dead . . .”

“I wanted to be dead,” Griffin admitted, scowling at the words that had slipped from him before he could stop them. Seconds later, the scowl shifted into a wince as the wound that split his left eyelid protested.

“If that’s the case, you need to heal first. There’s no honor in dying this way.”

“I abandoned what was left of my honor long ago,” Griffin said, unsure why he was telling this man—this hanyou—anything at all.

Attean’s hand paused as he smoothed the greenish-brown paste onto Griffin’s wounds. “Then you would shame your family.”

“I don’t have any family,” he growled, unable to hide the bitter wash of emotion that seethed inside him at the blatant reminder.

Attean nodded slowly, setting the bowl aside and reaching for a clean cloth to cover Griffin’s stomach and absorb the foul discharge released by the purging salve. “Then you must survive, yes? If you are the last of your clan, then it falls upon your shoulders to live on—to live for those who couldn’t.”

The sculpture he’d been working on slipped out of Griffin’s clumsy fingers, and he winced as the memory faded away. In those days, he’d been so ready to die. After everything he’d seen and done . . . He’d thought it was too much, that his hands were too dirty to contemplate a future, but as he’d grudgingly come to know Attean and Maria, as he’d slowly come to understand the understated gentleness that punctuated everything they did, he’d started to realize the truth in Attean’s words: “Then you must survive, yes? If you are the last of your clan, then it falls upon your shoulders to live on—to live for those who couldn’t.”

And there was a second reason; one he’d devoted his life to in the time since. He needed to make amends in his own way . . . to assuage the guilt he lived with every day the only way he knew how, and even if the blood on his hands never truly washed clean, it was no more than a being like him deserved.

‘How long, Griffin?’

Slumping forward, resting his elbow on his knee, he let his forehead fall into his hand as he closed his eyes and sighed. ‘As long as it takes . . . as long as I live.’

‘As long as you live . . .’

‘. . . Yes.’

In his mind, he could hear the ghosts: the happy ring of a little girl’s laughter . . . and the wrenching screams of one little boy.

Chapter Text

“Hmm, someone I haven’t seen in awhile.”

Isabelle turned with a bright smile at the sound of the familiar voice and hurried over to hug her cousin. “Bastian! How have you been?” she gushed, wrapping her arms around him and planting a loud kiss on Sebastian Zelig’s cheek.

A very pronounced ‘hrumph’ interrupted before Bas could reply, and he quickly grabbed Isabelle’s hands, pulling them away from his neck as a hint of color infused his cheeks. Bas’ mate was infamous in her penchant for extreme possessiveness, and Sydnie definitely viewed Bas as ‘hers’. “What brings you out here?” Bas asked, wrapping an arm around Sydnie’s waist to reassure the cat-youkai.

Isabelle shrugged. “Hi, Sydnie . . . you look good.”

“Of course she does,” Bas remarked with a snort. “She always does.”

Sydnie leaned up on tip-toe to lick her mate’s cheek. “Just for you, puppy,” she intoned, “and she is fine.”

Isabelle laughed. Sydnie must have been in a good mood today for her to tell Bastian that ‘she’, meaning Isabelle, was ‘fine’. “I came out to see Grandpa,” Isabelle said. “Is he in his office?”

“Dad? No . . . He’s probably locked away in the studio, and since Mom’s nowhere to be seen, it’s a safe guess that they’re locked away together . . . and that’s just something I don’t want to see,” Bas grumbled.

It amused Isabelle to no end. Even after all this time and after having claimed his own mate eight and a half years ago, Bas still blushed at any allusions pertaining to sex. Ordinarily she’d torture him a little more, but . . . Glancing at her watch, she sighed. She’d been hoping to get a few more errands done. Somehow her one day off a week just didn’t seem to stretch . . . “Well, maybe you can help me,” she said since she really didn’t want to disturb her grandfather, either. It wasn’t that she was embarrassed or bothered by the idea that there was a good chance that her grandparents were off ‘doing the nasty’, but after having been told the story of how Cain Zelig had merely existed during the years of her mother, Bellaniece’s childhood with the understanding that he would die to join his mate after she grew up, Isabelle couldn’t help but feel that anything her step-grandmother, Gin Izayoi Zelig did to convince Cain that living was worthwhile was of sovereign import—even if that meant that the two were locked away in the studio in the middle of the afternoon.

“What’s that?” Bas asked, snapping Isabelle out of her reverie.

Isabelle blinked and shook her head, her smile returning as she laughed softly. “I just wondered if I can have the journal and notebooks? The scans were good, but there are a few things that I need to verify . . . There are a couple of places that are a little difficult to read, you know? Anyway, I thought that maybe it’d be easier to read if I had the actual texts, if it’s not a problem.”

Bas’ trademark scowl deepened, and he slowly shook his head. “I don’t know . . . I don’t see a problem with it, but I don’t want to give them over until I’ve talked to Dad first.”

Isabelle nodded. “Okay . . . I’ve got a few more errands I need to take care of . . . Give me a call if he says it’s all right, and I’ll come by and pick them up.”

“Yeah, sure.”

The phone rang, and Bas glanced around with a marked scowl. It was the separate phone line that Cain used strictly for business of the tai-youkai, not the family phone, and since Cain wasn’t in his office, they weren’t entirely sure that anyone would answer the call.

After a moment of deliberation, Bas strode into the office to field it.

“Are you making any progress with the translation?” Sydnie asked, turning her brilliant green eyes on Isabelle.

“Some,” Isabelle allowed then sighed. “Not nearly as quickly as I’d like . . . about the first twenty pages of the journal are done.”

Sydnie shook her head, flicking a bit of lint off the sleeve of her immaculately tailored brown leather jacket. “Sebastian said that it’s all written in some form of Native American language?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “It’s slow going, but it’s getting there.”

“Good . . . it’s been awhile since you’ve been out to visit. Please tell me you’re not spending all of your time at that hospital,” Sydnie chided.

“Well, not exactly,” Isabelle allowed slowly. “I have been spending some time with Dr. Marin, and he doesn’t work at the hospital . . . does that count?”

Sydnie digested that, her eyes narrowing as she mulled over Isabelle’s claims. “This wouldn’t be the same Dr. Marin that you told me about before, would it?”

Isabelle bit her lip, recalling the conversation well enough. It was days before Sydnie and Bas’ wedding, and the girls had been standing on the balcony watching the antics of Bas and his closest cousins and uncle at the time . . .

“Do you have a puppy?” Sydnie asked, forcing her gaze off the men sprawled in the snow.

Isabelle giggled and mashed together another snowball. “A puppy? No . . .”

Sydnie lifted her eyebrows, smiling at the telling blush that stained Isabelle’s cheeks. “Someone else?”

Isabelle’s smile widened. “Sure . . . maybe . . .”

“Oh?”

“I asked him to come with me, but just sort of looked at me then shook his head. Even if he did like me, he probably had stuff to do for class, anyway.”

“He’s still in school?”

Her blush deepened as she tucked a long strand of golden bronze hair behind her ear. “Uh, no . . . he’s my . . . professor.”

“Oh . . .” Sydnie giggled. “Your professor . . .”

“I mean, he was my professor last semester. He’s not now, but . . .” she shrugged. “I really like him. His name is Griffin . . . Griffin Marin . . . Dr. Griffin . . . He’s going to be my mate . . . He just doesn’t know it yet . . .”

“Yes,” Isabelle allowed, brushing off the lingering memories. “He’s just a little more stubborn than I thought.”

Sydnie smiled. True, it took awhile to get the cat-youkai to warm up to anyone, especially other women, but once someone gained her trust, she was loyal to a fault. Not for the first time, Isabelle had to count herself as glad that this particular youkai considered her a friend. She wasn’t afraid of Sydnie, no, but something about her tended to be just a little intimidating . . . A good thing, in Isabelle’s opinion, since Bas tended to be rather intimidating, in his own right. “Does he think he’s too good for you?”

Waving her hand, Isabelle giggled. “Oh, no, nothing like that . . .”

“Really? Hmm . . . I think I want to meet this Dr. Marin . . .”

“Now, Sydnie, it’s fine.”

Sydnie crossed her arms over her chest and uttered a terse little snort. “We’ll see about that,” she retorted. “I’ll just expedite the circumstances . . . let him know that it’s entirely unacceptable for him to string you along like this.”

Figuring she’d better diffuse the situation before it got any more complicated, Isabelle linked her arm through Sydnie’s and dragged her cousin-in-law off toward the kitchen. She smelled fresh baked bread, and since Gin wasn’t around to stop her . . . Well, her grandmother was a forgiving woman. She wouldn’t begrudge Isabelle a slice. “Come on, Sydnie. Let’s see if there’s any milk in the refrigerator.”

There was, of course. Gin always made sure there was a fresh container every day since she never knew when Bas would be stopping by with his mate. There was a small dairy farm a few miles away, and Gin drove out there every morning to buy a gallon of the freshest product. It was a running joke in the family that Sydnie’s affinity for cows stemmed from her staunch belief that milk was the food of the gods, to the extent that Bas had recently bought Sydnie her own cow—a cow that followed the cat-youkai around much like a dog, at least whenever Sydnie was outside. Sydnie had named her Precious, and Bas . . . Well, it was safe to say that Bas had been teased unmercifully by the male cousins and Mikio for the indulgence.

Then, too, Sydnie had decided that she needed to do something extra-nice for Bas, so she’d talked Isabelle into helping her dig up one of the larger flower gardens in their back yard, replacing the ousted greenery with catnip plants while Bas was away with Gunnar, looking into one of the cases they’d been chipping away at. By the time Bas returned home a few days later, the plants were starting to take root, and Isabelle had barely gotten out of the house before Sydnie attacked Bas quite literally. Gunnar later told her that neither Bas nor Sydnie had showed up at the office for the next few days, and when he’d gone over there to make sure they were both still alive, he’d found a shirtless Bas in the back yard digging up the catnip plants despite the very self-satisfied grin on his face . . .

Isabelle never did ask what had happened to those plants. She supposed, though, that Bas, in the spirit of self-preservation, had been forced to remove the plants since Sydnie just couldn’t seem to control herself when she was anywhere near it.

Sydnie frowned at the full pitcher of milk standing in the refrigerator as Isabelle leaned to the side to retrieve the butter dish. It was also common knowledge that Bas normally brought Sydnie her milk, regardless of whether or not Sydnie could get it herself. It was a little strange, Isabelle figured, but if it made the two of them happy, she certainly wasn’t about to make any sort of comment.

“Do you want a slice of bread?” Isabelle asked, hacking off a generous slab for herself.

Sydnie glanced over her shoulder. “Okay,” she agreed before turning her attention back to the milk. Isabelle refrained from laughing, just barely. The cat looked like she was trying to figure out a way to get the milk without pouring it for herself and without having to hint to Bas that she wanted it, in the first place. Sydnie was saved moments later when Bas strode into the kitchen. It only took a moment for him to figure out just what his mate was doing, and with a soft chuckle, he grabbed a tall glass from the cupboard and proceeded to fill it with milk.

“Want some?” Isabelle asked, wondering absently if Gin would realize that an entire loaf of bread had mysteriously vanished.

“No, thanks,” Bas replied, leaning back to glance down the hallway before breaking a tiny piece of cake off what was left on the tall stand.

“If your father catches you, he’ll kill you,” Sydnie pointed out, blinking at her mate over the rim of her glass.

“Give me a break,” Bas mumbled around the oversized bite he’d stuffed into his mouth. “I’m a pro at this . . . I’ve been sneaking cake for years.”

“Have you really.”

Bas grimaced and swallowed fast before pivoting on his heel to meet Cain Zelig’s gaze. He strolled through the glass doors, tugging Gin in behind him. Gin leaned to the side to peer around him, and she pulled her hand away before hurrying over to hug Isabelle. “I want a slice, too!”

Cain strode over, grabbing the last slice of cake and shoving half of it into his mouth before pinning his eldest son with a droll look.

“Great cake, Mom,” Bas replied, grimacing when Gin grasped his chin firmly and started wiping his face with a dampened washcloth.

“‘Eve m’ ‘ake awone,” Cain stated as he shoved the last of the cake into his mouth.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Zelig-sensei,” Gin chided, turning on him with the washcloth, too.

The humor of the situation did not slip past Isabelle unnoticed. Seeing the North American tai-youkai treated like a little child . . . well, it wasn’t a sight that one was privy to every day, and the fact that Cain stood docilely with his hands clasped behind his back while his diminutive wife cleaned him up? Isabelle smiled. She really should’ve gotten a picture of that . . .

“Before I forget,” Bas said suddenly, leaning back against the counter and crossing his meaty arms over his chest, “Gavin called. He said that Avis hasn’t been home in a couple days. He was a little worried about that.”

Cain’s normally easygoing demeanor vanished as his back straightened, and he eyed Bas.   “Did you have Myrna check his monitoring device?”

Bas nodded. “She’s on it right now. She said she’d call back as soon as she got an answer one way or the other.”

Cain sighed. “All right, then.”

“Nothing’s wrong, is it?” Gin demanded.

Cain’s smile seemed genuine enough, but Isabelle didn’t miss the slight tightness at the corners of his eyes, and if she could see that, then Gin could, too. “I’m sure it’s just fine,” he assured her. “Maybe they just missed him. Call it bad timing.”

“Yeah,” Bas added for good measure. “Don’t worry, Mom. Gavin’s fully capable of protecting Jilli.”

Gin looked marginally comforted, but she still shook her head. “They’re not that far from Japan. Maybe I should call Papa . . .”

“Let Gavin deal with this. Jillian’s his mate, after all,” Cain replied. “Anyway, I’ve yet to see your father do anything to ease any situation. They don’t call him the angry hanyou for no reason.”

Gin’s mouth fell open, and she frowned at her mate for a moment before snapping her teeth together as a heated flush blossomed on her cheeks. “Cain Zelig! You take that back!” she huffed.

“What? It’s not my fault he earned himself that name.”

Gin wrinkled her nose, turning her back on Cain in a huff and stomping over to snatch up the slice of bread that Isabelle had buttered for her. “Sometimes you’re kind of a . . . a . . . a heinie, you know,” she pointed out.

Cain almost laughed. He caught himself at the last moment and cleared his throat to keep from laughing outright. “Gomen, gomen,” he said, pressing his hands together as he bowed low with each word to accentuate the apology.

Gin rolled her eyes and threw the washcloth at Cain, but the harshness of her actions was undermined completely by the soft giggle that escaped her.

“Grandpa, I was wondering if I could have the original research materials? The scans are a little difficult to make out in some places . . .” Isabelle interrupted when Cain started to stalk toward Gin.

Gin giggled loudly, pressing her hands against Cain’s chest in a vain effort to stave him off as he wrapped his arms around her waist. “The originals . . .?” Cain repeated rather blankly. “Oh . . . those . . . Um, sure. Just be careful with them, okay? And it should go without saying, but don’t be telling anyone about them.” Then he turned toward Gin, a wicked light igniting behind his dark blue eyes. “As for you, baby girl . . . Calling me a heinie . . .?”

Gin wrinkled her nose but nodded. “Yes, a heinie.”

One dark bronze eyebrow rose in silent question. “Hmm . . . Interesting. You know, I think I might have to punish you for that. One . . .”

“Okay, that’s it. I’ll see you later. Let’s go, kitty,” Bas stated loudly, pushing himself away from the counter and grabbing Sydnie’s hand, flipping a dish towel around in his free hand.

Cain chuckled but didn’t take his eyes off his mate. “Two . . .”

“All right,” Isabelle agreed, popping the last of the bread into her mouth and brushing her hands together. “Thank you for the wonderful bread, Grandma, but I’ve got to go, too. Seems like my day off isn’t ever quite long enough, and I think the two of you need some alone time . . .”

Gin opened and closed her mouth a few times, reminding Isabelle of a fish out of water. “Now, Cain . . .” she began her protests.

“Three . . .” Cain continued.

“I’ll drop the research off later,” Bas called after Isabelle, swatting her rear with a rolled up dish towel.

Isabelle grabbed the towel and snapped Bas back. He grimaced and covered his left nipple. She’d gotten him good, or so it seemed . . . “Thanks! Bye, Bastian! Bye, Sydnie!” she called, dropping the towel on the counter beside the sink and heading for the door with Bas and Sydnie close on her heels.

“Four . . .”

“Ca-ain!”

Her grandfather’s evil chuckle echoed through the house in their wake. Bas grimaced and quickened his pace, knowing very well what was going to happen once Cain reached ‘five’. “You’d think he’d stop that when there’re people here,” he grumbled.

“I think it’s cute,” Isabelle remarked as she closed the front door behind her.

“Did you think your parents stopped having sex after your brother was born?” Sydnie asked.

Bas snorted as he opened the door of his Blazer for Sydnie. “I could hope, couldn’t I? But no . . . of course I don’t have normal parents . . .”

Isabelle laughed, pausing long enough to wave at her cousin and Sydnie before getting into her car. Checking her watch again, Isabelle sighed. She still had to drive back to Bangor, run to the vet’s office to pick up some stuff for Froofie, head to the dry cleaners before they closed for the night, stop off at the drug store to replenish the staples that she was running out of, and then grocery shopping on top of all that . . . She’d been hoping she could spend some time with Griffin, but that wasn’t looking like it was going to happen. He’d mentioned that she’d need to go over the translations since some of them had more than one meaning. Between work and necessity, was there really any wonder that Isabelle didn’t really have much of a social life, to speak of?

‘Still,’ she thought as she got into her car and started the engine, ‘maybe . . .’

If she skipped the trip to the drug store and the trip to the grocery, she’d have a little time . . .

After all, which was more important: spending time with the man she needed to convince that they were mates or eating?

Giggling softly to herself, Isabelle stepped harder on the accelerator. She could do those two errands on the way home from work tomorrow. For now . . .

Flipping through the radio stations, she settled on one that was playing an upbeat love song. It fit her mood just perfectly. ‘It’s only a matter of time,’ she told herself as she hummed along to the catchy tune.

For now, seeing Griffin took precedence, absolutely.

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Gavin frowned as he snapped the cell phone closed and dropped it onto the sofa. Jillian was taking a shower—he could hear the hum of the water pipes, and that was probably for the best. True, it could be as Cain had said. Maybe they’d just gone to see Dr. Avis when he’d had to step out for some reason or another, but . . .

But the doctor had seemed genuinely happy to get a chance to talk to Jillian, and his lingering absence over the last couple days just didn’t seem right.

Myrna had maintained, though, that the signal from Dr. Avis’ tracking device was operating fine. He was still somewhere in the city, she’d said.

Gavin sighed and shook his head. Jillian had wanted to stay another few days, but Gavin couldn’t. He really had to get back to work. Jillian might be all right with the idea of living off her money—God only knew she had enough of it—but he wasn’t. Call it stubborn male pride, but he wanted to make sure he proved that he could provide for her without using so much as a dime of her money, ever.

He had promised to bring her back in a few months, though, and that seemed to be enough for her. Besides that, he knew Jillian well enough that she didn’t have to tell him just how much she was missing her family. She really was more of a homebody than he had ever really given her credit for being.

Still, the doctor’s absence was troubling. He genuinely seemed to enjoy Jillian’s visits, and despite the initial discomfort on everyone’s parts, Gavin could tell that talking about Jillian’s biological parents was having a therapeutic effect on Dr. Avis. Just what could possibly be so important that he’d missed Jillian’s visits not once but twice in as many days . . .?

Jillian padded out of the bedroom, toweling her hair dry with a thick crimson towel. Lost in the copious folds of a hospitality robe, she met Gavin’s gaze and smiled. “There . . .”

Pasting on a smile that he hoped passed as normal, Gavin scratched the back of his neck and shrugged. “Your father says that Dr. Avis is still around . . . maybe we can go past his place on the way to the airport in the morning.”

“Daddy says it’s okay?”

Gavin nodded. Jillian had absolutely infallible trust in her family, and Cain Zelig, in her eyes, was like unto God. “Yes, he does.”

The relief on Jillian’s face was instantaneous and intense, and the smile she shot him made his heart skip a beat, forced the breath out of his lungs, made him feel weak, dizzy . . . She’d always had that effect on him. Gavin still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing . . . “You feel better now?” he asked absently, caught in her gaze, in the shimmering brightness that lit her pale blue eyes.

“Yes, I do. I feel so much better . . . though I have to admit, I was hoping that a certain someone was going to join me in the shower . . .”

Blushing at her not-so-subtle hint, not to mention the disappointment that she didn’t even try to hide in her tone, Gavin wrinkled his nose, digging his hands deep into his pockets as he quickly turned away and cleared his throat. “You hungry?” he asked, praying that she didn’t hear the slight huskiness in his voice.

No such luck. Jillian was always too quick to be fooled by his attempts at nonchalance. She sauntered over to him—he could hear the rustle of fabric, could feel the radiating heat of her body as she slipped her arms around his waist. Somewhere between the doorway him, she’d managed to discard the robe, and his back stiffened as she pressed herself against him, allowing him to feel every curve of her body. “Funny you should ask that . . .” she nearly purred as her hand slipped down to squeeze him through the coarse fabric of his slacks.

“J-J-Jilli . . .”

“Ye-e-es?”

He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. “N-Nothing,” he rasped, whipping around and grabbing her by the shoulders before lowering his mouth to hers . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Isabelle wrestled the door open with her shoulder as she fought to hold onto the plastic bags and purse in one hand without dropping the clothes she’d picked up from the dry cleaners that she had slung over her shoulder.

It was later than she’d bargained for. The sun was already starting to sink in the distance. There’d been a four-car pile-up on the highway, and Isabelle had helped to administer emergency first aid on the scene. Most of the people involved were okay, aside from some cuts and bruising, but one of the passengers—a young girl named Marissa—hadn’t been so fortunate. She hadn’t been fastened into her seat belt, and she’d been tossed forward in the minivan, hitting her head hard on the windshield. Isabelle wasn’t certain if she’d be all right or not. In the end, though, she’d done all she could do.

Carefully lying the clothes over the back of the sofa, Isabelle heaved a sigh as she walked over to deposit the bags on the counter as Froofie came barreling through the house to greet her.

“I’m sorry, sweetie . . . I left you alone all day, didn’t I?” Isabelle apologized, hunkering down and grasping the dog’s face in her hands to kiss him soundly on the head. The dog whined, and she uttered a wan little laugh, pushing herself to her feet and wandering over to let Froofie into the back yard.

She’d just turned around when the doorbell sounded. Glancing at her watch, she hurried over to answer it, leaning to the side to peer out the narrow window beside the door and smiling when she spotted Gunnar’s car in the driveway.

“Mamoruzen!” she greeted, hugging her cousin who was scowling at the use of his Japanese name. “What brings you by?”

Gunnar snorted and handed her a brown leather satchel. “Cain said you wanted these,” he replied, stepping past her and into the house.

“Yes, thanks,” she said as she looked in the bag, staring at the research material and journal inside. “You’re a lifesaver, you know.”

Cocking an eyebrow at her, Gunnar stuffed his hands into his pockets and slumped back against the wall. “Of course I am. You making any progress?”

Isabelle shrugged. “Some . . . about twenty pages of the journal. So far it’s a lot of notes pertaining to the beginning of the research. He hasn’t stated yet, just what they were researching.”

Nodding slowly, Gunnar pushed away from the wall and strode into the kitchen, rooting around in the cupboards until he found some bottles of water. He didn’t like cold water, so Isabelle was in the habit of keeping a few extra ones in the cupboard in case Gunnar should happen to stop by. Pausing long enough to break the seal, he tossed the cap into the recyclables and leaned against the counter. Golden eyes startling next to his stark black hair, Isabelle couldn’t help but smile at the cousin she adored. “You’ll get it,” he finally stated, a slight smile quirking the corners of his lips.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she replied then sighed, rubbing her forehead with a slightly shaking hand.

Gunnar’s smile dissipated, and he tilted his head to the side as he stared at her. “That didn’t sound good . . . something the matter?”

Shaking her head, she let her hands drop, slumping against the counter across from Gunnar. “No . . . yes . . . just one of those days, I guess.”

His frown was full of concern, and after a moment, he retrieved a second bottle of water—this one from the refrigerator—and discarded the cap before slipping it into Isabelle’s hand. “You look like you could use something stronger than water, but you don’t have anything else in there,” he commented before stepping back to resume his pose once more. “Tell me about it?”

Waving her hand as she tipped the bottle to her lips, she took a long drink of water. “There was an accident on the highway . . . a big one,” she allowed.

“I heard about that . . . they were still cleaning it up when I drove down,” Gunnar mused.

Isabelle nodded. “Yeah . . . everyone seemed all right, for the most part. One girl, though . . .”

Gunnar nodded, too, the light of understanding brightening his gaze. “You don’t know how she’s doing,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“She hit her head pretty good. I got her stabilized at the scene, but . . . you just can’t tell with head injuries.”

Gunnar didn’t respond right away. Sparing another minute to stare at her in his ever-calm, ever-thoughtful manner, he sighed softly, stepping over to her and drawing her into his arms. She closed her eyes for a moment, smiling wanly when she felt the warmth of his lips against her forehead. “Humans are too damn fragile,” he muttered, his tone almost angry, tinged with a certain resignation.

“It’s easy to forget how precarious life can be,” she mused, slipping her arms around Gunnar and letting her head fall heavily against his shoulder.

“Well, I hate to tell you, Izzy, but if you let yourself get this upset all the time . . .”

She nodded, swallowing hard as the rest of his sentence hung in the air. Pragmatic Gunnar . . . He always saw things in such a realistic light. ‘. . . Then you’ve chosen the wrong profession . . .’

He sighed and uttered a soft little grunt, kissing her forehead once more before stepping back and offering her a thin little smile. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, it’s fine,” she assured him. “Don’t worry about it . . . Did Grandpa hear anything else from Jillian and Gavin?”

“Nope . . . Not really, anyway. Seems that Avis still hasn’t been home, but Myrna said that the signal from his tracker is fine, so . . . I’m sure it’s nothing. Cain didn’t seem too concerned about it.”

Isabelle wasn’t exactly convinced. She knew her grandfather far too well not to realize that Cain wouldn’t show his concern over something like this, lest he should end up worrying someone else, most notably, his mate. The look on Gunnar’s face told Isabelle plainly enough that he was thinking the same thing. “But he is still in Australia, right?” she asked for good measure.

“Yes, and there’s no way he could fool the tracker. He knows the rules well enough. If he tries to leave the country, he’ll be hunted, no questions asked, and if he tried to take it off, we’d know it.”

“Then I’m sure everything’s just fine,” Isabelle replied, inflicting enough optimism in her tone to reassure her cousin.

He looked like he wanted to argue with her. In the end, he slipped his hands into his pockets once more and shrugged. “Look, I hate to take off so fast, but I’ve got to get moving. Call me if you need me?”

Isabelle managed a wan smile and followed close on Gunnar’s heels. “Don’t worry,” she told him as she held the door open.   “I’ll be fine.”

“All right,” he said, pausing long enough to rub her arm. “Give me a call the next time you’re in Bevelle . . . oh, and Izzy?”

“Hmm?”

A strange, almost pinched look surfaced on his face, and Gunnar pressed his lips together in a thin line before going on. “Don’t tell anyone about the research, okay? We checked into it, and I’m sure that Avis was acting on his own, but . . .” He trailed off and shook his head then sighed. “Just humor me, okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed. She nodded and watched him lope down the steps onto the sidewalk. He stopped before climbing back into his car to lift a hand in farewell.

Leaning against the doorframe until Gunnar’s car slipped out of sight, Isabelle sighed and shook herself. After she finished putting things away, maybe she’d call around to see if she could ascertain the girl’s status. She’d meant to run past Griffin’s house to see if he’d made any progress and to drop off the notebooks, but . . .

She had a feeling she wasn’t going to be very good company; not tonight . . . and maybe things would look better in the morning . . .

Chapter Text

Griffin scowled at the loose stack of papers in his hand as he shuffled through the house toward the front door. There were a few spots where he’d need to reference the original journal since the scan was hard to decipher, but for the most part, he was pretty sure that he’d gotten the gist of the passage in question. He’d have to ask Isabelle if there was any way she could get her hands on the original documents . . .

‘Are you sure you aren’t just grasping for a reason to have her come over?’

‘Shuddup.’

‘Admit it, Griffin . . . she’s not so bad to have around.’

That didn’t dignify a response, in Griffin’s opinion. Ignoring the annoying youkai voice, he let the papers fall to his side as he reached for the door handle and cautiously opened it.

“Morning, big guy. Did you miss me?”

Griffin snorted loudly but let go of the door before turning on his heel to head back into the living room. “About as much as I miss fleas,” he grumbled.

Her laughter rang out in the quiet house, and she closed the door behind herself. “I see you’re in a good mood, as usual,” she quipped. “Here . . . I brought doughnuts.”

Wrinkling his nose at the offered sweets, Griffin kept moving until he reached his desk, plopping heavily into the chair and setting about to ignore the intrusive woman—or die trying . . .

“Are you telling me you don’t like doughnuts?” Isabelle demanded. He could hear the rustle as she fumbled with the thin cardboard box.

He could smell the obscene amount of sugar emanating through his house and made a face as he reached for the bowl of lightly roasted nuts on his desk. “Yes, I am,” he mumbled before popping a handful into his mouth.

“You’re kidding!” Isabelle went on, her tone rife with unrestrained incredulity. “Who doesn’t like doughnuts? It’s unnatural!”

Heaving a sigh, he tossed his pen down on the desk and craned his neck to peer over his shoulder at the woman who had perched herself on the arm of the sofa. Ignoring the irritation that she couldn’t ever seem to remember where her ass belonged in conjunction with his furniture, Griffin snorted and turned back toward the documents he’d dropped on the desk. “Haven’t you ever heard the phrase, ‘to each his own’?”

“Sure, I’ve heard it, but we’re talking about doughnuts,” Isabelle pointed out, as though it were the most rational argument in the world.

“Did you come over here just to harass me?” Griffin demanded, “because if you did—”

Isabelle heaved a sigh, fluttering her hand dismissively. “Not at all, Dr. Griffin. I—”

The sharp scrape of the desk chair against the hardwood floor interrupted Isabelle as Griffin shot to his feet and whipped around to glower at the irritating woman. “Dr. Marin,” he growled from between clenched teeth. “Nothing else; just Dr. Marin.”

The infuriating female laughed, pinpoints of light dancing in her eyes. “Touché, Dr. Marin,” she agreed amiably enough. “Anyway, I brought these over.”

Griffin narrowed his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched her rummage through the old leather satchel she’d brought in with her. “What’s that?”

She shot him a quizzical glance then shrugged, producing three fat notebooks and a thin black book. “What do you mean, what’s this? It’s the research . . .”

Griffin scowled but took the volumes she held out to him. “The research,” he echoed with a shake of his head as he carefully opened the book. As he’d figured, it was the journal. “Thought you said that they had this stuff locked away.”

“They did,” she replied, setting the empty satchel on the floor beside the sofa before turning her attention back to the doughnuts once more. “I asked Grandpa if I could have it, and he said it was fine.”

Griffin’s head shot up, and he snapped the journal closed, his eyes flaring wide. Nibbling on a doughnut as she idly leafed through the notebook where he’d been writing translation notes, she was completely absorbed. Griffin uttered a terse grunt and dropped the research onto the desk with a heavy thump. “Did you tell them I was helping you?” he demanded, trying to keep his tone as neutral as he could manage.

She didn’t look up from her careful perusal of the documents. “Mm, I don’t remember . . . maybe . . .”

His hand shout out, wrapping around her forearm as he spun her around to face him. Expression a barely controlled mask of irritation, Griffin glowered at Isabelle and narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, ‘maybe’?”

A slightly panicked look filtered over Isabelle’s face only to disappear as quickly as it had surfaced. Tugging her arm to regain her freedom to no avail, she swallowed hard and blinked in surprise. “Griffin? That hurts . . .”

He gritted his teeth together and loosened his hold but didn’t let go. “Did you tell anyone that I was helping you?” he questioned once more.

She considered his demand and slowly shook her head, her frown resurfacing though it seemed more thoughtful than anything else. “No . . . I don’t think I mentioned you specifically, no . . .”

“You’re sure?”

Isabelle blinked and regarded him thoroughly. With a shrug, she shook her head once more and sighed. “I’m sure . . . why? I mean, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

Satisfied with her answer, Griffin abruptly let go of her and flopped down in the chair once more. “I don’t want anyone to know I’m helping you,” he grumbled. “Just leave it at that, will you?”

“Okay,” she agreed at length. “Is there a reason for all the secrecy?”

Her tone was casual—too casual, and Griffin’s back stiffened, his hand poised just above the ink pen he’d dropped on the desk in his haste to get answers out of Isabelle. “Nope,” he stated, picking up the pen and concentrating all his attention on the papers in front of him. “I’d just rather that no one know that I’m being forced to put up with you. That’s all.”

Isabelle giggled suddenly, waving her hand in a wholly dismissive gesture as she sidled up behind him, peering at the translation notes over his shoulder. Her hair brushed against his cheek—he could smell the slight floral scent of her shampoo—and Griffin grimaced, shoving her hair aside and leaning away as he shrugged his shoulder in a vain effort to stave her off. “Back up, will you?”

She ignored him. Somehow, he knew she would. “Who’s this Eaton Fellowes?” she countered instead.

Heaving a heavy sigh since he figured it’d be wasted effort to try to shake the infuriating woman off, Griffin rubbed his forehead and cleared his throat. “Don’t know, exactly. Just says that he was trying to buy out the research midway through. Sounds kinda pushy, if you ask me . . . maybe he’s related to you.”

Isabelle only offered a noncommittal ‘hmm’ at Griffin’s assessment. Eyes scanning the translation page he held in his other hand, she didn’t seem to be listening to him in the least.

“Is Dr. Avis mentioned in here?”

“Dr. Avis?” Griffin echoed, turning his face just enough to scowl at Isabelle out of the corner of his eye.  “Yeah, but nothing really big. Why?”

“That makes sense, I guess,” she allowed without taking her eyes off the transcript. “He was helping with the research in some capacity, though I don’t really think he was ever really told what, exactly, they were researching . . .”

“How’s that possible?”

Isabelle shrugged, gently pulling the pages out of Griffin’s slack fingers and pacing the length of the living room floor as she perused the translation. “Possible? Why wouldn’t it be? They simply didn’t tell him what their ultimate goal was . . . It’s standard practice amongst researchers, especially if what they’re looking into could be considered highly profitable or even a little on the dangerous side . . . Information is given on a need-to-know basis, and if you’re just a lab assistant, then it’s likely that you’re only told what you need to know to do your work.”

Griffin grunted and stood up again, lumbering off toward the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea.

He supposed that was possible. He’d seen stranger things in his life not to believe that maybe this lab rat, Dr. Avis really didn’t know exactly what they were researching. From what he’d gathered from the journal thus far, it seemed as though the main reason that the brothers had given this doctor a job was because he was a good friend of one of the brother’s wife. Now if he could just figure out what, exactly, the research was, maybe it’d start to make more sense to him . . .

“‘Fellowes is very persistent. I don’t think he’ll give up trying to buy us out. It’s starting to make Ken a little jumpy, and I wonder if he isn’t becoming rather paranoid . . .’” Isabelle read aloud as she followed him into the kitchen. “Paranoia . . .” She trailed off with a sigh, leaning back against the cupboard as she watched Griffin slowly, carefully measure out the dried leaves before pouring hot water into the earthenware mug. “So whatever they were researching had to be really big.”

“Sounds like it,” he agreed without looking at her. Life was simpler if he avoided eye contact with that particular female, after all. “Why all the interest in this Dr. Avis? Sounds like he was pretty much small potatoes, if you ask me.”

Isabelle sighed and tapped the bottom edges of the papers on the counter. “My cousin, Jillian’s in Australia visiting him now. He knew her parents—at least her mother—well. They grew up together, she said. Can’t say I blame her for wanting answers. She never really knew her biological parents, but I wonder what her mate’s thinking, taking off with her like that, and to visit the man who had her kidnapped just to get that damn bio-chip . . .”

Griffin shot Isabelle a quick look. She was running her finger down the page, and he had to wonder if she weren’t simply talking aloud to herself. “Wait . . . this Dr. Avis is the one who had her kidnapped?” he blurted, eyebrows furrowing in surprise.

Isabelle nodded, her answer rather vague since she hadn’t taken her eyes off the translation. “Hmm, yes. I was rather surprised that he wasn’t killed on the spot, but then, maybe not. Grandpa just . . . Well, he said that he didn’t believe Dr. Avis was capable of killing anyone, and he didn’t really hurt her, after all, even if he wasn’t exactly on the up-and-up.”

“Your grandfather let the man go?”

Isabelle blinked and looked up at long last, though he had a sneaking suspicion that she was about to laugh at him. His frown deepened. “Not really, no. He had him excommunicated. Dr. Avis was sent to Australia, and if he tries to leave the Australian tai-youkai’s jurisdiction, he’ll be hunted. Even so, I think Grandpa did it for Jillian. She wanted to know about her biological parents, and he’s the only one that knew them.”

“How does he know that this doctor-guy isn’t dangerous?”

“It wasn’t just Grandpa’s opinion. Everyone else agreed, too. Anyway, if everyone was killed for making a mistake, the world would be a pretty sorry place, don’t you think?”

Griffin snorted and got into the cupboard for the small crock of clover honey before responding to that. “Some mistakes are bigger than others,” he pointed out, “and you’re making it sound like the guy didn’t do anything worse than jaywalking.”

“It’s not that,” she argued. “It was mostly for Jillian. Even then, if Dr. Avis really was dangerous, Grandpa never would have been so lenient with him, and he did tell Jilli that she’s not allowed to visit with him without her mate, so it’s all good.”

That earned Isabelle another pronounced snort. “And her mate is able to protect her?”

Isabelle laughed. “Gavin? Heavens, yes! He’s almost as big as my cousin, Bastian, and that’s saying a mouthful. His father is one of Grandpa’s main hunters, and Gavin’s trained with the best of them—well, aside from my other grandfather . . . Is that a good enough pedigree?”

“Yeah, well . . .”

Her laughter trailed after him as he took up his mug and shuffled out of the kitchen. She obviously thought that he was being suspicious for no good reason, but something just didn’t sound right. No, he didn’t doubt at all that Cain Zelig had his reasons for letting Dr. Avis off with little worse than what amounted to a slap on the wrist, and he didn’t doubt that the tai-youkai was probably right about the man’s character. Still, if he’d kidnapped Cain Zelig’s daughter . . .

The trill of her cell phone cut through the unsettling sound of her laughter, and Griffin shook his head. As often as she’d been in his home of late, he figured he ought to be a little more used to her than he was. It never ceased to amaze him, just how often she fielded phone calls. Maybe she should look into getting her phone grafted to the side of her head . . . Setting the mug aside, Griffin reached into the worn satchel for the journal. Pausing a moment to run his fingers over the worn black leather cover of the volume, he frowned.

A lot of things didn’t make sense, to be honest. If Dr. Avis didn’t know what sort of research they were doing, why was he so desperate to get a hold of it, in the first place? Why risk his life by tangling with the North American tai-youkai if he didn’t have to? That alone smacked of stupidity. Hell, the guy could have approached Jillian and told her that he was an old family friend, and that probably would have gotten him further than kidnapping her did. He didn’t doubt Zelig’s reasoning, no, but then maybe he had a tendency to be a lot more suspicious than most.

No, there really had to be more to it. If he could just figure out exactly what they were researching, maybe things would make a little more sense . . .

“—Wouldn’t worry too much, Jilli. I’m sure that there’s a good reason for it, after all,” Isabelle said as she breezed back into the living room, still talking into the cell phone.

Griffin pinned her with a pointed look that she conveniently ignored. The woman had no viable manners; no saving graces, whatsoever.

‘None, Griffin?’ his youkai drawled.

Griffin snorted inwardly. ‘None.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that . . . Her . . . ‘assets’ look pretty good from here . . .’

‘. . . Shut up.’ Clearing his throat as he tried his hardest not to look at Isabelle, Griffin brushed off his youkai’s inane babbling. “What was that all about?”

“What? The phone call? That was Jilli . . . She’s been a little worried. It seems that the good doctor hasn’t been home the last few times she and Gavin went over there to talk to him.”

“Just stepped out or something?”

“Something like that,” Isabelle agreed. “Anyway, I’m sure it’s nothing serious . . . just bad timing, probably.”

Griffin grunted in reply, turning his attention back to the journal and entirely dismissing Isabelle.

“Well, I hate to run off, but I have to get to work,” Isabelle said as she snapped the phone closed and dropped it into her purse.

Griffin shot her a cursory glance and grunted. “Best news I’ve had all day,” he mumbled.

Isabelle heaved a sigh then giggled. “You know, you could at least pretend that you’re going to miss me.”

“It’d be a lie,” he stated flatly.

“Now, now. No need to be nasty . . . How about you just say you’ll miss me, even if you won’t?”

“Oh. Please. Don’t go. I might cry if you do,” he stated in the baldest tone he could muster.

Isabelle giggled—an entirely pleasant sound that grated on his nerves just the same. “Well, if you insist . . .”

“Give you an inch, and you try to take a mile,” he grumbled. “Get out of here, will you?”

The echo of her laughter warmed the atmosphere inside the house long after she’d gone, and Griffin sighed, shaking his head and trying to ignore the unsettling feeling that she could very easily insinuate herself into his life if he weren’t careful. He’d known it years ago, the day she’s breezed through the doors into the lecture hall where he taught Introduction to Ancient Linguistics at the University of Maine. She’s sat at the back of the hall, her brilliant golden eyes glued on his face the entire session, and oddly enough, he hadn’t once sensed the absolute horror that he normally perceived at least once whenever he met someone new. No, she’d sat there listening as though the subject was of sovereign interest, and it hadn’t taken long for her to become the brightest spot in his otherwise colorless existence. She thought nothing of challenging him in class and outside of the classroom, as well, and at first it had been purely academic. As intelligent and quick-witted as she was beautiful, it hadn’t taken Griffin long to learn that the woman was more dangerous than any man he’d ever met. When the sexual innuendo had started, though, he’d put a stop to it quickly enough, refusing to encourage something that didn’t have a chance in hell of ever being more than just a game to a girl like her, and he’d done well to hide his feelings, hadn’t he? The self-discipline he’d learned so long ago had become his one salvation against her formidable, if not subtle, attacks. If she ever found out exactly how badly she could get to him . . .

And that was something that just couldn’t happen; not in his lifetime . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Isabelle rolled her head back and rubbed her neck with a weary hand, pausing long enough to rub her eyes then check her watch before dropping the clipboard into the slot on the counter with a heavy sigh. It was only nine o’clock. ‘Another three hours to go . . .’

“You look like hell, Dr. Izayoi.”

Narrowing her eyes, Isabelle shifted what she hoped was a fulminating glower on her coworker. “Haven’t you ever heard that saying? ‘If you can’t find something nice to say’ . . .”

Jordan Winters laughed as he looked over the next clipboard in line and grimaced. “Sure, I’ve heard that,” he quipped, “but you’ve often said that you don’t stand on empty flattery, right?”

“Hmm . . .”

He peered over her shoulder at the clipboard she’d grabbed. “Sore throat? I’ll trade you . . .”

Leaning to the side to look at Jordan’s next patient’s sheet, Isabelle couldn’t help but laugh. “Constipation? No, thanks . . . I think I’ll stick with the sore throat, thanks.”

“You’re so heartless,” Jordan pouted, running his slim fingers through his thick chestnut hair.

“Well, you are the one who is constantly trying to score points with me,” she reminded him.

He made a face then grinned unrepentantly. “True enough . . . Is it working?”

Isabelle rolled her eyes then laughed as she turned around to locate the patient with the sore throat. “No, it’s not,” she informed him, “but feel free to keep trying.”

“You’re hell on a guy’s ego, Isabelle.”

She smiled. “I try.”

“Sir, if you have an emergency, you need to fill out one of these sheets and sit in the waiting room . . .”

“It’s not that kind of emergency. Just tell me where I can find—There you are!”

Isabelle turned at the sound of the all-too-familiar voice and blinked in surprise. If she hadn’t heard him for herself, she never would have believed that Griffin would ever sound quite so . . . panicked? “Griffin?” she called, striding away from Jordan without taking her eyes off the bear-youkai who looked as though he was seriously considering committing some mayhem . . .

“You have to come with me,” he stated without preamble, grabbing her arm and hustling her toward the doors.

“Hold on! My shift’s not over yet! I can’t just—”

The look he shot her silenced her completely. Scowling dangerously at her, his eyes glowing with an odd sort of light, he looked like he might just toss her over his shoulder and drag her out of there if she didn’t comply, and without thinking about it, she took a step back in retreat. “What’s going on?”

He was struggling to keep his cool, she could tell . . . that or he was considering just how much trouble he’d get into if he slapped his hand over her mouth and made like a cave man . . . “I don’t have time to explain yet. Just come on, all right?”

“I knew you’d miss me,” she quipped, resorting to a childhood habit of making jokes to calm her own nerves. Something about his demeanor unsettled her; frightened her. She wasn’t scared of Griffin, per se, but there was something odd in his urgency.

“Damn it, Isabelle—”

“No, seriously, I can’t just leave. I don’t get off work till midnight . . . Can’t it wait until then?”

“No,” he growled, his already foreboding expression growing blacker by the second.

“What is this about?”

He sighed. “Fine . . . give me your keys.”

“My keys?”

He held out his hand, bouncing his palm up and down for added effect. “Yes, your keys. Just give them to me.”

She rolled her eyes and smiled at last. “If you wanted to borrow my car, all you had to do was ask.”

“That, too. I need your house keys though.”

“My house keys?”

Another sigh, this one far more frustrated than the prior one, had Isabelle patting her pockets for her keys. “Here,” she said, handing them over.

“You get off at midnight, right?”

She nodded. “Yes . . .”

He nodded, clutching the keys so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “I’ll pick you up.”

“So you’re not going to be waiting naked in my bed?”

That earned her another scathing glower. “Don’t come outside until you see your car.”

“All right; all right; I got it . . . You know, Griffin, you could tell me why you’re acting so strangely.”

He was already heading for the door. “I’ll tell you later,” he grumbled without breaking his stride.

Isabelle watched him go, rubbing her forearms as a sudden chill raced up her spine. She wasn’t certain why, but she had a feeling that whatever was bothering Griffin was serious—very serious.

But . . . what . . .?

Chapter Text

Isabelle blinked in shock and slowly shook her head as she struggled to wrap her mind around everything Griffin had just told her. “You’ve got to be kidding,” she said slowly, stroking the fine hair on Froofie’s knobby head. His thick tail thumped heavily on the hardwood floor, and he whined softly and stuck his paw in Isabelle’s lap.

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Griffin growled, wrinkling his nose at the hot pink nail polish on Froofie’s claws. “That poor dog . . . you know, that could be considered animal abuse,” he pointed out gruffly.

“What? The nail polish? He likes it, don’t you, Froofums?”

It was Griffin’s turn to blink. “Froofums?”

“Oh, I just call him that sometimes.”

Griffin snorted. “Thank God.”

“His real name is Froofie,” she went on.

“You’re not serious.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Griffin heaved a sigh, rubbing his eyes as though he were at the end of his proverbial rope. She actually looked as though she wasn’t entirely sure why he would find the name objectionable. That just figured, didn’t it? “No reason . . .”

Isabelle opened her mouth to ask him what he thought was so odd about the dog’s name, but shook her head when she recalled exactly what had started the entire conversation.

“So, are you going to tell me why you wanted my house keys?” Isabelle asked as she settled herself into the passenger side of her car.

Griffin took a moment to check the rearview mirrors before slowly pulling away from the curb in front of the hospital’s emergency ward entrance. For a moment, she didn’t think he actually was going to answer her. Driving in silence through the Saturday night crowd that milled around downtown Bangor, it seemed that it was taking all of his concentration just to navigate the busy streets, and not for the first time, she had to wonder just how bad his vision really was. Blinking, squinting as he tried to watch the road under the harshness of the streetlamps, he looked a little disoriented though he didn’t complain. Stealing a surreptitious glance at him, Isabelle couldn’t help the rapid flutter in her chest. Seeing his face in the capricious light filtering through the windshield, alternating with the darkness of the shadows cast from the night, he looked damn good to her . . .

“I’ll explain it later,” he mumbled, obliterating the pleasant idyll she’d been lost in. “You need anything before we go back to the house?”

“Need . . .? Uh, no . . .” she replied, biting her lip at the unaccountable fluster that she was having difficulty hiding. Luckily for her, Griffin was far too preoccupied with driving and didn’t notice, which, she supposed, was a good thing.

“You didn’t tell me you had a horse of a dog,” Griffin remarked suddenly, scowl darkening though she wasn’t certain if that was because of the aforementioned dog or because he really seemed to hate driving.

Isabelle couldn’t help the little giggle that escaped her. “He’s just a puppy!” she protested.

Griffin snorted, sparing a moment to pin her with a dubious glance before tightening his hands on the steering wheel and turning his attention back to the road once more. “Puppy, my ass,” he grumbled.

Her laughter died away when he rubbed his temple with a noticeably shaking hand. “You know, I could drive,” she offered slowly, hoping that her tone was a little more neutral than it sounded in her own ears.

“I’m fine,” he insisted, rotating his wrist to adjust his shirt cuff before grasping the steering wheel once more.

She opened her mouth to argue with him but closed it again when he shot her a foreboding look. The look shifted into one of mute irritation, though, and he braked rather sharply to avoid running a red light. “You’re a medical doctor, aren’t you?”

Isabelle blinked and nodded, wondering just what he was talking about now. No doubt about it, Griffin wasn’t acting like himself; not at all . . . “Yes . . .”

He grunted. “Then you know that a good portion of traffic fatalities comes from the occupants of the cars’ inattention to their own safety.”

“Are you planning on wrecking my car?”

He snorted.

“Do you actually have a driver’s license?” she asked at length.

“. . . Yes.”

“Can I see it?”

“No.” He rolled his eyes and jerked the gear shift into ‘park’. “Put your seatbelt on, fat ass.”

“Ah, we’re talking about my ass again?” she quipped but reached for the seatbelt, just the same. Griffin waited until she’d fastened the latch securely before grudgingly shifting the car into ‘drive’ again. “I must say,” she went on, “I’m flattered that you care so much about my safety. I knew your cold façade was all just an act.”

“Just because I’d rather not scrape your mangled body off the pavement doesn’t mean I give a damn,” he growled. “I don’t like taking showers right before bed, and I’d rather not have your blood all over my sheets.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help herself. There was something about his dry wit that appealed to her.

She wasn’t sure what she’d really expected. She supposed that his odd behavior had something to do with the journal, and truthfully, she’d been wondering exactly why he’d wanted her house keys, but she hadn’t really gotten to dwell on that. Shortly after Griffin’s unceremonious departure, a couple of high school kids—a boy and his date—had been brought in. They’d been out partying and in a stupid, drunken moment, the boy had driven his car straight into a sycamore tree. Luckily, their injuries hadn’t been too severe, but Isabelle had been worried enough to order a series of x-rays along with some other tests in order to rule out any possibility of internal injuries since the boy had been unconscious when he was brought in.

Of course, that wasn’t the point. The actual issue was what Griffin had said in his usual blunt manner seconds after walking into his house and locking the door . . .

“So are you going to explain exactly why you think that I’m in danger?” Isabelle asked.

Griffin snorted, probably because she didn’t sound concerned in the least. “I don’t think it; I know it. Stop brushing me off, will you?”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m in danger . . . You are going to tell me why you think so, aren’t you, big boy?”

She could tell from the irritation that flitted across his features that he didn’t like what she’d said. He chose to ignore it, casting her a dark look before pushing himself to his feet and lumbering over to the desk. He returned with the journal and a notebook, plopping both into Isabelle’s lap before dropping back onto the sofa once more. “It’s all there.”

Isabelle dug her glasses out of her pocket and put them on with one hand as she opened the notebook with the other, noting absently that Griffin’s handwriting was small but neat and precise: exactly how Griffin tended to do everything.

‘As the research’s progressed, we’ve tried to keep the crux of it a secret. It wasn’t hard in the beginning, but as we near the testing phase, it grows increasingly difficult. It was purely happenstance that we discovered and were able to isolate the arbitrary gene that causes the youkai effect in hanyous—more of a freak coincidence than anything—and there are those who would try to exploit this discovery if given the chance . . .’

“The youkai effect in hanyous . . .” Isabelle repeated, more to herself than anything. “The youkai effect . . .? What does that mean?”

Griffin snorted again. “What do you think it means? I’d say it’s pretty obvious; wouldn’t you say?”

Isabelle blinked, finally lifting her gaze to meet his. “You mean the danger of a hanyou’s youkai blood take over in dire situations . . .?”

He nodded. “There’s more. Seems like they also figured out how to counteract it—an immunization, if you will.”

She shook her head and sighed, biting her lip as she considered Griffin’s claims. “Is that really a problem nowadays? Youkai and hanyous have evolved into much more peaceful beings. The risk that a hanyou would lose himself to his youkai blood is more of an anomaly than it used to be.”

Griffin didn’t answer right away, and Isabelle, absorbed in the translation of the journal, didn’t seem to notice. “Have you ever seen a hanyou lose control like that?” he countered, his gaze flashing with an angry sort of light.

Again she shook her head. “Well, no, I can’t say I have . . .”

Griffin sighed. “Well, I have. It’s not pretty, and there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop it—except kill ‘em.”

That shocked her enough to get her attention. Of course she’d heard of it. She also thought that it was a rarity these days. She frowned, staring down at the translated text without really seeing it at all. “My grandfather . . . he had problems with it, but that was a long time ago, and he learned how to control it, himself.”

“Yeah, maybe. Some hanyous aren’t that lucky.” Shaking his head, a disgusted expression on his face, he snorted indelicately, making Isabelle wonder exactly what he had seen . . . “In fact, most of them that lose control can’t bring themselves back.”

There was something in his voice, wasn’t there? A level of sadness that she couldn’t possibly begin to understand . . . It made her want to reach out for him, and she might have if she thought he’d allow it. As it was, all she could do was offer him a consoling nod; a concerned expression that she hoped would suffice. ‘One day, Griffin . . . one day, you’ll tell me why things make you sad . . .’ Clearing her throat, she scratched her head thoughtfully then shrugged. “If they really found a way to counteract the effects of the youkai blood in hanyous . . . that’s huge. I mean really, really huge.”

“It is,” he agreed then let out a deep breath as he rubbed his face. He looked like he wanted to say something else and was trying to find a way to state it. Hunching forward, he scowled at the floor, his elbows resting on his knees. “That guy . . . your aunt’s biological father . . . he was murdered.”

“What?”

He sighed, jerking his head toward the journal. “It says in there . . . Well, it doesn’t say it directly, but . . . It says somewhere in the beginning that Kennedy Carradine was a water youkai, remember?”

Isabelle nodded then shook her head. “But that still doesn’t mean—”

“He drowned. It says that’s how he died.   In fact, if you look up the public record, it says that he drowned.”

She still wasn’t quite ready to concede his point. “But it could have been an accident.”

“She’s a water-youkai, isn’t she?” he argued, as though it was the most reasonable question in the world.

“She? Jillian, you mean?”

“Yes, her.”

“Well, yes, but—”

Griffin snorted, plainly stating without words that he thought Isabelle was just being dense. “Then you know, right? Think about it: fire-youkai can withstand high temperatures that no one else could. Thunder-youkai can manipulate thunder powerful enough to kill another youkai. Ice-youkai can live in sub-zero temperatures without any trouble at all, and if that’s true, then it stands to reason: water-youkai do—not—drown.”

She considered that but shook her head. As convincing as Griffin’s logic was, she still wasn’t certain she bought it. “That was years ago, Griffin . . . and if that’s true, then why wasn’t something done about it back then? My grandfather—”

“—Probably didn’t know. They were trying to keep everything about this research hush-hush, and if there was a viable threat, maybe they were too scared to take it to the tai-youkai . . . or maybe they didn’t realize the threat was that great until it was too late, but it’s a fair bet that Carl Carradine figured it out, and that’s why he imbedded the bio-chip into your aunt.”

Isabelle sucked in a sharp breath. It was one of the things that bothered Jillian the most: the idea that her biological parents would deliberately put her into danger by sticking her with the bio-chip . . . “He . . . he did it . . .?”

Griffin nodded at the notebook. “It’s all there.”

“But that still doesn’t explain why you think I’m in danger.”

“Who all knows you’re handling this research?”

Isabelle thought that over and flopped against the back of the sofa. “Hmm . . . just my family . . .”

“You’re sure?”

She nodded. “Yes, I’m sure.”

Griffin pondered that then shook his head, a stubborn frown drawing his eyebrows together as he stabbed her with a ‘don’t-mess-with-me’ sort of look. “Good. Keep it that way, and . . .” he trailed off with a marked grimace, “and there’s no help for it, I suppose.”

“No help for what?”

He grunted, and she blinked in surprise when his already foreboding expression turned even more menacing. “I packed up some of your things and brought them over. You’re not going back home until I’m sure you’re safe.”

“You . . . moved me in . . .?”

He rolled his eyes and shot off the sofa to pace the floor. “No,” he blurted quickly, his cheeks darkening as blood rushed to the surface. Isabelle nearly laughed despite the gravity of the situation. “I mean, not really. You’re just staying here until—”

“Until you’re sure I’m safe. You do care, don’t you?” Unable to stave back the brilliant smile that surfaced, she suddenly laughed, which, in turn, darkened Griffin’s already formidable scowl. “And here I thought you despised me.”

His cheeks reddened a little more—an entirely endearing thing, all things considered. “Just because I don’t like you doesn’t mean I want you to die—though I suppose I’d be a lot less annoyed on a day-to-day basis.”

Why did she have the feeling that despite his gruff attitude and his prickly demeanor that he really was concerned about her wellbeing? She smiled. She couldn’t help it. “I still think you’re blowing it all out of proportion,” she remarked.

“I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “Your grandfather said that this guy—this Dr. Avis—wasn’t a threat, right? That he wouldn’t hurt anyone?”

“That’s right.”

Griffin nodded. “All right. So if you take that at face value, then ask yourself: why would a peaceable man go to the trouble of kidnapping your aunt? Peaceable men don’t go around considering abduction unless they’re not what they appear to be or unless someone else puts them up to it.”

Isabelle drew herself up proudly, unable to brush aside the obvious slur against Cain Zelig. “My grandfather is an excellent judge of character,” she informed him brusquely.

“I didn’t disagree. Didn’t you say that Dr. Avis disappeared?”

“No, I said—”

The look he shot her was positively gloating. “You said that he’s been gone when your aunt’s tried to visit him. He’s disappeared.”

Isabelle wasn’t ready to concede that easily. “Disappeared? Because he hasn’t been home a couple of days? That . . . that doesn’t make any sense!”

“Doesn’t it? If Dr. Avis wasn’t really the mastermind, then his getting caught would be a definite threat to whoever was pulling the strings from the shadows, don’t you think? If that’s the case, then the one in charge wouldn’t want the doctor around to let anything slip, would he?”

The unmistakable throbbing of a growing headache pounded behind Isabelle’s eyes, and she quickly rubbed her temples in a vain effort to stave it off. “But what you’re saying . . . You really believe it, don’t you? You really believe I’m . . . that someone would . . .?”

He grimaced and shook his head, draping his hands on his hips. “I’m saying it’s possible—very possible. I’m saying that I’d rather know that you and the research are safe. That’s all.”

A distinct shiver ran up her back as she let his claims sink in. If he was right in his deduction that Dr. Avis was nothing more than a pawn to someone far more powerful . . .

“Look . . . you said so, yourself. This research . . . the idea of counteracting the negative effects of the youkai blood in hanyous . . . it’s a big deal, right?”

She nodded but remained silent. Struggling to assimilate all that she’d been told, she felt oddly thick-headed, dull.

Griffin sighed, raking his hands through his shaggy brown hair. “I wasn’t trying to scare you,” he finally said, his tone grudgingly apologetic. “I just . . . I think you’re safer here.”

Again she nodded. Digging her cell phone out of her purse, she flipped it open and started to dial Cain’s phone number.

“If you call him,” Griffin said, stopping momentarily on his way out of the living room, “he’ll pull you off the project.”

Her thumb stilled, poised over the ‘connect’ button. “He wouldn’t,” she said though her tone didn’t sound very positive.

“You don’t think so? And here I thought you were smart . . .”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Griffin’s head snapped to the side, an incredulous expression obliterating any other emotion. “You’re not really that dense, are you?”

She wrinkled her nose but snapped her phone closed. “Maybe I am,” she admitted.

“Do you honestly think he’d have handed over the research if he thought you’d be in danger because of it?”

She didn’t answer that, either. She didn’t have to. Griffin knew the truth, even if she was loath to admit as much.

“Go ahead, and call him. Save me the trouble of babysitting you,” he goaded, and for reasons that Isabelle didn’t quite understand she had the feeling that he was deliberately trying to draw out her stubborn streak.

Even so, knowing what he was doing and ignoring it were two entirely different things. “I don’t need a babysitter,” she informed him haughtily. “I’m not as helpless as you’d like to think.”

“I find that hard to believe,” he mumbled. “Anyway, just don’t make yourself too at home—and just to remind you: you’re still expected to abide by the terms I set down when I agreed to help you, in the first place.”

“I know; I know . . . no hitting on you. Strictly business, but need I remind you that you’re the one who insisted I move in?” she remarked, raising her voice since he’d headed toward the kitchen.

“You’re not moving in,” he shot back. “You’re just staying here temporarily. That’s all.”

Isabelle sighed, smiling wanly as Froofie nudged her hand with his cold, wet nose. As much as she’d love to engage in the usual round of verbal banter, she just couldn’t. Griffin’s concern was far too fresh in her mind, and though it frightened her, she couldn’t help but feel as though there was more to his worry than he was willing to admit, that maybe he really did care more than he’d ever wanted to. What was it that her father had once told her? “The promise to protect someone isn’t one that is given lightly. It comes in all forms, and sometimes you have to listen carefully to hear it. The one who promises to protect you . . . He’ll be your mate.”

Isabelle mulled that over, rehashing Griffin’s words in her head. “I wasn’t trying to scare you. I just . . . I think you’ll be safer here . . .”

‘Was that . . . the promise . . .?’

‘Is that what you think?’ her youkai blood challenged.

‘I . . . I don’t know . . .’

Griffin stomped back into the living room with a mug of herbal tea in his right hand, and he stopped beside her long enough to swipe the journal and notebook away from her before lumbering toward his desk.

A slow smile spread over Isabelle’s features as she watched Griffin settle himself into the sturdy chair before slumping over the journal once more. The sudden warmth swept through her, leaving her feeling weak, breathless . . . and unaccountably happy when, by rights, she ought to be quivering in fear if what Griffin believed really was true.

“It’s rude to stare,” he grumbled without turning around.

The edges of his ears were bright red, and she smashed her fist against her lips to keep from laughing out loud. “Sorry,” she apologized, sounding anything but contrite.

He snorted.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Will you listen if I say, ‘no’?” he countered.

“How did you get those scars? The ones on your face?”

His back stiffened, and his head jerked up. He sat stock still for a long moment before clearing his throat and turning his attention back to the journal once more. “None of your business.”

Isabelle pushed herself to her feet and ambled over to lean on the side of the desk. “I’ll bet you got them doing something incredibly heroic,” she said. “Let me guess: you were rescuing a little lost kitty from a tree, and the cat clawed you, throwing you off balance, so you lost your hold and got scratched by a bunch of branches on the way down.”

He snorted. “. . . Yes.”

She laughed at the dryness in his reply. “I knew it!”

“Hardly.”

“Hmm, then did you—?”

“No more guesses,” he cut in.

She heaved a melodramatic sigh and bit her lip as she stared at the configuration of scars on his hands—both of them. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him about them, but she figured that she’d better not press her luck. After all, she’d be able to ask him another time. They’d be spending a lot of time together, wouldn’t they?

“You know, Dr. Griffin, I think you’ll love having me here. In fact, I aim to make sure you do.”

His pen paused for the briefest of moments. She wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been staring at his hands. “Fat chance, and I could have sworn I told you it’s Dr. Marin.”

“I will, and you did.”

He shifted his gaze to the side then slowly shook his head. “Hell, I think I’m already regretting it.”

She laughed and leaned over, propping elbows on the desk and resting her chin on her balled-up fists. “You might as well face it: we’re inevitable.”

“And you’re delusional. No flirting with me, remember?”

“I wasn’t flirting,” she protested with a wink. “I was stating fact, and you might as well get used to it.”

Griffin didn’t reply to that. Hunching further over the journal, he set about ignoring her.

Isabelle laughed, taking pity on the poor man and straightening up, gesturing at Froofie to follow her so that she could let him outside. “You’ll see, Dr. Griffin. You’ll see . . .”

Chapter Text

‘Admit it: it’s not that awful, having a houseguest.’

‘It is. It’s torture,’ Griffin retorted.

‘You wish! You’re just irritated because you didn’t sleep well last night—not that I blame you. It’s dangerous, isn’t it? Knowing that she’s in the same house just across the hall . . .’

‘I knew I should have bought a bigger house.’

‘Do you think she wears anything to sleep in?’

Choking on a healthy swig of dandelion tea, Griffin scowled at the rising sun, wiping a dribble of tea off his chin with the back of his hand. ‘The last thing I want or need to know is what that woman wears to sleep in.’

‘Yeah, you’re right . . . that would be even more distracting, don’t you think?’

‘. . . Shut up.’

Griffin was saved from further rebuttal by the incessant scratching coming from the other side of the door. The dog had wanted to follow him outside but Griffin hadn’t let him. Some dogs liked to chase other animals, and he enjoyed his mornings spent with the squirrels too much to risk letting the dog out while they were enjoying their breakfast.

He snorted. That was another thing, wasn’t it? Why on earth would she have given the dog such a blatantly girlish name? It was unfathomable. Either she really loved or really hated him. Griffin was inclined to think that she hadn’t realized just how ridiculous that name really was . . . In any case, there was simply no way he could bring himself to call the animal by the outrageous name she’d bestowed upon him.

‘Anyway, Griffin . . .’

He sipped the tea, mentally bracing himself for whatever nonsense his youkai was about to spout. ‘. . . What?’

‘Why did you insist that she stay here if you, as you say, can’t stand her?’

‘I can’t. She’s a pain in my ass.’

‘Yeah, yeah . . . so why keep a pain in the ass underfoot?’

He didn’t respond to that right away. Letting his gaze come to rest on two of the squirrels who were busy plucking the dried corn off one of the cobs he’d set out, he sighed. Somehow his morning ritual wasn’t nearly as calming as it normally was . . . ‘She’s in danger, whether her family sees it or not.’

‘True enough, but you know better than anyone that the power of the tai-youkai is nothing to be scoffed at, don’t you?’

‘I know nothing of this tai-youkai,’ he rebuked coldly.

‘You know very well that he is his son. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?’

‘. . . Maybe. Even then, they have the same proof in front of them that I’ve got, and they haven’t figured it out for themselves.’

‘You know, that’s not entirely true. There were things in that journal that they probably don’t know, and if you’d have let Isabelle tell them—’

‘She’s too stubborn to let herself be protected. She’s a walking, talking disaster just waiting to happen.’

‘Then why didn’t you let her call him?’

Griffin’s frown deepened. Why, indeed . . .? If he’d simply let her call Cain Zelig when she’d started to, he wouldn’t have to worry about her, would he? The trouble was that he’d known deep down that if she’d told him—if she’d explained everything to him that Griffin had told her, the research would have been taken away from her, deemed too dangerous for Isabelle to handle.

‘Don’t make it sound so noble, Griffin. You’re not honestly going to try to put a nice face on it, are you?’

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Griffin grumbled. ‘There’s nothing else to it.’

‘Right . . . you know, don’t you? If she’d told Zelig, she’d have had to tell him who was translating the information sooner or later since they might have let her finish that much, at least. No, eventually she’d have told them about you, and that would serve little purpose other than opening a can of worms that is best left on a forgotten shelf.’

Griffin set the now-tepid tea aside and sighed.   ‘Yeah,’ he admitted, a certain resignation seeping into his tone. ‘Either way, it’s just a matter of time . . .’

‘Maybe.’

‘Can’t run from your past forever, right? You can’t run . . . and you can’t atone . . .’

The vague imagery of burning land; of the stench of death; of the grossly distorted silhouettes flashed through his mind . . . the sound of a little girl’s voice, crying out to him . . .

He shook his head to dispel the powerful sense of melancholy; of hopelessness that he just couldn’t escape. It really was simply a matter of time, and he’d known that when he’d agreed to help her with the translation. All of his sins would come to light.

And then . . .

And then those smiles, that laughter that Isabelle gave so freely . . . those things that Griffin had to keep at bay . . .

Those would disappear, wouldn’t they? When she figured out that he was worse than a childhood nightmare, that he’d done things—terrible things . . . things he couldn’t hide, and things that for which he’d never be forgiven . . .

Then she would despise him, and he . . . He deserved her antipathy, didn’t he . . .?

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

“You know, as much as I complain about days like yesterday when I can’t even get a moment to catch my breath, at least the clock moves faster,” Kiley Fortham remarked as she sipped coffee out of a white Styrofoam cup and adjusted the stethoscope that hung around her neck.

Isabelle nodded, filling a cup with the slightly burnt brew. “I know what you mean,” she agreed. “At least my shift’s almost over . . .”

“Yeah . . . you want to get a drink after work?”

“Uh, not tonight,” Isabelle said, smiling apologetically. “I promised a friend that I’d head straight home.”

“You’re too young to be a homebody,” Margaret, the middle-aged, head nurse, remarked as she gently moved Isabelle aside to pour a cup of coffee for herself. “You should be out meeting young men and enjoying life.”

“Well, there’s something to be said for spending a nice, quiet evening at home,” Isabelle hedged with a smile. “A good book . . . a roaring fire . . . a sexy man . . .”

Margaret leveled a no-nonsense look at her as she lifted the steaming cup to her lips. “Not in that order, I hope.”

Isabelle laughed. “I’ll take them in whatever order I can get them,” she quipped.

Margaret heaved a long-suffering sigh. “I would, too,” she agreed wistfully. “Nowadays I’m lucky if my ‘quiet night at home’ doesn’t involve running one of the kids to practice or stain-treating the white laundry before tossing it in the washer . . .” She made a face, glowering at the cup of coffee in her hand. “Ugh! Who made this sludge? It’s terrible!”

“Aw, and I thought it was one of my better pots,” Kiley drawled with a good-natured smile, tucking a strand of dark brown hair behind her ear.

Margaret blinked and pasted on an overly bright smile. “Oh, you made it? Then it was good,” she agreed.

Isabelle laughed. True enough, of all the things that the young resident doctor was good at, making coffee was just not one of them. In fact, the only person Isabelle knew who consistently made worse coffee was her cousin, Morio . . .

“So I’ll never catch a husband with my coffee-making skills,” Kiley remarked, a pretty blush staining her pale cheeks as she ducked her head and shrugged. “There are other things I’m good at, or so I’ve been told . . .”

“There’s something to be said for that,” Margaret replied then sighed. “God, I miss having sex . . .”

Isabelle nearly choked on a swig of coffee. Despite how long as she’d known the older woman, she still couldn’t help but be amused whenever dear, sweet Margaret said something of the more risqué nature. Margaret rubbed her back and laughed. “Just because it’s slow in here today doesn’t mean that you really need to give us something else to do,” she chided though her smile was gentle.

Isabelle opened her mouth to respond, but was cut short when Hillary, the girl who was covering the reception desk today, dashed into the room, breathing heavily as she clung to the door frame. “Got a patient,” she said breathlessly. “A boy: Brandon Lincoln. Fell out of a tree, and looks like he might have broken his wrist.”

“I’ll get it,” Isabelle volunteered, tossing her cup into the garbage can as she strode past it, unconsciously reaching up to make sure her stethoscope was still slung around her neck as she glanced at her watch and took the clipboard from Hillary’s grasp in passing. “How old is he?” she asked as Hillary hurried to catch up with her.

“Four. His parents are on their way.”

Sparing a moment to glance at the receptionist, Isabelle shook her head before returning her attention to the clipboard once more. “Then who brought him in?”

“His teacher. They were on a nature hike, and Brandon decided to climb a tree, instead.”

“I see . . .” Trailing off, Isabelle stopped short, blinking when she spotted the child held securely in the arms of his . . . teacher . . .? “Griffin?” she blurted, brushing aside the odd sense of surprise that had assailed her.

Griffin grimaced and muttered something to the little boy in his arms. “I-I think he broke his arm,” he said, his voice thick with emotion though his expression hadn’t changed.

She nodded slowly and inclined her head as she smiled at the frightened-looking child. He wasn’t crying, though, and that was a good sign, and his color, while a bit peaked, was good. “Hi. I’m Dr. Izayoi. You must be Brandon.”

The boy sniffled and nodded, whimpering slightly when Griffin adjusted his grip.

“Okay. Let’s go see what we can do.”

She turned on her heel and led the way back to one of the examination rooms. Ordinarily, something as routine as a broken arm would simply be dealt with in one of the curtained-off areas, but given the boy’s age and the lack of more serious cases, Isabelle figured that it would be best to utilize one of the rooms, instead.

Griffin followed her and sat in one of the stiff-backed chairs with Brandon. “It’s not really a life-threatening situation, so I can’t do much of anything until after his parents get here,” she explained as she knelt down in front of them, “but I can take a look at it for now . . . would that be alright with you, Brandon?”

Brandon frowned at her like he was measuring her up in his mind, his lips and nostrils quivering though he didn’t cry. His arm was very swollen—he at least had a nasty sprain—but he stole a glance up at Griffin, and upon seeing the bear-youkai nod once, Brandon drew a deep breath and nodded, too.

She spared a minute to check his vital signs. He didn’t look like he was in danger of going into shock, but that hardly mattered. He was holding up really well. His pulse was slightly elevated; no small wonder, considering . . .

Isabelle gently felt the limb, carefully monitoring his expression for any signs that she might be hurting him. He whimpered when she neared his wrist, and she pulled her hand away and smiled. “Yep, you broke it,” she informed him. “It feels like a clean break, though, which means that it will heal a lot faster than it would otherwise.”

“Do I get a cast?” Brandon asked suddenly, inclining his head as though he were considering the idea for the first time.

“Yes, I think you probably will . . . when your mama and papa get here, I’ll have one of the nurses take you to get pictures of your arm so we can see your bones.”

His eyes widened incredulously. “You can see my bones?”

She laughed and winked at the boy. “Absolutely. Don’t worry, Brandon. You’ll be out of here in no time.”

“Dr. Izayoi? Do you need me?”

Glancing over in time to see Nell Buckman, one of the nurses, lean into the room, Isabelle waved her hand and shrugged. “Not really . . . would you mind calling and letting x-ray know that I’ll be sending Brandon down shortly? Fractured arm.”

Nell nodded and winked at Brandon before ducking out of the room again.

She braced herself against her knees and pushed herself to her feet once more, pausing for a long moment when she intercepted the grudging thanks that lit the depths of Griffin’s gaze. “So Dr. Marin was taking your class hiking?” she asked, turning away to hide the little smile from the youkai’s discerning stare. “Did you have fun?”

“Yeah,” Brandon allowed. Isabelle glanced over her shoulder in time to see the rather disgusted way the child ducked his head. “Till I falled.”

“Hmm, well, you’ll have to be a little more careful next time, huh?”

Griffin grunted.

“I didn’t mean to fall,” Brandon grumbled.

Isabelle laughed. “No, I don’t suppose you did.”

She heard Brandon’s mother well before she saw her. The rapid approach of heels clicking against the linoleum floor announced his mother’s arrival, and with a waft of musky perfume, the woman breezed into the room, heading straight to her son. “Brandon! Oh, sweetie . . .”

Isabelle turned to face her. “Hi. I’m Dr. Izayoi,” she said with a slight smile.

“Denise Lincoln,” she replied absently and without taking her eyes off her son. She held her arms out, but Brandon shook his head quickly and held onto Griffin with his good hand. She offered a weak little laugh. “I see how it is . . .” Then she turned to face Isabelle. “I got here as quickly as I could,” she offered in lieu of an apology.

“It’s fine,” Isabelle assured her. “I did do a preliminary examination, and I can tell you that his arm is definitely broken, but I’d like to get x-rays to verify the damage, if it’s all right with you. It looks like a clean break, but I’d rather check to make sure there are not bone fragments or anything that could hinder the way his bone mends.”

She nodded. “Sure, that’s fine.” She sighed and shook her head. “My husband’s out of town this week on business . . . just figures, doesn’t it?”

Isabelle smiled. “It certainly does. Is Brandon allergic to any kind of medication? To any anesthetics?”

“Oh, uh, no . . . At least, not that I know of. He’s never really had to be on medicine before. Well, Tylenol aside . . .”

“Okay . . . good. You holding up all right, Brandon?” she asked with a reassuring smile.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I’m big.”

Isabelle grinned. “You certainly are.”

Nell strode back into the room with a wheelchair and a bright smile. “Okay, they’re waiting for you. How about I take you down there?” she offered.

Brandon stole a glance up at Griffin. Griffin nodded once and stood up, carefully setting Brandon down in the wheelchair. “Bone pictures . . . that’s pretty neat,” he mumbled.

Brandon’s expression lit up at the approval in Griffin’s voice. “Can I keep a bone picture?” he asked as Nell wheeled him out of the room.

Nell laughed. Isabelle didn’t hear her answer.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll wait out there,” Griffin said, face flushing slightly as he headed for the door, too.

“Wait, Dr. Marin,” Denise called. Griffin stopped in the doorway, carefully keeping his face turned slightly; just enough to keep the woman from looking at his scars, Isabelle supposed.

“Sorry, ma’am,” Griffin half-mumbled, half-growled as the red in his face deepened a little more. “I can pay for it . . .”

Denise waved her hand as though his offer was ridiculous. “No, no! Thanks, but we’ve got pretty good insurance, and he’s a little daredevil, anyway . . . I just wanted to say thank you for bringing him in and everything. Brandon loves Mondays, you know. He says you’re his favorite teacher.”

‘Mondays?’ Isabelle thought as her eyes widened in surprise. ‘Then that means he does this sort of thing all the time . . .?’

“He’s a good cub,” Griffin muttered then turned to go.

Denise sighed, and when Isabelle looked at her, it was to find the woman smiling despite the haggard lines creasing at the corners of her eyes. “He’s a godsend, really,” she commented, dusting her hands together and heaving a tired sigh.

“Oh?” Isabelle asked, scrutinizing the information on the emergency report carefully.

“Yeah . . . they were going to close the preschool, you see: short on staff . . . Dr. Marin heard about it, and he volunteered to take the children on Mondays to teach them about nature. The kids love it.”

Nodding slowly, Isabelle couldn’t help the warm little smile that quirked her lips. “I’ll bet,” she agreed.

“Excuse me . . . Mrs. Lincoln? There are a few papers we need you to sign when you have a minute,” Hillary said as she breezed into the room.

“Oh, I can get those now,” Denise offered.

Isabelle nodded at Hillary and bit her lip as she watched the women hurry out of the room. She had to admit that it had surprised her to see Griffin with Brandon in his arms, and yet . . .

And yet, hadn’t she sensed it, herself? Despite the gruff exterior, she’d known from the start. Griffin Marin was a gentle man beneath it all. It was one of the things that had drawn her to him in the beginning, and the more she found out about him, the more she wanted to know . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

“He’ll be okay, right?”

Isabelle nodded and stole a glance at Griffin as the car idled at an intersection in the middle of Bangor. Staring at his hands, his long bangs hanging down like a veil that hid his expression from her. She resisted the urge to reach over and brush his hair out of his face, figuring that doing so would very likely get her in trouble or worse. “Sure. It was a clean break. In a few weeks, you won’t even know that he’d ever broken it, in the first place.

Griffin grunted in response, but didn’t look up. It was telling enough that he hadn’t once argued with her when she’d offered to drive him home after she’d finished putting Brandon’s arm in a cast.

“Accidents happen, you know. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t have a job.”

This time, he did look at her. Well, he scowled at her. “That’s hardly amusing,” he growled.

She sighed. “Relax, Dr. G. Brandon will be fine; I promise.”

“D-D-Dr. G.?” he stammered. Isabelle didn’t have to glance at him to know that he was turning a very nice shade of red. “Dr. G.?”

“Sure. It stands for—”

“I know what it stands for, girly, and I don’t like it, either.”

She wisely hid her amusement. “What would you rather that I called you?”

He snorted. “Dr. Marin would suffice,” he growled.

“Oh, come on, now. I’m living with you, and—”

“Not by choice,” he mumbled.

“—I would think that should be more than enough for us to be on a first name basis, don’t you think?”

He snorted but didn’t answer.

“Anyway, you were really sweet with Brandon. I think I love you even more than I did before . . . will you be that sweet with our pups?”

He snorted again. “Never happen.”

“Oh, come now, Griffin . . . it’s not that bad. After all, making the babies is a hell of a lot of fun . . .”

“Please,” he growled, turning his attention out the passenger-side window as his face reddened once again.

“No, really! Who would have thought that a grumpy Pooh-bear like you would be so patient with children?”

“A grumpy—what?”

“Pooh-bear,” Isabelle stated again. “You know . . . AA Milne’s classic children’s character . . .? He lived deep in the Hundred Acre Wood where Christopher Robin played . . .”

He opened his mouth but snapped it closed again as indignant color blossomed in his cheeks.

She relented lest he should decide that he’d endured enough teasing for one day. Unfortunately, she couldn’t quite help the smile that just wouldn’t go away, either . . . It felt so natural—so normal—simply being with him; teasing him. Somewhere deep down, he had to know it, too, didn’t he?

‘I wouldn’t be so certain of that, Isabelle. It could be nothing more than wishful thinking, you know.’

‘No . . .’ Isabelle countered, casting Griffin a sidelong glance. She could only see his profile, and he didn’t look quite as upset anymore. At least her methods had worked in that respect . . . ‘Griffin . . . he can feel it, too. I know he can.’

‘Even if he does, he’s not about to admit it,’ her youkai pointed out.

Isabelle heaved a sigh, refusing to allow her youkai voice to put a damper on the pleasant feeling of Griffin-inspired warmth that surged through her. ‘Yeah, yeah . . . you’ll have to eat those words eventually.’

‘And I’d be happy to, but you know, you have your work cut out for you.’

‘And I wouldn’t have it any other way,’ she decided. ‘After all, does anyone really appreciate anything that’s just handed over on the proverbial silver platter . . .?’

‘No, I suppose they don’t.’

“Stop at the grocery store,” Griffin said suddenly though he didn’t look at her.

“Grocery? All right . . . going to break down and buy some real food?” she asked, quirking her eyebrow since she’d spent the better portion of last evening complaining about the serious lack of anything non-organic in Griffin’s kitchen.

He snorted. “Charlie needs food.”

“Charlie? Who’s Charlie?”

Griffin shook his head. “Your dog.”

“My dog?” she echoed.

“Yes, your dog.”

She laughed. “He has a name; it’s Froofie.”

“That’s not a name,” Griffin shot back as Isabelle hung a left into the grocery store parking lot. “It’s a torture device.”

“He likes it!” she protested.

“No, he doesn’t. You like it, but you’re not him—and you’re a little demented.”

“Ah, so now you’re channeling dogs? Impressive, Dr. G . . . Very impressive, indeed . . .”

He shot her a menacing glance that only served to heighten Isabelle’s misplaced amusement. “Listen, you—”

“Okay, okay,” she giggled, waving her hand dismissively. “I’m just kidding . . . I’m sorry . . .”

He shot her a suspicious glance. “Somehow I don’t think you are,” he complained.

Isabelle didn’t argue it with him.

Chapter Text

The smoke was thick—so very thick. His eyes throbbed, burned from the acrid smoke that infiltrated every pore on his body as he staggered through the debris. Unable to grasp the fleeting idea that the desecration that he was forced to witness was all that remained of the peaceful little village, he shook his head, rubbed his temple with his blood-stained claws.

Wiping away the fine gray dust that clung to his cheeks, he coughed so violently that he fell to his knees in the middle of the village near the well. The desolate sounds of cracking timber; of falling rooftops and groaning structures rang in his ears; loud like thunder, and he smashed his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes closed as he fought to understand . . . or was he simply trying to forget . . .?

Opening his eyes, he blinked in confusion as he stared at the body on the ground before him. Slowly—so slowly—he reached out; pushed the man’s shoulder to get his attention. He lilted from side to side but didn’t react. Swallowing hard, he pushed the village headman a little harder, and the man rolled to the side. Tongue hanging out of his slack mouth, skin leeched of color as his hair stuck to the blood-soaked ground, he seemed to mock him, didn’t he?   Staring into the blank, dull eyes of the dead man, he uttered a harsh little cry—not quite a sob, not quite a groan—and fell back, pushing with his feet in a concerted effort to get away from the macabre vision. He couldn’t escape the body that was laying askew, legs bent and twisted at odd angles; his face was frozen in a grimace of pain, a mask of fear.

Uttering a smothered whimper, he rolled to his knees, shrinking away from the body of one of the village’s women. She, like the headman, seemed to be caught in a silent scream, and he choked out a terrified sound as he turned on his heels, nearly tripping over his own clumsy feet. His body ached. He could feel his blood seeping through the tattered remnants of his clothing, clinging to him, cloying at him, and he ran . . .

With a sharp gasp, Griffin sat up, clutching his chest with a shaking hand. His heart hammered hard against his ribcage, and he squeezed his eyes closed as the remnants of the nightmare fought to stifle him. Body drenched in a cold sweat, the thin cotton shirt he wore clung to his skin in an entirely unpleasant way, bringing to mind even more of the memories that he couldn’t help but remember. He gulped hard, smashed his fists against his eyelids as he tried to force himself to calm down. ‘God . . . oh, God . . .’

It never went away, did it? It wouldn’t, and he knew it as certainly as he knew anything in his life. It was all transient, those truths that he tried to hide, and he was weary . . .

Pushing himself to his feet, he staggered out of the bedroom and down the darkened hallway to the bathroom and slipped inside. The harsh light from the fixture over the sink made him grimace, and he blinked for a minute while his eyes adjusted to the incursion. His face was drawn, pale, lips quivering as he drew a succession of unsteady breaths. The white shirt was translucent with the dampness of his sweat, and with a sigh, he fumbled with the buttons before yanking it off and tossing it into the hamper beside the sink.

He turned away from the mirror and turned on the water taps. Sinking down on the closed toilet seat, he slumped forward, burying his face in his hands. He hated mirrors, didn’t he? Hated to look at himself; hated to see . . .

Stripping off the rest of his clothes, he climbed into the tub and pulled the white plastic shower curtain closed, letting the tepid water wash away the lingering remnants of the dream—of the nightmare.

‘It was worse than normal, wasn’t it . . .?’

Gritting his teeth at the softly voiced question, Griffin reached for the bar of Ivory soap and concentrated on washing instead of answering.

‘Maybe it was simply the stress of the day.’

‘The stress . . .?’ he echoed almost absently, scowling down at his chest. His fingertips brushed over the puckered flesh, the conflagration of scar tissue that traversed his skin, and he barked out a terse, humorless laugh. ‘Stress . . .’

‘Brandon will be fine. It was just a broken arm.’

Griffin snorted. ‘How can you say it was just a broken arm, like it was nothing at all? Humans are weak, aren’t they? Weak and . . . and . . .’

His youkai sighed. ‘Weak and easily killed. I know. You know. Like it or not, that’s the way of it, though. There’s not much you can do about it, and even if you could, would it really be right?’

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You can’t change the world. You tried that once before—maybe not in the exact same way, but close enough, don’t you think?’

‘That’s not what I . . .’ He grimaced. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘Wasn’t it? It’s not such a horrible thing . . . a little idealistic, especially coming from the likes of you, and rather misguided though you tried, but not horrible, either.’

Shutting off the shower taps and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, Griffin shoved the curtain aside and reached for a towel. At the rate he was going, he was going to remember every single moment of his life that he’d rather not think about, and all before the sun rose.

It didn’t take him long to dry off and get dressed, tugging on the clothes that he’d carefully hung on the back of the bathroom door just before heading to bed. He caught sight of his scar-ridden chest as he buttoned up his shirt and winced. Though the wounds had healed long ago, the angry welts lingered as a constant reminder of the magnified shortcomings that he couldn’t overcome.

A lifetime of mistakes . . .

Taking the time to straighten the towel over the rack after meticulously sopping up the droplets of water that had pooled around his feet after his shower, Griffin let out a deep breath as he reached for the door handle, satisfied that he felt a little more like himself; a little more in control. Going back to sleep was out of the question. He wasn’t sure how long he’d slept, anyway, but his hip ached from lying in bed, in the first place. Even if he wanted to get more rest, he didn’t try to fool himself into thinking that it’d be possible. ‘Might as well get some work done,’ he thought as he lumbered off toward the kitchen to put the kettle on to heat.

The click of claws on the hardwood floor drew Griffin’s attention, and he tilted his head to the side as Charlie padded into the room. He stopped just inside the doorway and pushed back against the floor, yawning wide as he wagged his tail a couple of times and proceeded to stretch.

“Can’t sleep either?” Griffin asked, his gruff tone as close to gentle as it ever could be.

The dog sat down, his tail sliding across the floor in a whisper of movement as his mouth dropped open to accommodate his ever-panting tongue.

“Slobber on the floor, and I’ll use you to clean it up,” Griffin warned. Charlie wagged his tail harder.

“Great . . . you’re as stupid as you are ugly,” he remarked, turning back to the stove to light the old gas burner with a match. “I think I feel sorrier for you than I do for myself . . . guess that’s something, huh?”

Charlie half-grunted and half-groaned at him as a string of foamy slobber dangled from his gaping maw.

Griffin winced, lips curling back in a mask of undisguised distaste as he quickly reached for something to catch the drool. “Ugh . . . you’re nasty,” he stated with a scowl, wiping the moisture away with a dishtowel. His sense of satisfaction for having averted dog-slobber on the floor was short-lived, though. Scowling at the towel, he shook his head and stood up, glancing meaningfully at the garbage can before striding over to the sliding doors that hid the washer and dryer from view. It would wash out, wouldn’t it . . .?

He scowled at the towel in his hand. Then again . . .

Tossing the towel into the trash can, Griffin shot the dog a narrow look before digging another cloth out of the drawer and stomping out of the kitchen. With a sigh, he grabbed the permanent marker off his desk and wrote ‘dog’ on the edge of the towel. The last thing he wanted was to dry the dishes he ate off of with a drool-infested cloth, after all, and if that wicked she-devil who considered herself to be Charlie’s owner laughed at him, he’d wipe her dishes with the cloth and see how she liked it . . .

Sitting down rather heavily, Griffin hunched over the translation notes. At least the journal was relatively short. He was almost finished with that. The research, he was certain, would prove to be a lot more challenging . . .

‘Fellowes made another offer for the research, and he didn’t take ‘no’ very well. After considerable arguing, he finally left the lab, but not before saying that we would regret our decision to keep the research to ourselves. Kennedy believes that he does not pose a viable threat. I, however, am not as sure as he is . . .’

“‘He’,” Griffin muttered, letting his face fall into his cupped hands with a heavy sigh. “Eaton Fellowes . . .”

The man’s name kept coming up again and again. It couldn’t be a simple coincidence, could it? He glanced at the clock: four in the morning . . . Definitely too early to make a phone call, no matter what the reason might be . . .

Jerking bolt-upright in his chair, Griffin pushed his chair back and peered down between his legs. Charlie—tank of a dog that he was—had managed to ferret his way half under the desk. His nose was cold and wet—entirely uncomfortable on Griffin’s bare feet. Staring at him for a full minute, Griffin finally stood up and grunted for Charlie to follow.

The dog padded down the hallway after him, cocking his head to the side when Griffin stopped outside Isabelle’s door. “Go bug her,” he rumbled, opening the door and gesturing for Charlie to go inside.

Charlie stretched out on the floor with his muzzle in his paws and whined.

Griffin snorted. “Don’t give me that. She’s your mistress, and I hate dogs.”

He whined a little more.

Griffin waited another minute before pulling the door closed with a sigh. “Just as annoying as her,” he mumbled under his breath as he headed for the kitchen once more. “Figures.”

The damned dog trotted along behind him.

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

“Gavin Jamison.”

“Hey, Gavin. How was your flight?”

Gavin smiled at the welcoming sound of Isabelle Izayoi’s warm voice and leaned to the side to set the suitcase on the floor as Jillian hurried past him with her pale pink carry-on bag. “Oh, uh, Is-Isab-belle, hi . . .” he stammered, face reddening at the mere sound of a female voice. He supposed some things just couldn’t be helped, after all . . . in the confines of his office where he worked as a stock broker, he was okay when it came to talking to women. Outside of the office, however, it was an entirely different ball game, so to speak, and Isabelle, despite her friendly demeanor, was just about as frightening a woman as there was. Confident, beautiful, smart, strong—all excellent qualities, of course—but somehow the combination of those things in her was enough to set Gavin on edge. Sure, Jillian possessed those qualities, too, but somehow they seemed so much less intimidating in her; maybe because he’d known her for so long . . . “I-i-it was good. Longer than I’d like to dwell on, but decent. How’s the translation coming?”

She sighed. He could hear the hospital intercom paging another doctor in the background. “I’m almost finished with the journal,” she said. “In fact, that’s one of the reasons I was calling . . .”

“W-what about it?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning as a sense of foreboding raced down his spine.

She laughed at the hint of trepidation rife in his tone. “Oh, nothing bad . . . I just thought you should know that Jillian’s biological parents weren’t responsible for implanting the bio-chip in her . . . according to the journal, her uncle did it after her father died and without her mother’s knowledge.”

“How is that possible?”

Isabelle sighed. “It’s entirely possible. If he told her he was doing something like, say, and amniocentesis, then he could have easily injected it into the fetus—Jillian—without her mother knowing.”

Gavin shook his head, trying to get a better understanding of exactly what Isabelle was saying. “I see . . .”

“She was upset about that, right?”

He sighed, dragging his long fingers over his face in a weary sort of way. “Yeah. Yeah, she was.”

“Good, then. You can tell her that they didn’t do it.”

He nodded, staring off in the direction of the hallway where Jillian had disappeared. “You find out anything else?”

“Not yet. I’m working on it.”

“You still don’t know exactly what they were researching?”

She paused for a moment and cleared her throat. “Not . . . exactly . . .” she hedged. “I mean, I have an idea of what it was, but I’d like to make sure before I say anything. Is that all right?”

Gavin wrapped an arm over his stomach as a thoughtful expression filtered over his face. “Yeah, sure. I understand. Cuts down on conjecture . . . At least you’re making progress.”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll let Jillian know.”

“Gavin . . .?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you get to see Dr. Avis before you left?”

He sighed again, this one long and drawn out. “Uh, no . . . I’m sure everything’s okay, though . . . Cain said that his tracker is still working, and he hasn’t left Australia.”

“Can they pinpoint exactly where he is with that?”

“No. It works on international boundaries. If he left the continent, they’d know, but he’s free to do what he wants so long as he stays where he’s been exiled.”

“If Grandpa says it’s fine, then I’m sure it is,” she stated. “Anyway, I just wanted to touch base with you. My break’s over, so I’ve got to go.”

“Thanks,” Gavin said as Jillian strolled back into the living room once more. “I’ll be sure to tell her.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

Clicking the cell phone off, Gavin let it drop on the table before turning to face his mate. “That was Isabelle,” he said as Jillian slipped her arms around Gavin’s waist.

“Oh? Is everything all right?”

He nodded and kissed Jillian’s forehead. “Yeah . . . she just wanted to tell you . . . She’s translated some of the journal.”

Jillian stiffened in his arms, and Gavin winced. Any mention of the research tended to set Jillian on edge. A painful reminder, he supposed. He could only pray that this information would make her feel a little better about the entire affair . . . The idea that her biological parents would have done something that had ultimately led to her being abducted hurt her, and if there were something that he could do to lessen the upset for her, then he would, and this news . . . well, he was sure that it’d be a huge relief to her. “The journal,” Jillian repeated, her pale blue eyes clouding over moments before she buried her face against Gavin’s chest.

“The journal,” he agreed, “sort of. She wanted me to tell you that it said in there that your biological parents had nothing to do with the bio-chip. She said that they didn’t know about it, either.”

“R . . . really?” she asked, a hopeful lilt in her voice as she leaned away to stare at him. “They . . . they . . . didn’t . . .?”

He shook his head and smiled. “No.”

She swallowed hard, a sheen of tears lending a glassiness to her gaze. “So they . . .?”

“I told you that they wanted you,” he chided gently. “How could they not?”

He caught the first tear that slipped down her cheek and brought it to his lips to lick the moisture off his fingertip. It was something that she had told him long ago that her great-great-grandmother said would make a wish come true, and while he was a little too pragmatic to believe in such things, he had to admit that the idea that something as whimsical as making wishes was inviting.

‘I wish . . . I wish that Jilli will always smile, just for me . . .’

“What’d you wish for?” she asked, her voice husky from the tears that thickened in her throat.

“If I told you, it wouldn’t come true, would it?” he teased with a gentle smile.

She smiled, too—her eyes luminous, glowing with the hesitant light of cautious relief despite the tears that lingered. “I love you, Gavin Jamison.”

He sighed and pulled her close, closing his eyes as he buried his nose in her hair, as he inhaled the sweet scent of her. “I love you, too, Jilli . . . Jamison.”

“Gavin?”

“Hmm?”

“Will you . . . take me to bed?”

“W-I-you-oh . . . oh . . . okay,” he relented despite the scarlet flush that stained his cheeks.

Jillian giggled softly, pulling away from him only to take his hand and tug him back toward the bedroom. He couldn’t help the flush that heated his cheeks anymore than he could help the nearly instinctive reaction to tell her that he wasn’t about to do any such thing. Years of habit were so deeply ingrained in him that it would take him awhile to forget that he didn’t really have to try to put her off . . .

Of course, he had a lifetime to unlearn that, didn’t he?

And the practicing . . . well, he didn’t mind that too much, either . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Griffin held the telephone receiver to his ear and scowled at the dog who was sitting on the floor beside the reclining chair doing his best to lick Griffin’s feet. “Do it and die,” Griffin grumbled, pinning the dog with as formidable a glower as he could muster. The damned dog ignored him.

“You called me just to threaten me?”

He grimaced and pushed against the footrest, bringing the chair upright once more. “Sorry. Wasn’t talking to you.”

Attean Masta chuckled, the sound muffled slightly by the phone connection. “It’s been awhile. How are you?”

Catching the phone between his ear and his shoulder, Griffin planted his hands on the arms of the chair to push himself to his feet. “Not bad,” he replied. “How’s Maria?”

“She’s fine; fine . . . tell me why you called?”

He let Charlie into the back yard and closed the door with a sigh. “I can’t just call to see how you are?”

“You could,” Attean agreed slowly, “but you don’t. So tell me, what’s the trouble?”

“I, uh . . . I need your help.”

“My help,” Attean mused. “Must be big. You never accept anyone’s help.”

“That’s not true,” Griffin grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “I let you and Maria help me before.”

“With complete ill-grace, if memory serves . . .”

Griffin made a face. However true that might be, it held very little bearing on the current need for assistance. “You ever heard of a guy named Eaton Fellowes?”

“Hmm, no . . . can’t say I have. I can ask around . . .”

“Yeah, please.”

“Please, even. Wow . . . Interesting . . .”

“Not that interesting,” Griffin argued. “Anyway, I need to know where he is . . . I need to know anything you can find out about him.”

“You don’t believe in asking for small favors, do you?” Attean teased then sighed as he pondered Griffin’s request. “Consider it done, but answer one question.”

Griffin grimaced and let his breath out with a whoosh. He didn’t wait to hear the question, either. He knew Attean far too well not to know exactly what the hanyou was going to say. “I can’t go into detail. Suffice it to say that he . . . he might pose a threat.”

Attean didn’t answer right away, and when he finally did, Griffin winced at the overstated nonchalance in his tone. “To you?”

He snorted. “Like I’d give a damn if he were after me.”

“I see.”

“I wouldn’t have asked if it weren’t important.”

Attean sat back in his chair—Griffin could hear it squeak and groan in the background. “So this guy’s threatening someone else . . . All right . . . going to tell me who?”

“No.”

“Didn’t figure you would. Do you have any information to go on?”

Griffin sighed. “Uh . . . Colorado, near Denver. He was in that area about twenty-five years ago, give or take. Youkai from what I gathered. I don’t know what kind.”

“That’s pretty vague. Eaton Fellowes, right?”

He nodded, idly scratching Charlie just behind the ears. “Yeah. That’s the name he was using at the time, at least.”

“So it could be an alias.”

Griffin grunted since Attean’s statement was a bit ridiculous in his mind. “Any of us who’ve lived longer than eighty or a hundred years have those.”

“I suppose . . . but some of us use more legal aliases. In any case, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one. Anyway, thanks.”

His friend sighed. “Sure. Don’t mention it. Do me a favor?”

“If I can.”

Attean chuckled, not surprised in the least that Griffin would refuse to commit himself concretely without hearing him out first. “Never make a promise you don’t know if you can keep, right?”

“Something like that.”

Attean chuckled. “Give Maria a call sometime. She worries about you. For some reason, she likes you.”

“Yeah, if I have time,” he said though his tone was noncommittal at best.

Attean relented since that was as much of a promise as Griffin ever made. “Good enough.”

“Call me when you find out anything.”

“Absolutely.”

The line went dead, and Griffin pushed the ‘talk’ button to close the connection before setting the phone on the counter. If anyone could get the information on Eaton Fellowes, Attean could. He’d been working for the better part of the last hundred years as a private investigator under various aliases, and he was very good at what he did.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You know damn well that there are at least a couple others who could have come up with the information and probably faster, if you want my honest opinion.’

‘There are?’

‘Sure . . . it’s no secret—at least amongst our kind—that the future North American and Japanese tai-youkai do that sort of thing. Youkai special crimes, it’s called, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe,’ Griffin grudgingly allowed, ‘but they’d want to know everything.’

‘Right . . . right . . . and if you told them everything, they’d snatch the research out from under your nose . . . and Isabelle, too, for that matter.’

‘I don’t care about that woman.’

‘Awfully brave talk, don’t you think?’

‘It’s the truth.’

‘Sure it is—during the day when the sun’s shining and the demons have retreated to the shadows.’

‘Since when do you wax poetic about anything?’

‘I don’t . . . but it sounded good, don’t you think?’

Griffin snorted and rubbed his forehead. He’d suffered a headache all day, ever since waking in the middle of the night with his body drenched in a cold sweat.

‘You should have asked him about suppressing the nightmares,’ his youkai voice spoke up.

Griffin lumbered over to the door to make sure that Charlie was behaving. Chasing his tail around in circles, he looked like he was having the time of his life, and Griffin couldn’t help the trace of a smile that twitched on his lips.

‘I don’t need him to do that again,’ he maintained with a stubborn shake of his head.

‘Then why did the idea cross your mind, in the first place?’

He sighed. True enough. For the briefest of seconds, he had considered asking Attean to perform the ritual that would help to suppress the dreams once more. He’d done it the first time, just after finding Griffin. The nightmares back then were so awful that they’d leave him feeling as though something inside him was dying every time he closed his eyes.

It had worked well enough since then. He’d only had a few instances of the recurring dreams, but the one he’d suffered last night had been the worst he could remember since that time . . . It was so real, like he was there in that time and in that place . . .

Rubbing his eyes with a slightly shaking hand, Griffin swallowed hard and turned away from the door. Weariness seeped into his very bones: weariness that had nothing at all to do with the interrupted sleep he’d suffered the night before. No, it was an unvoiced thing, an entity that was constantly lingering just out of sight . . .

His secrets were coming back to haunt him, weren’t they? Only this time, Attean and Maria . . . They wouldn’t be able to save him . . .

Chapter Text

Isabelle pulled the door closed behind her and let out a long sigh. Dropping her purse on the small table as she kicked off her shoes on the tiny indoor-outdoor mat beside the stand, she glanced at her watch: nearly five a.m.

Froofie didn’t run to greet her. That figured. It seemed that the dog she adored had decided that he much preferred Griffin. In the few weeks since she’d moved in with the man, she’d come to realize that Froofie could be more fickle than any woman ever could be.

She sighed. There was no help for it, she supposed. At least Froofie had good taste, after all . . .

The living room was quiet in the thin light of the rising sun that was just starting to filter through the windows, casting everything in a pallid sort of grayish hue that lent a certain melancholy to the world at large. Isabelle stopped in the doorway as a gentle smile quirked her lips, lighting the depths of her eyes as she leaned against the frame, a soft giggle slipping from her but not loudly enough to disrupt the silence.

Griffin sat in the ratty old recliner with his feet kicked up and his hands clasped on his chest, holding a notebook in place. The journal peeked up beside him. It had obviously slipped off his chest when he’d fallen asleep. Froofie was curled up around the edge of the recliner as though he were protecting Griffin from anything that might disturb his rest.

Pushing away from the doorframe, Isabelle grabbed the brown afghan off the back of the sofa, letting it fall open as she shuffled over to the sleeping youkai. She tucked the blanket around him, noting with a bemused grin that he looked so much younger when he relaxed. She wasn’t sure how old he was, but she knew that he’d lived for awhile. He had his face turned, his scars hidden from view, and her breath caught in her throat as she stared at him. He really was a devastating man, and the scars didn’t detract from that, at all. No, they lent him a rather dangerous air, and while she knew damn well that youkai in general could be a violent lot, the Griffin she knew was the furthest from violent as they came.

‘Careful, Isabelle. Don’t discount what could very well be just because you think that he’s nothing but a pushover,’ her youkai warned.

‘I don’t think he’s a pushover,’ she argued, reaching out to ruffle his bangs but stopping short with a soft sigh. She’d been drawn to him from the start, hadn’t she? There was just something about him that seemed to whisper to her, regardless of whether he admitted as much or not. She wished that she felt confident enough to touch him; wished for that more than anything. Trouble was, she wasn’t sure she dared do that; not really. As much as she liked to think that the two of them were inevitable, even she had to admit that Griffin had never allowed as much as a slight ray of hope that he thought she was anything other than a trial to him . . .

‘What’s this? You mean your legendary confidence is faltering?’

Biting her lip, she rubbed her forehead and padded off to take a shower. ‘No,’ she argued as she strode into her bedroom to grab a change of clothes. ‘I’ll just have to try that much harder, right?’

Her youkai snorted. ‘Hard to do that when you promised that you wouldn’t come on to him while he’s translating the research notes.’

Isabelle made a face as she stomped into the bathroom and quietly closed the door, wondering absently just how it could be that something as innocent as conversing with her youkai voice never failed to ruin the best of her moods. ‘That was the barter made in hell, wasn’t it?’

‘Hmm, quite possibly . . . can you blame the poor man, though? Let’s face it, Isabelle. Your ‘in-your-face’ style of doing things just isn’t going to work on him. Best you learn some subtlety, and do it fast before you scare the man off forever.’

She grimaced. She’d never seen the need to play the games that some women insisted on playing. They didn’t make sense. In her mind, it was better to lay it all on the table and see what happened. After all, what was the point of pretending to be looking for something that she knew wasn’t meant to be? With Griffin, she’d known intuitively that he was the one. It was a feeling more than anything else, but it was one that she’d never felt before . . .

She sighed as she stripped off her hospital scrubs. She’d had to change into them at work when a three year-old girl puked all over her. Poor thing had been running a temperature of one-hundred-and-three degrees. She’d contracted a new strand of influenza that was particularly nasty and difficult to deal with. They’d been able to lower her temperature, but only by dosing her with ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Hopefully that’d work to keep her fever down until the antibiotics had enough time to work through her system . . .

It was dragging her down, wasn’t it? The long hours; the incongruity of working in a public hospital emergency room . . . In the beginning, she’d kept the position at the hospital where she’d done her rotations because she’d come to care about the people she worked with, but she was starting to wonder if she was crazy for choosing to stay in a place where the patients were transient and where she only saw the worst of things.

Even then, there was the question of the research, too. She’d never be able to devote as much time and energy into completing it if she stayed on at the hospital. She’d be crazy to try. Working twelve hour shifts was trying enough. Dealing with new interns just starting their rotations was always difficult. Most of them had preconceived notions about what being a doctor really meant, and it wasn’t really an odd thing for Isabelle to spend hours at a time correcting blunders or having to explain to a wayward student that they had to do things in a certain way . . .

She had a friend who ran a clinic downtown. Catering to the wealthier residents of Bangor, the clinic also had a spa and a center for mental well-being. ‘That was what they’re calling psychiatrists these days,’ Isabelle thought with a snort as she turned on the shower and waited for a minute for the water to warm. ‘Mental well-being . . . people don’t want to admit that they’re seeing a psychiatrist, so they cover it up by saying that they’re going to see a well-being specialist . . . it’s a load of crap, but whatever floats their boats . . .’

‘Maybe Griffin should see one of those well-being specialists,’ her youkai piped up as Isabelle stepped into the shower and squeezed her eyes closed against the flow of water.

‘There’s nothing wrong with his well-being,’ Isabelle thought with a derisive snort. ‘He’s fine . . . just fine . . .’

‘Do you really think so? I mean, think about it. He’s keeping something secret, don’t you think? People who are saddled with excess baggage tend to act a lot like him . . .’

‘We all have baggage, don’t we? We wouldn’t be normal if we didn’t.’

‘And I’m telling you, that man has more baggage than most. Mark my words: there are some things that even you can’t do.’

‘I can,’ she insisted, lathering her hair in the thorough manner borne from watching her father scrub his hands every day. It was the surgeon in him, she supposed. Kichiro Izayoi’s hands were always meticulously clean . . . ‘I can help him. I know I can.’

‘Only if he wants your help, and at this point, I’d say he doesn’t,’ her youkai pointed out with a tired sigh. ‘Face it, Isabelle: you might be biting off more than you can chew.’

‘I still have to try,’ she stated, determination setting in. She grimaced when her claws scraped against her skull a little harder than she’d intended. Sometimes she forgot about those . . .

‘In any case, Bitty, best you keep your expectations in check. If you’re actually going to get to that particular man, you need to do it by degrees.’

‘By degrees, huh . . .?” she repeated, rinsing her hair under the warmth of the flowing tap. ‘I can do that . . .’

Her youkai snorted skeptically. ‘Can you?’

‘Yes. Yes, I can . . .’

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Griffin groaned softly as he sat up in the recliner and shook his head in utter dismay, pushing the afghan onto the floor in a careless heap as every bone in him protested movement of any kind. The entire left side of his body was numb; the residual effect of having fallen asleep. He normally didn’t sleep that long at a stretch. It was surprising that he had this time. Usually the aches and pains in his body roused him well before he’d managed more than a couple hours at a stretch. As unusual as it was, he knew that he’d be feeling the screaming aftereffects of this indulgence for a few days to come . . .

Charlie sat up, too, his thick tail thumping heavily against the floor, a rather daft look gracing his morbidly ugly features. “Glad one of us is in a good mood,” Griffin grumbled as he reluctantly pushed himself to his feet but stumbled when his left leg buckled beneath his weight. Catching himself on the arm of the chair before he ended up flat on his face, Griffin blinked in surprise when Charlie pushed against him, using his body to steady Griffin and uttering a soft whine when Griffin’s hand came down rather hard on his head. “Sorry,” Griffin mumbled, righting his stance and sparing a moment to scratch the animal behind his ears.

Charlie wuffed low in his throat and followed Griffin’s limping gait into the kitchen.

“I suppose you want something for helping me,” he mused, watching as the dog lumbered over to sit beside his empty food and water bowls. Shaking his head, Griffin bent down, grimacing as his knees cracked and popped as he opened the cupboard where he’d stashed the huge plastic tub that contained the beast’s fodder. Isabelle had said that she simply filled the bowl and let him eat as much as he wanted throughout the day, but after having read the instructions on the bag and looking the dog over, Griffin had decided that Charlie was sorely overweight and needed to be fed accordingly.

“But he gets hungry,” Isabelle protested, her golden eyes pleading despite the hint of a smile that lingered in the depths of her gaze.

Griffin snorted as he closed the new plastic container and stowed it in the cupboard under the sink. “Too bad. You might be a fat ass, but your dog doesn’t need to be, too.”

She rolled her eyes at that and shook her head, obviously deciding that she needed to try another tactic since the current one wasn’t working for her. “You know, he’s my dog, and he whines to tell me he’s hungry if I don’t fill his bowl for him,” she pointed out.

“Dogs don’t have big enough brains to know when they’re hungry and when they’re not. He eats out of habit . . . kind of like you,” Griffin retorted.

She snapped her mouth closed, the corners of her lips twitching with barely contained amusement. He shot her a warning glance meant to quell her humor. It apparently had the opposite effect as she burst into gales of laughter . . .

With a sigh, he carefully measured a cup of food out of the container and stowed it back under the sink after snapping the lid in place.

It didn’t take the dog long to devour the food. Griffin shook his head, still kneeling on the floor but leaning against the cupboard for support since he wasn’t entirely certain that he’d be able to stand up just yet. Still licking his chops, Charlie sat down beside the drawer and half-whined, half-growled in an effort to get Griffin to give him more.

“Forget it. You’re a fat ass, too,” he said, grimacing as he braced his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet.

Charlie scratched the floor as Griffin filled the tea kettle and put it on the burner, ignoring the animal’s antics.

He almost tripped over Charlie as he headed out of the kitchen. Uttering a terse growl, he shot the dog a menacing glare but stepped around him with a long-suffering sigh. “Between you and her, I’m going to end up dead,” he mumbled under his breath as he headed for the bathroom.

Charlie crouched on the floor and pulled himself along in Griffin’s wake, much to Griffin’s reluctant amusement.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the living room when Charlie tried to scoot into the bathroom. “I’ll let you get away with a lot of things, but there’s no way in hell you’re coming in here.”

Charlie growled again but stretched out across the threshold. Griffin made a face and closed the door, reaching for the light switch as he wondered just how he’d been reduced to this. ‘I knew there was a reason I’ve always said I don’t like dogs.’

‘It’s not that bad, you know. In fact, it’s not bad, at all. Charlie might be ugly, but he’s not a mean animal, and Isabelle? It’s not so bad, having her living here . . . Besides, she can be pretty thoughtful sometimes, or didn’t you notice?’

Griffin opened the medicine cabinet, retrieving his shaving gear. ‘Can’t say I did,’ he lied, flexing his fingers before splashing hot water on his face and squeezing a fair amount of shaving cream into the palm of his hand.

‘Oh, so you didn’t notice that she covered you up with that afghan?’

‘You’re saying she’s nice just because she spared a minute to drop a blanket over me?’ he demanded as he carefully spread the shaving cream on his face.

‘Sure . . . when’s the last time that anyone’s tried to take care of you?’

He snorted but didn’t answer as he checked the straight razor for any sign of wear. It was the old fashioned type that most people didn’t know how to use anymore. He’d never been able to reconcile himself to the t-razors, and he really couldn’t tolerate the electric ones, either.

‘I don’t need anyone to take care of me,’ he thought at length, scraping the blade over his cheek, careful to avoid the puckered scar tissue.

‘Maybe you don’t need it, no,’ his youkai agreed. ‘Doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy it.’

Grimacing when the blade slipped out of his clumsy fingers, Griffin picked it up again and rinsed off the residual shaving cream before turning his face to tackle the other side. ‘I think you’ve lost your mind. I wasn’t sure before, but I am now . . .’

‘Hmm, that’s right; I forgot . . .’

‘. . . Forgot, what?’

‘You like torturing yourself. You think it makes you a martyr or something.’

The razor froze in mid-stroke, and Griffin stiffened against the truth behind that statement. ‘That’s not right . . .’

‘Yeah, I don’t think so, either . . . Seems a little twisted if you ask me.’

He snorted and resumed shaving. ‘Maybe it’d be different if she weren’t who she is,’ he admitted as the fleeting image of her smiling expression lingered in his mind. ‘It’s no good.’

The only reply he got for that assessment was a resigned sort of sigh.

‘Even then . . .’

‘Yeah, I know . . . even if she is fixated on you now, once she finds out about your past, right?’

Grunting tersely, Griffin washed the residual shaving cream off his face and rinsed off the razor blade, carefully dried it off before stowing it back in the medicine cabinet once more.

It was the truth of it, wasn’t it? Those smiles that she offered so freely, regardless of her teasing nature that unnerved him . . . He could grow dependent upon them, couldn’t he? And that . . .

That was something that he simply could not let happen . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

‘How long . . . have I been kept here . . .?’

The sound of heavy breathing echoed in his ears as he jerked his head from side to side in a vain effort to dislodge the blindfold that impeded his vision. The underlying hum emanating from the shackles locked around his wrists and ankles was monotonous: a sound guaranteed to drive him mad . . .

The air felt damp, smelled musty. The reek of dustiness that could only be created in the darkness of a cave or underground far enough that the noises of humanity were forever quelled.

He’d known that it was only a matter of time. Back then, he’d thought that the only real chance for redemption would be if he kept his mouth closed. He should have known better. How many times had he said it before? “No mercy . . . no mercy . . .”

No mercy.

The scrape of a door against a swollen wood floor resounded in his ears like the tolling of a death knell. Restraining the reflex to grimace, he jerked his head to the side, following the direction of the noise as he struggled to maintain a calm that he was far from feeling. The slight motion of his body set off the electro-locks that bound him, and he sucked in a sharp breath as four jagged zaps of electricity shot through his limbs.

“My patience is wearing a little thin with you, Avis.”

Gritting his teeth as he willed his muscles not to jerk involuntarily, he paused before responding. “I told you: they don’t know anything.”

The dull thump of shoes against the floor drawing nearer . . . “Are you sure you didn’t find out where the research is now?”

The question was asked in a mild enough tone. He didn’t try to delude himself into thinking that he was off the hook. “I never asked,” he admitted. “Even if I had, do you really think they’d tell me anything considering I had her kidnapped?”

The blinding pain exploded in his cheek as his head snapped to the side, setting off the electrodes in the shackles once more, and he couldn’t help the low moan that slipped from him. He leaned over him, grasping the arms of the wooden chair so tightly that it groaned under the stress. “Are you really so useless or did you honestly think you’d escape me?”

Avis bit back the desire to shrink away. “I did what you wanted. I told Zelig that I was working on my own volition. He doesn’t suspect that there was someone else. You’re in the clear.”

A frustrated growl erupted, and Avis gulped hard. “Incidentals, damn it! You’re no use to me now. Zelig doesn’t have a clue as to what, exactly, he has possession of, and before he figures it out, I—want—that—research.”

A thin, cold hand closed around his jugular, the prick of razor-sharp claws digging into the tender flesh calculated, contrived to exact pain: intense pain. Avis’ gasp was audible in the quiet, and he squeezed his eyes closed, his mind oddly blanking as one thought replayed itself over and over again: ‘I’m going to die . . . He’s going to kill me . . .’

“I have no further use for the likes of you, Dr. Avis,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Wait! You know, maybe . . . maybe you should . . . hold off on doing anything,” Avis blurted—anything to pacify the enraged youkai . . . anything to stall for precious time . . . “Carl . . . He didn’t trust anyone else in the lab other than Kennedy.”

“Of course he didn’t!” he thundered, rapidly losing control over his escalating temper as his claws dug in a little deeper. The scent of his own blood infiltrated Avis’ senses as a vague sort of haziness enveloped the edges of coherent thought. “He wasn’t a fool, even if he didn’t prove difficult to take care of in the end.”

Avis grimaced, choking and wheezing as he struggled to draw breath enough to speak. He’d known, certainly, that he had been responsible for Kennedy and ultimately, for Carl’s deaths, but it was something else entirely to have that information verified. “So if he didn’t trust anyone . . . then it stands to reason . . . that he probably encoded the research . . . don’t you think? I mean, why else would Zelig and the rest of them not know . . . what they’re dealing with?”

The hand released him abruptly, and Avis swallowed hard, shaking his head to dispel the fuzziness in his head. Ribbons of blood trickled down his throat, sending an unpleasant shiver down his spine as the blood-dampened fabric of his collar rubbed against his skin. He was still struggling to regain his composure when the scrape of shoes on the floor echoed through the cavernous room. “Hmm . . . perhaps you’re not as useless as I thought you were . . .”

Avis almost sighed in abject relief, satisfied that he’d managed to save his own hide, at least for the moment. “Carl was a . . . language buff,” he rasped out, his throat raw, aching. “Wouldn’t . . . surprise me . . . if he . . . wrote everything . . . in some sort of . . . code . . .”

“That’s not a problem. I’ll find someone to translate it for me.”

Avis wheezed out a terse laugh. “You think it’d be that simple? If he went to the trouble . . . of writing everything in code . . . then it’s a safe bet . . . that the code isn’t as simple as literal translation. You said you don’t believe that Zelig knows the sort of information he’s got? Then it’s likely that he is having trouble finding someone who can translate it.”

He considered that for several long seconds. “So what you’re saying is that I’d do well to let Zelig worry about getting the information translated . . .”

Avis nodded, turning his face to the side to spit out a mouthful of blood.

“I see . . . very well, then. You’ve been quite useful today, Dr. Avis.”

Avis nodded, his body relaxing just a little at the pacified sound of his voice.

“I think I have another job for you, but make no mistake: I’ll be watching. If you try to betray me, you’ll be dead.”

Avis winced inwardly. The very last thing he wanted was to be given another ‘job’ by the youkai, but . . . but if it kept him alive . . . “A . . . job . . .?”

He felt the jerk on the electro-locks and gritted his teeth as a stronger current shot through him seconds before the shackles fell away from his ankles then his hands. He yanked him roughly to his feet. Avis nearly stumbled. It had been . . . days . . .? weeks . . .? since he’d last stood. Stifling the pained groan that surged through him as his muscles twitched and jerked, Avis gingerly rubbed his wrists before lifting a hand to his throat to assess the damage.

The voice—little more than a hateful hiss in his ear—sent a shiver down his spine and back up again. “Go home, Dr. Avis, and when that little bitch calls, get her to tell you what the status is on that research.”

Avis opened his mouth to say that he didn’t really think that Jillian would know, and even if she did, the chances of her telling him any such thing were slim and none, but he thought better of it. If he refused, then he really would die today . . . “All right,” he agreed, grasping the blindfold and tugging it off, his eyes unable to focus as the relatively dim light in the old chamber stabbed at his weakened senses.

The blur of a youkai before him wavered as a menacing chuckle filled his ears. “If you fail, Avis . . .”

Avis nodded, clearing his throat as the implied threat hung thick in the air. If he failed this time, there would be no way save himself; no eleventh-hour reprieve . . .

No, if Avis didn’t do exactly as he was told, Eaton Fellowes . . . He really would kill him . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Dropping the ink pen on the notebook with a frustrated sigh, Griffin slumped in his chair, letting his head fall back as he closed his eyes and rubbed his face with his slightly shaking hands. It wasn’t the first time he’d wondered whether Dr. Carl Carradine was an idiot savant or just an idiot. After having spent the last two hours trying to decipher one measly paragraph, he was leaning toward the ‘just an idiot’ theory . . .

The trouble was that there were a few phrases that could be interpreted a few ways, and not one of them really made more sense than another. The best he’d been able to do was to write down every literal translation and hope that Isabelle could figure out which was the right one. Of course, that would mean that Griffin would also have to concede that Isabelle wasn’t as useless as he liked to think she was. All in all, it was enough to set him on edge as he wondered absently just where she’d run off to—easily the hundredth time he’d wondered that since she’d wiggled her fingers in jaunty farewell and told him that she had ‘errands’ to do hours ago . . .

‘Errands, maybe . . . so why did she look like the proverbial cat that ate the canary when she’d said that?’

Wrinkling his nose, he let his hands drop to his sides as he shook his head in self-disgust. He didn’t care, damn it . . . He didn’t . . .

Grabbing the notebook, journal, and pen off the desk, Griffin stood up and glanced at the sliding back door. It was sunny outside: probably one of the last really nice days of the year. There was a crispness in the air like the barest hint of the changing season, and ordinarily, he’d have taken advantage of the weather to go on a nice, long walk, but since his left leg was still dealing him a ration of grief, he didn’t figure that indulging himself would be quite as enjoyable as it normally would be.

Charlie paced back and forth in front of the glass doors, which just figured. Ever since he’d seen the squirrels that Griffin fed every morning, he was convinced that they were Charlie-snacks and was literally dying to get out there and see if he could catch one. Of course, with his amended diet, the stupid creature was like to eat anything he could get his gaping maw on. Yet something else Griffin could blame on that maddening woman, he supposed . . . “Forget it, dog,” he grumbled, dropping the work on the coffee table in lieu of chastising the animal. “I’ll chop you up and use you for fertilizer,” he warned.

Charlie just wagged his tail.

Griffin sensed Isabelle seconds before she breezed into the house, her arms weighed down by brown paper grocery bags. He made a face, seeing them and calculating in his head how many trees she’d killed by being too lazy to take a basket with her to the market . . . “Tree murderer,” he mumbled under his breath as he stomped over to her and ungraciously swiped the bags away from her.

“What was that?” she said, that damned bright smile of hers lighting on her face as easily as the sunrise.

“Nothing,” Griffin grumbled, turning away to head toward the kitchen but not before Isabelle caught the telling hint of a blush that had crept into Griffin’s skin. Her laughter followed him, and he winced as his blush deepened.

“What’s the matter, Dr. G? Did you miss me?”

He snorted, setting the bags on the counter with a heavy thump and digging into one, only to make a face when he pulled out a flimsy plastic container of oversized chocolate chip deli-style cookies. “Great . . . yet something else to add more weight to your already overly-fat ass.”

She laughed even harder at that, bracing herself on his arm to lean around him and snag the container of cookies. The infuriating woman winked at him when she caught his scowl. “Want one?”

“No.”

“Mmm!” she exclaimed softly, letting her eyes roll back in her skull as she stuffed half of the huge cookie into her mouth. She collapsed back against the counter, clutching at her heart in a melodramatic way. “These are so-o-o good . . . You sure you don’t want one?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

She looked like she wanted to say something, but got sidetracked by the basement door. He’d inadvertently left it open earlier after he’d taken a break to work on one of his carvings. Charlie had followed him downstairs, and he’d left the door unlocked so that the idiot dog could get out when he was ready. He’d forgotten to push it closed and lock it, and since he’d given Isabelle explicit instructions that she was under no circumstances allowed to as much as look through the doorway, it wasn’t entirely surprising that she was intrigued. “You do remember that you’re not allowed anywhere near the basement,” he reminded her gruffly.

She heaved a sigh and reluctantly turned away from the cracked open doorway. “That rule shouldn’t apply when you leave the door hanging wide open,” she complained.

“It’s not hanging wide open,” he grumbled. “It’s just slightly ajar. If you wanted to look down there, you’d have to pull the door further open; ergo it is not a breach of the rules.”

“You have a lot of rules, big guy,” she remarked ruefully. “Is there a dead body down there?”

Griffin froze for a moment before peering over his shoulder at her. She was smiling, of course, and when she caught his eye, she winked. He snorted. “. . . Yes.”

“I knew it!” she exclaimed with a soft giggle. “Just one or could you raise your own zombie army?”

“Just nosy females who don’t know when to leave well enough alone,” he said mildly.

“Oh? So you’re planning on adding me to the body count, too.”

“Yes, as soon as I figure out how to get rid of your annoying dog.”

She laughed outright at that, obviously discounting Griffin’s claims. “So you say; so you say. I think I’m growing on you.”

“You can think that.”

“Admit it: I’m getting under that thick skin of yours.”

Griffin waved her off and pulled a loaf of white bread out of the bag—marginally healthier than the cookies, sure, but still not what he’d consider ‘good for her’ . . . “Your eating habits are deplorable,” he commented as he frowned at a vacuum-sealed package of olive loaf. He could feel his sodium levels rise just looking at the stuff and sighed. “Did you buy anything that hasn’t been processed a thousand times and therefore leached of what little nutritional value it had, to start with?” he complained.

“Don’t diss the olive loaf,” she reprimanded though her eyes retained the amused sparkle that he was really starting to dread.

“Do me a favor and don’t let your unhealthy crap touch my food. It’ll lose vitamins just by being in the vicinity of yours.”

She grinned and dug another cookie out of the box. “Well, we could always get a second refrigerator,” she mused.

“Thinking about it,” he mumbled. “At least drink a glass of milk with those.”

“Oh, milk!” she exclaimed, pushing herself away from the counter and reaching around him to grab a half-gallon of skim milk from the other bag.

Griffin snorted. “I meant real milk, not watered down milk byproduct,” he pointed out.

“But skim milk has less fat! And anyway, the only time I can stand to drink it is when I’m having cookies.”

He spared a moment to pin her with a serious glance. “Skim milk and cookies . . . if you’re going to eat something fattening, drinking that isn’t going to do much to counter it, you know.”

She just laughed at him. It figured.

It shouldn’t have surprised him, really. Watching with a raised eyebrow when she pulled five huge, thick slabs of steak out of the bag, Griffin couldn’t help the look of disdain that marred his features as she pushed his salad greens aside to make room for the artery-clogging meat. Even the potatoes she’d purchased bore the ink-stamp of the brand on their clean skins, and Griffin shook his head. “You mean you do eat something that is somewhat healthy?” he questioned, nodding at the potatoes in her hands. “I thought you hated vegetables.”

Isabelle giggled, a strand of her bronze hair falling over her cheek. She shifted her mouth to the side and blew a short gust of breath out to get it out of her face. “Potatoes aren’t the same. They’re a starch—not nearly as vegetable-y as your green stuff . . . You know, historically speaking, finding green stuff in one’s refrigerator isn’t necessary considered a good thing.”

He rolled his eyes. “They’re vegetables. They’re supposed to be green, and for the record? ‘Vegetable-y’ isn’t a real word.”

“You should be happy,” she informed him as she headed out of the kitchen once more.

Griffin narrowed his eyes but followed her, pausing long enough to push the basement door closed and securing the lock to keep nosy women from succumbing to temptation. “Why?”

“Because I bought the stuff to make a really great dinner for you.”

“Oh, God . . .”

She laughed harder, pausing at the threshold of the living room long enough to wink at him before sauntering away.

Griffin snorted loudly, wondering just how hard it would be to get out of eating anything that Isabelle tried to feed him. True enough, he had nothing against meat, and from time to time, he had to admit that he actively sought it out. That didn’t mean that he wanted to eat it all the time, and certainly not in the amounts that Isabelle seemed to prefer. In any case, the idea of her making dinner for him was a little intimidating. She’d probably end up cooking those huge steaks with overcooked potatoes served with a layer of gravy so thick that he wouldn’t be able to find the food underneath it all . . .

Deciding that he’d had enough of a break, Griffin retrieved the research materials and dropped into the chair at his desk. Most evenings when Isabelle was there, he could effectively ignore her if he concentrated on the journal. She didn’t seem to mind it, either, settling down on the sofa with the translated notes or a book or magazine if he hadn’t gotten much done for her. As chatty as she tended to be, she didn’t seem to mind the prolonged periods of silence, and as much as he was loath to admit it, he . . . he didn’t really mind it, either.

Isabelle kicked the front door closed behind her and hurried through toward the kitchen once more.

‘Good lord, can’t she do anything without making a screaming ruckus?’ he wondered as the distinct sound of crashing pan lids echoed through the otherwise quiet house.

His answer was another resounding clatter as his cast iron skillet hit the floor followed directly by a very unladylike curse that had Griffin shaking his head in dismay. Charlie bounded off the floor and broke for the kitchen, and Griffin heaved a sigh. She’d apparently dropped more than just the skillet, and the dog thought it was his job to suck up the mess . . . ‘She’s hopeless; just hopeless, and that dog . . .’ He scratched the back of his neck thoughtfully and decided that he was better off not stepping foot in the kitchen at the moment. ‘Social pariahs; the both of them . . .’

“He already ate,” Griffin called out anyway though he seriously doubted Isabelle would care.

He figured he was right, too, when Charlie re-emerged a minute later, licking his chops and looking entirely too pleased about something.

Isabelle stepped out of the kitchen, smiling brightly when she noticed that he was looking. The smile was enough to give him pause, but coupled with the conspicuous way she held her hands behind her back, he had to wonder just what she was up to . . .

“So I saw something when I was at the store, and it reminded me of you,” she said as she made a show of sauntering over to him.

“Perish the thought,” he murmured, turning his back on her rather abruptly and burying his nose in the journal once more.

She laughed. “Do you want it?”

“. . . No.”

She came closer, leaning over his shoulder, her hair falling to brush against his cheek. “Are you sure?”

Swatting her hair away from his face, he snorted. “Yes.”

“Aren’t you even a little curious?”

He snorted. “Can’t say I am.”

“Humor me?”

Heaving a sigh, he turned to face her, opening his mouth to tell her in no uncertain terms that he really didn’t want a thing from her, least of all this ‘thing’ that she’d found that reminded her of him. She stared at him in that direct way of hers, and he blinked, forgetting for the moment that he was better off to keep her at bay. She really didn’t have any visible pores in her skin, and that skin looked incredibly soft. She didn’t look away, and she didn’t say anything outrageous. No, instead she just stared back at him, looking entirely too hopeful—too pleased. “What is it?” he growled, his gaze narrowing just slightly—enough to offer her a silent warning that she’d better not be trying to pull a fast one on him.

With a triumphant little smile, she stood up straight, and with a dramatic flourish, she pulled . . . it . . . out from behind her back. “See? Doesn’t he look like you?” she asked, proudly offering him the stuffed animal—Winnie the Pooh.

Griffin’s mouth fell open in abject horror as he stared at the ridiculous bear. Violent color exploded on his features as he knocked her hand away and shot to his feet. “That’s not—I don’t—You aren’t—” he cut himself off abruptly and drew a deep breath before leveling a fulminating glower at the maddening hanyou and stomping past her. “I do not look like that!” he rumbled.

She threw her head back and laughed as she set the bear on the desk and tugged the little red shirt into place. “Sure, you do,” she argued between giggles. “You’re cute and cuddly, and you like honey, just like he does.”

Snapping his mouth closed on his retort, he scowled murderously at the floor before stomping off toward the basement door that he’d just locked.

“Wait, wait!” she called after him, running over to catch him before he could disappear into ‘No-Isabelle-Land’.

He shook her off but stopped, planting his hands on his hips as he shot her a warning glance. “What now?”

She waved her hand dismissively as he realized something he hadn’t before: she still had one hand behind her back, and the thought of just what she was still hiding wrenched a long-suffering groan from him. “Do you want your other present?”

Griffin snorted. “I’d hardly call that stuffed animal a present,” he said.

“But I bought these just for you . . .” she tried to coax him.

Griffin wasn’t about to fall for it a second time. “Don’t want it,” he informed her, digging into his pocket for the key to the basement door.

“Okay,” Isabelle said, spinning around on her heel and striding away as she whipped whatever it was she’d been hiding out from behind her back and shielded it from his view.

Telling himself that he didn’t care what else she’d purchased to torment him with, Griffin reached for the door knob but stopped. The crinkle of a plastic bag being pulled open drew his attention, and moments later, the unmistakable smell of honey roasted pecans filled his nostrils.

Isabelle dug a few out of the bag and tilted her head back to drop the nuts into her mouth, happily munching on them as she wandered back over to the desk to look over Griffin’s translations.

Before he could stop to think about it, Griffin stomped over, plucking the bag out of her hand and nudging her away from the desk with a bump of his hip before sitting back down at the desk and twisting away when Isabelle tried to reach over his shoulder and into the bag of pecans.

“Hey! Haven’t you ever heard of sharing?” she asked.

Griffin snorted. “You said you bought them for me,” he pointed out, stuffing a handful of nuts into his mouth while protecting the bag from her overzealous fingers.

“You said you didn’t want them.”

“Changed my mind.”

“Ha! Let me have some!”

“You didn’t say you bought something for me to share with you,” he argued, slapping her hand away and eliciting a giggle from her. “They’re mine. Get your own.”

“But I bought those.”

“Yes, and I will eat them without any help from you.”

“You could at least say ‘thank you’.”

“After you gave me that?” he countered, nodding at the stuffed animal on the desk.

“Especially after that.”

He snorted. “No way. You owed me. Now we’re even.”

She heaved a sigh and stepped back, but he didn’t miss the smile gracing her lips. “All right; you win,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’m going to go check on dinner, anyway.”

He waited until she was halfway to the kitchen before dumping the rest of the bag into the half-empty bowl on his desk. They weren’t quite as good as the ones he roasted, himself, but they weren’t bad, either. Grabbing another handful, he pushed the stuffed bear aside and frowned.

‘I don’t look like that,’ he fumed, scowling at the sewed-on smile. ‘That bear looks absolutely daft . . . not at all like me . . .’

‘Oh, I don’t know . . . I can see the resemblance . . .’

Griffin snorted and slowly shook his head. ‘I realize it’s been awhile since I’ve really looked in the mirror, but I know damn well I do not look even remotely like . . . like . . .’

‘Winnie the Pooh?’

He could feel the heat gathering just below the surface of his skin yet again and grimaced as his youkai voice laughed at him.

He ought to throw the damn thing away. Regardless of why Isabelle had bought such a ridiculous gift, she should have known that he wouldn’t find it flattering, at all.

With a sigh, he reached for the bear, glaring at it for several long moments as he considered tossing it into the trash can beside his desk.

Thing was, he could count on one hand, the number of times anyone had ever thought to buy anything for him, ridiculous or not. Maybe that was the real reason he set the stuffed animal on the desk shelf. It certainly didn’t have anything to do with the person who had bought the gift. That’d be even more asinine than the gift, itself . . .

He stared at the glassy black eyes of the cartoon character and took up his pen once more as he groped around for the bowl of honey roasted pecans.

He didn’t see the gentle smile on Isabelle’s face as she leaned in the kitchen doorway and watched him.

Chapter Text

“I made some tea for you.”

Griffin blinked and looked up at Isabelle, his dark eyes reflecting the fluorescent light from the desk lamp. “Thank you,” he said, his tone gruff yet gentle enough to draw a smile from her as she set his mug beside him.

“And note: I’m not even going to crack a honey joke, either.”

That earned her a slight narrowing of his eyes, and she laughed, leaning over his shoulder as she balanced her coffee mug, careful not to spill it on him as she scanned through the translation he was working on.

“Here,” he grumbled, snatching the notebook off the desk and thrusting it into her face. “If you want to look at it, fine, just don’t squash me, all right?”

Sparing a moment to cast him a bright smile, Isabelle took the notebook and shuffled over to the sofa, her slipper-covered feet whispering against the hardwood floor. Her smile faded as she read through the notes. According to the translation, Carl Carradine believed that someone was after him; trying to kill him—the same one that he claimed had been responsible for Kennedy Carradine’s death. Sinking down on the sofa, she tapped a delicate claw against her lips.

‘I’ve decided to hide the research in a place that it will be safe, and the key to it is, of course, the only hope that we possess. Even though we will not be able to complete the project, it is my only hope that this is able to help someone, even if it is just one person. In the end, isn’t that why we’re doing this? Or is this, as I fear, my own selfish wish that Kenney, Liza, and my lives were not lived in vain? That we will leave our marks upon history in this . . . After all, isn’t it said to be the true nature of all living things? This inane desire to have someone recognize their existence . . .’

She sighed and rubbed her forehead as she pondered Carl Carradine’s words. There was a certain level of truth in his claims; a certain sadly poetic sort of revelation. She could feel Griffin’s gaze on her, as though he were trying to read her mind. Did he hate that she was reading something so foreboding? Did it bother him at all . . .?

“There’s a noticeable difference in the way he writes at the beginning of the journal as opposed to the later entries,” Griffin commented.

She shot him a quick glance only to find him frowning thoughtfully into his tea. “What do you make of it?”

Griffin grunted, taking a long drink before answering. Clasping the cup between his hands, he shrugged in what seemed to Isabelle to be a calculated effort to appear nonchalant. “He was scared,” he said simply. He wouldn’t meet her gaze . . . or maybe he couldn’t . . .

A distinct shiver raced down her spine, and Isabelle bit her lip. For the first time since she’d gotten the research, she understood Griffin’s fear—the reason he’d insisted that she move in for the duration. As much as she didn’t like to admit it, she had to wonder if his worries might well have some gravity to them . . .

“Maybe he was overreacting,” she said though her tone sounded anything but convinced.

Griffin pinned her with a menacing glower. She could feel his gaze boring into her head, and she had the distinct feeling that he was contemplating whether or not she could really be as dense as she let on. “If you think so,” he finally mumbled.

She smiled wanly and slowly shook her head. “I . . . I don’t know,” she allowed, more to herself than to him. “Even if what you think is true, then why didn’t he look for the research sooner?”

“Didn’t you say it was hidden?” Griffin asked, frowning down into the mug of tea clasped in his hands.

“Sure, but you know what they say: where there’s a will, there’s a way . . .” Her features clouded as she recalled the hint of a conversation that she’d overheard between Gunnar and Bastian.

“It still doesn’t make sense,” Gunnar remarked, scowling out the window behind Bastian’s desk as Bastian carefully used the handheld scanner to digitize the images on the research pages.

“Avis claimed that he didn’t realize Jillian had lived, after all,” Bastian stated with a shrug and a quick glance at his cousin. “Makes sense to me. If he didn’t know she’d survived, then how could he have known about the bio-chip?”

“True enough, but didn’t he think that maybe—just maybe—the research would be found again one day?” Gunnar contended, cocking an eyebrow as he picked up one of the notebooks and leafed through it.

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter now, does it? Jilli’s safe, and the research . . .” Trailing off as his gaze lifted to lock on Isabelle as the latter glanced over the first page of the journal, he scowled thoughtfully. “You can handle this, right?” he asked at length.

Isabelle blinked and looked up. “Who? Me? Of course I can!” she assured him.

Bastian nodded slowly, falling silent as he continued to scan the pages . . .

“Sounds like wishful thinking to me,” Griffin grumbled, drawing Isabelle out of her reverie.

She blinked and shook her head to clear her mind and shrugged offhandedly. “Avis didn’t realize that Jillian had survived. I guess he’d figured that she’d died with her mother.”

He digested that in silence then snorted. “Maybe,” he mumbled noncommittally. “All the same, you aren’t leaving this house without telling me where you’re going and when you’ll be back.”

She couldn’t help the amusement in her gaze as she lifted an eyebrow and met Griffin’s more belligerent expression. He looked like he expected her to argue with him, and while she might have done exactly that under normal circumstances, that Griffin was concerned enough to say anything that sounded even remotely possessive . . . Well, she couldn’t quite mask the smile that turned up the corners of her lips as she watched him drain the tea from the rough earthenware mug. “Careful, Dr. Griffin, or I might start to think that you actually like having me around,” she teased.

His cheeks warmed at the implication of her words, furthering Isabelle’s undisguised amusement. ‘No doubt about it,’ she thought with an inward giggle. ‘I do love to make that man blush . . .’

“Don’t get carried away, little girl,” he grumbled, turning abruptly and presenting her with the wide expanse of his back, “and I could’ve sworn I told you that my name isn’t now nor has it ever been ‘Dr. Griffin’.”

“Little girl, am I?” she parried, pushing herself off the sofa as she wandered over to drop the notebook onto the desk beside him. “I’ll have you know that I’m hardly ‘little girl’ material.”

He snorted indelicately and didn’t bother to look up at her, shrugging his shoulder in a not-so-subtle reminder that she was invading his personal space. “Just because your ass is roughly the size of both of the polar ice caps put together doesn’t mean that you aren’t still just a cub.”

“A cub?” she echoed, a soft giggle slipping from her at his choice of words. “I wouldn’t be a cub, in any case, doctor, or did you forget that I’m a dog?”

“You sound just a little too proud of that,” he pointed out with a shake of his head. “Go away, will you? I’d like to get the rest of this page done without being subjected to your penchant for asking questions every five minutes.”

She wrinkled her nose and reached over his shoulder to nab a honey roasted pecan out of the bowl on his desk only to be rapped across the knuckles by the ink pen in Griffin’s hand. “Ow!” she exclaimed, jerking her hand back and cradling it against her chest.

“Hmf. There’s no way that hurt you,” he pointed out.

Caught between amusement that he would protect his pecans with such fervor and incredulity since she knew very well that she’d bought them for him, in the first place, Isabelle laughed and shrugged, letting her hand drop as she whirled around and leaned against the desk. “You’re right,” she agreed. “It didn’t . . . You could let me have one, you know.”

“No, I can’t,” he shot back, his tone dry as he flipped the page in the journal.

“Why not?”

He paused long enough to pin her with a look that stated very plainly that he thought she ought to know the answer to that question without having to ask. “Because they’re mine,” he remarked. “Go eat your unhealthy crap, and keep your paws off my nuts.”

Her lips twitched as she struggled to keep her expression as blank as possible. “But, Dr. Marin . . . your . . . nuts . . . look so . . . delicious . . .”

His back stiffened as the pen thumped against the pages of the journal, his breath whizzing past his lips so hard that the sound was almost a whistle. Pinning her with a furious glare that was completely undermined by the infusion of color that bloomed in his cheeks, Griffin looked like he might be having trouble figuring out just what to say to her. “You’re violating the agreement,” he choked out with a furious shake of his head.

“You’re the one who mentioned your nuts,” she pointed out reasonably.

He narrowed his gaze at the feigned innocence in her tone. “You know damn well what I meant,” he mumbled, swatting her hip with his hand in an effort to remind her that he didn’t like her proximity.

“All right,” she relented before he really did lose his patience with her.   “Bad Isabelle.”

He snorted. “Is there a ‘good Isabelle’?”

“Sure there is. You just don’t want to meet her.”

That earned her another doleful glance, and he slowly shook his head as he set about ignoring her for the duration.

Isabelle laughed softly and straightened Winnie the Pooh on the shelf, refraining from making any comments that she knew wouldn’t really be welcome. It was enough that he’d kept the stuffed bear, she supposed. She hadn’t really thought that he would. Still she hadn’t been able to resist. When she’d seen him in the store, she couldn’t help but think of Griffin—even if he didn’t like the comparison.

Leaning over him, she nabbed the empty mug and headed for the kitchen to refill it.

It was odd, wasn’t it? She’d never really thought of herself as a homebody. She’d never actually considered that she’d enjoy quiet evenings at home with a man like Griffin Marin, but she did. Even doing something as mundane as fetching tea for the surly man was enjoyable, and being around him? She smiled as the warm feeling of absolute wellbeing surged through her. She felt like she belonged, didn’t she? She’d felt that before, when she had been a child. Sitting on her father’s knee as he went over research notes or read the newspaper and, if she were lucky, sometimes he’d hold her on his lap while he played the piano for hours on end . . . During those times, she’d felt a level of contentment that was so hard to find nowadays. What was it about Griffin that made her feel that way . . .?

It was the same thing that her mother felt, wasn’t it? That feeling was the reason why Bellaniece Zelig Izayoi had been so content as a housewife during the years when Isabelle and her younger sister, Alexandra had been growing up. The happiness that came with taking care of the man she loved—Isabelle’s father . . . it had been enough for her, hadn’t it?

In fact, it wasn’t until the girls were well into school that Bellaniece had decided to go college. By then, though, Kichiro had the funding and wherewithal that he was able to stay home and work on his research while taking care of Isabelle’s baby sister, Samantha. He’d said that he regretted missing out on things while Isabelle and Alexandra were babies. After all, he’d been in China performing a reconstructive surgery for charity on a young hanyou girl who had lost both of her parents in the same car accident that had nearly crippled the child when Isabelle had taken her first steps, and he’d been in Germany on a similar case when Alexandra was born a month earlier than she was scheduled to arrive . . .

No one blamed him for those things, though, with the exception of her grandfather, Cain, who had been livid when he’d found out that Kichiro was planning to go anywhere when Bellaniece was so far into her pregnancy. Having lost his first wife in childbirth, Cain knew all too well, just what sort of complications could arise, and even though Bellaniece had insisted that she wanted Kichiro to go, Cain, who had already brought the rest of his family to Japan for the duration of his oldest daughter’s pregnancy, had adamantly refused to let Kichiro in to see his newborn daughter until after he’d had a few choice words with the errant father. Still, even Cain had to admit that Kichiro certainly had felt horrible about missing his daughter’s birth, and there wasn’t a more loving father anywhere on earth, as far as Isabelle was concerned. Kichiro might have missed a few things here and there, but he’d more than made up for it over the years. He hadn’t freaked out when Isabelle brought her first boyfriend home, and he didn’t bat an eye when his daughters asked him questions about sex. No, Isabelle had to wonder if anything at all could shake Kichiro Izayoi. She seriously doubted it.

Yet as happy as her childhood had been, she supposed she never really understood why Bellaniece had chosen to stay home as a housewife for so long. She was one of the smartest people Isabelle knew; Bellaniece could have done anything she’d set her mind to. She’d asked her mother about it once. Bellaniece had just smiled and said that one day, Isabelle would understand. When she met the man who would be her mate, she’d realize that forever really is a long time, and that there are some things that could not ever be replaced. The memory of seeing her daughters grow and change was something that would have been dimmed had she been forced to split her time between a career and her family. Recalling the warmth of her mother’s laughter and the unselfish affection that she so freely had given over the years . . . Isabelle had to admit that maybe it was a good trade-off, after all . . .

She couldn’t help the soft giggle that escaped her as she poured steaming water into the mug where she’d carefully measured out the tea leaves from the crock on the counter—Griffin’s dandelion tea. She’d watched him closely enough to know that he always put two teaspoons of honey into the tea, stirring carefully, almost methodically, between scoops.

Satisfied with the results of her efforts, she took the mug and headed back into the living room. Froofie was curled up under the desk—no small feat for the massive dog—and Griffin seemed content enough with his task. Bent over the desktop, he was writing in the notebook. The pen slipped out of his grip, clattering on the wooden surface as he slowly opened and closed his hand, curling his fingers as though they hurt him. Isabelle stopped in her tracks, cocking her head to the side as a slight frown marred her brow while she took in the scene laid out before her.

He let out a long sigh and shook his hand, still flexing his fingers though he didn’t make a sound otherwise. She’d noticed the build-up of scar tissue, certainly. She’d come close to asking him more than once, just how he’d managed to come by such a thing when he was youkai. Once more, it struck her, how very little she really knew about him. While she liked to think that she knew him fairly well, staring at him as he suffered such obvious discomfort . . . She didn’t like it; not in the least . . .

“Are you all right?” she murmured, carefully keeping her voice low so that she didn’t surprise him too much.

Griffin started and glanced over his shoulder only to shrug as his cheeks pinked slightly before turning away and snatching up the pen once more. “Fine,” he bit out tersely.

She didn’t call him on his blatant lie as she slipped across the floor and set the mug of tea beside him. Though she couldn’t see all of his face from her vantage point, she could see the tell-tale bulging of his jaw as he tightened his grip on the ink pen once more. He really was in pain, wasn’t he, and more importantly, he was desperately trying to hide it from her . . .

“Let me see,” she said gently, laying one hand on his to still his movement as she pulled the pen from his grasp with the other one.

He scowled, tightening his grip though it did little to dissuade Isabelle’s attention. As though he were no more than a child, she took the pen with little real resistance on his part. Sparing a moment to cast him an apologetic glance, she lifted his hand and examined the scar tissue as he tried to pull away from her. “This is bad,” she commented, probing the flesh as tenderly as she could. “Let me guess: rescuing puppies from a burning building?”

He snorted at her obvious teasing and tugged on his arm. “Yes,” he answered dryly. “Leave me alone, will you?”

“No, I won’t,” she insisted, all pretenses of teasing falling by the wayside. All of his skin between his thumb and index finger was thick and unyielding; a testament of something that he seemed to want to forget. Angry, reddened, the scarring wasn’t fresh she could tell, yet it still carried the garish discoloring that normally faded, given time. She shifted her mouth to the side, blowing a wayward strand of hair out of her eyes as she continued to examine him. “Do you have some ointment or anything?” she questioned, wondering absently whether or not he’d dignify her with an answer.

“Don’t need it,” he mumbled, finally managing to pull away from her. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his face, telegraphing her a baleful glower for her concern and effectively hiding the appendage from her in the process.

“Of course you don’t,” she agreed lightly, figuring that all he’d be even more irritated if she made a big deal over the old injuries. “It could help, though . . . it bothers you to hold that pen, doesn’t it?”

He grunted and reached for the mug of tea with his other hand. Isabelle frowned at the crosshatching of scars on the back of that hand, too. “No.”

“Would you tell me if it did?” she asked carefully.

“No.”

“I didn’t think so,” she replied with a sigh, though she couldn’t help but smile at his brusque response. “Drink your tea before it gets cold,” she said instead, dusting off her palms as she turned away from the desk.

She could feel his gaze on her, and she almost smiled since she knew full well that the man was very likely trying to figure out why she’d let it go so easily. He sat still for a long moment before uttering a terse ‘hrumph’. The creak of the chair told her that he’d decided to let it go, too, and she stifled another sigh.

She wasn’t letting it go; not by a long shot. She might not know how Griffin had managed to get himself so badly injured, but digging her heels in and demanding answers just wasn’t going to work with the likes of the good doctor, and she knew it.

Grabbing her laptop computer off the coffee table, Isabelle sat down and stole a glance at the man in question. Hunched over his desk once more, he was hard at work again, and she bit her lip as she stared at him. There were ointments out there that could help to alleviate some of the swelling and blunt the pain associated with deep scars, she knew. Her father normally prescribed such things as a par for course for many of his reconstructive patients. The only trouble with them was that youkai on a whole tended to react differently to medication. In many cases, human medication worked well enough, but in some youkai, it didn’t work at all, and in a few, the symptoms could get worse from the treatment. No, the best thing to do would be to ask her grandmother to whip up some herbal salve. Gin Izayoi Zelig had learned a lot about such things from her mother, Kagome, and she had learned all she knew from the old village miko, Kaede in the days of her time spent in Sengoku Jidai.

That really would be the best thing, she supposed. She’d just have to make the drive up to Bevelle on her next day off . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Griffin sighed and let his head fall back as he slumped against the chair. The clock on the fireplace mantle read nearly midnight. He’d sat still much longer than he should have, he supposed . . .

The soft click of Isabelle’s typing was the only sound in the house aside from Charlie’s breathing and the occasional scratch of his claws on the floor as he chased rabbits in his dreams. Griffin paused long enough to gaze at the animal. Had he ever felt secure enough to sleep peacefully? To have a dream that made him smile when he remembered them come morning?

He pushed himself to his feet and grabbed the notebook. If he had, then it was in a time long past, in what seemed like a lifetime ago, or maybe it was just a lifetime away . . .?

“Here,” he said, dropping the notebook into Isabelle’s lap. She squeaked and jumped, nearly dropping her laptop on the floor as she scrambled to snatch the notebook before it fell. Griffin rolled his eyes but steadied the computer before snorting indelicately at Isabelle’s perceived lack of grace. “Klutz,” he mumbled, setting the laptop on the coffee table.

She giggled, and it struck him once more, just how free she was with her laughter. As much as it unsettled him, he had to admit, at least to himself, that he rather enjoyed the sound of it. Of course, he’d gut himself before he admitted any such thing to her. Knowing Isabelle, she’d take that as an invitation to find new and even more irritating ways to torture him . . .

“You startled me; that’s all,” she maintained, waving the notebook around as she smiled at him.

“Why? Emailing your boyfriend?”

She snorted—an entirely odd sound coming from the ever-ebullient woman. “Hardly . . . if you really must know, I was emailing my sister.”

“Oh, hell . . . You mean there’s more than one of you?”

The laughter came again as Griffin plopped down on the sofa. “Rest assured: Alexandra is nothing at all like me.”

“So there is balance in the world.”

“Absolutely.”

“Good. Having two of you would be akin to witnessing the coming of the apocalypse.”

“Am I really that bad?” she asked with a grin.

“Yes,” he stated without hesitation. “Yes, you are.”

A wide yawn interrupted whatever comeback she’d been thinking of spouting. Griffin arched his right eyebrow and slowly shook his head. “You’re going to catch flies,” he warned.

She choked on a giggle as she dropped the notebook into her lap and wiped her eyes. “I’ve heard they’re good for you,” she countered.

“You eat the strangest things,” he said with a pronounced snort.

Isabelle just laughed.

“I made a few notes in there,” he said, poking at the notebook.

Isabelle blinked and rubbed her eye with the back of her hand. “Okay.”

“There were a few places where the translation could mean a couple different things. You can decide which one works better.”

She nodded, leafing through the notes with her index finger curled against her lips. It took her a moment to ponder the choices he’d offered before she circled the one she preferred with a red felt-tipped pen. Pushing her glasses up with a knuckle, she barely took note of anything else. When she started to chew on the end of the pen, it was all Griffin could do not to reach out and push her hand away.

‘You’re staring.’

Griffin snorted and sat up straight, eyebrows drawing together in a marked scowl at the unwelcome intrusion of his youkai voice. ‘. . . No, I’m not.’

‘You are . . . not that it’s a bad thing, mind you. If you’re going to stare, why not stare at someone who looks like her?’

‘I’m not staring,’ he argued. Hefting himself off the sofa, he lumbered toward the kitchen to grab a glass of water.

‘She’s not that bad, Griffin, as much as you’d like to think otherwise. She’s rather nice to have around, wouldn’t you say?’

That didn’t deserve a reply, as far as Griffin was concerned. She was one of the most irrational beings on earth, and she went out of her way to try his patience. Between her sexual innuendos and that damned laughter . . . Ignoring her was just not possible, no matter how hard he tried. Any way he looked at it, he was a condemned man, after all, because if he did manage to find a way to survive her overwhelming presence, there were just too many other factors to consider, and in the end, she’d look back on her memories of him with complete and utter disdain, if she bothered to look back on her memories of him, at all . . .

He took his time, drawing a cup of water from the kitchen faucet. Staring out the window that looked out into the forest beyond, he watched as the silvery light of the waning moon tried in vain to break through the dense convergence of the trees. The calm that normally soothed him during time spent observing nature eluded him, and he sighed, refilling the glass before retrieving a bottle of water from the refrigerator for Isabelle. He wasn’t sure why she insisted on drinking bottled water. God only knew that she didn’t care at all about her health otherwise. Maybe it was a conditioned response from having grown up in Tokyo, Japan. Larger cities like that tended to have more chemicals added to their water supplies, and even if they weren’t dangerous, he could understand the aversion to drinking it, too. Here in Maine, though, the water was clean, and the air was fresher than in many parts of the country and maybe even the world. It was one of the reasons that Griffin had ended up here . . . if there had really been any reason to it.

With a sigh, he headed back into the living room, setting the bottle of water on the coffee table beside Isabelle’s laptop before he shuffled over to his desk, retrieving the journal and another notebook. He sank down on the sofa beside her. Returning to his desk was just too much for him to consider. His bones ached from the hours spent hunched over in the unforgiving wooden chair. If he forced himself to sit there much longer, he’d be more than a little sorry for it come morning.

She was still immersed in the research notes, idly gnawing on her bottom lip. The illumination of the dancing fire on the hearth lent a golden glow to everything about her, the halo of light from the small lamp on the occasional table beside the sofa doing precious little to dispel the illusion. The tinge of rosy pink in her cheeks brought to mind another face, another time: a face that was always smiling, laughing . . . the same laughter that haunted his very dreams . . .

Shaking himself abruptly, Griffin cleared his throat and opened the journal once more. He was almost finished with it—small consolation since there were still two huge tomes of research left to translate, both of which were roughly five times the size of the paltry journal. At the rate he was going, it would take six months or better just to finish translating the research, and even then, he’d have to help her as she tried to make sense of it since the translations might need to be re-evaluated since there was often more than one way to translate a given passage.

“It’s a lot of work, isn’t it?” she asked, her tone a little rueful though she didn’t look up from the notebook.

Griffin paused as he dug his glasses out of his pocket to spare a glance at the woman. “It’s fine,” he mumbled, catching the end of one earpiece and levering the glasses open.

She heaved a sigh and let the notebook fall onto her lap, rubbing her face with both hands. “I really appreciate your help, you know. If it hadn’t been for you . . .”

“Don’t worry about it,” he grumbled, his tone unnecessarily sharp; a direct result of the softness, the gentleness in her voice. Teasing one minute only to turn around and say something completely serious the next . . . she perplexed him, challenged him on so many levels, didn’t she?

“Thank you.”

He snorted. “Shut up, will you? The sooner I get this done, the sooner I can get you out of my hair.”

Her soft laughter filled the room with a heartening warmth, and Griffin blinked quickly, unable to reconcile himself to the overwhelming feeling that he couldn’t quite place. Why could the very sound of Isabelle’s laughter make him remember days long past; times spent watching in silence while she frolicked and played? Those days seemed so very long ago, yet the comfort that the memories afforded him was within his reach when Isabelle laughed . . . It was a comfort he rarely allowed himself. Still, somehow Isabelle managed to draw it closer, soothing his ragged soul without even really trying at all . . . and that made her far more dangerous than Griffin could really credit . . .

She didn’t argue with him, much to his surprise. Turning her attention to the notes once more, she settled herself against the back of the sofa and yawned again.

The scratch of his pen on the paper was complimented by the occasional whisper of pages being turned in the notebook, and Griffin was grateful for the companionable silence as he worked. He still wasn’t sure if Dr. Carl Carradine was brilliant or stupid. He supposed maybe the man had been a little bit of both. After all, he’d managed to do what he’d set out to do, hadn’t he? In the jumbled text that was so difficult to transcribe, Griffin had to admit that if Carradine had wanted to protect his research, he had accomplished that very, very well.

A sudden weight registered in his mind, slowly at first, like the thawing of snow during the warming days of spring. It took a moment for him to realize just what it was, and he frowned when he saw that Isabelle had fallen asleep. Leaning on his shoulder, her expression soft, relaxed, she seemed more fragile, more delicate than anything he could credit. Like an angel descended from heaven or a devil in disguise she uttered the softest of sighs, nostrils quivering slightly as her dusty pink lips parted. The gentleness that she hid so easily behind the façade of those piercing golden eyes shone through, shattered the darkness that had been Griffin’s stomping grounds for far, far too long.

She trusted him—really trusted him. The knowledge was vast and frightening, akin to balancing on the edge of a great precipice where one false move could plunge them both into oblivion. She could be the end of him, couldn’t she? Simply, easily . . . everything seemed to converge in her; a lifetime of ugliness tempered by the beauty of one solitary figure who would remain forever out of his reach.

She’d hate him when all was said and done, and why wouldn’t she? Some sins were far too potent that not even God could forgive them. Punishment came in all forms, didn’t it, and maybe that was the greatest truth of them all. As easily as Isabelle smiled at him now . . . it would all change in the course of an instant if she ever learned the awful truth.

Still he couldn’t help but stare at her as seconds ticked away, marked by the indelible chime of the clock. There was no solace for a condemned man, and as much as he wished it were otherwise, he knew that some things simply could not be forgotten.

With a sigh, Griffin shrugged his shoulder in a half-hearted effort to rouse the sleeping woman. It didn’t work. In fact, she seemed to snuggle a little closer, and while it’d be far more comfortable to believe that she knew what she was doing, in his heart, he allowed that she didn’t. Exhausted, or so she seemed. Working twelve hour shifts and occasionally, an eighteen hour one here and there—at the emergency room only to come home and devote herself to wading through the translations he’d finished while she was gone was taking its toll on her, and in the end, he could only sigh as he carefully leaned to the side, nabbing the thick afghan off the back of the sofa to cover her up. She sighed—more of an insular breath than a real sound, but she almost smiled in her sleep, and for a moment—just for a moment—Griffin almost smiled, too.

“Sometimes what you believe is worse than the truth of it . . .”

Shaking his head, Griffin wished for one fleeting moment that he could believe the words Maria Masta had spoken so long ago. She’d said it while cleaning his wounds, and he hadn’t believed her back then, either. Slowly, so slowly, he’d developed a grudging respect for the human woman, hadn’t he? He’d forgotten somewhere along the way that humans weren’t all bad, and she’d reminded him. Oh, yes, she’d reminded him . . .

But Attean and Maria had troubles of their own. He was a hanyou; she was human, and he was half Indian, to boot. The white settlers didn’t trust him, and Attean’s mother’s tribe didn’t consider him one of their own, either. It was the same with youkai. The stigma of the hanyou still existed back then. Maria was shunned by ‘civilized society’ for having chosen to marry a ‘heathen’. Griffin could still recall the scathing glances, the hushed whispers when Attean would journey into a town for supplies, and though they’d wanted him to stay, he’d known that his presence could only worsen the situation in the end. He knew all too well that the past had a way of catching up with him, and the last thing he would do would be to put Attean and Maria in danger. So he’d left without a word in the middle of the night of a new moon, simply disappearing into the great expanse of the Canadian wilderness. Sometimes he’d travel for weeks before he’d see another living being other than plants and animals.

He’d wandered for a long time, hadn’t he? Drifting from place to place; not really a vagrant, exactly, but without any real destination in mind. He hadn’t realized that he was so close to the home territory of the tai-youkai. Truth be known, he had actively avoided any information that might have mattered to him back then. It was enough to find a place where the people didn’t shy away from him because of his scars; where people didn’t judge him because of the way he looked on the outside. He still got odd looks from time to time, or worse; those glances full of a mixture of revulsion and pity. The revulsion he could stomach, but the pity he could do without. He’d earned his scars, hadn’t he? Branded by a trial of fire and tears . . .

And yet a certain part of him had wished that Isabelle would look at him like that. He’d wanted it from her, hadn’t he? The pity . . . the horror . . . If she’d done that—if she’d ever looked at him with those emotions in her gaze, it’d be easier to keep her at bay, wouldn’t it? Then it would be so much easier to convince himself that she . . . that she was just too damn far away.

Chapter Text

Mamoruzen Gunnar Inutaisho sat back in the chair and cleared his throat. “So are you going to tell me?”

Isabelle blinked and carefully studied her menu without meeting her cousin’s steady gaze. “Tell you . . .?” she echoed.

He wasn’t buying, which didn’t really surprise her. Mamoruzen had always been a little too quick to let much slip past him unnoticed. “Okay, you want to do this the hard way. Fine.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mamoruzen,” she lied, batting her eyelashes in a show of over-exaggerated innocence.

His eyes brightened at the perceived challenge that she had unwittingly offered him, and he snorted. “Cut the crap, Izzy.   You can’t bullshit me.”

Pursing her lips as she closed the menu and set it aside, Isabelle leveled a no-nonsense look at her beloved cousin and slowly shook her head, carefully straightening the cuffs of her cream angora sweater. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she insisted, pasting on a small little smile meant to reassure him.

“The hell,” he scoffed, curling his upper lip back in a contentious snarl that did nothing to diminish the stunning façade he presented. No, if anything, the expression only served to add to the overall feeling of contrived indifference that he was an expert at projecting. “I want a name, Isabelle, and I want it now.”

“A name? That’s pretty vague. Will any name do?”

He narrowed his eyes, and Isabelle sighed. “Don’t be cute,” he warned.

“All right; all right,” she relented with a wave of her hand. “It’s not a big deal, do you hear me? He’s just a friend; that’s all.”

“Just a friend? You’ve moved in with ‘just a friend’?” Gunnar pressed.

“It’s not what you think,” Isabelle insisted then grimaced. “Though it isn’t from lack of trying on my part . . .”

Gunnar shook his head and drummed his claws on the highly lacquered table top. “I think I shall pretend I didn’t hear you say that,” he warned.

Isabelle rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the laugher that escaped her. “Oh, please! Since when have you been all prudish?”

He made a face. “You’re a woman, Izzy. Women should be a little less . . . vocal . . . about certain things.”

“So you say . . . Look, Mamoruzen, I’m not one of your little toys, and I don’t have a problem admitting that I like having sex . . . lots of sex . . . hot and passionate sex with lots of sweat, lots of friction, and a nice grunt or two thrown in for flair.”

“Keh! First off, we’re not talking about me; we’re talking about you and your penchant for letting your heart rule your head. Second off, if we were talking about me, then I’d assure you that there are never any complaints from the ladies I choose to spend time with.”

“I’m sure there aren’t,” Isabelle allowed, “and since when has following one’s heart been a bad thing?”

“It’s a bad thing,” Gunnar insisted, grasping the sweaty glass of water off the table and casually sipping the liquid in slow, measured swallows. “Keep it up, and you’ll end up no better than the rest of them.”

She sat back with a sigh, crossing her arms over her chest as she tried to decide whether or not Gunnar was being serious. She was afraid that he was. There were precious few things that he would make light of, and the subject at hand was certainly not one of them. Still, his current pique seemed to have less to do with Isabelle and more to do with other things . . . “Another nice chat with your mother, I presume?” she asked, discarding the idea of beating around the bush with it.

He wrinkled his nose and shrugged offhandedly. “Of course not. Anyway, Mother never does more than hint. I can deal with that.”

“Oh?”

He nodded. “Of course. Mother is easily distracted, you know.” With a shake of his head, he sighed, idly turning the water glass in stationary circles. “My grandfather, however . . .”

She winced in commiseration. That certainly put things in a completely different light. While it was easy enough to avoid undesirable conversation with his parents, trying to do the same to one as formidable as Gunnar’s own grandfather . . .? Well, it wasn’t a feat easily accomplished though she didn’t doubt for a moment that Gunnar did try his best. “And people wonder why you put an ocean between the two of you . . .” she mused, more to herself than to her companion.

“An ocean? A few thousand leagues or so isn’t really enough to distance myself from the long reach of Inutaisho Sesshoumaru.”

“I gather you didn’t elude him as quickly as you would have liked.”

That earned her a droll sort of lazy frown. “Well enough, but I don’t doubt for a moment that he knew exactly what I was doing. In any case, that’s neither here nor there, is it? I want that name, Isabelle, and you’re going to give it to me.”

She quirked a golden bronze eyebrow and smiled coyly. “Am I?”

She was saved from his scathing rebuttal when the waitress stopped beside their table. Gunnar made quick work of ordering for the both of them—a nasty habit of his, actually—but Isabelle didn’t gainsay him since he had ordered something she’d like. She knew from experience that this particular cousin of hers had always felt the need to exert his dominance in such a way, and she let him get away with it, too, most likely more often than she really should have. Still, it amused her to watch him. As arrogant as his grandfather he was, yet that same arrogance and almost cold façade hid a far more sensitive man than he ever liked to let on. Precious few ever saw that side of him. Isabelle was lucky enough to be one of them.

“What if I didn’t want steak?” she asked as the waitress hurried away from their table.

The amused glint lighting his gaze in his otherwise blank expression bespoke his amusement at her subtle chiding. “Beg your pardon. Would you rather have a salad?”

She couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her as she shook her head. “Absolutely not.”

He nodded slowly. “I didn’t think so.”

She laughed despite herself, interrupting their conversation long enough to check her cell phone. Though she wasn’t scheduled to work, she was pretty nearly always on call, but since the number that registered on the caller ID wasn’t the emergency room, she didn’t bother to answer it.

“So tell me what you’ve figured out from your translations thus far?” Gunnar prompted, flicking his wrist and glancing at his watch.

Isabelle paused, fiddling with the edge of her napkin as she constructed her answer. “It’s interesting,” she allowed at last, unsure why she felt the overwhelming reluctance to tell Gunnar all that she knew. Maybe Griffin’s distrustful attitude was rubbing off on her . . . or maybe it had something to do with his strange reaction when she told him she’d be going out to dinner . . .

“Where do you think you’re going?” Griffin demanded as she leaned her head to the side to fasten a small golden hoop earring in her right earlobe.

She shifted her gaze to meet his in the mirror over the sink in the bathroom but didn’t stop fiddling with the jewelry. “I’m going out,” she said. “Don’t worry. I was going to tell you.”

He snorted and crossed his arms over his chest—a sure sign that he didn’t believe her in the least. “And just who are you going with?” he parried.

“Someone I’ve not gotten to spend much time with of late,” she hedged with a coquettish smile.

Griffin snorted. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I love that you care so much about me,” she remarked with a bright smile. “Don’t suppose you want to come along?”

“Don’t suppose I do,” he said, narrowing his gaze into an irritated sort of glower.

Isabelle heaved a sigh and slowly shook her head, grabbing her purse to check to make sure she had everything she needed for the evening. “Of course; of course . . . you don’t know what you’re missing, though . . . want me to bring home a . . . Pooh bag for you?”

Griffin snorted and lumbered back into the living room as her laughter trilled in the air behind him.

“Have you even heard a single word I’ve said to you?”

Isabelle blinked and pushed away the memory, smiling as she met Gunnar’s bored stare. “I’m sorry,” she admitted. “Wool gathering, I suppose.”

He leveled a no-nonsense look at her. “Tell me what’s so ‘interesting’ about this research.”

Glancing around to ascertain that they weren’t being eavesdropped on, Isabelle leaned in and gestured for Gunnar to do the same. He did, albeit with a dose of eye-rolling designed to let her know that he thought she was being a little extreme, and waited for her to speak.

“It . . . it’s big,” she admitted in a hushed whisper that he probably couldn’t have heard if he wasn’t hanyou, in the first place.

“Big?”

She nodded. “They isolated the gene in hanyous . . . the one that triggers the youkai response.”

His eyes widened just for a moment, but he nodded slowly. “Really.”

“Yeah . . . it seems like they were on the brink of figuring out how to counteract it.”

“You don’t say.”

“But I’m not positive how far they were into their research, so I’ve not said anything to Grandpa or anyone yet . . . no one but you, Gunnar. I want to make sure that I know exactly what they accomplished before I let the cat out of the proverbial bag.”

He digested that in silence for a moment then nodded, staring off to the side as though he were pondering her words. “I understand. Keep me posted, though. If what you say is true . . .”

She nodded and sat back, remembering the old tales that Grandma Kagome used to tell her; the stories about Grandpa InuYasha and the days of Sengoku Jidai . . . “Did they ever tell you the stories?” she asked suddenly, her gaze flashing up to meet his.

“Which stories?”

She shrugged, taking a sip of her wine before continuing. “The stories of what happened when Tetsusaiga broke . . . about Grandpa InuYasha nearly losing himself to his youkai blood . . .?”

Gunnar nodded slowly, his eyes glazing over as he, too, recounted the tales in his mind. “Yes, they did,” he said softly, idly twisting the ring on his left hand—the one that he’d told her contained the spiritual power of the monk who owned it long ago—the monk who had traveled with InuYasha and Kagome in their search for the evil known as Naraku. Gunnar’s mother had descended from the monk—Miroku—and his youkai-exterminator wife, Sango. The ring, Gunnar had said, was meant to seal his own youkai blood. Unlike Isabelle and the rest of the family on InuYasha’s side, Gunnar and his sisters didn’t have Kagome’s miko blood to temper the youkai reaction. The realization made the research that much more important to Isabelle, and she sat up a little straighter as a fresh resolve filtered through her.

“I’ll finish the research,” she promised.

He didn’t look impressed, but he shook his head and waved a hand in blatant dismissal. “Of course you will . . . but about this guy you’re living with . . . it doesn’t matter if you tell me or not. I know where he lives. I’ll just make a call to the surveyor’s office in the morning.”

That got Isabelle’s full attention, and she wrinkled her nose. “You’re overreacting, Mamoruzen. Besides, I promise you that there’s nothing even remotely shady about Griffin.”

“Griffin?” Gunnar echoed, raising his eyebrows expressively. “So does this ‘Griffin’ have a last name?”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course he does . . . and save your breath because I’m not telling you.”

“Why not?”

She waved off his question to ask one of her own. “Just what do you think to do if I tell you his last name?” She nodded slowly when he didn’t answer right away, her suspicions well-founded, as far as she was concerned. “Uh-huh. You’re going to do a background check on him, aren’t you?”

The blasted man didn’t even have the grace to look ashamed at all. “That was the plan, yes,” he agreed.

She narrowed her eyes. “No.”

He quirked an eyebrow.

“I mean it. You leave him alone.”

He sat back, crossing his arms over his chest as he frowned at her like he was trying to read her mind. She lifted her chin defiantly and refused to back down in the least. “I blame this on your lack of male guidance early on,” Gunnar said slowly. “Someone has to make sure that you’re not dating a wanted felon—or worse.”

“I had plenty of male guidance growing up,” she shot back, nostrils flaring as her temper rose. “Just because every other male in our family is insane about who their daughters date doesn’t make my papa a bad father, Mamoruzen, and I resent what you’re implying.”

He held up his hands in mock surrender, an indulgent little grin quirking on his lips. “Call off the dogs, Izzy, and calm down. I just mean that you’re not ever careful enough, and even your esteemed father would agree with me. If you’re not going to take your safety seriously then someone has to, even if you hate me for it.”

She heaved a sigh and sat back as the waitress set her plate on the table and refrained from comment until after the woman had hurried away once more. “I don’t hate you for it, but it’s entirely unnecessary. You sound just like Griffin, for that matter . . .”

One of his black eyebrows lifted, disappearing under the thick fringe of his bangs. “Oh?”

She shrugged, reaching for the utensils arranged beside her plate. “Honestly, I wouldn’t even be staying with him otherwise, but he’s worried that something sinister befell Jillian’s natural father, and—”

“. . . What?”

Wincing inwardly as she realized a moment too late that she’d just admitted far more than she should have, Isabelle set her fork down and carefully dabbed her lips with the napkin. “It’s nothing; I swear it.”

“Nothing?” he echoed dubiously.

“Yes, nothing,” she insisted then sighed. “There were some notes in the journal that freaked Griffin out, so he insisted that I stay with him.”

“Wait a minute . . . are you saying that he knows about the research?”

“Well, yes,” she admitted, restraining the urge to rub her forehead furiously. “Gunnar . . . don’t freak out, all right? And don’t tell Grandpa. Promise.”

“I’ll do no such thing,” he retorted in a much milder tone than she’d expected despite the obvious disapproval written in his stormy expression. “Why does he know about the research?”

She couldn’t see any way around it, as much as she hated to admit. Biting her lip as she considered the best approach to telling Gunnar enough to get him off her back but not enough to send him running to Cain Zelig, Isabelle shook her head again. “Because the journal and the research notes are written in an amalgamation of languages, and while I could have translated it easily enough if it had been in just one, I can’t do it by myself now. I took it to Griffin to see if he could recommend someone at the very least, and he said that there isn’t anyone else who could translate it.”

Gunnar snorted indelicately, his eyes flashing with a territorial gleam. “Well, isn’t that ironic?” he mumbled, more to himself than to Isabelle.

She shot him a scathing glance and clenched her teeth together, unreasonably irritated by Gunnar’s blatant suspicion of a man he had yet to actually meet. “Actually, it’s not. The languages are all variants of Abenaki . . . Tell me, do you know someone who could translate it?”

He rolled his eyes, unwilling to concede Isabelle’s point. “I’m sure that there are those who could. Helping you out with this could be a huge thing for your friend, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t,” she gritted out. “It’s not like that. He’s not like that.” She held up her hand when he opened his mouth to argue with her. “He’s not,” she stated once more. “He doesn’t want his name mentioned in any way, shape, or form, and he certainly doesn’t want any money for doing it.”

Gunnar’s eyes narrowed in an entirely predatory sort of way. “Bullshit, Izzy. No one ever does anything in this world for free.”

“Maybe you don’t,” she contended with a shake of her head. “Not everyone is as bent as you are, though. Face it, Mamoruzen; you don’t even trust your own shadow, do you?”

He shrugged offhandedly, taking up his silverware and cutting into the steak. “Occupational hazard,” he mused. “In any case, it sounds suspicious, even if you don’t want to believe me.”

“I trust him,” she said softly, drawing a thoughtful scowl from her cousin. “Whether you believe me or not, I’m not going to change my mind. He’s a good man—a very good man. I’m sure of it. Griffin’s got money of his own, anyway. He’s a professor, after all, and—”

“And professors can’t be shady? Don’t be naïve.”

“You’re being entirely ridiculous,” she insisted. “If he finds out, he’ll be furious . . . He’s very stingy with his privacy, not that I blame him.”

“Does he have something to hide?”

She was sorely tempted not to stalk around the table and shove his eyebrow back down where it belonged. Licking her lips as she tried to reign in her irritation, Isabelle pasted on a tepid smile and reached for the glass of wine near her plate. “Everyone has something to hide if they live long enough,” she remarked with a sad little shake of her head. Griffin was proud—irrefutably so, but hidden beneath that layer of staunch resolve, he was in pain, and she knew it. She wasn’t certain how she knew it, but she did. For reasons she didn’t question, she knew that no matter how noble Gunnar’s desire to protect her was, digging around in Griffin’s past wasn’t going to accomplish anything but causing him more anguish in the long run.

“So he’s old . . .” he concluded with a curt nod. “Any idea just how old this paragon of virtue is?” he demanded.

Isabelle sat back, caught off guard by that particular question. Come to think on it, she really didn’t have any clue as to exactly how old Griffin was. Then again, she’d never asked, either . . . “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I mean, I suppose he’s older . . . That’s how he seems, anyway . . . Why? Does it matter? Don’t tell me that you’re going to get all up in arms over his age, too.”

He shook his head but narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Your righteous indignation isn’t really going to sway me, Izzy,” he pointed out mildly.

“Fine,” she grumbled, fiddling with the napkin covering her lap. “You’ll owe him an apology when you figure out that he hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Gunnar finally smiled though the expression looked more predatory than pleased. “Good . . . then you won’t mind if I run a background check on him, will you?”

She bit her lip, turning her pleading eyes on him once more. “Mamoruzen, please . . . please don’t do it. Just leave him alone, can’t you?”

He seemed to be caught off guard by her soft entreaty, and he heaved a long sigh as he slowly shook his head. “I have to. It’s not just about you. He’s helping you with the research, and given what happened to Jillian, I’d be remiss if I didn’t do it, and you know it. You said yourself that there’s a good chance that it’s big, right? In that case, I cannot in good conscience ignore it especially when you don’t even know anything about the man, but . . .” He grimaced, the desire to please her manifesting in his drawn expression. “I won’t tell Cain anything if I don’t have to—unless there’s a question regarding this Griffin-character’s true intent. Good enough?”

She frowned at the table but didn’t comment. It was the best he’d offer, and she knew it. “I still think you’re being ridiculous.”

“Maybe . . . and if he checks out, then I’ll be more than happy to admit that I was wrong. I’ll even let you tell me that you told me so.”

That got her attention, and she almost smiled—almost. Gunnar didn’t like to admit that he was wrong, ever. That he would offer to do so in any capacity at all . . . It spoke volumes, as far as Isabelle was concerned.

“Then you’d better get ready to eat that slice of humble-pie, Mamoruzen,” she said, finally allowing herself to grin as she took up her utensils once more.

“You’re that certain?”

Her smile grew secretive, and she couldn’t help the twitching of her lips as she shrugged in a completely nonchalant sort of way. “You’d be certain, too, if he was your mate.”

Gunnar snorted loudly, making a show of rolling his eyes as he drained his glass of wine, but he didn’t argue with her, either.

Chapter Text

“So who is he?”

“Him? That’s Griffin.”

“Oh . . . he’s cute!”

“Isn’t he?”

“Doesn’t talk much, does he?”

“No . . . though he’s coming around a little bit . . .”

“Well, good . . . it’s not healthy to keep everything to yourself.”

“I know. I’ve tried to tell him that . . .”

“Rather reminds me of my Gavvie that way.”

“You think so?”

“Mhmm.”

Griffin stifled a sigh and dropped the pen on the desk with a pronounced clatter before pushing himself to his feet and stomping out of the living room toward the kitchen. ‘If they’re going to talk about me like I’m not there, I might as well not be there,’ he thought with a loud snort.

‘Oh, come now. It’s not that bad.’

He snorted again, snatching up his glass off the counter and filling it under the tap. ‘And I thought fat ass was bad . . . her aunt . . . cousin . . . whatever . . . she’s worse.’

‘Who? Jillian?’

He stopped with the cup poised in midair. ‘You . . . you know her name . . .?’

‘Of course I do which means you do, too . . . I am a part of you, you know.’

Griffin shook his head and gulped down the water. ‘There’s no way in hell I’m going back into the living room.’

His youkai sighed. ‘Yeah . . . it is a little unnerving, isn’t it?’

‘I was thinking more along the lines of ‘vastly irritating’, but sure, that, too . . .’

Taking his time washing out the glass before setting it on the counter beside the sink, Griffin paused long enough to straighten the dishcloth under the glass before shaking his head and heaving a long-suffering sigh. He was going to go work on the translations a little longer, but with Isabelle and her cohort in evil sitting in the living room dissecting his every move, he thought better of it.

Glancing over his shoulder at the two women as he made a beeline for the basement door, he was somewhat relieved to see that they were talking quietly and not paying the slightest bit of attention to him. Satisfied that he’d be able to escape unnoticed, he quickly unlocked the door and slipped into the stairway.

‘You know, they could very well be discussing us,’ his youkai blood pointed out.

Wrinkling his nose, he slapped the switch to turn on the lights below and lumbered down the steps. ‘Don’t care so long as I don’t have to hear it,’ he grumbled.

‘. . . They think we’re good looking . . .’

Griffin snorted loudly but blushed just the same. ‘Not saying much. Look at fat ass’ dog, will you? She thinks he’s . . . cute . . .’

‘Yeah, and another thing: she doesn’t really have a fat ass, you realize.’

Flopping down on the ragged old sofa before swiping up the latest carving he’d been working on, Griffin made a face. ‘Yes, she does.’

‘Uh huh. If you think so . . .’

It was simply not to be borne. The woman was obsessed with making his life miserable, wasn’t she? If it weren’t bad enough that she was constantly underfoot, wheedling her way into his life just a little more every day, now she’d brought outsiders into his home, too? And not just any outsider, mind, but one that perpetuated her penchant for driving him absolutely insane . . . ‘Must be a martyr,’ he grumbled.

‘Oh, please! A martyr? Ri-i-i-ight . . . Admit it, Griffin: you don’t really mind having Isabelle underfoot. In fact, you rather like it.’

‘And you’re pressing your luck,’ he shot back, gritting his teeth and tightening his grip on the carving in his hand.

‘She’s not so bad, you know. I realize you like to think she’s the devil-incarnate, but she’s not, and . . . and she’s comfortable . . . Well, maybe not comfortable, per se, but . . . familiar . . . and you know she is, too.’

‘Familiar . . .’ Griffin echoed, both comforted and completely repulsed by the very idea that Isabelle was insinuating herself in his life as much as she was. She frightened him, didn’t she? Maybe not frightened, but something about the feelings that she stirred deep down . . . he wasn’t sure he wanted to understand what it would mean . . . ‘No,’ he argued feebly, brow furrowing as he swallowed hard and tried to ignore the unsettling surge of panic that swept through him. ‘No, she can’t . . . she . . . can’t . . .’

‘She understands a lot more about you than you’d like to believe . . . She understands more than you want her to, doesn’t she?’

‘. . . She’d never understand. She was cherished, adored her entire life, and she should have been, but . . . but she’d never understand . . . and I don’t have any right to ask her to try.’

‘Yeah, because you don’t want her to . . . Thing is, that doesn’t matter, you know? She wants to, and maybe that’s enough.’

‘Enough?’ he spat, gaze narrowing as the tiny figurine in his hand cracked and broke. A stabbing pain registered in the depths of his conscience when the remnant splinters embedded themselves in his palm, but he barely noticed. ‘It’s not enough. It could never be enough! What would she say if she knew . . .? What would she say if . . . if I told her . . .?’ Leaning forward, letting his injured hand dangle between his knees, he buried his face in his other hand and heaved a tired sigh. ‘She just . . . she just feels sorry for me . . . that’s all . . . and if I told her . . . if she knew . . .’

She’d despise him. Of course she would. He’d cost her a lot, hadn’t he? If she ever realized that . . .

Griffin sighed. As if it weren’t bad enough to dwell on the past that he couldn’t change, she’d invited her cousin over to visit, and that was more than enough for him. Sure, he supposed that people would find Jillian Zelig Jamison charming and the like, but Griffin never had been one to enjoy being the center of attention, and that’s exactly what happened almost the very second the young woman had walked through the door.

And then . . .

Brow furrowing in an exaggerated grimace, Griffin shook his head and wondered just how Isabelle was able to twist things around to suit her so easily, which was exactly what had happened mere moments after Jillian had stepped into the house.

“I take it the two of you are dating,” Jillian said, her pale blue gaze sweeping over Griffin as though she were sizing him up.

“N—” he began.

“Uh, yeah,” Isabelle blurted, narrowing her eyes at Griffin as she shot a meaningful look at Jillian’s back then on to him.

Gritting his teeth—he didn’t have to like it, even if he understood what she was trying to do—Griffin could barely contain the pronounced snort that might have drawn Jillian’s suspicions. He was the one who had insisted that no one know about the fact that he was helping her with the research, wasn’t he, and even he wasn’t stupid enough not to realize that the next logical question in Jillian’s mind would have been why Isabelle was staying with him if they weren’t lovers.

His grimace shifted into something more akin to a scowl though his face darkened with embarrassed color nonetheless. He ought to thank her for covering up for him, he supposed. Too bad he was more inclined to throttle her, instead . . . Life had been so much simpler before Isabelle Izayoi had breezed into it . . .

No, he was definitely better off, staying out of sight and out of mind for the duration. Heaving a sigh as he uncurled his fist and grimaced at the splintered wood embedded in his palm, he slowly shook his head. Isabelle . . . Charlie . . . Jillian . . . he had a feeling that his life was never, ever going to be simple again . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

“So Dr. Avis did call you, then?”

Jillian leaned against the counter and nodded as a relieved little glint entered her pale blue gaze. “Yes, he did. He said that he’d been feeling a little off . . . something about the strain of adjusting to the difference in the climate.”

Isabelle smiled, too. “Good. I’m glad that there was nothing wrong.”

Letting out a heavy sigh that lifted the bangs fringing her forehead, Jillian nodded again. “You’re telling me . . . I was starting to worry . . .” Trailing off, Jillian waved her hand and wrinkled her nose. “I’m just being silly; I know.”

“No, you’re not,” Isabelle contradicted gently, rinsing lettuce leaves under the tap and gently shaking off the excess water. “I have to admit, I was a little worried about it, myself, even though Grandpa and the others all insisted that nothing was wrong.”

“You were?” Jillian questioned as she reached for a tomato and carefully sliced it into wedges with her claws.

“Sure . . . I thought it seemed odd that Dr. Avis would simply disappear . . .”

“So did I,” Jillian allowed then shrugged as a little smile surfaced on her pretty face. “Then again, Gavvie promised he’d take me back soon so that I can talk to him a little more.”

Isabelle nodded, her brow furrowing in a thoughtful frown as she arranged the clean lettuce leaves on a dishtowel to air dry.   “And it doesn’t bother Grandma or Grandpa? That you want to talk to Dr. Avis?”

Jillian winced slightly, biting her lip as the smile disappeared only to be replaced by a slight scowl. “They say they’re okay with it,” she said slowly. “Mama always smiles and says that it’s only natural that I’d be curious about my biological parents . . .”

“But . . .” Isabelle prompted when Jillian trailed off.

With a sigh, the water-youkai rinsed her hands and slowly dried them on a clean towel. “But . . . but you know Mama. She’d bite her own tongue off before she ever said that any of this hurt her. She doesn’t seem like it bothers her that much, but then . . . but I’ve seen it on Daddy’s face a few times. It bothers him, as much as he hates to admit it, and if it bothers him, then I’m sure . . .”

“I don’t blame you,” Isabelle said softly, sparing a moment to give Jillian’s shoulders a quick squeeze. “It’s natural to wonder where you came from.”

Jillian’s smile was thin, wan, but the slight tension around her eyes ebbed away. “You’re right,” she said with a sigh. “Mama and Daddy love me. They are my parents. I just . . . I just wanted—needed—to make sure that I wasn’t some sort of . . . freak.”

“You’re hardly a freak,” Isabelle chided, turning away from Jillian to retrieve the rest of the vegetables for the hearty salad she was preparing for a certain surly bear-youkai. “Anyway, I’m really glad you came by today.”

Jillian giggled, letting go of the more serious overtones of their conversation in lieu of something else entirely. “I am, too . . . and enough about me! I’ve got to get going soon since I promised Gavvie I’d be home when he got there, so . . . tell me about this Griffin . . .?”

“‘This Griffin’?” Isabelle echoed with a little giggle. “Okay . . . what do you want to know?”

Jillian shot her a raised-eyebrow-ed look. “The normal stuff,” she assured Isabelle with an impish little smile. “You know . . . how long have you been dating him? What’s his astrological sign? How impressive is his packaging?”

Isabelle blinked and let out a terse laugh. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Jillian could be as base-minded as she her brother, Evan. The young woman was far too sweet-looking, and it could be quite misleading—the main reason why it always amused Isabelle when Jillian would whisper into Gavin’s ear only to make the shy man blush down to the soles of his feet. In the end, Isabelle shook her head and waved a hand, giggling all the same. “Not long . . . I’m not sure . . . and . . . have you seen the size of his hands and feet?”

Jillian thought that over and nodded slowly but couldn’t repress her laughter as she waggled her eyebrows at Isabelle. “Nice,” she approved as the impish smile turned a little cheesier. “Where did he disappear to?”

Isabelle paused, tearing lettuce leaves into manageable hunks and dropping them into the large wooden bowl. She glanced around and shrugged as her gaze came to rest on the closed basement door. Froofie was stretched out on the floor along the threshold, looking positively miserable at the perceived abandonment. She didn’t doubt for a moment that Froofie would rather be downstairs with Griffin than upstairs with her. Somewhere along the way, he’d decided that the bear-youkai was a better companion than she was, which amused her more than it upset her. If she had her druthers, she’d follow Griffin around all the time, too . . . “Oh, he’s holed up in his den,” she quipped, wrinkling her nose at her dog’s defection to the Griffin camp.

“His den?” Jillian repeated with a soft laugh. “Really?”

“Well, he won’t tell me what’s actually down there,” Isabelle allowed with a shrug. “It’s off limits.”

“Hmm, intriguing,” Jillian decided. “So how are you going to find out?”

“Everyone needs their privacy,” Isabelle insisted.

Jillian snorted. “In other words, you don’t have any good ideas yet.”

Isabelle didn’t confirm or deny that statement, opting instead to concentrate on tearing up the last of the lettuce.

“All right, I’d better get going,” Jillian said with a sigh, scooping the tomatoes together and dropping them into the salad bowl before rinsing her hands in the sink.

“Okay. I’m glad you stopped by.”

Pausing long enough to give Isabelle a quick squeeze, Jillian hurried toward the doorway as she wiggled her fingers over her shoulder in a jaunty wave.

Isabelle slipped the prepared salad in to the refrigerator and grabbed two thick steaks out of a drawer before kicking the door closed as she turned to face the stove. She’d laughed when Griffin had explained that the stove didn’t have an automatic ignition for the burners—she hadn’t realized they still made stoves like that anymore. It had taken her a couple of weeks to get used to cooking on the old appliance, and she had to admit that she rather liked the simplicity of a device that lacked the bells and whistles and timers that the newer models possessed.

In fact, everything about Griffin’s domain smacked of an era long past. As though he refused to allow himself anything that he might consider to be a ‘modern convenience’, the simplicity of his existence was oddly appealing to her.

Strange, really, if she stopped to think about it. She’d been raised by thoroughly modern parents with every comfort that money could buy. Still, she couldn’t quite shake the idea that the same things that had made life so much simpler might also have softened her a little too much. Youkai had evolved so far in the passing centuries . . . the overwhelming need to fight and to dominate had given way to the struggle to survive, hadn’t it? They’d assimilated into human society in a last-ditch effort to keep from being decimated by the human tools that had proven to be more powerful than a youkai’s will. Guns had presented the biggest threat. As fast as youkai were, there wasn’t one who could outrun a bullet. That had been the beginning of the end, she’d heard Uncle Sesshoumaru say once. They caused too much damage at one time, and while youkai could heal at remarkable rates, even the restorative powers of their bodies could not compete with the devastation that a well-placed bullet could wreak.

She’s learned these things over the years from stories and legend. Though her grandfather, InuYasha had effectively skipped the darkest of times, he’d seen enough in his life before he’d passed through the Bone Eater’s Well for the final time that he had admitted that Sesshoumaru’s edict that all youkai hide their true natures; that they try to assimilate into human society was for the best, though he’d likely bite his tongue off before he’d ever acknowledge that he thought Sesshoumaru might be right about anything at all.

Still, it made her wonder. Though Griffin had never said anything one way or the other, Isabelle knew that he was quite old. How much had he seen, and of those things, how much of it still impacted him today? Somehow she had a hard time believing that he’d always been as closed up and distant as he was now. Had he smiled much as a child? Did he laugh out loud and run and play? Did he have the same kind of memories that she had, or at least enough of them to cherish?

Arranging the steaks on a stovetop grill, Isabelle frowned when her gaze came to rest on the nondescript white plastic jar that Jillian had dropped off. It was the salve that Isabelle had asked Gin to mix up for Griffin and the main reason that Jillian had stopped by. She and Gavin were on their way back to New York City but had opted to swing through Maine because Jillian had wanted to spend a little time with her parents, probably to reassure them that she still adored them both as much as she ever had.

‘Dr. Avis is fine . . .’ she thought slowly, gnawing on her bottom lip as her frown deepened. ‘What does that mean . . .? Griffin was wrong, after all . . . at least about the danger, wasn’t he? And if he was wrong about that, then where does that leave me . . .?’

She sighed and shook her head, making a face as she shifted her gaze around the small but meticulously clean kitchen. She knew what it meant, didn’t she? It meant . . . it meant that she could go home . . .

Damned if that idea sat well with her. She didn’t really want to go home; not yet. It was too easy for Griffin to keep his distance from her. She’d started to think that maybe she was making some progress, even if it was only what amounted to baby-steps. Still, she’d take what she could get, but if she moved out, he’d be able to push her away; she knew he would.

‘And maybe that’s for the best, too, Isabelle,’ her youkai voice chimed in.

‘That can’t be true,’ she thought with a snort. ‘He’s been alone for long enough. It’s about time he realized that he can’t be alone forever. Everyone needs someone, don’t they? What’s wrong with the wish that his someone could be me?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with that wish, no, but you misunderstand. You’re smart. You know what I’m talking about. Griffin has his reasons, and whatever they are, he doesn’t have any intention of telling you about them.’

‘Maybe . . . I also know that he doesn’t dislike me, even if he wants to . . . even if he tries to tell himself that he does. He needs me; I can feel it. He needs me, and I . . . I want to help him.’

‘Nice way to put a pretty face on it. Need I remind you that you’re nothing at all like either of your grandmothers? You’re just a doctor, and while you might be able to mend broken bones and cure sickness, you’re not the kind that can heal a broken spirit.’

She grimaced and shook her head as she flipped the steaks over on the grill. That was true, she supposed. Kagome and Gin . . . they were healers in every sense of the word, weren’t they? Kagome had undisputed spiritual powers; powers that even Sesshoumaru acknowledged. In that vein, she’d been able to break through the bleakness that had been InuYasha’s world for so long, and in her own way, she’d taught him that life was worth living, and that love was something precious; something worth fighting for. Gin had done the same thing with Cain, hadn’t she? She’d saved him in every way that mattered without really trying, at all, and as much as Isabelle might wish she could do the same, she knew, didn’t she? She would never, ever be like them . . .

She was too impatient, like her mother; too impulsive. She had a tendency to push too hard and to act before she really thought things through. Or maybe she was too much like her father; a one-track mind that would not rest until she’d gotten whatever it was that she wanted . . .

‘Those two things are a dangerous combination,’ her youkai voice chided. ‘It’s gotten you into your fair share of trouble over the years, and if you stomp in there with all guns blazing, all you’ll end up doing is pushing Griffin further away.’

‘All right; all right! I’m a lost cause! I got that . . . Still . . .’

‘No, that’s not what I’m saying at all, Isabelle. I’m telling you that your normal no-nonsense approach just isn’t going to work with that man, and you know it. For once in your life, you need to stop and consider another way to go about this . . . if you really want to help him . . . if you really want to be with him . . .’

‘He’s my mate,’ Isabelle insisted, rising on tiptoe to pull two plates off the top shelf of the cupboard. ‘I know it, and you know it . . . and if we know it, then he knows it, too.’

‘That’s the thing, Isabelle . . . just because he might know on some level doesn’t mean he’s realized it or admitted it to himself, and even you have to admit that Griffin can be a little strange when it comes to certain things.’

‘Then what do you suggest, O wise one?’

Her youkai blood laughed softly. ‘Show him.’

‘Show him? I thought you said that I needed to practice subtlety. I’d hardly call showing Griffin the goods ‘subtle’.’

‘That’s not what I’m talking about,’ her youkai scoffed. ‘I meant show him that he likes to be with you . . . show him that he can be happy, after all.’

Isabelle paused as she arranged salad in the large bowl that Griffin seemed to favor before reaching for the canister of dried cranberries on the counter. ‘That he likes to be with me, huh . . .?’ A slow smile spread over her features as she sprinkled a few cranberries over his salad followed by a handful of lightly roasted pine nuts. ‘I . . . I can do that . . . I know I can . . .’

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Griffin slumped to the side in the overstuffed recliner and sighed as he propped his forehead on his fingertips and scowled at the journal in his hands. The dull ache behind his eyes was ignored while he worked. It wasn’t uncommon, anyway. He was used to minor aches and pains—he’d lived with them for the greater part of his life. They were minor annoyances at best; irksome, surely, but easily ignored.

Maybe he ought to go on a walk. It would probably help to loosen up his overly stiff joints since he felt quite bad otherwise. He’d spent too much time sitting today—something he normally paid very close attention to since the alternative was a fitful night spent tossing and turning that often resulted in one of his legs going numb. Attean had mentioned once that the pain and stiffness were probably caused by the overabundance of scar tissue he’d accumulated on the majority of his body, and he’d even mentioned that a good surgeon could probably do something about it. It wasn’t something that Griffin had ever really considered, though. The pain was a reminder, wasn’t it? Otherwise, it’d be a little too easy to forget . . .

‘You can’t really believe that, can you? That you could forget anything so easily?’

Griffin grunted but didn’t respond. The sounds of Isabelle puttering around in the kitchen registered in the back of his mind, but he didn’t dwell on that, either.

She’d been uncharacteristically quiet during dinner. Come to think of it, she’d been strangely quiet all evening. He wasn’t sure if he should be worried or grateful for the reprieve . . .

‘Yeah? So why did her odd silence worry you then?’

Setting the journal aside so that he could scratch Charlie’s knobby head, Griffin snorted. ‘It didn’t. It was nice. She wasn’t babbling on and on about nothing for once.’

‘Sure, it was,’ his youkai agreed despite the hint of sarcasm that Griffin could discern. ‘Something was on her mind, and that bothered you . . . Admit it, why don’t you?’

‘Nope,’ he insisted, making a face and shoving the dog back down when Charlie tried to climb into Griffin’s lap. “You’re as bad as she is,” he grumbled.

Charlie whined and wagged his tail in reply.

Speaking of ‘her’ . . .

Griffin glanced up only to do a classic double-take as Isabelle marched into the living room with a white plastic container in one hand and a clear glass jar of honey roasted pecans in the other—one of the big ones that reminded Griffin of the huge pickle jars that he’d seen in bulk grocery stores. She didn’t even spare him a second glance as she set the container on the coffee table and proceeded to sink down on the sofa, flipping the air-tight lid on the jar and settling down with the pecans.

He narrowed his gaze, scowling in intense concentration at Isabelle’s snack. When it became obvious to him that she had no intention of sharing he snorted out loud and pushed himself to his feet, crossing the living room floor in a matter of three long strides before reaching for the jar cradled in Isabelle’s lap only to have them neatly whisked to the side despite the fact that she still hadn’t looked at him even once. “These are mine, Pooh Bear. I bought them with my own money.”

“Dogs don’t like pecans,” he maintained, grabbing for the jar again and missing when she scooted away to the other end of the sofa.

“This dog does,” she insisted, popping a nice, fat honey roasted pecan half into her mouth. “Mmm . . .”

He couldn’t contain the low growl that escaped as he tried to nab the jar for the third time—and missed again. “Consider them your rent,” he grumbled, intercepting her hand when she tried to feed herself yet another pecan. Forcibly guiding her hand to his mouth, he bit it, letting his teeth scrape over her fingers as fair warning, as far as he was concerned.

She giggled and scooted further away, wrapping both arms around the jar of pecans to protect them from Griffin. “You want these?” she goaded, arching an eyebrow in a completely coquettish way.

“Hand them over, girly.”

Her grin widened. “Okay, okay . . . on one condition.”

“What sort of condition?” he demanded, his frown as foreboding as he could make it as he snagged another pecan out of her fingertips and stuffed it into his mouth.

Isabelle laughed. “I’ll let you have this jar of nuts if you let me do whatever I want . . . for twenty minutes.”

“You’ve got to be crazy if you think I’ll agree to any such thing,” Griffin growled, cheeks pinking as he furiously tried not to think about exactly what Isabelle had in mind for those twenty minutes. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. A few ideas did flit through his brain—ideas that he didn’t even want to consider. Knowing Isabelle, she just wanted to torture him . . .

Her laughter escalated, having obviously interpreted the look on his face correctly, and she waved her hand, contorting her body to the side when he swiped at the jar of nuts once more. “I assure you, Dr. G, if that’s what I had in mind, I’d have asked for a hell of a lot longer than twenty minutes.”

He could feel the rush of hot color burning under his skin and growled. “Never can tell with you,” he shot back. “Just hand over the pecans, will you?”

“Twenty minutes, Griffin,” she reiterated. “You agree, and I’ll let you have the whole jar.”

“Forget it,” he growled, wondering if he’d be fast enough to grab the jar and make it to the basement before she had a chance to retaliate. No, he probably wouldn’t be . . . But damn it, he wanted those pecans . . .

“Oh, come on, doctor! Surely you can withstand twenty minutes,” she goaded.

“Depends,” he grumbled, “and there’s no way I’m willingly subjecting myself to any of your debased schemes for nearly half an hour.”

“Twenty minutes,” she nearly sang once more.

Griffin snorted. “. . . Five.”

“Five?” she echoed with a shake of her head. “For this huge jar? You’ve got to be kidding. Ninteeen.”

“Five.”

“Seventeen.”

“Five,” he stated flatly, crossing his arms over his chest as he glowered at the infuriating woman.

She shook her head. “Going once . . .”

He growled.

“Going twice . . .”

Griffin made a face. “. . . Ten.”

Isabelle’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Fifteen. Final offer.”

“Ten.”

“Fifteen.”

He couldn’t help the low growl that started somewhere deep within him only to escalate slowly.

She heaved a sigh and shook her head, rolling to her feet as she dug a handful of pecans out of the jar and held them over her head. “Fifteen . . .” she said seconds before the first pecan fell into her mouth.

Griffin grimaced. “Nothing bad, right?” he demanded.

She rolled her eyes but let the rest of the pecans in her hand fall back into the jar. “Fine, fine, nothing bad . . . but fifteen full minutes—and no complaining.”

He wrinkled his nose and let out a deep, frustrated breath, feeling like a condemned man on his way to face the gallows. “Fifteen minutes . . . that’s it,” he grudgingly agreed.

A brilliant smile was his reward as Isabelle handed over the jar of pecans with a flourish. She swiped the white plastic container off the table and spared a moment to smile at him again before biting her lip as she stared at him in an entirely too-calculating sort of way.

‘I don’t trust her,’ he thought with an inward snort as he shoved a handful of honey roasted pecans into his mouth.

‘Oh, relax . . . she promised she wouldn’t do anything bad.’

‘Bad is a relative term,’ Griffin shot back caustically as Isabelle tapped a delicate claw against her lips thoughtfully, ‘and Isabelle is relatively bad.’

‘Yeah, well, you know, you didn’t have to make her promise that she wouldn’t do anything ‘bad’ during her fifteen minutes,’ his youkai chided.

Griffin’s retort was cut off when the woman in question abruptly grabbed his arm, neatly tucking it between her body and her own arm to effectively hold him in place—though he could have pulled away easily enough, he supposed, but a deal was a deal, even if he was starting to wonder if he hadn’t been a little rash in agreeing to her terms . . . ‘Wh . . . what is she doing?’ he wondered, his glower darkening as she carefully unscrewed the lid on the plastic container. He ought to have paid a little more attention to that, he supposed as he wrinkled his nose and tried to sniff the thick white cream inside without being too obvious about it.

‘G-G-G-Griffin . . .?’

‘Huh?’

“M-maybe this was a b-bad idea . . .’ his youkai choked out harshly.

Blinking to clear his mind, he scowled at the strangled tone of his youkai’s voice. ‘Eh?’

‘Your . . . arm . . .’

It took a moment for Griffin to grasp just what his youkai meant, but when he did, he couldn’t smother the sharp intake of breath that whistled into his lungs as his arm tensed of its own accord; as he pulled against her tightening grip as she held onto his wrist. His arm was indeed in a precarious state, sandwiched between her arm and her body—most pointedly, her breast—and the way she was holding onto his hand . . . Well, it was safe to say that any closer would have his hand effectively smashed between said-breasts, and while the idea wasn’t completely loathsome, it was far more inviting than it ever should have been. “Listen, girly,” he forced himself to say, his voice a lot gruffer than he’d intended.

She rolled her eyes and shot him a quelling glance as she cocked and eyebrow and dug a glob of cream out of the container and rubbed it between her palms. “Fifteen minutes, Griffin. You agreed so deal with it.”

Snapping his mouth closed as he fought back the heinous stain of a tell-tale blush, Griffin growled low in his throat and tried to pull away once more.

Her hands—hot and slick, closed over his as her arm smashed down to lock him in place. Gently—a little too gently, she carefully rubbed the cream into his hand, massaging the scar tissue that still gave him twinges of discomfort despite her obvious desire not to hurt him. “What do you think you’re—?”

“This is a special ointment my grandmother made up. It should reduce the swelling in your joints and help with the pain,” she cut in, her voice soft despite the determined set of her jaw. “But you have to apply it often for it to work best. Don’t worry; it’s all natural.”

He snorted. “Don’t need it,” he grumbled under his breath, more to himself than to her.

She rubbed the expanse of skin between his index finger and thumb, and he grimaced. “Of course you don’t,” she agreed in what could only be described as an indulgent tone.

“I don’t,” he maintained stubbornly.

“I know.”

He snorted, his gaze shifting to the slope of her breasts once more. When he realized what he was staring at, he gritted his teeth, willing himself not to blush and failing miserably. It didn’t do any good to keep his gaze averted. No, he could still feel the heat of her body radiating from her skin . . . “Do you have to manhandle me?” he grumbled.

She shot a quick glance over her shoulder at him, her eyes narrowing as she stared at his ruddy face. “Suck it up, big boy. I’m not hurting you.”

His answer was a scathing grunt that she summarily ignored while she grasped his arm more firmly, bearing down with her elbow—not uncomfortable, per se, but enough to draw even more attention to the dubious placement of his hand in relation to her body. Snapping his mouth closed—it was suddenly dry—he tried to force his gaze away again but couldn’t. If he turned his arm just the tiniest bit . . .

‘The hell!’ he blustered in his head.

‘Hush, Griffin . . . just go with it . . .’

‘G-g-go with it?’

His youkai groaned softly.

“It’s been fifteen minutes already,” he blurted, desperately trying to get a grip on his rioting emotions.

“It has not,” she argued. “It hasn’t even been five minutes.”

“Hmph,” he gritted out, tamping down the rising sense of panic that surged through him when she shifted his arm, effectively bringing his forearm up and into the vale under her breasts. ‘No . . . no, no, no, no . . .’

He had to get away from her. If he didn’t, he was pretty certain that he was going to die. Held where he was, the heat of her body was magnified tenfold, and Griffin wasn’t so sure he’d survive if he didn’t find a way to put some distance between the two of them, and fast . . . She was too close, too nice, too damn hot to credit . . . he felt as though he were standing too close to a bonfire . . . or maybe he was standing in it . . .

But she didn’t seem to notice Griffin’s turmoil, and that wasn’t exactly a bad thing. He wasn’t sure what would have happened if she did realize what her proximity was doing to him, and for that, at least, he was grateful.

“Anyway, I want you to promise you’ll use this stuff. I’ll have Grandma make more when you run out,” Isabelle went on, blissfully unaware of the havoc she was wreaking on Griffin’s equilibrium. She shifted slightly, allowing his arm to slide away from her and offering him a slight bit of breathing room that he sorely needed.

His grunt was noncommittal at best since he didn’t have any intention to use the cream, never mind he could feel a distinct tingle down deep—a sure sign that whatever it was, it was working. “I told you; I don’t need it.”

The expression on her face was hard to interpret. She paused long enough to stare at him for a moment before resuming her task once more. “I heard you,” she agreed mildly, “but I’d feel much better if you agreed, especially since I won’t be here to make sure you use it, and—”

It took a moment for her words to sink in. He was still more than a little distracted by the relative proximity of his hand and her body to think clearly, he supposed.   When her words finally took root in his mind, though, he scowled and nearly succeeded in jerking his arm away. “What do you mean, you won’t be here? Just where do you think you’re going?”

She paused for a moment in her ministrations before resuming her task once more. “Well, Jillian said that Dr. Avis called her just after she got back home. Seems that he’s fine, after all, so I don’t need to stay here anymore.”

Pulling his hand away and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, Griffin scowled at Isabelle, who was avoiding his gaze and trying to look as innocent as possible. “That doesn’t mean a thing,” he informed her, unable to contain the irrational surge of anger that nearly choked him.

She blinked and shook her head, finally meeting his gaze. “I thought this would make you happy . . .” she said slowly moments before she ducked her head. “I mean, I’m invading in your territory, aren’t I?”

He didn’t disagree with her. “Just because Dr. Avis is still alive doesn’t mean that you’re not in danger,” he pointed out in what he could only hope was a reasonable tone. An unsettling wave of panic shot through him at the very idea of Isabelle moving out, and he refused to give that too much thought. “He could have hired someone else to find the research.”

“Why would he—?”

“Because he did it before,” Griffin snarled, tamping down the urge to grab Isabelle by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. “Even then, what makes you so sure that Avis was the one in charge when your—your—?”

She watched him wave his hands around as he tried to come up with a term to describe Isabelle’s relation to Jillian. “Aunt? Cousin?” she supplied helpfully.

She was rewarded with a fulminating glower for her efforts. “Yes, her—and your family is warped. Anyway, what makes you so sure that Avis was behind her kidnapping? He could have been ordered to take responsibility. It doesn’t mean he was.”

Isabelle sighed and reached for his hand once more. “Haven’t we been through this already?”

He snorted indelicately. “I thought so, yes, but you apparently didn’t listen to a word I said, did you?” Griffin was agitated enough not to fight with her. He had bigger fish to fry, after all . . .

“I listened,” she rebutted as she continued to work the ointment into his hand. “I think you’re being paranoid . . . Who would ever want to hurt me?”

He opened his mouth to reply then snapped it closed again. Isabelle just couldn’t seem to understand that there really were people in the world who weren’t quite so nice; who would hurt her given the chance. It was an intrinsic part of her, wasn’t it? He’d known that from the start. Despite the street-wise demeanor she presented to the world, she really was insanely naïve in many, many ways. She hadn’t seen enough of the world to know that there were nightmares lurking in the darkness; vile things waiting to feed off the optimism she possessed . . . They wanted to take hold of her; to possess her; to kill the beautiful parts of her soul . . . and it was that part of her that scared Griffin most because it was that part of her that made him . . .

‘Don’t say it,’ he told himself sternly, scowling down at the indelible visage of her small hands clasping his. She wasn’t a tiny woman by any means, and yet the sight of them in comparison to his . . . She reminded him of a child—no, not a child; not really . . . of a beautiful thing that he knew deep down could never, ever last. “There are people who wouldn’t think twice about hurting someone else if it meant that they’d gain something,” Griffin said at last, a note of sadness inherent in his tone. “Even if you don’t believe me, it’s true.”

“Do you care so much?” she asked quietly. Her tone lacked any real challenge though there was something in the depths of her stare; something pleading and earnest. She knew what she was asking, didn’t she? Knew that there was no way he could possibly answer her; not without giving away just a little too much of himself . . . not without losing the very last of his soul that he still retained.

Griffin looked away before he could be trapped into saying something that he’d regret. The trouble was, he wasn’t certain exactly what answer he’d regret more: that he did care or that he didn’t want to care . . . “Just . . . listen to me, all right?” he grumbled.

It seemed to him that she chose her words with extra care while she studiously kept her gaze averted as though everything in the world depended upon his answer, and maybe . . . maybe it did . . . “Do you . . . want . . . me to stay?”

“Course not,” he growled, cheeks pinking as a certain heat stole into his skin. “Why would I?”

She shrugged offhandedly as she massaged the scar tissue on his palm. “Of course not,” she agreed. She didn’t look at him, but he could hear the amusement in her tone.

“Humor me, girly,” he mumbled. “You’re not moving out of here until the research is finished.”

She digested that in silence, and he had to wonder if she was trying to tell herself that he was wrong. In the end, she nodded, forcing a weak smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Okay,” she agreed slowly, hesitantly, as though she didn’t want to give in. “I’ll . . . I’ll stay.”

Chapter Text

“You were attacked by the evil can opener of doom?” Isabelle said into the silence, interrupting the scratch of the ink pen in Griffin’s hand on the notebook beside him.

He didn’t look up, and he didn’t even pause. “Yes,” he said dryly, tapping his claws on the arm of the chair.

“I thought so!” she exclaimed with a little giggle as she snapped her fingers.

“It says here that they were ready to start assembling a case study group,” Griffin muttered, ignoring Isabelle’s commentary as he scowled at the journal.

“Really? Then they were almost finished with the research,” she mused, more to herself than to Griffin. “Wow . . . I hadn’t thought . . . then that means . . . this is huge!”

He grunted in response.

Isabelle shot to her feet and hurried over, pushing herself onto the desk and leaning forward to gain Griffin’s full attention. He looked a little surprised at her sudden show of tenacity, and he blinked quickly before leaning back and slowly shaking his head. “Seriously, Griffin! If they were ready to assemble test groups, then that means that that’s all I’ll really have to do once I study the notes! This is big—bigger than big! Bigger than my big, fat ass! Huge!”

Rolling his eyes, he didn’t seem to share her enthusiasm. “Isabelle, before you go running off thinking that you’re being given the keys to the city, you need to consider that you might want to look into it more than they had . . . and finding a study group for this sort of research might not be as simple as you think.”

“I know,” she agreed, waving a hand dismissively. “I mean, this sort of thing isn’t something you want to test on just anyone. There’re so many factors to consider . . . family ties, susceptibility . . . trust . . . I mean, this isn’t the sort of thing that you want everyone to know about, right? But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that the ultimate test is something that I’m not sure can be handled. Think about it: hanyous only lose themselves to their youkai blood if their lives are in danger, right? We can’t go around putting people in danger just to see whether or not the inoculation worked . . .”

He sat back, tossing the ink pen down on the tablet as he finally gave Isabelle his full attention. He seemed a little surprised, but she didn’t stop to question it. No, her mind was moving a million miles a minute as she tried to comprehend the vastness of the research and of what it could mean. It was clear to her that there would have to be a way to test the hanyous, but short of nearly killing them, she wasn’t sure how.

“You can figure that out when the time comes, can’t you?” he asked slowly, grimacing as he flexed the fingers on his right hand.

Isabelle scooped some cream out of the plain white canister and reached for Griffin’s hand. “It’ll take a lot of thought, sure, but . . . there’s got to be a way, right? Maybe they wrote something in the research on how they were planning on going about the testing, in the first place. After all, if they were ready to start assembling a clinical study, then they had to have thought all this through, wouldn’t you say?”

Griffin grunted—his normal positive response—and tried to tug his hand away. “Maybe,” he agreed noncommittally. “Let go, will you?”

“Does that mean you’re finished translating the journal?” she asked, ignoring his demand that she back off.

“Yes,” he allowed, rolling his eyes as he heaved a sigh and stretched his arm out a little further. He’d given up days ago, albeit completely ungraciously, when he’d figured out that she wasn’t going to leave him alone about the salve. Still, he felt it was his responsibility to protest every time—a habit that never failed to make Isabelle smile.

She laughed, feeling entirely exultant, all things considered. “I can’t believe it,” she mused seconds before her enthusiasm seemed to wane slightly. “It’ll take longer to translate the actual research, won’t it?”

He nodded, grimacing when she hit a particularly tender spot.

Intense and immediate concern filled her gaze, and she stopped rubbing though she didn’t let go of his hand. “Oh, did I hurt you?”

He shook his head, but she could see his jaws bulging. He always said that he was fine, refusing to admit that anything pained him. She supposed it was normal for him. Griffin . . . he just wasn’t one to complain.

“Is it helping at all?”

He grunted in response. She figured it was a good enough answer. The mixture of soothing herbs was doing its job, and that was enough, she supposed. “I’ve told you, right? I don’t need that stuff.”

“So you say; so you say,” she agreed mildly enough as she studiously studied the scar tissue. Griffin snorted and tried to tug away. Isabelle responded by neatly locking his arm under hers. “Sit still,” she reprimanded when he shot her a baleful glower.

“I’ll have you know I’m centuries older than you, little girl, so don’t take that tone with me,” he pointed out.

“Centuries?” she replied, arching an eyebrow but holding tight to his arm just the same. “You don’t say . . . how many centuries, Dr. Griffin?”

“Marin,” he grumbled with a shake of his head.

“You’re ignoring the question,” she pointed out.

“I’m not,” he growled. “A few.”

“What kind of answer is that?”

“The only kind that a nosy cub like you deserves.”

“Nosy, maybe. Cub? I don’t think so,” she quipped with a gentle smile. Griffin blinked and snorted, his cheeks pinking just a touch. “Why don’t we go for a walk later?”

He rolled his eyes, probably at her inherent ability to change subjects at the drop of a hat. “I go for walks every day. You’re the one who’d rather sit around on your fat ass.”

“But you’re the one who says you’d rather eat dirt than go on walks with me,” she retorted though not unkindly. “Anyway, it’s a nice day for once. It’d be a shame to waste it, don’t you think?”

His snort was loud and quite pronounced. She didn’t doubt for a second that the man was trying to come up with a feasible reason why taking a walk with her would be a bad idea, so she was rather surprised when he ducked his chin to glower at the floor, cheeks pinking as his brows furrowed, and he shrugged. “Never said anything about eating dirt,” he mumbled so low that Isabelle almost missed it.

“So I was exaggerating a little,” she replied with a flutter of her hand before scooping a little more ointment out of the jar and retuning her attention to Griffin’s hand. “You think I’m preferable to dirt?”

“That’s not really saying all that much,” Griffin grouched. “Dirt’s pretty low on the food chain.”

“Ah, so you will go for a walk with me!”

He flinched again and tried to hide it. Isabelle pretended not to have noticed. “Will it shut you up?”

She shrugged. “Maybe, but I doubt it.”

He heaved an exaggeratedly heavy sigh. “I didn’t figure it would.”

“But that’s a yes?”

“It’s a maybe,” he corrected.

“May bees don’t fly in November,” she said.

Griffin shot her a quick glance, the corners of his lips twitching the tiniest bit. Isabelle blinked in surprise and stopped to stare at him. It was as close to a smile as she’d ever seen on his face, and while it was far from what the expression should have been, it was enough to add a hint of a sparkle to his eyes, even the left one that was permanently half-closed because of the buildup of scar tissue around it. The effect was shocking, really, removing years from Griffin’s perceived age; dissipating the permanent worry lines that seemed to be embedded on his brow . . . She felt her heart skip a beat, felt it plunge all the way down to her toes before slamming back up only to lodge in her throat, and for a moment, she couldn’t do anything more than stare.

All too soon, he looked away, and the amusement she’d seen hints of dissipated. “Are you done?” he asked, tugging on his hand for good measure.

Isabelle stifled a sigh and forced a small smile. “That’ll do for now. I’ll apply more later,” she said.

His answer was a curt snort as he pushed himself out of his seat to lumber off toward the kitchen for something to drink.

She watched him go, crossing her arms over her belly as a thoughtful frown replaced the wan expression on her face. He’d completely unsettled her, hadn’t he? With nothing more than the barest trace of a smile, he’d completely taken her by surprise . . . If he really smiled, just how badly could he devastate her senses? she wondered.

A little tremor raced through her, and she closed her eyes for a moment to steady rioting senses. She had a feeling that he could possess her completely if he tried . . .

The only question was, how could she make him want it, too?

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

The steel door swung closed with a bang that echoed off the cinderblock walls as the watery light of the fluorescent bulbs high overhead flickered and danced. Rounding the corner, he ran down the steps, the soles of his shoes whispering against the marble tiled floor as he headed for the dimly lit hallway in the basement of the nondescript office building.

Chill air with the lingering stench of dampness greeted him as he strode down the corridor. The light from the stairwell evaporated, leaving behind a filmy darkness that lingered somewhere between gray and black. Blinking red lights monitored all movement—he was used to the set up by now. It used to disconcert him a little, and the first time he’d made the trek down here, he’d been unable to control the edginess that had left his hanyou ears twitching to intercept every little sound. The clank and hum of the power generator housed in the bowels of the building rattled to life as the maintenance cycle kicked in.

Checking his watch, he paused long enough to press the tiny button, illuminating the timepiece in a blue glow. Six-thirty, it said. Bas and Sydnie had stayed longer than usual. They were making progress on a case out of Brazil—a viper-youkai child who had disappeared more than ten years ago without leaving a clue as to where or why . . .

A solitary light did little to dispel the darkness, casting harsh shadows around the door at the end of the hallway. The sleeping access panel beside the door beeped once as he slapped his hand against the sensor and waited for the air lock to release.

A longer beep followed by a metallic click sounded seconds before a hiss of air signaled the release of the lock. Pushing the door open, he blinked as he stepped inside, the brighter light a little disconcerting after the dimness of the hallway . . .

“So?” he demanded, wasting no time getting straight to the point when he spotted her sitting at the large metal desk situated in the small corner cubicle she used as her make-shift office.

Myrna Loy shifted her gaze to the side, peering up at the carefully blanked expression on Gunnar’s face without moving her head—an entirely coy maneuver if he ever saw one. The halogen lamp on the desk reflected off her skin in a harsh sort of way, casting owlish shadows over her features that he supposed could be considered mysterious. From his vantage point, it all seemed a little melodramatic. “So?” she drawled without batting an eye.

She’d worked for the youkai special crimes office since its inception nearly nine years ago. She used to work for a bounty hunter organization until it had been summarily destroyed by Bas Zelig. They’d been hired to hunt Bas’ wife, Sydnie—that was how the two of them had met—and Myrna had been the sole survivor in the end. She had decided it was in her best interests to cooperate with Cain Zelig, thereby saving her neck in the process. Now she lived and worked here, and she was afforded very few freedoms. None, actually, Gunnar had to admit, though Myrna didn’t seem to mind the confinement. She was, however, treated very well otherwise. Aside from not being allowed to leave the apartment that had been specially outfitted for her, she was given every conceivable amenity as payment for her efforts.

All that aside, Myrna was the absolute best at what she did: gathering intelligence, she called it, and when Gunnar wanted to get under her skin, he called it what it really was: being nosy.

Too bad he wasn’t in the mood for any of Myrna’s little games. It’d been nearly a month since he’d set her on the task of digging up everything she could find on one Griffin Marin. If she still didn’t have anything, he’d know why . . .

“Cut the crap, will you?” he growled, unable to keep the trace irritation out of his tone. He wasn’t certain why he felt as though time was of the essence. He didn’t understand the strange unease he felt whenever he thought about the idea of Isabelle living with him. All he knew was that on some base level, something didn’t feel right to him. Maybe it was the secrecy that shrouded the bear-youkai—why else wouldn’t he want any sort of recognition for translating the research? Even then, Gunner would be lax if he didn’t do a background check on anyone who had access to that research. After all, if Dr. Avis had been willing to have Jillian Zelig Jamison kidnapped to get his hands on it, then that spoke volumes about the magnitude of the project, didn’t it? Isabelle had admitted that much, too. No, this was something that needed to be done even if Isabelle didn’t like it. In the end, she’d understand, or maybe she wouldn’t, but he’d sleep better at night if he knew exactly who Griffin was and what his ulterior motives really were.

“My, my . . . someone bite your tail, pretty puppy?” she intoned, a hint of a smile quirking her lips as she leaned back far enough to level him with an amused stare.

“Not today, Myrna,” he warned. “Just tell me you’ve found something out.”

That drew a deep sigh from her, and Gunnar’s scowl darkened. It wasn’t often that Myrna let something like that slip, and it didn’t bode well, in his estimation.

“How old is this youkai?” she countered, leveling a thoughtful frown at him.

Gunnar shook his head. “I don’t know, but I got the impression from Izzy that he’s been around for a while . . . why?”

Myrna stood up suddenly, her chair sliding back another couple of feet with the abruptness of her movement. Planting her hands on the small of her back, she rolled her head, rotated her shoulders before swiping up the empty coffee mug off the desk and striding over to the kitchen counter, her heels echoing obscenely loudly against the cold marble floor. “And if I were to tell you that he’s only forty-five?” she challenged almost nonchalantly—almost.

“Not possible,” he stated flatly. “Try again.”

She shook her head and didn’t look up as she poured coffee into the mug. “Want some?” she asked, lifting the carafe enough to emphasize the offer. Gunnar waved her off with a flick of his wrist. Deliberately taking her time, she carefully dropped one spoonful of sugar into the cup and reached for a small stainless steel spoon. “Actually, more like forty-seven if you want to be exact,” she went on, wiping the spoon against the rim of the mug before setting it on a napkin on the counter. “Almost forty-eight.”

“I told you, that’s not possible,” Gunnar reiterated, scowling at Myrna as though he believed she was being contentious for the sake of the act.

Downing the hot liquid in a series of gulps, Myrna slammed the mug down and shot Gunnar a quelling glance as she strode back to the desk to snatch a paper off the neat surface. “Griffin Marin, born April 14, 2017, in Portsmouth, Maine, making him forty-seven years old; no record of name change, no indication that he ever existed prior to that date.”

Gunnar grunted. “Parents?”

“John and Jane Marin, both deceased.”

Lips curling back in a cynical sneer, Gunnar slowly nodded. “Of course they are . . . but there’s no way in hell he could possibly be only forty-seven years old.”

“Unless Isabelle was mistaken about his age?”

That earned her a very decisive snort. “Not possible. Isabelle’s a doctor. She’d be able to guesstimate an age well enough, and I daresay she wouldn’t consider fortyish to be ‘old’, given the ages of many of her relatives that she doesn’t consider ‘old’.”

“Be that as it may, I’m telling you that this guy did not exist prior to 2017—2016 if you count in-utero,” Myrna shot back, quirking an eyebrow.

“Dig deeper,” Gunnar demanded, crossing his arms over his chest as he leveled a condescending scowl at the woman.

She heaved and exasperated sigh as though Gunnar were sorely trying her patience and rubbed her forehead as she dropped the paper onto her desk once more. “There is no paper trail,” she insisted slowly, carefully, measuring her words very precisely. “None.”

“There has to be.”

“Yeah, if he did exist before then, but I’m telling you there isn’t one. Either this guy isn’t nearly as old as you seem to think or—”

“Or he’s done a dead-bang job of hiding his past existence,” Gunnar cut in, scowl darkening as a hard glint entered his gaze.

“Yeah, but that’s not something easily done,” Myrna protested, dropping into her chair and rubbing the back of her neck with a tired hand. “I’ve been digging and digging for days, and I’ve been stonewalled every single time. There was no Griffin Marin and no incarnation of the name in existence prior to 2017 . . . and even if he did manage to completely reinvent himself, then there’s no real way to trace him unless we happen to stumble upon someone who knew him before.”

“Isn’t that what you’re here to do?” Gunnar challenged.

Myrna blinked and shook her head, unconsciously adjusting the small electronic locator on her wrist that monitored her imprisonment. “I suppose . . . fact remains that if he is older . . . if he was able to bury his past . . .”

Gunnar nodded, understanding Myrna’s unspoken assertion. “Then he had help. Good. It shouldn’t be so difficult to trace him. There aren’t many with the knowledge and the wherewithal to accomplish something like that; not in this day and age.”

She fell silent for a moment, as though she were considering her options. Gunnar was too preoccupied to notice. Striding over, he snagged the info sheet off Myrna’s desk and read through it with a scowl. “Completely unremarkable, huh? Average grades in school, average grades in college . . . average house, average job . . . average everything . . .”

“Absolutely nothing to draw notice,” she mused as a slow smile turned up the corners of her lips. “Or maybe a little too average . . . is that what you’re getting at?”

Gunnar nodded once more, golden eyes glowing with an independent light. “Something like that.”

“You know, Cain might know this guy if he really is older, don’t you think?”

Gunnar’s jaw tightened as he considered Myrna’s words. “Sure,” he agreed easily enough. “Thing is, Isabelle made me promise not to tell him about it.”

That earned him a rather droll look tinged by misplaced amusement. “Oh? And since when do you let anyone swindle a promise like that out of you?”

“Mind your own business, Myrna,” Gunnar said with a snort. “In any case, I never go back on my word.”

“Okay, you promised her you wouldn’t ask Cain . . . what about Ben? He’s older than dirt.”

“An observation that he would likely dispute,” Gunnar scoffed.

“Maybe, but you know as well as I do that Ben knows just about everyone, and if he doesn’t know them personally, it’s a fair bet that he’s at least heard of them.”

Dragging a hand over his face, Gunnar shook his head. “I thought you knew of just about everyone,” he goaded.

Myrna waved a hand in blatant dismissal. “Incidentals, my pet. As much as I’d love to brag that I do, I don’t. Anyway, you could ask him.”

Gunnar snorted, restraining the desire to crumple the paper in his hand. “No, I couldn’t. If I did, Cain would know about it in a second. Ben never keeps anything from him, you realize.”

“Hmm, I suppose,” she agreed. “There are a few more people I can try . . . but I’m warning you, I’m not too optimistic that I’ll get any answers.”

“Just do what you have to do,” he retorted. “Otherwise I might start thinking that you’re slipping.”

“Bite your tongue, Gunnar Inutaisho,” she replied.

“Call me if you find out anything—and I do mean anything,” he said, letting the info-sheet float down onto the desktop once more.

“Certainly,” she allowed. “Next time you come down here, bring me a slice of cheesecake, will you? I’ve been dying for some.”

Gunnar almost smiled as he headed for the door. Not quite, but almost . . . “I’ll see what I can do,” he called back over his shoulder. “Get more information for me, and I might even bring you a whole one.”

Her laughter followed him out of the makeshift apartment. Still, he couldn’t quite shake the questions that seemed to loom even larger in his mind. All the information Myrna had managed to dig up only led to a host of improbabilities that ticked him off even more. Griffin Marin really was running from something, wasn’t he, and as much as Isabelle might not want to acknowledge it, men did not go to such lengths if they didn’t have things to hide. There was something else going on. Gunnar could feel it; there was another reason why this bear-youkai didn’t want anyone to know about his past: a deeper reason.

“What about Ben . . .?”

Scowl darkening as he strode back down the hallway toward the stairs, Gunnar raked a long-fingered hand through his hair. It was true that Ben had met pretty much every youkai living in North America at some point or another, and it was entirely likely that he might even know Griffin Marin. Too bad Gunnar wasn’t kidding about the idea that Cain would know within the day if Gunnar made such an inquiry. Ben was loyal to a fault—not a bad thing, but . . . But he’d made that promise to Isabelle, and he’d keep it though at the moment, he sorely wished he’d told her that there was no way come hell or high water that he’d make such a vow . . .

All in all, Gunnar couldn’t help but feel like ripping something to pieces. Frustration never had sat well with the future Japanese tai-youkai, and he had a sneaking suspicion that he was going to be suffering more than his fair share of that particular emotion before the mystery surrounding Griffin Marin was solved . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Isabelle pulled groceries out of the brown paper sack and heaved a sigh, wishing she could just leave the items on the counter until after she’d gotten a little sleep but knowing that doing so would drive Griffin crazy. She’d stopped on her way home from the hospital to pick up a few things, but as it was, she just wanted to drop into her bed and not move for a few days.

It had been a really horrific day, all told. After such a nice day off the day before, she’d been rudely awakened the moment she’d walked through the doors at work when one of the nurses had thrust a clipboard into her hand, and she’d only had a moment to look over the incident report—an accident: school bus versus semi—before the first of the patients had been rushed in.

Twelve hours later, they’d finally managed to finish taking care of everyone, but they’d lost two children all totaled, and she couldn’t get the image of those two little faces out of her head. She was used to losing patients now and again, certainly, but children were always harder to reconcile in her mind.

She sighed, rubbing her eyes with a slightly shaking hand. At least one good thing had happened. One of the children’s doctors had come in to help out with the traumas, and she’d gotten a chance to talk to him later over a cup of half-cold coffee. He’d offered her a job at his local clinic: a staff position with regular hours and her name on the door, and Isabelle . . . well, she supposed that she might well be ready to make that sort of change . . .

Besides not having to work twelve or eighteen hour shifts, she’d have regular days off and more importantly, she’d be working in the area that she’d actually specialized in during college: pediatrics. All in all, it would allow her the freedom to work on the research as Griffin translated it, and she wouldn’t feel so worn down all the time. In the beginning, the satisfaction she got from helping people in their hours of need was fulfilling, and it still was, but more and more frequently of late, she’d felt so drained that she’d often wondered if she weren’t spreading herself just a little too thin, and to that end, she’d called her father since he’d understand that better than anyone.

“Baby, you need to do what is best for you,” he’d said in that rather philosophical tone that normally meant that he was carefully considering the way he stated something.

She could hear the rattle of the newspaper as Izayoi Kichiro folded it and set it aside. “I know,” she’d allowed unhappily picking at a stray thread on the worn quilt that covered her bed. “I love helping people, but . . .”

“But it’s wearing you down,” he finished. In her head she could see him sitting in the thickly cushioned chair behind his desk in the quiet of his study, his gaze trained out the generous windows that lined the far wall and overlooked the backyard in the midst of InuYasha’s Forest on the outskirts of Tokyo. “Maybe it’s time to look for something else—something a little less stressful.”

She smiled a little sadly, a little ruefully. “You wouldn’t think I was taking a cop-out, would you?”

He snorted. “Hell, no. Admitting that you’ve had enough of something isn’t a cop out, Baby-Belle, and you know it.”

“Thank you, Papa.”

He chuckled, the warmth, the richness of the sound comforting her even over the expanse of distance between them. “You’re welcome . . . and maybe it’s time for a visit home?”

Her smile broadened as a soft laugh escaped her. “Soon, I promise. Give Mama my love.”

“Absolutely.”

And the line had gone dead.

“You all right?”

Isabelle squealed and jumped when the rumble of a deep voice shattered the reverie. She hadn’t heard Griffin enter the room, and he scowled at her. “For the love of all that is holy, woman, must you do that?” he grumbled.

Clutching her chest, she slumped against the counter and drew a few deep, steadying breaths. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

That earned her an even darker scowl, and Griffin grunted tersely before digging into the bag. “Clean out your ears once in a while.”

She managed a weak laugh at that but it was cut short by a wide yawn. Griffin cocked an eyebrow at her as he slipped a few packages of steak into the meat drawer. For a moment, she thought he was going to make some sort of comment. He didn’t, though he did shake his head slowly as he continued to put things away.

Froofie wandered into the kitchen, his claws clicking lightly against the wood floor. He looked up at Isabelle and wagged his tail then glanced at Griffin and whined softly.

“Forget it, fat-so. You just think you’re still hungry,” Griffin remarked.

Isabelle couldn’t help the little smile that surfaced. “Are you still insisting that he only needs to eat once a day?” she countered.

“Yes,” he said.

“But my baby’s a growing boy; yes he is!” she crooned, hunkering down and grasping Froofie’s ruff of hair as she smacked a loud kiss on the animal’s head.

Griffin snorted. “He’s not a baby, and he’s not growing,” he complained. “He’s fine; just fine.”

Isabelle wrinkled her nose but let go of the dog and pushed herself back to her feet. “So you say, Dr. G., but he says he’s hungry.”

“Forget it,” Griffin asserted, carefully folding the paper sack and pulling another one toward him. “Did you buy the entire grocery store?”

“Hmm, just half of it,” she quipped, reaching around him to delve into the bag.

He slapped her hand and nudged her with his shoulder. “Back off, girly. I’m busy; can’t you see?”

Waving him off as she stifled another yawn with the back of her hand, Isabelle couldn’t answer right away. “Since when do you take any sort of interest in the groceries that I buy?”

He shot her a droll look. “Since I’ve decided that you do a terrible job of feeding yourself,” he shot back.

“Oh?”

“Hmph. Yes. From now on, you’re not allowed to go grocery shopping, and I use that term very loosely.”

Arching an eyebrow as she contemplated the wide expanse of Griffin’s back, Isabelle bit her bottom lip and smiled to herself. Opening the cupboard behind her, she retrieved the bag of honey roasted pecans that she’d already put away. “All right, but if I can’t go grocery shopping anymore, then just who is going to buy these for you?” she countered.

He stopped still and slowly glanced over his shoulder as Isabelle’s triumphant grin widened. Standing the way he was, she could only see the scarred side of his face, and she couldn’t help the little flutter that welled up inside her. Though she’d realized long ago that his scarring really did bother him, she couldn’t help but think that what he viewed as imperfections were perfect on him, just the same. The scars didn’t diminish the effect he had on her; not in the least. The mysterious air it lent him unsettled her completely, and maybe that was the real reason she’d been so drawn to him in the beginning. She’d never met another man like him, and she knew that she never would again.

But he turned to face her, his gaze never leaving the bag she held in her hand. She opened her mouth to tell him that maybe if he asked nicely, she’d consider sharing with him. He shot his hand out, snagging the bag, and neatly plucked it out of her grasp, turning on his heel and striding out of the kitchen, leaving a gape-mouthed Isabelle staring rather dumbly in his wake.

“Oh, it’s on!” she muttered under her breath, darting out of the room to intercept the pecan thief. “Hand them over, big guy,” she said, catching his arm and tugging.

He shook her off easily enough. He’d already managed to open the bag—the twist tie was lying on the dining table—and was in the process of eating, looking absolutely triumphant as he made a show of dropping the pecans into his mouth, one by one. “I told you before. These are rent.”

“I already paid your ‘rent’,” she insisted, reaching for the bag and growling when he neatly whipped them away, hefting them over his head so that she couldn’t reach them. “Now share!”

“Sharing’s overrated,” he stated flatly.

“Spoken like a true spoiled man,” she rebutted, hopping up in hopes of snagging the bag, to no avail. “You know damn well that you want to share your nuts with me.”

“Oh, I don’t think I do.”

She couldn’t help the secretive little grin. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She sauntered closer, ran the tip of her claw down the center of his blue cotton shirt. “But I promise you: you’d like it if you let me . . . share your nuts.”

He blinked suddenly, face reddening as the implications of her double entendre sank in, and Isabelle laughed. “Jezebel,” he mumbled as the color in his cheeks darkened just a little more.

“Jezebel?” she echoed, pondering his accusation for a full minute before throwing her head back and laughing. “Jezebel! I love it!”

“You would. It wasn’t a compliment.”

“I’ll be your Jezebel,” she promised with a wink.

“I don’t think so,” he said with as much finality as he could muster, “and you’re breaking your promise.”

“Promise?”

“Yes, your promise. You said you’d agree not to hit on me while I translated your research notes.”

She heaved a sigh and stepped back, letting her arms drop at her sides in abject defeat. “That was a deal forged by Loki,” she informed him.

“But you agreed.”

She made a face but nodded once. “That doesn’t mean you get to keep that entire bag for yourself,” she said, hopping up and down once more as she tried in vain to snag the pecans.

Griffin grunted. “Knock it off before you break the floor,” he said.

“Good. I’ll get the nuts back and get to see what you’re hiding in the basement!” she retorted as she kept hopping.

“Face it, fat ass; you’re too short to do anything but talk big.”

She snorted and glanced around before scrambling onto one of the dining room chairs and leaning against Griffin’s shoulder as she stretched to reach the bag. “We’ll see about that, Dr. Marin.”

“Ugh, you weigh a ton,” he complained waving his arm almost lazily, taunting her without words since she still couldn’t reach the pecans. “Don’t break my chair.”

“As if!”

“Well, your ass is as big as the entire eastern seaboard, so—” he started to say but was cut short when a loud, splintering crack boomed through the house.

It happened so fast that Isabelle didn’t have time to scream. The world became a blur of motion as the chair buckled beneath her, and the sensation of falling was interrupted as two strong arms caught her. Squeezing her eyes closed, she swallowed hard, willing the painful pounding of her heart to still as she tried to understand just what had happened. The house was dead silent aside from the tremendous thumping echoing in her ears, and in the chaos, it took her a moment to discern what it was.

Griffin was holding her so tightly that she couldn’t rightfully breathe. Smashed against his chest, the sound she heard was the erratic pounding of his heart. Gradually, his grip loosened though he made no move to let her go, which was fine with Isabelle. Leaning back in his arms, she opened her eyes only to see that he had his squeezed closed, his face leeched of color and looking quite pale in the graying light of evening filtering through the windows. His chest heaved with his shallow breathing as he swallowed hard, and when he finally opened his eyes, he stared at her with such intensity that it made her catch her breath all over again.

His gaze raked over her features as though he expected her to be injured. ‘Silly,’ she thought absently. She wasn’t high enough to hurt herself . . .

Still he didn’t make any move to let her go, and staring up at him, unable to form a coherent word, she couldn’t rightly complain about the situation, either. If he realized exactly what was going on, he didn’t give a clue, and as he stared at her, she could feel the stuttering heat that burgeoned deep inside her. He shook his head slightly, as though he didn’t really understand exactly what was happening, his brow furrowing as his lips slowly parted. Color slowly crept into his skin once more as the unsettling brightness in his gaze shifted into something far headier. Isabelle’s breath caught in her throat as a whisper of cognizant thought infiltrated her mind. ‘He . . . he wants to . . . kiss . . . me . . .’

She could see it in his eyes, half-closed, as though he was caught in a trance, and maybe he was. She lifted a hand, placed it against his chest, could feel his muscles jerking under her touch. As if the entirety of her existence had led her to this one moment, she couldn’t think of a single reason to fight the emotion that surged through her. The consuming sense of absolute perfection seemed to wrap around her—around the both of them, and in that moment, she knew that he felt it, too. They belonged together; the knowledge more of an unvoiced understanding than any sort of decision, and as he leaned in just a little closer, she couldn’t help the soft little sigh that escaped her as the moisture of his ragged breaths condensed on her lips.

The unwelcome rattle of a plastic bag broke through the idyll that encompassed them. With a start, Griffin jerked back, blinking vacantly as slow understanding dawned on him. The greedy smack of jaws resounded in the quiet as Froofie helped himself to the forgotten bag of pecans lying haphazardly on the floor. He’d obviously already eaten the ones that had fallen out of the bag and was content to forage in the bag for the rest of them.

Griffin let go of her so suddenly that Isabelle had to grab his shoulders to keep from slipping off his lap and onto the floor. He winced and shoved her aside before grasping her wrists and tugging her hands free, but she couldn’t credit the almost sickened look on his face; couldn’t comprehend why he seemed so entirely disgusted. Bracing his weight on a shaking hand that he place on the floor, Griffin pushed himself to his feet and strode out of the room without a word and without looking back. Isabelle sighed, grimacing as his bedroom door slammed closed moments later, and she wrapped her arms around her ankles, burying her face in the cradle of her raised knees.

‘Why . . .?’ she asked herself, shaking her head as her hot, dry eyes throbbed, burned. ‘Why did he . . . walk away . . .?’

For once her youkai remained conspicuously silent, offering her neither censure nor comfort with only the sound of Froofie’s feast echoing in the quiet.

Chapter Text

The smoke . . . the smoke . . . forever the smoke that rose around him, choking him, cloying at him, shattered him a million times as it seeped into his pores, clung to his skin, wrung tears from his eyes . . . as he struggled against it, flailing in the darkness, his ears filled with the roaring echo of a thousand cries; the pleas for mercy falling upon him time and again only to be ignored . . .

The echoes in the night mingled with the resounding crash of collapsing buildings . . . leaving desecration in his wake, and still he was unsure . . . had he done that? Had he summarily rent everything asunder? Torn apart everything in the futile hope that it would offer him a sort of solace that was not to be found . . .

Stumbling through the haze of smoke as flames licked at his tattered garments, he pressed on as the lingering remnants of her laughter mingled with the sounds of her cries—the pathetic cries that he hadn’t been able to assuage . . .

Words made no sense in his disjointed thoughts, or maybe they weren’t thoughts at all. At some point, his mind had switched over into a more primal state of being where the only thing that mattered was that he live; that he survive, no matter what the cost. The pounding of his pulse throbbed in his ears, his vision tinged with shades of crimson, lending a hellish glow to the most simplistic of objects.

Bare feet torn and bleeding, the scent of his blood lost in the confusion of a million smells . . . the scarlet stain on his claws lent him a grim satisfaction even as he knew somewhere deep down that he should be horrified—completely horrified . . . and still he smiled . . .

And still he smiled . . .

The charred remains of twisted corpses littered his way as he stumbled forward, as he searched for a means to escape the carnage. In the distance, he could hear a voice calling to him over and over and over again. A ragged growl slipped from him as he curled his lips back in a visceral snarl. It was a voice he knew, wasn’t it? But he couldn’t trust it; no, he couldn’t trust it . . .

The pounding of running feet bearing down upon him; the soft chime of a familiar sound; one that used to be comforting, but this time it echoed in his head, painful and grating, and he backed away as the darkened form emerged through the fog of smoke . . .

“. . . Thank kami . . . came as soon as we . . . Come with me . . .”

He stumbled back, tripping over a faceless woman’s corpse, and he flailed his claws in warning, rolling to his feet despite the pain surging through his body. Crouching in a wary stance, warning the intruder to keep his distance, ignoring the pleading in his gaze even as he masked the emotion in his eyes—pity? Fear? Remorse . . .? “Come . . . We can help you . . . let us see to your wounds . . .”

Grimacing against the soothing sound of his voice, he shook his head, uttered a vicious growl as he dug his toes into the dirt. Vaulting off the ground, he shot forward, knocking him aside as he broke into a sprint. He couldn’t trust any of them, could he? He couldn’t trust them at all . . .

Something cold and wet touched his hand, and Griffin sat up with a smothered gasp as Charlie whined. The dog was stretched out beside the bed—he’d touched Griffin’s hand with his nose. As the familiarity of his bedroom came slowly into focus, he winced, willing away the remnants of the nightmare that clung to him, even after the passage of centuries.

He wasn’t sure why he’d had that dream again . . . it’d been such a long time since the last time it had plagued him. Maybe it was the unsettling emotion that had riddled his mind as he lay trying to sleep. He hadn’t thought he’d be able to do it; not with everything else running through his head.

‘Isabelle . . .’

Squeezing his eyes closed against his own thoughts that he couldn’t escape, he bit his lip, his fangs sinking deep into the tender flesh as blood pooled in his mouth.

‘What the hell was I thinking?’ Griffin berated himself for the millionth time since he’d made his unceremonious departure from the dining room earlier in the evening. The house was silent, dark, and the sky outside the windows were black, inked over with clouds that stubbornly prevented the weak moonlight from dispelling even a trace amount of the pervasive gloom.

Flopping onto his back, he heaved a sigh, rubbing his forehead as he heard himself blink. He couldn’t stand it. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her: the look on her face, the complete surrender . . . she hadn’t fought her feelings in the least; he knew that. When had she ever? No, he was the one who denied how he felt; the one who hid from the very truths of what he wanted most in the world, and why? Because he knew—knew—that some things weren’t ever meant to be his, and Isabelle Izayoi was one of those things.

Her cheeks flushed with a tinge of pinkness—not a blush; more like the heightened color that came with being in a room that was heated a little too much . . . her lips parted as the shattered sound of her shallow breathing echoed in his ears . . . the brightness in her eyes sparkling like the moon on the ocean’s waves . . . everything about her had called out to him. He’d known what she wanted, and for those precious moments, he’d desperately wanted it, too . . .

With another sigh, he sat up again, swinging his legs off the bed before slowly getting to his feet. Charlie shuffled around and got up, too, following Griffin out of the room like an ever-present shadow . . . or maybe a ghost . . .

He’d meant to get a glass of water, so he was more than a little surprised when he realized exactly where he’d ended up. Standing in the doorway of the pitch black room and listening to the steady, even sounds of Isabelle’s slumber, he couldn’t summon the will to be disgusted at his perceived weakness.

The soft glow from the digital clock situated on the nightstand beside the bed gave off precious little light, and yet it was enough to discern the trace outlines of her face, and as though he hadn’t the strength to fight against it, he felt his feet carrying him over to her. He knelt beside her, cocking his head to the side as he stared at her, loathe to touch her but somehow simply being close to her was enough to calm the frayed ends of his emotions.

Curled on her side lost in the tangles of golden-bronze hair, she looked so different from the woman who did her best to drive him insane during her waking hours. She wasn’t really a small woman by any means, and yet in her sleep she seemed so very fragile, so delicate that he had to wonder if she really was the same Isabelle he’d left in the dining room earlier . . .

Breathing light and even, her lips slightly parted, she mumbled something that had no true form as her eyebrows drew together in a little frown. The expression was gone as quickly as it had come, fading away as the trace lines dissipated, as she snuggled a little deeper into the pillow, her face lost in the darkness of shadows. A painful surge shot through him, and he winced, leaning away, gripping his chest and slowly shaking his head.

Of all the things he’d ever mourned, of everything he’d ever thought he’d lost, he’d never felt quite this way before. Sitting in the quiet and watching her sleep yet knowing in the back of his mind that she was little better than a fantasy meant to torment him, Griffin felt the unfamiliar stirrings of something wild and wanton and . . . and bittersweet . . .

He couldn’t place it. He couldn’t rightfully remember having felt that way before, and if he ever had, it had been so long ago—over a lifetime ago—before he’d realized that sometimes people were born not to live, but to die slowly from the moment they drew breath, and that those unfortunate ones were damned to bring nothing but sorrow and destruction to those who tried to touch them, tried to reach them . . . tried to love them . . .

And he was one of them, wasn’t he?

An unfamiliar longing gripped him, the desire to reach out, to touch her, to reassert to himself that she was real, and yet he could not—would not . . . The aura of her youki beckoned him, and he propped his elbow on his knee, biting down on his finger, feeling the barb of his fang sink deep into his flesh, yet the pain was only a minor distraction and not nearly enough to help him elude the invisible lure of her.

Maybe he’d been alone for far too long; maybe he’d forgotten what it was like, to have someone to talk to—to have someone listen to him . . . Her proximity was a dangerous thing, and every single day that passed only served to bring her closer: closer than his own heartbeat . . . closer than the echoes of screams that tainted his very existence.

It should have been bad enough that she was beautiful—more beautiful than he could really credit. She shone like the sun in the summer sky, banishing the shadows that he welcomed with little more than a simple smile.   Even now the sound of her laughter warmed his soul, lent him a quiet sense of strength to bolster the harsher reality of his own weariness. For the first time in what seemed like forever, he could feel the long dormant stirrings of life coursing through him. After such a long time of little more than going through the motions, she’d reminded him that there really were precious things in the world; all he had to do was look for them.

Still he could sense the danger. He knew that there were things that could not be forgotten; vile things that he had no right to ask for forgiveness for the part he played in all of it. The hand of Fate had pointed her finger at him so very long ago, and there was no escaping the inevitable. It was just a matter of time before the first cracks in the proverbial wall shook and crumbled and came tumbling down.

And when that happened, the only thing he could do was to protect Isabelle from it all; from him, from his terrible secrets, from the blasphemy that his life had become.

He stared at her for another long moment, committed the visage to his memory. She was everything he could never have, and best he remembered that . . .

Shuffling out of the bedroom, he quietly pulled the door closed. The broken chair still sat beside the dining table, and he scowled at it—at the splintered leg. A knot in the wood had given way. He’d been careless when selecting the wood for the piece. With a grunt to acknowledge the late worry that she might have really been hurt in the fall, Griffin grabbed the chair and turned toward the basement door. It was a simple enough spindle. He could replace the faulty leg in no time at all.

Yet something else to weigh his conscience . . . he’d been there to catch her, sure, and even now, his shoulder groaned in abject protest of his overexertion. He simply wasn’t used to doing anything that was overly strenuous. His body wouldn’t allow it. He figured it was a small price to pay. He’d paid for his sins, and the price was his blood. He was simply biding his time until the bill came due in full; condemned to walk the earth until such time when that justice found him.

But knowing this wasn’t dissuading his mind from wanting things that he could never have. The sound of Isabelle’s laughter, so freely given . . . the soothing quality of her very presence . . . and the consuming sense of resignation when he knew that the countdown to his ultimate end had already begun to tick away . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

“Anyway, he seems nice enough . . . a little quiet, maybe, and a little gruff, but Isabelle really likes him . . .” Jillian said as she snuggled in Gavin’s lap. He was playing a new racing game that Jillian had picked up for him, and she was content to let him so long as he didn’t mind letting her cuddle with him while he did.

“A bear, you say?” Evan Zelig interrupted without taking his eyes off the television. He’d taken time off his current touring schedule to spend Thanksgiving through Christmas at home, so when Gavin had called to tell him that he’d gotten his hands on the latest installment of the Dangerous Curves franchise, he’d rushed right over to spend the evening getting his ass handed to him on the game.

“Is he a big bear?” Madison Cartham, Evan’s constant consort in evil, or so Gavin maintained, asked.

“Yes,” Jillian agreed, rolling her eyes when her brother leaned to the side, hefting the video game controller into the air as though the movement would help him take the corner at full speed on the game.

“Didn’t know there was a bear-youkai around these parts,” Gavin added, a hint of distraction evident in his tone.

Evan groaned as Gavin’s car slid over the finish line. “I swear to God you cheat,” he insisted, setting the controller down and flopping back against the sofa.

Gavin shot him an amused grin. “Nope, I’m just better than you,” he goaded before stooping down to kiss Jillian’s forehead. “You tired, Jilli?”

She shook her head and leaned up to kiss Gavin’s cheek. “No . . . I’ll just take a nap here.”

Evan made a face. “Good God, the two of you are so fucking perfect together, it borders on perverse.”

Gavin grinned, cheeks pinking at Evan’s assessment. “I like perverse.”

Jillian giggled, wrapping a lock of Gavin’s hair around her finger. “I do, too.”

“I want a pretty girl to sit on my lap,” Evan grumbled. “Hey, Maddy . . .”

“Forget it. That lap is reserved for your mate, and I’m certainly not that,” Madison laughed.

“Yeah, but you could just keep it warmed,” he suggested.

Madison dropped the magazine she’d been leafing through onto the sofa cushion beside her and leaned forward to tug on Evan’s hair—tinted golden bronze for the day, most likely in an effort to annoy his father. “I warm your parts often enough. I don’t need to sit on your lap, too.”

“Anyway, Gavvie, unless you’re ready to go to bed, then I’m fine where I am,” Jillian asserted.

Gavin chuckled since he knew first hand that she really didn’t care how long he stayed up. She’d just fall asleep, and he didn’t have a problem carrying her to bed when he was ready to go. It worked well, really. Jillian always had been more of a morning person while he tended to be quite a night owl. She didn’t mind keeping his late hours, and he never minded her particular notions about waking him up bright and early, especially when, more often than not, she woke him up in the most congenial of ways . . .

“So Bitty’s got a new toy, does she?” Evan mused with a soft chuckle. “Poor bastard.”

Jillian crumpled up a candy wrapper that Gavin had dropped on the floor and tossed it at her brother’s head. “Jerk! You be nice.”

“I am being nice,” he argued. “Suppose she’ll bring him with her to Thanksgiving dinner?”

Jillian shrugged. “Don’t know . . . maybe.”

“She won’t if she’s smart,” Gavin stated, shaking his head at the idea of the impending dinner that he wasn’t sure he wanted to attend. It wasn’t that he disliked the Zelig family, but he had to admit that they could be rather daunting, especially when they were all together. “Are Kichiro and Belle flying in?”

Evan shook his head. “Kich said that there were a few things going on and that he wasn’t able to get away this year.”

“That’s not very nice, Gavvie,” Jillian pointed out, pinching Gavin’s arm.

“Nice enough,” he maintained with a shake of his head. “They’d put him to the third degree, especially Gunnar and Bas.”

“Aww, Bubby’s full of hot air,” Evan stated with a loud snort. “He’s harmless.”

“Harmless, huh? Maybe . . . still, having those two in particular breathing down your neck? Thanks, but no thanks,” Gavin maintained.

“I’m sure that he can take care of himself,” Jillian asserted with a wan smile followed in quick succession by a wide yawn.

Gavin opened his mouth to tell her that she’d be more comfortable in bed, but was cut off when his cell phone rang. Leaning back but careful not to drop Jillian, he reached over to grab the device off the coffee table. “Hello?”

“Gavin . . . hi, this is Dr. Avis . . . I tried to reach Jillian, but her cell went straight to voicemail.”

Gavin frowned and glanced at the clock. It was nearly ten o’clock . . . “Is something wrong?” he asked, careful to keep his tone neutral since Jillian wasn’t asleep just yet.

The doctor managed a rather weak chuckle. “Wrong? No . . . I just felt badly because she seemed like she wanted to talk longer the other day when she called.”

His frown deepened at the strained thinness behind the doctor’s words. “Oh, well, uh, just a moment, please . . .” He gently shook her until she opened her eyes and peered up at him. “Jilli? It’s for you.”

“Me? Who is it?”

Offering her a wan smile, Gavin shrugged, hoping that she couldn’t see through the expression. “Dr. Avis. You want me to tell him to call back in the morning?”

“Dr. Avis? Oh, no . . . I can take it,” she replied, holding out her hand for the phone.

He handed it over as Evan scrolled through the start screens, ready to begin the next race. In his preoccupation, he hadn’t noticed that his new brother-in-law had also taken the liberty of choosing a car for him—the worst one in his garage, for that matter. It didn’t really surprise him . . .

“Hello?” Jillian said as Gavin reached for his controller.

“Jillian? Hi . . . I hope I’m not calling too late . . .” Dr. Avis said in an apologetic tone.

“Oh, don’t worry about it! I’m glad you called.”

“Me, too. Sorry about rushing you off the phone the other day . . . I had the feeling there was something you were going to ask me?”

Jillian scooted off Gavin’s lap and got up to retrieve drinks from the kitchen. No sooner was she on her feet than Madison slipped onto Gavin’s abandoned lap. “I’ll keep your place warm for you,” she called behind Jillian.

Jillian laughed. “Okay!”

“M-M-Maddy?” Gavin choked out.

“Hmm, I love the strong, silent type, don’t you?” she purred.

“Hey, Maddy, why don’t you wiggle around a little? Gavvie likes that!” Evan added.

“Shut up, Evan!” Gavin growled.

“Why? Afraid something’s gonna pop up?”

“Shut up, Evan,” he reiterated.

“Why’s your face all red, Gavvie?” Evan asked for good measure.

“Oh, my . . . you really are a big boy, aren’t you?” Madison teased.

Gavin choked again.

“Well, sure . . . Jilli likes ‘em big boys, you know,” Evan stated.

“Hurry up, Jilli,” Gavin hollered as Jillian hurried into the kitchen.

“It wasn’t important,” she replied, shaking her head when a plaintive groan followed by a triumphant whoop erupted behind her. Gavin insisted that Evan was cheating while Evan just laughed.

“Important enough that you wanted to say it,” Dr. Avis chided.

Catching the phone between her shoulder and ear, Jillian pulled four glasses out of the cupboard and grabbed an ice tray out of the freezer. “It wasn’t important,” she insisted again. “I just wondered . . . I mean, you worked in the lab with my father and uncle, didn’t you?”

Dr. Avis paused for a moment before answering. “Yeah, I did . . .”

“Did they . . . did they get along well?”

“Uh . . . your uncle and father? Yeah, of course they did . . . why?”

She couldn’t help the bashful grin that twitched on her lips as she set the empty ice tray aside and pulled two Sprites and a couple Diet Cokes out of the refrigerator. “It’s silly . . . I couldn’t help but wonder about that, but I’m glad.”

“Of course,” he allowed a little tersely. “You . . . you managed to get the bio-chip removed, correct?”

Jillian bit her lip and glanced back toward the living room. Gavin had warned her against saying anything that pertained to the research to Dr. Avis, citing that it was possible that he still had hopes of getting his hands on the project despite his assertions that he didn’t have any such ideas. ‘But it’s not as though he’s asking about the research, really; just the chip . . .’

‘I don’t know, Jilli . . . you promised Gavin that you wouldn’t say anything to Dr. Avis about it, and the bio-chip does have a loose association with it, you know . . .’ her youkai voice pointed out.

‘Still,’ she argued, shaking her head slowly. “Why yes, I did. It was a simple procedure, really,” she said in a bright tone that should have ended the line of questioning.

“Good . . . I have to admit, I was a little worried about that.”

“Why?”

“Sometimes there are complications in the removal of such things,” he remarked. “I’m glad that there weren’t in your case.”

“Complications?”

“Sure.”

“Like . . . what?”

“Well, it’s rare, but there have been incidents where the bio chip had been in place long enough that it had assimilated with the host, in effect making the chip, itself, a viable organ that the body has adapted to; one that is viewed as necessary by the host tissue.”

She couldn’t help the vague worry that gripped her. She felt fine, true enough, but she didn’t like the sound of the ‘rare’ reaction that the good doctor had so eloquently spelled out for her. “Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine—just fine,” she insisted.

Dr. Avis fell silent. In the background, she could hear the television. It added a sense of normalcy to the conversation, and that, in turn, comforted her. “I’m glad to hear it,” he assured her. “I wasn’t trying to scare you.”

“No, it’s fine,” she said, smiling at the ridiculousness of her own thoughts. “My uncle did the extraction, and he’s the best there is.”

“Ah, the renowned Kichiro Izayoi?”

“You’ve heard of him.” It was a statement; not a question.

“Yes, of course. I doubt there are many youkai who haven’t heard of him. He’d be very capable of completing the research, so I’m sure it’s in good hands.”

She smiled. “Oh, he would be,” she agreed easily enough, rinsing the empty soda cans and turning them upside down in the sink.

There was a slight pause on the line before Dr. Avis spoke again. “Anyway, I’m glad you had a safe trip back to the States. I’m sorry I missed your last few visits.”

“You’re feeling better now, aren’t you?”

“Certainly, certainly . . . right as rain.”

“Good!”

Dr. Avis sighed. “Ah, but your mate said that it was rather late there. I’m sorry for disturbing you . . . I forgot about the time difference, I suppose . . .”

“Oh, no, it’s fine! I’m glad you called.”

“I’ll let you go. If there’s anything else you want to know, feel free to call.”

She laughed softly. “Okay.”

“Good night, Jillian.”

“Night.”

The line went dead, and Jillian clicked the phone off before carefully picking up the glasses and heading back toward the living room. She knew that Gavin still didn’t completely trust Dr. Avis, and sure, she could understand why. Still, he’d been so kind; so helpful in giving her information about her biological parents, and he was the last real tie she had with the past, and it wasn’t like he was asking her questions about the research, not really. All in all, she could trust him; she knew she could, especially when Gavin was always there by her side.

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Isabelle bit her lip and peered over the top of the notebook. She’d been trying to comb through the translated journal to gather as much information as she could, but her mind just wasn’t on the task. ‘No . . .’ she thought slowly, shaking her head as she stifled a sigh. Her mind was on something completely different—or someone, if she were completely honest with herself . . .

Griffin’s empty desk chair sat undisturbed. She hadn’t even as much as seen him all day though she could sense him nearby which could only mean that he’d been holed up in his basement, likely trying to avoid having to deal with her, she supposed.

Still, she couldn’t quite regret the moment that had passed between them. Too much had been said without a word to be ignored, and to be honest, it was something that she had desperately needed. To know that he wasn’t as immune to her as he would like to have her believe . . . it was a simple reassurance that maybe her intuition was based on something more than just what she wanted to think . . .

The look in his gaze, the absolute draw of his youki on hers . . . and she knew that Griffin was simply not the type to let himself go on a whim. No, if he’d come that close to kissing her, then there was more to his feelings that what met the eye. ‘He feels it, too . . . he knows, just like I do . . .’

That thought brought a smile to her lips, and while she didn’t believe for a moment that the road that lay ahead would be easy, she also believed completely, unerringly, that Griffin would be worth the effort.

‘Too bad he’s insisting on hiding himself away in the basement all day,’ she thought as she wrinkled her nose.

‘Yes, well, take it to heart, Isabelle. When he does show his face, don’t tease him. That’ll just make it worse, you know.’

Sound advice, that, she had to allow however grudgingly. Trouble was she hated playing games. Too bad Griffin always thought her direct attitude was just that when in actuality, it was her way of telling him exactly what she wanted.

She’d get to him eventually. She’d make him understand that they belonged together. It was just a matter of time . . .

Just the memory of being held in Griffin’s arms was enough to send a delicious little tremor up her spine. He’d felt so safe, so strong, and all she’d wanted was to crawl into him so that she could feel that way forever. Running the tip of her claw over her lips, she sighed softly. Sure, she’d dated men she’d consider excellent kissers, and maybe Griffin hadn’t really done any such thing before, but she couldn’t help the deep seated knowledge that Griffin’s kisses . . . they’d be special. They’d be different . . .

The rattle of the basement door drew Isabelle out of her reverie, and she blinked to dispel the lingering fantasy as the comforting lines of the living room came into focus once more. Glancing over in time to see Griffin dragging a chair behind him, she sat up, crossing her arms atop the back of the sofa, content to watch as he set the chair aside and stepped back for Froofie to emerge from the basement behind him. Then he closed the door, locking it fast—she didn’t figure he’d let something like that slip—and picked up the chair to replace it at the table as Isabelle’s grin widened.

“So that’s where you’ve been all day,” she mused quietly. “I was starting to think you’d taken up residence down there.”

“Thought about it,” he grunted, grasping the back of the chair and leaning on it, wiggling it from side to side to test his handiwork.

“You fixed it?” she asked. For some reason, it didn’t really surprise her, though perhaps it should have. With as much trouble as he tended to have with his hands, that he could imitate the size and design of the chair’s legs was remarkable, really. “Nice . . . the stain even matches.”

“‘Course it does,” he grumbled without so much as glancing at her. “Now do me a favor and keep your fat ass off my chairs. I don’t feel like replacing any more of them.”

“Where did you get that set?” she questioned suddenly, sitting up a little straighter as inspiration hit her.

He glanced over his shoulder at her, his expression inscrutable. “Why?”

She shrugged. “My mother would love it,” she commented. “She’s always saying how things aren’t made the way they used to be . . .”

“It was handcrafted,” he admitted, pushing the chair into place under the table.

“Oh? But who made it? I mean, I’d pay him to make a set for Mama . . .”

Griffin snorted and shuffled over to retrieve the mail off the small stand where Isabelle had left it. “He doesn’t make them anymore.”

Isabelle heaved a sigh, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “That’s too bad,” she murmured. Staring at the solid dinette set, she couldn’t help but look a little wistful. Though simple in design, she’d always admired the pieces. The only real embellishment on them was the intricate carvings in the backs of each chair, and while each one was different, the imagery all melded together to create a sort of scene: different kinds of wildlife visiting the same lake. Whoever had crafted the set really had taken great pains to make them as functional yet beautiful as possible. It was a skill that Isabelle, with her mind that tended to think in terms of form and reason, could truly appreciate since she, herself, would never be able to create something like that.

“. . . It’s just furniture,” he mumbled.

“Maybe,” she agreed easily enough, shifting on the sofa so she could pull her feet up and lock her hands around her ankles. “I don’t know . . . it’s just something that Mama would’ve loved.”

“Sure.”

“Anyway . . . I think you’ve claimed my dog,” Isabelle commented with a rueful smile.

“No wonder. I’d abandon you, too, if you’d given me such a ridiculous name.”

She blinked. “Why? What’s wrong with Froofie?”

His snort stated quite plainly that she should have been able to figure that out by herself.

Isabelle giggled. “Be that as it may, Froofie likes his name.”

“It’s Charlie, and he doesn’t.”

“Sure, sure . . . don’t suppose I could talk you into coming to my grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Don’t suppose you could,” he said.

“But you can’t spend the holiday alone,” she chided.

“It’s just another day,” he maintained.

“That’s not true; it’s a special day. Holidays are always special days.”

“You’re Japanese. Thanksgiving isn’t even one of your holidays, you know.”

“I’m half-American,” she argued, “so it’s half my holiday. Anyway, Grandma always makes tons of food. She’d love to have you over, I’m sure of it.”

He shook his head stubbornly and shot her a look that told her very loudly that the subject was closed as far as he was concerned. “It’s not a big deal,” he mumbled, heading toward the kitchen to throw away the junk mail.

She watched him go with a frown. The idea of Griffin spending holidays alone bothered her much more than she wanted to admit. How depressing must it be; sitting down to a regular dinner that he could have had any other night of the week with nothing to mark the day as extraordinary? Did he bother to decorate his home for Christmas? Did he ever celebrate anything? Somehow she didn’t think he did, and that thought more than anything made her want to cry.

Maybe it was the barrage of memories of her own holiday celebrations that made her sad. How many times had she opened her eyes on Christmas morning only to jump out of bed to tackle her still sleeping mother and father without so much as a second thought that maybe they’d been up well into the night putting together the Barbie Dream House she’d begged for or the baby carriage she just had to have? How many times had they gathered around the extended table in the Izayoi family’s home—InuYasha and Kagome’s house, or even in the Inutaisho home? Failing that, how many times had Isabelle and her sisters happily boarded planes to travel across the ocean to spend the holidays with the Zeligs? Those memories were always surrounded with laughter, with love, and Griffin . . . She frowned, blinking away the rising moisture that clouded her gaze . . .

Griffin should have those kinds of memories, too . . .

Biting her lip, she inclined her head to listen for tell-tale signs of what Griffin was doing. She could hear him rummaging through the refrigerator and figured he was probably making himself a salad. Digging her cell phone out of her pocket, she hit the fifth number on her speed dial and waited.

“Hello?” Gin Zelig’s warm voice came over the line.

“Hi, Grandma . . . It’s Bitty.”

Gin laughed. “Is everything okay? You sound a little troubled.”

“No, I’m fine. I just called to let you know that I can’t make it for Thanksgiving dinner, after all . . .”

Gin clucked her tongue, her disappointment registering in the sound, and she sighed. “Oh, really? That’s too bad! We’ll really miss you . . . Do you have to work?”

“Something like that,” Isabelle said, tamping down the guilt that accompanied the little white lie she was telling. “Yeah . . .”

Chapter Text

Isabelle scraped the plate off into the dog’s dish and spared a moment to rub Froofie’s knobby head before heaving a sigh as she stood up and turned toward the sink once more. She’d eaten way too much—a definite disadvantage of the holidays and one that she never could quite resist. Though the turkey—her first attempt, ever—was a little dry, it wasn’t horrible, and Griffin had actually seemed to enjoy the dinner despite his assertions to the contrary.

During the morning as she was readying the turkey and re-reading instructions, she’d felt a few pangs of regret for having blown her family off. Still the idea of spending the day with Griffin was nicer than she could credit, and in the end, she hadn’t regretted her decision to stay with him. Even then, she had to be at the hospital at midnight for her shift, and she’d always hated the idea of eating then running, which was what she’d have had to do if she’d gone to the family gathering in Bevelle. At least this way she could spend the afternoon drowsing on the sofa, and that idea was becoming more and more appealing as the minutes ticked away.

Griffin shuffled into the kitchen with the half-empty bowl of chestnut dressing and the remnants of a pecan pie. The way he kept looking at the pie, she had to wonder if he weren’t irritated that he couldn’t eat more of it. Still, she restrained the urge to smile as she washed the dishes and set them in the sink of steaming rinse water. He stomped out of the kitchen again, and Isabelle shook her head. She’d told him that he didn’t have to help, but he’d just grunted and started to clear the table.

When he lumbered back into the room, she couldn’t help but laugh when he taped a note on the top of the plastic he’d used to cover the pie: ‘GRIFFIN’, it said in very large, bold lettering. “So I can’t have any of that?” she asked, batting her eyes as she peered over her shoulder at him.

“Stay out of my pie,” he grumbled as he stowed the rest of it in the refrigerator.

She laughed and blew a handful of bubbles at him in retaliation.

“Keep your bubbles to yourself, Jezebel,” he muttered, turning on his heel and stalking out of the kitchen once more.

He’d mentioned something about working on the translation of the actual research, but it seemed to be giving him a little more trouble than the journal had, probably because he was dealing with more technical jargon that probably didn’t translate very well. Still he seemed to be doing much better than she’d thought he would—so well, in fact, that he was already a good twenty-five or thirty pages into the notes.

In fact, he’d been working on the translations when she’d shuffled out of her bedroom at four in the morning to put the turkey into the oven. He’d peered at her over the thick rim of his glasses with a strange sort of expression just before he asked her if she was lost. His curiosity had gotten the better of him, though, and he’d poked his head into the kitchen while she was trying to cram as much stuffing into the ass end of the turkey as she could.

She’d had every intention of going back to bed. In the end, though, she’d sat down on the sofa to read over some of Griffin’s translation notes, and it struck her that he really was tired—almost as tired as she was—and yet he refused to go to bed, himself.

So she’d stayed up with him, unsure why she felt compelled to do so when he so obviously didn’t care whether or not she did. She had a feeling that it wasn’t that he wouldn’t go to bed, but more than he couldn’t. The hints had been there all along, hadn’t they? How often had she seen him grimace as he stood up and walked stiffly across the floor—pacing back and forth as he gritted his teeth but didn’t say a word? She’d spotted him coming back from his walks in the woods, leaning heavily on the smooth wood cane that she’d seen propped in the umbrella stand beside the back door, his face a little pale and drawn . . .

It had struck her, too, that she’d never, ever seen Griffin with anything other than a long sleeved shirt, even at the end of the summer, and she realized with a wince that if he had scars that deep on his hands and on his face, there was a good chance that he had them on the rest of his body, as well. ‘But . . . how could he have gotten them . . .?’

With a sigh, Isabelle let the water out of the sinks and wiped the counter with a damp sponge. All she wanted to do was help him, but Griffin just wasn’t the kind to accept that help, let alone acknowledge that there might be a problem, to start with. Not for the first time, she wished that there was a way for her to find out some of those things about him. She knew well enough that he was much too stubborn to let go of any of his secrets, and she doubted that there was another soul who could help her shed light on the situation.

Her grandmother had told her stories before; stories of the miko named Kikyou who had been her grandfather’s first love. She’d died in what she’d thought was an act of the lowest sort of treachery when Naraku had disguised himself as InuYasha and had cut her down on the very morning that they were to meet so that InuYasha could use the Shikon no Tama to become full human in order to be with Kikyou. The anger and the guilt that InuYasha had carried around for so very long after he’d been revived from Goshinboku had nearly been his undoing. Was Griffin carrying around a weight like that? Somehow, Isabelle knew that whatever it was weighing on his heart, he certainly wasn’t going to give it up without a fight.

Then, too, was Grandpa Cain, who had blamed himself for his first wife’s death. She’d died giving birth to Isabelle’s mother, and Cain had lived for years with the unstated desire to die for his perceived sins. He’d told her once that all it had taken was the love of a very good woman—the woman who Isabelle called ‘grandma’ now. She’d made him understand that no one had ever blamed him other than himself. Gin had made Cain realize that he couldn’t change the past by hurting the one person who had relied on him for years: Isabelle’s mother, Bellaniece.

To her knowledge, though, Griffin didn’t have any family; hadn’t ever had any real family, and he certainly hadn’t had a mate because even though Cain had lived through losing his first wife, he had also admitted, albeit sadly, that Isabelle Kroft Zelig never had been the recognized mate of his youkai blood. He’d lost his parents early on, and he’d never been one to talk about that. In that sense, Cain was a lot like Griffin, she supposed. Both preferred to leave the past lie instead of stirring it up with a sharpened stick.

But the mystery of Griffin wasn’t nearly as daunting to her as she supposed that it should have been. Even if he could be stubborn, she could, too, and she’d already set her mind to helping him, regardless of whether or not he wanted it. He’d thank her for it one day. She was positive he would.

The fleeting memory of being held in his arms, of staring into his face and seeing the raw emotion that he tried so hard to hide from her . . . That was enough to bolster her resolve. He knew as well as she did that they really were meant to be together. ‘All he has to do is admit it to himself,’ she thought as a small smile turned up the corners of her lips. ‘If he can do that, I’ll do the rest . . .’

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

The chair slid back with a jarring scrape as Griffin pushed himself to his feet with a sigh. He’d sat at the desk far longer than he should have, unsure why he felt the strange sense of urgency whenever he looked at or thought about the research.

Maybe it was the unsettling sense of his impending doom that had set in shortly after the incident the other night. Maybe it was the foreign undercurrent that had been thick in the atmosphere whenever Isabelle was in the same room as he was. He couldn’t help but think that he was living on borrowed time, one way or the other, and that was likely the reason that he felt such a need to hurry.

In any case it was late. The clock had struck two long ago. Even as he thought about that, the clock chimed the hour, and he rubbed his neck, letting his head fall back as he closed his eyes and sighed. He was bone-weary, and yet he was loath to lie down, too. Even if he managed to fall asleep, he couldn’t help the nagging worry that the nightmares would come again. They were just too much, weren’t they? The dreams . . . the smoke . . . the blood . . .

The house felt so empty. He’d noticed that happening more frequently whenever Isabelle went to work. As though she were the singular bright spot in his existence, he couldn’t help the nagging suspicion that he was growing just a little too dependent on her presence.

The trill of the telephone cut through the brooding silence that had fallen over the house, and he jumped. He’d almost forgotten what the sound was, and it took him a moment to place it. Scowl darkening as he strode over to grab it, the first thought that crossed his mind was that Isabelle was in trouble. Why he thought it, he wasn’t certain. He simply wasn’t used to receiving phone calls, especially ones in the middle of the night. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good, he reasoned, and the only thing that could possibly be important enough to disturb someone at this hour was something bad; he just knew it. By the time he managed to push the ‘talk’ button, his hands were shaking so badly that he nearly dropped the receiver. “Isabelle?” he blurted.

“Isabelle? No . . . Sorry for calling so late,” Attean Masta’s voice came over the line. “Didn’t figure you’d be sleeping, though. You have a moment or you are expecting a call from this . . . Isabelle?”

Tamping down the late irritation that flared in him, Griffin heaved a sigh, rubbing his face with his still trembling fingers. “Attean . . . wh—Never mind that. Why are you making phone calls in the middle of the night?”

“Did you find out anything else about Eaton Fellows?” Attean asked without preamble, ignoring Griffin’s blustering with a question of his own.

Griffin rubbed his temple. “Just what I told you,” he mumbled. “Did you?”

Attean sighed. “Not so much, no,” he allowed. “I’m starting to think that it was just an alias he used at the time.”

“I don’t know,” Griffin asserted. “The way they talked about him made him sound concrete enough.”

“I see . . . Tell me, why is this man so important to you?”

“He just is.”

“Yes, you said he posed a potential threat to someone close to you?”

“I didn’t,” Griffin scoffed, cheeks pinking at the implication of Attean’s words.

“Close enough,” Attean said. “It would help if I had an idea of what sort of threat he posed, wouldn’t you say?”

Griffin sighed and shook his head, unsure whether he really ought to be talking to Attean about any of this, in the first place, but seeing no other options. “There’s reason to believe that he had something to do with a murder—maybe two of them—around that time . . . twenty-five years ago, give or take. Two medical researchers: one that I’m positive Fellowes killed; the other just seems to have vanished shortly afterward.”

“Sounds intriguing.”

“Not so much.”

Attean chuckled. “Some things never change, do they?”

“Maybe not.”

He could hear the creak of an office chair and figured that Attean was sitting back, crossing his ankles on the top of the desk. It was a pose that Griffin had seen often enough over the years . . . “Kennedy Carradine and his brother, Carl.”

“Medical researchers, you say.”

“Yes.”

“Zelig did nothing in this case?”

Griffin grunted, shuffling toward the kitchen to forage for a snack. “No, but I don’t think he knew about it, in the first place.”

“Hmm . . . That gives me a little bit more to go on, though I have to say, you certainly know how to pick your favors, don’t you?”

“Yeah, sure . . .”

“Can I ask you? Who is it you’re trying to protect, Griffin?”

Attean’s question caught Griffin off-guard. He wasn’t sure why it was so. After all, it was the logical thing to ask, and yet he couldn’t help the gut-wrenching feeling that he’d be giving away far too much of himself to answer, even if Attean had never judged him. “It’s not like that,” he mumbled as he opened a cupboard and glowered at the ceramic Winnie the Pooh honey pot that Isabelle had bought a few days ago. The image of her smiling face flashed through his mind, and Griffin blinked quickly to dispel the image.

“It is this ‘Isabelle’, isn’t it?”

Sometimes Griffin really had to wonder if Attean weren’t part bloodhound. He was too damn good at putting two and two together—something that made him a fine private investigator . . . something that had always irritated the hell out of Griffin . . . “It’s not what you think,” he muttered defensively. “I’m just translating the research; that’s all.”

“The research?” Attean echoed. “What research?”

Griffin grimaced, raking his hand through his hair as he berated himself for the thoughtless slip. “Nothing. Nothing important. Just something that I’m helping with.”

“And this Isabelle . . . she asked you to translate something . . . this research . . .?”

“Not important,” Griffin maintained. “I just need to know anything you can find out about Eaton Fellowes, all right?”

“Of course,” Attean allowed though he sounded like he was still thinking about Griffin’s slip. “I’ll see what else I can come up with.”

Griffin grunted in acknowledgement and clicked off the telephone.

It wasn’t the first time that Attean had figured things out on his own; things that Griffin wanted to keep to himself. He’d done it before, a long time ago, and while Griffin had never actually confirmed Attean’s suspicions, he really didn’t have to.

But Attean Masta only knew part of the story. There really wasn’t a single soul who knew all of it; just Griffin, and that’s how it should be. What could anyone say after all? Either they would condemn him on the spot or they would try to understand, and in Griffin’s estimation, that possibility was infinitely worse. He’d given up trying to make excuses long ago because they were simply that: excuses, and it didn’t matter how many of those he made, there really was no way he could ever ask for forgiveness for the things he had done.

Gazing out the window over the sink at the vast blackness of the night outside, Griffin sighed. In the distance, he could hear the plaintive moan of a ship’s foghorn as a thin beacon of light split the dark in a cadence. The beam seemed like a ray of hope, as corny as the idea sounded in his own head. Still that’s what it was, wasn’t it? A light to guide the weary to rest . . .

His expression darkened as his thoughts shifted to Attean’s phone call. While he’d been irritated enough at the time, he had to wonder just how much Attean had discerned that he would wait until such a late hour to get a hold of him. It was quite possible that he’d realized that Griffin might not be free to talk at other times. Then again, Attean wasn’t exactly known for keeping normal hours, either, so he could have just called on a whim since he’d known that Griffin rarely slept, and never for very long stretches of time.

But if Attean wasn’t able to trace Eaton Fellowes, Griffin wasn’t sure that anyone could. Attean had an innate ability to ferret out information that others might overlook or just plain ignore, and he’d made solid connections over the years—connections that had come in handy time and again. After all, it was Attean’s connections that made it possible for Griffin to have the life that he lived now. In the age where artificial intelligence was far too easy to come by, in a world where the powers-that-be recognized you only by the number on your social security card, it was a daunting task to bury a past best left forgotten. As one woman had so blithely put it when Griffin was looking into registering for college years ago, “If you don’t have a social security number, you just plain don’t exist!” She’d been joking, of course, and yet there was a very real truth behind her words.

That was all water under the bridge, so far as Griffin was concerned. The point was that Attean was damn near a genius when it came to things of the subversive nature, and if the genius couldn’t find the mouse in the maze, then who else could?

‘Relax, Griffin . . . you’ve said it yourself. Attean is the best. He won’t let you down. He never has before—at least the few times you’ve humbled yourself to ask for his help, that is.’

The words seemed reassuring enough. Still the feeling that he was doing little more than playing a dangerous game of hide and seek bothered him so much more than he ever wanted to let on. Call it intuition or just plain distrust, but for reasons that he didn’t quite grasp, he felt like there was something or someone lurking out there just beyond the range of the shadows; an unseen force that had yet to reveal any of the cards in his hand . . .

His expression hardened as he continued to stare out the window; eyes glowing with a steely resolve as he clenched his hands into tight fists. If the ultimate target was the research, then Isabelle would be little more than an obstacle to take out of play, and Griffin . . . well, he’d be damned before he’d allow anyone to hurt her. He’d known it for a long time, but it was clearer to him now than it ever had been before. He was expendable, wasn’t he? Isabelle . . .

She was not.

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

“No.”

Isabelle rolled her eyes and tugged Griffin’s hand closer as she worked the cream into his scars despite his efforts to pull away. “Oh, come on, Dr. G! When’s the last time you got out of the house?”

Peering over at her, a foreboding darkness writ in his eyes, he slowly shook his head. “I get out of the house all the time, fat ass. The answer is ‘no’. Get used to it.”

Clucking her tongue, she shook her head and finally let go of his hand. “I’ll buy you a bag of honey roasted pecans?” she offered.

“You’d do that anyway,” he asserted, scowl deepening into what might have been meant as a menacing expression. Too bad Isabelle knew that the man was all bluster . . .

“Oh, come on! If you make me go alone, you’ll be sorry.”

His snort was loud and decisive. “As if I’m not sorry on a regular basis.”

Isabelle tried another tactic since the current one was obviously not working. “All right, fine. You’ll just have to live with the decorations I pick out then, won’t you?”

Leveling a menacing look at her that she summarily ignored, Griffin shook his head and sighed. “I’ve told you, haven’t I? I don’t decorate for Christmas. Ever.”

“Yeah, well, I do, and since you decided that I’m going to live here for the duration, then you’re going to this year, like it or not.”

“It’s my house,” he pointed out, quirking an eyebrow as he pinned her with a rather bored stare.

“I know . . .”

He frowned at the fleeting glimpse of deep thought that flitted over Isabelle’s features. “What?” he asked slowly, grudgingly.

“You teach a Sunday school, right?”

He snorted. Isabelle normally slept in on rare Sunday when she wasn’t working, so she’d never actually seen the children he taught but she knew that he did. He’d said as much a few weeks ago when she’d held up a little pink mitten with a quizzical glance at the big guy.

“So?”

“So? Don’t your children ask why you never have a Christmas tree?”

He snorted again, opting to ignore the question as he reached for the research notes only to be thwarted when Isabelle planted her hand dead center on the binder.

“Christmas is for children, isn’t it?” she went on, taken by this new inspiration. “Since you spend so much time with children and even invite them into your home, you should have a Christmas tree, don’t you think? Come on, Griffin . . . if you really love the children . . .”

He shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest as he shot her an ‘end-of-subject’ glower. “There is no way on earth that you’re ever going to convince me to willingly go into a department store on the day after Thanksgiving,” he reiterated. “That would just be stupid.”

“Oh, it’ll be fun!” she assured him, waving her hand in a complete dismissal of Griffin’s assertions.

“You seriously need to re-evaluate your idea of ‘fun’,” he grumbled.

She wrinkled her nose, telegraphing him her most winning of smiles. “We can make an afternoon of it: shopping . . . finding the perfect tree . . . decorating it tonight after you’ve built a roaring fire . . .”

He actually looked like he might be considering it. Well, that was probably pushing it. At least he didn’t look like he was going to snap her head off . . .

“Hear me out, okay?” she rushed on when he started to shake his head. “We can buy more ‘natural-looking’ decorations, if you want, and I found a new recipe for molasses-pecan cookies that I’d be willing to test out . . . we can make cocoa and decorate the tree . . . of course, you’d have to put the angel on top since you’re so much taller than me, and face it: I just might bust another chair if you put up a fuss over that . . .”

“I know what you’re trying to do,” he grumbled, narrowing his eyes on her, “and it’s not working.”

“. . . Not at all?”

“No.”

She heaved a sigh and clasped her hands together, twirling around in a circle before turning an imploring gaze on him. “Please, Griffin? Please?”

He blinked and snorted as she batted her eyelashes at him. “Will it shut you up?” he finally demanded, rolling his eyes heavenward as though she were sorely trying what was left of his patience.

She nodded, lips drawing back as the flash of her smile rewarded him.

He narrowed his eyes. “Somehow I highly doubt that.”

“Don’t be such a pooh!” she insisted then giggled as Griffin’s face reddened. “A pooh . . . did you get it?”

He rolled his eyes again. “Yeah, I got it,” he growled, irritated that he simply couldn’t keep the redness out of his features. “Really not funny . . .”

“First we’ll need to stop by the store and buy lights and ornaments . . .” she mused, turning her back on him as she started ticking off her list on her fingers. “Lots of lights and lots of ornaments . . . How many do you suppose we’ll need for outside?”

“None,” Griffin grumbled, shaking his head in complete disgust.

“Now, now, there has to be lights outside . . . and maybe one of those perfectly awful inflatable Santas . . . tacky, of course, but the children love them . . .”

“No tacky Santa,” he stated.

She led the way into the foyer, leaning on the stand near the door as she slipped on her shoes. “And . . . Oh! Those plastic candy canes that light up! Those are really bad, too—almost as bad as the Santa, but I don’t know . . . I rather like them for some reason . . .”

“Because you’re mental, and no, no plastic anything in my yard.”

“How much do you think it’d cost to get one of those PA systems? Then we could play Christmas carols for the whole neighborhood.”

He paused with his arm stuck halfway into the sleeve of his oversized coat. “And have them over here beating on my door because they want to kill me . . . absolutely not.”

“Do you think an illuminated nativity would be too much?”

Griffin snorted. “Yes.”

“Yeah, you’re right . . . what about those sleighs with the reindeer that you put on the roof?”

“I am not getting on the roof for a stupid sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.”

She pulled her hood up and stopped to smile at him. “You know the song?” she teased. “Will you sing it to me?”

“Just get moving before I change my mind,” he grumped, skin pinking up yet again in light of her incessant chatter.

Isabelle’s laughter echoed in the house long after he’d pulled the door closed behind them.

Chapter Text

Griffin scowled up at the tree, asking himself for the millionth time just how she’d managed to talk him into the debacle that was fast taking over his living room.

It wasn’t bad enough that she’d wanted to decorate the tree in all things red and gold. He hadn’t figured out at the time that she had a method to her madness, but he did now. Oh, yes, he did . . .

It wasn’t bad enough that the store was disgustingly crowded—almost crowded enough to send him into a complete and total meltdown—he’d never done well with crowds.

It wasn’t bad enough that Isabelle had seemed to draw off the energy of so many people gathered into one place to do one thing and one thing only: to drive him absolutely mad, and it had very nearly worked . . .

It wasn’t bad enough that, because of his stature, perfect strangers had felt no qualms in asking him to retrieve items off the top shelves, “Would you please; thank you very much; it must be wonderful to be so tall; oh, and by the way, your wife is lovely, just lovely . . .” The wife part had made him blush crimson every time he’d heard it, which only made Isabelle throw her head back and laugh . . . It just figured.

It wasn’t bad enough that for every kind word he’d heard, he’d also received at least ten of those looks: the revulsion, the horror, the morbid curiosity . . . It was all there, wasn’t it? In the eyes of the people who hadn’t had the courtesy to realize that they were staring—gawking—at him. After all these years of having that particular reaction to the way he looked, why was it that it could still unsettle him?

It wasn’t bad enough that by the time he’d finally managed to talk Isabelle into leaving the store—and much to the detriment of his poor, battered check card—he’d bought almost everything that he’d summarily told Isabelle that there was no way he was ever putting in his yard, and add to that the idea that he’d had to stand in line for nearly an hour as they tried to get out alive, he hadn’t been in the best of moods when they’d finally stepped outside only to be accosted by the bell-ringers who had plucked him clean faster than a vulture on a coyote in the Mojave Desert.

It wasn’t even bad enough that Isabelle had then decided to drag Griffin out into the forest behind the house to find what she called ‘the perfect tree’. It had struck him at the time that it was completely senseless to cut down a tree for the sole intent and purpose of having it emasculated with garland and lights and whatever else Isabelle had tossed into the cart that she’d carefully maneuvered through the department store. It never sat well with him, the idea of destroying nature just because one could. It was one thing to cut down a tree because someone needed the wood for something; it was another thing entirely to do the same just to have it dying in one’s living room. The only times he ever did such a thing was when the trees were too dense to flourish, when he needed the lumber for furniture since he tended to scavenge the fallen ones for firewood. Even the idea of planting a couple to replace it did little to alleviate the nearly overwhelming feeling that he’d wronged nature in the worst way . . .

No, none of that even began to measure up to the worst thing—the gravest of trespasses—in Griffin’s mind. He hadn’t been paying enough attention in the store, he supposed, because he hadn’t realized at the time, just what she’d picked out to put on the tree, and now that he did . . . well, he wasn’t impressed; not in the least, and he opened his mouth to tell Isabelle just that but stopped instead, watching as she carefully hung three stockings from burnished pewter hooks she’d bought especially for the task. When he was fighting with the uncooperative strings of lights, she’d busied herself by writing their names on the stockings with a tube of lurid red glitter fabric paint, and as she hung the stockings, he could only watch as she carefully, almost lovingly, arranged them before moving on to hang the next one: Griffin, Isabelle, and Froofie in the middle.

But it was the gentle smile on her face that stopped his burgeoning tirade . . . she really was enjoying the simple task of decorating for the holiday, and even the sight of the Winnie the Pooh topper didn’t bother him quite as much as it had when she’d asked him sweetly to put it on top of the tree.

As though she sensed his perusal, she turned that smile on him, and for a breathless moment, Griffin couldn’t do more than stare before her gaze moved up, away from him, settling on the insipid grin on the stuffed bear’s face. Holding onto a bright green ‘hunny’ pot, hand poised just above it with a silicone substance colored to look like the ‘hunny’ dripping from his fat little paw, the bear looked entirely daft, in Griffin’s considered opinion.

Isabelle laughed and leaned on Griffin’s arm without taking her gaze off the ten-foot tree that she’d managed to talk him into putting where his recliner normally sat. He still wasn’t sure how she’d talked him into that . . . temporary insanity, maybe . . . it had to be.

“Oh, that’s so cute!” she gushed, tightening her grip on Griffin’s arm. “Will you plug it in?”

Griffin stared at her hands for a moment then grunted. “It looks like the tree got shoved up his ass,” he muttered but did as she asked, narrowing his gaze when the lights on the tree blazed to life.

Isabelle’s laughter escalated seconds before she latched onto his arm again to drag him out of the room. “Come on, Pooh Bear,” she insisted.

He offered token resistance that she summarily ignored. “Why are you manhandling me now?” he demanded though his tone lacked the normal censure that it normally held.

“I want to get the full effect,” she insisted, leaning on his arm as she slipped her feet into the boots she had left by the door.

“Are you sure those are yours?” he deadpanned, tilting his head to the side as he made a show of staring at her boots.

“Yes, why?”

“Because they’re huge,” he commented. “I thought women were supposed to have delicate feet.”

She wrinkled her nose, her cheeks pinking in an uncharacteristic show of embarrassment. “Leave my feet out of this,” she said, her voice taking on a prickly sort of pitch as she hurriedly jammed her foot into the remaining boot.

“I think they may be bigger than mine,” Griffin added, scratching his chin in a thoughtful sort of way.

“I can’t help it if I have big feet!” she blurted. “It’s genetic!”

“Genetic.”

She nodded curtly, jerking her coat off the peg on the wall and swinging it over her shoulders. “If you haven’t noticed, all the men in my family are big, ergo, big feet run in the family. Genetics.”

“Maybe,” he agreed as he reached for his coat, “but you’re not a man.”

She snapped her mouth closed on whatever retort she’d been forming and scowled at him, yanking open the front door and stomping out onto the porch.

With a sigh, he followed her, seeing no way out of it since she was set on making him enjoy the scene, he supposed. She hunkered down beside the porch to plug in the bright orange outdoor extension cord.

Griffin made a face—he couldn’t help himself—at the eyesore that greeted him. Isabelle laughed and darted across the yard to stand by the street, ostensibly taking in the sight that he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to see. She called out to him, and he heaved a sigh, asking himself yet again just how she’d managed to talk him into—he winced as he turned to eye his yard—that . . .

“Oh, my God,” he muttered, shaking his head as a sinking feeling not unlike the sensation of drowning deluged him. From the giant Santa to the plastic candy canes lining the sidewalk to the lurid flashing of Rudolph’s nose on the cheap plastic reindeer standing in the midst of his yard, the entire tableaux was enhanced by the racing tube of lights that delineated the roof and porch of what used to be his domain, Griffin couldn’t help but wonder how he could go about destroying the items without drawing Isabelle’s suspicions.

“Isn’t it fantastic?” Isabelle gushed.

“That’s not exactly the word that comes to mind, no,” he said slowly.

“It looks great!” she went on, taking no note of Griffin’s less-than-enthusiastic reaction. “I still think we should have gotten the giant Frosty the Snowman . . .”

“There’s more than enough crap in my yard,” Griffin stated flatly. “No Frosty.”

“The neighborhood children will love it,” she predicted, clapping her mittened hands happily.

He snorted, noting with a heavy sigh that from his vantage point, he could see the damn Winnie the Pooh tree topper illuminated in blinking lights. “Why do I have the feeling that I’m slowly losing all credibility?” he grouched.

“It’s for the children. Just remember that,” she chided, linking her arm around his as she took in the results of her efforts with a bright smile.

Griffin wasn’t as inclined to believe her, but he grunted in response and slowly shook his head. “Don’t stay out all night or you’ll freeze,” he mumbled, carefully shaking her arm off as he started to lumber toward the house once more. He had to be losing his mind, he reasoned. There was a good chance that all the flashing lights were going to give him a migraine by the time all was said and done. Maybe he ought to consider boarding up his bedroom window until the holidays were over . . .

His house looked absolutely ridiculous, and he still wasn’t sure exactly why he’d let Isabelle do all of the decorating, and yes, he hated to admit as much, but he’d helped, too. Wincing as a sharp pain stabbed at his lower back, he sighed yet again. He’d played right into her hands, hadn’t he? Adamantly refusing to admit that dragging the tree through the forest and forcing it through the back door just might have been too much for him, he’d gritted his teeth and done it anyway while Isabelle moved things aside to ‘make his job a little easier’.

No doubt about it, he’d be feeling the overexertion by morning. He’d count himself lucky if he was able to stand up tomorrow, let alone walk at all . . .

‘You know well enough why you agreed,’ his youkai blood piped up.

‘Do I?’

‘Sure, and you’re right. She has a damn nice smile, doesn’t she?’

The truth in his youkai’s words hit home, and Griffin grimaced. Was he really as shallow as all that? Agreeing to something that he never, ever would have agreed to otherwise simply because Isabelle Izayoi smiled at him?

And somehow he didn’t dare answer that question, either. As much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, there was a hint of truth to those words, and recalling the brilliance of her child-like awe, Griffin couldn’t escape the raw surge of panic that swept through him. He felt as though he were losing control of his body, of himself. Everything that he’d ever wanted seemed to float just out of his grasp, off in the distance, wavering like a dream or a fantasy, and yet the smiles that illuminated her entire being were for him; just for him. All he had to do was reach out and touch her . . . but that was the impossibility, wasn’t it, and even if it were, she deserved better than to be relegated to little more than the woman living with the town freak, didn’t she?

Snorting indelicately at the direction of his thoughts, Griffin’s scowl deepened as he stomped toward the basement door. Completely disgusted at himself for his perceived weakness, he sorely needed to distance himself from her before he started spouting poetry or worse. He’d almost reached his sanctuary—his hand was touching the cool brass knob—when Isabelle’s voice sounded behind him.

“Do you want to try those cookies now?”

He stopped but didn’t turn to face her. He could smell the brisk night air emanating from her as she moved toward the kitchen though he couldn’t hear her. “No,” he mumbled, absently wondering why the sound of her voice could rip him wide open yet soothe him at the same time.

“Are you sure? Pecans and molasses? Then I guess I’ll just eat them all by myself . . .”

She just had to mention the pecans, didn’t she? Silently cursing himself for arming her with the knowledge about his affinity for nuts in general and pecans in particular, he let his hand fall away from the door as he slowly pivoted on his heel to pin her with a bored glower. “Don’t touch my cookies,” he stated.

Isabelle laughed and strolled into the kitchen, pouring him a glass of farm-fresh milk and retrieving a can of Diet Coke as she nodded at the cookies still arranged on the wire cooling racks. “I don’t suppose I can have just one?” she mused, an amused glimmer sparkling in the depths of her bright golden eyes.

“I don’t suppose you can,” he agreed mildly, shoving a whole cookie into his mouth.

“But I should sample the recipe, don’t you think? See if it’s worth making again?”

“Good enough,” he allowed, still chewing his cookie as he held out his hand for the milk.

Isabelle handed it to him, a triumphant little smirk on her face as she watched him grab another cookie and repeat the shoving process.

‘All right,’ he thought as he stacked the remaining cookies and headed for the living room. ‘So she can bake . . . passably.’

‘Among other things.’

Griffin snorted, making a face at the sight of his recliner shoved back into a corner so that it would be out of the way of the Christmas tree. ‘. . . Among other things . . .’

His youkai blood just laughed.

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

The soft clatter of claws drumming against the surface of the wide desk resounded in the quiet of the darkened office. The creak of the chair interrupted when she sat back, resting her elbow on the armrest as she scowled at the artificial glow of the computer monitor. It was exactly as she’d told Gunnar a few days ago: there simply weren’t any viable leads that pointed to the existence of one Griffin Marin in any way, shape, or form prior to the date on his birth certificate, and not for the first time, she had to wonder if he weren’t searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack.

Still, Gunnar was one of the brightest minds she’d ever had the opportunity to work with even if she adamantly refused to acknowledge such a thing to the puppy. His ego was inflated enough, she figured. She didn’t need to add to it, now did she?

Myrna flicked her wrist and glanced at her watch. She’d been making phone calls all day, attempting to schmooze information out of contacts she hadn’t had to use in years, and all of them had taken the time to poke at her for being, in their terms, one of Zelig’s lap-dogs . . .

She had a handful of people left that she could call, but she honestly wasn’t holding out much hope that any of them would be any more helpful than the ones she’d already tried.

Still . . .

Heaving a sigh, she pushed in the keyboard shelf and reached for the telephone. If she only had a little more information to go on, maybe she could dig up something more on the elusive bear-youkai.

Scrolling through her Digi-dex to find the number she was looking for, Myrna dialed it into the phone and leaned back with a defeated exhalation. It was fairly late, but if memory served, he didn’t keep normal hours, anyway . . .

“Masta.”

“Attean, how are you?” Myrna greeted.

The hanyou chuckled softly. “Well, well . . . now here’s a voice I’ve not heard in years. How are you?”

Myrna rolled her eyes but smiled to herself. “I’m fine, thank you, and you’re as charming as ever, Attean . . . I trust you’ve been taking good care of Maria?”

“Always,” he agreed easily enough. Of all of the youkai in her network of communication, she had to admit that Attean Masta had always been one of the more personable to deal with.

“Good. You’ll have to tell her that I said hello.”

“I can do that,” he allowed. “Suppose you tell me why you called? Surely it isn’t social . . .?”

Smiling at his indulgent tone of voice, Myrna laughed softly. “I was being polite,” she pointed out though her amusement hadn’t diminished. “If you insist, though . . . I wondered . . . I’m looking for information on a bear-youkai . . .”

“Hmm, a bear-youkai . . . that’s a fairly broad request.”

“Yeah . . . The records show that he was born in 2017, but there’s reason to believe that he’s been around awhile. He goes by the name of Griffin Marin . . . think you can help me out here?”

Attean was silent for a moment, and she could hear the squeak of his chair as he leaned back and pondered her question. “Unfortunately, I don’t think I can. Has he drawn the ire of the Zelig?”

“No, not exactly . . . We just had a few questions about him; that’s all.”

“Quite a lot of trouble to go to just to ask a few questions.”

“Maybe,” she agreed slowly. “If you hear anything . . .”

“I’ll be sure to get a hold of you,” he promised.

Myrna sighed and rubbed her face. “Thanks, and, uh . . . happy holidays.”

“You, too.”

The line went dead, and Myrna dropped the receiver into the cradle with a shake of her head and flopped back, letting her head rest against the high headrest and closing her eyes.

Nothing made sense, did it? Surely someone somewhere had heard of Griffin Marin. There had to be someone who knew something. It was just a matter of tracking them down, and the longer that Myrna spent working on it, the more determined she was to uncover the truth. After all, her reputation was on the line, wasn’t it? She was the best in the business, damn it.

It was just a matter of time . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Isabelle tucked her feet up under her and adjusted her glasses as she scowled at the notes that Griffin had managed to translate, barely taking note as he shuffled over to drop another log on the crackling fire.

“It makes sense, right?” he asked, breaking the companionable silence that had fallen in the room.

Isabelle blinked and pulled off her glasses as she lowered her knees, letting the notebook slide off her legs as she turned her full attention on Griffin. “Yeah, it does,” she assured him with a wan smile. After the excitement of the day, she had to admit that she was feeling a little tired from it all. “You’re making faster progress than I figured you would.”

“Not nearly fast enough,” he mumbled, grimacing slightly when he bent over to pick up a few fallen pine needles.

“Are you all right?” she asked slowly, carefully. She knew very well that he hadn’t intended for her to see what he would perceive as a vulnerability.

He shot her a dark look and stubbornly shook his head, straightening up slowly before stomping off to throw away the needles. She didn’t miss the slight stiffness in his movements, and she didn’t miss the marked tightening of his jaw, either.

It wasn’t the first time that she’d wondered about the physical state of his body. She’d had way too many hints over the time since she’d moved in with him to ignore, and she frowned as a pang of guilt shot through her. He’d carried that tree back by himself, and while she’d jokingly said she would help, she had a feeling that she’d done little more than sting his pride with her offer, and he was suffering for it, wasn’t he?

She hadn’t thought of him at all, and because of that, he was in pain. For a woman who swore that Griffin was the man for her, she had a horrible way of showing it, didn’t she . . .?

‘Don’t beat yourself up over it, Bitty,’ her youkai said in an uncharacteristically gentle tone. ‘You didn’t think about it because he didn’t want you to think about it . . . there’s nothing more to it than that . . .’

‘That’s not true . . . I should have known . . . He’s hurting, and it’s my fault, and—’

‘And if you make a fuss over him now, he’s going to retreat again. You know he will.’

‘Still, there has to be something I can do . . . there has to be some way I can make him feel a little better . . .’

‘Leave it alone, okay? Leave his pride intact . . . You’re making progress; slow to be sure, but progress is progress . . .’

‘Am I?’ she wondered with a shake of her head, frowning unhappily as she rubbed her thighs through the thick material of her flannel lounge pants.

‘Yes, you are . . . you got him out of the house, didn’t you? You got him to decorate for Christmas even if he did grumble the entire time. You know damn well that he never would have allowed it a few weeks ago. He’s softening a little. You just have to be patient.’

It was true, wasn’t it? Bolstered by her youkai’s pep-talk, she smiled wanly, leaning her temple on the back of the sofa as a soft laugh escaped her.

He wandered back into the room with mugs in both of his hands. Isabelle masked her surprise as he set one on the coffee table beside her and refrained from comment since he’d never done that before. While he had herbal tea in his mug—she could smell the fragrant tang of the leaves he used—her mug contained coffee—doubly surprising since he never failed to inform her that it wasn’t good for her in the least.

“Thank you,” she said, twisting around and patting the sofa beside her.

Griffin narrowed his gaze as though he were waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. In the end, he sat down and sighed before slowly sipping his tea. “Before you get any more bright ideas, I’m not going Christmas caroling,” he stated flatly.

Hiding her amusement behind the thick earthenware mug of steaming coffee, Isabelle peered over the brim. “I’ll leave the singing to my cousin, thanks,” she murmured as her smile widened. He’d added honey to her coffee instead of sugar—gentle censure, she supposed.

“Your cousin?” he echoed, casting her a quizzical glance.

“Sure,” she agreed with a shrug. “Evan’s much better at it than I am.”

“You mean there is something you can’t do?”

While he’d made the observation in a cynical sort of tone, Isabelle was still touched by the unspoken sentiment. He never said exactly what he meant, did he, and yet somehow she always understood. “There are lots of things I can’t do,” she admitted quietly.

“And you’re willing to fess up to that?”

She giggled. “Why not? I’m not perfect . . . far from it, actually. I tend to be a little too impetuous, or so they tell me.”

“Who’d have thought it,” he muttered, cheeks reddening as he shifted his gaze away from her.

Isabelle grinned. “And I follow my heart too much—at least that’s what Mamoruzen says.”

He paused with the mug poised at his lips. “Mamoruzen?”

Setting her mug back on the coffee table, Isabelle turned on the sofa, drawing one leg up against her chest and leaned to the side. “Another cousin—my closest cousin: Mamoruzen Inutaisho . . . Of course, he tends to be a little too pragmatic, if you ask my opinion—and he’s always sticking his nose into my business though he says it’s because he is concerned about me.”

“But you don’t believe him?”

She shrugged. “No, it’s not that . . . I believe that he does in his own sick and twisted sort of way. Mamoruzen just tends to be a little too distrustful of everyone on the whole.”

Griffin pondered that for a moment then shrugged as though it were of no real consequence. “Trusting anyone without reason is just asking for trouble. Sounds to me like your cousin’s just trying to save you from yourself.”

Smiling despite the small quirk of irritation that Griffin really would side with Gunnar, Isabelle sighed. “And I say that trying to live while constantly looking over your shoulder to see who is out to get you isn’t really living at all.”

“Spoken like a true woman,” Griffin decided. “Nothing wrong with thinking things through, and there’s nothing wrong with being realistic . . . and you never know just who is behind you, for that matter.”

“Realistic, huh . . . Is that what you are?” she asked softly.

He grunted and finished off his tea as a faraway sort of expression entered the depths of his eyes. There was a certain sadness there, too; a melancholy that she wished she understood. “S’ppose,” he admitted at last.

He sat there for another minute before pushing himself to his feet and leaving her there to ponder exactly what he’d meant. In the end, she sighed. Realistic, maybe, but still . . . sometimes she thought that she was getting closer to understanding him, and others . . .

Other times she wasn’t sure she understood a damn thing about him; not at all.

Chapter Text

Isabelle glanced at the incident report paper clipped to the front of the file as she strode down the hallway toward examination room three. Well into her first week at the clinic, she had to admit that the change of pace was most welcome. She only worked three days a week though she did do rounds when patients needed it, and while she’d wanted a reduction in work hours, the extra free time was something that might take some getting used to.

Still she couldn’t complain. She’d taken over for another doctor who had decided to take an indefinite leave when his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and for the most part, the patients were very enthusiastic about the change; at least they were after their initial worries were assuaged. Because of the suddenness of the change, Isabelle had been swamped with the patients who wanted to consult with her prior to committing to keep her on as their doctor. Two of her new patients were well within the final weeks of their pregnancies, and one of them was her next appointment. The woman had slipped and fallen outside the grocery store last night, and while she said that she felt fine, Isabelle didn’t particularly want to take any chances.

“Hi, Kristen,” she greeted, smiling in a reassuring way as she breezed into the room. “How are you feeling today?”

Kristen McKinley heaved a sigh, rubbing her distended belly with a loving hand. “In a word? Big . . . but honestly, Dr. Izayoi, I feel fine.”

“Good, good . . . Can’t be too careful, though,” she replied. “The baby’s been active since the fall?”

Kristen nodded. “Yes, very . . . She was constantly doing somersaults and squirming around . . . I never thought I’d get to sleep last night!”

Isabelle nodded, setting the file aside before helping Kristen to lie back on the examination table. She couldn’t help but smile at the very active baby that didn’t like the prone position her mother had assumed. “And there was no bleeding? No pains?” Isabelle questioned.

“No, none,” Kristen answered, grimacing as Isabelle helped her sit up.

“That’s great,” Isabelle assured her. Though she seemed calm enough, Isabelle could smell the heightened awareness, the anxiety, that Kristen was trying to keep at bay.

“So what are the odds that she’ll be born before Christmas?” Kristen tried to joke.

Isabelle smiled. “Well, that’s hard to say. You’re not actually due until the middle of January, right? Still, if she came a little early, that’d be okay, too.”

“She’d be a pretty good Christmas present,” Kristin commented. “One that I wouldn’t ever forget.”

Isabelle laughed and nodded her agreement, relieved that Kristin was finally calming down a little bit. She hurried through a basic exam since she knew very well that in Kristin’s advanced stage of pregnancy that she couldn’t possibly be comfortable, and she was pleased to find nothing that seemed out of sorts. “Everything seems fine,” she said, giving Kristen’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “As a final precaution, though, I’d like to have you do a urine sample, and if anything should happen—you start having pains or you start bleeding—you come in or call me, okay?”

Kristin’s smile was genuinely relieved, and she nodded. “All right.”

Isabelle dug in her pocket for a business card even though she was certain she’d given one to Kristen during her consultation earlier in the week. “Here,” she said, handing the card to the mother-to-be. “This is my cell number. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call, no matter what time it is.”

Kristin’s smile brightened. “Thank you.”

“If there aren’t any problems, I’ll see you next week. I’ll send in a nurse to take you to the bathroom to do your sample, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks again!”

Isabelle nodded and hooked her stethoscope around her neck as she strode out of the room, satisfied that both Kristen and baby were going to be just fine. She hadn’t been really worried, but then, one could never tell, and it really was better to be safe than sorry, especially when it came to humans.

Checking her watch, she stepped into her office and let out a gust of breath that lifted her bangs into the air. Less than a half hour, and she’d be off for the rest of the week since she only worked Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays with hospital duties if she had patients to see. Though she was used to having a time when she was supposed to get off work, she was also used to being delayed by one thing or another. It really was a novelty for her to actually be done with work when she was supposed to be.

All in all, she figured things were looking up. Griffin wasn’t being quite as standoffish as he used to be, and that was progress, and the translations were coming along faster than she’d expected. He was nearly a quarter of the way through the first binder, and that was something considering he was dealing with a lot of technical jargon that had to be rougher to translate than a simple journal.

She couldn’t help but smile at the thought of the consternated expression he got on his face whenever he reached a particularly vexing passage. He looked every bit like a grouchy bear just waking up from hibernation that it was a task to contain her amusement at those times . . .

He was coming around, slowly but surely, and as much as Isabelle wished that he’d move along a little faster, she was thankful enough for the progress that she’d made. It was just a matter of time before he admitted that she was his mate . . .

She grinned as she pulled out a notepad to jot down a quick shopping list since she’d printed out a recipe for pecan crusted salmon over lunch earlier in the day. Griffin would love it, she didn’t doubt, and what was that old saying her mother had used before?

The grin widened as she tapped the end of the pen against her lips. ‘The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach . . .’

That certainly seemed to be the case at times with Griffin . . . maybe he wasn’t really so different, after all . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Griffin stood in front of the Christmas tree with one arm crossed over his chest and his elbow propped in his hand thoughtfully scratching his chin as he frowned at the Christmas tree. Charlie whined beside him, his tail thumping heavily against the floor.

He’d just gotten home from the university about half an hour ago, and he’d sat down to work on the translations only to catch himself eyeing the tree, instead.

‘It’s her fault,’ he mumbled to himself, scowl darkening the slightest bit as he spared a momentary glance at the dog.

‘You’re blaming your lack of self-control on Isabelle?’

He snorted. ‘Sounds about right.’

‘Pathetic. Truly pathetic . . .’

‘Shut up or help me figure out how to do this, will you?’

His youkai heaved a sigh but fell silent, which suited Griffin just fine.

“What do you think, Charlie? Think we’ll get in trouble if we eat that?”

Charlie whined and wagged his tail a little harder.

“. . . You can have the popcorn,” Griffin allowed then sighed. “She’ll notice, won’t she?”

Yes, she would notice if he ate the garland she’d made by stringing popcorn, cranberries, and pecans on white thread that she’d bought specifically for the task. Every time he’d tried to grab the pecans out of the bowl on the coffee table, she’d slapped his hands away, stating that they were for the tree and that he’d leave them alone if he knew what was good for him. In a last-ditch effort to keep Griffin out of them, Isabelle had given him a big bag of honey roasted pecans, as though she really believed that it would keep him away from the ones she was poking holes in . . .

Charlie half-whined, half-growled, and Griffin nodded sagely. He wanted at the string as much as Griffin did. The only real question was whether Isabelle’s irritation would ultimately be worth the sacrifice, though to be brutally honest, he rather thought that it would be . . .

Besides that, she wouldn’t be home for a little while, anyway. If he got rid of all the evidence, maybe he could convince her that she’d just imagined making the garland, in the first place . . .

A curt knock on the door, however, saved the garland, at least for the moment. Uttering a sound not unlike a growl, Griffin shuffled off to answer it.

He wasn’t sure who he expected to be standing on the other side of the door, but his scowl deepened as he came face to face with a hanyou he’d never met before. He stood eye-level with Griffin, his black hair blowing haplessly in the winter wind, his expression stoic, if not even a little bored. Only his eyes burned with an unearthly intensity—eyes that were entirely unsettling and yet wholly familiar at the same time. Golden eyes just like Isabelle’s eyes, and Griffin understood: so this was the cousin, Mamoruzen . . . the future Japanese tai-youkai . . .

“Griffin Marin, I take it?” the hanyou asked, his tone steely, determined.

He didn’t answer.

Griffin’s lack of a response seemed to further his irritation. “I’d like to talk to you,” he went on brusquely, slapping a pair of expensive black leather gloves against his thigh.

“Isabelle’s not here,” Griffin rumbled, answering Mamoruzen’s unvoiced challenge without blinking an eye.

“So I gathered . . . I’m not here to see her.”

Nodding once in response, Griffin stepped over the threshold, pulling the front door closed behind him.

“There’s no sense in beating around the bush, don’t you think? Why don’t you tell me what it is you think to gain?” the hanyou demanded, narrowing his eyes as though he were trying to see inside Griffin’s head. “What are you after . . .? You know, right? Izzy’s got money; her family’s powerful . . . Are you looking for some kind of favor? Some sort of deferential treatment?”

“Leave,” Griffin growled as stabbing pains from the harsh sunlight reflecting off the snow erupted behind his glare. Resisting the desire to shield his eyes against the light, he willed his arms to remain loose at his sides.

Offering him a completely insincere little smile, the hanyou shook his head. “Not until I get some answers. Tell me what you’re hiding.”

Griffin grunted at that but still refused to answer. He heard the rhythmic hum of Isabelle’s sports car pulling into the driveway but didn’t even try to look to verify it. Seconds later, the woman in question darted up the steps onto the porch and insinuated herself between Griffin and his unwelcome visitor. The grating chime of the driver’s side door that she’d left wide open in her haste to intercede clanged in his head. Still Griffin refused to look away from Mamoruzen’s face, refused to give so much as an inch in the battle of wills.

“Mamoruzen . . . what are you doing here?” she asked in a breathless, hopelessly bright, tone.

His gaze flicked over her for a moment before blatantly dismissing her as though she were of no real consequence. “I came for answers,” he said as his eyes narrowed on Griffin once more.

Gritting his teeth as an irrational surge of anger threatened to boil over, Griffin’s fingers twitched uncontrollably as he fought to restrain the nearly overwhelming urge to wrap his hands around Isabelle’s beloved cousin’s neck.

Whether she sensed the mayhem that was rife in the air or simply because she wanted to avoid the escalating confrontation, Isabelle stepped forward, placed her hands in the middle of Mamoruzen’s chest and gently shoved him back. “I said no, damn it!” she hissed. It registered in his mind that she wasn’t necessarily trying to hide whatever involvement she had in it from him. Anger seethed in her youki in nearly palpable waves, and even the hanyou spared a moment to blink at her in unabashed surprise before pushing her aside and stepping around her.

“Tell me who you are,” the hanyou ground out as he closed the distance between himself and Griffin.

Griffin fought to keep his expression impassive, jaw clenching in silent refusal to answer any questions at all. It registered in the back of his mind that he’d do well to keep a tight rein on his temper. Still, he didn’t like the intrusion, and he wasn’t about to answer the questions of a noisy cub who still looked to be a little wet behind the ears. Sparing another long minute to glower at Mamoruzen, Griffin finally turned around and stomped back into the house.

It burned him, no doubt about it. Having some whelp show up on his front porch only to demand answers without any provocation and without the basest of pleasantries just wasn’t something that Griffin would tolerate, and the longer he dwelled on it, the angrier he became. He had no right—no right—to show up here the way he had, and Griffin would be damned before he’d give an inch to a child like him..

Had she done this? It was obvious that she’d said enough to raise her cousin’s suspicions. Stalking through the house, he didn’t stop until he reached the back door and flung it open wide. He wasn’t sure what to believe, and as much as he didn’t want to think that she’d willingly set him up, he was just too angry to stay inside.

Ignoring the cold bite on the wind, he lumbered across the yard, smashing his palm against the stout wooden gate. It snapped open with a shuddering groan—he’d probably have to repair it later. He could still feel the acerbic tinge of Mamoruzen’s youki fouling the air as he disappeared into the forest.

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Isabelle grimaced as the door slammed shut before rounding on Gunnar, eyes narrowed as she crossed her arms over her chest and glowered up at him.

“Don’t start with me,” he said in lieu of the apology that she figured he ought to be making.

“Oh, I’ll start with you, all right,” she muttered. “Suppose you tell me just what the hell you thought you were doing?”

Planting his hands on his lean hips, Gunnar’s glower turned near mutinous as he slowly shook his head. “What I’m doing,” he said, his tone carefully even and completely at odds with the mayhem that brightened his jewel-like eyes, “is trying to get some answers.”

“You don’t need answers, Mamoruzen,” she cut in coldly, nostrils flaring as her temper flared even higher. “I’ve told you, it’s none of your business! Leave him alone or—”

“Or what, Izzy? What, exactly, will you do?” he challenged, the tight hold he had on his own temper slipping in response to her own. “You don’t have a clue who that guy is! Did you know? He’s hiding his past! Hiding it! Do you get it?”

“And I’m telling you, I don’t care! He has reasons for what he does, and you . . . How dare you judge him! You don’t even know him!”

“And you do?” Gunnar challenged, stepping toward her, grasping her upper arms in his vice-like grip.

“I know him better than you do!” she hissed, wrenching herself free only to poke her index finger in the center of his chest to emphasize her words. “He’s a good man. I know he is. I told you to leave him alone, and I mean it! Leave. Him. Alone.”

The iciness in his eyes dulled almost instantly as the cold mask of indifference slammed down over his features. The only trace sign of his emotions was the slight ticking in his jaw; the almost imperceptible quiver of his nostrils as he regarded her with a cold stare. “He’s not what you think he is,” Gunnar maintained in a deadly quiet tone. “Even if you don’t want to see it, I do, and I’ll be damned if I’ll just sit back and let you make a fool of yourself when it’s clear to me that your Dr. Marin is not the saint you want to believe he is.”

“I never said he was a saint,” she whispered, her anger fading almost as suddenly as it had surfaced. Turning away from him, she rubbed her arms through the thick wool of her coat as she scanned the surroundings as though she were searching for answers. “There are no such things as saints; not in this world . . . but he’s not the monster you’re trying to make him out to be, either. You don’t know him like I do. You don’t know . . .” Trailing off, she drew a deep breath, glancing down at her hands before raising her gaze once more, a troubled frown furrowing her brow as she struggled to find the words to voice the things she felt. “You . . . everyone . . . treats him like he’s some sort of beast. He gets these looks everywhere he goes—the kind of looks that children get right after they tell you they’ve seen the boogeyman under their bed—and he doesn’t deserve those . . . he’s gentle, and he’s kind . . . and he’s . . . beautiful—at least, he is to me.” Spinning around on her heel, she dashed the back of her hand over her suspiciously bright eyes. “Leave him alone, Mamoruzen. Just leave him alone.”

Gunnar heaved a sigh and slowly shook his head before rubbing his eyes with an exasperated hand and scowling at Isabelle’s back. “I can’t,” he said, the barest hint of regret in his voice. “I’m sorry, Izzy, but . . . I have to do this, whether you like it or not.”

“You have to,” she echoed as a sad little smile twitched on her lips; as a darkness—a sadness—clouded her eyes. “You don’t, you know. You really don’t. I thought you were the one I could rely on. I used to think that you were perfect; did you know? But you’re not . . . you’re no different from anyone else.”

“Go get your things. You’re not staying here with him.”

Her back stiffened at the sound of his words. Softly uttered but no less forceful, he really thought she’d comply with his wishes, didn’t he? Isabelle shook her head, stomping back to her car to shut it off and grab the groceries she’d left when she’d spotted Gunnar and Griffin standing on the porch looking like they were ready to light into one another. Jerking her keys out of the ignition, she swiped up the bags and kicked the door closed with every intention of marching straight past Gunnar and shutting the door in his face.

He grabbed her arm as she tried to stride past, his gaze searching, probing. “I don’t want to leave you here; not until I know more about him.”

She stared at him for a moment, her gaze meeting his without faltering. On some level, she could appreciate his concern, but it didn’t excuse the fact that he still treated her like a child, even after they’d grown up long ago. “It’s not up to you,” she said quietly. “It’s up to me . . . and I choose to stay.”

Pulling away from him, she didn’t spare another glance over her shoulder as she stepped into the house. It wasn’t until after she’d slumped against the closed door and heard his retreating footsteps followed minutes later by the sound of his car that she closed her eyes and sighed.

She could appreciate his concern, sure, and maybe he was right to worry on some level, but the Griffin she knew was everything she’d said he was; she knew that as certainly as she knew her own name. This time Gunnar was wrong, and even if Griffin did have things in his past that he wasn’t particularly proud of, didn’t everyone? There wasn’t a damn thing that could change the way she felt about the man, and Gunnar could just get used to that.

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Isabelle bit her lip and leaned on the counter over the sink to peer out the window at the falling darkness. Griffin had been gone for a while, and she was starting to worry. Her imagination had always been keen. As the minutes ticked away, she started to worry that maybe Gunnar hadn’t really left but had hidden his car so that he could track Griffin down to rake him over the coals a little more. About as quickly as the idea had occurred to her, though, she’d realized that there just wasn’t any way that Gunnar would do anything quite as sneaky as that. No, the man’s ego was a little too big, and he’d never, ever have thought about hiding anything. Still she had to wonder . . . Griffin had been gone for nearly four hours, and while she hesitated to go after him since she wasn’t at all sure that he didn’t blame her for the Gunnar debacle, she couldn’t help but think that his conspicuous absence was just not a good sign . . .

She’d prepared everything for dinner but hadn’t started cooking the salmon steaks since they only had to sear for a few minutes on each side. Even Griffin’s salad was ready and the water for his tea was simmering in the old fashioned whistling kettle on the stove.

Biting her lip, she turned around, staring at the immaculate kitchen. Froofie padded into the room, head lowered as though he were upset. ‘He thinks there’s something wrong, too,’ she realized with a grimace. ‘Griffin should be here—and he’s not . . .’

“Don’t worry,” she said, pushing herself away from the counter and striding toward the foyer to retrieve her coat with Froofie fast on her heels. Frowning as she grabbed Griffin’s coat off the hook beside hers, she shook her head. He’d been so irritated he’d forgotten to take his coat? She sighed as she draped it over her arm, striding toward the back door. “We’ll go find him, okay? After all, he’s been alone for a while . . . he can’t be that angry anymore . . .”

At least, she hoped he wasn’t . . .

It didn’t take her long to figure out where he’d gone, and it was pretty easy to follow him since it had snowed last night. His tracks led off into the forest, and Isabelle quickened her pace as Froofie bounded ahead of her.

The temperature was dropping, and with a shiver, Isabelle wrapped her scarf around her neck and brought Griffin’s coat up to her nose only to sigh when she realized a little too late that her senses were too dull for her to be able to track him, and she could barely discern the scent of him that should have clung to the garment. “Find him, Froofie,” she called, squinting as the pulse beat sounded in her ears. For a few precious seconds, she clung to the remnants of her youkai blood before it faded away.

The forest seemed so much darker; so much denser as she glanced around. Froofie whined and darted ahead only to run back to her, pushing his nose against her hand. He wasn’t a tracking dog. He’d never be able to find Griffin . . .

She considered turning back, but discarded the idea. It wouldn’t do any good, anyway since she’d do nothing but stare out the window and drive herself insane. Deliberately ignoring the tiny voice in her head that told her that everyone was likely to have a fit if they knew that she was out wandering the forest alone in her human form, she trudged along the path, deeper into the trees.

She couldn’t tell if the temperature was dropping or if it was her human state that made the cold that much more cutting, but she jammed her teeth together in an effort to keep from shivering, pulling her coat closer around her as she forced her legs to move forward. The sounds of the night came at her from every direction with the underlying groan of the wind in the trees adding a disorienting undercurrent to the world at large. Fear wasn’t something that Isabelle felt often, but she couldn’t help the trill that raced up her spine as she whistled for Froofie.

He didn’t come back to her.

Stumbling over a fallen branch that she couldn’t see in the darkness, Isabelle caught herself before she fell in the dirty mire of decaying leaves and slushy snow. It took a moment for her to catch her breath again, and she couldn’t help the little whimper that slipped from her lips as she stared around at the unfamiliar territory. The woods that seemed so welcoming, so inviting during the daylight hours had shifted into a living, breathing thing, and the whispers in the shadows seemed to call her name.

‘Get a hold of yourself, Bitty,’ she told herself sternly in a tone that sounded remarkably like her cousin, Bastian’s voice. ‘It’s nothing but your imagination . . . just your imagination, all right?’

She knew it was. In her logical mind, she knew damn well that she wasn’t in any real danger. Squaring her shoulders, she frowned at the path before her. It branched off to the left, and she sighed, wishing that Froofie had come back to help her decide which fork to take . . .

Closing her eyes, she drew a deep breath, gnawing on her bottom lip as she willed her body to relax. It didn’t really work, but then she hadn’t actually expected it to. Shaking her head and hoping against hope that she wasn’t going to end up completely lost, Isabelle started down the left path.

She’d completely lost track of time. It was too dark for her to make out the time on her watch. Her cheeks felt chafed from the blowing wind; her nostrils stung with every breath she drew. She heard the dulled burble of running water and followed it.

The trees grew denser as the sound grew louder. More than once, she nearly tripped over tangled roots that stuck out of the ground in an effort to thwart her. Stumbling into the clearing, she blinked at the sudden light—a gentle light—that flowed down from the thousands of stars in the moonless sky and reflected off the fresh blanket of pristine white snow, sparkling like a million diamonds; sparkling like the sea . . . The Penobscot River frothed and rolled, untouched by the cold that was fast seeping into Isabelle’s very bones.

A soft whine broke through her reverie, and she spun around on her heel, uttering a harsh little cry when she spotted Griffin sitting on a fallen tree and leaning heavily against Froofie. She ran over to him, skidding and slipping and almost falling, dropping to her knees in the snow before him after she draped his coat over his shoulders. “Griffin?” she called gently, yanking her mitten off with her teeth and pressing her hand against his pale cheek.

He jerked back, eyes flashing open, and he blinked a few times to clear his head as a suspicious darkness entered his gaze. “What are you doing . . . out here?” he rasped out, clumsily trying to shove his arms into his sleeves.

“I came to find you,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s late, you know . . .”

He shrugged and brushed her hands aside when she reached out to help him with his coat. “I don’t need your help,” he grumbled.

Forcing a smile, she nodded. “I know.”

“I was resting; that’s all,” he went on, casting her a fulminating glower.

“Sure.”

“. . . Stop patronizing me, damn it.”

“I’m not,” she said, reaching out to help him to his feet but jerking her hand back before he noticed it, unsure if he was angry at her; unsure about a lot of things. There was something wrong, wasn’t there? It was there in his bearing, in his stature. He looked . . . almost defeated, and that realization stung her deep.

He stood slowly, stiffly, and she couldn’t tell if he really was pale or if it was the weak light that was casting stark shadows over the planes of his face, but it seemed to her that he was limping, and that concerned her more than anything. “Did you fall?” she asked before she could stop herself.

Griffin’s head snapped to the side, his eyes glittering dangerously as he stared at her. “No.”

Pursing her lips, biting back the comment that was on the top of her tongue, she watched in silence as he shuffled his feet, his movements far too slow, far too wooden to be normal. Froofie licked her hand and trudged along behind Griffin, leaving Isabelle where she stood.

‘He doesn’t have his cane,’ she thought suddenly, her eyes widening as Griffin stopped to lean against a tree. ‘That’s what it is, isn’t it? He . . . he’s not angry at all, is he . . .? No, it’s more like . . . he’s in pain . . .’

She watched him for another minute before lowering her chin stubbornly and striding over to intercept the man. He started to protest when she ducked under his arm, grasping his hand in hers as she pulled his arm around her shoulders and tossed him a belligerent stare.

For a few moments, he seemed like he wanted to argue with her, and he opened his mouth a couple times only to snap it closed again. Certainly, he could be stubborn, but that was just too damn bad because she could be, too, and if he really wanted to have a battle of wills, she supposed she was up for it. He narrowed his gaze on her, shaking his head like he was trying to figure her out. She refused to look away, knowing deep down that if she did, she’d lose. In the end, she wasn’t sure if he just didn’t have it in him to fight her or if he simply figured he wouldn’t win. Either way, he grunted in ill-grace but leaned against her, letting her help him toward the path—toward home.

Chapter Text

Griffin winced, unable to control the pained hiss of breath that whooshed out of him as he dropped onto the sofa, wondering absently when the last time was that his home had seemed so inviting. Though the walk back to the house had only taken an hour, it had seemed like much, much longer. As it was, he’d had to prostrate himself, leaning on Isabelle so much that she’d almost fallen more than once, and though he was fairly certain that he’d put an unwelcome strain on her, she hadn’t complained even once.

Isabelle uttered a sharp little whimper and rushed around to help him shift to the side so that he could pull his arm out from underneath himself. His legs kept alternating between numbness and mind-boggling pains that shot straight to his brain. He couldn’t stand the nagging condemnations that kept chasing themselves around his mind. He knew his limitations; he should have realized that he would end up this way. As the excruciating pains rattled through him—pains so bad that his vision blurred and darkened around the edges as he held his breath and willed the ache to pass—he berated himself silently for his own perceived stupidity. He’d been careless, taking off without his cane, too angry to think in any sort of rational terms, and by the time his head had cleared enough for him to realize what he was doing, it had been too late.

Satisfied that he was comfortable—at least for the moment—Isabelle hurried off toward the kitchen, mumbling something to him about ‘staying put’. He sighed. He couldn’t move, so the question of staying put was a bit arbitrary, wasn’t it, and he couldn’t repress the soft groan that slipped from him as he gave up on the notion of making his body cooperate. Half-numb from the cold and completely exhausted, the effort he’d expended during the walk home was taking a huge toll on him, and even the welcome warmth of the living room did little to break through the permanent chill that had set into his very bones.

All in all, he supposed he was probably the sorriest sight, ever, and that just figured. He’d realized long ago that the scar tissue that covered his body also hindered his circulation, and he had to grit his teeth to keep them from chattering, unable to summon the strength to reach for the blanket that he kept neatly folded over the back of the sofa.

It was his own fault, wasn’t it? Anger had never been a good emotion for him, and while he had spent hundreds of years honing his ability to let things slide, in this one instance . . .

The simple memories of the questions and the accusations in Mamoruzen Inutaisho’s gaze were still enough to infuriate him, and while he could appreciate the need to protect one that he considered his own, that didn’t mean that Griffin was going to forget the confrontation, either. As far as Griffin was concerned, Mamoruzen hadn’t had any right at all in approaching Griffin in his own territory and demanding answers to anything, and Isabelle . . .

He’d been a little angry with her, too, at least at the beginning. After all, if it weren’t for her, there wouldn’t have been an intruder infringing on his domain, would there? If it hadn’t been for the look of absolute outrage on her face as she stepped between the two of them, he might have believed that she’d orchestrated the entire affair. Every time he’d thought about the pup’s brass, he grew just a little more irritated, and as his irritation grew, he’d found himself moving faster and faster through the trees. On the one hand, he’d been too angry to notice the first few twinges of pain that normally served as a warning that he needed to stop pushing himself. On the other . . . he’d shaken his head and kept moving. ‘To hell with the other hand,’ he’d fumed . . .

As he’d stormed along the trail that normally soothed him, he’d come to realize on some level that Isabelle really hadn’t intend to do any such thing. She was too outspoken, too direct to lower herself to sneaking about and setting him up in such a fashion. He knew that, didn’t he? He knew her, and while he wished he could say that she’d known, he knew deep down that she hadn’t. She had been to quick to jump between them; too flustered for her reaction to have been feigned. The truth of it was that she’d been just as upset in her own right as he was, hadn’t she, and that knowledge did serve to pacify him a little bit, though he would bite his tongue off before he ever admitted why . . .

‘You forgave her for her part in it fairly easily, didn’t you? Interesting, Griffin . . . very interesting . . . Admit it, can’t you? You really don’t mind having her around . . . and you’re a sucker for those big golden eyes of hers . . .’

Grimacing at the disquieting notion presented by his youkai blood, Griffin grunted as Charlie hopped onto the sofa only to flop down on his feet, sending another round of dull, aching pains shooting through his body. He groaned and tried to move his feet but gave up without much of a struggle. ‘”Get off me,” he muttered, loathing his inability to force the animal to comply. Froofie whined at him but wagged his tail once, twice, before letting his muzzle drop into the shallow vale between his paws. ‘She didn’t have that much of a ‘part’ in it.’

‘I’m not saying that’s bad. You’re right, after all. She didn’t. Still . . .’

He narrowed his eyes and scowled at the dog that ignored him completely. ‘Still what?’

‘Still . . . She’s getting to you, and don’t try to deny it. The reason you forgave her without question was because you don’t want to blame her, in the first place.’

‘. . . No, the reason I forgave her is because she didn’t want him showing up and nosing around. She might be a lot of things, but she isn’t sneaky. She never has been . . .’

‘And you’re defending her.’

He grunted but didn’t answer as the woman in question hurried back into the room with a steaming mug of tea and a couple slices of buttered toast and set them aside before turning to face him, the light of determination adding a glow to her . . .

He grunted, unable to reconcile what saw with what he knew. She looked completely normal at first glance, but she wasn’t; not at all. Shaking his head slightly, he gaped at her for several seconds before narrowing his eyes with an calculated scowl. All at once, he noticed a few things that he should have sensed but hadn’t before; things like her diminished scent, the conspicuous lack of her youki . . . and her eyes: they were blue. Her claws were gone, replaced by entirely normal looking human fingernails, and when she tucked her hair behind her ear, he wasn’t surprised to see the softly rounded edge. His scowl deepened as he struggled to sit up. She hurried forward to help him as he lifted his hand to fend her off before turning his glower on her. “You’re human,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

She shrugged offhandedly and crouched beside him, taking the mug and holding onto it until she was certain that he had a firm grip on it. “Yeah, it happens,” she said in a carefully contrived show of nonchalance.

He snorted, sipping the tea before he trusted himself to speak again. Torn between the irritation that he hadn’t noticed sooner and the sickened heaviness that weighed down on him that she would come after him in that state, Griffin latched onto the first of those emotions. Irritation was so much easier to deal with, wasn’t it, because the latter would only lead to more guilt; guilt over the idea that in her weakened state, anything could have happened. She could have gotten lost, she could have stumbled and fallen. Hell, he’d nearly crushed her, hadn’t he? Leaning on her for support the entire way home . . . ‘Damn it,’ he thought as the sickened feeling spread, rose in his throat to choke him. ‘Damn, damn, damn, damn . . .’ So many things could have come to pass, and while he knew that he should be grateful that nothing had, he couldn’t help the bitter recrimination that his impulsive actions could have resulted in something far, far worse . . .

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” he demanded, his tone a little angrier than he’d intended.

“What do you mean, what did I think I was doing? I thought it’d be a wonderful time to take a walk in the woods,” she replied.

“Don’t be cute, Jezebel,” he growled, wishing that she’d be serious, just one time.

She shot him a brilliant smile. “You think I’m cute?”

He snorted loudly and pinned her with an irate sort of glower—highly ineffective since he was still unable to stand up. “Didn’t your parents ever tell you that you shouldn’t be out wandering around when you’re weak and vulnerable?”

Her laughter rang out as she waved a hand in a helpless sort of way. “I’m neither weak nor vulnerable, Dr. Marin,” she replied.

“Your amusement is sorely misplaced,” he growled.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding less-than-apologetic.   At least she tried to curb her laughter, even if she did fail miserably.

“Oh? Then what do you call it?”

“Call what?”

He rolled his eyes. It occurred to him that she tended to be awfully flighty, given that she was a doctor . . . “Being human.”

“Oh, that . . .” she drawled, sitting back on her heels and tapping her chin thoughtfully. “That’s just a minor inconvenience.”

“Minor inconvenience?” he echoed incredulously. “A mosquito bite in the summer is a minor inconvenience. A mile-long line at the checkout is a minor inconvenience. Being forced to sit in traffic during rush hour is a minor inconvenience. Being human when you’re normally hanyou is definitely not a minor inconvenience.”

“And here I thought you didn’t care,” she teased.

Stifling a sigh and shaking his head since he had a feeling that she just wasn’t going to listen to reason, Griffin wrinkled his nose and snorted. “Go change before you freeze,” he muttered, glowering at the darkened patches on her pale blue jeans. “What’d you do? Roll around in the snow?”

Her smile was wan at best but genuine. “Worried about me, Dr. G? Careful or I’ll start to believe that you’re not as averse to me as you’ve led me to believe.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he grumbled, cheeks pinking despite his resolve not to blush. “You smell like a wet dog; that’s all.”

She giggled and shook her head as she reached for his hand and tugged. He gave a token resistance—he really didn’t have enough energy to offer much more, and in the end, he could only watch as she turned his hand over and gently grasped his wrist.   Flipping her arm to shake back her sleeve, she took his pulse and sighed. “Your pulse is a little erratic,” she said in an almost accusing tone.

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, finally managing to pull his arm away.

She spared a moment to eye him before standing up to retrieve the blanket and shake it out. The added warmth was welcome, and he finished off the tea while Isabelle dropped more wood on the fire. Scowling at his twitching legs, he gritted his teeth and willed them to be still. It didn’t work. The nerves and the muscles seemed to be acting according to laws of their own. It wasn’t often that his body reacted so badly, and normally only after he’d pushed himself beyond the limitations that he’d grown to live with. The aches that accompanied the overexertion seeped into his very bones; pain borne of loss and of fire and of blood . . .

The coolness of Isabelle’s hand startled him, and he jerked away. She didn’t comment, simply following him to feel his forehead, reaching down with her other hand to take the empty mug, her eyes clouded with obvious concern. “I’m fine,” he grumbled, knocking her hand away again.

“I think you should let me take a look at you,” she said slowly, ambivalently, as though she expected him to argue with her.

“No.”

She sighed and shook her head, her jaw tightening as an unmistakable stubbornness entered her gaze. “I’m going to go get you another mug of tea. Froofie, keep Griffin warm, will you?” she said at last. The idiot dog barked in reply. “Take your shirt off.”

Snorting loudly, he cast her a withering glower that had absolutely no effect since she was already disappearing into the kitchen and didn’t see it.

‘Oh, that’s just not happening,’ he fumed as he struggled to sit up, to get to his feet. If he could just make it into his bedroom, he could lock her out, couldn’t he? There was no way, come hell or high water, that he was going to take anything off, damn it . . .

His legs felt leaden, throbbing with the awful aches that emanated from the jagged scars that traversed his hips. Pushing himself into an upright position left him struggling to breathe, and he couldn’t make his legs move to save his soul. He couldn’t summon the strength necessary to pull his feet out from under Charlie, much less retreat to the sanctity of his bedroom for the duration . . .

She hurried out of the kitchen with the refilled mug in her hands and a suspect-looking black leather bag slung over her shoulder. A strange sort of trepidation prickled at his spine, and he slowly shook his head. He couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever was in that bag could not be good, and when she clapped eyes on him only to raise her eyebrows in silent question, her eyes darkening as she accepted whatever challenge she’d perceived, he couldn’t help the belligerent little frown that surfaced on his face—and he couldn’t help the unsettling feeling that he was little more than a cub in her eyes—and that he’d just been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar . . .

“You really must be out of sorts if you can’t take off your own shirt,” she commented rather mildly as she set the mug on the coffee table and lifted her leg to balance the black bag on her knee.

Eyeing her suspiciously as she rummaged around for . . . something . . . Griffin crossed his arms over his chest and pasted on his most formidable scowl. “Forget it, Jezebel. I’m on to you.”

Pausing with her hands stuffed inside the bag and peering down at him with her chin lowered, she blinked a few times as a smile quirked the corners of her lips. “As much as I’d love to see you without your shirt on, I assure you this is entirely on the up-and-up,” she teased.

Griffin snorted but couldn’t quite keep the hot flow of color from staining his cheeks. “I wasn’t thinking that,” he grouched. “Just goes to show that you have a dirty mind.”

“Clean is boring,” she maintained, tugging a lurid purple stethoscope from her bag of tricks. “Anyway, we can do this the easy way or the hard way, but one way or the other, I’m going to check you out.”

“Leave me alone, girly. I don’t need your diagnosis.”

“Griffin, you were out in the elements for hours, and I know damn well that you’re having some sort of trouble with your legs. Now let me give you a check up or—”

He narrowed his eyes. “Or what?” he rumbled.

She narrowed her eyes in return. “Or I’ll force you to.”

He couldn’t help the incredulous grunt at her claim. Pulling together what was left of his bravado, he pushed himself up and shook his head. “No.”

Isabelle opened her mouth to argue with him but snapped it closed and whipped around when the telephone rang. It took her a minute to locate it since she’d never paid much attention to it before. “You mean it wasn’t just for show?” she tossed over her shoulder as she strode over to answer it.

“Let it ring,” he growled, knowing damn well that there were only two people in the world who would bother to call him, and not wanting her Isabelle to speak to either of them.

She ignored him and grabbed the receiver, anyway. “Listen, you—” he began only to be cut off when she shushed him and pressed the receiver to her ear.

“Hello . . .? Me? Oh, I’m Isabelle . . .” She winked at him. He snorted. “Griffin?   Yes, of course he’s here. Let me take the phone to him . . .”

He almost breathed a sigh of relief when she started to amble toward him, figuring that wasn’t nearly as bad as he had thought it was going to be. Then she stopped in the center of the room just out of his reach and giggled. “You don’t say . . . he’s really talked about me? Good things, I hope . . .”

He stifled a groan, slapping a hand over his eyes as he let his head fall against the back of the sofa.

“. . . Attean? That’s an unusual name. It sounds very exotic . . .”

‘This . . . cannot be happening,’ Griffin told himself, splaying his fingers so that he could peer through them without lowering his hand.

“As beautiful as my voice? Isn’t that a little cliché, Attean-san?” She giggled. “Oh, no . . . he thinks I have a fat ass . . . Well, of course I do . . .”

Griffin groaned and smashed his fists into the cushions, swinging his legs off the sofa with a wince as Charlie hopped up and darted away, startled at the sudden movement. A low growl erupted in Griffin’s throat as he struggled to get to his feet, to no avail. An insular thought echoed through his head over and over: he had to get the telephone away from Isabelle before she thoroughly humiliated him.

“Just a moment, please.” Isabelle lowered the receiver and pinned him with a no-nonsense look. “And what do you think you’re doing? Lie back down. I’m not finished with you yet.”

The growl escalated into a low rumble as Griffin renewed his efforts, gritting his teeth against the thousand stabs of dulled pain that shot up his uncooperative legs. “Give me the damn phone,” he ground out, swiping his cheek against his shoulder impatiently to wipe away the sweat that accompanied his overexertion.

She clucked her tongue and shook her head but lifted the receiver back to her ear. “It was very nice chatting with you, but Griffin wants the telephone . . . Oh, no, the pleasure was all mine . . . Tell me, have you known Griffin very long?”

He managed to heft his ass off the sofa but groaned as he fell back, his breathing ragged and uneven, closing his eyes as the willed the room to stop spinning around him. He was going to make himself physically ill if he weren’t careful, and the idea of that was just completely unacceptable . . .

The thump of the phone receiver dropping into his lap registered in his brain though it took another moment to muster the strength to grope around for it since he wasn’t quite up to opening his eyes yet. Isabelle’s cool, soft palm pressed against his forehead as the sofa sagged just a little, enough to let him know that she’d sat down beside him. He tried to knock her hand away but only succeeded in waving his hand around in a vague sort of way. Cursing his physical limitations, he forced his eyes open, swallowing hard as bile rose in his throat and brought the receiver to his ear with a shaky hand, leaning away from Isabelle’s persistent touch.

“Call back later,” he bit out, wincing inwardly at the hollow, weary sound of his own voice.

“Ah, Griffin . . . you don’t sound like yourself.”

Griffin grunted, scowling at Isabelle as she leaned over him to grab the bag she’d set on the floor before answering the telephone. “It’s been—Hey! Get your fat ass off me, will you?” he growled, feebly pushing on Isabelle’s shoulder as she rose up on her knees to lean further in her attempt to snare the bag.

She shot him a somewhat droll glance over her shoulder and smiled just a little as she wiggled her backside in mocking contention. Stretching just a little bit more, she managed to catch the bag’s strap, and with a smug sort of grin, she pushed herself back up and off Griffin, though not before nearly smashing her breasts into his face in the process.

“She’s . . . on . . . you?” Attean asked between strategically placed coughs.

Griffin opened and closed his mouth a few times, his throat gone dry as he tried not to stare at the parts of the woman that she’d so shamelessly flaunted before him. Even wrapped in the soft yarn of the pale blue angora sweater she wore, her curves were far too noticeable, and Griffin . . . Griffin was noticing, all right . . .

“Griffin . . .? Are you there?”

“Wh-what?” he said, his tone more than a little distracted as he watched Isabelle dig into the bag for something else he’d probably rather not see. His doubts were confirmed when she produced an ear thermometer and fiddled with the disposable cap.

Attean laughed. “I daresay that your Isabelle is a fascinating woman.”

That snapped him out of his reverie quickly enough, and he uttered an indelicate snort as his cheeks shot up in flames. The only saving grace in the situation was that Isabelle hadn’t noticed Griffin’s rapt attention, but Attean had, and in many ways, that was probably worse. “No, she’s not,” he growled, “and she’s definitely not ‘mine’.”

“I could be,” she interjected casually.

He snorted, stubbornly shaking his head. “No, you couldn’t.”

“All you have to do is say the word, Dr. G.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, hoping—praying—that she’d get the hint and shut the hell up.

“I’m sure that Maria will look forward to meeting her,” Attean said.

Grimacing since Maria probably would enjoy meeting Isabelle, Griffin uttered an exasperated growl. “Don’t drag her into this.”

Attean chuckled. “In any case, I wanted to let you know that I got a phone call yesterday. Seems that one of Zelig’s people is asking questions about your past.”

“Yeah, I—” Griffin sighed then grunted when Isabelle stuck the stupid thermometer into his ear without as much as a warning. “What are you doing?” he grouched, leaning to the side to avoid the ear probe.

Isabelle raised an eyebrow and leaned in close, grabbing his earlobe firmly and reinserting the thermometer. “What do you think? Now hold still.”

He narrowed his gaze but let her have her way since he knew damn well that she wasn’t going to give up and since it really wasn’t hurting him, even if he did find it slightly humiliating. Being talked to like he was a child . . . he had half a mind to—

“I told Myrna that I had not heard of you. I just thought you should know about this.”

“Myrna?” he echoed as the thermometer beeped softly in his ear. Isabelle sat back to read it while Griffin covered his ear and rubbed. “Myrna who?”

“Myrna Loy . . . She used to work for Jeb Christopher years ago—at least, she did until Zelig’s son took out the entire organization . . . The Onyx, they were called . . .”

“And now she works for him?”

Griffin could hear the rapid tapping of Attean’s pen against the desk. “Something like that, though from what I’ve heard, it wasn’t exactly voluntary . . . Anyway, I’m not certain she’s going to give up on this. We managed to bury all traces that would lead back to your past, but . . .”

Grunting his acknowledgement, Griffin rolled his eyes when Isabelle tugged his arm down, unbuttoning the wrist band to push his sleeve up out of the way before she wrapped the blood pressure cuff around it. “Cut it out, girly,” he growled, trying in vain to shake her off.

“I’m just checking your blood pressure,” she argued, frowning at his bared forearm.

He grimaced at the livid purple scars that she’d uncovered and tried to shake his sleeve back down. Isabelle reached out to stop him, snagging the blood pressure cuff under her arm as she pushed his sleeve higher. He opened his mouth to tell her once more to knock it off. Attean’s voice stopped him.

“Griffin? Are you listening to anything I’ve said?”

Heaving a sigh, Griffin caught the phone between his ear and shoulder so that he could try to fend Isabelle off. It almost worked—almost—but he was at his limit. Between the confrontation with Mamoruzen Inutaisho and the overexertion of his walk, he just didn’t have the strength to fight her, and with a mutinous glower designed to let her know just what he thought of her overbearing attention, he stuck his arm out, figuring that the sooner he let her do it, the sooner she’d leave him alone. “Never mind,” he said with a shake of his head. “I know who put her up to it.”

“So this isn’t a new development?”

“No.” Lowering the receiver for a moment, Griffin frowned pointedly at the device as Isabelle squeezed the bulb that inflated the cuff around his arm. “That’s not going to—”

The end of the cuff gave with a loud rip as the Velcro that held it in place tore open, and Isabelle jerked back in surprise. He was going to tell her that the cuff she was trying to use wasn’t nearly big enough. Sure, it probably fit most people, but Griffin was a bear-youkai, and because of that, he was just a little larger than most of her normal patients . . .

She grinned and pulled the cuff back into place, tugging the end a little bit tighter around his arm and pressing it into place a little more securely.

“You’re wasting your time if you think—”

She waved a hand and glanced at her watch. “Talk to your friend . . . it’s rude to ignore him.”

He snorted at the set-down, but couldn’t help but feel a little sanctified when the cuff ripped open once more. With a sigh, she gave up, pulling the device off his arm and stowing it back in the bag.

“And she doesn’t fear you, I take it?” Attean asked, his tone thoughtful—too thoughtful.

Griffin made a face. “Hardly. She doesn’t have the common sense that God gave a billy goat.”

Attean chuckled. “Of course not. Come to think of it, neither did Maria.”

That didn’t sit well with Griffin, either. Attean had said once that he’d taken Maria to be his mate because she hadn’t listened the myriad of times that he’d told her that she didn’t want to be with someone like him—hanyou; not accepted by the youkai of the times, and certainly not accepted by the humans of his tribe. She had ignored his objections, and eventually Attean had caved in.

“Did you want to tell me anything else?” he asked, brushing aside the disquieting thoughts.

Attean chuckled. “No, but I have to admit; this is one of the most . . . enlightening conversations that we’ve had in a very long while.”

Griffin started to retort but was cut off when Isabelle tugged on the front of his shirt. She was frowning in intense concentration, working at unbuttoning his shirt with her far-too-nimble fingers. “What do you think you’re doing?” he snapped, jerking away from her and nearly falling off the sofa for his efforts as his face bloomed in a hideous shade of crimson.

“What does it look like? I told you, I’m going to give you an examination,” she replied calmly.

“The hell you are,” he snarled. “I mean it!”

She shook her head slowly and gave him a look that pronounced her belief that he was being stubborn for no good reason. “The shy act is cute; really it is, but it’s not going to work. Now let me take your shirt off—”

“Keep your paws to yourself,” he growled, pushing her hands away for the second time. He dropped the phone without a second thought, too concerned with Isabelle’s insistence that he take off his shirt—something that he was not—was not—going to cooperate with. “No.”

“Don’t be silly!” she chided, leaning in to reach for his shirt again. He slapped her hands away, his scowl darkening, and if she had any common sense at all, she’d back off and leave well enough alone.

“I. Said. No,” he ground out, crossing his arms over his chest.

She sighed. “Look, Griffin, I’ve seen hundreds of naked men—maybe thousands. I’m a doctor, remember?”

“I don’t care if you’re a holly, jolly elf! I’m not taking my shirt—or anything else—off, so forget it.”

Her lips twitched despite the hint of exasperation evident in the tightness lingering around her eyes. “It’s not a big deal,” she insisted with a sigh. “I’ve seen everything there is to see! Everything you’ve got, I’ve seen before, so—”

The low growl that had started just after her assertion that it was ‘not a big deal’ cut off abruptly as he shook his head again. “What part of ‘no’ wasn’t clear to you?”

“Do you have a penis?” she asked suddenly, eyebrows disappearing under her golden bronze bangs.

“Wh—I—You—Of course I do!” he spat, his face flaming and unable to staunch the flow of blood that was gathering under his skin. “And my . . . p-p-penis is none of your business!”

She waved a hand airily. “And I say if you’ve seen one penis, you’ve seen them all—and let me tell you, I’ve seen a lot of penises . . . circumcised, uncircumcised . . . flubbed circumcisions . . . big ones, little ones, ones that lean to the right, ones that lean to—”

“All right!” he snarled, voice rising as the explosion of blood in his face made his eyes feel as though they were going to pop right out of his skull. “I don’t care how many penises you’ve seen, Jezebel; you aren’t seeing this one!”

“Oh, please! I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of this! You act like you’ve never let a woman even look at your—” Cutting herself off abruptly, her eyes rounded as her mouth formed an incredulous ‘oh’, and she nodded ever so slowly. The surging blood felt like it was trying to seep out of Griffin’s very pores, and he snorted indelicately, avoiding looking directly at her. “That’s it, isn’t it? You never have let a woman see your . . .” She gasped, hands flying up to cover her gaping maw as her eyes widened incredulously and she choked on a giggle. “You’re a virgin!”

And if he’d actually thought that he couldn’t be any more embarrassed, he learned in that instant that it was entirely possible. The furious surge of heat and color infiltrating his skin was rapidly approaching critical, and he growled in abject frustration, pushing her hands away again. “It’s none of your business,” he ground out, forcing himself to his feet despite the pain that reverberated through him. He managed to stumble a few steps before jamming his foot against the coffee table. Isabelle caught him before he fell and gently pushed him back down on the sofa, her amusement fading as quickly as it had surfaced, much to Griffin’s unabashed relief. He could hear the distinct sound of Attean’s muffled laughter, and with a menacing growl, he snatched up the receiver and clicked the button to disconnect the call.

“I wasn’t trying to embarrass you,” Isabelle said softly, shaking her head and heaving a sigh as though she were suddenly infinitely weary. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear that she actually sounded sincere. Too bad he was onto her and her wicked, wicked ways . . .

“Leave me alone,” he said, dropping the phone onto the floor and refusing to meet her stare.

“No, I mean it . . . I was just surprised; that’s all.”

“Surprised?” he growled. “Yeah . . . not that surprising, right? There’s not a woman in her right mind that would want to . . . It’s none of your business,” he stated once more. “Forget it.”

She was silent for a long minute, as though pondering the things he hadn’t meant to admit. He was almost convinced that she was going to remain silent. He was wrong about that, too. “It’s not true, you know,” she said quietly, drawing her feet up onto the sofa and wrapping her arms around her ankles.

“What’s not?” he demanded absently, almost grudgingly, rubbing his thighs as he willed the resounding pain to lessen.

She shrugged, and he felt her sigh more than heard it. More of a shrug than a breath, she dropped her chin onto her knees and smiled sadly. “What you said about women not wanting to be with you . . . it’s not true, at all.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. The acute embarrassment of her quiet admission was lost under the tide of color that had yet to recede.

Isabelle wasn’t finished. “I’d feel better if you’d just let me take a look at you, and don’t tell me that your legs aren’t bothering you because I won’t believe you . . . but if you don’t want me to give you a check up, then I’ll respect your wishes. Would you just . . .?”

“Just what?” he demanded a little sharper than he meant to when she trailed off.

She sighed, turning her face, resting her cheek on her knees as she stared into the dancing flames on the hearth. “Don’t try to hide it from me anymore . . . when you’re in pain . . . okay?”

Griffin finally looked at her and frowned when he noticed the unnatural brightness in her gaze. She wasn’t crying, no, but she was close, and with a start, he understood. She’d known all along, hadn’t she? All those times he’d tried to hide it from her, and she’d known . . .

He grimaced inwardly, wondering if he was really that bad in hiding his feelings.

‘You’re not bad at it, no, but don’t you understand? She senses it, even if she doesn’t see it . . . That’s how she knows . . .’

‘She . . . knows . . .?’

‘Of course she does. It’d be weird if she didn’t.’

Griffin’s gaze shifted to the blazing fire, and he sighed, too. The silence that had fallen was not unkind, lulled by a certain resignation that he could only grasp on the basest of levels . . .

She sighed, too, and he could feel her quiet determination filling the air, ebbing and flowing like a viable thing.

“All right,” he agreed softly. “I . . . I . . . won’t . . .”

Chapter Text

“If you do it, you’ll be sorry.”

Isabelle hefted the snowball in her hand and shot Griffin her most winning smile. “How sorry, Dr. Marin?”

He snorted, still staring at her out of the corner of his eye. “Very.”

“Hmm, I’m not sure that’s enough to stop me,” she said as Froofie ran around her feet, yapping like crazy.

“Speaks volumes for your level of intelligence.”

She laughed. It was easy to laugh, she supposed. The sun was shining, and everything felt normal again—a welcome change from the worry that had plagued her for the last couple of days while Griffin had been recuperating. It hadn’t set well with her that he’d been hard-pressed to move off the sofa the day after she’d found him in the woods, but the more she tried to check him over, the more closed-off he became. In the end, she’d just done what she could by bringing him tea and making sure that he was comfortable enough—more difficult than it sounded since he hadn’t seemed to be able to get comfortable, at all.

His situation had really bothered her the following morning when he hadn’t seemed much better off. He’d even called in to cancel his class for the day—something that he never did. In the end, she’d called her father on her lunch break to ask him a few things.

“Baby Belle,” he’d greeted, his tone warm and welcome and strong. “I’m glad you called.”

“Me, too, Papa . . . I wanted to ask you something . . .” she’d said, frowning thoughtfully at the half-cold cheeseburger that she didn’t really want.

She heard the creak of his chair as he pushed away from his desk and paced around his study. In her mind’s eye, she could see him with his sleeve rolled up a couple of times, his hand stuffed casually into his pocket as he moved, his glasses reflecting the ambient light of his desk lamp, and she smiled wanly. How often had she played on the polished wood floor while he worked, while her mother read a magazine or talked quietly, recanting the events of the day for her mate’s delectation? He’d paused often to set his work aside, to smile indulgently at his wife and daughter. If she’d fallen asleep on the floor once, she’d done it a million times with Alexandra curled up beside her while Kichiro and Bellaniece worked.

“You sound serious . . . all right.”

She sighed, propping her elbow on the desk and rubbing her forehead with a weary hand. “I wondered . . . how is it possible for a youkai to scar?”

“Youkai scarring?” he echoed, his tone a little surprised by her question. “Huh . . . that’s pretty rare . . .”

“I know.”

He let out a deep breath. “I guess in theory, a youkai could scar in a few different ways . . . an infusion of spiritual power might react much like a cauterizing agent if the person who inflicts the injury has that sort of ability . . . If the wound was inflicted by a youkai whose strength significantly surpassed that of the one who was wounded . . .” His voice grew muffled as though he were covering his mouth with his hand. “Possibly if the youkai doesn’t feel he deserves to heal, that would do it, too . . .”

“How can that be?” she asked as her stomach lurched unpleasantly. She didn’t like any of the ideas presented, and yet who would know better than then acclaimed youkai researcher, Izayoi Kichiro?

He chuckled a little sadly. “Baby, you know better than most that there is a very strong connection between the psyche and the physical body of the youkai. That is why there’s no way to stop the physical deterioration of a youkai who loses his or her mate . . . The body just loses the will to fight regardless of how desperately the youkai might wish to survive.”

And she knew that, too, didn’t she? If a youkai’s true mate died or rejected them, it always—always—resulted in death. Her grandfather, as much as she adored him, had almost lost Gin that way. It’d taken so long for them to admit the truth to one another that Gin had nearly died . . . Still, that really didn’t have a thing to do with Griffin’s scarring, but she’d wanted answers . . . “Papa . . .” she began slowly, carefully striving for a calm, a detachment, that she certainly wasn’t feeling.

“Mmm?”

She licked her lips and sat back in her chair, letting her gaze wander out the window at the gently falling snow outside. “Scar tissue . . . if it’s bad enough, it could hinder certain functions, couldn’t it? Circulation or even gross motor skills . . .?”

“Well, sure . . . if the scarring is bad enough and in the wrong places, it could do some pretty excessive damage.”

She sighed again, nodding slowly, as though she thought that he could see her. “I thought so,” she allowed. “But that could be fixed, couldn’t it? Reconstructive surgery . . .?”

“In theory it could,” he agreed. “Then again, it also depends on the severity of the scarring and the initial scope of the damage that was done, to start with. Why the sudden interest in youkai scarring?”

Though he’d asked the question mildly enough, she didn’t miss the hint of forced nonchalance in his tone, either, and she cleared her throat. “I just wondered . . . for a patient . . .”

“A patient, huh?” He sighed. “Gotta tell you, though . . . the surgery can be damn expensive. If the scar tissue is really deep, it can take a number of surgeries to correct it.”

“I thought as much,” she allowed. “But if the scar tissue is old . . .? What then?”

“How old are we talking?”

“I . . . I don’t know . . .” Tapping her claws on the desk, she slowly shook her head. “I think he’s had it awhile . . . It’s just . . . it’s bad . . .”

“How bad?”

Letting out her breath in a rush, she sat up a little straighter and shoved the cheeseburger into the trashcan beside the desk. “Bad enough to give him problems . . . Messing up his circulation and drastically affecting his mobility.”

Kichiro cleared his throat as he considered what she’d said. “So it’s bad,” he murmured. “It’d be hard to say without seeing him personally, but if it’s bad enough that it’s affecting those things, then I’d say it should have been taken care of a long time ago. How did this guy get the scars?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” she admitted. “He, um . . . he won’t tell me.”

His silence was telling, and Isabelle grimaced. Cursing herself for letting that much slip, she wasn’t at all surprised when her father finally spoke.   “A patient, you say.”

“. . . Sort of . . .”

“Mmm.”

“Papa, it’s not like that, honestly . . . I just want to help him.”

“Why don’t you tell me what really happened?”

And she had, at least for the most part. She left out a few things, like Gunnar’s interference since it wouldn’t really do any good to dwell on. Kichiro had ascertained enough to get an accurate picture of the situation, anyway, and that was really all that mattered. As it was, he wouldn’t really be able to give her any solid advice unless he actually examined Griffin, and that, unfortunately, was something that just wasn’t going to happen.

She’d been surprised, all things considered, when she’d headed outside awhile ago to shovel the driveway behind her car. Griffin had followed her, obviously feeling much better, which relieved Isabelle more than she could credit. With a grunt and mumbling under his breath about worthless girlies who didn’t know the proper way to hold a shovel, he’d taken it from her and nudged her aside to finish the task despite her worries that he would aggravate his joints again. She’d cautiously voiced her concern one time and had gotten a narrow glare for her efforts.

But he seemed to be all right, she allowed as she watched him finish clearing away the snow. He knocked the end of the shovel against the now-cleared driveway and lumbered off to put it away as Isabelle set her snowball aside and scooped up another huge glob.

The snowball whizzed through the air seemingly out of nowhere, smacking into Isabelle’s arm as she let out a small shriek of surprise. Glancing around quickly, she spotted him—Griffin—leaning against the side of the house with an entirely smug look on his face. He wasn’t smiling, no, but he didn’t have to. His eyes were positively sparkling, and just for a moment, Isabelle couldn’t move; could only stare as the earth spun out of her control.

‘Devastating,’ she mused absently, unable to lend any real coherence to her jumbled thoughts. The way the sunlight reflected off the snow and pooled in his eyes . . . the wind blowing his shaggy bangs, lifting it on invisible fingers . . . the slight pinkness in his cheeks, undoubtedly from the chill in the air . . . and just this once, he didn’t seem to be uncomfortable with himself or with the world at large. No, he was a beautiful creature, as untouchable as he was mysterious, and Isabelle . . . She loved him, didn’t she? Loved him more than she’d ever loved anything, ever . . .

“You’re supposed to dodge it, Jezebel,” he murmured, his voice carrying to her despite the trademark quietness of his voice.

“W-was I?” she asked, her tone breathless as she stared at him.

“Yes, you were,” he maintained, pushing himself away from the building and making his way along the cleared driveway toward the mailbox.

‘It’s just not fair,’ she thought with a soft sigh as she watched him go. ‘He shouldn’t be able to get to me so easily, should he?’

‘And that’s a bad thing?’ her youkai demanded. ‘You’ve got to be kidding . . . it’d be weird if he didn’t make you feel that way, you know. Lusting after the man you want to have as your mate isn’t necessarily a bad thing . . .’

‘My mate,’ she thought with a secretive little smile. ‘I like that . . .’

‘Yes, well, don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. You’ve still got to convince him that he wants that, too.’

‘Oh, I don’t know . . . I think he’s coming around,’ she mused as she took careful aim.

‘Now, this isn’t a good idea . . .’

‘This is a great idea . . . after all, he did it first, didn’t he?’

With that thought, she let the snowball fly. Griffin’s head snapped to the side when the snowball struck him on the arm, his gaze moving deliberately slowly as he lifted his eyes to meet hers. His expression was inscrutable despite the heightened glow in his eyes, and she felt her breath catch yet again.

Stuffing the mail into the pocket of the oversized red and black quilted flannel jacket he wore, he paused long enough to scoop up a handful of snow—much, much more than she could have picked up with one hand—and packed the snow between his huge palms. Isabelle was faster, though, snatching up the snowball she’d already made and whipping it at him before he got a chance to retaliate.

It hit him in the middle of his chest as he stalked toward her with the light of mayhem bright in his eyes. He didn’t say a word as he kept moving toward her.

With a yelp, she turned on her heel to dash away but not before Griffin’s snowball hit her in the leg. If he’d packed it very much, she couldn’t tell because it broke apart easily on impact as she twisted her torso to heave another snowball at him. He smacked it away like he would a fly in the summer, and somewhere along the way he’d managed to scoop together another massive handful of snow.

“Bad aim, Jezebel?” he taunted.

She wrinkled her nose and stooped to gather more ammunition.

“Here,” he said, digging a bright red envelope out of his pocket. “This is for you . . . who’d you give my address to?”

Sparing the envelope little more than a cursory glance as Griffin turned it over to examine the handwriting, Isabelle took the opportunity to slip behind him. Reaching up to drop a chunk of snow neatly down the back of his shirt, she laughed and darted away as Griffin swung his arm to catch her.

“What’s the matter, Pooh Bear? Jezebel a little too quick for you?” she goaded.

He narrowed his gaze and uttered a curt grunt, catching the envelope between his teeth so he could shake the snow out of his shirt. Satisfied that he’d gotten it out, he packed the snow he still held tightly before whipping it at her. She barely had time to raise her arms before the snow smacked into her. If she had been a little slower, she’d have ended up with a mouthful of snow for her efforts . . .

“Oh, so that’s how you want to do this,” she said, lowering her arms and cocking an eyebrow at him as she slowly bent down to scoop up another handful of snow.

“That’s what happens when you don’t play nice,” he informed her, pulling the envelope out of his mouth and sticking a corner of it into the snow as he smashed together another snowball.

“Bring it, big boy,” she retorted.

“I think I might,” he grumbled, shoving the new snowball at her without straightening his back.

She dodged that one easily enough and sprinted toward him, catching the neck of his shirt and shoving the snow down his back yet again, only this time, she laughed loudly, smashing the snow under his shirt and coat as he growled and tried to jerk away from her. She held on tight, and he retaliated, catching her ankle and jerking her feet out from under her before straddling her to pin her in place. “Griffin!” she squeaked, shoving at him in a vain effort to dislodge him. Her short coat rode up; her back was fast numbing from the snow beneath her. Griffin shot her a droll sort of look and leaned down, extending his arms out at his sides, only to bring them up, smashing the snow around her like he was going to bury her.

“Never learned that you ought not to tease a bear?” he asked as he scooped more snow together with his arms.

“It’s cold!” she protested, unable to keep from giggling as he packed snow in around her.

“Good. Maybe next time you’ll think twice before deciding you can take me on.”

“But you started it!”

“That’ll never hold up in a court of law.”

Her laughter died as quickly as it had come, though, when he rose up on his knees and leaned forward, so intent on burying her that he wasn’t really paying attention to anything else. Staring up at him, she gasped softly. His face was mere inches from hers though his gaze was trained above her head as he supported his weight on one hand and piled more snow around her.

He was close enough that she could feel the waves of heat radiating through his clothes, close enough that she could feel the welcome caress of his youki on hers. The cold seemed to fade from her mind as she stared at him, as she drank in the sight of him, committing this moment to memory. The heady wash of emotion that coursed through her made her grit her teeth to keep from moaning, and as if he could sense the unsettled feelings inundating her, he dropped his gaze suddenly to meet hers.

The determination in his eyes faded slowly, only to be replaced by a troubled sort of light that whispered to her soul, and while she knew that he really didn’t understand exactly what he was feeling, she could sense that he realized on some level that she felt it, too.

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the almost desperate action, and he shook his head slightly, as though he were trying to clear his mind. His dark eyes glowed with open admiration—something he normally sought to hide from her—as he licked his lips, as he uttered a sound: not quite a groan, not quite a growl—a possessive sound, wholly foreign coming from Griffin, and completely welcome to her. Closing her eyes as a tumultuous tremor raced up her spine, she lifted her hand to touch his right cheek, marveled at the smoothness of his skin despite the light sprinkling of stubble that had already started to grow back after his morning shave, and though he stiffened for a moment, he didn’t jerk away, and she couldn’t help the trembling smile that quirked on her lips as he unconsciously leaned into her touch.

‘Careful, Bitty . . . be careful,’ her youkai whispered.

Savoring the complete acceptance, she was loathe to acknowledge the interference. ‘. . . Careful?’

‘He’s still not ready,’ her youkai went on. ‘If you press him; if you push him . . .’

She reluctantly opened her eyes, and stifled a sigh. Griffin had his eyes closed, his expression a heartbreaking mix of contentment and longing, and she bit her lip. As much as she wished it were otherwise, her youkai was right . . . Though he might welcome her attention at the moment, in the end, it’d only serve to make him raise his defenses that much more, wouldn’t it?

It was enough to make her want to scream, really. They were close—so close, and . . . and she sighed. “Griffin?” she said softly, letting her hand fall away as she told herself that she really was doing the right thing.

He didn’t respond right away, and she had a feeling that he really hadn’t heard her. “Griffin,” she said again, a little louder this time though not by much.

He finally opened his eyes very slowly, his gaze unfocused and a little bemused. She forced a smile, willing her pulse to slow, willing her body to relax before he discerned exactly how badly she wanted him, but she had to clear her throat before she could speak. “It’s starting to snow again.”

He blinked as his eyebrows drew together in a scowl, and as his eyes cleared, she wasn’t surprised to see a tide of color blossom in his cheeks. He jerked upright, as though he’d been scalded. The sudden loss of his body heat hit her hard, and she shivered.

He snorted, his scowl darkening as the ruddy hue deepened, and he pushed himself to his feet before grabbing her hands and pulling her up, too. He let go about the moment she was standing, though, and she stifled another sigh as he shook his head, mumbling about getting inside before she froze.

She hung back as he trudged toward the porch, watching him go as he carefully stomped his feet to knock off the excess snow. The memory of the expression on his face haunted her, hanging onto the edges of her mind as she shook her head and tried to tell herself that she’d done the right thing. It was one thing to know that her youkai had been right. It was another thing, entirely, to convince herself that she really didn’t need to scream in frustration.

‘Just remember, Bitty. Griffin’s worth it; you know he is.’

‘Yeah,’ she allowed but couldn’t quite muster the enthusiasm that she supposed her youkai wanted from her. ‘Yeah, he is. Of course he is . . .’

Spotting the scarlet envelope still sticking in the snow a few feet away, Isabelle let out a deep breath and stooped to pick it up. She didn’t recognize the handwriting, and she hadn’t given Griffin’s address to anyone, and even then, the card was addressed only to Isabelle—no last name—care of Dr. Griffin Marin. In fact, he went over to her house at least every couple of days to grab her mail so that no one grew suspicious unless they were watching her home.

With a mental shrug, she turned the envelope over and slipped her claw into the miniscule opening and sliced it open and pulled out the simple yet elegant Christmas card . . .

‘Dear Isabelle,

‘Hello, and please forgive my forward greeting. My husband, Attean told me of you but sadly did not have your last name. My name is Maria, and I am one of Osezno’s oldest friends. Attean says that you are staying with Osezno as his guest, and while this news is surprising, I cannot say it is unwelcome, either . . .’

Her eyes widened as she read the letter. She supposed that was normal enough, considering Griffin never talked about anyone, and while she wasn’t certain, the way Maria referred to this ‘Osezno’, Isabelle guessed that the woman was talking about Griffin . . .

‘I wanted to take the time to write to you in hopes that you can help him where Attean and I failed. That is to say, we tried to show Osezno many times that the way to live was not in dwelling in a past that cannot be changed, but in looking for the beauty of the future. Though he never told us exactly what happened, we understood that it was the past that burdened him, and I’m ashamed to say that while we did what we could to heal his broken body, there wasn’t much we could do to heal his broken spirit. Maybe this is something you can do. Attean tells me that Osezno talks to you in such a way that he has never heard before. This is good; very good, and I am glad that he has found someone after all.

‘He is precious to us, you see. He is the brother that Attean never had, and he is the prodigal son that I’ll never understand. I hope that after the passage of time that the nightmares that plagued him have stopped. I’ve always believed that they would if he would only open up and speak of them to someone; someone that he can trust . . .’

She frowned and bit her lip, brushing aside the snow that had fallen over Maria’s neat script. ‘Nightmares . . .?’ she mused absently. ‘Does he still have those . . .?’

A sudden chill ran up her spine, and Isabelle sighed. Why was it that she knew—just knew—that these nightmares that Maria spoke of hadn’t really gone away?

‘I hope that you can be patient with him, and that is the true reason I write this. I know better than anyone, just how stubborn Osezno can be. It is one of the things that I have always admired about him, for it has served him well in many things, but there are times when it is to his detriment, too. He wants to protect you, and that is something that Attean has always said is the gravest of vows to their kind. If this is true, then I am glad. It means that Osezno has finally found someone he can believe in, even if he doesn’t really believe in himself. While I wonder if this makes sense to you, it is something that I’ve always hoped he’d find.

‘I suppose that in the end, all I really wanted to say was that I hope you take good care of him. He’s been alone for far too long.

‘All the best,
‘Maria.’

Letting the card fold closed over her thumb, Isabelle pondered Maria’s words. Who was she, and what sort of relationship did Attean and she really have with Griffin? She talked about him in terms that made him sound like a mere child, and yet she knew better, didn’t she? He’d lived a long time, and while she didn’t know exactly how long that was, she did understand that he was probably older than even her grandfather, Cain . . .

‘Nightmares,’ she thought suddenly, frowning at the card she still held. Would he tell her if she asked him? She sighed. Probably not . . .

‘It means that Osezno has finally found someone he can believe in, even if he doesn’t really believe in himself . . .’

Wading through the two feet of snow that blanketed the ground, Isabelle trudged toward the house. Sure, she didn’t know what sort of things lingered out just out of his vision; didn’t begin to comprehend the things that still had the power to hurt him, and yet . . . and yet she couldn’t give up, either, could she? And if Maria was to be believed, then maybe she really was the only one who could help him . . .

The house was silent as she closed the door and leaned against the wall to tug off her boots, setting them carefully in the shallow plastic towel-lined tub that Griffin had set out when the first snow had started to fall. It wasn’t the first time she’d taken note of the almost compulsive neatness that he tended to ascribe to, and it made her smile. He’d already sopped up whatever mess he’d left; the softly shining wood floor was clean and dry, and pulling the small rag towel off the rack behind the door, she made quick work of cleaning up the few puddles of water left after she’d removed her boots, too.

She heard Froofie whining and ducked around the corner of the entryway to see why and smiled. The dog was lying on the floor outside the closed door to Griffin’s ‘lair’ with his muzzle in his paws, looking completely abandoned and inconsolable. It was easy to tell that the man in question had obviously disappeared down there and hadn’t taken the dog with him . . .

Turning back to the entry, she made quick work of hanging her coat on the hook beside Griffin’s flannel jacket and grabbed the card from the hallway table before padding through the house to try to console her dog.

‘Froofie isn’t nearly as glad to see me as he used to be,’ she thought as she dropped the card onto the dining room table. Lifting his head, he thumped his tail a couple of times against the floor but didn’t stand up to greet her. Little by little, Griffin was stealing her dog, she supposed, but since it was Griffin, she figured that was all right, too, and she smiled as she scratched Froofie behind the ears and stood up. “Maybe if you knocked, he’d let you in,” she stated.

Froofie cocked his head to the side as though he were considering Isabelle’s claim and slowly pushed against the floor with his front paws, rear end rising in the air as a huge yawn forced his mouth wide. Stretching done, he scratched at the door once, twice, and sat down to wait.

It worked like a charm. She heard Griffin’s heavy footsteps on the old wooden steps seconds before the door slowly opened wide enough to let Froofie in while Isabelle covered her lips with her hand to keep from giggling out loud. He peered around the door before closing it, pausing for a moment as his gaze flickered over her, and she wasn’t entirely surprised when his cheeks pinked then reddened though he didn’t turn and run away. “The notes are on my desk,” he muttered, scowling at the floor with the adorable tint of a blush still staining his cheeks. “Check them over, will you? There are a couple places where you need to figure out which translation is right before I can move on.”

“Okay,” she agreed amiably. “Griffin?”

He stopped and hesitantly met her gaze, his scowl deepening as more color infiltrated his skin. “What?”

Wisely holding back her amusement, Isabelle shrugged and tried to look innocent.   “Are you sure I can’t join you down there?”

He snorted. “Yes,” he said, pulling the door closed behind himself.

She listened to him descending the stairs and giggled. As predictable as ever, certainly, and yet she just loved to hear the responses she knew she was going to get.

Heaving a sigh as she glanced around the otherwise empty house, she bit her lip as a sense of loneliness swept over her. It wasn’t that she constantly needed to have someone there, no, but the house never ceased to feel so vacant whenever Griffin was closeted away in the basement . . . and maybe she was just needing a semblance of reassurance that he really wasn’t going to close her off again after the snowball fight outside . . . Either way, she couldn’t help the feeling of melancholy that clung to her when she stared at the closed basement door.

Another thought struck her as she stood, staring at the closed basement door. It’d never work, and she knew it wouldn’t. That didn’t mean that she should just give up, did it?

The humor of the situation didn’t go unnoticed, either, as she bit her lip and slipped over to the door.

‘You’ve got to be crazy if you think this might actually work,’ her youkai pointed out.

‘Don’t be so pessimistic . . . and even if it doesn’t work, it’s worth a try, don’t you think?’

‘If you say so, Bitty . . . I’ll give you points for effort . . .’

She couldn’t contain the smile that broke over her face as she raised her hand and scratched on the door. ‘It worked for Froofie, didn’t it . . .?’

‘You’re not your dog.’

She laughed and scratched once more for good measure, her smile widening when she heard the tell-tale creak of the steps moments later, and she stepped back to wait.

He did open the door and peer out at her, his expression unchanging as he slowly shook his head. Lifting his chin, he deliberately sniffed the air and snorted. “I don’t smell any testosterone, so forget it, Jezebel,” he said.

She tried not to smile. “I should hope not.”

That earned her a definitive grunt. “I told you, right? This is man’s domain,” he stated flatly.

“I know,” she agreed, clasping her hands behind her back.

“And you’re not a man,” he reasoned.

“Not the last time I checked, no . . .”

“So go away . . . find something . . . girly to do,” he grumbled.

“Okay, okay,” she hurried to say before he managed to close the door. “I’ll leave you alone, I swear, if you tell me what you’ve got down there.”

Griffin glanced over his shoulder, slowly shaking his head. “I’ve told you before; it’s none of your business.”

“Dead bodies?” she deadpanned.

“. . . Yes.”

“Nosy wenches?”

“. . . Yes.”

“Some sort of voodoo haven where you’re gathering your legions of undead minions?”

“Absolutely.”

“Can I help?”

“No.”

She broke into a smile. She couldn’t help it. Something about Griffin, standing in the doorway with a thoughtful scowl on his face as he readily agreed to the outrageous things she was saying . . . “Oh, come on, Griffin! You can’t keep me in the dark!” she complained.

“I can, and I am, and you can like it,” he informed her, a hint of smugness seeping into his expression as he crossed his thick arms over his chest and nodded.

“But that’s just mean,” she told him, stomping her foot.

He raised an eyebrow at the perceived childishness in her reaction. “I beg to differ. ‘Mean’ is insisting that I tell you things that I obviously don’t want to tell you,” he pointed out.

“That’s just curiosity,” she retorted. He looked completely nonplussed, and Isabelle figured it was time to try a different tactic . . . “I have an idea! Why don’t we go for a nice, long walk?”

“It’s snowing,” he reminded her. “Twelve to eighteen inches by night, they said on the news.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I could . . . I could make tea for you,” she offered.

“Already had some while you were him-hawing around in the yard.”

“Oh, come on, Griffin! What do you really have down there?” she demanded.

No doubt about it, he actually looked completely amused though he didn’t quite smile, she figured. Too bad she wasn’t. Griffin’s mysteries were enough to make her want to scream . . .

“It’s a secret,” he maintained.

Isabelle heaved a sigh, wrapping her arms over her stomach as she tried not to pout and failed. Shifting her gaze to the side, she remembered the Christmas card that had come in the mail, and very slowly, very deliberately, she reached out to snag it off the dining table as a calculated grin surfaced on her face. “I’ll make you a deal, big guy,” she said, her voice dropping to a husky purr.

His eyes darkened in complete distrust as he carefully regarded her. “A deal,” he echoed with a shake of his head. “I don’t think so . . .”

“Hear me out, Griffin,” she went on, making a deliberate show of tapping the edge of the card against her chin. “Aren’t you even remotely interested in who this card is from?”

“Not really,” he replied as he started to pull the door closed once more.

“Oh? Then you don’t mind that Maria sends her regards.”

That stopped him dead in his tracks, and she supposed she ought to feel at least a little bad for springing it on him like that, but it had the desired effect: he slowly pivoted on his heel, leveling an inscrutable eye on her as he crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his gaze from her to the card and back again. “Regards, huh?”

She nodded, deliberately making a show of opening the card and pretending to read while paying close attention to Griffin’s movements lest he should decide that he wanted to snatch it out of her hands. “So you’ve known her a while, I take it? She’s Attean’s mate?”

He grunted—as close to a ‘yes’ as she was like to get out of him. “All right,” he gave in, albeit with complete ill-grace. “Let me have it.”

Shifting her eyes to meet his, she smiled sweetly without making a move to comply with his obvious demand. “Tell me what’s in your basement.”

His growl was full of irritation if not even a little belligerent. “Fat chance, Jezebel.”

“Oh, that’s too bad, Griffin,” she remarked, closing the card and pursing her lips in a pouting moue.

“Hand it over.”

“Your basement.”

He snorted indelicately and shook his head. “The card.”

“You know, it occurred to me, Griffin Marin . . .”

“What?”

She shrugged offhandedly and slowly paced across the floor. “You’ve got secrets in your basement, right? Then this card . . .” She paused for dramatic effect and glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes. “This is going into . . . my ‘basement’.”

His eyes narrowed dangerously, cheeks reddening though she couldn’t rightfully tell if it was irritation or embarrassment that sparked the vapid blush that enveloped his countenance, and it grew darker when she slipped the card down the front of her shirt with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “If you want it, come and get it,” she goaded.

He opened his mouth and snapped it closed a few times, looking for all intents and purposes like a fish out of water. She could see it in his eyes: he desperately wanted to know what was written in the card, but something stopped him from asking—that old stubbornness, she supposed. She almost laughed out loud—almost. Caught between the wish that he would tell her what he was keeping from her and the nearly overwhelming desire to demand answers to the questions that Maria’s note had brought to mind, she held her ground. “Jezebel,” he finally muttered, glowering at her for a long moment before turning around and heading for the basement once more.

“Griffin,” she called after him, stopping him yet again before he could make his escape.

Letting out his breath in a frustrated rush, he didn’t turn to face her though he did stop walking away. “What?”

She bit her lip, wondered if she really ought to give voice to the question that was foremost in her mind. It had been since she’d read the card—the question that she couldn’t really get out of her mind until she got an answer from Griffin . . . She’d seen it in his eyes far too many times, hadn’t she? That sense of foreboding, as if he thought that he wasn’t worthy of anyone’s time or attention; as if he believed that he wasn’t worth a damn thing in the end . . . Rubbing a hand idly over the smoothness of her blouse and the card below it, she drew a deep breath as Maria’s words flashed through her mind yet again . . .

‘I hope that after the passage of time that the nightmares that plagued him have stopped . . .’

“Maria said that you used to have nightmares,” she said softly, lowering her voice as if it would lessen the impact of her words. She didn’t miss the way his back stiffened; didn’t mistake the tension that rose and mounted as he clenched his hands into tight fists at his sides. “You still do, don’t you?” she whispered.

He didn’t answer for several moments, and Isabelle was starting to think that he wasn’t going to. The ticking of the clock on the mantle in the other room resounded in her ears, louder than thunder, and she had to wonder if confronting him over the nightmares hadn’t been a huge mistake . . . “No,” he finally stated flatly. “No . . .”

She watched him retreat in silence, his back straight and proud, and she knew deep down that he wanted her to believe him; wanted her to think that whatever it was that used to haunt him was gone forever because he had willed it to be so. He wanted her to think that there was nothing in Maria’s words, or maybe he just wanted to believe it, himself.

As the door closed softly behind him, she let her breath out in a rush, sinking into the nearest chair as she let her head fall into her hands and sighed.

Too bad she didn’t believe him, after all . . .

Chapter Text

Griffin glanced at the clock for the seventh time in fifteen minutes and shook his head, snorting inwardly at his perceived lack of discipline as he glanced at the telephone and gritted his teeth, telling himself yet again that it wasn’t that late and that he didn’t really need to worry about Isabelle and where she was—or wasn’t.

It was nearly seven o’clock—well past the time when she normally got home from work.

‘Relax, Griffin . . . she probably stopped by the store for something or other. You know how she is.’

He snorted indelicately and forced his attention back on the notes that he’d been staring at without making much progress for the last couple of hours—about the time that she should have busted through the door with the normal commotion that seemed to accompany her everywhere she went.

‘I’m not . . . worried,’ he grumbled. ‘I’m hungry, and she’s not here to make dinner yet.’

His youkai voice judiciously decided to ignore the ridiculousness of his claim since he’d been fending for himself for too many years to count for his excuse to hold water.

‘You could call the clinic if you’re worried about your . . . dinner . . .’

He snorted. He didn’t need to do that, either, damn it. No, everything was fine—just fine—and it’d be even more . . . ‘fine’ . . . when that thoughtless little girl walked through the door . . .

Heaving a sigh, he pushed away from the desk and stomped over to the window, scowling outside at the darkened landscape. It had been getting worse of late, the feeling that something was moving in the shadows. Over the centuries that had comprised his life thus far, he’d learned over time to trust that instinct; to rely on it even if he didn’t think there was anything to be worried about. No, he’d learned long ago that if something really bothered him, he had reason to be worried . . .

He stood still for a long time, unconsciously willing the brightness of her headlights to split the night. The longer he watched for her, the more his mind conjured twisted scenarios—scenarios that were too impossible to be believed and yet . . . and yet he couldn’t quite help himself, either. It had gotten warm enough to melt some of the snow blanketing the road, but as evening gave way to night, the temperature had dropped, too, resulting in a thick sheet of ice that could have easily manipulated that little toy she called a car . . . She could have been abducted by a mad Santa outside the store, or . . . or she could have been found out, couldn’t she? If he was right and if this Eaton Fellows person had traced the research to her . . . He didn’t hear the low growl that rattled from him, didn’t feel his claws dig into his palms, didn’t smell the copper tinge of blood—his blood—that tainted the air . . . The worse the images in his head became, the more irritated he grew, and the more irritated he grew, the more he wanted to hurt . . . something . . .

‘Get a hold of yourself, Griffin . . . call her cell phone. She’ll answer it.’

The growl cut off abruptly as Griffin’s chin snapped up. He hadn’t thought of that, had he? He hadn’t wanted to call the clinic, no . . . He wasn’t overly fond of the idea of talking to anyone that he didn’t absolutely have to. Still . . .

‘Admit it; you’re worried about her.’

He snorted and grimaced as he held up his hands and blinked at the tiny ribbons of blood seeping from the lacerations on his palms. ‘I’m not,’ he argued stubbornly, stomping off toward the bathroom to wash his hands. ‘She’s just too helpless to take care of herself; that’s all,’ he rationalized.

‘Yeah? Well, helpless or not, you’re worried about her.’

He snorted again but didn’t argue it.

He’d just shut off the faucet when he heard the click of the front door closing, and without bothering to do more than shake his hands, he stomped out of the bathroom and down the short hallway in time to glower at Isabelle as the maddening woman slowly shuffled into the living room. “Just where the hell have you been?” he snapped, crossing his arms over his chest and glowering at her, daring her to lie.

The smile that was on her face faded quickly as she met Griffin’s darkened gaze, and she took a step toward him but stopped when he uttered a terse growl—a warning—and she sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said though she didn’t sound like she really was in his opinion . . . “I got held up at work, and then I stopped by the store to pick up a few things for dinner.”

He grunted, narrowing his eyes since she wasn’t carrying any bags. “Groceries, huh?”

“Oh, those are still in the car,” she said, waving a hand dismissively.

He nearly growled in complete frustration but settled on glowering at her, instead. “You know, there is such a thing as the telephone,” he pointed out.

“Of course there is,” she replied lightly, pasting a placating little smile on her face. “But you never gave me your phone number.”

“Incidentals,” he growled. “Or don’t you know how to call information?”

“Everything’s fine,” she insisted again. “I was just a little late . . .”

Crossing his arms over his chest, he narrowed his gaze at her and stubbornly shook his head. “Need I remind you that you could very well be in danger, and you’re off running all over hell’s half-acre without a care in the world.”

That got her attention quickly enough. She looked a little taken aback for all of a moment before dissolving in helpless laughter.

“It’s not funny, damn it!” he growled.

“You make it sound like the mafia’s after me,” she pointed out between giggles.

“It’s entirely possible—and it’s not funny,” he snarled.

Isabelle’s laughter waned a little but didn’t dissipate completely. “Aw, did you miss me, Dr. Marin?” she asked, inclining her head as she took a step toward him.

“Hardly,” he snorted, willing himself not to blush and failing miserably as he glowered at the floor. “I was hungry, that’s all.”

Her lips twitched ever-so-slightly as she carefully regarded him. “Were you rumbly in your tumbly?”

“Jezebel—” he began in a thoroughly menacing tone.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry!” she relented, her apology sounding completely insincere. “I couldn’t help it.”

He stifled a growl, asking himself just why it was that Isabelle simply refused to take anything seriously. “Next time you’re running late, you’ll call, understand?”

“I understand,” she agreed easily enough. “I promise.”

And somehow, that didn’t really appease him, either . . .

Something moved in the deep pocket of the oversized wool sweater she wore, and for some reason, he just didn’t think that she was wiggling her fingers . . . “Oh, God,” he grumbled when a slightly muffled but still discernable sound wafted to him. Shaking his head in abject disbelief, Griffin stared at Isabelle as he tried to decide if she really had lost her mind. She looked sane enough, standing there with a smile on her face, as though she didn’t realize that Griffin might not be overly pleased with the—the—the thing in her pocket. “Tell me that’s not—”

Her smile brightened as she carefully pulled—it—out and presented the beast to Griffin with a flourish. “Isn’t she precious?” Isabelle crooned, stroking the cat? rat? as she lifted the vile thing to rub against her cheek. The only fur on the nasty thing was the white fuzz on its four feet and a little fluff on its tail . . . it was ugly—hideously ugly—possibly uglier than Charlie, and that was saying a lot. Huge ears that made the animal look more like a genetically altered bat and tufts of mud brown fur sticking out along its spine just didn’t do a thing to endear it to Griffin, and he couldn’t help the disgusted growl that slipped from him as he stared it down. He supposed it might be considered a kitten in some warped and twisted alternate universe. It might even look like a kitten if it actually had any hair . . .

“No, it’s not,” he stated flatly, irked to no end that she came home late, completely disregarded the thought that he might be worrying about her, and to top all that off, she’d brought home a kitten in rat’s clothing . . . “You’re not keeping it.”

That got her attention quickly enough, and she turned an imploring eye on him. “But she was alone in the parking lot at the store! She’s just a baby! I mean, look at her!”

Waving his hand as Isabelle stepped toward him, extending the kitten for his perusal, Griffin made a face and leaned away before she managed to infest him with—whatever was causing the little monster’s hair to fall out. “Forget it, Isabelle. That animal’s got the mange.”

She twisted to the side, sheltering the kitten against her chest as she screwed up her face in a thoroughly incensed scowl. “She does not!”

Griffin snorted. “The hell it doesn’t. Look closer. There’s obviously something wrong with it. You should have left it where you found it. It’s just going to die, anyway.”

He regretted his words about the moment they were out of his mouth. Wincing inwardly as Isabelle’s expression shifted into one of complete and utter distress, she looked like she just might cry—a prospect that completely horrified him. “She’s not,” Isabelle finally said, her voice barely more than a whisper, and she refused to even glance at Griffin. “I’ll take care of her. I’ll take her to the vet, and you won’t even know she’s here . . . It’s not a big deal.”

Heaving a sigh, he pinched the bridge of his nose as he struggled for a calm that he just wasn’t feeling. “You’re still not keeping her,” he growled.

“You wouldn’t make me put her back outside in the cold, would you?” Isabelle asked, eyes widening in a shamelessly pleading sort of way.

“You’re a dog, aren’t you? Dogs hate cats,” he pointed out.

“Only half dog,” she argued as the little cat mewed.

“Charlie!” he said sharply as the dog danced around Isabelle’s feet. He wanted to see what he smelled, and whether he wanted to play with the animal or eat it, Griffin wasn’t sure, but he did know that neither of those options boded well. When the dog didn’t listen, Griffin heaved a sigh, striding over and grabbing Charlie’s collar to drag him toward the back door. “Forget it, you,” he grumbled.

“Oh, he’s fine!” Isabelle called after Griffin.

He just snorted, shoving Charlie out the back door and pivoting on his heel to glower at Isabelle. “Get that out of here,” he insisted.

“But—”

“Now.”

“Griffin—”

“Now.”

“Oh, come on, I—”

“Now, Isabelle! Now!”

He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d expected. He supposed that he thought she’d argue with him. After all, in her mind, it was one of the pathetic creatures that needed her help, wasn’t it? He’d figured she’d give him a little fight, anyway . . . What he didn’t expect was for her shoulders to slump, her chin to drop, and he watched in a sort of suspended reality as she jerked her head in a nod once, twice, before turning to go back the way she’d come.

The door clicked closed behind her minutes later, and Griffin blinked in the silence of the house. It took a few minutes for him to make sense of what just happened. He’d won? Against Isabelle . . .? He shook his head, scratched the back of his neck as a confounded scowl surfaced. He never won against Isabelle, did he? Why now? And why . . .?

Deliberately slamming the door on that train of thought, Griffin snorted indelicately and stomped over to let Charlie back into the house. He didn’t feel bad, damn it. He didn’t.

The flash of Isabelle’s slumped shoulders, the absolute defeat in her aura mocked him, and he paused with his hand on the door handle before yanking it open with a slight growl.

‘You do, Griffin; you know you do.’

‘I don’t. She should have known that I wouldn’t want a dirty little creature like that in my house.’

‘Now, now, the cat’s not that bad. Sure, she looks a little rough, but you’d look rough, too, if you were abandoned in a parking lot.’

‘Maybe . . . Listen, you, this is my home, and I don’t want any cats, damn it.’

‘Sure, it’s your home. It’s also Isabelle’s home, at least for now. You’re the one who insisted that she move in, right? Would it really be so bad to give a little on this? Besides that, you have to admit that you were rather mean about the animal, to start with . . .’

He snorted at that since he didn’t really think he was being mean, at all. The truth hurt sometimes, didn’t it? Isabelle might as well get used to that. ‘That wasn’t mean; it was honest . . . and I’ve done nothing but give in to her since she moved in. Christmas decorations and the crap she calls food that is gradually taking over my refrigerator . . . I even brought her dog over, didn’t I? And just what is it with Isabelle and butt-ugly creatures? Charlie . . . that cat . . . me . . .’

His youkai sighed. ‘And maybe she sees past the outside to what’s inside, and maybe that’s far more important, don’t you think?’

‘No, I think she needs her eyes checked; that’s what I think.’

‘Yeah, you would.’

Heaving a sigh, Griffin crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at the front door as Charlie sniffed around the spot where Isabelle had stood with the hairless wonder she called a kitten. Whining softly, the dog tried to figure out where Isabelle had taken the beast.

Griffin slowly shook his head and stomped toward the foyer, muttering under his breath about cajoling women and really ugly cats.

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Myrna didn’t glance up as the heavy steel door clicked and swung open to admit the intruder into her small realm.

“Hey, Myrna, did you get a chance to check into that case I asked you about?” Bas Zelig asked, carefully closing the door so that it didn’t bang shut.

Myrna nodded and patted the printed out stack of papers beside her; all neatly collated and stapled once in the upper left corner. “Everything I could find that might pertain to that, yes . . . There wasn’t much.”

Bas sighed and pulled the papers off the desk to flip through the pages. “Yeah, I didn’t figure . . . Dad already had an extensive file, and if they couldn’t figure it out back then . . .”

Pushing herself to her feet as the chair slid back on its casters, Myrna pivoted to eye the man. It struck her once more, just how big he really was. Easily a good couple inches taller than his sire and most assuredly quite a bit broader, the next North American tai-youkai was formidable—maybe more so than his father, really. Though Cain Zelig’s authority went without question, there was an intrinsic gentleness in the man that was harder to see upon first glance in his son. Bas tended to look a little more intimidating most of the time, likely because of the stark quality of his golden eyes. They shone like gemstones, quick and calculating, and, as she had found out so long ago, easy to discern and process danger in moments. He was a true force to be reckoned with, and while Myrna didn’t fear him, she could understand why others might.

Still, she knew that there tended to be more bark than bite to the man, and while he fiercely protected those he considered his own, he was also fair and slow to cast aspersions most of the time—qualities that would serve him well in the centuries to come, she was sure. Those were some of the reasons that he’d been able to win Myrna over in the beginning. He was, as the cliché went, just a really nice guy.

“Yes, well, I didn’t say it was going to be impossible,” she went on airily. “After all, you’ve got me, right?”

Bas peered up from the papers he was scanning over to grin just a little. “Right,” he agreed. “So you’re telling me that you can dig up more information?”

She shrugged and shot him a calculating smile. “I’ll see what I can do, Baby Zelig.”

He chuckled at the nickname she’d bestowed upon him long ago. He had a surprising sense of humor at times, Myrna had to admit, and while she’d been told that it was relatively recent development—one that coincided with his taking a mate—Myrna had to admit that he was one of her favorite targets since he couldn’t help but be amused when the huge man blushed.

“Thanks, Myrna,” he said, inclining his head before ducking out of her domain.

She waved absently as she turned back to her work.

“Did you find out anything?”

She almost jumped at the impatient sound of Gunnar’s voice. As it was, she couldn’t help the slight stiffening of her back as she turned enough to peer over her shoulder at the man in question. Leaning against the wall just inside the door, he must have let himself in as Bas was leaving, and while he looked almost bored, the slight tightness around his eyes spoke volumes about his current mood. It’d been a while since she’d last seen Gunnar quite so irritated over something, and that was saying a lot since the man in question tended to pride himself on the stoic façade he often presented.

“Not a thing,” she allowed, foregoing the usual banter since the puppy looked like he was ready to snap.

She didn’t have to look back at him to know that the tightness around his eyes had very likely given way to a narrow-eyed scowl designed to let her know that she had sorely displeased him.

“I need a little more to go on,” she remarked when he remained silent, “even something small . . . anything, really . . . ‘bear-youkai’ is just a little too vague.”

“He’s scarred,” Gunnar said suddenly.

Myrna stopped still and slowly turned to eye him. “Scarred?”

Gunnar nodded. “Yes, scarred . . . the left side of his face . . . his hands . . . and I’d imagine he’s got more, but I didn’t see them.”

Myrna digested that for a moment as she pushed herself to her feet and paced the length of the floor. “Youkai don’t scar,” she pointed out quietly, thoughtfully.

Jamming his hands deep into the pockets of his immaculately pressed black dress-pants—designer, she was certain. Gunnar Inutaisho was, after all, the complete package, wasn’t he? Effortless precision . . . that was a good way to describe him . . . “Not under normal circumstances; no . . . that’s why it’s rather remarkable, don’t you think?”

“A scarred bear-youkai,” she mused, rubbing her forearms at the lingering chill in the pretty prison she called home that never quite went away. “Thank you, Spot . . . you’ve been a great help.”

He snorted, most likely at the nickname she used from time to time. “Next thing you know I’ll be doing your entire job, Myrna,” he goaded. “No cheesecake for you.”

She stopped mid-stride to level a look at him—a blank expression with the barest upturn at the corners of her mouth to give her away. “You know, I think you’re deliberately trying to bait me,” she pointed out.

Pushing himself away from the wall, he made a very deliberate show of flicking away a bit of lint from the sleeve of his pristine linen shirt. “Now would I do that to you?” he drawled.

“Yes, I think you would.”

He chuckled—a lazy sound that Myrna was certain had seduced more women than she’d like to think about. In her ears it sounded wholly predatory—an affectation that came a little too naturally to the man, in her opinion. Though she hadn’t actually had the privilege of meeting Gunnar’s grandfather, she’d heard more than enough stories over the years. According to all of them, Sesshoumaru Inutaisho had perfected the same sort of elegance, the same contrived indifference, and he’d obviously passed that onto his grandson in spades. In any case, he shook his head and slowly lifted his gaze to meet hers, lazily blinking as his bright amber eyes seemed to take on an incandescent glow. “I don’t trust him,” he said.

“Makes sense,” Myrna agreed. “If you trusted him, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to dig up dirt on him, would you?”

Gunnar snorted—an inelegant sort of sound that bespoke his overall frustration with the given situation. “He’s managed to blindside Isabelle, and while she thinks he can walk on water, I’m not nearly as easily convinced.”

“That’s because it’s in your nature to distrust everyone,” Myrna scoffed as she grabbed a thick cashmere sweater off the back of a chair and slung it around her shoulders. “Man’s best friend, indeed . . .”

“Just do your job, Myrna,” Gunnar intoned, cocking an eyebrow in silent challenge.

“I take it you’ve met him?”

“If you can call it that,” he allowed.

She nodded. “Anything else you can tell me?”

Gunnar narrowed his eyes, tipping his head back enough to scowl thoughtfully at the ceiling. “About the same height as me . . . Big, of course. Makes sense. He’s a bear-youkai, after all . . . short, shaggy brown hair . . . brown eyes . . . and the scars.”

“Hmm,” Myrna mused, considering Gunnar’s description. “You’ve been most helpful.”

His response was a slight quirk of his eyebrows as he turned to head for the door. Myrna couldn’t help the little smile that surfaced as she watched his departure. The poor puppy just didn’t deal with frustration well, did he? Of course, she wasn’t very good with it, either, but Gunnar tended to take things much, much worse in that way, viewing his rare inability to produce viable results as some sort of personal slight; an imperfection in his skill as an investigator. It normally also led to his insular resolve to get his answers, and Myrna had to admit that it normally served him very well. In this case, however, it was bound to be more irritating than anything since he had promised not to tell Zelig about his inquiry, and because he had other things that he was supposed to be pursuing, which left him more or less dependent upon Myrna’s ability to gather the desired information.

Shaking herself as she let out a deep breath, she strode over to the desk once more and sat down to consider the things that Gunnar had told her. ‘A scarred bear-youkai,’ she mused, biting her lip and tapping her claws thoughtfully against her chin as a slow smile spread over her pretty features. ‘Thank you, Gunnar . . . thank you very much . . .’

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Isabelle smiled as she peered over the notebook braced against her raised knees at the dog lying on his side in front of the roaring fire and the kitten, curled into a tiny ball nestled against Froofie’s belly.

‘I can’t believe he let you keep that kitten,’ her youkai voice chimed in.

Isabelle’s smile widened as her gaze shifted to the man in question. Hunched over his desk as he worked on the translations, he hadn’t spoken to her since he’d strode outside, only to find her sitting on the porch steps with the kitten in her lap.

She hadn’t been trying to make him feel guilty. If anything, she’d been suffering that emotion, herself. Not once had she considered that Griffin wouldn’t be happy about the kitten she’d found in the parking lot of the grocery store, and that made her feel even worse. How could she ever expect to get Griffin to want to be her mate if she didn’t stop to consider his feelings on things more often?

Heaving a sigh, she lifted her chin to stare up at the weak light of the crescent moon high in the cloudless sky. The kitten mewed softly, and without stopping to think about it, she wrapped her arms a little tighter, slumped a little more, sheltering the creature from the wind—gently blowing but cold enough to make Isabelle shiver slightly.

She was trying to figure out if there was anyone in her family that she could ask to take the kitten in, because she just couldn’t put the creature out in the cold again, even if Griffin didn’t want to keep it. Her first thought was to ask Bastian and Sydnie to take her since Sydnie was a cat-youkai. Then she’d remembered that Bastian had said once that he’d brought a female kitten home once, thinking that Sydnie would like it, only to discover that she saw the animal as a rival on the basest of levels, and he’d ended up giving the kitten to one of his friends.

Next she’d considered guilting Gunnar into taking the animal, but decided that it probably wouldn’t work. If Gunnar didn’t feel badly about digging around in Griffin’s past, then he certainly wouldn’t have second thoughts about putting out a kitten, either, heartless bastard that he was . . .

‘Okay, so that was a little unfair,’ she thought, wrinkling her nose and shaking her head sadly. Sure, she was still irritated with him, and if she saw him again anytime in the foreseeable future, she would probably take him to task over his perceived high-handedness. Still, she knew deep down that the only reason he was concerned was because he cared about her, and while she could appreciate his worry, she knew that he was wrong about Griffin . . .

Maybe she could talk her grandfather and grandmother into taking the kitten in. She wasn’t sure exactly how Cain felt about cats, in general, but Gin adored all animals other than rodents, and Isabelle was relatively certain that she could convince them, if she really tried . . .

She considered begging Griffin to let the kitten stay overnight since it was late, and she didn’t really relish the idea of driving all the way out to Cain and Gin’s house outside of Bevelle at the moment. She discarded the idea almost instantly. No, she’d imposed upon him enough of late, hadn’t she? Granted, he had insisted that she move in with him. Still, she knew damn well that it wasn’t something he wanted, and if she weren’t careful, she’d end up scaring him off or making him think that she was too high-maintenance overall to bother with.

It was the most depressing idea, wasn’t it? In fact she was so lost in contemplation that she hadn’t even heard the front door open behind her; didn’t notice Griffin’s presence until he muttered rather gruffly that she was going to end up freezing since she hadn’t had the common sense to grab her coat, and if she was cold, the little ‘monster’ probably was, too . . .

And she’d understood, hadn’t she? It was something that she’d realized long ago. She knew, didn’t she? Knew exactly what he was saying even if he didn’t actually say it at all. That was something, at least to her. Griffin never, ever said exactly what he was thinking or feeling. As if he were trying to deny things, even to himself, he would say things, often the opposite of what he really believed, and Isabelle . . . she heard the truth behind it all whether Griffin realized it or not.

Rolling his head back and forth, he seemed infinitely weary, and yet he still worked on, and she smiled a little sadly as she wondered why it was that he never, ever complained. Griffin lived his life in pain, didn’t he, yet even as she realized this, she knew deep down that he would never willingly give up that pain, either. The questions whispered in the back of her mind; the knowledge just beyond her grasp . . . He’d been through something, hadn’t he? Something terrible . . . something that he clung to despite the agony it caused him . . .

‘What can I do . . .?’ she asked herself, biting her claw as she stared at the wide expanse of his shoulders. She wanted to heal him, didn’t she? That was the reason she’d wanted to become a doctor ever since she could remember: to heal people, and yet . . .

And yet she wasn’t at all sure if she could heal the one person who needed her most: the one person she wanted to help above all others . . .

‘Do what it is you do best, Bitty,’ her youkai prompted gently.

‘What I do . . . best . . .?’

‘Laugh for him, Isabelle . . . show him that life is worth living. He’s just forgotten . . . You can do that, you know. Gin might not be your real grandmother, but you’re more like her than you think you are . . .’

She wasn’t inclined to believe that. Gin Izayoi Zelig . . . the woman who had given life back to Cain . . . She’d told Isabelle once that a smile was always the best medicine; better than any conventional cure could ever be. She could do that, couldn’t she? She could laugh for Griffin because he couldn’t find the strength to laugh for himself . . .

Clearing her throat, she couldn’t help the little smile that quirked on her lips when he shot her what could only be described as a longsuffering glance before dropping his ink pen on the desk and slowly turning in the chair to face her. “What?” he said, dismissing all preamble as he slowly shook his head.

Isabelle leaned over, dropped the notebook onto the table and arched her back to stretch. “I didn’t get my guess for the day,” she informed him.

He grunted in response but didn’t comment.

“Let me think,” she said, narrowing her eyes as she tapped her lips with her index finger. “Hmm . . .”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” he muttered.

She giggled, linking her hands around her ankles. “Ah! I got it!” she said, snapping her fingers and sitting up a little straighter as Griffin’s expression turned a little more foreboding. “You got into a fight with the can opener of doom?”

He did a classic double take, his stoic expression faltering as his eyebrows disappeared beneath the heavy mass of his bangs. For a moment, she almost thought that he was going to break down and laugh out loud. He didn’t, though his eyes were brighter than she’d seen them in a while, and that, she supposed, was reward enough. “Yes,” he said without missing a beat.

“I knew it,” she said then laughed. “Face it, Dr. G; I’ve got you completely figured out.”

He made a show of rolling his eyes, shaking his head as his cheeks pinked just the littlest bit. He opened his mouth to say something but cut himself short as he wrinkled his nose and snorted. “Uh, don’t you think you should put a stop to that?” he grumbled, glowering at the floor near the fireplace.

Following the direction of his gaze, Isabelle couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up inside her. Froofie hadn’t moved an inch, but the kitten was shamelessly rooting around, obviously looking for something to eat. As though he sensed their ardent perusal, Froofie lifted his head to stare at the kitten. With a loud sigh, he flopped back down, completely nonplussed by the kitten’s attention.

“Aw, that’s just sweet,” Isabelle said.

Griffin snorted. “He’s a boy, Jezebel . . . and he’s a dog.”

“Oh, the kitten’s just being cute,” she argued, waving a hand dismissively.

“Completely emasculated,” Griffin grouched, pushing himself to his feet and heading for the kitchen, probably for a mug of tea. “Find something for that little monster to eat before it gives my dog mange, too.”

“Your dog?” she blurted.

“Yes, mine. You gave up all rights to ownership when you brought that thing home.”

“I did not!”

He didn’t stop walking. “You did. Anyway, I’ll thank you to stop calling him that name you use. His name is officially Charlie now. Get used to it.”

Isabelle rolled her eyes but laughed, getting to her feet to retrieve the kitten on her way to the kitchen. She purred loudly, cuddling against Isabelle’s chest in a completely contented sort of way. At least she’d cleaned up well. Griffin had insisted that Isabelle give the kitten a bath before she was allowed to let her down to get acquainted with the place. The bath had uncovered a fluffy, clean coat of baby fine fur that had been matted down by car oil and other various things from her stint as a parking lot kitten.

“Froofie likes his name,” she pointed out as she followed him into the kitchen.

Griffin didn’t glance up from his task of adding honey to his tea. “Charlie doesn’t. All his doggy friends make fun of him.”

She giggled and set the kitten on the floor so that she could rummage through the refrigerator for table scraps since she hadn’t gotten a chance to buy food for the kitten. “His doggy friends, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Speaking of names, what do you think we should call her?”

Griffin snorted. “Butt-ugly.”

She snapped her mouth closed but laughed. “I am not naming her that,” she insisted.

“Accuracy in naming. Very important, Jezebel,” he stated.

“Oh? So your real name is ‘Sexy-as-Hell’, is it?”

The violent blush that surfaced was immediate and intense—and completely irresistible, in Isabelle’s opinion. “Jezebel,” he muttered under his breath, snatching the mug off the counter and striding out of the kitchen as quickly as he could go.

Isabelle couldn’t stop smiling as she flaked a small piece of leftover salmon and set it on the floor. The kitten found it almost instantly, purr cutting off as a low growl rumbled from her as she attacked the food with gusto.

Isabelle sighed, rubbing her arms though the smile remained on her lips. She supposed she ought to stop saying such things since they were technically against the agreement she’d made with Griffin in the beginning. Still, she couldn’t help it; not really. There was just something entirely endearing about a man who blushed . . .

Chapter Text

“Next time you’re running late, you’ll call, understand?”

“I understand . . . I promise . . .”

He should have known better than to believe Isabelle when she promised to do something. He really should have known that she’d forget about it. What he hadn’t expected was that she’d forget about it quite so soon since she’d just made that promise to him the night before.

Griffin sighed. He was relatively certain that she was just trying to test him. Why else would she deliberately be gone long after she should have been home without as much as a word to let him know that she was running late? When she did get home, he was going to let her know that her thoughtlessness was not something that she was going to get away with; not by a long shot . . .

The kitten mewed plaintively as she rubbed up against Griffin’s leg. Pausing just long enough to scowl down at her, he stifled the urge to sigh and resumed his stance by the window, glowering out at the falling evening.

‘It figures,’ he thought with an acerbic snort. ‘Just because she can’t see the danger she’s in, she’s thumbing her nose at me . . .’

‘Do you really think that’s so? I mean, Isabelle might not believe you about that, but it doesn’t mean she’d pull another no-show just to piss you off.’

Narrowing his eyes at the empty road, Griffin could feel his frustration rising. ‘Wouldn’t she?’

‘No, she wouldn’t, and that means one of two things.’

‘Do tell.’

‘Well, either she’s in trouble—’ His youkai’s words were cut short by Griffin’s low growling. ‘—or she’s gotten herself caught up in something important.’

‘What’s more important than picking up her damn phone to tell me that she’ll be late when she knows exactly how I feel about it?’

‘. . . Do you really want me to answer that?’

Griffin snorted, unaccountably irritated at himself for being bothered by Isabelle’s absence, in the first place. ‘Important, huh?’ he mused grudgingly instead.

‘Sure . . . she is a doctor, after all . . . maybe one of her patients needed her.’

Damned if that pacified Griffin, either. It still didn’t hold water; not in his mind. Isabelle could have found time to call. Glancing over his shoulder, narrowing his glower as he willed the telephone to ring, he felt his hands closing over the window sill; felt his claws sink deep into the thick wooden frame.

The kitten mewed again, and Charlie wuffed quietly, lifting his head where he lay by the hearth, looking as though he were expecting something, too. He was waiting for her, wasn’t he? Waiting for Isabelle, just like Griffin was . . .

Where the hell was she?

He hated it, didn’t he? He hated how empty the place he called home felt whenever Isabelle was gone. He didn’t fully understand exactly how she’d managed to insinuate herself into his life, and he knew deep down that he ought to be scared as hell. It’d been so long since he’d looked at anyone to give him a semblance of comfort just from their proximity, and somehow . . .

Why didn’t she call?

Pushing himself away from the window, Griffin stooped down and scooped up the kitten, idly stroking her head as he shuffled off toward the basement. At the rate he was going, he’d end up wreaking havoc on everything inside his house if he didn’t do something to distract himself fast. Standing around, staring out the windows and listening for the telephone to ring was going to drive him mad . . .

The soft click of claws on the floor told Griffin plainly that Charlie was following him, too. Just before he padded down the stairs, he stopped and looked back, staring through the doorways toward the foyer and heaved a heavy sigh at the vast expanse of emptiness before obediently trudging down the stairs after Griffin.

Dropping onto the sofa with a heavy sigh, Griffin let the kitten down and leaned forward, burying his face in his hands. He hadn’t slept well the last few nights; even worse than normal, and it was starting to catch up with him. Worse had been the dreams that he couldn’t quite remember; ones that jerked him awake an hour after he’d finally managed to doze off. Body drenched in a cold sweat and unable to remember even the smallest detail of those dreams, it had taken a while to calm himself down; to reassure himself that there really was nothing wrong.   He wasn’t sure why he knew deep down that those dreams somehow involved Isabelle, but he did. She’d be in trouble, and he . . . he hadn’t been able to save her . . .

And maybe that was the real reason why her conspicuous absence bothered him.

Flopping back, he closed his eyes and willed himself to settle down. She’d call, he told himself. She promised . . .

Closing his eyes against the ambient lighting that erupted in a dull ache in his head, he tried not to listen to the silence. Isabelle was going to laugh at him, wasn’t she? She’d smile and say that there wasn’t a reason for him to worry, in the first place. She seemed so certain of that, didn’t she? Too bad Griffin tended to be way too pessimistic to believe her.

In his mind, he could almost remember the dreams that had been plaguing him. They seemed so near, just under the surface of his cognizant memory, but he couldn’t reach them, no matter how hard he tried. He could almost make out vague images, more of shadows dancing over a blanket of white light like the trace outlines of the most fleeting of thoughts, but the white was tinged with the color of blood, darker around the edges of his mind’s eye. Whispers in his ears that didn’t quite form coherent words . . . or maybe it was the steady howl of the wind . . .

A stab of emotion rose in him, roiling like the angry ocean just before a storm. There wasn’t a complete sense in it, but if he’d been forced to put a name to it, he might have said that it was despair; a sadness so thick, so choking, so full of sorrow that it removed the bitter edge from the underlying sense of malice. If he could just understand . . . His brain felt groggy, dull and slow from the nights spent staring up at the ceiling in the haze of darkness shrouding his bedroom . . .

His breathing steadied, evened out, softened into a constant rhythm in the quiet. He didn’t feel his fingers uncurl from the tight fists he held clenched against his sides; didn’t realize when the kitten cautiously crawled onto his lap only to curl herself up into a tiny ball of fur, her nose tucked into the down of her tail.

And he slept . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

The clunk of the nondescript black canvas bag on the table was lost in the general commotion of the establishment as Haruo slipped into the vacant chair with a smug grin on his face. “Mission accomplished,” he said in a lousy affectation of the English language, probably picked up after watching a few too many gangster movies.

Alastair didn’t blink and didn’t take his eyes off the young Japanese man, slowly reaching out and snagging the bag, drawing it across the table but not bothering to look inside. Haruo reeked of the baser smells that made up his human body though Alastair kept his features blank despite the revulsion that raced up his spine. The vaguely wild look in his glassy dark eyes gave away the obvious influence of whatever he’d found to achieve a cheap high.

‘Pathetic,’ Alastair thought with a mental snort. Humans were far too weak-willed, interested in thrills that only lasted a moment; never once bothering to look at the bigger picture. It was their weakness, and weakness could always be exploited . . . “And you did as I instructed?” he asked curtly, his Japanese a far sight better than Haruo’s mangled English.

Haruo nodded, crossing his arms over his chest in an entirely smug sort of way. “Vandalism,” he quoted. “Exactly as you instructed, boss.”

Owlish gaze raking over the unwitting patrons in the bar, Alastair didn’t respond right away as the prosaic nature of humans struck him yet again. Vile creatures, weren’t they? Always dashing off from here to there, always hurrying from one meaningless task to another like a succession of ants on parade . . .

A volatile half-grin twisted the corners of his lips as he stood up, dismissing Haruo without as much as a second glance, grasping the bag’s strap and pulling it off the table and heading out of the bar, not surprised in the least when the young man shot to his feet and dashed after him.

‘Humans are far too simple to manipulate,’ he thought in an absent sort of way as he pushed open the door and stepped onto the busy Tokyo street. The electric lights that lined the boulevard lent a measure of courage to those who believed that safety dwelled in the light, and while Alastair would savor the opportunity to prove how pathetic they really were, he couldn’t; not yet . . .

“Oi, boss!” Haruo complained, darting around people milling on the sidewalk to catch up with Alastair’s long gait. “You pay me, yes?”

Alastair almost smiled. “That was the agreement, wasn’t it?” he murmured.

“Yes, yes!” Haruo said, his voice registering his obvious relief.

Alastair paused long enough to spare the human a condescending glance, an enigmatic little smile. “Of course,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “I am a . . . man of my word.”

“There was just one notebook,” Haruo went on, anxiously dancing around Alastair in a nervous, anxious sort of way. The human’s antics reminded Alastair of a common mongrel begging for table scraps, but he narrowed his eyes and considered Haruo’s claim, discounting the thought as though it were of no real consequence. “You sure you don’t care if I keep the other shit?”

Alastair veered to the right, stalking up the cement steps that led to the overpass footbridge that traversed the busy street below. It was very empty at this time of night, and aside from two people—a couple, or so it would seem—he didn’t sense any others. “What you do with whatever you found does not interest me,” he rebuked coldly. “You mean to tell me there was only one notebook?”

“Yes, yes,” Haruo said, nodding emphatically as he waved a hand toward the bag clutched in Alastair’s hand, sniffing loudly as his right eye took on an involuntary twitch. He looked completely strung-out—a fact that did not go unnoticed by the observant youkai . . .

It wasn’t possible, was it? Avis had said that Kichiro Izayoi, the touted genius offspring of InuYasha, was the most likely to have the research, damn it, and Alastair had believed that it made perfect sense. Who better to complete the project than the lauded prodigy; the nephew of the Inu no Taisho? ‘Who, indeed?’ he thought, gritting his teeth together as Haruo prattled on, gloating over the spoils he’d stolen in an effort to hide the real reason for the break-in.

Stopping under a lonely streetlamp in the harsh circle of light that did nothing to dispel the blackened shadows made all the more sinister by the glow of the city below, Alastair jerked the bag open and snatched the notebook. Haruo’s eyes kept darting to the knapsack. The fool had left his plunder in it, which accounted for his seeming skittishness.

It only took a few moments of scanning through the pages for him to realize that it didn’t contain the information he sought. Nonsense—obviously some form of shorthand, but it couldn’t possibly be the research that Alastair was after . . . With a muffled curse, he shoved it back into the bag and threw the bag at Haruo. “Incompetent!” he hissed, narrowing his cold gaze on the human.

Haruo barely managed to hold onto the bag as he stumbled away from the irate youkai. Eyes flaring wide, skin paling fast, he looked like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, and the thrill of his consuming terror crackled in the air. The echo of his own pulse resounded in Alastair’s ears, and he licked his lips, tasting the fear as his eyes flashed from stagnant black to crimson with the throb of his beating heart. “You failed,” he ground out, lifting his claws; cracking his knuckles. The sound was deafening, heard over the seemingly distant hum of traffic on the street, and Haruo reacted in kind; backing away; as far away as he could.

He let out a frightened little yelp as he butted up against the railing, his right arm flailing helplessly as he struggled to retain his balance. He didn’t take his eyes off the youkai as his fear grew stronger; as the sense of absolute revulsion thickened in the air like a palpable entity.

Alastair advanced on the pathetic human, savoring the all-consuming sense that invariably accompanied the hunt. The sense that he was a power unto himself, like a god in the mythos of long-gone societies where the omnipotent ones could raze a world with little more than a quirk of will . . . It was how the order was meant to be, and it could start with this insular human . . .

Curling back his lips in a silent snarl, his fangs glinting in the wan light of the street lamps. He would not abide carelessness, and failure? Alastair erupted in a visceral growl, a sound borne of frustration.

Haruo was babbling, uttering inane words that lacked the basest sense of coherence. There was no one to help him; no one to save him, and as the boy muttered something that almost reminded Alastair of a prayer, he was struck once more by the frailty of the human mind. Unable to comprehend the things that they could not explain, Haruo called Alastair a demon, an ogre, a Buddha.

Advancing slowly on the miserable being, Alastair fed off the emotion that seethed and rolled. With a strangled shriek, Haruo tried to run, tried to escape, but Alastair was faster, stepping into his path every time he tried to turn, to flee. Staggering back away from the enraged youkai, Haruo tripped and faltered, his balance impaired by the drugs surging through his system. Swinging one arm wildly as he sought to regain his footing, he stubbornly refused to let go of the bag, and maybe that was his ultimate mistake. Alastair lunged toward him, and in his haste to get away, he toppled over the low railing, his expression a pathetic mix of fear, of panic, of the inevitable fate that awaited him on the street below.

But inasmuch as Alastair wanted to watch, to savor the moment, some baser part of his conscious reminded him that he could not afford such a luxury. His body disintegrated before the thought solidified, taking on a hazy red light as he zipped away from the overpass, away from the curious eyes of anyone who might have looked otherwise. Below him in the night, he could hear the screech of tires, of a woman’s ear-piercing shriek as a thousand sounds converged.

And still he didn’t dare stop. Time was of the essence now. He didn’t doubt for a moment that they would send out an investigator of their own. The prodigy would not be lax enough to allow the trespass to go unremarked, and while Haruo could be easily tracked, Alastair needed to get out of Tokyo before his involvement was discovered . . .

‘Besides,’ he thought as he shot through the night sky toward the blinking lights of Tokyo International Airport. It’d be simple enough to buy a ticket and be on the next flight out of the country. ‘I think I need to talk to Avis . . . in person . . .’

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Izayoi Kichiro stood in the middle of the lab with his hands on his hips and a scowl on his face as he surveyed the destruction of weeks—no, months—of work. All the test tubes that he’d been carefully observing were nothing more than shards of glass left in puddles of congealed fluids that stained the pristine white counters in mottled shades of amber.

He’d taken countless samples from various hanyou, himself included, as he sought to isolate the gene that caused infertility on all but two nights a month. It wasn’t a huge deal, in and of itself, but finding the source and figuring out how it worked might well prove to be something that could benefit hanyou later on. So far he’d figured out that the sperm in hanyou semen tended to live much, much longer during the fertility period when hanyou babies were produced, and conversely, the human sperm produced during the hanyou’s period of vulnerability normally died within minutes of being ejected from the host. It was a curious thing, especially when compared to human samples—the trade off, he supposed, for only being viable two times a month. Now all the research he’d been working on was lost, and he’d have to start from scratch.

The trill of his cell phone cut through the shocked silence that had fallen, and with a heavy sigh, he dug the device out of his pocket, sliding it open to answer the call.

“Hello?” he answered, dragging a weary hand over his face.

“Hi, lover. I thought I’d call to see if you were on your way home yet.”

Not even the velvety sound of his mate’s voice offered him much comfort, but he smiled wanly—barely a trace of emotion. “Not yet,” he admitted.

“Oh? What’s wrong? You sound a little upset . . .”

He sighed, knowing that Belle was liable to take the news about as well as he had. Damn it, he had stopped in to pick up his notebook—a notebook that was missing at the moment—only to find . . . this. If he’d been just a little sooner, he might have been able to apprehend the hooligan, and the biggest concern wasn’t really the break-in since the lab was insured and everything that had been destroyed could be replaced. No, it was the missing notebook that worried him most despite the knowledge that even if the thief tried to make sense of the notes, there wasn’t really anything that could be discerned, written as it was in Kichiro’s own version of short-hand. Still, it was the log he was keeping on the daily findings with the latest research . . .

“The lab was broken into,” he finally said.

Belle gasped. “You’re kidding . . .!”

“I wish.”

“Were they after your research?”

“I don’t think so,” Kichiro replied, scowl darkening as he took in the sight of the broken doors of the medicine cabinet he normally kept locked. “The guy might have been after the meds in lockup,” he mused, sparing a moment to glance at his watch. It’d been almost ten minutes since he’d called his twin brother, Ryomaru. To be honest, Kichiro was surprised that he hadn’t arrived already. “Probably some pup looking to score a cheap high.”

“Youkai?”

He shook his head then nodded as Izayoi Ryomaru strode into the lab. “Human,” he explained. “Look, Belle-chan, I’ll be home shortly. Ryo just got here, so . . .”

“Okay,” she said. He could tell from the slightly muffled quality of her voice that she was biting her bottom lip and pondering what she’d been told. “Be careful.”

“I will,” he promised, sliding the phone closed as he turned to face his brother. “What took you so long, fat ass?” he grumbled, kicking a pile of loose papers that were scattered on the floor.

“Well, I was in the middle of something that took a little precedence over your phone call, baby brother,” Ryomaru shot back with a wolfish grin. “Can’t up and leave Nez unsatisfied, can I?”

“Nasty,” Kichiro remarked, ignoring the ‘baby brother’ comment since he was technically younger—albeit by a mere few minutes. “Anyway, what are the odds that you can find the little fucker that did this?”

“Not like you to sound so vindictive,” Ryomaru pointed out with a raised eyebrow as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against one of the lab tables.

“Don’t rightly care that the lab was ransacked, other than the pain in the ass of re-doing the samples,” Kichiro remarked with a sigh as he surveyed the carnage once more. “The little troll stole my notes, though . . .”

“Oh, well, balls,” Ryomaru grumbled since he knew the gist of what, exactly, his twin brother was researching. “Ain’t no one ever told you not to put so damn many things in writing?”

“Not like they’ll figure out what they have, anyway, but I’d feel better if I had the notebook back.”

Ryomaru nodded slowly, pushing himself to his feet once more and carefully picking through the debris, scowl deepening as he rather thoughtfully sniffed the area. “You going to call the police?”

“Yeah. Figured I’d wait until you gave the place the once-over.”

“Thanks,” Ryomaru muttered.

Kichiro fell silent and stood back, waiting patiently while Ryomaru got a good handle on the intruder’s scent. He’d heard far too many times about the difficulty in tracking down a certain smell when a place was overrun with the police after a crime. It was in that vein that he had called his brother before he’d even thought of telephoning the local authorities. There’d be time enough to do that after Ryomaru was finished . . .

“I got it,” Ryomaru finally said, sparing a moment to glance over his shoulder and making a face at the empty medicine cabinet. “I’ll call you when I find the guy . . . damn baka . . . bet he was strung out when he broke in . . .”

Kichiro nodded as his brother stalked out of the lab. The clinic was silent as Ryomaru’s footsteps echoed down the hall, growing fainter and fainter as he moved away. Kichiro waited until he heard the heavy thud of the doors that led to the stairwell slipping closed before he opened his cell phone again. It was answered after the third ring.

“Tokyo police.”

Kichiro rubbed his temple and sighed. “Yeah, I wanted to report a break in . . . the Izayoi Medical Clinic . . .”

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Isabelle slipped the key into the lock and closed her eyes for a moment, bracing herself against the frigid steel as she drew a deep breath to steady herself before turning the key and slowly pushing the door open. The early morning sun behind her glimmered and shone, reflected off the mounds of snow that seemed to blanket the world in every direction, as far as she could see, and not for the first time, she had to wonder just how it could seem as though everything was fine when she knew deep down that it wasn’t; that it never would be ‘fine’ again . . .

‘Don’t beat yourself up over it, Bitty . . . you did everything you could have possibly done . . .’

Grimacing at the soothing quality in her youkai’s tone, she shook her head and blinked back a fresh wash of tears that rose to blur her vision. That wasn’t true; not at all, and as much as she might want to believe it . . . well, she knew better, didn’t she? She knew, and . . .

And she’d failed.

‘Pull yourself together, can’t you? Griffin . . . you’ll just worry him if you walk in there crying.’

Gulping hard, she swallowed down the sob that swelled in her throat. She was tired—horribly tired, and yet she wasn’t at all certain that she’d be able to sleep . . .

She was supposed to be working today, but she needed to swing past home to shower and change—and to try to convince herself that she wasn’t nearly as worthless as she felt—before heading back into the office for work, though to be quite honest, she wasn’t at all sure that she’d be able to make it through the day, in the first place. Seeing patients who trusted in her and who thought that she was a competent doctor . . . smiling when she felt like sitting down and having a good cry . . .

‘One thing at a time, Bitty . . . that’s all you really can do, right?’

She sighed. ‘Right . . .’

So taking a fortifying breath, she pushed the door open and stepped into the foyer.

Funny how everything seemed so very normal. The silence of Griffin’s home offered her a semblance of comfort that somehow made her feel that much worse though she wasn’t entirely sure why. Everything seemed so normal, just as it had been when she’d stepped outside a little over twenty-four hours ago—a lifetime ago . . .

A dull thud drew her attention, and she turned just in time to see Griffin stomping through the basement door looking entirely irritated if not still a little groggy. She could tell that he’d just woken up—he must have fallen asleep downstairs—but he stopped short when he saw her, his expression registering a momentary relief just before the harsh mask of irritation slammed down over his features, as he crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at her, and yet . . . and yet she had the feeling that he wasn’t nearly as angry as he looked . . .

“Just where the hell have you been?” he growled, his tone low despite the obvious anger seething just below the surface.

To her horror, she could feel her throat constricting once more; could taste the rise of tears that tingled in her nose and stung her eyelids. “I . . . sorry,” she choked out, pushing past him and hurrying toward the bathroom. “I’m late,” she muttered, hoping that her half-answers were enough to pacify him, at least for the moment.

“Isabelle—” he began as Isabelle shoved the door closed and locked it.

“Can we talk about this later?” she called, clearing her throat as she stubbornly ordered herself not to cry.

He didn’t answer for a moment, and she had the distinct feeling that he was seriously considering forcing the door open instead. As the seconds ticked away, as she braced her shoulder against the door—a ridiculous notion since she really didn’t have the strength to back it up, she heard him sigh at last and closed her eyes in relief as the sound of his footsteps finally moved away from the threshold.

Only then did she move away, taking a moment to turn on the shower taps as the first tears started to fall. What was it that her mother had said once? Tears in the shower . . .

No one could ever tell . . .

Chapter Text

‘Something’s bothering her. Don’t make it worse, Griffin . . .’

He grunted at the quiet words of admonition from his youkai voice as he glanced back at the clock and shifted in the chair to wait. ‘Yeah, well, if she thinks that she’s going to get away with her thoughtlessness—of her blatant disregard for the promise that she made—then she’s sadly mistaken.’

‘All I’m saying is that she was really upset, in case you didn’t notice . . . do you really think that making her feel worse is a good idea?’

‘When you make a promise, you abide by the consequences,’ he argued. ‘No one twisted her arm. The least she can do is apologize for being completely thoughtless—again.’

His youkai sighed, figuring that there really was no reasoning with him. After spending nearly four hours in a classroom on the campus of the University of Maine giving a lecture in one class and then a test on ancient Aztec writing in another, he was pretty much at the end of his patience, and he knew—just knew—that had Isabelle not come home when she had, he probably would have called his classes off for the day. As it was, he figured that he should have done that, anyway. Good thing that the class didn’t meet again for another week since he was still grading the first one of them and had been trying to do so for nearly two hours while waiting for Isabelle to walk through the door again.

She was a hypocrite, wasn’t she, constantly telling him that he needed to get things off his chest when she was no better about doing the same thing . . .?

Griffin snorted, drawing Charlie’s attention as the animal lifted his chin off his paws and stared rather sadly at him. “And don’t you dare take her side,” he admonished, narrowing his eyes on the dog.

Charlie wagged his tail and uttered a soft little whine before dropping his nose between his paws and heaving a sigh as his eyes drifted closed again.

“You, either,” he grumbled as the kitten rubbed against his ankle. The rotten little beast broke into a loud, if not rusty sounding, purr.

He sensed Isabelle’s youki the moment she opened the door, his scowl darkening at the forlorn sense that greeted him. It was entirely different from the aura she normally surrounded herself with, and for reasons he didn’t want to think about, the sadness bothered him.

But he waited until she stepped into the living room, a thin little half-smile twitching on her lips—a wooden sort of expression that didn’t even come close to lighting her eyes, and it struck him again that when Isabelle smiled—truly smiled—her entire being smiled, too. If she really thought she was fooling anyone, she was sadly mistaken . . .

Her smile faltered when she met Griffin’s gaze, and she shuffled her feet almost nervously, as her eyes skittered away, as she stared at her hands clasped in front of her like a little girl who had ripped her Easter dress . . . “I’m . . . I’m sorry about this morning—and last night,” she whispered in a voice so soft that he had to strain to hear it. “I should have called . . . but I . . .” Trailing off, she shook her head and swallowed hard. “I’m sorry . . .”

The meekness of her apology only served to further Griffin’s rising irritation. “Where the hell were you?” he growled, crossing his arms over his chest and leveling a no-nonsense glower on her.

“There was an emergency,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, but I—Excuse me.”

She barely got that out before she dashed out of the living room. Griffin blinked, his anger not even close to being satiated, when she quietly closed her bedroom door. He wanted to make her understand, didn’t he? Needed to make sure that she knew exactly how worried he’d been when she didn’t come home, when she didn’t have the decency to call . . .

Dropping into the chair once more, Griffin heaved a sigh and shook his head. ‘Irrational woman,’ he thought as he snatched up the red ink pen he’d been using to grade the tests. ‘Doesn’t have a whit of sense to her and doesn’t ever think about anyone else . . .’

Which wasn’t true at all, and he knew it. Too bad his mood was too black to listen to reason at the moment . . . ‘The next time she does anything even remotely close to this, I swear to God I’ll—’

‘Griffin?’ his youkai blood interrupted.

‘—turn her over my knee or—’

‘Griffin . . .’

‘—beat some sense into her . . . That’s the trouble with women like her. She’s never—’

‘Griffin!’

‘—been taught that there are consequences, so she just doesn’t think, and then—’

‘Hey, Griffin!’

Sitting up straight, Griffin shook his head, his tirade cut short. ‘What?’

His youkai heaved a longsuffering sigh. ‘Grumble about that later, will you? Right now you’ve got bigger fish to fry.’

‘What are you babbling about?’ he demanded, dangerously close to losing his patience with his youkai, too.

‘Can’t you tell?’

‘Tell what?’

‘Pay attention, you moron . . . I think . . . I think she’s . . . crying . . .’

That stopped him short, and he blinked in surprise, dropping the pen and leaning back in the chair as his head swiveled around to stare at the empty hallway. Narrowing his gaze, he cocked his head to the side and listened. There wasn’t a sound other than the soft ticking of the clock on the mantle. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Isabelle doesn’t . . .’ he began only to trail off when the muffled scent of something salty tingled in his nostrils. The smell reminded him of the warm summer breeze blowing off the ocean, but they were too far inland for that to be the case, and even if it were possible, it was winter, which meant . . .

‘They’re tears, Griffin; tears . . . and it’s been a while since you’ve smelled anything like that . . . but she’s hurting, and she’s sad, and maybe . . .’

Rising slowly to his feet, Griffin didn’t think as he headed down the hallway. Drawn nearer, nearer, he didn’t question the unnamed emotion that gave rise to the surge of panic that swept through him. He wanted to make her stop, didn’t he? But every time he reached for the door handle, he hesitated. If he wasn’t certain that she was crying before, he was now. Her sadness contained an abrasive quality, chafing his youki; chafing his soul . . .

Standing outside her door for what seemed like forever but was likely only minutes, Griffin winced and turned away, grinding his teeth together as he forced his feet to move, to carry him away from Isabelle . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Kichiro didn’t glance up from the pile of papers littering his desk as Ryomaru strode into the room, bringing with him the tingle of cold air with the underlying stale smell of the crowded city. Wrinkling his nose as a whiff of formaldehyde infiltrated his senses, Kichiro rubbed his nose then adjusted his glasses before dropping the police report onto the nondescript pile and turning his attention to his twin.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Ryo, but you fucking stink,” Kichiro remarked rather mildly.

Ryomaru snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah? Wouldn’t know why . . . just spent the last three hours at the morgue,” he shot back. “If you think I stink, you shoulda sat in there with old man Ain’t-Got-A-Sense-Of-Humor . . .”

“Ah, Kenichi-san was working, I take it.”

Ryomaru nodded. “Yep . . .”

“The morgue, you say?” Kichiro mused, sitting back and scowling at his brother.

“Yeah, the morgue,” Ryomaru reiterated, digging the missing notebook out of his leather jacket and tossing it onto the desk. “Had to play nice to get that, too . . . hard-ass bastard . . .” He made a face and wiped his hands on his jeans before pinning Kichiro with a fulminating glower. “You know where they fucking stick that preservative shit?” he demanded.

Since Kichiro had spent time paying attention in medical school, he did know, but in an effort to appease his sibling, he just shrugged. “Did that bother you?”

“Keh!” Ryomaru snorted indelicately. “Not exactly. Then again, I reckon there are some things in this world I’m better off not knowing.”

Kichiro chuckled. “Just make sure you die an honorable death, and you won’t have to worry about having formaldehyde injected into your post-mortem body.”

Ryomaru grinned, perching himself on the far corner of Kichiro’s desk. “Now, see? That’s what I’m talking about! Don’t leave nothin’ for the scavengers; that’s what I say.”

“You’re entirely screwed in the head,” Kichiro remarked but grinned. “How’d you get this? Wasn’t it confiscated for evidence?”

“What evidence?” Ryomaru scoffed. “The pup’s dead—and he was just a pup. So doped up on meth-meth-method—” he said, snapping his fingers as he struggled to find the word he wanted.

“Methadone?” Kichiro supplied with a quirked eyebrow.

“Yeah, that . . . stole it from your stash, probably—Oi, why the fuck do you have something like that in your medicine cabinet, anyway?”

Rolling his eyes, Kichiro pushed away from the desk and stuffed his hands into his pockets, pacing the length of his study. “It wasn’t in my medicine cabinet, you baka,” he grumbled, pausing by the windows that looked out over the back yard where Belle and Samantha, their youngest daughter, were busy building a snowman in the six inches of accumulation they’d gotten overnight—snow that was already melting and would likely be gone by nightfall. “I just kept some on hand in the lab, was all. You never know when you’ll need something, and that was the most secure location—or so I thought.” Heaving a sigh, he shook his head but didn’t look back at his brother. “Dead, huh?”

“Yep, dead. Fell off the overpass in front of a delivery truck. If the fall didn’t kill him . . .”

Kichiro winced.

“Anyway,” Ryomaru went on, ignoring the obvious disdain in Kichiro’s braced stance, “he had everything there with him in this cheap black canvas bag. Took a bit of convincing, but Dull-As-Dishwater-sensei finally decided that the other shit in the bag was enough evidence that the lack of the notebook wouldn’t be remarkable—I assume you didn’t bother reporting that as stolen?”

“No, I didn’t,” Kichiro admitted. “Thanks.”

“Not a problem,” Ryomaru said moments before a wide yawn precluded speech.

Kichiro rolled his eyes but finally grinned. “Get out of here, will you? You’re stinking up my house.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ryomaru said, pushing himself to his feet and ambling toward the door. “If you don’t like it, then feel free to call someone else next time your panties are all bunched up.”

Kichiro laughed and nodded, waving over his shoulder as he reached for the handle of the glass doors. Belle spotted him as he stepped outside, her smile bright and instantaneous, and she leaned in to whisper something to Sami before the two of them dashed over to his side . . .

‘Funny,’ he thought as he wrapped his arms around his two girls and let them both kiss his cheeks. ‘Things always look so much different in the bright light of day . . .’

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

“But you’re her doctor, and you told her that everything was fine . . . I don’t understand . . . How could this have happened?”

Biting her lip as she slowly nodded, unable to do much more as the shock of the news wore off, Isabelle couldn’t do more than remain quiet and try to answer Kevin McKinley stared at her, his gaze full of questions, of confusion. She had brought him in here just after he’d arrived. Though she didn’t delude herself into trying to believe that he would take the news well, she owed it to his wife to try to make him understand before he went in to see her. “I’m so sorry, Mr. McKinley . . . when she came in, everything did look fine . . .”

Standing up so quickly that the chair he’d almost collapsed into skidded across the floor only to smash into the white cabinets lining the wall of the small examination room, he shot her a murderous glower, raking his hands through his light brown hair as he paced across the floor and back again. “She believed you! You told her . . . you said she was okay! You said—”

“She seemed okay,” Isabelle said quietly, stinging from the anger that was fast replacing the shock even as she reminded herself that the man had every right to be upset. “Everything seemed routine, and the urinalysis was fine.”

“Fine, my ass!” he bellowed, eyes flashing, the tendons in his throat standing out. “You should have done more tests, damn it! You should have figured it out! You . . . you . . . damn you! You call yourself a doctor? Because of your carelessness, you . . . you killed my daughter! You’re a murderer! A murderer! I’ll have your license, you bitch! See if I don’t!”

Wincing at the hostility in his tone, at the cold vindictiveness in his words, Isabelle blinked hard to keep from tearing up. The things he was saying were the same things she’d been telling herself over and over since early this morning when Kristen McKinley had walked into the office; since the moment when she’d realized that something was desperately wrong. The once active baby had stopped moving a couple days before, Kristen had said, and she’d been suffering some pains—just twinges, she’d maintained, and a trace amount of bleeding. She hadn’t wanted to seem like a mother hen, she’d said. She didn’t want to run to the doctor constantly only to be told that everything was okay . . . but the real signal that there was a problem came when Isabelle hadn’t been able to find the baby’s heartbeat. She hadn’t wanted to be one of those mothers that called or came in for every tiny thing, Kristen had maintained, and because of that . . .

An emergency ultrasound along with some accompanying blood-work had confirmed Isabelle’s worst fear: the placenta had torn—small enough that it hadn’t been remarkable during Kristen’s last visit after her fall. Somehow the rupture had grown larger, causing massive bleeding in the uterus and basically poisoning the infant in-utero, and because of the lack of treatment . . .

And she’d tried to find a way to forestall the delivery—to at least put it off until Kristen’s husband got back from his business trip. She couldn’t do it, though. Kristen’s coloring was paler than normal, and her heartbeat was fast and labored. If they waited too long, the toxins could seep into Kristen’s tissues, putting her life in danger, as well. To exacerbate it all was the placement of the infant. She’d already descended low enough that a cesarean delivery wasn’t possible without causing more harm to the infant’s body—something that Isabelle simply could not consider; not after everything else . . . It was the most difficult thing she’d ever had to do, explaining the situation to the mother-to-be. Kristen had looked completely bewildered, as though she couldn’t quite grasp the meaning behind it all. She didn’t even cry when Isabelle had told her that it was too late to save the baby . . .

In fact, Kristen’s sobs hadn’t come until she was holding the unmoving infant, and then they’d come with a vengeance. They still echoed in Isabelle’s ears as she made her way to the waiting room where the receptionist had asked Kevin McKinley to wait. She’d left the woman holding the cold body of her infant daughter when the nurse had whispered in her ear that the father had arrived . . .

And it was hard to try to explain a thing when she already blamed herself. If she’d just ordered more tests run . . . if she’d made Kristen come in sooner or even had her check into the hospital for observation . . . if only . . . and maybe they’d be at home with their newborn instead of sitting in a desolately clean room as far away from the hospital’s maternity ward as they could be . . . It was the only thing Isabelle could do for them in the end, to have Kristen put in a room where the cries of other people’s infants could be heard; where infants in portable bassinettes were wheeled to their mothers’ rooms . . . Isabelle couldn’t ask Kristen to endure that . . .

“You killed my daughter! You killed my daughter! Murderer! Murderer . . .”

Slapping her hands over her ears, Isabelle squeezed her eyes closed despite the tears that streamed down her cheeks unchecked, wishing that the sound—the hateful sound—of Kevin McKinley’s voice would fade away yet unwilling to let it go. She’d failed him, failed Kristen, but worst of all, she’d failed Baby Girl McKinley, the infant who never got a chance to open her eyes . . .

She didn’t hear the soft tap on the door or the whispering click as the knob turned. She didn’t sense Griffin’s youki as he slipped into the room. So lost in her own misery and hellish contemplation, she didn’t realize that he was there standing beside her bed until he cleared his throat.

Hiccupping as she struggled to stop crying, she swatted the tears off her cheeks and shook her head, fighting for a semblance of control over her emotions that she simply didn’t have.

“Wh-why are you leaking?” Griffin grumbled though not unkindly.

She sniffled miserably, burying her face in the cradle of her raised knees, embarrassed that she couldn’t seem to staunch the flow of tears and mortified that Griffin knew it. “I-I’m okay,” she lied, her voice shaky, muffled by her legs.

He grunted in response. “You’ll go to hell for lying,” he remarked, gingerly sitting on the side of the bed. “I, uh, brought you some tea . . .”

She couldn’t even summon the will to answer. His presence, the unvoiced concern in his youki, only served to make her feel that much worse when she knew deep down that she didn’t deserve to accept the comfort that he offered her. The McKinleys wouldn’t be able to find such a thing, would they, and she . . . she couldn’t accept such a thing, either.

He shoved the tea into her hands with a decisive grunt. “Drink that before you get all dehydrated,” he grumbled.

It was the last thing she wanted to do, but she just didn’t feel up to trying to argue with Griffin, either. Choking down a few sips of tea, she noted in her distraction that he’d even added honey to the brew—something he’d never let her have before. “Thank you,” she murmured half-heartedly, and to her absolute horror, her vision clouded with tears once more.

“You do that all day while you were working?” Griffin mumbled, shifting uncomfortably as he waved a hand at the spectacle she was making.

Isabelle choked back another round of tears, forcing herself to down the rest of the tea though she just couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye as he reached out and gently took the empty mug from her, setting it aside on the nightstand. “No,” she whispered, drawing a ragged breath as she swatted at her damp cheeks. “No, I . . . well, I drove there . . . but I . . . I didn’t go in . . . I couldn’t, and . . . and . . .”

“So what did you do then?” he asked, his voice a little gruffer than normal, or maybe it was just her imagination. She finally dared a glance at him. He was scowling down at his hands though she had a vague idea that the scowl, itself, wasn’t exactly directed at her . . .

Heaving a sigh, Isabelle grimaced, her eyes still burning with the effort to stave back her tears. “I just . . . drove,” she said quietly, clearing her throat and shaking her head. “I drove down to the coast . . .”

“A little cold to go wading, wasn’t it?” he intoned. It seemed to her that he was being more careful than usual in choosing his words. The thoughtful gesture brought more tears to her eyes, but she stubbornly blinked those away, too.

“I didn’t go wading,” she said. “I didn’t really know what I was doing . . . I just . . . ended up there, I guess . . .”

He digested that in silence as she sniffled and tried not to hear Kevin McKinley’s words echoing through her head: You killed my daughter! You killed my daughter . . .” Smashing her fist against her lips, it was all she could do to stop herself from screaming . . .

“You going to tell me why you wanted to run away?”

His question startled her, and she recoiled as though he had physically struck her. “I-I wasn’t running away,” she protested weakly.

“What else would you call it?” he countered.

It occurred to her that he wasn’t actually being unkind. His words were abrupt, but his demeanor and his tone were not. “Maybe I was,” she admitted softly. “I just couldn’t . . .”

“So you just . . . drove?”

She nodded rather vaguely, dragging in a ragged breath that she immediately released in a heartfelt sigh: a weary sound—a broken sound. “It seemed . . . wrong . . . The world keeps going without any sort of acknowledgement . . . It was so surreal. I couldn’t do it . . . I don’t have the right . . .”

Griffin grunted, obviously confused by her clumsy way of trying to explain as he fumbled in the breast pocket of his gray and black flannel shirt. “Why don’t you start at the beginning before you flood me out of house and home?”

“At the beginning . . .?” she repeated, rubbing her temple and taking the handkerchief he rather abruptly shoved under her nose. Dabbing her eyes, she frowned at the bit of crisp white linen. “I . . . I’m not sure where that is . . .”

“Then what’s the gist of it?” he asked instead.

She winced. “I . . . I killed . . . their baby . . .” she whispered.

Griffin’s back stiffened at that revelation, but he didn’t turn to look at her. Another wave of guilt nearly overwhelmed her, and she squeezed her eyes closed, clutching her stomach and pitching forward against her raised knees. “Somehow I doubt that,” he muttered, shaking his head and heaving a sigh as a hint of something foreign crept into his tone—something warm and all the more poignant, hidden behind the rumble of his voice. “Just give me the facts, girly.”

“I did,” she muttered, her voice rasping, harsh, almost screechy as she fought to control her emotions. The truth hurt, and while she might be able to make excuses, they wouldn’t do a damn thing but assuage her conscience in the end . . .

“So you think you killed someone’s baby,” he reiterated in a matter-of-fact rumble that made Isabelle grimace as a soft little whine that was wrenched from her. “Did you mean to?”

“Of course not!” she snapped, righteous indignation flaring at what she considered a ridiculous question.

Griffin nodded, turning his head just enough to peer over his shoulder at her. “Then you didn’t kill anyone.”

She sat up, letting her head fall back as a few errant tears squeezed through the seam of her closed eyelids, sliding down her temples into her hair. “I’m a doctor,” she retorted, the angry tone of her voice breaking, giving way to a high pitched screech that rang in her ears. “I should have known, and—”

“And you’re still not making any sense,” he cut in quietly. “Why is it your fault?”

“Because I’m a doctor!” Isabelle growled, unable to control her rising irritation that Griffin kept asking her what should have been obvious.

“So you’ve said,” he growled back, “and yes, you’re a doctor, but you’re sure as hell not God.”

“Isn’t that what a doctor is supposed to be?” she challenged, her eyes flashing open as she finally met his gaze. He didn’t blink, and he didn’t look away, and somehow it only served to inflame her anger a little more. “A doctor saves people! That’s what I should have done, and I . . . I couldn’t; it was too late, and . . . and . . .”

“You’re wrong, you know. Doctors aren’t gods, and just because you couldn’t save one baby doesn’t make you a devil, either.”

“Doesn’t it?” she challenged, her tone belligerent; her eyes almost wild.

He shook his head and narrowed his eyes on her as though he were trying to read her mind. “Your father’s a doctor, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but—” she began, unsure where he was going with his question.

“And you’re going to tell me that he never lost a patient?”

“Of course not!” she scoffed, her temper rising by degrees.

“Are you sure about that?” he challenged.

She opened her mouth to retort but snapped it closed, cheeks pinking as she remembered a little too late that her father had worked in an emergency room, himself, and he’d told her more than once that sometimes there were those that couldn’t be saved.

Griffin interpreted her expression well enough, and he sighed, shaking his head slowly. “You’re not meant to be perfect,” he pointed out.

His words, softly spoken despite the disdain she heard underlying them, were enough to siphon away her anger, leaving her feeling lost and empty once more, trapped in the confines of recrimination so biting that she felt as though she was going to scream, and yet . . . and yet his presence alone was soothing to her tattered emotions, and even if he didn’t know the effect he had on her, she couldn’t help but crave the solace that he unwittingly offered. Letting out a stunted breath, Isabelle shook her head, dragging a hand through her tangled hair, lips quivering precariously as she sought to find a way to explain how she felt. “She came in last week after falling on the ice,” she finally said, her voice dropping to a husky whisper as she smashed the handkerchief in her fist so tightly that her knuckles leeched white. “I checked her over . . . ordered a urinalysis . . . but everything looked fine . . . just fine . . .”

“You mean the test came back normal?” he questioned.

She nodded, her eyes glossing over as she stared at the worn but beautiful quilt that covered her bed. “Yes . . . no trace of blood . . . no sign of infection . . . nothing . . .”

Griffin grunted.

“But it wasn’t fine,” she admitted, “and when she came in yesterday for her checkup . . . Her placenta must’ve torn just a little in the fall—not enough to show up in the urinalysis right away since it had just happened the night before, but enough to . . .” She swallowed hard and had to draw a few deep breaths to keep from breaking down completely. “When she came in, she said the baby . . . hadn’t really moved . . . a couple days . . . and I . . . but then . . . I—” Cutting herself off, she smothered a soft sob with the back of her hand, unable to control herself for a few minutes as the raw memories cascaded down around her once more. The sickened feeling Isabelle had gotten in the pit of her stomach as she’d desperately tried to locate the baby’s heartbeat . . . the anxiety that Kristen McKinley had fought to hide as she lay on the table, her belly exposed while Isabelle administered an emergency ultrasound . . . the shock on Kristen’s face when Isabelle had explained to her in hushed tones that her baby . . . the desperation as she forced herself not to break down in front of her patient . . . and the cruel words of Kevin McKinley—words and condemnations that Isabelle had wholly deserved . . . “So I had to induce labor because . . . because it was too late, and . . .”

“It would have been dangerous to the mother,” he supplied when Isabelle’s voice faltered.

She nodded, sniffling miserably. “She asked if I could wait a few days. Her husband was away on a business trip, but I couldn’t, and . . . And she was alone, and I couldn’t do a damn thing for her . . .”

The bed shifted, and Isabelle wiped her eyes with the handkerchief again—they’d started to tear up once more. Griffin had turned to face her, and for a moment, she wondered if he was going to reach out to her, but he didn’t. “It doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong,” he mumbled, scowling at the quilt as he smoothed it absently.

“I did; I did . . . I should’ve run more tests in the beginning . . . A non-stress test or ordered an ultrasound or—”

“Is that common practice? You said, yourself, that everything seemed fine,” he said a little too reasonably.

Isabelle sighed. “It doesn’t matter! I should have known! If I had ordered more tests . . .”

Griffin cleared his throat, crossing his arms over his chest as he sat back and lifted his gaze to her once more. “Even if you had ordered more tests, do you really think that you’d have figured it out? You said, yourself, that the urinalysis didn’t show anything wrong.”

“That doesn’t really make me feel any better,” she whispered. “She was perfect, you know? Her color was a little off but not bad . . . ten fingers . . . ten toes . . .” Isabelle choked on a sob as the entirely too-real image of the stillborn baby with the downy corn-silk hair haunted her. Perfect, perfect, and yet she never opened her eyes, never drew that very first breath . . . “Kristen kept . . . begging me . . . begging me to save her daughter, and I . . . Over and over and over . . .” she whispered, unsure if she were speaking aloud or if it were just the same things she had been rehashing time and again in the confines of her mind. “Just kept pleading with me to save her . . . ‘She’s . . . she’s sleeping, right? Just sleeping . . .’ but she wasn’t, and I couldn’t . . .”

“Don’t do this to yourself,” Griffin rasped out, his voice oddly roughened, as though he was suffering as much as Isabelle was.

“Do you know what that’s like?” she demanded in a broken hiss, turning her tear-stained face toward him, her eyes pleading, wondering if there really was any way he could ever understand. “Do you have any idea how it felt when I held that baby in my arms? I would have done anything—anything—to give her back to her mother, and . . . and I . . .”

Griffin closed his eyes, gritted his teeth together so hard that his jaw ticked while Isabelle tried to keep from breaking down in sobs. The room was silent other than her stunted breathing, and she could hear her pulse drumming relentlessly in her ears, loud enough to drive her mad as the sound of a mother’s racking wails rose like the winter wind’s bitterest gale.

“I’ve tried to reason it in my head,” she confessed as a few more tears slipped down her cheeks. “She never even got a chance to . . . to live . . . It doesn’t make sense—none of it makes a damn bit of sense, and it’s my fault . . .”

“No,” Griffin cut in sharply, eyes flashing open, a fierceness in the depths of his gaze that startled Isabelle. She started to shake her head, but he was faster; reaching out, grasping her arm, shaking her almost roughly, and yet there was a certain desperation that she didn’t quite understand. “Don’t you do it; do you hear me? Don’t you blame yourself. It wasn’t your fault, and . . .” Trailing off, he drew a deep breath, his grip loosening though he didn’t let go. “It’s never going to make sense. Sometimes . . . sometimes . . . something like that will never make sense, no matter how many years you live.”

She stared at him for several long seconds. The misery in his expression; the raw emotion in his eyes . . . He did understand, didn’t he? He understood . . .

And maybe it was that simple realization that he knew—that he understood the feeling that she was completely worthless; that no matter what she knew in her logical mind, her heart just could not comprehend it all . . . With a harsh cry, she felt the last strands of her control give way as the torrent of sobs that she’d been keeping in check finally broke free. Smashing her hands over her face, she couldn’t stop the ragged wails that escaped her. It felt as though her heart was breaking, as though everything inside her ached so desperately that she just couldn’t contain it any longer.

The heaviness that encircled her was slow, halting, almost jerky, and she didn’t really understand anything other than the basic instinct, the need to draw close to someone—anyone—in her desperation. So lost in the tide of emotion, it didn’t really register in her mind . . .

It was too much for Griffin. Watching as her heart broke was killing him. Something about her reached out to him—the need to fix it for her a palpable thing, and even though he knew that there wasn’t a thing he could do to alleviate the pain she felt, he couldn’t just let it go, either.

Closing his eyes tight, he clumsily pulled Isabelle close, tucked her head under his chin as he patted her back, pitifully trying to comfort her and feeling like a complete failure as her body shook, every muscle straining with the force of her sobs as she clung to him; as he felt himself dying a little inside with every tear she shed . . .

Chapter Text

She didn’t know how long she’d sat there crying on Griffin’s shoulder as the bear-youkai rather clumsily patted her back and mumbled silly things about how he’d already taken one shower today, thanks, and that she needed to do something about her ‘leaking’ problem before she drowned them both. She wasn’t even sure when she’d finally realized that he was holding her—uncomfortably, sure—his body was completely tense, as though he just didn’t know what to do with himself, and yet the sweetness of the gesture wasn’t lost on her, either, and for that, she’d adore him forever.

She cried until she’d cried herself out as she huddled against Griffin’s chest. His shirt was damp and clingy from her tears, and her head hurt horribly, the result of having spent so much emotion, she supposed, and while Griffin kept grumbling, his tone had softened as though he were trying to distract her from her upset. She didn’t have the wherewithal to sit up, though, and at least for the moment, Griffin seemed inclined to let her lean on him. Her hiccups and sniffles resounded in the otherwise quiet room as she drew on his strength. Maybe she could have cried longer, but it seemed like her entire being was just too exhausted to do it, and worse was the resignation in her, the sense that nothing would ever be right again . . .

“Look at you,” Griffin mumbled quietly, leaning back to gaze down at her, his eyebrows drawn together in a thoughtful scowl. “You’re all blotchy and stuff.”

Choking out a little laugh, Isabelle sniffed again and sat up just a little. “Bad, huh?” she mused.

“Terrible,” he agreed with a curt nod. “Just when I thought you couldn’t look much worse . . . see what happens when you spring a leak?”

Her smile trembled precariously, his teasing a welcome distraction from her upset. “I . . . I’m sorry for that,” she murmured.

Griffin rather clumsily patted her back. “It’s all right. Just don’t make a habit of it. I don’t have many handkerchiefs, and you’ve ruined that one.”

She nodded slowly, wishing for a moment that he’d pull her back against his chest, wincing as the fierce sense of loss swept through her despite her knowledge that he’d only allowed the contact because he’d felt bad for her, in the first place.

“About last night . . .” she said, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “I should have called, and—”

“You had more important things to deal with,” he interrupted. “Just don’t make a habit of it.”

She sighed as the wan smile faded, as the gravity of the situation slammed down on her once more. “He said he was going to . . . to charge me with malpractice,” she said, a note of sheer hopelessness creeping into her tone. “I deserve it, too . . .”

Griffin snorted indelicately. “The hell you do,” he grumbled, his tone taking on a hint of fierce irritation. “You did what any doctor would have done in that situation: no more, no less. They don’t take away your license for that.”

“I should have done more,” she said though her tone lacked the conviction that it once had, or possibly she was just too tired—mentally exhausted . . .

He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Should have, would have, could have . . . the world is filled with enough regret, don’t you think? Adding to it isn’t really going to change anything.”

Shaking her head, she reluctantly pulled away from the comfort of his embrace to rub a weary hand over her face. “You don’t understand,” she began quietly, her voice as dull and listless as her gaze. “She kept . . . She kept saying that the baby . . . The baby looked like she was sleeping; just sleeping . . .”

Griffin didn’t reply right away, and when Isabelle finally looked at him, she grimaced inwardly at the thinly veiled anger in his expression. No, it wasn’t anger, exactly . . . it was more like . . . frustration . . .? It was difficult to tell with Griffin since he rarely expressed himself in the same way as anyone else. “Are you so arrogant that you really believe you’re the only person who ever—?” Cutting himself off abruptly, Griffin drew a deep breath and shook his head, jaw twitching as he struggled for a grasp on his emotions.

“Griffin?”

Letting out his breath in a rush, he shrugged as though to brush off his outburst. “Their pleas never go away,” he mumbled, cheeks pinking slightly as his scowl deepened; as he averted her gaze entirely. “Never . . .”

‘Pleas . . .? Nightmares . . . Griffin . . .’ she thought though she didn’t dare give voice to her thoughts; couldn’t have done it if she’d wanted to, anyway . . . But he knew, didn’t he? And maybe . . . maybe he understood it all better than she ever would.

Rubbing his eyes, he slumped forward, letting his hands dangle between his knees as his scowl shifted into the one she was most familiar with. She had the distinct impression that he was more than a little irritated that he’d let that much slip, and that didn’t entirely surprise her. He was too used to keeping things to himself, and while she hadn’t really asked him to tell her anything, he’d wanted to reassure her, hadn’t he, and that, alone, spoke volumes to her . . .

Still, the prospect of having to defend her judgment in this instance weighed heavily on her. Even if she hadn’t actually made a bad decision, someone had suffered, and because of that, one of her patients had lost her child, and that was enough to make her feel sick all over again. Worse, though, was the knowledge that she didn’t even want to defend herself. How could she when it would ultimately mean that she’d be exonerated while the McKinleys were still left behind to pick up the pieces and try to move on? They wouldn’t be able to forget, and Isabelle . . . she shouldn’t be afforded that luxury, either, should she?

Carefully smoothing out the tear-dampened handkerchief, she couldn’t repress the occasional hiccups that still escaped her as she folded and pressed the bit of cloth in an idle sort of way. She felt emotionally drained—not really surprising, she figured. With the circumstances of the last couple of days, it was a wonder she hadn’t lost control of herself long before now . . .

Clearing his throat, Griffin drew her out of her reverie, and she frowned when she noticed the strange sort of rigidity that had come over him. Still seated on the bed, he wasn’t looking at her, and yet she could see the traces of strain evident in the unyielding curves of his back, his shoulders slightly drawn up . . . He seemed as though he were ready to jump at any provocation, but it was the tinge of pink that had crept into his cheeks that captured and held her attention. She could only see the unscarred side of his face from her vantage point, but that didn’t really matter. The man looked more uncomfortable than usual, and she had to wonder why that was . . .

“Up by the docks,” he blurted suddenly, his voice harsh, breaking slightly and forcing him to clear his throat yet again before he could continue. “There’s a restaurant . . . real small . . . sort of out of the way . . . They serve really fresh seafood, though . . . Really good if you don’t mind that it’s a little on the plain side . . .”

Isabelle’s eyebrows drew together a little more as she tried to figure out just what he was getting at. She remained silent, which only exacerbated Griffin’s acute discomfort. “Not too far, either . . . I walk there sometimes . . . well, not too often, but occasionally . . .”

‘What’s he . . .?’ she thought almost absently as she stared hard at Griffin’s back.

“. . . Quiet, too—sometimes families go there, and the cubs tend to be a little loud . . .”

‘Oh, my . . . Bitty . . .? You don’t think he’s . . .?’

Her frown deepened. No, she wasn’t sure what he was getting at, exactly. With anyone else she might have thought that he was trying to work himself up to asking her out to dinner, but this was Griffin, and . . .

“Anyway, I . . . I can pay for it since I’m asking, but—”

Blinking in surprise, her eyebrows shooting up to disappear under her bangs, Isabelle’s jaw dropped as realization slowly sank in. “Are you asking me out?” she demanded, unable to hide the hint of incredulity in her tone.

He turned about ten shades of red in the course of a few seconds, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water. “W—I—no!” he growled, shaking his head furiously as his skin darkened to a crimson-purplish sort of mottled shade. “No, I’m just asking you to dinner—it’s not a date!”

She almost smiled—almost. Under normal circumstances, she supposed she would have, and she probably would have teased him a bit, too. As it was, she could only blink as suspect moisture gathered behind her eyelids again, and she understood that he was trying to make her feel better. “That sounds nice,” she demurred, drawing her feet up and resting her cheek on her raised knees.

Her answer didn’t seem to appease him very much, but he grunted curtly before pushing himself to his feet and pausing long enough to grab the empty mug off the nightstand. “Fine,” he mumbled under his breath before shaking his arm to expose his watch. “You have five minutes or I’m leaving without you—and no more leaking, understand?”

“Five minutes?” she echoed. “That’s not much time.”

He narrowed his gaze on her and slowly shook his head before turning on his heel and striding toward the doorway. “Four minutes and forty seconds,” he called back over his shoulder.

She did smile at that. “Let me grab my shoes,” she said, scooting toward the edge of the bed.

He grunted. “Just hurry up,” he complained as he stepped out into the hallway. “Probably want to do something about your face. You’re still all blotchy . . .”

‘It’s not a date,’ she thought as her smile widened the tiniest bit. Shuffling through her closet, she pulled out a cream colored sweater and a pair of slightly darker wool slacks. Even if it wasn’t a date, she could deal with that, she figured. It was enough for her that he was trying so hard to make her feel better, wasn’t it?

‘Absolutely,’ her youkai piped up as she hurriedly changed her clothes. ‘He’s just a complicated man; that’s all . . .’

Pulling her hair out of her collar, Isabelle stared thoughtfully at the carefully folded handkerchief lying on the bed as the hint of a smile gracing her lips slowly illuminated her eyes; as a tremulous sense of cautious hope slowly flickered to life . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

‘A scarred bear-youkai . . .’

Sitting back with a frustrated sigh, Gunnar Inutaisho tossed the tortoise-shell pen onto the desk with a clatter, curling his fingers against his lips as he pondered the information—or lack thereof—that Myrna had been able to glean. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Griffin Marin was easily a couple hundred years old, probably more.

‘It shouldn’t be this difficult,’ he thought sourly, staring at the pale blue light emanating from the computer monitor of his laptop glowing in the dimly lit study. No, it was obvious to him that the guy was hiding something, and the more roadblocks he came up against, the more determined he was to figure everything out. It wasn’t normal, and while he could appreciate the compulsion to protect one’s privacy, this went a little bit further than that. There was something that the man was desperately trying to hide, damn it, and Gunnar . . . well, he didn’t like it, and he’d burn in hell before he’d turn a blind eye on this one, even if Isabelle was angry at him for it.

It just didn’t make any sense. The guy couldn’t have possibly just appeared out of nowhere. He had to have a past even if Gunnar couldn’t see it right off. The problem was, though, that even Myrna couldn’t even find a thing, and if that was the case, then Gunnar wasn’t sure if anyone really could. She was undisputedly the best at what she did, and that she couldn’t track down any information did not bode well . . .

Heaving yet another sigh, Gunnar dug the cell phone out of his pocket and punched in Myrna’s number, tapping his claws against the tempered glass desktop as he waited impatiently for her to answer.

“Just can’t get enough of me, puppypants?” Myrna greeted after the fourth ring.

He snorted. “Having any luck?” he asked without preamble.

She let out a deep breath. “Nope.”

Restraining the low growl that surged in his throat, Gunnar snatched up the ink pen once more, rapid-fire clicking it in an effort to alleviate his overwhelming frustration at the entire situation. “Unacceptable,” he reiterated, his tone even, level, deathly quiet. “You’re not trying hard enough.”

“The hell I’m not,” she snapped, obviously irritated by his insistence that she wasn’t doing her job right. “No one’s ever heard of any bear-youkai, let alone a scarred bear-youkai . . . unless they’re covering for him.”

“Which is entirely possible, don’t you think?”

“Certainly possible,” she agreed, “but highly unlikely unless there’s something else going on that I don’t know about yet.”

“Yes, well, isn’t that what you’re supposed to find out?” he demanded, quirking an eyebrow that Myrna couldn’t see.

“Look, I’m telling you that there is no record of anyone that fits your description—at least, none that I can find. Unless this guy just dropped out of the sky—”

“Unlikely,” Gunnar snorted as the clicking of the ink pen escalated.

“—Or you’re just making him up—”

“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.”

“—Then I’m not sure what else to do. It’d be different if I could go and talk to some of these people in person. I’d get a better feel as to whether or not they’re lying. It’s not that difficult to lie to someone when you’re not looking them in the eye.”

And he had to concede that, too, not that it was any real consolation. Someone somewhere had to know about Griffin Marin, and he wasn’t about to let go of it until he had answers. Tightening his grip on the pen, Gunnar grimaced when it snapped in his hand, as black ink seeped out of the now defunct cartridge that had been broken in half in the process. Staring at his filthy palm, lip curled up in a derisive show of minor irritation, Gunnar dropped the debris into the trash can beside the desk and glanced around for something to wipe his hand on.

“It’s crap,” he grumbled, using the heel of his hand to lever himself out of his chair before stomping around the desk and heading for the doorway. “Unless this guy is some sort of myth or legend or something . . .”

“Myths? That sounds almost romantic, you know.”

“Hardly,” he snorted, using his elbow to hit the light panel beside the bathroom door and sticking his hand under the motion-sensor faucet. “Focus, will you?”

“It’s entirely possible,” she mused, her tone taking on a slightly bemused sort of whimsy. “I mean, how many legends were spawned by your grandfather and great-grandfather back in the day?”

Gunnar grunted since he’d heard a few of the legends—little more than fairy tales now—over the years. In school, they’d studied some of them, which had always made Gunnar somewhat uncomfortable. After all, he couldn’t very well tell anyone that the story of the Shikon no Tama was real though the events had been distorted by history, and he’d hated the retelling of the great dog-youkai who had, according to legend, spirited away a human woman and forced her to bear his half-breed child—the child who Gunnar knew as Uncle Yasha, of course . . . then were the tales of the dog ‘god’ who drove away the lingering youkai then disappeared into history’s annals. That ‘god’ was his grandfather, Sesshoumaru, and while the gist of the story was true enough—it was by Sesshoumaru’s edict that the youkai went into hiding—the method that was always depicted—the great dog god with one arm outstretched as violent light erupted from his fingertips, as a thousand youkai were destroyed—was entirely inaccurate. Legends made a man a hero or a fool, and Gunnar had never held stock in such nonsense . . .

Still, there was a level of truth to Myrna’s musings. Anyone who lived long enough was bound to spawn a folktale or two. Someone along the way had to have seen Griffin, and maybe . . .

“Myrna,” he said suddenly, shaking his hand off and scowling at the ink that still stained his palm. “Do something for me.”

“Sure, sure,” she agreed with a sigh. “Your wish is my command, Oh Great and Mighty Prince of the Puppies.”

“Keh,” Gunnar grumbled, grabbing a thick black towel out of the burnished steel ring beside the sink and wrapping it around his hand. “Do a web search, will you?”

“A web search?” she echoed.

Tossing the towel onto the sofa as he strode through the living room on his way back to the study, Gunnar grunted. “Yes.”

He heard the scrape of Myrna’s keyboard shelf being pulled out. “Okay . . . what am I searching?”

“Legends . . . scarred bears.”

The click of the keys punctuated the brief silence. Gunnar didn’t have to wait long. Myrna sighed. “Twenty-four-thousand-three-hundred-forty-five matches and climbing,” she remarked. “I suppose you actually think I have nothing better to do than to sit around reading legends on cheesy websites?”

“Why? Got a hot date or something?” Gunnar countered.

“You’re cold, Inutaisho.”

“I prefer brutally honest.”

“Yeah, and that brutal honesty is going to come back to bite you in the balls one day,” she predicted.

“Maybe,” Gunnar replied. “Anyway, send me links to the better sites.”

“Mmm . . .”

Clicking the phone off, Gunnar dropped it onto the deep crimson desk blotter and bit his cheek thoughtfully. It was a long shot, sure—even he had to acknowledge that. Still, what Myrna had said made sense, didn’t it, and even if there weren’t any legends about a scarred bear, maybe they’d figure out something that they hadn’t noticed before. In any case it was worth a shot . . .

Turning away from his desk, shoving his hands deep into his pockets, Gunnar narrowed his gaze as he peered out over the snow-covered landscape and sighed. At this point, anything was worth a shot . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

‘It is.’

‘It’s not.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘No, it isn’t.’

‘As much as you’d like to tell yourself it isn’t, you know damn well that it is.’

‘No, it isn’t. It really isn’t. Repeatedly saying that it is isn’t actually changing the fact that it isn’t.’

‘Right, right . . . refresh my memory . . . what exactly is a date, then?’

‘I don’t know, but this is just dinner; that’s all.’

‘Just dinner?   Please! That’s the classic definition of a date!’

Rolling his eyes as he pulled the menu up to cover his face a little better, Griffin snorted inwardly. ‘Dinner does not constitute a date,’ he argued. ‘It’s just eating. Everybody does it. Nothing special.’

‘Yeah? And who’s paying for dinner? In fact, didn’t you insist on paying?’

‘It was polite since I asked her.’

‘Uh-huh . . . asking a woman to dinner and paying for it . . . not a date . . . ri-i-i-ight . . .’

‘That’s all there is to it,’ he maintained stubbornly.

‘You just felt bad for lying to her.’

Griffin scowled at the menu. ‘When did I lie?’

‘When you said she was all blotchy . . . she wasn’t.’

Eyebrows drawing together, Griffin didn’t respond to that. He’d always heard that women tended to look anything but attractive after crying. That was what he’d been led to believe, and while he didn’t really have much experience as far as sobbing women were concerned, but he had a feeling that Isabelle might be different, anyway. Truth was, she hadn’t looked bad despite the slight ruddiness that was her nose and the tell-tale redness that rimmed her eyes. No, the tears had sparkled with the gentle light of the bedside lamp as they clung to her eyelashes—impossibly long; impossibly dark . . . her pale skin was touched with a hint of heightened color in her cheeks that weren’t blotchy at all, and maybe . . . Maybe if she had looked even a little bad, he might have been able to ignore the definite twinges that assailed him, and he had to admit, at least to himself, that he just didn’t want to see her cry. He was too used to the woman he knew; the Isabelle who would rather laugh off concern than take it to heart, who would rather tease and joke than stomp her foot and harass him to have her way . . .

She wasn’t a cry-baby, and maybe that had been the hardest part for him to deal with. Seeing her break down like she had . . . it just hadn’t sat well with him; not in the least . . . He’d never forget the way she’d looked when he’d opened the door; the overwhelming sadness that had engulfed her, and while he could still feel it lingering in her aura, at least he wasn’t as worried that she was about to burst into tears any longer . . .

“Everything sounds so good,” Isabelle commented, completely oblivious to his inner turmoil. “What do you recommend?”

Yanked out of his reverie, Griffin grunted but didn’t emerge from behind his menu. “Oh, the, uh, crab is always good . . . or the lobster . . .”

“What are you going to order?” she asked, her tone distracted since she was still reading through the choices.

“Oh, uh . . . I don’t know . . . probably crab . . .”

She nodded rather vaguely. “I could always get the lobster, and we could share,” she ventured.

“Or you could order the lobster with a side of crab legs,” he mumbled.

She closed the menu and set it aside. “I can’t believe I never noticed this place before,” she commented, casting an appreciative eye around the establishment.

Griffin very slowly lowered his menu enough to peer over the top without actually lifting his head. “It’s not very fancy,” he mumbled in an almost apologetic sort of way.

“No, it’s not,” she agreed, her eyes bright, curious. “I don’t think it has to be. It’s got nice atmosphere.”

Griffin snorted.

‘Well, at least you picked a damn fine looking woman to ask on your first date,’ his youkai went on, much to Griffin’s chagrin.

‘It’s not a date . . . and she’s just all right.’

‘She’s a far sight better than ‘just all right’ . . . and I hate to tell you, but it is a date . . .’

‘No . . . it . . . isn’t . . .’

His youkai sighed. ‘Okay, let’s examine the evidence, shall we?’

‘Let’s not . . .’

‘You asked her to dinner.’

‘She was leaking. I wanted her to stop before she flooded my house.’

‘Sure, you did, but that’s an entirely different discussion. Anyway, you asked her to dinner, and then you took a shower.’

‘I always take showers.’

‘Not in the evening, you don’t. Need I remind you that you even shaved?’

‘I always do that, too,’ he grumbled.

‘And brushed your teeth.’

‘Well, duh . . .’

‘And your hair . . .’

‘So?’

‘You even put on a new shirt—nice package creases, by the way.’

‘And your point?’ Griffin demanded with an inward growl.

‘Tell me again . . . what is that you have in your pocket?’

‘My wallet?’

‘And . . .?’

‘And what?’

‘And what else?’

Griffin snorted since he knew damn well where his youkai was going with this. ‘A clean handkerchief in case she springs another leak.’

‘And . . .?’

‘Dunno what you’re talking about.’

‘The hell you don’t! You’re packing breath mints, and the only reason that someone packs breath mints is because that someone is hoping to get a nice, big, fat smoochie.’

‘. . . Tell me you didn’t just use the word, ‘smoochie’ . . . and that wasn’t why I have those. I didn’t want to bring a tooth brush along; that’s all . . .’

‘Oh, yes, I did, and if that helps you sleep better at night . . .’

Griffin sighed and slowly shook his head, deciding that he was much better off ignoring his youkai voice.

“Evening, Dr. Marin. Been a while since your last visit,” the waitress—a middle-aged woman who had once told him that her name was Bertie—said as she stopped beside the small table. “And who’s your friend?”

Griffin closed the menu and cleared his throat as a heated blush filtered into his cheeks at the slight emphasis that Bertie used on the word ‘friend’. “Uh, she’s just—”

“I’m staying with him,” Isabelle explained sweetly.

The waitress laughed. “Why, Dr. Marin, I never figured you for the type . . .” she teased.

“It’s just dinner,” he blurted, his cheeks warming even more with every word that escaped him. “It’s not a date or anything . . .”

Bertie laughed—a hearty sound—and patted him on the arm. “I didn’t think it was,” she said with a wink directed at Isabelle.

“N-no, seriously, it isn’t,” he insisted.

Bertie tapped the end of her nose. “So you’ll be wanting separate checks?”

Willing himself not to blush any worse than he already was, Griffin forced himself to give a jerky shake of his head. “No . . . i-it’s just not a date.”

She stared at him for a long moment—he could see the amusement in her expression. “All right,” she agreed at length. “What’ll you have?”

“I’ll, uh . . . the crab platter,” he mumbled, avoiding the woman’s discerning gaze.

“All right,” she said with a nod. “House chowder and a salad?”

“Sure.”

“And you, sweetie?” Bertie asked, turning her attention on Isabelle.

Isabelle offered the woman a wan polite little smile and handed her menu over. “I think I’ll have the same,” she replied.

“Good choice. House chowder and salad?”

“N—” Isabelle began.

Griffin snorted as Bertie took his menu. “Yes.”

Isabelle wrinkled her nose but didn’t argue with him.

“All right, then. It’ll just be a few minutes. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Diet Coke,” Isabelle ordered.

Griffin shook his head, not that she noticed. “Iced tea,” he mumbled.

With another quick wink, Bertie hurried away.

Isabelle sighed and sat back, rubbing her forearms through the soft sweater that she’d changed into. “I meant to tell you,” she said softly, her smile fading though her eyes remained bright, “thank you.”

He blinked a stared at her for a moment. “For what?”

She shrugged, idly fingering the edge of the paper napkin arranged under the silverware. “For listening,” she said as though it were the simplest thing in the world. She sighed suddenly and shook her head as a hint of pinkness seeped into her cheeks, and she ducked her head, refusing to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry for earlier . . . I don’t know what came over me . . . I never cry—well, not like that . . .”

Griffin shifted almost uncomfortably, reaching over to adjust his cane for want of something better to do. “Yeah,” he grumbled, wondering absently if she could sense his discomfort or if she was too deep in thought to notice anything at all. “Just don’t make a habit of it. I don’t have flood insurance on the house.”

Her soft laughter was his reward, and he swallowed hard, realizing somewhere in the back of his mind that he’d missed that sound in the last couple of days. The warmth of her smiles, the way her eyes seemed to take on an incandescent glow. . . If her laughter was a color, it’d be a sunny yellow, wouldn’t it, and the brilliance that seemed to emphasize every single thing she did had reminded him of things that he used to believe were long dead to him; of cherry blossoms and spring breezes, and the softest chime of laughter that lingered on the wind. Isabelle had brought these things back to him . . . and that bit of knowledge . . .

It scared the hell out of him.

Chapter Text

Isabelle stepped out of the restaurant and smiled as the sound of tiny silver bells greeted her. Something about the gentle chimes always had struck her as a friendly sort of thing, reminding her of simple times and soft laughter; of the warmth and good will of the holiday season. Stopping beside the bright red bucket suspended from the metal hook stand, she dug through her purse for money as Griffin followed her outside. It only took a moment for him to figure out what she was doing, and with a shake of his head and a sigh, he dug out his wallet and dropped a twenty dollar bill into the bucket.

“Thank you! I hope you and your girl have a happy holiday!” the black man in a Santa Claus suit said with a broad grin. The brass bell in his hand stopped ringing long enough for him to shake Griffin’s hand.

“Sh-she’s not my girl,” Griffin muttered, a startled sort of expression surfacing on his features as his cheeks reddened at the suggestion that they might be a couple.

Isabelle smiled and winked at the would-be Santa. “Merry Christmas,” she said as Griffin grabbed her arm to drag her away.

His laughter echoed behind them as he resumed the ringing of the bell.

Griffin grimaced and gave his head a good shake. “That sound just gets stuck in my ears,” he remarked when he realized she was staring at him.

“Your ears bother you?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Not really . . . you telling me that it didn’t bother you?” he countered with a quizzical glance.

“I suppose,” she agreed then shrugged inwardly. He was leaning rather heavily on his cane—more heavily than he had on the short walk to the restaurant, and she wondered with a frown if he was pushing himself too much again. The memory of the night he’d taken off into the forest without his cane still bothered her. She knew damn well that he was too stubborn to admit that he was in pain, even if he had promised not to keep it a secret from her anymore . . .

“Tell me something?”

She blinked and glanced up at him only to find him staring off into space. She could see the faint hint of stubble thickening on his jaw line and smiled. He’d shaved just before they’d left the house, and she’d noticed before that Griffin’s facial hair tended to grow unbelievably fast. He’d have a full beard in a few days if he stopped shaving, she supposed, but it didn’t bother her. She rather liked the rugged sort of quality it added . . .

“Okay,” she agreed, careful to keep her tone neutral.

“You’re Japanese, right? I mean, you grew up there . . .”

His question surprised her. She’d never kept that a secret, of course, but he’d never really asked her anything that could be considered a personal question before, either, and that he would choose that one . . . well, it amused her. “Yes,” she replied.

He grunted softly, more of an acknowledgement than a sound of disapproval. “Why don’t you have a thicker accent?”

She smiled, figuring that was a fair enough question. “Well, Mama’s American,” she explained, “and she speaks in English a lot . . . She’s picked up a lot of Japanese, but she always wanted to make sure that we all knew English, and Papa encouraged it, too.”

He nodded slowly, as though her answer made a lot of sense. “That makes sense.”

“And I did spend a fair amount of time here, growing up,” she went on, her eyes glossing over as a million memories flashed through her head. Ice cream cones and beachside clam bakes . . . quiet walks with her grandfather through the dense forest that surrounded the Zelig estate . . . sharing jokes late at night near the fireplace while Grandma and she made s’mores over the small fire that Cain built up for them. Some summers were quieter than others—Bastian and Gunnar had alternated, training in Japan with InuYasha and Ryomaru, Toga and Sesshoumaru and Cain . . . During the summers when the boys were in Maine, they’d stay up way too late until they were yawning all morning during training and frustrating Cain to no end while Isabelle slept in all morning, only to wake up when Bastian, Gunnar, and Morio dumped water on her or worse . . . “It was pretty fun,” she confessed, the memories offering her a comfort that she welcomed. “I came here almost every summer, at least for a month or so, and then there were the holidays . . .”

“The holidays? You spent them here?”

She nodded. “Most of the time, Papa brought us here for Christmas,” Isabelle said as she and Griffin ambled along the sidewalk. “Mama always wanted to come home for Christmas . . . she said that Tokyo was nice, but nothing beat Christmas in Maine . . . I think she missed the snow . . .”

The tap of Griffin’s cane accompanied his shuffling footsteps. “That doesn’t explain why you’re here in the States,” he pointed out rather dryly.

She sighed and shrugged, adjusting the thick taupe scarf that hung loose around her neck. “I don’t know . . . I guess it just seemed like a good idea,” she ventured, her tone carefully neutral, as though she worried that Griffin would discern a little too much.

“So you traveled halfway around the world to go to college and start your career?” he countered with a shake of his head. “Try again, girly. I’m not buying.”

He really was too sharp for his own good sometimes . . . “I don’t know . . . I suppose Papa’s shadow was pretty daunting, too,” she allowed.

“The daughter of the famous researcher? I guess,” he replied, stopping to lean against the railing of the long boardwalk that ran the length of the river’s edge. The blackened waters below frothed and flowed, untouched by the coldness as the temperature continued to steadily drop.

Isabelle pulled her coat a little closer and let out a deep breath as she stepped up beside the bear-youkai to gaze out over the moonlit water. His silhouette, etched so deeply against the backdrop of the night clung to her mind, seemed to float before her very eyes. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected when she’d emerged from her bedroom, but he’d looked somehow different: a change that had little to do with the clothes he wore though he had changed into what looked to be a new white shirt and dark brown corduroy slacks. His hair was still damp, too, and meticulously brushed though she didn’t doubt for a moment that it’d be just as unruly as ever once it dried. For a bear, he certainly had fine hair . . . All clean shaven and neat, he looked completely nervous, too—and despite his insistence that it wasn’t a date, Isabelle had to wonder . . .

Shaking herself and sighing softly, she couldn’t help the wan little smile that twitched on her lips as she turned her face toward the moon, her skin tingling in the cold night air. “It’s sort of expected, I guess . . . You know, when you’re introduced to everyone as ‘Izayoi Kichiro’s daughter’ with your actual name being secondary . . .” She shook her head and laughed softly, almost sadly. “I guess I have really big shoes to fill.”

“Which was the reason you jumped at the chance to have a crack at the research,” he guessed, his tone indicating that he’d figured out as much long ago.

She grimaced, wondering if she was really as shallow as all that. “Sounds crass, doesn’t it? I mean, that’s part of it, I’ll admit, but this research could help a lot of people—hanyou . . . I’m lucky, or so I’ve been told. My grandmother’s miko blood has always kept our hanyou blood in check, but it’s not like that’s something that would matter to someone else. Without some sort of seal, the things a hanyou can do are so limited . . .”

He grunted, tapping the end of his cane against the bottom of the railing in an idle sort of way.

Leaning forward on the railing, Isabelle clasped her hands and stared over the water; the gentle ripples as the moonlight chased after itself on the surface of the roiling crests. “There was a hanyou, I remember . . . he wanted to be a hunter for Uncle Sesshoumaru . . . I was really little back then, but I remember hearing the adults talking about it. Even Grandpapa InuYasha was against the idea because of the lack of a restrainer to limit the hanyou’s youkai blood . . . They said it was too dangerous, that he’d be in trouble if things went wrong, and then he’d be a threat to both humans as well as youkai. They said that the risk of that happening might be small, but it was too much of a risk to take . . .”

He digested that in silence, and when she stole a peek at him out of the corner of her eye, she couldn’t help the momentary tremor that erupted deep inside. The gentle breeze blowing off the river lifted the fine hair that always fell to cover his face, those shaggy bangs that she just wanted to touch while the light dancing off the water seemed to pool in his dark gaze, adding a dimension of light that lent him a far more melancholy sort of air . . . the sharp angles of his face, the pronounced hollows in his cheeks . . . even his scars seemed to have dissipated in the forgiving glow, and while Isabelle had come to cherish those marks, she had to wonder why it was that Griffin didn’t realize how very much he had to offer.

“Anyway, that’s neither here nor there,” she went on, forcing her eyes off the man in question. “If this research will help someone, then it should be completed, regardless of who does it.”

“Yeah, well, you won’t be able to if you give up,” he said, his tone a little gruffer than normal. “You know that, right?”

She sighed, nodding slightly as she stared at her hands at the reminder of the lost infant. “I know,” she said. “I just can’t help thinking . . .”

“If you start leaking again, everyone’s going to think I did something to you,” he warned.

She smiled despite her glum thoughts, knowing without having to look that the man was blushing. “I won’t,” she promised, abruptly pushing herself away from the railing. “Anyway, I think I want dessert.”

Griffin snorted, obviously relieved at the turn of conversation. “Dessert? You mean you didn’t have enough chocolate at dinner?”

She did laugh at that. Just remembering the look of absolute incredulous revulsion on Griffin’s face as he’d watched her dump pretty near a whole bottle of chocolate syrup onto the salad he’d made her eat was enough to elicit a fit of giggles on her part.

“If you don’t like it,” he’d said as she stared unhappily at the small garden salad the waitress had placed before her, “then get some dressing or something that you like.”

Dragging her gaze off the salad, she quirked an eyebrow at him. “What kind of dressing did you get?” she asked.

“Bleu cheese,” he replied as he stabbed some lettuce and lifted the bite to his lips.

She made a face. “Moldy cheese? No thanks . . . that’s just gross . . .”

He set his fork down and rolled his eyes. “Then get Italian or ranch or vinaigrette . . . and stop complaining. Vegetables are good for you, unless you want scurvy . . . I hear it’s a great thing this time of year . . .”

She blinked in surprise—it was the first time she could recall Griffin being outright sarcastic. “Fine, fine,” she gave in with a sigh then snapped her fingers and broke into a smile before waving her fingers at the waitress.

But he hadn’t said anything when she’d asked for chocolate syrup, and he’d only watched in silence as she added it to her salad. Of course, he’d looked like he was considering getting up and leaving, but he must have figured that at least he’d convinced her to eat the salad even if he did think that her choice of dressings was disgusting . . .

“It wasn’t bad,” she said, unable to help herself as she smiled when Griffin’s face contorted in a show of disgust spurned on by the memory of Isabelle’s salad. “I think I’d eat it more often if there was enough chocolate syrup on it to mask the taste of the greens.”

“And you think bleu cheese dressing was disgusting,” he grumbled with a shake of his head.

“It is,” she argued. “Eating chocolate is natural. Eating mold is not.”

He grunted, falling into step beside her as they wandered along the sidewalk once more. “You summarily undid all the good of eating a salad with that,” he pointed out.

Isabelle waved her hand dismissively. “Hey, I ate it, didn’t I?”

Griffin sighed.

A couple of women wandered past. It amused Isabelle when one of them kept looking over her shoulder, her gaze fixed on Griffin, and while the bear didn’t seem to notice, she certainly did. The woman wasn’t even trying to hide the appraising glint in her eyes, either, and she tapped her friend’s arm, who also turned to look—and stopped dead in her tracks for a moment as she stared appreciatively at the man in question. Isabelle couldn’t help the smile that surfaced as she squared her shoulders, unaccountably proud to be the woman walking beside Griffin. “You know, I think you have an admirer,” she murmured, leaning toward him as she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

“Huh?”

She laughed, jerking her head in the direction from which they’d come. Griffin shot her a narrow-eyed scowl but grudgingly glanced over his shoulder. With a loud snort, he whipped his head back around and quickened his pace just a little.

“Why are you rushing off? You should go back and introduce yourself!” she said, catching his arm as she hurried after him.

He snorted indelicately but didn’t shake her off. “Hardly,” he grumbled, his embarrassment palpable.

“Oh, why? They thought you were hot, you know.”

He uttered a sound caught halfway between a grunt and a groan and kept moving. “Think again, Jezebel. If you haven’t noticed, I get stared at because I’m . . .”

She frowned at the unspoken sentiment he left hanging in the air. “You’re what?” she asked, a warning hint creeping into her tone.

He snorted, obviously nonplussed by whatever mayhem she had in mind if he tried to put himself down. “I’m a bare step above Quasimodo, if you haven’t noticed,” he grumbled.

“That’s not true,” she said, her voice quiet, punctuated by the raw vehemence underlying it.

“Yeah, well, just drop it, all right?”

She heaved a perturbed sigh to let him know just what she thought of the situation but did as he requested, concentrating instead on the crisp breeze that ruffled her hair, that brought the clean scent of Griffin to her. It wouldn’t do any good for her to badger him at the moment, and she knew it. Still, she hated to admit defeat, damn it, and that was exactly what she felt like she was doing . . . “You know what sounds really good?” she finally asked, deliberately refocusing her attention before it completely ruined her fragile good mood.

Griffin shot her a sidelong glance but looked completely nonplussed, all the same. “What?” he finally asked, his tone stating quite plainly that he wasn’t at all sure that he wanted to hear what sounded good to her.

“Ice cream,” she stated.

He stopped short and narrowed his eyes on her like he was trying to decide whether or not she was being serious. “Ice cream.”

She nodded and grabbed his arm, tugging him toward the small ice cream shop on the other side of the street. She didn’t stop moving as she glanced both ways then stepped off the wooden planking. Griffin stared at her hand for a moment before heaving a sigh as he let her drag him across the pavement.

“Isn’t it kind of cold for ice cream?” he demanded though he didn’t try to stop her.

“Nope,” she insisted. “It’s never too cold for ice cream.”

He grunted.

“Besides,” she went on brightly, “even you can’t say no to ice cream.”

“Don’t know,” he mumbled. “Never had it before.”

She stopped and swung around to face him, her expression full of unmasked surprise. He could tell that she wasn’t sure whether or not she ought to believe him, and for some reason, he couldn’t help the slight rise in his defenses. “Never? As in, never ever?”

“Never ever,” he allowed.

“Wow . . . then I suppose I should pay for it,” she decided. “You’ll like it, you know. Bet they have butter pecan.”

Unwilling to admit that his interest was definitely piqued at the mention of butter pecan ice cream, Griffin settled for grunting again as she hustled him toward the candy apple red painted door of the building. “I said I’d pay,” he reminded her.

She laughed and reached for the old fashioned door handle. “You said you’d pay for dinner, and you did—thank you. I can pay for dessert.”

“Forget it, Jezebel. I’m onto your game,” he grumbled.

“My game?”

He nodded once.

She laughed softly, pulling open the door and stepping inside. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the brightness of the small ice cream parlor. The older man behind the counter looked up and broke into a welcoming grin. “Stop!” he called out suddenly.

Isabelle blinked and turned around to see what the guy was looking at. Griffin stood in the doorway with his hand on the handle, obviously caught in the process of pulling the door closed. He looked around slowly, as though he were trying to figure out what the man was talking about, too.

He chuckled then pointed upward. Isabelle looked again, slowly lifting her gaze only to break into a grin when she noticed just what the man was referring to. Standing where he was, Griffin was directly beneath a sprig of mistletoe, and when he noticed it, it wasn’t surprising to see his face slowly drain of all viable color before exploding in a livid and vibrant blush. Jerking the door closed with a very loud ‘bang’, he tried to hurry forward only to be stopped when Isabelle laid a hand on his forearm, leaning up on her toes to brush a chaste kiss over his cheek, much to Griffin’s chagrin and the man’s amusement.

“’Tis the season,” he remarked, still chuckling over Griffin’s obvious embarrassment.

Griffin snorted, unable to do anything about the crimson staining his skin as he avoided Isabelle’s gaze and lumbered past her, getting out from under the offending sprig as quickly as he possibly could. “Jezebel,” he choked out as Isabelle bit her lip and tried not to laugh outright. “What kind of ice cream do you want, fat ass?”

That did make her laugh, much to the man’s surprise. “What other kind is there?” she quipped, stepping up beside Griffin and winking at the man before glancing down at the freezer display counter. “Chocolate, of course!”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” he grumbled.

“And he wants to try some butter pecan,” she added for good measure.

“Sundae or waffle cone?” the guy—his nametag said Brian—asked.

“I’d like a waffle cone,” Isabelle replied.

“Plain in a cup,” Griffin said.

“You could get chocolate and chopped peanuts on it,” she told him.

Griffin snorted and shook his head. “No, thank you.”

Brian laughed as he grabbed a waffle cone out of the glass display where the cones were kept atop the counter. “Regular chocolate or chocolate lover’s supreme?”

“Oh, what’s the difference?” she asked.

“Supreme has chunks of liqueur-filled chocolates and ribbons of semi-sweet chocolate.”

“Mm, that sounds good,” she said. “I think I’ll have that!”

“Special dark chocolate syrup?” he inquired as he scooped into the huge container of ice cream.

She stole a glance at Griffin who was frowning at the huge waffle cone in Brian’s hand. “That sounds wonderful,” she intoned.

Griffin rolled his eyes but didn’t comment while Brian finished filling Isabelle’s cone. She took it and reached for a plastic spoon from the recycled restaurant powdered creamer container beside the cash register. With a quick wink, she stepped back to wait while Brian dished up Griffin’s ice cream.

“Looking forward to Christmas?” Brian asked as he dug into the butter pecan ice cream.

Griffin shrugged. “Sure,” he replied though his tone was more of a grumble than usual.

Brian laughed. “My wife is more excited about it than most kids. She loves the holidays. She’s been trying to talk me into going with her to her grandparents’ house, but I don’t know about that . . .”

“Yeah . . .”

“Is this your first Christmas together?”

Isabelle hid a smile behind a spoonful of ice cream as Griffin shifted uncomfortably. “You could say that,” he allowed.

“Your girl’s a keeper,” Brian said with a conspiratorial wink as he leaned over the counter, obviously only intending for Griffin to hear the disclosure.

She didn’t have to see his face to know that Griffin’s face had taken on the reddened flush that he’d barely managed to get rid of after the mistletoe incident. Stifling the giggle that welled up in her throat, she wasn’t surprised to hear his choked sort of cough, to see the tensing in his back and shoulders. “She’s not—we aren’t—this isn’t a date or anything,” he blurted.

The man seemed genuinely surprised as he leaned to the side to glance at Isabelle. She wiggled her fingers in greeting as her smile widened. He nodded and broke into a grin as he straightened his back and looked at Griffin. “You sure?”

Griffin snorted. “Very.”

“Does she know that?”

“Y-yes,” Griffin retorted.

Isabelle did giggle at that. He sounded entirely shaken, which was amusing, all things considered. It really was a date, wasn’t it? The only one who didn’t seem to realize that was Griffin, and, well, Isabelle didn’t think she’d point it out to him, either . . .

Taking his cup of ice cream with a mumbled ‘thank you’, he paid for the treat and turned around as Isabelle wandered over to slip into a chair at a cozy little table near the plate glass windows that overlooked the river front. “Thank you for the ice cream,” she remarked, breaking off a bit of the cone and popping it into her mouth.

Griffin didn’t answer. He was scowling at the ice cream in the clear plastic dish. Slowly he lifted it to his nose and sniffed at it. He must have figured that it was safe enough. Scooping a small bite onto the spoon, he rather reluctantly stuck it into his mouth.

“Good?” she questioned when he didn’t say anything right away.

He took another bite and chewed slowly, as though he were considering his opinion. “Not enough pecans,” he mumbled.

Isabelle laughed since she could see the huge chunks—pecan halves—embedded in the ice cream. There were a lot of them, but of course he’d want more. She couldn’t help but be amused when he showed his weakness for all things pecan . . . “But you like it?” she pressed.

He grunted and kept eating slowly, as though he wanted his ice cream to last a while.

Isabelle wasn’t nearly as diplomatic as that. It didn’t take her long to polish off the ice cream and the waffle cone, and she stuck her spoon out to snag a bite of Griffin’s only to have her knuckles whapped with his spoon. “Back off, Jezebel. This is mine,” he informed her.

She laughed and licked the bit of melted ice cream off the back of her hand. “Aww,” she complained with an exaggerated pout. “Not even one bite?”

“Not even one,” he reiterated, scraping the last of his ice cream from the plastic cup. “If you want more, then get more, but don’t try to steal mine, you thief.”

“Hmm,” she drawled, considering his suggestion. “All right!”

She started to stand up only to stop when Griffin got to his feet, instead. “It’ll all go to your ass,” he remarked as he headed back toward the counter.

Isabelle smiled, propping her elbow on the table and resting her chin on her balled-up fist. Maybe he wasn’t the best at expressing himself, and maybe he was a little rough around the edges, but she didn’t mind; not really. After all, underneath that gruff exterior lurked a very sensitive man; one who seemed to understand her without any questions asked, at least when it came to the important things. Something about Griffin spoke to her—had always spoken to her in gentle whispers and muted sighs . . . and she knew deep down that he was the one she had been meant to find from the day she’d come into being . . .

He came back to the table, handing her another waffle cone sundae, and she couldn’t help but smile when she noticed that his bowl had two kinds of ice cream this time: pistachio and butter pecan. It was safe to assume that he enjoyed ice cream, and for some reason, she couldn’t help but be rather pleased that she was with him the first time he’d tried it.

“You want to try it?” she asked, extending a spoonful of chocolate dripping ice cream to him.

He made a face and drew back. “No,” he said flatly. “Absolutely not.”

She laughed since she hadn’t figured he’d want to. “So tell me something?” she asked just before stuffing the spoon into her mouth.

Griffin shot her a dark glance as though he wasn’t certain that he did want to tell her anything at all. “What?”

“You’ve been around while, right?”

He snorted at her indelicate jibe at his age.

Pointing her empty spoon at him, she went on, undaunted by his less-than-enthusiastic reaction. “Why is it that you’ve never had ice cream before?”

He looked surprised by her question, as though he’d fully expected her to say something entirely different. Thinking it over, he shrugged offhandedly, digging into the pistachio ice cream and savoring the first bite before answering. “Just never did,” he replied. “Never thought about it.”

“But everybody loves ice cream,” she parried. “It’s . . . it’s a global love type thing.”

“Global love, huh?” he muttered with a shake of his head. “I find that it’s much less complicated if I just stay in my little hole in the globe.”

“Funny . . .”

He blinked and swallowed, his gaze glowing like coals in the darkness. “What’s funny?”

She shrugged and waved off his question with a flick of her hand. “Well, not funny, I guess . . . it’s just . . . I always sort of figured you to be a worldly sort of guy . . . I don’t know why I always thought you had that look about you; like you’d been everywhere; seen everything . . .”

A strange sort of expression flickered over his features—the kind of expression she’d seen before when she’d once asked her grandfather, InuYasha about Kikyou—but he masked it quickly enough. “I’ve seen more than enough,” he said quietly; so quietly that she almost missed his words.

His tone, his demeanor, the sadness that crept into his eyes lent a haunted sort of quality to his expression nearly broke her heart, and deep down she knew—she’d known it for a while, hadn’t she? His scars . . . his nightmares . . . everything he was . . . it was all tied together, wrapped in the darkest of memories and in secrets he just didn’t feel worthy of sharing . . .

Staring at him in the quiet ice cream parlor as he pushed the plastic bowl away and scowled thoughtfully at the bright blue table, his words came back to her in a rush, in a whisper, in a gale so strong that it sent shivers down her spine, howling in her ears as surely as the wind of a winter blizzard.

“Are you so arrogant that you really believe you’re the only person who ever . . .?”

Swallowing hard, blinking back sudden tears that sprang into her eyes, she finished his sentence in her mind.

“Are you so arrogant that you really believe you’re the only person who ever felt responsible for the death of someone else . . .?”

She stole a peek at him through the thick fringe of her eyelashes and winced. ‘Griffin . . . what really did happen to you . . .?’

Chapter Text

Griffin grimaced, rubbing his right shoulder with his left hand in an effort to alleviate the stiffness that had set in shortly after Isabelle and he had returned from dinner. He hadn’t pushed himself too far, but he had to admit that he was a little sore. Drumming his claws against the steering wheel of Isabelle’s car, he scowled at the hospital entrance and wondered if it wasn’t a mistake to let her go inside alone.

They hadn’t been back at the house for ten minutes when she’d hurried through the living room, stopping only long enough to grab her purse before heading for the foyer, and he’d followed her in time to catch her stooped over, tugging her shoes back on.

“I have to run past the hospital,” she reluctantly explained as he crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his gaze on her. “I need to check on her . . .”

He could tell from her expression that going back to the hospital was the very last thing she wanted to do, not that he blamed her. He didn’t figure he’d enjoy going back to the place where such hurtful memories lived, either, and as much as he wished he could talk her out of going, he also knew that she’d insist. It was her responsibility, after all, even if the very idea of doing it was enough to draw a marked grimace from her.

“Give me the keys,” he mumbled, shaking his head and reaching for his coat.

She stared at him for a long minute but did as he told her without comment.

Letting out a deep breath, Griffin killed the engine and fumbled around for the door handle, deciding that the least he could do was to go inside and wait for her. He could understand the family’s anger at the situation—anyone would be upset—but he’d also be damned if he’d let them take their frustration out of Isabelle, either. She was a doctor, but she wasn’t a god, and it didn’t matter what she wished, she couldn’t change the past. She prided herself on her work; he knew that. There was no way she’d have overlooked anything in her treatment of the woman, of that he was certain. She cared about people far too much to do something as careless as that, and if she said that what she’d done was standard procedure, then he believed that, too.

He just started to climb out of the car when Isabelle stepped out from between the automatically sliding doors. She paused for a moment, rubbing her forehead, and despite the distance, he could sense her rising upset, but he got back into the car, unmindful of the terse little growl that rumbled out of him unbidden.

She dashed a hand over her eyes and lifted her chin proudly before squaring her shoulders and adjusting her grip on the black leather bag she had slung over her arm. Striding over to the car, she didn’t speak as she opened the door and slipped inside. “She’s doing better,” Isabelle finally said as Griffin started the engine and waited for her to fasten her seatbelt. “She’ll probably be able to go home tomorrow . . .”

He grunted.

She sighed, turning her attention out the window as he navigated the parking lot and turned out onto the street. “She blames herself,” Isabelle murmured softly. “I wish she didn’t . . .”

“Sounds familiar,” Griffin retorted almost mildly, squinting as the harsh street lights seemed to stab at his eyes. For some reason, they were worse on him than sunlight. He figured it had something to do with the darkness of the surroundings; the marked contrast in the prefabricated brightness of the streetlamps . . .

“I’d rather that she blamed me than herself,” Isabelle confessed softly. “The mind can do terrible things to people . . . the guilt and the recriminations . . .”

He didn’t respond to that. There wasn’t really anything to say. It was a true observation, after all. Sometimes, the recriminations and the self-disgust were worse than trying to believe that someone else had caused one’s misfortunes . . .

That was something that Griffin knew first hand, wasn’t it? No matter what he thought or wanted to believe, certain things just weren’t meant to be forgotten, and no matter how much time passed, the saddest truth of all was the inevitability of a lifetime of emptiness that couldn’t be avoided in an insular moment in time . . .

She didn’t speak again during the drive back to the house. Lost in her own contemplation, she could have been a million miles away instead of sitting right beside him. He didn’t like the feeling that he couldn’t reach her; that it wouldn’t matter what he said or did, that in the end, she was already just beyond his grasp, and for once he didn’t try to lie to himself, either. Even if it wasn’t something that could ever last, maybe . . . maybe at that time and in that moment . . . Maybe it was alright for him to want to bridge the gap . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

The unmistakable sound of labored breathing echoed in the silent room as the scent of two bodies; of passion and of sweat tingled in his nostrils. She’d been in town, and he’d needed the distraction. It had seemed like the natural thing to do . . . She keened softly, shaking with the tide of need, her ass as she reared back, her body meeting his. Holding onto her hips, fingers dug into the supple flesh, jaw ticking as he enjoyed the sight of her body bearing down on his, savored the unrelenting sultry heat that drew him deeper and deeper.

The soft trill of the cell phone split the stunted quiet, and he leaned to the side without breaking his rhythm, fumbling around for the device and squinted to make out the name that registered on the caller ID.

Myrna Loy.

Abruptly, Gunnar pulled out of Katarina and rolled aside, snatching the condom off as he gave the cell phone one good shake to slide it open as he headed for the bathroom without a second glance at the woman left in the middle of the huge bed.

“Find out something?” he demanded without preamble as he tossed the condom into the garbage can and made a face and snatched a thick white wash cloth off the shelf over the toilet in the starkly bright hotel bathroom.

“Maybe,” Myrna replied, her honey smooth voice just as dulcet over the phone as it was in person, “and good evening to you, too.”

Gunnar snorted, standing with his hand under the faucet until the water warmed a little before grabbing the washcloth and sticking it under the tap. “Yes, well, immaculate timing,” he said rather dryly as he wrung the cloth out with one hand and started to wash himself off with a grimace. He’d rather take a shower, but that’d just have to wait . . .

“Oh?”

“Hmm,” he countered. “Tell me why you called.”

She heaved a long sigh as he dropped the washcloth on the counter and strode out of the bathroom to locate his clothing. “Thought you’d want an update on the search for the Great Bear of Legend and Lore.”

Hooking the phone between his shoulder and the side of his head—good thing he had excellent hearing since the action muffled Myrna’s voice dramatically—he snatched his pants off the floor and pulled them on. “Go ahead.”

“As I told you, it’s slow going,” she remarked in a somewhat cryptic tone.

Gunnar’s expression darkened into one of irritation that he brushed aside since he knew damn well that Myrna never would have called him if she didn’t have something worth saying. “Spare me the sob story,” he grumbled, shrugging his shirt on before catching the phone with his other hand to repeat the process once more.

“Hmm, Gunnar,” Katrina protested from her place where she lay, curled on her side on the rumpled bed. “You’re not really leaving, are you?” She’d tried to cover the sulky tone in her voice with a teasing sort of drawl, but he wasn’t dull enough to miss it. Even if he hadn’t heard it punctuating her words, the slant of the fire-youkai’s deep hazel eyes, the slight moue that pursed her pouty lips gave her away . . . Slowly turning his head, he pinned her with a blank stare, an almost bored sort of insignificance in his gaze, he very pointedly narrowed his eyes, and she paled slightly, drawing the sheet up over herself and swallowing so hard that he could see the motion of her throat. She was breaking the unspoken rules, and she knew it. Questioning him, demanding anything from him that he didn’t freely offer . . . it simply wasn’t acceptable. Satisfied that he’d made his point, Gunnar sat down to pull on his socks and shoes before standing up and grabbing his jacket off the back of a chair.

Myrna chuckled. “So how is your stock broker these days?” she asked, her amusement evident.

Gunnar didn’t answer as he strode across the floor and grabbed the door handle. “She’s just fine,” he replied, pulling the hotel room door closed behind him and heading toward the stairwell. Katarina’s scent still clung to him, and he made a face of obvious disgust. He’d be lucky if it came out when the clothes were cleaned—one more thing to add to his already growing sense of frustration. Katarina didn’t smell bad, no, but Gunnar also hated to have anyone else’s stink clinging to him . . .

“She sounded a little upset with you,” Myrna pointed out.

“She’ll live, I assure you,” Gunnar stated as he took the stairs two at a time in his haste to get out of the building. “My car,” he said, lowering the phone as he stopped beside the hotel’s front desk.

“Right away, Mr. Inutaisho,” the receptionist demurred.

Myrna sighed again. “Are you so sure about that? If you really are any good in bed . . .”

“Oh, I’m damn good, Myrna,” Gunnar assured her, a trace hint of a smile quirking at the corners of his lips. “Anyway, that’s not really why you called me, was it?”

“No, it isn’t,” she agreed with a soft chuckle. “There were just a few interesting things I found as I navigated those websites.”

“Do tell.”

“I emailed what I found to you along with links and excerpts,” she chided.

Gunnar snorted. “I trust you’ve realized that I’m not at home,” he pointed out as he nodded at the doorman and strode out onto the sidewalk.

“I didn’t think you were,” she quipped. “You never take your ladies there, do you?”

“Having someone else’s stench in my bed isn’t exactly something that I’d prefer, no,” he agreed easily enough as he waited for his car to be brought around.

“You sleep with them but are concerned about their ‘stench’?”

Gunnar’s lip curled back in a derisive sort of grin. “I can tolerate it for brief amounts of time if the benefits outweigh the inconvenience,” he explained. “Besides, I have yet to hear any complaints.”

“You really are a bastard, aren’t you?” she mused drolly.

“Absolutely,” he agreed as the carhop stopped before the hotel in Gunnar’s shining black Jag. He slipped some bills into the young man’s hand and got into the vehicle, gunning the engine as he took off out of the parking lot. “About the legends?” he reminded her.

“Oh, those,” Myrna said, a hint of disgust creeping into her tone. “Well, as I said, I told you that it was going to be a pain, but . . . that aside, as I read through website after website, trite story after trite story, futile effort after fut—”

“I get the picture,” he cut in brusquely, pulling to a stop at a red light and drumming his claws against the steering wheel impatiently.

She chuckled—a husky sound that Gunnar was certain had gotten her a fair share of attention when she was able to roam freely. “Do you? Good . . . but then something occurred to me—it didn’t take that long, actually. See, every one of the stories that I found initially referred to the ‘scarred bear of the north’, so I started to reference the legends only to find that all of them were from websites based in the United States, with a couple notable exceptions originating from Canada or Europe but interestingly, the stories were all ones told to them by their relatives or friends who lived in the States.”

Gunnar pondered that for a few moments then shook his head. “And your point is?”

Myrna ignored him as a somewhat gloating tone crept into her voice. “So I actively searched Canadian sites for the legend, and the most interesting thing happened.”

“What’s that?” he asked after counting to ten to cap his impatience. Myrna loved dangling information in front of his face, as it were. He’d have thought she was a cat-youkai instead of a hawk-youkai if he didn’t know better . . .

“The legends I found that originated in Canada . . . a couple did talk about the scarred bear of the north, but a few of them referred to him as coming from the east or the west . . . there was even one that talked about the bear from the south . . .”

“Good . . .” he drawled, his eyes brightening as he pulled into his driveway and killed the engine. “So you have a region?”

“A rough one,” she allowed. “I looked up some maps to see where the different sources lived—one of the legends was an Abenaki tale. Another was a different Native American tribe and so on, so I did a topographical overlay. The region I’m looking at is still pretty broad, but it’s a starting point . . . best lead we’ve had thus far.”

“Excellent,” he said—high praise from him. Dropping his keys onto the small table beside the door in the foyer, Gunnar kicked off his shoes and started unbuttoning his shirt as he headed straight for the stairs: his destination? The bathroom . . .

“I emailed all that to you, including the overlay map. Of course, there’s a bit of tolerance that must be considered since the regions are only rough average. Still, it’s a start . . .”

Gunnar pressed a button on the phone to transfer the call to his house intercom system and pushed the connector on the wall panel beside the bathroom door. “So tell me about these legends,” he said, smacking the phone against the heel of his hand to close the device before dropping it carelessly on the counter beside the sink. He turned on the shower taps and shrugged off his clothes, considering whether or not he ought to just throw out the outfit instead of bothering with trying to rid them of the offending odors.

“Hmm, you know, that’s the interesting thing,” she remarked almost absently. He heard the squeak of her chair as she stood up. It was drowned out moments later by the eruption of water from the shower as Gunnar slapped his hand against the control panel before sauntering out of the bedroom to look for a pair of hakama that he casually tossed onto the huge bed in the center of the room before heading back toward the bathroom once more.

“Interesting, how?” he asked when she didn’t offer any more information.

“Well,” she began with a brisk exhalation, “the legends run the gamut, you see. In some regions, he’s regarded as a saint, saving children from certain doom, driving away the evil spirits of the forest . . . in others he’s described as a monster, luring little ones away from their unwitting mothers and devouring them . . .”

“Okay, so that’s a bit of a stretch,” Gunnar grumbled as he stepped under the showerhead. It was true that he didn’t trust Griffin Marin, not at all, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to condemn him as a killer of pups, either . . .

“Yeah, I rather agreed,” she admitted. “Still, the way they all speak of him, it’s like he’s some sort of boogeyman.”

“Isn’t that what the youkai have been relegated to?” Gunnar countered, grabbing the bar of Ivory soap from the shelf and briskly washing his body.

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those who disagrees with Sesshoumaru’s edict?”

He snorted indelicately as ribbons of soap suds sluiced down his chest, his legs. “Don’t lump me in with that lot,” he stated.

“Of course not,” she nearly purred, her amusement evident in her voice. “But you can see their point?”

He didn’t deign to answer that. It didn’t matter whether or not he could see their point. They called it the pride of the youkai, and they asserted that Sesshoumaru’s edicts had taken that away from them, and while Gunnar could agree in theory that youkai shouldn’t have to hide their natures, he also agreed that the idea of letting the human populace know of their continued existence would cause more trouble than what it was worth . . .

“Look, Myrna, I don’t have the inclination to argue politics or ideology with you,” he said instead, reaching for a towel as he stepped out from under the tap. “Schedule a time with my secretary after you’ve gotten more information for me.”

“No need to be obnoxious, Spot,” she retorted smoothly as Gunnar hit the panel to staunch the water flow. “Now that you’ve washed off the stink, I assume you’re going to look over the information I’ve sent you?”

“That was the plan.”

It only took him a minute to towel off, and he discarded the damp cloth on the floor beside his bed in lieu of reaching for the hakama. Ordinarily he would hang it up in the bathroom, but at the moment, he had bigger fish to fry, as it were.

“Yes, well, the good news is that there aren’t many youkai in the area. There aren’t many humans there, either, for that matter. The bad news is the same. It might take some doing to track down anyone that actually knows of this legend first hand,” she admitted, her tone full of disgust.

“What about your sources?” he demanded, striding out of the bedroom and down the hallway, taking the stairs two at a time as he headed straight toward his study.

“There’s only one guy who knows the region, and I’ve already asked him about Marin.”

Dropping into the thickly cushioned chair behind the wide desk, Gunnar snorted indelicately and opened the laptop. Seconds later, the window popped up announcing that he had four new email messages. He clicked on the message and waited for it to load. “Maybe he lied to you,” he remarked absently, frowning in concentration as he stared at Myrna’s email.

Myrna sighed. “Maybe. I considered that,” she allowed. “The thing is, he isn’t the type to hide things. I mean, if he doesn’t consider someone a friend, then he holds no allegiance to them. If he does, then he will defend them to the end, so if he is lying, then I can’t really think of a logical reason why . . .”

“Everyone is prone to lie if the circumstances are right.”

“Geez, pup, you really need to get out more. You’re way too cynical for your own good.”

“Oh? And you aren’t?” he parried, navigating through the attachments on the email. The only one he was interested in seeing was the composite she’d created . . . “Give me this guy’s name. I’ll see whether or not he’s lying.”

“Like I’d give up my sources to you,” she scoffed. “How do you think I’m able to do what I do? It’s because I don’t rat people out.”

“Hmm, and here I thought that it was an order, not a request,” he contended.

Myrna snorted. “Isn’t there a law against giving up sources?”

“Only if you’re a journalist . . . and only if you’re human.”

“I’ll try talking to him again,” she promised. “Other than that, you’re shit out of luck.”

“Keh,” Gunnar grunted, reaching out to tap the connection button on the panel built into his desktop. The intercom system went silent, and he let out a deep breath as he scowled at the email. As much as he hated to rely on something as unreliable as legends, he had to admit that it was the best lead they’d had so far. Now if he could only figure out how to fit together the things he knew, he’d be one step ahead of the game . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

He couldn’t settle down.

Pacing through the living room into the dining room and back again, Griffin had given up trying to work on the translation notes hours ago. He wasn’t sure why he felt so restless. He wasn’t even sure that there was an actual reason behind it all. No, he just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was coming; something he couldn’t touch or smell or see, but something . . .

He’d tried to convince himself that it was all his imagination; that the last couple days had been a little too stressful, that he was just overreacting because of it. Trouble was, he didn’t really believe that, either . . .

“You don’t understand . . . She kept . . . She kept saying that the baby . . . The baby looked like she was sleeping; just sleeping . . .”

Clenching his jaw so tightly that he could feel his teeth scraping together, could almost hear the groaning creak as the surfaces met, Griffin paced a little faster. She’d honestly thought that he didn’t understand . . .

No, damn it, the truth was that he knew better than he wanted to admit, especially to Isabelle, and as much as he wished it were otherwise, having to watch her cry and knowing well enough that there really wasn’t a thing he could do to comfort her had nearly been his undoing.

He stopped suddenly, dragging a hand over his face in a thoroughly defeated sort of way. He wasn’t supposed to want to comfort her. He wasn’t supposed to care at all. When had all of that changed? Somehow, he didn’t think he should even attempt to answer that question . . .

A soft sound drew his attention. His head snapped to the side as he scowled at the mocking silence. He’d heard it, hadn’t he? The smallest cry, as though it was stifled, and yet he had heard it. He knew he had . . .

He scarcely realized that he was moving, striding through the room and down the hallway, his youki drawing him forward. He was compelled to go to her, wasn’t he?   Something in her aura was calling out to him. He could hear her in the depths of his soul.

Quietly pushing open the door to her bedroom, he flinched at the consuming sense of sadness that engulfed him. She’d been so tired after dinner that she’d barely been able to keep her eyes open, and in the end, he’d had to shoo her off to bed. She’d seemed a little reluctant, not that he could really blame her. As if she’d known that she’d find no peace, even in sleep, she’d stubbornly lifted her chin and headed off toward her room without saying a word . . .

And now he regretted it. To be honest, he’d been hard pressed not to call her back at the time. He’d wanted to. Watching her go cloaked in silent dignity, he’d opened his mouth to tell her that maybe she should stay close to him, and yet something had stopped him.

The moonlight filtering through the window cast bluish shadows on her face. Curled up on her side, her arms wrapped around her drawn up knees—what was it that they called that? Ah, yes, he remembered: the fetal position. It was somehow appropriate and completely ironic, given the circumstances, and it only took him a moment to ascertain that she was sleeping, albeit fitfully, but the sadness in her youki burned him.

She whimpered quietly, her youki constricting around her with the palpitations of her heartbeat. Whether she was reliving the ordeal that had affected her so deeply or she was battling the inner demons that Griffin knew only too well, she seemed to diminish in his eyes, shrinking into herself and seeking whatever comfort she could find within.

It was worse than seeing her cry; so much worse than hearing the piteous sounds of her inner turmoil being manifested. She’d said it, herself, hadn’t she? The mind could do far more damage than anything else could possibly inflict . . .

And it hurt. God, it hurt, bringing on more pain than Griffin could stand, leaving him raw and bleeding. Digging his claws into the callused flesh of his palms, he tried to resist the need to go to her. Lingering in the doorway, he bit his lip, his fang sinking in deep. The thin strands of reason, every single excuse he’d ever made to keep her at bay, snapped one by one, melting away before he had a chance to latch onto them, until all he knew, all he could comprehend, was the consuming compulsion to comfort her, to chase away the ghosts that he couldn’t see.

Stumbling toward her, across the woven rug that covered the hardwood floor, he heard the soft keening sound that escaped him, grimaced as her upset wrung a half-sob from her. Pausing for a moment just to stare at her, her misery so poignant, so biting that his mind reeled with the inane sense of a man possessed, he reached for her with trembling hands, carefully scooping her up, cradling her against his chest as he tried to ignore the nagging feeling that she felt absolutely perfect in his arms as he sank down on the bed, cuddling her against him, smoothing her hair as he let his head fall back against the chunky wooden headboard with carvings of tiny birds, of cherry blossoms, of a grassy knoll that he saw every night in his dreams . . .

Uttering a stunted breath, she slowly relaxed against him. She didn’t wake up. She didn’t have to. As though she could sense his proximity, he could feel the tension in her body melting away like ice in the springtime, and while her breathing remained stilted and harsh, she slept . . .

He shifted uncomfortably, his hip throbbing as the dull ache escalated. Certain positions always seemed to give him more trouble than others, and lying at the angle he was just wasn’t agreeing with him in the least. Still to his sheer amazement, his proximity was offering Isabelle a semblance of comfort, and while he didn’t try to flatter himself into believing that he was the reason she was able to rest a little easier, the warmth that ebbed through him—cautious and stunted but present nonetheless—was an entirely foreign if not completely welcome sensation.

The choking hold of her youki gradually loosened, the tendrils stretching, reaching out to him with invisible fingers, with the same gentleness that delineated everything Isabelle was. With the softest sigh, she shifted slightly, the warmth of her cheek emanating through his shirt, penetrating his very core while she huddled against him, unconsciously seeking the shelter he grudgingly offered her. A long-forgotten feeling flickered to life; the lingering remains of a bittersweet memory; of another whose laughter had been able to warm the depths of him, to fill him with a sense of well-being that could banish the darkness in a time and place when he hadn’t yet realized that the world was ugly and that he was damned . . .

His arms tightened around her, drawing her closer: close enough to feel the beat of her heart striking a rhythm that met his, matched his; a gentle strength that was so familiar to him that it hurt. The fierce need to protect her precluded all else, obliterating the need for self-preservation, shattering the resolve that had been his only real buffer against her for so long, and maybe he’d known from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her that it was inevitable. Maybe he’d known exactly what she had always claimed, even if he’d never wanted to admit it . . . even if there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it . . .

Opening his eyes for just a moment, he winced and squeezed them closed once more. She was radiant, brilliant in the shadows of the moonlight filtering through the window, and she looked like an angel to him, and while he’d given up believing in gods and devils long ago, the fanciful notion that someone could save him—that she could save him—was appealing. The scent of cherry blossoms and the wild summer breeze filled his nostrils—the scent of her, so fresh and vibrant . . . and for the moment, he just wanted to know that she was near, if only for a moment; a heartbeat or a blink of the eye, to believe in miracles and redemption and beautiful things . . .

“D . . . Don’t leave me, Isabelle,” he whispered as a single tear squeezed out of the corner of his eye to trickle down his cheek. “Don’t leave me . . .”

Chapter Text

Isabelle shuffled out of the bedroom stifling a yawn with the back of her hand, the floppy pink bunny slippers on her feet whispering against the floor.

Griffin glanced up from his desk. Judging from the looks of him, he’d already been up for a while. He didn’t comment though he did quirk an eyebrow at the ridiculous slippers before turning his attention back to the task at hand.

She spared a moment to offer him a warm smile before wandering toward the kitchen but stopped short as the scent of freshly brewed coffee assailed her nostrils. It surprised her that Griffin had made it for her. He normally complained about the ‘stinky crap’ that she chose to drink in the morning. That he would go out of his way to make sure that she had a fresh pot lent her a warm feeling that she just couldn’t quite credit.

‘He’s been different the last couple of days, hasn’t he?’ her youkai voice pointed out.

Come to think of it, things had been ‘different’, hadn’t they? It wasn’t something that she could put her finger on, exactly, but she’d noticed it just the same. There was a certain level of underlying curiosity that she’d sensed from him. As though he were watching her more closely than usual, she’d felt his gaze on her at odd times. When she looked at him, he invariably looked away. Still, she had to smile despite that. The clumsiness inherent in his attempts to comfort her warmed her through and through. Somehow he understood her upset and told her in his own way that she really didn’t have to blame herself, and even if she wasn’t completely ready to admit that there really wasn’t a thing she could or should have done differently given the circumstances, she also couldn’t help but feel for the couple and for their lost daughter.

The memories of that awful day still had the power to bring tears to her eyes—maybe they always would—and going to the hospital to check on Kristin had been the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. She’d sent her home yesterday after Kristin had agreed to make a follow up appointment in a week to make sure that everything was healing properly, but Isabelle hadn’t missed the coldness in her husband’s gaze, not that she could blame him for that, and while she was certain that she’d be exonerated of any malpractice should it come to that, the idea of being held scrutinized by her peers worried her.

But Griffin had gone out of his way to make her feel better, hadn’t he? She’d known just how hard it had been for him to voluntarily go out with her, known deep down that it wasn’t so much her as it was the idea that he’d be gawked at that ultimately bothered him, and he’d done it anyway just to cheer her up. She loved him for that. She loved him for so many things . . .

And then there were the nights . . .

She wasn’t exactly sure what had drawn him into her room the first time; the night after he’d taken her out to dinner. He wasn’t there in the morning when she woke, either, not that it mattered. She could smell him fresh on the bed sheets as much as she could feel the warmth of his youki lingering in his wake, and she’d understood that he’d gotten up only moments before—maybe it was the soft click of the door closing behind him that had ultimately roused her. She didn’t remember anything about her dreams, and yet the sound of a soft, desperate voice whispering in her head had lingered: ‘Don’t leave me, Isabelle . . . don’t leave me . . .’

She’d sensed the same presence yesterday morning and even a few minutes ago when she’d finally opened her eyes though she had to admit that his aura wasn’t nearly as strong this morning as it had been on the preceding ones.   In any case, she didn’t let that daunt her. She was definitely making progress, and that was the only thing that really mattered . . .

Swallowing the suspect lump that rose in her throat to choke her, Isabelle pulled a rough earthenware mug from the cupboard. It wasn’t the first time she’d noticed that almost all of Griffin’s dishes were homemade. She’d noticed the kiln behind the house the day after she’d come to stay with him, and somehow the idea that he’d made the items didn’t really surprise her. That was his way, wasn’t it? Gruff yet gentle, hiding his true nature behind a mask of dry humor and rarely saying the things that he felt inside, he had a way of stating the opposite whenever he was pressed to give voice to his emotions. She wasn’t sure when she’d first realized that, either. What he said and what he wanted to say . . . they were always two different things but that was all right with her. She understood him.

And maybe he understood her, too. Maybe he’d known that she’d sorely needed to be close to another person, and maybe that was the reason he’d started coming into her room at night. She vaguely recalled the nightmare that he’d managed to chase away. More of a distorted sense of foreboding than an actual evil that she could see, it was Griffin who had soothed her upset; Griffin who had quieted her. She couldn’t remember having any bad dreams after that, and yet he’d come to her anyway, or maybe . . . maybe his very presence had the ability to circumvent those dreams . . .

‘Don’t be too quick to believe that Griffin really said that to you,’ her youkai pointed out in a cautionary tone. ‘It could have been part of your dreams, you know.’

Her smile widened as she poured a mug of coffee and stood on tiptoe to reach the sugar bowl in the cupboard—Griffin had moved it yesterday after stating that she ingested way too much of the sweetener. ‘It could have been,’ she allowed. ‘It was so real, though . . .’

‘Which still doesn’t mean that it was. Besides that, even if we are making progress with the man, don’t you think that we ought to be careful? I mean, you know how he is. All it’d take is one moment of saying or doing the wrong thing, and we’ll be right back to square one.’

Letting out a deep breath, Isabelle measured out a couple spoonfuls of sugar and stirred the coffee slowly. ‘As true as that may be, you know as well as I do that he’s been coming into my room in the night, so I’d say we’ve made more than a little progress.’

‘Sure, just don’t get too complacent,’ her youkai agreed.

“Hurry up and drink that,” Griffin rumbled as he stepped into the kitchen and lumbered past her to rinse his tea mug in the sink.

“Oh? Do we have plans for the day?” she teased, turning around and leaning against the counter as she lifted the coffee mug to her lips.

“We don’t, but I do,” he retorted. “I want you out of the house in an hour.”

“An hour?” she echoed, eyebrows disappearing under her golden bronze bangs. “Why the rush? And why every Sunday morning?”

He snorted and set his mug on a clean towel beside the sink to air dry. “None of your business,” he informed her brusquely.

“Hmm, careful or I might get jealous,” she parried, pinning him with a wide-eyed, innocent stare. “Do you have a secret lover that you haven’t told me about?”

He blushed. She figured he would. “Just make sure you’re gone,” he grumbled, turning on his heel and stomping out of the room once more.

She sighed and shook her head, wondering how difficult it was going to be to get the truth out of the stubborn man. Pausing long enough to refill the mug before hurrying after Griffin, she followed him to the closed bathroom door. She heard the faucet turn on then off again, followed by the distinct thud of something being tapped against the porcelain sink, and deciding that Griffin was decently covered, she pushed open the door.

He blinked and shifted his gaze to the side, lowering the old fashioned razor that he had poised to make the initial stroke against his cheek, his eyes darkening menacingly as he lowered his chin to glower at her. “Don’t you possess even a modicum of propriety?” he grouched.

She giggled. She couldn’t help it. The fierceness of the expression was hidden in the froth of thick white shaving lather that coated Griffin’s face. “Now you look like a snow bear,” she commented with a saucy grin.

Griffin snorted indelicately. “You shouldn’t try to be a comedienne. It doesn’t work for you. Now get out of here, will you?”

“Not until you tell me why you’re in such a rush to get rid of me,” she countered, setting the coffee mug aside and reaching for the razor. He held it up out of her reach and snorted indelicately when she grabbed his arm in both of her hands and tugged hard: hard enough to bend his elbow, and she pulled the razor out of his grip before scooting up onto the counter.

“If you think I’m letting you anywhere near me with that, then you’re crazy,” he mumbled.

“Are you scared?” she retorted mildly, grabbing his sleeve and tugging him closer, rolling her eyes in an exaggerated show of impatience. “Oh, please! I’m a doctor, remember?”

He snorted again, and she had to wonder if he was blushing under the lather . . . “You’re not a surgeon, Jezebel, and you’re not going to hone your skills on my face.”

“As if I would hurt you!” she scoffed.

“Don’t think I have enough scars already?” he shot back.

She laughed softly and tugged harder on his sleeve. “Don’t be such a baby, Dr. Marin . . . Besides, I did my rotations, you know.”

“Surgery rotations?” he countered.

“And I got lots of practice on cadavers in med-school.”

“Not at all comforting,” he growled, trying to snatch the razor and missing.

“If you tell me why you’re always so anxious for me to leave on Sunday mornings, I’ll give you back the razor,” she purred, pulling Griffin close enough to lock her ankles around his waist before she broke into an entirely catty sort of grin, “or not . . .”

She didn’t have to see through the foam to know damn well that the man was blushing. Uttering an irritated, half-choked sort of growl, he seemed to be frozen to the spot, unable to process the simplest of thoughts, unable to grasp the idea that he could very easily get away from her. After all, he had to be stronger than she was, didn’t he? “Jezebel,” he nearly wheezed.

She took full advantage of his momentary lapse to pull him even closer, carefully lifting the razor and scraping it down his right cheek. “Why is it that you don’t use a regular T-razor?” she asked absently, gently tipping his chin so that she could get a better angle for the next scrape.

Griffin grunted, his gaze shifted to the side, trained on the antique handled razor she held in her hand. “Never tried one,” he confessed. She could sense his discomfort, as though he actually thought she was going to cut him, and she spared a moment to offer him a reassuring smile before scraping his cheek once more.

“You know, if you didn’t shave, you’d probably have a full beard and mustache within twenty four hours,” she mused, leaning to the side to rinse the blade before carefully shaking off the droplets of water and resuming her task once more.

He snorted in response but didn’t relax; his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously as she slowly, methodically, worked.

“So?” she prodded at length a she turned his face to start on his left cheek.

“So, what?”

She smiled. “So . . . why are you so gung-ho on giving me the boot today?”

He blinked and shook his head, the scowl settling over his features once more as he snatched the razor out of her hand and shoved her legs away. “I can finish this,” he grumbled. “You need to hurry up and leave.”

“Not until you tell me why,” she pressed, stifling the sigh that welled up in her. She’d enjoyed being so close to him, and the loss of it was a harsh thing.

Casting her an exasperated glance, he dropped the razor on the counter and planted his hands on his hips, shaking his head slowly and looking for all intents and purposes like he was about to turn her over his knee. “Can’t I have any privacy?” he grouched. “One day, Isabelle . . . just one day, and—”

“Okay, okay, you win,” she relented, scooting off the counter and lighting on the floor. “Am I supposed to go anywhere in particular or it doesn’t matter so long as I’m not here?”

He grimaced at the nonchalance in her tone, snatching up the razor and turning it over in his hands a few times, avoiding her gaze as he shrugged. “I don’t care . . . Go shopping or something. Just don’t come back until at least noon.”

“Noon?”

“Noon.”

“All right,” she agreed as she turned toward the door and grabbed her coffee mug. “Don’t miss me too much!”

His answer was a pronounced snort, and she had to laugh when she heard the bathroom door close and lock behind her . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Jillian yawned and stretched, smiling as a sense of lethargy filled her with a contented warmth. It was a Sunday morning feeling, she thought, refusing to open her eyes. The warmth of the body beside her made her smile widen, especially since she knew without looking that it wasn’t her mate sharing her bed . . .

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” Evan Zelig’s voice cut through the comfortable quiet of the bedroom.

“Hmm, why?” she protested, rolling toward her brother and snuggling against his side.

“Yeah, yeah, I need your help,” he contended, wrapping his arms around her casually and giving her a little squeeze. “It’s about Cain’s Christmas present . . .”

“Oh? What are you going to get Daddy this year?”

“That’s the thing,” he admitted with a sigh. “I’m not sure . . .”

“Okay, okay,” Jillian agreed with a yawn, reluctantly opening her eyes as Evan rumbled out a soft chuckle. “Hey . . . where’s my mate?”

“Answering the door,” Gavin replied, shuffling back in the room, the flannel pants he’d obviously grabbed to tug on before he’d gone to do that riding low on his lean hips. “Get out of my bed, Zelig,” he said, sinking down on the opposite side of his mate. “The last thing I smell before going to sleep sure as hell shouldn’t be you.”

Jillian wiggled around, ferreting away from her brother’s grasp that tightened instantly the moment she’d started to revolt. With a giggle, she spared a moment to kiss his cheek before defecting for the other side of the bed and the open arms of her husband who kissed her forehead despite the telling blush that rose in his cheeks. “Morning, Jilli.”

“Morning, Gavvie,” she replied, kissing his cheek quite soundly before snuggling against him and closing her eyes once more.

“Yeah, yeah, do that later,” Evan said, raising his voice to an obnoxious level as he sat up and swung his long legs off the bed. “We got bigger fish to fry. I’m stealing your mate for a while,” he declared, reaching back for Jillian’s hand.

“I haven’t gotten my morning lovin’s,” she protested, much to Gavin’s absolute chagrin.

“There are some things that he just doesn’t need to know,” Gavin pointed out with a raised eyebrow despite the darkening flush staining his skin.

“But I’m pretty sure that Evan knows we have sex,” she pointed out reasonably.

Gavin groaned and tugged a pillow over his head as Jillian laughed and let Evan tug her to her feet. “I thought about making a huge-ass cake and having Mama pop out of it, but you know, Cain’s old . . . he’d probably have a heart attack and die which would make Bubby tai-youkai, and he’s already insufferable enough without adding that to the equation . . .”

“Hmm, Daddy’s not that old,” Jillian countered as Evan escorted her toward the master bath, ignoring the foreboding look that was being directed at him since Gavin wasn’t overly fond of the idea of any man—sibling or otherwise—sitting in the room while Jillian bathed.

Gavin heaved a sigh and sat up, wondering exactly why he’d bothered to answer the door. All he’d wanted was a nice, quiet Sunday morning alone, in bed with his mate. Then again, if he hadn’t answered, Evan would have probably done something insane, like jimmied the lock or something . . . He was a bit of a nuisance that way . . .

No, he might as well give up on the idea that he’d get to spend time alone with Jillian. She’d insisted on staying in Maine between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, probably because she still felt more than a little guilty for wanting to talk to Avis about her biological parents. Still, Gavin hadn’t minded—even if Evan was harder to get rid of than athlete’s foot in a high school locker room . . .

Discarding the flannel pants he’d hastily pulled on when Evan had knocked on the door, Gavin grabbed a pair of Levi’s out of his drawer and tugged them on over his underpants and was just pulling a short sleeved button down off-white shirt on when the telephone rang.

“Hello?” he answered, grabbing the receiver on the nightstand.

“Hello, Gavin. How are you?”

Gavin frowned thoughtfully as Dr. Avis’ voice registered in his head. “Fine, and you?” he asked, unable to ignore years of his mother’s insistence that he always be polite.

“Good, good . . . I wondered if Jillian was available?”

Frown deepening at the strange sort of underlying strain in the doctor’s tone, Gavin crossed his arms over his chest and rubbed the center of his chest with his knuckles. “Uh, no . . . she’s taking a bath at the moment . . .”

“Oh, I see . . . Well, that’s fine,” he said heartily—a little too heartily, at least to Gavin’s ears. He paused a moment before going on. “You know, I was wondering—just curious, mind—how the research was coming along?”

Narrowing his eyes as the distinct clatter of alarm bells rang in his head, Gavin shook his head. “To be honest, I couldn’t tell you,” he admitted, “and even if I could I don’t think that’s really any of your business, you understand.”

“Of course, of course . . . I, um . . . I just wanted to wish you both a merry Christmas,” Avis blurted.

“I’ll pass it on,” he said.

“Yeah, thanks,” Avis intoned. “Um, bye.”

The line went dead as Gavin muttered, “Bye.”

It was strange, wasn’t it, and it wasn’t all in his head, either. Avis had sounded . . . anxious? But why?

He didn’t have time to ponder that when the bathroom door opened and Evan swaggered out of the room with an entirely too-bright smile as he casually leaned back against the bureau beside the door, crossing his arms and ankles as the damning grin widened. “So, Gavvie . . . feel like helping me with Cain’s Christmas present?”

“No,” Gavin said slowly. “I don’t think I would . . .”

Evan’s only response was a soft, lazy chuckle—one that Gavin had learned over the years just never boded well for him . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Isabelle knelt down in the snow and drew a deep breath as a little smile surfaced on her face. ‘Tinkerbell perfume and baby lotion . . . He’s cheating on me,’ she thought with an inward giggle as she stood up and brushed the snow off her knees.

It wasn’t difficult to figure out. Judging from the small footprints in the fresh snow beside the newly shoveled path, Isabelle could tell that Griffin did, in fact, have guests—very small guests, judging from the looks of it—and a lot of them, to boot . . . What she didn’t understand was why there were so many of them.

Then again, she had yet to spend a Sunday morning at home, didn’t she? She’d met Jillian for breakfast a couple of times, and last week she’d been at the hospital delivering a baby. When she was still working at the hospital she’d had to work most Sunday mornings, and she remembered driving down to see Grandma and Grandpa on the Sunday after Thanksgiving . . . and all of those times, she’d smelled and felt the presence of other people—children—in the house when she returned, but she’d never really thought to remark on it.

Slowly her smile widened. He had been afraid to let her meet his children, hadn’t he? Whether he thought she’d tease him or because he would be uncomfortable she understood his weird behavior.

Pushing her sleeve up, she shook her wrist and sighed as she checked the time on her watch. She hadn’t meant to make it back to the house before noon—Cinderella in the daylight hours—but she was a few minutes early though she’d wasted a few of those minutes investigating the footprints in the snow . . .

But the smile she’d been wearing since the discovery of the little girl’s scent didn’t dissipate. Somehow the idea of seeing Griffin surrounded by pups . . . well, it was an altogether too-pleasant image, and that he loved children was a thought that pleased her more than she could credit.

Still she waited until her watch read noon before she reached for the door handle, ignoring the voice in the back of her mind that told her that there was a good chance that Griffin meant for her to stay gone until after the children went home and that the noon deadline wasn’t exactly set in stone. Still the desire to see Griffin surrounded by children was just too great, and with that in mind, she pushed the door open and stepped into the warmth of the house, laughing softly at the array of children’s snow boots lined up neatly on towels arranged on the floor behind the door. “Honey, I’m home!” she called out, smiling to herself when the unmistakable din of the children who had all been talking at once slowly quieted. She kicked off her boots and stepped into the slippers that she’d left beside the door. She’d bought some Christmas presents, but she’d left them in the car, and since a few of them were for a certain bear-youkai, she figured they were safe enough right where they were at the moment . . .

So she stepped into the living room with a bright smile only to be greeted by about a dozen curious little faces, ranging in age from three to about six, she’d say, and it took a moment to find the girl she’d smelled outside. Sitting in Griffin’s lap with her hands covered in rough-looking whole wheat flour, she stared at Isabelle with wide, solemn brown eyes as her golden curls caught the watery sunlight filtering through the windows on the far wall. They were all wearing Griffin’s shirts over their normal clothes, which was a good thing, considering the mess they were making with their projects. The table was coated with flour, and there were bowls of dried fruits and colored rolled oats scattered around. All in all, it was a regular disaster area, but the children seemed to be having a good time, and it amused Isabelle that Griffin seemed to be taking the mess entirely in stride.

“Your wife’s home, Mr. Marin,” one of the older girls commented while the boy sitting beside her stared.

Isabelle laughed, unable to help herself, at the look of acute discomfort that registered in Griffin’s expression. “Uh, she’s not—she—we’re not married,” he blurted, face reddening with every word.

The girl didn’t look up from her task of smashing dough on the tabletop with the flat of her palms. “But that’s what Mommy says when she comes home,” she reasoned.

“Gimme the knife, Brandon!” a tow-headed boy interjected, holding his hand out to the boy beside him.

Brandon didn’t look up from the shape he was cutting in the dough on the table in front of him. “Wait your turn,” he mumbled. “‘Most done . . .”

With a smile, Isabelle hurried through the dining room into the kitchen to grab a couple more butter knives. “Here you go,” she said, handing the boy a clean knife.

“Thanks, Mrs. Marin,” he replied happily.

“She’s not Mrs. Marin,” Griffin nearly wheezed as he stood up and set the little girl back into the chair.

“Are you going to be Mrs. Marin?” one of the girls asked. She’d lost interest in the project.

Isabelle laughed, but Griffin snorted. “There isn’t going to be a Mrs.—”

“Mommy says it’s okay to live with someone when you’re gonna be married,” another girl quipped, smashing oatmeal into the surface of a slightly off-kilter star. “That’s why Dave lives with us.”

“But we’re not going to be—” Griffin protested, lifting his hands to rub his face only to notice the flour covering his palms. Scowling at his hands, he stomped off toward the kitchen to wash up.

“So what are you making?” Isabelle asked as she stepped over to peek at the children’s tasks, deciding that, as entertaining as the given line of questioning was, she’d do well to divert the attention before Griffin lost his composure completely.

“O-ma-ments,” the little girl who had been set aside when Griffin stood up commented, her face contorting with her effort to say the word she’d obviously just learned.

Isabelle giggled. “Ornaments? Wow . . . I’ll bet they’ll look great on your Christmas trees.”

“Don’t talk to them,” Griffin grumbled, lumbering back into the room as he dried his hands on a clean towel. “You’ll give them nightmares.”

She laughed at that. She couldn’t help it. “Will I?”

He grunted, reaching over the children’s heads to gather the earthenware bowls that they’d used to mix up the dough they were using for their ornaments. “Yes, you would,” he reiterated. “Put your ornaments onto the board there, and you can take them home next week.”

A couple of the children protested, saying that they weren’t finished but did as they were instructed anyway. Griffin ignored the protests as he continued to gather up the dishes.

“Here,” she said, stepping over to take the stack of bowls from him.

He shot her a suspect glance but let her take them before turning his attention back to the children once more. “Hurry up. Your parents will be here shortly, and you all need to wash your hands . . . and faces,” he added, quirking an eyebrow at a couple of the children who had managed to get flour all over themselves. “Just leave the shirts there by the door.

The little girl stood up in the chair and held her chubby arms out for Griffin, and Isabelle had to wonder if the shirt she wore wasn’t too long for her. In any case, she supposed it was a good idea that the child didn’t seem inclined to try to walk by herself, and to her amusement, the gruff bear-youkai didn’t hesitate as he strode around the table to carefully unbutton the shirt. “And you’re the messiest of them all,” he mumbled, his expression one of exaggerated distaste at the prospect of lifting the child up. She giggled loudly, throwing her arms around his neck and leaning toward him as though she were trying to kiss him. He leaned back, curling his top lip and wrinkling his nose in abject disdain, which only served to escalate her laughter.

‘He’s so good with children,’ Isabelle mused, reminding herself that he’d probably say something if she continued to stand there and gawk at him.

‘He’s a man of many talents, isn’t he?’

Smiling to herself as she wandered toward the kitchen, Isabelle couldn’t help the warmth that filtered throughout her body. Of course she’d known that he worked for one of the local preschools a couple days a week when he didn’t have classes at the university. Still, seeing Griffin interacting with the children was just so unexpected, and the obvious regard they had for him showed. Maybe it was the simple reason that, while children might stare, they were also faster to deal with certain things, like the scars on Griffin’s face that she knew only too well bothered the hell out of him. They didn’t see him as a monster, and they didn’t do more than ask a couple of questions. They hadn’t been taught that physical beauty meant everything, and they hadn’t learned that all people weren’t really created equally in the eyes of society, not that Isabelle believed any such thing, herself. No, but she could understand why Griffin tended to be so reluctant around other people, didn’t she? She’d been erroneously judged a few times in her life. Whether people looked at her and just saw another pretty face, or if they heard that her family name was Izayoi and drew their assumptions from that, it was just as daunting as having physical imperfections wasn’t it? Even then, she had to admit that Griffin’s scars . . . she loved them. He was a real person; a genuine person, and while he was still a damn fine looking man, she had to admit that the scars really did add a certain air of mystery to the man, as well.

Setting the bowls beside the sink, she turned on the tap water to fill before heading back for the dining room once more.

Griffin was kneeling on the floor in front of the child, carefully unbuttoning the shirt she was using as a smock, and Isabelle couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up in her. Though he was scowling in concentration as he meticulously worked the buttons, the girl was staring at him in something akin to complete awe—hero worship, maybe, and while he didn’t necessarily see it or recognize it, Isabelle did. It was the same sort of look she could remember giving her own father so many times when she was younger. “There,” Griffin said, gently tugging the shirt off the girl before dropping it onto the pile beside the door. “Now go make your brother help you wash your hands.”

“Okay,” she agreed. Isabelle didn’t miss the hint of reluctance in her tone. “Bwandon!” she yelled, darting out of the dining room with her golden curls bouncing. “Help me!”

Griffin didn’t stand up as he pivoted on the balls of his feet to watch the retreating child.

“You never told me I had competition,” she chided, leaning in the doorway as she gazed at the man whom she adored.

He turned his head to glance at her out of the corner of his eye. “Thought I told you not to come back yet,” he grumbled.

“It’s after noon,” she replied.

He snorted to let her know that he wasn’t buying and pushed himself to his feet once more. “Jezebel.”

She laughed as she watched him stride out of the room, and judging by the direction of the children’s voices, she could tell that they were gathering in the foyer to put on their boots and coats. Their laughter seemed to echo through the house, leaving a warmth behind that couldn’t be seen but was there, nonetheless, a welcome intrusion on the pervasive quiet. It was the kind of warmth that only children could bring; the kind of feeling that only a child’s laughter could leave in its wake.

Froofie whined and barked by turns, too excited by Griffin’s guests than he couldn’t figure out exactly what to do with himself, and Isabelle smiled when the kitten—still nameless since they just couldn’t seem to agree on a name for her yet—poked her head out from under the chest of drawers beside the kitchen doorway.

With a contented sigh, Isabelle pushed herself away from the frame and turned around to wash the dishes. Funny how she’d never really noticed it before, wasn’t it? The children’s laughter . . . it made the house feel even more like a home . . .

Chapter Text

‘How the hell did she talk me into this?’

Griffin’s youkai snorted indelicately. ‘She guilted you, Griffin.’

He grunted, grimacing as he caught a glance of his reflection in the floor length mirror on the back of the dressing room door. ‘Oh, yeah . . . that . . .’

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She hadn’t exactly guilted him, after all. No, what she’d done was much, much worse than that. Staring at him with those luminous golden eyes, her thick, sooty lashes fanning down over the tops of her cheeks as she blinked innocently at him, it had been plain, dumb luck that he’d finally given in to the urge that had been gnawing at him on the same day that she’d want to go Christmas shopping for her cousin . . .

“Griffin . . . I was wondering if you’d be willing to do something for me . . .”

“No,” he said without looking up from the translation notes he’d been sorely neglecting of late.

She sighed. “I was prepared for that,” she said, leaning against the corner of his desk, “so I’ve prepared a counteroffer.”

He snorted but did glance at her out of the corner of his eyes. “Let’s hear it, fat ass.”

She laughed outright. It just never seemed to faze her whenever he called her that. “I’m willing to buy you all the butter pecan ice cream you can eat if you’ll help me out for a couple of hours.”

He thought it over then shook his head. “Nope.”

Pushing away from his desk, she wandered idly around the room, clapping her hands together as though she were trying to come up with another means of coercion. Too bad he was onto her . . . “But you haven’t heard what it is that I’m asking you to do,” she pointed out in an overly reasonable tone.

“Don’t need to. Whatever it is, it’s probably bad, Jezebel.”

She rolled her eyes and kept pacing. “Good is overrated,” she asserted. He could hear the amusement in her tone.

“Fine, fine. Tell me what you want so I can say no, and so you’ll shut up.”

She drew a deep breath and giggled. “I need you to come with me to the store so that you can try on a few things so I can get a better idea of how they’d look on Bastian.”

He dropped his pen onto the desktop with a clatter. “Absolutely not,” he stated flatly.

“Oh, come on! You’re a tall, big man like him! It’s perfect!”

“Buy him a toaster,” Griffin muttered, cheeks pinking as he forced his attention back to his task once more.

Isabelle laughed. “I doubt Bastian knows how to use a toaster. Besides, I—” Cutting herself off short, she paused for a moment—long enough for Griffin to start to think that maybe she’d given up on the ridiculous notion—before she changed the topic completely. “Griffin . . .?”

“What?” he grumbled without looking back at her.

“. . . What happened to the garland?”

“What garland?”

“The one that was on the Christmas tree.”

“Was there one?”

“Yes . . .”

He was avoiding her, and she knew it. “Can you describe said-garland?”

“Hmm . . . popcorn . . . cranberries . . . pecans . . .”

He stopped for a moment, his back stiffening almost imperceptibly before he forced himself to reach for the ink pen once more. “Don’t know what you’re barking about,” he hedged.

She considered that, her feet whispering as she shuffled across the floor. “So you don’t remember the pecan and popcorn garland I strung together for the tree?”

Griffin shifted his jaw to the side, digging a bit of pecan out of his teeth with the tip of his tongue. “Nope. Are you sure you didn’t imagine it?”

“Re-e-eally . . . is that so?”

“They say that the mind is the first thing to go,” he informed her.

She didn’t speak for a moment, but he could hear her footsteps drawing near, and he went stock still when she leaned over his shoulder, her lips close to his ear, her breath stirring his hair . . . “Griffin?”

“W-what?” he croaked out, desperately trying to ignore her very proximity.

“Did you eat my garland?”

He repressed a shiver that trilled down his spine. “Nope,” he lied.

She chuckled almost huskily. “Are you sure?”

“Charlie did it,” he blurted, face erupting in violent color as he shrugged his shoulder a little too late to stave the woman off. The dog in question lifted his muzzle off of his paws long enough to glance at them, his tail thumping heavily against the floor while Griffin tried to brush off the unaccountable feelings of guilt at having blamed the dog for the misdeed.

“Charlie, huh?”

He jerked his head once in a nod.

“Uh huh,” she nearly purred, her tone taking on a certain level of gloating. “And after I spent all afternoon making that, too . . .”

He grimaced since she actually had—pricking her finger about a hundred times while she worked on the string, mostly due to Griffin’s attempts to get the pecans away from her at the time. She didn’t miss his momentary lapse, either, damn it.

“So you’ll go shopping with me?” she goaded.

He heaved a sigh, knowing deep down that he had been beaten by his own greed . . .

. . . Which was exactly why he was standing in the middle of a four foot cubicle reluctantly tugging an uncomfortable sweater over his head so that she could get a better idea of how it would look on her cousin, or so she said.

The curt tap on the dressing room door startled him, and he winced as he groped for the knob and jerked it open, stifling a decisive snort at the maroon turtle neck dangling from Isabelle’s fingertip. “Forget it,” he stated flatly, tugging at the collar of the sweater she’d insisted he try on, “and if you buy this for your cousin, he’ll probably never speak to you again.”

She laughed and rolled her eyes, draping the vest over her arm before she stepped forward to adjust the sweater on his shoulders. “You look nice, you know,” she pointed out casually enough. “Really nice.”

“Have I told you recently that I think you should get your eyes checked?” he grumbled, unable to staunch the hotness of a flush that flooded his cheeks at her blatant compliment.

“Hmm, well, I’m not the only one who thinks so, either.”

“What?”

She tilted her head to the side, her eyes shifting to indicate a couple of women standing nearby who were staring at him rather unabashedly. Narrowing his gaze on Isabelle, he grunted something unintelligible and pivoted on his heel to return to the sanctuary of the dressing room once more, pausing just long enough to snatch the offensive maroon turtle neck from her slack fingers.

He wasn’t sure why Isabelle always had to point out whenever someone was staring at him. He knew damn well that people stared at him all the time. What he didn’t want or need was for her to make an issue of it especially when he knew—just knew—that the only reason they were staring was because he was a bare minimum short of being considered a monster.

‘But she doesn’t think you are, you know,’ his youkai remarked a little too casually.

Griffin snorted as he tugged the ungodly hot sweater over his head with a marked grimace. He was a little sore, and he knew it was because he’d been spending far more time in bed than he normally did.

‘Yeah, and about that,’ his youkai went on. ‘Do you plan on sneaking into her room every night from here on out? Wouldn’t it be simpler to move her into your bedroom? I mean, your bed is bigger . . .’

‘Shut up,’ Griffin grumbled, cheeks pinking at his youkai’s forward thinking. ‘It’s not my fault that she keeps having bad dreams.’

‘Oh, so that’s your excuse? Really . . . and you realize, I don’t recall her making a sound at all the last couple of nights.’

‘She did,’ he insisted, scowling at a white linen shirt that Isabelle had handed to him just before he’d lumbered off to find the dressing room in the first place. ‘You must be hard of hearing.’

‘Is it honestly that difficult to admit that you like being around her?’

‘I don’t,’ Griffin argued, ‘but if she starts leaking again, then I’ll be in trouble because I didn’t get flood insurance on the house.’

‘And I suppose it didn’t really make you feel like smiling when the cubs thought that she was your wife.’

Jamming his arm into the sleeve and tugging the shirt up over his shoulders, Griffin snorted again. ‘That was just gas,’ he commented dryly.

His youkai heaved a sigh but fell silent at long last, much to Griffin’s everlasting relief, and he let his breath out in a long gust as he eyed the turtleneck in abject disgust . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Avis stumbled through the house as he hurried to answer the door. He didn’t stop to turn on any lights though it was the middle of the night. The ruckus was too hard to ignore: the incessant pounding that echoed through his head.

His first thought had been that one of his neighbors was in trouble. After all, the woman next door had a young child, and the woman was confined to a wheelchair. Maybe she’d fallen or something. The boy was often knocking on Avis’ door, and it had struck him early on that the child was lonely since there weren’t really many other children his age in the neighborhood that Avis had seen.

But as he neared the doorway, he could feel the malignant force of the youki seeping through the unsealed jamb, and he slowed his step, unable to ignore the cold trepidation that crept up his spine. He knew that youki. He feared it.

For a split second, he considered the idea of running away—of escaping out the back door of the small building, but knowing damn well that it would avail him little. No, he just couldn’t get away, and he knew it . . .

If he showed his fear, though . . .

He reached for the door handle, grimacing at the obvious shake in his hands but jerked back when the door crashed open. The hazy light from the yellow streetlights cast the intruder in a garish glow, a macabre presence that exuded a malevolent will. “F-Fellowes,” he murmured, unable to control the slight tremor in his voice.

Eaton Fellowes stepped over the threshold—more like glided over it, really—the jagged edges of his youki probing like viscous tentacles invisible to the naked eye, and Avis stepped back in a vain effort to alleviate the rising tension mounting in the air.

“Refresh my memory, Avis,” Eaton rumbled, a quiet purr underlying his words. The panther-youkai was enjoying the electric feel of Avis’ fear, wasn’t he? Feeding off it like a parasite . . . “Did you or did you not tell me that you were certain that Izayoi had the research?”

Avis blinked and swallowed hard, adjusting the collar of his pajamas with a shaking hand. “It . . . seemed . . . logical,” he muttered, grimacing inwardly at the feeble sound of his own voice. “H-he’s brilliant, they say . . .”

“Just because he’s brilliant you would assume that he would be given the research?” Fellowes mused, pushing the door closed though it remained open just a crack. “Your reasoning is sorely lacking. Now tell me you know who does have it.”

The menace in his tone was palpable. Avis winced as his stomach lurched unpleasantly. He’d tried, hadn’t he? He’d tried to find out who had been given the task of finishing the research. The Zelig family was loath to tell him anything of the sort, though, not that he could fault them for that. Still, if he didn’t think fast . . . “Give me a little more time,” he blurted, unable to keep the rising hint of hysteria out of his inflection. “I’ll find out; I swear I will. A day or two . . . maybe a week . . .”

“In a day or a week they might crack it wide open,” Eaton hissed, his eyes narrowing though the flash of his gaze remained unwavering. He stepped toward Avis once more, and once more Avis retreated. “No, my good doctor . . . I think you’ve had more than enough time, wouldn’t you say?”

Shrinking away from the pinpoints of light that impaled Avis where he stood, he saw the flash of movement seconds after the unforgiving vice of his hand closed around his throat, bearing him back against the wall with a force so hard that the structure shuddered and groaned.

He gasped for breath, clawing weakly at the ever-tightening hand that gripped him, tried in vain to break the hold as the edges of his vision blurred and dimmed; as the sound of dogs barking in the distance faded into the frenzied throb of his blood pumping through his veins.

“You have failed me for the last time, Dr. Avis,” the cold, smooth voice said as tendrils of blood ran in rivulets down his neck, soaking into the thin cotton pajamas.

The desperation behind his feeble attempts to regain his freedom waned, the stabbing pain lessening by degrees. As his vision faltered, as the coldness of death closed in, there was a strange sort of peace delineating it all. His hands fell slack by his sides, his body releasing the tension that had gripped him only moments before. The last thing Avis saw was the maniacal glowing in Eaton Fellowes’ murky eyes . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Isabelle tapped a tapered claw against her lips as she waited patiently for Griffin to re-emerge from the dressing room. He was taking the shopping venture really well, and while it surprised her, she also had to admit that it made her happy, too. He’d been trying on clothes for the better part of two hours, and despite his grumbling, he didn’t actually seem to mind too much. Granted, he hadn’t liked the fuchsia silk blouse that he’d just tried on—not surprising since she didn’t know many men who would, and that was a damn shame. Griffin had looked absolutely delicious in the thing . . .

To be completely honest, she hadn’t really needed his help in shopping for Bastian, and her goal had been to see how Griffin looked in some newer, trendier clothing since she had every intention of buying him a few nice things for Christmas. Trouble was he didn’t seem to like any of the clothing that she picked out, even the more conservative outfits . . . Well, that was just too bad, in her estimation. Griffin needed to update his wardrobe a little, and she was going to make sure that he did. She certainly had nothing against the nondescript but always neat clothing that Griffin tended to favor, but a man like him could get away with so much, fashion-wise. After all, he was tall, he was big, and he was damn fine looking . . .

It never ceased to amuse her, either, the sorts of looks he tended to garner without even trying or realizing. She knew well enough that he seemed to believe that he was akin to a monster—she supposed his scarring made him feel self-conscious—but most of the women, especially young women—certainly didn’t think he was even remotely close to that. Not at all, in fact; Isabelle knew damn well that, aside from the beautiful men in her family, that Griffin was something special.

She’d grown up around it, hadn’t she? She’d seen how girls tended to fall all over themselves around her cousins, and even the older male members of the family drew constant attention for their looks alone. On her father’s side, it was the striking silver hair; the piercing golden eyes, with the exceptions being her uncle, Toga and his children, who all had jet black hair—just as devastating when coupled with the amber eyes of the Inutaisho family. Her cousin, Gunnar was easily the prettiest man she’d ever seen—almost too pretty, really. Add to that the inherent Inutaisho arrogance, and, well, there were times aplenty when Isabelle had wanted to scream at Gunnar’s aloof attitude. Even then, he’d had girls who followed him around all the time growing up—at least, those who weren’t intimidated by his brusque demeanor though she’d often wondered just how many girls would have trailed him around otherwise. Her cousin, Morio had always had girls around. So sweet and devil-may-care, it was impossible not to adore that particular man, and Mikio?

She smiled at the thought of her youngest uncle. He tended to be a little shier around women than the rest of the men, likely because of his balance issues. It never had been determined just why Mikio sometimes tended to lose his balance. Isabelle vaguely remembered talk of testing—they’d suspected that he had inner ear problems—but nothing had ever really come of that. She’d heard her parents talking about it before when she was younger; something about InuYasha and Kagome arguing over whether or not to have Mikio tested. Her father had said that InuYasha hadn’t wanted to subject Mikio to further scrutiny because, “there ain’t a fucking thing wrong with my pup,” but Kagome had wanted to see if there was anything that could be done to help Mikio.

Quiet, gentle, absolutely intellectual, Mikio was given to lopsided grins and good-natured teasing. Unlike the rest of the boys, he had never been trained to fight though he had been taught to fire a gun, and Kagome had gone out of her way to teach him archery. It had always been a sore spot with him, though, and once he’d even complained about the fact that Isabelle could probably kick his ass if it ever came down to a real fight. Still, Mikio was a deadeye shot with bow and arrow or gun. Isabelle had always figured that his special training had worked to level the playing field, so to speak.

Of course, on her mother’s side—the Zelig side—there wasn’t a question about the whole ‘beauty’ thing, either. As a child, Isabelle had been enchanted by her own grandfather, Cain. As apple pie as they came, she supposed. Golden bronze hair and sapphire blue eyes—eyes that often seemed to be looking for things that normal people just couldn’t see—he was a dreamer, her mother had said. It was that sense of wistfulness in him that had lent him a more approachable air since he should have been as intimidating as Sesshoumaru, in his own right. He was tall—nearly seven feet tall—and he wasn’t exactly what anyone would have called ‘lanky’ though he seemed almost that way when standing beside his son, Bastian. Then again, no one was really sure exactly where Bastian had gotten his physique. He’d always been a big guy; bigger than the rest of Isabelle’s cousins that were her age. The main difference, though, was that, while Cain tended to look dreamy most of the time, Bastian . . . well, Bastian could be rather intimidating—at least, he might have been if Isabelle didn’t know damn well that he was about as gentle as they came. The thoughtful scowl he wore most of the time, though, tended to make him look fiercer than he actually was, though it was also a well known fact that Bastian was indisputably the best fighter in the family from his generation. Last she’d heard, he’d actually fought Uncle Ryomaru in a battle that ended in a draw though he never had been able to best their grandfather, InuYasha.

But Griffin . . .

True, Griffin wasn’t pretty like Gunnar—a good thing, if one asked Isabelle—but he was damn fine looking. His deep brown eyes seemed to glow, adding a warmth to his normally serious expression, and the shaggy, chestnut brown hair that he tried to tame was the kind of hair that women just wanted to run their fingers through. Long bangs that often fell over his eyes looked good on him, diminishing the harsher angles of his high cheekbones; the almost pouty quality of his lips . . .

She loved the rugged sort of air that surrounded him; the understated masculinity that defined him. She adored the five o’clock shadow that never really went away; she craved the scent of him—of clean fields of sun-warmed grass; of the smell of the air just before a good rain. In her heart she knew that she’d forever think of him any time she smelled those things, and the warmth of feeling perfectly safe . . . Only three people had ever really given her that feeling of security on that sort of level. Her parents, of course, had always provided that sense of shelter, and now Griffin . . .

Oh, surely she felt safe with everyone in her family, but the depth of the emotion was stronger with Griffin; stronger even than the warmth she remembered as a child, of creeping into her parents’ bedroom whenever it stormed late at night, waking her from her slumber, and the safest place she knew at the time was in their bed, snuggled between them, so close that she could hear the beating of their hearts that drowned out the crashes of thunder and dimmed the flashes of lightning.

Griffin lent her that now; that sense of being completely safe, of knowing that nothing in the world really could hurt her so long as he was there, and while she believed that there really wasn’t a more beautiful man on earth, she knew deep down that his real attraction stemmed from deep down, in a soul as gentle as the wind, even if he did try to hide it behind gruff words and clumsy gestures.

Shaking herself out of her reverie, Isabelle narrowed her eyes on the closed dressing room door. She was starting to wonder if he was going to come out at all. She knew that aside from teaching, he hated anything that made him the center of attention, and in his mind, trying on clothes undoubtedly fit that bill perfectly. With a marked sigh, she crossed her arms over her stomach and ambled toward the dressing room door.

“Are you coming out?” she called, raising her voice enough to be heard through the barrier.

She didn’t miss Griffin’s unmistakable snort. “It depends. Are we finished yet?”

Breaking into a smile, she laughed. “Almost . . . I want to see that green pullover.”

“I look like a really stupid tree,” he pointed out.

“Let me see before you start losing your leaves.”

That earned her another snort, but he finally did open the door as Isabelle’s smile widened, her eyes taking on an appreciative glow. “You look good in green,” she commented, reaching up to flick the thick fleece on his shoulders.

“I feel like a stuffed sausage,” he muttered, cheeks pinking when he caught sight of her open admiration.

“I like this,” she went on, her tone almost absent as she walked shuffled around him. “It draws attention to your shoulders.”

He grunted something completely unintelligible before craning his neck to see what she was doing. “They’re just shoulders,” he grumbled with a shake of his head, “and stop circling me like a shark, will you?”

“Well,” she drawled, unable to ignore the open opportunity to tease him just a little, “you do look rather delicious . . .”

She laughed outright when his face exploded in a violent shade of red. “Jezebel!” he hissed, turning on his heel to stomp back into the sanctity of the dressing room once more.

“Are you finding everything all right?” a small, sleek salesgirl asked, leaning to the side as though she were trying to keep from intruding.

“Just fine,” Isabelle assured her then snapped her fingers as sudden inspiration struck her. Reaching out, she grabbed Griffin’s arm to stop him and tugged him back. “What do you think?” she asked, nodding her head at Griffin.

The salesgirl smiled, her eyes registering her agreement. “Very nice.”

Isabelle turned toward Griffin. “See? I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

He snorted and pulled his arm away from her. “She’s paid to think so,” he muttered low enough that the girl in question wouldn’t hear him, and not for the first time, Isabelle noticed that he was holding his head at a rather odd angle. What, exactly, was he doing?

Her smile faded slightly. He was hiding his scars, keeping his face turned just enough so that the salesgirl wouldn’t see the unmistakable scars that ran the length of his cheek. He’d done it for so long that it was second nature to him, wasn’t it? And that, more than anything bugged the hell out of her. He shouldn’t have to hide anything about himself, damn it. He should hold his head high and be proud of the fine man he was. His scars didn’t make him any less attractive. Why was it that he couldn’t understand that?

Still she let him go. It wasn’t the time or place to start trying to work on his self-esteem, at least not in that way.

“Let me know if you need anything,” the girl said, her slight bemusement dissipating when Griffin closed the dressing room door.

Isabelle nodded and watched the girl’s departure as a thoughtful frown surfaced on her features. No, no matter what Griffin believed, the salesgirl wasn’t being paid to look at him like she had, and she wasn’t the only one to give him that sort of look. Isabelle saw it all the time, and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why it was that Griffin couldn’t see it, himself.

‘Maybe he doesn’t want to see it,’ her youkai pointed out.

She shook her head, biting her lip as she considered that. ‘Maybe . . .’

‘Don’t be naïve, Bitty. For every admiring look he gets, he gets a not-so-admiring one, too. You know he does, and no matter what you think, those looks are the ones that are harder to shake off.’

Her frown deepened. That might be true, too . . . disparaging looks from people who thought that superficial beauty was everything, those who gaped at people with absolute revulsion and didn’t stop to think that the person at whom they were staring could see their distaste in their expressions. What right did anyone have to look at another person like that? Those were the kind of people, in Isabelle’s opinion, who were the ugly ones . . .

Griffin mumbled something from inside the room, but his voice was muffled by the door so badly that she couldn’t really make out his words.

“What’s that?” she called, pressing her hands against the pressed wood door and leaning in to better discern his words.

He muttered something else that she couldn’t discern, and she shook her head, reaching for the door knob and turning it before she gave her actions a second thought only to be brought up short by the vision that greeted her. Standing with his back to her, he was obviously struggling to get the pullover off, and when he’d lifted it, his undershirt had ridden up with it, exposing the skin of his back for her perusal.

She’d known that he was a big man, of course. Still there was something altogether shocking about seeing him in that state of undress. Somehow he seemed even larger, more magnificent, and she couldn’t help the soft gasp as she sucked in a sharp breath, her heart hammering out an erratic rhythm as her knees nearly buckled under her. She wanted to touch him—desperately wanted to touch him. The glow of his skin seemed to beckon her as her pulse sped up, as her breathing increased . . .

He was struggling with the pullover, and she frowned as she realized exactly why that was. The skin covering his back, his shoulders, was crisscrossed with thick, puffy, angry scars, some of them still harshly discolored, as though he’d just gotten them. The scars covered his skin, traversing his body in every conceivable direction—jagged tears, heavy wounds like someone had tried to peel the skin right off of him . . . Judging from the width and severity of them, she could only guess that the scar tissue was deep, and having that sort of build up probably did inhibit his mobility—the reason why he was having such difficulty in removing the article of clothing.

She grimaced as he finally managed to tug the pullover off, turning slowly, affording her a better look at his torso—his left side a matrix of scar tissue that extended around his back and stomach. Scars that severe . . . how much pain had he been in when he’d received injuries harsh enough to leave the lasting reminders . . .? The very idea of him suffering so badly was almost more than she could stomach . . .

“Wh—uh—g-g-get out of here!” he hissed, finally noticing that he had an audience. A thousand emotions flickered over his features, each one gone long before she could have discerned them, but she was staring at his body, unable to repress the absolute horror of the pain he had to have endured and anger that anyone should have to suffer so much. She didn’t notice as he strode toward her until he grabbed her arm, shoving her out of the dressing room. She flinched as he shut the door hard, blinking back the suspect rise of moisture that blurred her vision as the ache that gripped her heart tightened, as she asked herself just what he’d been through . . . and why . . .

Wincing, wrapping her arms around herself as she fought against the overwhelming desire to go to him, to put her arms around him in a futile effort to alleviate the pain that still followed him despite the healing of the flesh, she sighed. Closing her eyes did nothing to dispel the image of those terrible scars, and as much as she wished it were otherwise, she knew that he’d only push her further away.

“What happened to you?” she whispered, letting her forehead fall against the door, squeezing her eyes closed as she balled her hands into tight fists. She’d never felt quite so helpless before in her life, and in the face of his pain—the pain she knew was still very much alive in his mind, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do, was there? The comfort and security that he unwittingly offered her . . . the strength of his very essence that she’d come to rely on . . . Did she give him the same things in return? “Griffin . . .”

Moments later, he jerked the door open, his clothing back in place, and he seemed surprised for just a moment as he caught her, steadied her, then moved her aside.

A million questions tumbled around her mind though she couldn’t give voice to any of them. Watching in silence as he strode out of the dressing room area, she didn’t have it in her to cause him more discomfort that she already had.

But she followed him anyway, not surprised that he was headed for the exit. Quickening her pace to close the distance between them, she muttered an apology to the salesgirl but didn’t stop walking until she caught up with him outside. “Griffin?” she said, darting around him and stopping him with a hand on his arm.

He scowled down at the unwelcome gesture but stopped, the color in his cheeks darkened to a ruddy hue though whether it stemmed from embarrassment or anger, she didn’t know. “Can we just go home?” he rumbled, averting her gaze as he scanned the parking lot over her head.

“Sure,” she said quietly as a surge of relief flooded through her. He wasn’t angry—at least, he wasn’t very angry, and even then, she had the distinct feeling that any irritation he was suffering really didn’t have a thing to do with her. Why she felt like that, she wasn’t sure. In any case, she knew intrinsically that his reaction really had stemmed more from embarrassment and maybe a bit of self-disgust more than anything else, and in an effort to alleviate the waning tension a little faster, she forced a bright smile and stepped a little closer. “You know, big man, if you want to run around the house without your shirt on, I really wouldn’t complain.”

He blinked quickly, casting her an incredulous look before snorting loudly as more color rose to his already reddened cheeks, and he shook his head before turning abruptly, veering to the right as he led the way to Isabelle’s car, and she sighed though her eyes gave away her lingering amusement and relief that she’d gotten the desired result.

‘One day . . .’ she vowed, lifting her chin as though to defy the rising winter wind. ‘One day you’ll believe me when I tell you that you’re the one . . . the only one . . .’

Chapter Text

Griffin wandered into the dining room with one of the binders balanced in his left hand and straightening his glasses with this right. He glanced up and stopped short, raising an eyebrow at the vision that greeted him. It wasn’t the sight of every single bit of furniture that was pulled away from the walls, not that there was much to start with, but the bureau he’d put by the doorway was butted up against the table, and she’d taken the painting of a couple of deer in the forest off the wall, too. Somehow Isabelle had managed to disassemble the fan, too—the blades were lying on the table arranged on old towels to dry, but that wasn’t what had drawn his attention. Far from it, in fact. No, the thing that did it was the woman in question, hunkered down in front of the basement door scowling at the keyhole in the middle of the doorknob with the claw on her index finger gingerly probing said keyhole.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded almost mildly.

She gasped and jerked back, landing on her rear as she tried to spin around to face him, and he was treated to a very rare sight, indeed, as the incorrigible woman’s cheeks pinked in embarrassment at having been caught her hand in the proverbial cookie jar, so to speak. “This isn’t what it looks like,” she blurted, maneuvering herself so that she was sitting on her knees with her hands restlessly stroking the long golden bronze ponytail that hung over her shoulder.

“Oh?”

She shook her head quickly, pinning him with her most winning smile, he supposed. “No,” she insisted with another quick shake of her head.

Griffin snorted. “So you weren’t trying to pick the lock on the basement door?” he countered, setting the research binder on the table and crossing his arms over his chest.

She grimaced, scrunching up her shoulders as she knitted her fingers together in a surprisingly nervous sort of way. “Well, okay, I was doing that,” she admitted in a small voice, “but not for the reason you think, I swear!”

“You mean there’s another reason that you’d deliberately try to break into my basement when I’ve specifically asked you to keep your clammy little paws off the door and your big, fat nose out of there?”

She blinked, obviously sidetracked by his assessment. “I have a big, fat nose?” she queried.

Griffin rolled his eyes. “It was an expression, Jezebel,” he grumbled.

She sighed. “So you don’t think I have a big, fat nose?”

He snorted. “About as big and fat as your ass,” he grumbled then flicked a hand in blatant dismissal. “Now suppose you tell me the reason why you think that I shouldn’t be irritated as hell that you were trying to break into the basement after I expressly forbade it multiple times?”

She made a face and rubbed her forehead with a grimy hand—she’d been cleaning the kitchen and dining room—he hadn’t realized they were dirty—and when she let her hand drop away, he nearly smiled at the dark streak that she’d left on her flawless skin. “Oh, that . . .” she hedged.

“Yeah, that,” he reminded her.

Wrinkling her nose, she reached up, grabbing the spindles in the back of a chair to hoist herself to her feet. Much to his everlasting chagrin, she’d changed into a threadbare t-shirt that was about ten sizes too small and a ragged pair of cut off jeans shorts just before she’d unceremoniously announced that she was going to do some cleaning mere minutes after returning to the sanctity of his home from the utterly forgettable shopping debacle. “Well, you see, I was going to put the fan blades back up, but I dropped one of the screws, and it rolled under the door.”

He nodded slowly, resting his left elbow on his right arm that was still wrapped over his stomach and curling his fingers over his chin in a thoroughly thoughtful gesture. “A somewhat convincing story,” he allowed with a vague nod. “So if I open the door, the screw will be there.”

She nodded emphatically. “Yes.”

He spared another moment to consider her claim before shuffling over to the door and fishing the key out of his pocket. The errant screw really was just inside the door having fallen to land on the first step down. To his surprise, though, she didn’t even try to peek around him while he retrieved it, grimacing as he forced his clumsy fingers to pinch the screw. Grasping something so small was difficult at best, even with his left hand that was in much better condition than his right one. He breathed a sigh of relief as he straightened up and closed the basement door again. “Stay out of my basement,” he grumbled, dropping the tiny bit of metal into Isabelle’s hand and turning to re-secure the lock.

“My hero,” she breathed then giggled, planting a kiss on his right cheek before scurrying over to climb onto the table.

Griffin grunted, unable to stave back the flush that rose in his skin.

Isabelle didn’t seem to notice since she was busy trying to balance a fan blade on her fingertips while starting the screws with her free hand. “I don’t know why you won’t let me down there,” she complained in an idle tone as she concentrated on keeping the blade still.

Griffin rattled the knob to satisfy himself that he’d successfully locked it. “Because,” he grumbled, turning away from the door and wondering just how long it’d be before she took a header off the table, “you’ll try to girlify it or something.”

“Girlify?” she echoed, sparing a moment to glance at him, her golden eyes sparkling with repressed amusement. “Is that even a word?”

“It is now,” he insisted with a snort as he pocketed the key once more.

“Keh!” she scoffed, using her grandfather’s infamous expression. “I haven’t tried to ‘girlify’ anything else, have I?”

Griffin snorted and stepped over to the bureau, making a show of deliberately lifting the small wicker basket and shaking the lilac scented potpourri inside while pinning Isabelle with a significant look. “I rest my case,” he informed her, dropping the basket onto the bureau once more before reaching for the abandoned research notes.

She giggled. “Oh, relax, Pooh Bear! It’s not like I put up lacy pink curtains, is it?”

“I’d say that’s bad enough,” he mumbled, shaking his head at her sensibilities.

“I’d only put potpourri in the basement if it smelled bad,” she pointed out, pulling a Philips screwdriver out of her pocket and rising on tiptoe to peer over the top of the fan blade. The tiny t-shirt she wore rose with her movements, and Griffin swallowed hard as he stared at the three inches of skin that was revealed. Her stomach was as creamy soft and smooth as the rest of her skin, and he couldn’t quite bring himself to look away from her. “Does it?”

“D-does what?” he stammered, summoning the last vestiges of his resolve and forcing his eyes away.

“Does your basement smell bad,” she reiterated having not noticed Griffin’s lapse in better judgment.

Scowling at the mess his thoughts had become from the mere sight of Isabelle’s stomach, he snorted loudly and concentrated his attention out the window at the squirrels darting across his back yard. “It’s my last bastion of masculinity,” he pointed out, jamming his glasses onto his face. “I don’t care if it smells like knee sweat and gym socks; you’re still not going down there.”

The screwdriver fell onto the table with a loud clatter, and when Griffin looked up, it was to find Isabelle standing in the center of the table with her hands on her hips and an impish smile lighting her face. “Knee sweat? Dare I ask?”

Griffin rolled his eyes and snatched up the screwdriver, pausing long enough to inspect the table top for new gouges. “Are you going to tell me that the backs of your knees never get sweaty?”

She laughed outright, holding out her hand for the tool she’d dropped. “Maybe so, but I can’t say that I know what it smells like, either.”

He set the book aside and tapped the screwdriver’s handle against his palm as he leaned away to consider her statement, and he wasn’t surprised when she crouched down and tried to swipe it out of his hand, either. He pulled it away before she could retrieve it, and he couldn’t resist drawing in a deep breath when the end of her hair brushed against his cheek. “You sort of smell like it,” he ventured innocently enough.

She stopped stock still for a second before whipping her head to the side to stare at him. “Do I really?” she deadpanned.

He nodded, smacking the handle of the screwdriver into her hand. “Yes, you do.”

Her laugher echoed through the house, adding an invisible warmth to the place he called home. “You have no idea,” she managed between fits of giggling, “how romantic you are sometimes, Griffin Marin.”

He made a show of slowly shaking his head and snatching up the binder once more. “Get off my table before you fall and bloody up the place,” he said as he turned on his heel to make a hasty retreat.

“Don’t rush me or I will fall,” she retorted as she reached for the next fan blade and got back to her feet.

“You’re a doctor,” he tossed back over his shoulder as he stepped out of the dining room.

“I’d get this done faster if you helped me,” she called after him.

“You took it apart; you put it back together, MacGyver.”

“Who’s MacGyver?”

“Never mind; he was well before your time,” he mumbled, grimacing at the stark realization of the vast difference in their ages.

She heaved a long-suffering sigh as Griffin broke into a faint little smile. In the few hours since the dressing room incident, he was more than a little surprised that his discomfort in having been caught without his shirt on had dissipated as quickly as it had, and he still wasn’t sure why that was. At the time, he’d been so caught up in trying to take the stupid fleece pullover off that he hadn’t even noticed that she’d slipped into the dressing room until he’d turned around only to find her staring at him.

But it wasn’t that alone that had disturbed him, no. It was the look of abject horror on her face that had done it, and for a moment, he couldn’t help the rise of panic that she’d gotten a good look at the scars he’d tried so hard to hide; the self-disgust that he’d somehow managed to convince himself somewhere in the back of his mind that the scars wouldn’t bother Isabelle . . . or maybe it was just a stupid, blind hope . . .

‘Damn, damn, damn! She thinks . . . She thinks . . .’

Resting his forehead against the thin door, calling himself a fool—ten times a fool—for forgetting that he really was a monster, he’d stood there, frozen, forehead resting against the closed door, for a second—long enough for her softly uttered words to reach him, and in that moment, he’d understood . . .

“What happened to you?” she’d asked, her voice muffled by the door.

Fighting back the coppery tinge of regret, the consuming, debilitating realization that he’d let his guard down, he snatched up the pullover he’d hastily tossed down and jerked the plain white t-shirt free, yanking it over his head and shoving his arms into the sleeves of his coat and pausing only long enough to grab his nondescript black and brown plaid flannel shirt before yanking open the door. It was sheer reflex that had caught Isabelle by the arms, steadying her on her feet as she stumbled forward—she’d been leaning against the door, hadn’t she? With that, he’d brushed past her, striding through the store, ignoring the salesgirl who was asking if everything was all right, the only real thought in his mind, the overwhelming need to distance himself from Isabelle—distance himself before he saw that horror in her eyes again . . .

“Griffin?” Isabelle said, darting around him and stopping him with a hand on his arm.

He scowled down at her small, soft hand, able to countenance the thought that a creature like her would demean herself by touching a monster like him as the color in his cheeks darkened to a ruddy hue. “Can we just go home?” he rumbled, averting her gaze as he scanned the parking lot over her head, biting back the bitter wash of recrimination, the late realization that he really was a fool . . .

“Sure,” she said quietly as a sense of instantaneous relief surged from her, reaching out to him, reassuring him in a strange sort of way that maybe she really didn’t believe the same things he did. It was as though she’d somehow sensed that his upset, his irritation, was directed more at himself than at her—at his own carelessness when he’d tried so hard to hide himself from her and ultimately failed . . . “You know, big man, if you want to run around the house without your shirt on, I really wouldn’t complain,” she said suddenly, a suspect brightness adding a devious glow to her golden eyes, and he knew—just knew—that she was teasing him on purpose.

He blinked quickly, casting her an incredulous look before snorting loudly as more color rose to his already reddened cheeks, and he shook his head before turning abruptly, veering to the right as he led the way to Isabelle’s car . . .

The ride back to the house had been quiet though not completely uncomfortable, either. It was disconcerting, to say the least, the knowledge that he really couldn’t deny: Isabelle hadn’t actually been disgusted at the sight of him. What had bothered her most was the idea that . . . that he’d suffered. As much as he’d wanted to deny that; to believe that she really had been sickened by the mere sight of his flaws, her words, quiet and maybe not even meant to reach him . . . they had, and it was those words that had been foremost in his mind since the incident . . .

“What happened to you . . .?”

Settling down in his recliner and staring blankly at the pages of the research pages without actually seeing them, Griffin sighed and rubbed his temple with a slightly shaking hand. She didn’t make a damn bit of sense to him. She never had. Why would a woman like her keep looking at a man like him? Why couldn’t she ever just leave well enough alone? And why couldn’t he be entirely sure that he really wanted to her to do that?

To be entirely honest, he’d gotten the feeling, at least after the fact, that she hadn’t been horrified by him, per se, and while he’d felt the humiliation at the time, he couldn’t shake the curious thought that she’d been horrified at the scars, themselves—how he’d gotten them and the severity of them—more than she’d been bothered by the perceived imperfection of him on a whole. Why he felt that way might have had something to do with the quiet words she’d said: words that weren’t necessarily meant for him to hear. Still in hindsight, he had to wonder, and maybe that was the real reason he wasn’t feeling as angry, as guarded, as he might have otherwise.

Snorting at the capriciousness of his thoughts, Griffin squeezed his eyes closed and forced his eyes to focus on the words in the binder. Worrying about things wouldn’t really change anything in the end, and he knew that better than anyone. Even if they could, what would be the point?

No, it was best to leave things alone, wasn’t it? Better to let things go on as they had before. The last thing he wanted was to encourage her to ask questions, and those questions . . . well, there really wasn’t any peace to be found in the answers . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Jillian Jamison scowled at the cell phone as she clicked the disconnect button with a heavy sigh. She’d tried earlier to call Dr. Avis to wish him a merry Christmas. He hadn’t answered then, either.

“Still not home?” Gavin asked, shuffling into the bedroom and sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Nope,” she replied, flipping the phone closed against the heel of her hand and tossing the device toward the foot of the mattress before crawling over to her mate. “I’ll try again tomorrow.”

He nodded, swinging his legs up as he settled back against the mountain of pillows, getting comfortable with the latest issue of Sci-Fi Geekworld magazine.

Jillian ferreted her way under his arm, settling against his shoulder with a happy sigh. “Did I get my latest Pop Pho?” she asked since his magazine and hers normally arrived around the same time every month. He’d bought her the subscription to Popular Photography just after they were married—he’d called it a really cheap wedding present, and Jillian had loved it.

“Not yet,” he answered absently—she was surprised he’d heard her at all. Licking his thumb so that he could better separate the pages of the magazine, Gavin’s kissed her forehead without taking his eyes off the page he was reading. “Did you leave a message on his voicemail?”

“I hate talking to machines,” she reminded him, running the tips of her claws lightly down the muscles of his stomach and grinning when they jumped under her ardent perusal.

Letting the magazine fall closed over his fingers, Gavin shot her glance full of mock chagrin before dropping the publication onto the nightstand and rolling toward her, stroking her back almost idly, unable to help the small smile that shifted into a slight grimace when he touched the waistband of the underpants she was wearing. “You know, I think it should disturb me a little more than it does that you like wearing my underwear,” he pointed out with an artfully arched eyebrow. “They’re huge on you . . .”

Jillian giggled and wiggled around, propping herself up on her elbow and leaning in to steal a quick kiss. “They’re not that huge, and they’re comfortable,” she informed him. “More comfortable than women’s, if you want my opinion.”

Gavin rolled his eyes. “Huge enough . . . which is more than a little disturbing, in and of itself,” he grumbled.

She laughed at his assessment. “Maybe,” she ventured. “They’re roomier.”

“. . . Roomier?” he echoed.

She nodded emphatically. “Yes . . . I told Maddy that she ought to start wearing men’s underpants.”

“Yeah, well, she can’t steal Evan’s,” he remarked rather dryly.

Jillian laughed and batted her eyelashes at him. “Evan doesn’t wear underpants, Gavvie.”

He chuckled and pulled her down to kiss her cheek. “I know.”

“I could always lend her some of yours to try,” Jillian ventured.

Gavin grunted. “God, no! That’s even more disturbing an idea than Maddy wearing Evan’s underpants . . .”

“Are you saying that you wouldn’t share your underpants with a friend?”

“About as much as I’d share what’s in my underpants with a friend.”

Jillian’s smile turned a little wicked, and she nipped at his chin in an entirely nice way. “I would hope you wouldn’t share that with anyone but me, Gavvie,” she said in a throaty whisper.

He blushed and wrinkled his nose. “I meant you, Jilli, not that.”

She snuggled against his broad chest, savoring the feel of a lazy Sunday afternoon. “Our first Christmas together,” she said with a contented little sigh.

“That’s not entirely true,” Gavin remarked. “We’ve spent lots of Christmases together.”

“Not as mates . . . not as lovers,” she pointed out.

He couldn’t help the color that filtered into his skin at her casual assessment, and true to form, she laughed again. “That’s true,” he agreed slowly, wrapping his arms tightly around her shoulders, holding her closer than his beating heart. “I love you, Jilli.”

Jillian closed her eyes, savoring the absolute nearness of him, basking in the consuming sense of peace that engulfed her. “I love you more, Gavvie.”

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Isabelle balanced the stack of presents against her hip as she reached for the door handle and pushed on it. The door swung open without a sound. Shifting the packages so that she was holding them with both hands, she couldn’t help the small smile that surfaced as she headed down the hallway and into the living room.

Griffin had moved from the recliner where he had been working on the translations, to the desk, and he spared a moment to cast her a suspicious glance as she negotiated the maze of sparse furnishings in the room in her way to the Christmas tree.

“What are those?” he asked, eyeing the gifts like he thought they contained some form of nuclear weaponry.

“Presents,” she replied pleasantly, carefully setting the stack on the floor and kneeling down to arrange them under the tree.

He snorted, the creak of the chair telling her that he’d turned around to get back to work.

“And you can’t peek or you’ll ruin your surprises,” she went on casually, picking at a ribbon curl and fussing with a bow.

The scratch of his pen on the notebook paper stopped abruptly. “My surprise?”

Luckily for her, he couldn’t see the wide grin spreading on her face. “That’s right.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked rather reluctantly.

She glanced over her shoulder at him only to catch him doing the same to her. “I mean that I’ll be really upset if you ruin your Christmas surprises by messing with your presents.”

“Presents?” he repeated, adding extra emphasis on the ‘s’.

“Yes,” she allowed, using her fingertips to straighten the smallest package just a little bit.

That earned her a marked snort as the scratch of the pen resumed. “This is just a ploy to get presents out of me, isn’t it?”

She covered her mouth and laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “Absolutely not,” she assured him. “It’s the season for giving, not getting.”

He snorted at that, too, and she pushed herself to her feet, dusting her hands together industriously before starting out of the room once more. “Now I’m not kidding. No peeking,” she said, pausing beside Griffin’s desk.

Griffin didn’t even bother to glance at her. “I’ve got no interest in poking around under a pine tree.”

Her laughter echoed in the house as she made her way to the kitchen.

But the house remained silent while she dug salmon steaks out of the refrigerator. She was starting to think that he really was going to ignore the presents when she heard the soft creak of his desk chair. Casually stepping to the side for a better view, she could just see the mirror that hung over the little table beside the back door, and her grin widened. He was leaning back in his chair, eyeing the presents under the tree—the ones that didn’t interest him, of course—and she almost laughed out loud when he swung around to make sure that she wasn’t lurking nearby, to spy on him.

Apparently satisfied that she wasn’t looking since he couldn’t see her in the mirror she was watching him in, he continued his ardent perusal while stubbornly refusing to move any closer or to vacate the safety of his office chair.

He continued doing that for the longest time, craning his neck and leaning further and further back in the chair in a valiant effort to keep from actually looking interested in the presents. Time and again, Isabelle nearly laughed. He reminded her of a child who had first realized what the presents under the tree meant. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear it was the first time he’d been given anything for Christmas . . .

He was almost perversely determined not to get out of the chair and not to touch the presents in any way, or so it seemed. Craning his neck to scope out the gifts she’d arranged below the tree, however, was tricky given his vantage point.

“What are you doing in there?” he called, glancing toward the kitchen with a thoughtful scowl on his features.

“Making dinner,” she replied, resuming her task of unwrapping the salmon steaks.

He grunted but said no more, and when she dared another look at the mirror again, she wasn’t at all surprised to see him inching backward in the chair. He said something to Froofie—she couldn’t hear him but she could tell by the animal’s reaction—and the dog lifted his head in question, his tail wagging automatically. He glanced at the tree when Griffin made a motion toward it but didn’t move. Isabelle bit her cheek to keep from giggling since it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that the bear-youkai was trying his damndest to get the dog to do his dirty work for him.

Froofie didn’t understand what Griffin was asking of him, though, and with a sigh—she could tell by the way Griffin’s shoulders rose and fell—he gave up, sparing a moment to glance at the sofa—at the cat?—before turning his attention back to the gifts under the tree once more.

It took him a minute of peering over his shoulder at the kitchen before he mustered the gumption to get out of the chair and approach the tree. When he did, he made an exaggerated show of stretching and peeking through the wide archway that led into the dining room and kitchen beyond before he stuffed his hands into his pockets and ever so slowly shuffled toward the tree.

She couldn’t tell what he was doing. It looked like he was just standing there, looking down at the assembled presents. He didn’t seem to be moving, at least that she could tell, and she had to bite back the urge to charge back into the living room so she could get a better view. Of course, he’d stop if she did go in there, and that would be a shame. Still, he was standing there for far too long to simply be staring at the gifts.

Smothering a giggle with the back of her hand, Isabelle’s eyes widened when she finally noticed the hint of movement in Griffin’s stance; little more than a slight shift of his posture, really. He was nudging the gifts with his foot, wasn’t he? Still determined not to touch them with his hands, he’d given in and was trying to appease his curiosity . . .

He kept up the nudging for a few minutes. Isabelle had to wonder if he’d succeeded in knocking any of the presents out from under the tree yet. As much as she wanted to creep a little closer, she didn’t dare. If he caught her watching now, she knew that he’d retreat. The man had more stubborn pride than anyone, and he’d rather bite off his tongue than admit that he was curious about anything.

She’d give him credit for obstinacy, she figured. She could almost feel his rising frustration since tapping the packages with his foot was availing him little. It was only a matter of time before he gave in, and she couldn’t help the amusement that wrung a smile from her as she wondered rather absently if her parents had ever felt that way, if they had stood back to watch as she and her sisters tried to discover the secrets of the festively wrapped gifts under the tree years ago . . .

She’d counted on his curiosity, hadn’t she? Spending hours wrapping just a few presents; taking care with the ribbons so they were perfectly curled and arranged, she had wanted him to experience the wonder, the complete child-like awe that she remembered . . . waking up on Christmas morning and running into the living room only to see the presents stacked high under the tree; presents that hadn’t been anywhere in the house the night before . . . Griffin hadn’t had that, and even if it was a stupid, silly wish, she’d call it good if he could only understand . . .

Griffin glanced back over his shoulder—a pathetic attempt to make sure that she wasn’t looking. Completely conspicuous and wholly adorable, she could see the heightened glint in his eye though his expression remained almost stony. It really was bugging the hell out of him, and she knew it.

Satisfied that she wasn’t watching—he still didn’t realize that she could see him in the mirror, she supposed—he turned around once more and slowly, cautiously, hunkered down before the Christmas tree and slowly lifted a ribbon-festooned present. Turning it from side to side, he examined it thoroughly before reluctantly leaning down, ducking his head. ‘Sniffing it?’ she mused as her smile widened a little more. ‘Oh, my . . .’

But he wasn’t finished. Dissatisfied that he couldn’t get a very good smell of the package, he finally gave in and shook it.

Shaking herself out of her reverie, Isabelle reluctantly dragged her attention off the bear-youkai. He’d know she’d been watching if she didn’t get dinner started, wouldn’t he, and if he figured that out, then he’d never show his curiosity around her again, come hell or high water.

It was enough, to have seen the lapse in the wizened outer façade that he tried to hide behind. Little by little he was giving in, and even if he didn’t realize it for himself, she did.

“Did you look at any of the notes I left on the table?” Griffin grumbled, lumbering into the kitchen with Froofie in tow and the kitten trailing not far behind.

She glanced up from her task of chopping vegetables for Griffin’s salad only to do a classic double-take when she saw what he had nestled protectively in the crook of his arm: one of the gifts, unwrapped, of course, and open. “You know, that was one of your Christmas presents,” she remarked mildly as she whipped around to hide her amusement.

He paused for a moment with a handful of honey roasted pecans poised over his mouth. “Pecans are not suitable gifts,” he rumbled before stuffing the nuts into his face.

“Oh?”

“No, they’re a necessity.”

“A neces—really?” she countered, giving up the pretense of preparing salad as she turned to face him, arms crossed over her chest.

“That’s right. Besides, they’d go bad before Christmas,” he stated.

She blinked and pressed her lips together but couldn’t keep the little giggle from surging from her, just the same. “They’ll go bad in less than a week?”

He shot her a withering glower that didn’t work to stem her amusement. “Yes.”

“You’re taking all the joy out of the holiday,” she chastised.

“You said that those presents were for me. It’s not my fault if you failed to mention that you wanted me to wait to open this one.”

“I don’t suppose I did,” she agreed slowly as she resumed her preparations of the vegetables.

“That’s right . . . now hurry it up, will you? I’m starving.”

She nodded and smiled as she watched him turn on his heel and shuffle out of the kitchen with his pilfered bounty. She’d just have to be more careful next time, wouldn’t she? After all, she really hadn’t told him that he had to wait . . .

Griffin was a little sneakier than she’d thought, which made the battle all the more intriguing, in her opinion . . .

Chapter Text

The trill of the telephone was almost lost below the din of the running vacuum cleaner as Maria Masta shut off the appliance and straightened her back with a marked grimace. She wasn’t exactly feeling old, but she’d been up all day, trying to get the house spotless for the upcoming holiday. When the telephone rang again, she jumped and hurried over to the receiver that she’d left on the coffee table, dragging the canister vacuum behind her. “Hello?” she said, answering without checking the listing on the caller ID, expecting to hear the voice of one of the ladies she’d been working with in planning a Christmas party for the underprivileged children in her area. It was probably Lola Fleurent, the woman in charge of snacks. There were two days before the party, which meant that it was high time for Lola’s annual freak-out over the smallest details that would eventually work themselves out, just like they did every year . . .

“Uh, hi . . . Maria?”

Blinking in surprise, it took a moment for her brain to accept the irrefutable knowledge of just who had called her. “Osezno?”

He snorted. “You know, you could call me ‘Griffin’,” he grouched.

She smiled, brushing an errant lock of raven hair out of her eyes. “You will always be my ‘Osezno’,” she chastised.

He snorted again. “Yeah, okay.”

“Attean’s not home yet, but he should be soon . . . you did call to talk to him, no?”

“Uh, no, actually,” Griffin mumbled. “I just, um . . .”

Leaning to the side and propping the vacuum against Attean’s recliner, Maria laughed softly. “So to what do I owe the pleasure of hearing your voice?” she prodded.

“Oh, I . . . well, you know, it’s almost, um, Christmas, and . . .”

“Uh huh . . .”

He coughed once. “I just thought I should . . . call and wish you a happy—er, merry—a nice Christmas.”

She bit her lip and lowered the receiver for a moment, staring at the device as though she was trying to ascertain whether or not it was functioning properly. “And merry Christmas to you, too,” she said, bringing the receiver to her ear once more. To be honest, she couldn’t remember the last time Griffin had willingly called her, and to be told that it was simply to wish her a merry Christmas? No, there was definitely something up; she could feel it. Griffin, as far as she knew, never celebrated holidays, Christmas or otherwise. There had to be another reason for his call; she just knew it.

Clearing his throat in a decidedly nervous fashion, Griffin paused before speaking again. “So, um . . . d-do you expect anything . . . special . . . from Attean this year?”

“Anything special . . .?” she echoed, shaking her head as she sank down on the edge of the sofa with a thoughtful frown marring her brow. “You mean a special gift?”

“Uh . . . yeah . . .”

“Well, anything he gives me is special,” she began slowly.

“Of course,” he blurted. “That sounds about right . . . but you know . . . did you, um . . . did you ask for anything . . . special?”

Narrowing her gaze as suspicion dawned, Maria took her time before answering him with a question of her own. “Having trouble thinking of something to buy anyone in particular?” she asked, careful to keep her tone as neutral as possible.

Griffin sucked in a sharp breath. “N-no,” he blurted. Maria had to wonder if his face was completely red or not. “Nothing like that. Just . . . making conversation . . .”

“I see . . .” she replied as the suspicion grew steadily worse. He was acting entirely unlike himself, and to that end, she couldn’t help the perverse desire to prolong his agony. ‘After all,’ she reasoned, ‘if he isn’t going to tell me the truth . . .’

He cleared his throat. “So . . . did you?” he finally ventured.

Hard-pressed to keep from laughing outright, she wasn’t able to restrain the soft laughter that slipped out of her despite her best effort not to do anything of the sort. “Oh, well . . . you know, just the usual things.”

“U-usual things?” he repeated, obviously unsure about the things that Maria would consider to be the ‘usual’ things.

She smiled, unable to hold her amusement entirely in check. ‘So he’s fishing for gift ideas, is he?’ she mused. “Yes, the usual things.”

“Oh . . . right . . . Stuff like, um . . .?”

“Hmm, well, last year he got me a really great vacuum cleaner,” she replied brightly, brushing aside the momentary twinge of guilt for telling a blatant lie.

She could hear the scrape of a door opening and a low grunt followed by the soft tap of claws against a hardwood floor. ‘A dog?’ she wondered briefly then dismissed the thought just as quickly. Griffin didn’t like having animals in the house, and she knew it. It had always bothered him that Attean had allowed their pet raccoon inside the cabin so long ago. Some things didn’t change, no matter how many years or centuries passed between . . . ‘No . . .’

“Attean bought you a vacuum cleaner?” Griffin mumbled in a disbelieving tone. “For Christmas?”

Snapping out of her reverie, Maria bit her cheek and cleared her throat. “Absolutely!”

“And that was . . . okay . . .?”

“Of course it was!” she insisted. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Griffin grunted softly. “Well, it’s just a vacuum . . .”

“Hmm, true, but last year he bought me a fabulous ceiling fan . . . it has a remote control to drop it down for easy cleaning.”

He didn’t respond right away. He was probably trying to figure out whether or not she was being serious. “Does he always buy you . . . appliances?”

“Come to think of it, I suppose he does,” she agreed amiably enough.

“I see . . .”

Pressing her palm against her lips to keep from laughing outright, she couldn’t resist the urge to goad him further since she knew well enough that he was fishing for information without trying to appear as though he were. Unacceptable, she figured. After all, she’d be more than happy to give him gift suggestions for the mysterious Isabelle, but if he couldn’t be honest with her . . .

The door opened and closed, and she sensed the proximity of her mate. He’d be very interested in the subject matter under discussion, she didn’t doubt, but he’d also give in and offer the desired information without making Griffin fess up, too . . .

“There’s a really nice dishwasher I saw advertised,” she went on airily, wondering just how long she had until Attean figured out who was on the other end of the phone call. He breezed into the living room and headed straight for her, pausing long enough to kiss her cheek before striding off toward the kitchen for something to drink.

“Don’t you have one of those already?” Griffin countered.

“Sure, but this one has quad jets and is a lot more energy efficient. It washes the dishes in a fraction of the time because of the new jet system.”

“Uh-huh,” he allowed since he probably didn’t really understand what Maria was raving about.

“It’s a very thoughtful gift,” she pointed out brightly. “Anything that makes my job easier, you know . . . Attean is very good about that sort of thing.”

“I see . . .”

“That’s right. It’s the season for giving, so what better than to give a gift that will make things easier year-round?”

Griffin grunted. “I never really thought of it that way.”

“But you should. You certainly wouldn’t want to give someone something that isn’t useful at all, would you?”

She didn’t have to turn to know that Attean had slipped back into the living room and that he was leaning casually in the doorway, probably with an ice-cold beer in his hand and even more likely with a raised-eyebrow look directed at her. “If you say so . . .”

“A couple years ago, he bought me a car,” she pointed out. That one wasn’t a lie, though she’d told him exactly what make, model, and color she’d wanted, which had simplified things dramatically.

“Are you sure he only buys you appliances?” Griffin asked suddenly, the unmistakable suspicion rife in his tone.

“Would I lie to you, Osezno?”

He grunted, and Attean choked on a swig of beer. “Yeah, I’m starting to think you would.”

“Of course I wouldn’t,” she contradicted. “Shame on you! That you’d even think so little of me hurts me more than you realize . . . though if you’re looking for suggestions about what to get a certain woman . . .”

“Wo-Woman?”

“Yes, woman,” she stated again.

“Oh, uh, her? W-why would I get her anything?”

“I don’t know, Osezno . . . why would you?” she asked sweetly, wondering if his face was as red in truth as it was in her mind.

“She’ll get enough presents from her doting family. She sure as hell doesn’t need anything from me.”

“You could get her a pretty dress.”

Griffin snorted. “There’s not enough material in Maine to cover her fat ass,” he countered, his voice growing drier with every passing moment, and he sighed.

Maria tried again, deciding that she probably ought to attempt to give Griffin some real ideas. “Or a foot soak . . . she’s a doctor, right? So she spends a lot of time on her feet.”

“The bathtub’s not big enough for clodhoppers like hers.”

Maria rolled her eyes but let his cryptic commentary pass. “There’re always gift certificates if you’re not sure what she’d like.”

That suggestion earned her a noncommittal grunt. “I’m not buying her a damn present,” he grumbled then sighed. “Well, anyway . . . uh, merry Christmas . . . and I hope you enjoy your . . . dishwasher . . .”

She laughed and clicked the ‘off’ button as she lowered the telephone receiver from her ear. Maybe she’d give him another call later to let him know that she was just teasing. Then again, maybe not . . .

“A dishwasher?” Attean remarked rather drolly. “You should have told me sooner . . .”

“So you heard me,” she allowed, flashing him a bright smile as she hurried over to drop the receiver onto the charge stand.

“I hope you were teasing, Maria,” he went on as he pushed himself away from the door jamb and sauntered toward her.

“Think so?” she teased, resting her hands on his chest as he pulled her close and kissed her cheek again.

“Tell me why you were lying to Griffin?”

“I wasn’t lying,” she maintained with a shake of her head as she tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear. “You did buy me that vacuum last year.”

“Good God, you didn’t tell him I bought you that thing for Christmas, did you?”

She laughed. “I might have . . .”

“You’re a wicked woman, Maria Masta . . . tell me why you’d say something so bad?”

She made a face and waved her hand in blatant dismissal. “That’s what he gets for lying to me.”

“He lied to you?”

“Yes, he did. He said that he was calling just to wish us a merry Christmas, and I might have bought that if he’d ever done so before . . . then he started asking about presents you’d gotten for me . . . If he wanted a suggestion on what to buy that Isabelle, then he should have just said so.”

“‘That Isabelle’?” Attean echoed. “You make her sound like a communicable disease.”

Maria wrinkled her nose and pulled away from her mate to pace the floor that she’d just cleaned. “Not really, but tell me: what do we really know about this woman?”

Attean rolled his eyes and smiled, not surprised to hear the bite of possessiveness enter into his normally mild-mannered mate’s tone. “What do we need to know? She’s staying with Griffin, yes? We have nothing to do with her. Besides, you wrote her a letter, didn’t you? What changed your mind?”

Maria made a face. “He says she’s fat,” she pointed out grudgingly.

Attean cocked an eyebrow. “And for that you will dislike her?”

“Of course not, but you have to agree that he shouldn’t be settling for someone just because she’s there, so to speak.”

“Who says he’s ‘settling’?”

She shot him a droll look that stated quite plainly that she thought her mate was being simplistic. “If she’s fat with huge feet? I’d say he’s ‘settling’. My Osezno is a very good-looking man! He deserves to have a mate as good-looking as he is!”

“Be that as it may, don’t you think that it’s Griffin’s choice to make? Maybe he is looking past the surface.”

“But if there isn’t any attraction—”

“And you’re just assuming things.”

She snorted and shook her head before pinning him a level scowl as Maria resumed her pacing once more. “No, the more I think about it, the more worried I get,” she maintained. “Osezno is like a son to me—”

“Highly improbable since he is a far sight older than you,” Attean pointed out.

“That hardly matters,” she countered, waving her hand to brush aside Attean’s words once more. “We nursed him back to health, remember? He’s family—as close to family as we have.”

“Of course,” Attean agreed though she could still hear the trace amusement in his tone. “I wouldn’t argue that.”

But Maria wasn’t finished. “—And as such, we bear a certain measure of responsibility for him. You know, it strikes me that he is just too close to the situation to be objective. What if this woman isn’t interested in him? What if she’s a serial murderer?”

Attean blinked a few times as he struggled to grasp Maria’s logic. He gave up with a shake of his head and set the empty beer bottle on the stand beside the telephone. “I thought you said that you had a good feeling about her.”

She chose to ignore his observation. “I think we need to take a vacation. How does Maine sound to you?” Maria stated, shaking her head in such a way as to let Attean know that she believed that he was merely being simple. “It’s easy to give a good impression when you’re not face-to-face with someone, now isn’t it? We don’t really know a thing about her . . . Who is her family? What does she want from Griffin? Why is she staying with him? Do you know the answers to any of those?”

“Yes, I do,” he admitted in an effort to appease his wife’s growing angst.

She pivoted on the ball of her foot and raised her eyebrows in silent question, wrapping her arms over her stomach as she pointedly waited for him to go on.

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he assured her. “Let him alone. I think he is quite old enough to fend her off—if that is what he wants to do.”

She made a face and uttered a terse little ‘hrumph’ but didn’t say another word as she stomped out of the kitchen to start supper, leaving a smiling Attean in her wake. He’d call Griffin later, he supposed, and tell him that he’d never, ever bought Maria anything even remotely ‘useful’ for Christmas . . . Besides that, there were a few other things that he needed to tell the bear-youkai, anyway; things he didn’t really want to mention in front of his gentle wife who worried enough about everything, as it was . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

The creak of the stairs under his weight was the only sound to be heard in the silent house. Isabelle had gone to bed a while ago. She’d been unaccountably preoccupied and almost distant all evening, and while it had bothered Griffin more than he cared to admit, she’d told him with a wan smile that she was simply tired. Too bad he’d seen the letter in her hand; the one she’d been trying to shield from his eyes. She was being charged with malpractice over the death of the McKinley infant, and while he knew that she hadn’t done a damn thing wrong, he also knew that having to defend oneself in light of the charges was a daunting idea at best.

He couldn’t help the feeling of restlessness that he wasn’t able to shake off. Ever since she’d brought those accursed gifts out to flaunt under his nose, as it were, he couldn’t help the twinges of conscience that assailed him whenever he dwelled on the thought that he hadn’t as much as considered buying a thing for her, and he should have, shouldn’t he? After all, with all her excitement over the holiday, it should have occurred to him sooner that she’d probably do something insane, like go out of her way to buy presents for him.

Then again, he supposed it was simple enough to overlook. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had given him anything for Christmas, aside from some homemade cookies or even a silly little ornament that a few of his children had brought him over the years, but a real gift? No, he couldn’t say he’d ever really received anything of the sort . . .

‘That’s not true, you know,’ his youkai pointed out as he trudged toward the front door to double check the lock.

‘It isn’t?’

‘Nope. You’re forgetting that lovely stuffed bear she gave you a while back.’

That, in Griffin’s estimation, didn’t deserve much more of a response than a terse grunt, which he offered, along with a decisive scowl. The deadbolt lock was turned and secure. All the same, he twisted the knob and rattled it to make sure that it was adequately closed. The last time Attean had visited a few years ago, the hanyou had commented that Griffin ought to consider updating the device in lieu of an electronic key-card lock. Griffin had declined with an offhanded shrug. What was that old saying? ‘If it ain’t broke . . .’

Shaking his head in an effort to forget his youkai’s commentary, Griffin turned on his heel and headed for the kitchen. A cup of tea would help settle his thoughts. In any case, it couldn’t really hurt. He’d even given in and had called Maria, for God’s sake. He really couldn’t get much more desperate than that . . .

He trudged into the kitchen and stopped short as a strange sense of warmth filtered through him when he noticed that Isabelle had refilled his battered old teakettle and had left it on the stove over low heat to keep it hot. She did things like that a lot, didn’t she, and as much as he liked to grumble and complain about her presence in his home, he had to admit, at least to himself, that the little things she did . . . they meant something to him. He’d noticed before that she always made sure that there was a fresh, clean towel and washcloth sitting on the sink in the morning when he went to take his shower. She was forever baking little goodies like the molasses and pecan cookies that he enjoyed with his tea . . . leaving his teakettle on the stove . . . even turning his shoes so that all he had to do was step right into them before he left the house in the mornings . . .

Even as he reached for the clean, dry mug she’d left on the counter next to his honey jar with a spoon laid carefully over the bottom of the mug, he sighed. She deserved something, didn’t she? Deserved something nice, something special . . . something that he could buy for her that would mean something to her, even if she never really understood the emotional cost of giving away a part of himself; a part that he’d never, ever shared with anyone before, not even Attean and Maria . . .

As if in answer to his troubled thoughts, the sound of the telephone shattered his contemplations. With a grimace—it had startled him and consequently, he’d ended up spilling some of the tea onto his hand when he’d jerked in surprise—he set the cup down and snatched up a hand towel as he hurried out of the kitchen to answer the phone before it woke Isabelle up. “Hello?”

“Ah, Griffin . . . just the man I wanted to speak to,” Attean said, his rich voice warm and friendly despite the late hour.

Stifling a sigh, Griffin grunted waited, knowing damn well that Attean was probably calling to pester him about his earlier phone conversation with Maria. “Shouldn’t you be in bed by now?” he countered almost mildly.

“Of course, of course, but I needed to talk to you first.”

His scowl deepened as he turned on his heel and stalked back toward the kitchen to retrieve the mug of tea. “Oh?”

“Yes . . . it’s about that Eaton Fellowes you mentioned . . .”

That got Griffin’s attention fast, and he paused for a moment before carefully lifting the mug and heading toward the basement door once more. “What about him?”

“Well, I was speaking to one of my contacts, and I happened to mention the name, and he asked me if ‘he’ was still using that alias . . .”

“You mean someone knew him? Who is he?”

Attean chuckled then sighed. “According to my contact, his real name is Alastair Gregory.”

Griffin snorted as the steps beneath him groaned and creaked. “Never heard of him.”

“I don’t suppose you have,” Attean ventured. “He’s from Europe, and he rarely travels to the States. Seems to find them a bit too provincial for his tastes, from what I’ve gathered.”

“Provincial, huh?”

“So they say.”

“He’s old—perhaps one of the oldest youkai in Europe, aside from the MacDonnough . . .”

“Does that matter?”

Attean uttered a little sound of agreement. “No, it doesn’t, but . . . you know as well as I do that it means that for one of our kind to have lived that long, he has to possess a certain level of cunning.”

“Warning taken, okay?   If you have something else to say, then just say it.”

“Hmm . . . impatience? From you?”

Setting the tea on the small table beside the old sofa, Griffin dragged his hand over his face and heaved a sigh. “Yeah, but none of that explains why he was after the research to begin with.”

“Research?” Attean repeated.

Griffin grimaced, cursing himself for the blatant slip. “Yeah, research . . . medical research . . .”

“You don’t say.”

“Look, Attean—”

“No, it makes sense. It makes absolute sense . . . Medical research . . . the project your Isabelle asked you to translate for her, no?”

Heaving a sigh, Griffin rolled his hand impatiently in a vain effort to hurry Attean along, letting the reference to ‘his’ Isabelle slip for the moment. “Why? Is he a researcher or something?”

“No. He’s a land developer. Seems a little strange, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, it does,” Griffin allowed, his scowl turning thoughtful. “So why would he care about youkai medical research?”

Attean coughed delicately. “Why, indeed?”

“Attean . . .”

Ignoring Griffin’s unvoiced threat, Attean went on, “More to the point, how would he have gotten wind of the research, in the first place?”

And there was that, too . . . It didn’t really make sense, did it? “Fine, so this Gregory knew about the research and tried to get his hands on it . . . where is he now?” Griffin demanded, deciding that he should focus on the things he could try to figure out instead of worrying over motive.

“That’s the interesting thing—the one thing that didn’t really make sense until you mentioned the research. It all makes perfect sense now . . . You see, according to the information I’ve uncovered, he was recently in Japan for a couple of days.”

“All right,” Griffin prompted when Attean fell silent.

“That wouldn’t have been very noteworthy, except there was an incident about that time.”

“What sort of incident?’”

“A break-in—according to the public records, it was an apparent robbery and vandalization of the Izayoi Clinic . . . Ever heard of it?”

“I-Izayoi?” Griffin repeated, snapping his mouth closed and swallowing hard, his throat suddenly having gone bone-dry.

If Attean noticed Griffin’s distraction, he didn’t remark on it. “Yes, the Izayoi Clinic . . . it was founded by Kichiro Izayoi a few years back—a veritable hospital for youkai and hanyou, and the perfect cover for his research facility . . . The greatest medical mind in the world—that’s what they call him. Sesshoumaru’s nephew—InuYasha’s son—and from what I understand, he’s got certain ties to the Zelig, as well. Anyone in the know would assume that he would be the one to possess the research, don’t you think?”

Griffin made a face and flopped back against the sofa, scowling at the ceiling as he tried to tell himself that the unease he felt was little more than a normal response to something of that nature. He wasn’t buying. “Break-ins happen all the time,” he muttered. “Call it coincidence.”

“I said, ‘according to public record’ . . . Did you know that Kichiro Izayoi has a twin brother? The hunter, Ryomaru?’

“And I’m assuming there is some sort of connection here other than familial bonds?”

Attean uttered a sage ‘hmm’. “One of my contacts in Tokyo said that Ryomaru arrived on the scene shortly after the young man who had apparently broken into the clinic fell to his death from the skywalk above.”

And Griffin understood. Why would the hunter—especially that hunter—be called in to a routine investigation of a random break-in? Still . . . “So he slipped . . .”

“Or was pushed.”

“Spoken like a true detective . . .”

Attean grunted. “The police report said that, according to eye-witness accounts, he landed on his back.”

“So?”

“So,” Attean said with a sigh, “that’s not possible; not if he slipped and fell normally. It’s too short of a distance. If he had tumbled, chances are that he’d have landed head or feet first. If he’d been leaning that far over the edge . . . to slip backward over the railing on those skywalks . . . well, it would be quite something to accomplish.”

“Hmm,” Griffin allowed. “I see . . . then why would the coroner label that the death was accidental?”

“Simple enough . . . the man landed in front of oncoming traffic that couldn’t stop fast enough to avoid impacting with the body. By the time the coroner got it, it might well have looked quite different to him.”

“Is he that inept?”

“The boy was accused of breaking into a prestigious establishment—he had a bag containing all the drugs he’d stolen on his person . . . and I’d imagine that Dr. Izayoi wanted the publicity over the robbery to be kept to a minimum so that humans wouldn’t find out what kind of research he was doing there.”

It made sense, certainly. If he was doing youkai research, he would try to keep humans from learning about it, whether by accident or design. Still, it seemed a little too obvious, didn’t it? “Wouldn’t it look like something was being covered up?”

“Perhaps . . . then again, perhaps not. While I have little doubt that Dr. Izayoi is beyond repute in the matter, I have noticed over my years as an investigator that it’s amazing what one does not see when they are not looking for it.”

“So you think that the hierarchy just didn’t notice the discrepancies because they didn’t want to?”

“Entirely possible.”

“And the coroner?”

“Even a coroner can misjudge something—especially something that looks so cut-and-dried.”

“You think that this Gregory person set the whole thing up?”

“There’s that . . . Of course, he obviously didn’t get his hands on the research, but . . .”

Griffin grimaced and sat up, hunching forward with his elbows on his knees as a dull throbbing erupted behind his eyes.   “So he doesn’t know who has the research. Good.”

“Griffin . . .” Attean said slowly, almost carefully, “suppose you tell me how your Isabelle came to have it, in the first place? If this research is that volatile—”

He sighed, rubbing his forehead with a slightly shaking hand. “She . . . she’s Zelig’s granddaughter . . . Kichiro Izayoi’s daughter . . .”

Attean sucked in a sharp breath. “You don’t say.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I do say.”

Attean sighed. “And this is why you were worried about Alastair Gregory, to start with,” he concluded.

“He’s already killed to get his hands on the research,” Griffin reminded him.

“Mm,” Attean agreed. “But it is just a matter of time before he learns who has the research, don’t you think?”

Wrinkling his nose and snorting loudly at the unnecessary reminder, he sighed, too. “Anything else?” Griffin asked pointedly.

Attean didn’t answer right away. Griffin had a feeling that he was trying to figure out a good way to ask whatever demented question that was swirling around his head. “Maybe,” he said slowly, as though he didn’t expect that Griffin would take whatever he had to say very well, “maybe you ought to consider telling the Zelig about your suspicions.”

“No,” Griffin stated flatly, his head snapping up as an irrational surge of anger shot through him at the suggestion. “No.”

“Think about it: he has the wherewithal to do something about this before Alastair Gregory figures out that she—and by association, you—have the research. You are worried about her safety, no?”

Unable to staunch the rapid flow of blood that infiltrated his cheeks, Griffin shot to his feet and paced the length of the basement floor, clenching and releasing his fist time and again in a futile effort to alleviate the rising irritation that was curling around his very being. “Are you implying that I cannot protect her?” he bit out evenly.

Attean cleared his throat. “Absolutely not,” he replied mildly. “What I am saying, though, is that you do not have to let yourself be involved any more than you already are.”

“It’s too late to worry about that,” he grumbled, shrugging his shoulders as though he were repairing the unseen dents left in his pride. “Besides, there isn’t anyone else who could translate the research.”

“Of course not,” Attean remarked then drew a deep, cleansing breath. “So suppose you tell me the real reason you called Maria earlier?”

Griffin winced. He’d figured that Attean wanted to ask that. To be honest, he’d figured that Attean would ask long before now. That didn’t mean that he was any closer to answering the question. Hell, no . . . the last thing he really wanted to do would be to admit that he’d been fishing for gift ideas for Isabelle’s godforsaken present . . . “I already told her; I was just calling to wish you a, uh, good Christmas.”

“And you think that she believed you? She didn’t, by the way, and I don’t, either.”

Griffin grunted and sank down on the sofa once more. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grumbled.

Attean sighed and paused. In the background, Griffin could hear the unmistakable sound of ice cubes ratting in a glass. “Since you seem so hell-bent on not telling me why, I suppose I should be the bigger man and offer you my bit of advice, anyway.”

“How magnanimous of you,” Griffin muttered.

Attean chuckled. “I thought so. Anyway, if you are searching for gift ideas for your Isabelle—”

“She isn’t ‘my’ Isabelle,” he interjected.

“That’s trivial, and besides; if you are going to buy her a Christmas gift when you’ve never done so before, then she most certainly is your Isabelle.”

“Demented is what you are. Besides, Maria said you buy her appliances.”

“Maria lied.”

Griffin snorted indelicately. “Maria never lies.”

“Ah-ah . . . Maria never gets caught telling a lie. There’s a big difference. Anyway, your best bet would be to find out what she likes. You know, do a little reconnaissance of your own.”

“And how would I do that?”

Attean stood up; Griffin could hear the creak of the chair he’d been sitting in followed moments later by the splash of liquid. “I would never propose that you pry into her personal effects, but . . . Maria did have a trunk when she came to live with me, and that trunk proved to be invaluable during our first Christmas . . .”

“I knew it. You can’t be trusted,” Griffin muttered.

Attean sighed. “Now do you want to hear my suggestions or not?”

“. . . Let’s hear it.”

Attean’s laughter forced Griffin to grit his teeth so hard that his jaw ticked under the strain. “Buy her something entirely frivolous,” he said, oblivious to Griffin’s irritation. “A porcelain figurine . . . a crystal bauble . . . an expensive bit of jewelry or a fur . . . Of course, if she’s an animal rights activist, then the fur might be in poor taste . . . Women like pretty things. It really isn’t that difficult.”

Griffin digested that for a moment. It seemed like better advice than the appliance idea. Too bad he still wasn’t quite sure exactly what to get the woman in question. “What did you get for Maria this year?” he asked instead.

“This year? I bought her a very lovely, very expensive strand of pearls. Granted, I might have to return it and buy that dishwasher she has apparently been coveting . . .”

“Thought you said that was a lie,” Griffin remarked.

“It was, but she did tell you that it was what she wanted, yes?”

“Sounds like you have a death wish.”

Attean grunted. “How could she hold it against me when I am simply trying to please her?”

“Yeah, I’m not going to your funeral,” Griffin pointed out.

“Sure, you will.”

“You can think that . . .”

“I do, absolutely . . . In any case, you cannot go wrong with jewelry. Just don’t buy pierced earrings for her if she doesn’t have pierced ears—and pay attention to the clerk. If she gets that polite little smile on her face, then it means that the bit of jewelry is gaudy or otherwise undesirable.”

“And you know this because . . .?”

Attean laughed—one of those laughs that said clearly that he thought Griffin was being obtuse. “I’ve bought Maria a lot of jewelry. Let’s leave it at that.”

Griffin snorted and shook his head. “Jewelry, huh?”

“Absolutely. Anyway, as much as I am enjoying our little conversation, I have a warm bed to crawl into—and a warmer mate waiting there for me. I’ll see what I can do, as far as getting more information on our friend, Gregory . . . keep me posted if anything should come up.”

“Yeah,” Griffin allowed, letting out his breath in a long, slow gust. Lowering the receiver and clicking the ‘end’ button, he stared at the device for a long minute. “Jewelry . . .”

It sounded like decent advice. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. Then again, his brain just wasn’t wired to think in terms of frivolous, he supposed. Too pragmatic, too serious, the idea of something like jewelry really hadn’t occurred to him. It made sense, though. After all, Isabelle had everything else, didn’t she? She was a successful doctor, even if she hadn’t been practicing that long. She could afford to buy everything she wanted, and even if she weren’t a doctor, she belonged to one of the richest families in the world.

No, the idea of buying something like that for Isabelle was the best one he’d had since he’d started thinking about getting something for her. The only real problem was that he hated—absolutely loathed—the idea of having to go into a place like a jewelry store. He always felt so out of place the few times he’d been forced to go somewhere like that. He supposed that the real question was whether or not he believed that buying a gift for Isabelle was worth the trouble of setting foot into what had to be the real No-Man’s-Land . . .

He heaved a sigh and winced as he downed the now-cold tea, setting the mug aside with a heavy thump.

‘Yeah,’ he supposed as he frowned thoughtfully at the fire dancing on the hearth. ‘Yeah, she . . . she is . . .’

Chapter Text

Griffin scowled at the brightly lit display window, wondering for the thousandth time if he weren’t making a huge mistake. He’d spent the majority of the morning rummaging around in Isabelle’s things and feeling like some sort of deviant in the process: just a bare step above cat-burglar, or so he figured. Even so, the worst of it had been when he’d inadvertently opened her panty drawer.   Against his better judgment, he’d pulled a pair out of there with a marked frown as he tried to rationalize exactly how the itty bitty scrap of fabric in his hands could possibly be considered an undergarment of any kind. No, it had looked more like a torture device of sorts, especially when he’d finally figured out pretty much how they’d be worn. When that realization had dawned on him, he’d been unable to stop the flow of blood that coursed to his face, just as he’d been powerless to stop the sharp gasp of breath that whistled into his lungs. He’d always suspected that Isabelle was a bit of a sadist. He was positive now. Any woman who’d willingly wear underpants with a tiny string that comprised the backside of it had to be a few eggs short of a dozen, as far as he was concerned.

‘You inspected her panties but refused to as much as lay a finger on her bras . . . that’s a little warped, if you ask me,’ his youkai chided.

‘Shut up,’ he grumbled, scowl darkening as he perused the array of jewelry laid out in the window display. ‘I wasn’t inspecting them; I was trying to figure out what the hell they were.’

‘Yeah, okay, if you say so, but you know, if you try to tell yourself that you were still trying to get gift ideas from that particular drawer, then you really are living in denial . . .’

He snorted. ‘As if! Like I’d buy her more underpants like that—if that’s even what they were, and I’m really having my doubts about that.’

‘You’re right; the last thing you’d want to do is buy her something that intimate . . . but how about a diamond? Women love diamonds, or so I’ve heard . . .’

Blushing furiously at the implications in the idea of buying Isabelle such a thing, Griffin grimaced and resolved not to speak to his annoying youkai blood, even if it killed him. No, best not to think about it and just do it, right? It was simple, wasn’t it? Pull open the door and walk into the store, buy a pretty necklace or something and get the hell out as fast as he could, right?

His hand was shaking as he reached for the handle. ‘Right . . .’

The sounds of the town dulled and faded as the door slowly closed behind him. The air lock resounded in his ears like gunfire, and it was all he could do to keep from wincing as he rather nervously adjusted the collar of his coat, flicking it up and tilting his face just enough to hide the part that wasn’t covered by his hair. It was second nature, really. He’d perfected the art of hiding himself centuries ago. He’d always hated the probing stares, the looks of almost comical horror—comical, that was, if they hadn’t been gaping at him, anyway . . .

Forcing his feet to move, he kept his gaze lowered, peeking up through his eyelashes as he hesitantly approached the counter and the nearest sales girl. She was jabbering on about a Christmas party she’d attended over the weekend, and she didn’t seem to notice him at all until one of the other girls laid a hand on her arm and nodded in Griffin’s direction.

“Good afternoon, sir!” she greeted brightly, her smile just wide enough to be welcoming but small enough to keep it from seeming genuine. “Can I help you find something?”

Clearing his throat—strange how it had suddenly closed up—he shrugged and readjusted his collar. “Uh, y-yeah,” he stammered. “Please.”

“Okay,” she replied, “do you know what you’re looking for?”

Concentrating on ignoring the curious stares that he could feel without having to see, he shuffled his feet, painfully aware of just how out of place he was in a place like that. Surrounded by delicate décor and impossibly fragile looking jewelry, he couldn’t help it as the unease built, layer upon layer, as the whispers of the other salesgirls thundered through his skull though at the moment, they just seemed curious. At least he could be thankful for that . . .

“Good God, he’s a big man,” one of them whispered.

Her cohort giggled softly. “A little too big, if you ask me. He looks like he could snap you in half, don’t you think?”

“Oh, I don’t know . . . big men have bigger parts, if you know what I mean . . .”

“That big? Jeez, he really would kill you . . .”

Griffin blinked rapidly as he fought to keep his face from exploding in crimson color. “Just something,” he forced himself to say, his voice dropping to a breath above a whisper. “I-It’s for a . . . a friend.”

The woman’s mouth rounded in an exaggerated ‘oh’, and she offered him a conspiratorial sort of wink, as though the two of them had just shared a huge secret . . . or made a suicide pact . . . “I see . . . Well, we’re having a sale on Disney charm bracelets.   They’re the add-a-link kind, so you can always add more charms later. They come with a single charm now, but if you wanted to buy more of them, we carry some individual ones, too. Would you like to see one of those?”

He grimaced. “Ah, w-Sh-She . . . She’s not a cub,” he mumbled.

“Excuse me?”

Shaking his head slightly, he concentrated on ignoring the running commentary from the other girls, though he wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or not when another young man breezed into the store. The one girl called out to the newcomer, thus effectively ending the speculation about him. “O-Okay,” he said when he realized that the clerk was looking at him expectantly.

She reached below the counter top and punched in the code necessary to release the lock on the jewelry display. A soft beep confirmed that the code was accepted, and she slid the case open, reaching inside for the charm bracelet she’d been telling him about.

“Here,” she said, holding out the delicate bit of gold for his inspection. “As you can see, it’s a lovely piece; very popular with women of all ages. I bought my grandmother one for her birthday, and she adores it. Would you like to take a better look at it?”

“Oh, uh, o-okay,” he said slowly, lifting his hand to intercept the trinket. She laid it across his glove-encased hand and stepped back. Griffin stared at the piece for a moment though he couldn’t honestly say that he was actually looking at it. The man who had come in after him was shopping for an engagement ring, and the girls seemed to be enjoying their task of showing him different rings.

A clatter made Griffin jump. One of the girls had dropped a ring on the glass counter. The sound was unnaturally harsh in his ears, and his head jerked to the side in absolute reflex. Before he could think about it, he heard it: the sharp gasp as the girl who had been smiling at him stepped back, her hands flying up to cover her mouth as her eyes bugged out; as the color leeched from her skin.

Dropping the bracelet on the counter, Griffin hurriedly readjusted his collar, silently cursing himself for the momentary lapse. The girl recovered her composure quickly enough, pasting an overly bright smile on her face as she looked everywhere but directly at him, as she tried to cover her faux pas with a flutter of her hands and a sudden and transparent discourse on the winter weather. The other salesgirls were staring at him now, too. He could hear them talking in hushed whispers to another, words that he wasn’t meant to hear, “. . . Horrible scars . . . what a shame, too. He’d be so good-looking otherwise . . .”

Swallowing hard and trying to pretend that he couldn’t hear the conversation, he gestured at the bracelet still lying haphazardly on the counter. “That’s fine,” he muttered. “I-I-I’ll take it.”

“You wouldn’t like to see anything else?” she questioned.

Griffin shook his head quickly, unable to deal with the false kindness, the saccharine sweetness of her contrived tone. She thought he was a monster, and he knew it. The last thing she really wanted to do was to help him any more than she had to.

“Great!” she gushed, her smile shifting into something more of a normal expression—relief that he was going to keep it short, he supposed. “I can gift wrap this for you if you’d like?”

He shook his head again as he dug into his pocket for his checkbook. “No,” he mumbled. “H-How much is it?”

The girl quickly scanned the tiny tag dangling from the bracelet and forced another overly-polite smile. “Your total is three hundred ninety-eight dollars and fifty-seven cents, sir.”

Fumbling with the silver ball-point pen he kept in his checkbook, Griffin gritted his teeth and willed his hand to grip the pen. He’d been having more difficulty than normal of late, probably due to the weather, and the glove he stubbornly refused to remove simply wasn’t helping him in the least. Wincing as a dull pain reverberated up his arm, he refreshed his grip on the thin barrel and started to make out the check.

Still concentrating as he was did little to dull his sense of hearing. The snide little sniggers and the harsh whispers tumbled one upon the next, ripping wide the gaping maws of anguish that he’d never quite forgotten. ‘Monster . . . defiler . . . murder . . .’ Were those the things that what they were saying? It didn’t matter, not in the end. Biting down on the side of his cheek until blood flowed freely in his mouth, Griffin forced his hand to move.

After a minute of fighting with the pen, he grunted in frustration and bit down on the middle finger of the old leather glove, yanking it off in a fluid movement before retrieving the pen once more.

“Um, y-you know sir . . .” the girl began in a stunted tone. Griffin glanced up long enough to see the utter revulsion in her eyes as she gawked at his thickly scarred hand. “We have . . . a check writer. If you’d just sign your check . . .”

Griffin winced inwardly. He was used to this sort of reaction whenever someone saw his scars for the first time. Even the university students tended to react with the same sort of expression, even though they tried to hide it, and even though they got over it quickly enough. It was always the same—always the same.

Scribbling on the signature line, he muttered something under his breath. He wasn’t even sure what he’d said as he ripped out the check and scooted it across the counter to the girl.

“Y-Your license,” she stammered, her cheeks riddled with color as she hastily slipped the blank check into the writer.

Pushing the checkbook around, he waited. He never drove, so it had seemed as good a place as any for the God-forsaken mockery—the identification card that bore one of the few actual pictures of him in existence. It seemed to him that it took the girl an inordinately long time to write down the numbers on the check. Finally—mercifully—she pushed it back with a brittle smile as she brandished the printed check for his perusal. He didn’t look it as he nodded, as he reached for the checkbook and stuffed it back into his pocket. Pulling the glove back over his disfigured flesh, telling himself that it was almost over . . .

“Here you are, sir . . . There’s an unconditional money back guarantee for the first ninety days after purchase,” she said, her voice resuming the efficient tone that she’d used in the beginning: the polite smile, all traces of her discomfort gone as she extended the small black plastic bag to him.

“Th-Thank you,” he muttered, taking the bag, grimacing inwardly when she nearly dropped it in her reluctance to as much as brush his hand with hers. He stuffed that into his pocket, too, as he turned and headed for the door.

The air on the street was welcome. The cold wind rose as though to dispel the lingering unpleasantness; the remnants of his utter humiliation. Even the knowledge that he’d done what he’d set out to do did little to comfort him.

Ducking his chin, hunching his shoulders forward, he trudged down the sidewalk, wanting nothing more than to reach the sanctity of his home—the place where he didn’t have to hide, where he didn’t have to feel as though he were little more than a monster. The place where Isabelle . . .

The place where Isabelle called home, at least for now.

The sudden flash of bright golden eyes drew him up short, and he blinked at the empty air before him. The harsh whispers dissipated, replaced by the soft chime of her laughter, and leaving behind a delightful warmth, a desperately needed bolster when he had nearly faltered. She was the one who had never really looked at him like that, had she? Even when she’d seen his chest, his back, the look on her face, he understood. She’d felt for him, for the pain he’d endured, and not once had she looked at him as though she thought he was somehow inadequate . . . Not once had she looked at him as though he were a monster . . .

A slow sense of calm ebbed over him, soothing the frayed ends of his raw nerves and pushing back the ugliness of the memories; a softness that reminded him of her laughter. It offered him the sorely needed will to move on; lent him the strength to brush off the words that were spinning through his head; those words he wasn’t supposed to have heard. She would be home soon, and she would smile at him, laugh for him, and maybe for a while he’d be able to forget that there really was a world outside the walls that contained her and the warmth of her aura.

‘Isabelle . . .’

And it was that thought alone that carried him home.

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Gunnar blinked and sat up straight when the festively wrapped box thumped onto the desk mere inches from his face, only to find himself staring directly at his cousin, whom he hadn’t seen since the confrontation at the bear-youkai’s house. She wasn’t smiling though she didn’t seem entirely angry at him anymore—not that it mattered to him. He was just looking out for her well-being, and if she didn’t like that, then it was just too bad.

“Hello, Izzy,” he greeted rather brusquely before pushing the gift away from the file he’d been reading.

Isabelle nudged the gift toward him just a little as she sat on the edge of his desk. “Merry Christmas, Mamoruzen,” she said, her tone light, even—almost cold.

“I’m surprised to see you,” he commented, sitting back and tossing the ink pen down.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m still irritated with you,” she said as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “But it’s the holidays, and since you can’t help the fact that you’re an arrogant ass, then I really can’t hold it against you, can I?”

He almost smiled—almost. Crossing his arms over his chest as he quirked an eyebrow, he nodded slowly. “If you’re waiting for me to apologize for being concerned about your well-being, you can keep waiting.”

Those bright golden eyes narrowed menacingly, and Gunnar figured that any other man might well be a little intimidated by that sort of expression, especially from a drop-dead gorgeous woman like Isabelle. Too bad he knew damn well that she was all bark and no bite, so to speak. “Are you really so conceited that you honestly believe that I spend my days worrying about whether or not you’ll ever apologize for anything you’ve ever done?” she asked, her tone dry, brittle.

He chuckled. “One day you’ll thank me,” he assured her.

She rolled her eyes and stood up, sparing a moment to smooth the form-fitting cream mohair sweater over her hips. “No, I don’t think I will,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper as she leaned over the desk, planting her hands dead center and leaning in. Eyes snapping, cheeks pinked with her righteous indignation, she really was a sight to see, this cousin of his . . . “Leave him alone, Mamoruzen. Just leave him alone.”

“No.”

Heaving a sigh, she pushed herself up and shook her head before turning away and reaching for the coat she’d dropped over the back of a chair. “He’s a good man; I don’t care what you say.”

“That’s my point, Izzy,” he finally said, stopping her in her tracks as she reached for the doorknob. She stopped but didn’t turn to face him. Gunnar sighed, rubbing his temple. “You don’t know that. No one does. Thing is . . . men who have nothing to hide don’t hide. Can’t you understand that?”

She chuckled though the sound was hollow at best, perfunctory at worst. “And you’ve never made a mistake in your life? You’ve never done something that you weren’t particularly proud of? Must be nice to be so perfect, Mamoruzen, and given my choice between an insufferable man who’s never made a mistake in his better-than-thou life, and one who is kind and gentle and sweet who has made a mistake or two, I think I’ll take your perceived imperfections any day, thank you very much.”

Gunnar sat back, his chair creaking with the sudden movement. “It’s not that he has made mistakes as much as the idea that he is trying his damndest to hide them. Izzy . . . You don’t know anything about him. How can you say you love someone when you don’t really know who he is?” he countered mildly.

Shaking her head, she heaved a sigh and whirled around to face him. Gaze flashing with rising temper, cheeks blossoming in a surge of angry color, youki spiking with an electric sort of tension, she pinned him with a disbelieving stare as she slapped her gloves against her empty palm. “I don’t need you to look out for me,” she informed him. “I don’t need you to tell me what’s best for me when you can’t even figure that much out for yourself. Griffin is a damn good man, and it doesn’t matter to me what you have to say about him. I don’t need your permission for anything. When he’s ready—if he’s ready—then I’ll be willing to hear him out, but you . . . you have no right to cast aspersions at him, do you? No,” she surmised with a shake of her head, “I really don’t think you do . . .”

“You know,” Gunnar went on, ignoring Isabelle’s tirade, “has he told you how he got those scars?”

She blinked in surprise, caught off guard by his sudden change in topic. “What does that matter to you?” she countered, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

“Don’t be stupid, Izzy. Has he?”

She didn’t answer him right away. He had a feeling that she was counting to twenty in an effort to contain her temper. “I hardly think that’s any of your business,” she bit out tersely.

He let out a deep breath full of resignation and slowly narrowed his gaze on her. “So he doesn’t trust you. I didn’t think so.”

“You really are a bastard, aren’t you?” she said, shaking her head in abject disbelief. “Just because he doesn’t want to talk about something that is obviously painful for him doesn’t mean that he distrusts me.”

Gunnar smiled insincerely. “Doesn’t it? As I see it, that’s exactly what it means. If you really were his mate—if he truly believed that—then he’d tell you everything, regardless of whether or not it’s a painful memory for him.”

Her eyes widened, and she nodded slowly, the smile that surfaced full of disbelief. “And you know this because you’ve had a relationship that’s lasted more than a few months before you get bored and start looking elsewhere? You know this because the women you date never have a chance in hell of actually being your real mate? You know this because you’ve actually given a damn about someone other than yourself? You haven’t, you know. You sit there and cast judgment upon everyone but kami forbid you ever bother to turn that discerning eye on yourself.”

“This isn’t about me, Izzy,” he reminded her.

She forced a tepid smile and jerked the door open. “Hmm, well . . . Maybe it should be.”

Gunnar watched her go and sighed, fishing in the desk drawer for the half-empty pack of cigarettes he kept there. He really hadn’t meant to agitate her again. He just wished that she could understand that there was something fundamentally wrong when the man she claimed to be her mate was hiding things as stubbornly as Griffin Marin was.

Which was another reason that Gunnar was in such a dark mood despite the impending holiday . . .

He hadn’t realized nor had he ever thought that there would be quite so many legends involving bears in North America. Apparently, there were, and every night, he waded through website after website, printing out ones that struck him as important while discounting the more fantastical ones while Myrna worked to do the same thing on her end. All he needed was one of these legends to say something concrete, something he could use to pinpoint Griffin Marin’s whereabouts so that he had a lead to follow . . . Taking a drag off the cigarette he’d just lit, he let his head fall back against the chair and released a slow stream of smoke that rose in the air in a fragile string that frayed as it escalated, only to dissipate into nothing to disburse in the quiet.

A curt knock sounded on his open door, and Gunnar blinked and turned his head in time to see his secretary leaning casually in the doorway with a coffee mug in each hand. When Connie noticed his attention, she pushed away from the jamb and strode into the office, setting one mug on the desk and sitting in one of the two thickly cushioned chairs facing him.

“So what are you sticking your nose into this time, Inutaisho?” she asked in the no-nonsense way that he admired about her.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied, lifting the mug of coffee to his lips and savoring the bitter brew.

“Don’t you?” she challenged, arching her eyebrows as she leaned forward to set her mug on the desk.

“Izzy has terrible taste in men,” he remarked—a good enough answer, as far as he was concerned.

Connie rolled her eyes and dug a cigar out of the pocket of the long white sweater she wore every day during the winter. He watched with a measure of amusement as she pulled the paper seal off and tossed the plastic wrapper into the garbage can. “Isn’t that for her to decide?” Connie asked, retrieving the lighter that Gunnar scooted across the desk.

“Of course not,” he insisted, a little smile twisting the corners of his lips as he watched Connie light the unseemly smoke. “She’s my cousin, after all, and she’s never had much in the way of common sense.”

“That’s what my husband used to say about me,” she replied, her gaze clouding over momentarily as she indulged herself in her memories.

“You’ve got more common sense than anyone I know,” he said, snuffing out his cigarette before leaning back, steepling his fingertips together in an idle sort of way.

“And Isabelle will, too. It comes with age, you know. Anyway, I’ve got to side with her on this. This guy she’s interested in really isn’t any of your business . . . unless he owes you money. Does he?”

Gunnar snorted and shook his head. “No, he doesn’t. That still doesn’t matter. He’s not good enough for Izzy, and that’s all there is to it.”

Connie uttered a very unladylike snort. “If women waited around for a man who was good enough for her, half of the general population would cease to exist,” she scoffed. “Leave her alone, will you? She’s a smart girl, even if you don’t think she is.”

“I’m not questioning her intelligence,” Gunnar grumbled.

“Then have some faith. It’s Christmas time, remember? The season of faith and goodwill toward men.”

Gunnar couldn’t help the little smile that surfaced as he reached for his coffee once more. “Goodwill toward men, huh?” he repeated. “Hmm . . .”

“Sounds to me like you’re selling your cousin a little short,” Connie mused over her coffee mug.

Gunnar shot the woman a sidelong glance. “No, I’m not.”

“Are you sure?”

One ebony eyebrow arched at her contention. “Are you really implying that I would do such a thing?”

“Maybe not intentionally,” Connie allowed with a shake of her head. “But you know something?”

“What?”

Breaking into a wry smile, she shook her head and got to her feet once more. “She’s a grown woman, whether you like it or not, and sometimes we grown women don’t appreciate it when anyone tries to tell us what to do, no matter what they believe to be right.”

That earned her a marked snort. “Yes, well, it’s been left up to men to show women the error of their ways when they’re too stubborn or too blind to see what is staring them in the face.”

Connie heaved a sigh and reached for his mug before turning on her heel and heading for the doorway. “If you think so, boss. Just you be careful, or you’ll piss her off beyond all reason.”

He didn’t comment as she strode out of the office, pondering her claim before heaving a sigh and flicking his wrist to check his watch. No, it didn’t matter in the end. Isabelle would get over it, or she wouldn’t, but either way, Gunnar knew—just knew—that Griffin Marin was definitely hiding something . . . and he was going to find out what it was or die trying . . .

Chapter Text

Isabelle bit her lip and cleared her throat in an effort to keep her amusement in check as Griffin stomped around the room with a black scowl on his face and uttering a low growl that was only interrupted when a hiccup forced its way to the surface.

‘Ah, behold the mighty bear, felled by but a single hiccup,’ she mused.

‘Entirely untrue,’ her youkai pointed out. ‘A single hiccup might have been alright, but he’s done nothing but hiccup for nearly twenty minutes . . .’

As if in testament to the observation, Griffin’s shoulders lurched as a very pronounced hiccup rattled out of him.

“Are you okay, big guy?” she queried, sounding entirely sympathetic. Too bad she couldn’t help the completely unrepentant grin that lit her face . . .

That earned her an even darker frown as he paused in his pacing long enough to narrow his eyes on her. “You’re not nearly as funny as you thi—think you are,” he grumbled, his words punctuated by another hiccup.

She giggled. “You know, my uncle always said that going for a nice run would get rid of hiccups,” she ventured, twisting around and resting her hands on the armrest as she followed Griffin’s stodgy movements.

He snorted. “It’s five degrees outside. I’m no—ot going for a run.”

“It always seemed to work for him,” she pointed out.

Griffin opened his mouth, probably to tell her that he thought she was being a pest, but another hiccup cut him off. “How often did he get hiccups?” he demanded, his expression full of suspicion.

Wrinkling her nose as she made a show of trying to consider the answer to Griffin’s question, Isabelle tapped her chin with a delicate claw. “Hmm, not too often, if memory serves . . .”

He grunted at that. “Uh huh. Forget it.”

“Okay, okay . . .” she drawled, holding her hand up and splaying her fingers as she inspected her claws. “I’m just trying to help . . .”

He hiccupped again then growled menacingly—at least, it might have been menacing if he weren’t periodically interrupted by the same hiccups that were the source of the initial irritation. She opened her mouth to tell him that anything was worth at least one try. He held up a finger two inches from her nose to silence her before whipping around on his heel and stomping out of the living room. Moments later, she heard the creak of the front door opening and the very distinct sound of Griffin’s mumbled complaints—and another hiccup.

She laughed softly as she pushed herself to her feet and wandered toward the window. She couldn’t help it, not really. The man was just too cute for his own good, wasn’t he? The giggling escalated when he jogged past the window with a completely disgruntled expression on his adorably flushed face.

‘You really shouldn’t be laughing at the man you want to have as your mate,’ her youkai pointed out reasonably.

‘Of course not,’ she agreed easily enough as her laughter wound down to a gentle smile. ‘Then again, I’m not laughing at him. I’m laughing with him.’

‘Which might be more believable if he were laughing, too. He’s right, you know. You’re a Jezebel; an absolute Jezebel.’

She laughed again, scooping up the still-unnamed kitten as she leaned in and waited for Griffin’s second pass.

‘And another thing, while we’re at it . . .’

‘At what?’

‘Hmm,’ her youkai grunted. ‘Did you notice anything . . . strange . . . when you got your clothes out to take your shower?’

‘Strange . . .?’ she echoed absently as her smile widened when Griffin came into view once more. He didn’t look like he was enjoying himself, but if the exercise got rid of his hiccups, he’d thank her later.

‘Yes, strange.’

‘Um, no . . .’

‘Oh? So you didn’t smell anything odd?’

The little smile quirking her lips widened. ‘Oh, that? Well, of course I smelled that . . . Do you suppose he was trying on my panties?’

That earned her a decisive snort. ‘I seriously doubt that, but it does make you wonder why he would have been in your drawers, doesn’t it?’

There was that, too . . . Still it was pretty insignificant in the long run, wasn’t it? After all, she really didn’t care if Griffin saw her panties, though if she were to be completely honest, she’d prefer if he saw them while she was wearing them . . .

The front door opened moments later, and she bit the inside of her cheek as she turned and waited for the verdict.

Griffin didn’t appear to be winded, but he did grimace when he stepped into the living room, still brushing snow off his shoulders.

“Well?” she asked since he didn’t seem interested in divulging the results.

Those deep brown eyes very slowly shifted to meet her gaze, and he looked like he was ready to growl at her. His answer, though, came in the way of a very pronounced hiccup, and she couldn’t help but giggle as his expression turned even more foreboding than it already was.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a few more cures we can try,” she said as she hurried over to him.

“Your cures can burn in hell,” he grumbled.

“Here,” she said, stuffing the kitten into his arms. “Why don’t you just sit down and play with the pussy, and I’ll be right back?”

She waited for his reaction. It was a little slow in coming. Then again, Griffin’s mind just didn’t seem to comprehend things the same way hers did. She’d spent way too much time around her male cousins, she supposed, and one of them in particular—Morio—had a penchant for perversity. He called it a gift . . .

Still it didn’t take nearly as long for Griffin to catch the gist of her innocently asked question, and when he did, he sucked in a sharp breath, his cheeks exploding in indignant color, and he dropped the cat like she was a hot potato, jerking around and crossing his arms over his chest. “Jezebel!” he hissed, much to Isabelle’s amusement.

She sighed and shook her head when he hiccupped again. ‘Okay, so shocking the hiccups out of him didn’t work, either,’ she allowed. ‘What’s next . . .?’

‘There’s always that cure,’ her youkai ventured slowly.

‘That one?’ she repeated thoughtfully. ‘Oh, I don’t think that one is a good idea . . .’

‘Maybe not, but it always works.’

Unfortunately, that was true, too . . .

Too bad there was a good chance that if she employed those tactics to rid Griffin of his affliction, he’d lock himself away forever, never to be seen again . . . It was true, though, that it always seemed to work for her parents. She’d seen it a few times in her life . . .

‘No, no, no, no . . .’ she insisted, jerking open the cupboard and grabbing a glass to fill with water.

‘Tell me you don’t want to try it,’ her youkai goaded.

‘What I want is entirely beside the point . . . I rather like that Griffin’s a little more comfortable around me. I’d rather not jinx that, thanks . . .’

‘Coward.’

‘Ignoring you now.’

‘Figures . . .’

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Griffin was pretty sure that Isabelle was enjoying his predicament just a little too much, as far as he was concerned. Scowling down at her, cheeks flaming red, he lifted his hand to brush her off as she carefully dabbed at the water he’d spilled all over himself as he’d tried to guzzle down the liquid while pinching his nose closed in a vain effort to rid himself of the blasted hiccups from hell. Too bad he’d ended up hiccupping mid-swallow. The sudden movement had upset the precarious balance between drinking the water and wearing it, and the infernal woman had yet to stop giggling over the accident, damn it.

She was an evil, evil woman, wasn’t she? Between her outrageous commentary and her ridiculous suggestions on how to rid him of the hiccups, he was pretty sure that she was a demon sent from the fiery bowels of hell to torment him for the rest of his life, damned soul that he was. ‘It just figures,’ he fumed as she unleashed another round of giggles. ‘Laugh at my suffering, will she? We’ll see about that . . .’

“When I was little, I used to stand on my head and suck water through a straw to get rid of my hiccups,” she ventured innocently enough.

He knew better. “Supposing I could even stand on my head—a serious doubt, mind—if I hic—” Another hiccup cut him off, and he took a moment to grown in frustration before continuing his statement, which only added to Isabelle’s amusement. “—hiccupped, I’d end up with water shooting out of my nose—no thank you.”

But she must have gotten the visual of that, because her laughter escalated to the point that she slumped against his arm, clutching him with one hand and her stomach with the other, the towel she’d been using to dry him off dangling uselessly from her limp fingers.

It was too much to bear, wasn’t it? Erupting in another low snarl, he was thoroughly incensed when another hiccup interrupted his show of irritation. “It’s not funny,” he gritted out.

“You’re right—absolutely right,” she managed between fits of laughter. “Let’s see . . . Oh!” Snapping her fingers, she pushed away from him and hurried back toward the kitchen. “Follow me.”

He could think of a million reasons not to do as she instructed since he was certain now that she was just doing things to prolong his agony. If she had her druthers, he’d be hiccupping for the rest of his life . . . Another hiccup rattled through him, and he sighed, stomping after her and ignoring the voice in the back of his mind that told him that he was a glutton for punishment . . .

“Wh—at are you doing?” he demanded as she dug a spoon into the sugar bowl he kept on the counter for her coffee.

“Try this, Dr. Griffin,” she instructed, holding out the heaping spoon with her other hand cupped below to catch anything that happened to spill.

He made a face. “You want me to . . .? Ugh, no.”

“It’s just sugar,” she said, her expression stating plainly that she thought he was being a baby over the entire affair.

“I don’t happen to like sugar,” he informed her.

“What’s not to like? It’s sweet and . . . it’s sugar! Now open up.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned at her, trying not to look as petulant as he felt. “No.”

“Oh, please! It’s nothing but a spoonful of sugar! Are you saying that Mary Poppins was wrong?” she countered.

He rolled his eyes. “Wasn’t that to help the medic—cine go down?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Same principal.”

“Aren’t you a doctor?” he demanded, leaning away from the hovering spoon.

“Yes . . . yes I am! So you should listen to me!”

“I did listen to you,” he grumbled. “I lis—listened to you about the r—running, and it didn’t work. I listened to you about the wa—ter, and it didn’t work. I think you’re a quack.”

“A quack?” she repeated with an incorrigible grin.

“Quack.”

She giggled. “Well, you do say I have a fat ass.”

He snorted then hiccupped then growled. “You do.”

“Just try the sugar,” she insisted with another giggle.

He rolled his eyes but finally opened his mouth, but he couldn’t help the disgusted face he made about the second that the sugar hit his tongue. “Urgh,” he choked, waving his hand around for something to force the overly-sweet stuff down his throat.

Isabelle hurriedly filled a glass with some water and stuck it into his hand. “It’s not that bad,” she remarked rather acerbically.

“Speak for yourself,” he mumbled, affecting a full-body shiver to emphasize his point, his voice echoing in the glass that he held tilted to his lips. “Yuck . . .”

“Did it work?”

Griffin paused with the back of his hand poised over his mouth since he’d been in the process of wiping his lips. Before he could answer, though, another hiccup tumbled out of him, and he heaved a frustrated sigh. “No.”

She refrained from giggling—barely. “Okay, okay . . .” Snapping her fingers as another ‘surefire cure’ came to mind, Isabelle spun around and grabbed the honey jar off the table. “Try this,” she said, dipping the spoon and extending it to him as a thin strand of stickiness dripped from the bottom back into the pot.

“Good God, do you have any id—dea how unsanitary that i—is?” he grumbled between hiccups.

Isabelle rolled her eyes and jabbed the spoon in his direction. “Sure, but they’re your germs. Not a big deal, right?”

He snorted loudly, his scowl growing darker by the second, but he opened his mouth and let her feed him the honey.

“Eh?” she prodded as Griffin licked his lips.

He stood stock still for a minute, narrowing his eyes as he slowly shifted his gaze around like he was waiting for the hiccups to set in once more. “Maybe . . .” he began cautiously. “Maybe that worked . . .”

Dropping the spoon into the sink and setting the jar back on the counter, Isabelle laughed. “See? Now you can take back that comment about me being a quack.”

“I wouldn’t go th—at . . . damn it,” he growled, cheeks reddening though she wasn’t certain if he was angry or simply frustrated.

“You poor Pooh bear,” she crooned, her eyes sparkling with wicked amusement. Griffin snorted and turned on his heel to stomp out of the kitchen. She watched him go and shook her head as she reached for the empty glass he’d set on the counter. Pouring about an inch of milk into the cup, she set the cup aside so that she could rummage through a drawer for a straw.

He didn’t have any, of course. It wasn’t something that he’d have purchased himself, and she never bothered to keep any extras that might have been doled out the few times she’d gone through some fast food drive through. She was almost ready to give up on that idea when she remembered the bag of red licorice she’d stashed in the cupboard.

It was safe to assume that Griffin wouldn’t like it, but with any luck, it’d help him get rid of his hiccups . . .

She bit the ends off the licorice and rolled it on the counter to widen the hole in the center. Pausing long enough to eye her handiwork, she dropped the candy into the glass of milk in her hand and headed out of the kitchen to find the disgruntled bear.

He was sitting at his desk once more trying to work on the translation, but every time he put his pen to the paper, a hiccup interrupted him. In fact, he was so preoccupied with his marked discomfort that he jumped when she tapped him on the shoulder to try out the next cure.

She hadn’t actually meant to scare him. It didn’t work to rid him of his affliction, anyway, and only served to earn her a rather petulant scowl. “What are you trying to do?” he demanded, sitting back and crossing his arms over his chest as he glowered up at her.

“Well, I wasn’t really trying to scare the hiccups out of you—good thing, too, since it didn’t seem to work.”

He snorted indelicately. “The day that I am sc—ared of you is the day I keel over and die.”

She laughed then winked at him. “Try this.”

Eyeing the glass as though he thought that something evil was dwelling just below the surface, Griffin slowly shook his head. “No. Way.”

“All you have to do is blow,” she informed him with a bright smile. “Just blow until you’ve gotten the bubbles to spill over the top of the glass.”

“Is that . . . candy?” he demanded with an incredulous shake of his head.

“I couldn’t find a straw,” she said, pushing the glass closer.

“No way in hell,” he scoffed, staring in abject horror at the makeshift straw.

“It worked for me when I was a pup,” she insisted. “Just try it. After all, what can it hurt?”

His expression stated that he was fairly certain that she was simply trying to have a bit of fun at his expense. She couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re enjoyi—ing this,” he growled.

“I’m sorry,” she giggled, waving a hand in front of her face. “Seriously, though . . . it really did always work for me . . . Of course, I always used a real straw, but . . .”

Closing his eyes, he heaved a heavy sigh as a resigned sort of air settled over him. Cheeks reddening, he hunched forward, his forearms resting on the edge of the desk and started to blow.

Biting down on her lip so that she didn’t giggle outright at him, Isabelle managed to refrain from laughing, even when he hiccupped and growled, breaking half of the bubbles he’d managed to accrue. Even the edges of his ears were red, and it was all she could do to keep from reaching out and flicking the tip of the closest one. ‘If he had a hanyou baby, would it have little round bear ears?’ she mused.

That thought was nearly enough to send her careening over the edge into a fit of helpless giggles, and she had to press her fingers over her lips to keep from laughing outright. She could just picture it a little too vividly in her mind: Griffin surrounded by five little Griffins, all with cute little rounded bear cub ears sticking out of their shaggy brown hair . . .

Flopping back in his chair, he scowled at the bubbles running down the outside of the glass and sighed when another hiccup slipped out of him. “Forget it,” he muttered, propelling the chair back and rising to his feet. “I am not trying any more of your crackp—pot cures.”

She couldn’t help the wide smile surfaced. ‘Sometimes,’ she thought as she watched him, ‘he acts just like a big old bear . . .’

He pushed himself to his feet and stomped away, probably in search of a towel to sop up the pooling milk, mumbling under his breath about home remedies that didn’t work and disgusting red licorice.

Heaving a sigh, she snagged the licorice and bit off the end, chewing thoughtfully as she waited for his return.

She had been in such a horrendous mood after she’d left Gunnar’s office earlier. His smug attitude just ticked her off, especially when she knew that he was simply being an ass about the entire affair. True, she wanted to know what had happened to Griffin in the past, but it wouldn’t really change the way she felt about him. She knew it wouldn’t. Griffin was her mate; the knowledge grew stronger with every passing day. Gunnar might have good intentions, but that really didn’t give him the right to be such an ass about it all.

But that was how he’d always been. She couldn’t really remember a time when he hadn’t been just a little too serious; a little too pensive. Even as a child, he’d always been a little quieter than Morio—even quieter than Bastian. He wasn’t shy by any means. No, it was more the idea that he was constantly thinking, considering, trying to figure things out, and while that made him a damn good investigator, it also added to his general distrust of anyone that he didn’t know on a more personal level, too.

And he’d always been quick to intervene; to try to put off the boys who showed any real interest in her. She supposed it was just that protective streak in him, and since his own sisters were older, he felt compelled to watch out for someone. Still, they weren’t pups anymore, and Gunnar . . . well, he needed to face the facts. She didn’t need him to tell her who she could and couldn’t spend time with, and she most certainly didn’t need him to give his seal of approval on Griffin . . .

“You’re going to br—eak my desk,” Griffin muttered, cheeks reddening when yet another hiccup cut off his words. Smacking her hip with the towel he’d grabbed, he snorted when she laughed.

“I will not!” she argued, idly swinging her feet, her heels thumping against the built-in file cabinet.

“You will,” he maintained with a stubborn shake of his head, “and watch those boats you call feet, will you?

Snapping her mouth closed on the retort that had formed, Isabelle shook her head and hopped off the desk, casting Griffin a highly chagrined look before planting her hands on her hips as she pivoted to face him.

He was busy cleaning up the spilled milk, but she didn’t miss the sidelong glance he shot her seconds before another hiccup jarred through him. “I told you,” she said somewhat stiffly, “the size of my feet isn’t my fault.”

“I can’t see how you can possibly walk with those without tri—pping all over yourself,” he grouched.

“I-I walk just fine,” she insisted, lifting her chin a notch in a blatant show of stubborn defiance.

“Sure you c—an,” he countered with a shake of his head. “You’re like the female big fo—ot. You’re the Sasquatch of hanyou.”

To her irritation, Isabelle could feel tears welling up in her throat, and she blinked fast to stave them back. “I’m going to bed,” she managed, proud of the steadiness in her voice as she hurried out of the living room.

She couldn’t help it, damn it. The size of her feet had always been a sore point with her. Her cousins had teased her all the time. Her sister, Alexandra had done it, too—Lexi had been blessed with cute, delicate feet like their mother, and she’d enjoyed teasing Isabelle about it. Even her first real boyfriend had teased her about them, and while she’d always tried to act like it didn’t bother her, she had to admit that it did. She had huge feet; she knew she did. She didn’t really need Griffin or anyone else to point that out to her, after all . . .

‘He doesn’t know that it bothers you that much,’ her youkai voice pointed out.

‘I know,’ she agreed miserably, sniffling as she flopped on her bed and glowered at her obscenely large feet.

Angrily dashing a hand over her damp eyes, Isabelle wrinkled her nose and bent her knees, bringing her feet up under her in a vain effort to hide the offending appendages. Of course she realized that everyone had something that they considered to be a sore spot. It was only natural, after all, and hers happened to be her feet. It was of little consolation, however, and while she wasn’t angry at Griffin, she couldn’t help but feel the sting of his gruff assessment just a bit more acutely than she might have otherwise.

“Why are you leaking again?” Griffin demanded, pushing the door open and stomping into the room with his arms crossed over his chest and a bewildered sort of expression on his face.

“I’m not,” she insisted.

He grunted when she sniffled. “All right,” he agreed slowly. “Then why are you pretending that you’re not leaking?”

“I’ve told you,” she murmured, scowling at the moisture on her fingertips after she wiped her eyes again. “I can’t help it. I’m a freak—a nasty freak—”

“Now you’re just being melodr—amatic,” he informed her with a shake of his head. “This about your feet again?”

To her absolute horror, more tears sprang into her eyes, clouding her vision as she struggled to brush aside the unreasonable upset that gripped her.

Griffin sighed and gingerly sank down on the bed beside her, staring at her for several long moments as she scowled at her hands.   She didn’t have to look at him; she could feel his eyes trying to bore into her skull. He didn’t speak right away, but he did hiccup.

He sighed again as the bed lurched with his sudden movement, and she slid her eyes to the side in time to see him lean over to tug off one of his socks. That done, he extended his leg and wiggled his toes to gain her attention. “That is a bi—ig foot,” he stated flatly. “Yours isn’t.”

She smiled wanly despite herself when he wiggled his toes again. ‘Big’ didn’t exactly describe Griffin’s feet. ‘Huge’ might . . . A regular bear’s paw, she supposed . . . wide and long, she figured that he had trouble finding shoes that actually fit him, and his toes? Short and stubby in comparison to the rest of his foot, his toes were rather chubby with very square nails and a sparse sprinkling of dark brown hair on his toe knuckles and the top of his foot . . . it was easily triple the width of her foot and a good four inches longer, and he wiggled his toes again to emphasize his point. A completely nice, if not blatantly male, foot, she decided as a temerarious smile quirked the corners of her lips. Even the trace of the jagged scar that extended from the shadows of his slacks did little to dispel the effect.

“Let’s s—ee yours,” he muttered, shaking his head at the hiccup that he couldn’t quite get rid of and wiggling his fingers to hurry her along.

Heaving a sigh, she leaned to the side and untucked her leg, sticking it out beside Griffin’s and feeling marginally better at the blatant discrepancy in size. Next to his, her foot seemed so small, so delicate. He snorted when she nudged him with her toes, and she couldn’t help but be amused when she glanced at him only to find him blushing. “Okay, you’ve made your point,” she allowed.

“No more leaking?” he asked quizzically, arching an eyebrow to emphasize his words.

She smiled wanly. “No more leaking.”

“Go—od,” he said then uttered a low growl. The hiccups were fast driving him to the brink of his sanity, and judging from the look of him, he was getting ready to rip something apart if they didn’t let up soon . . .

“You know, Dr. Griffin—”

“Marin.”

She ignored the interruption. “—There is one cure that we haven’t tried.”

His growl cut off abruptly. “I hesitate to a—ask.”

Drawing her foot up and turning to face him, she schooled her features and ignored the tiny voice in her head that insisted that she really shouldn’t suggest what she was about to suggest. “No, no . . . it’s a surefire cure. It always worked for my parents.”

“Another home remedy?”

She nodded slowly. “I guess you could call it that.”

“Is your father a quack, too?”

Giggling softly, Isabelle shook her head and waved a hand in dismissal. “Absolutely not. Do you want to try it?”

He opened his mouth to answer only to be cut off by a particularly harsh hiccup. “Fine,” he grumbled, looking even more disgruntled than he already was.

“All right,” she said, unconsciously pressing the heel of her hand against her chest in a valiant effort to restrain her painfully hammering heart. “Close your eyes.”

He didn’t look like he was going to comply. Sparing a few minutes to narrow his eyes, to let his gaze rake over her face as he tried to figure out just what she was thinking, Griffin finally gave in, albeit with a completely ungraceful snort, and closed his eyes.

‘Do it fast, Bitty . . . if you’re going to do it, do it fast before you lose your nerve.’

Sound advice, that was . . . Resting her hands on his shoulders, tilting her head slightly, she leaned in quickly, her lips pressing against his as her eyes fluttered closed. He gasped—harsh and audible in the quiet—but didn’t try to pull away. Every muscle in his body seemed to tense up like a coil being wound tighter and tighter. Warm and soft despite the underlying clumsiness of the gesture on his part, he did nothing to encourage her, yet he didn’t discourage her, either. She ended the kiss and began again without moving away from him—without giving him time to think.

The undeniable sweetness of the moment brought the sting of tears to her eyes once more, and she sighed softly, content to simply be near him in those moments, willing him to understand just how very precious he was to her, even if he didn’t want to acknowledge it.

But he seemed to come to his senses a little too quickly, and while he did pull away, clearing his throat as his unsteady breathing rattled in the silence that followed. He lifted a shaking hand to adjust his collar, his cheeks flaming red as he struggled to avert her gaze. She supposed she could understand that. After all, she was feeling a little shaky, herself, come to think of it . . .

“W-Why did you do that?” he stammered, his voice barely above a whisper.

She had to clear her throat before she could speak. “I told you; it’s a cure for the hiccups, but . . .”

“But . . .?” he choked out when she trailed off.

“But it has side effects,” she admitted.

Griffin’s cheeks reddened a little more, and he quickly shook his head. “What kind of side effects?”

She wanted to laugh but couldn’t quite manage it. “Well, see . . . the one who does the kissing . . . they take the hiccups.”

It took a moment for comprehension to dawn on him, and when it did, Griffin snorted. “So you’re saying that you’d get the hiccups?”

She nodded slowly. “Something like that.”

She couldn’t help the tender smile that surfaced while she peer up at him through her eyelashes as he slowly and somewhat clumsily got to his feet. Still red-faced and obviously feeling rather uncomfortable, he swallowed hard and made a face. “As I thought . . . another ridiculous ‘cure’.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she ventured mildly. “Your hiccups seem to be gone, don’t they?”

That earned her another decisive snort as he turned to stomp out of her room.

She watched him go, rubbing her fingertips over her lips in an idle sort of way. Sure, she was disappointed that he’d ended the kiss much sooner than she would have liked, but it had to mean something, didn’t it? He hadn’t run away, either, had he . . .?

Griffin hadn’t taken more than five steps down the hallway when he stopped abruptly, his head whipping around to stare back the way he’d come to frown at the warm glow of the bedside lamp that tumbled out of Isabelle’s bedroom. Heaving a sigh, shaking his head, he swallowed hard as the memory of that one kiss replayed in his head, as unaccountable heat burgeoned under his skin almost painfully . . . as the distinct sound of Isabelle’s hiccup resounded in his ears, attesting to the fact that at least one of her insane home remedies actually did work, after all . . .

As he smiled . . .

Chapter Text

“Hel-lo-o-o . . .” Isabelle called out, cupping her hands around her mouth to add volume to her voice as she stood in the empty foyer in the Zelig family’s Bevelle mansion.

No one answered her, which wasn’t entirely surprising. Though both her grandparents’ vehicles were parked in the driveway, she didn’t doubt that the two were likely closeted away in the studio they shared. Cain was probably working on another masterpiece while Gin would either be posing for him or working on her next children’s book.

Setting the dark green paper bag containing the gifts she’d brought on the floor, she headed for the stairs with a soft little giggle. Though she couldn’t exactly say that she missed being a child, there were moments when memories assailed her and made her wish just for a moment that life was still as simple as it was back then; memories of childhood laughter as she tore down these same stairs with Bastian hot on her heels after she’d swiped something from his room to tease him—probably one of his footballs.

The familiar scent of oil paints and linseed oil filtered through the small crack around the studio door, and she lifted her hand to knock on the door. She was stopped short when she heard the familiar sound of her cousin—slash—uncle’s voice from within. “You know, Mom, I think you should bet against the Patriots this year,” he said, obviously making reference to the obligatory Christmas Day football game.

Gin Izayoi Zelig gasped loudly as Isabelle pushed the door open. “Sebastian! Why would I do such a thing?” she scolded, her tone implying that she thought the idea was worse than just about anything else in the world. “I want the Patriots to win!”

“So do I,” Bas countered with a lopsided grin, “and every time you make a bet, the team you bet on loses.”

That earned him a chagrined shake of the head as Gin crossed her thin arms over her chest and snorted in a decidedly unladylike fashion. “Not every time,” she mumbled, her hanyou ears flicking in irritation.

Bas rolled his eyes as Isabelle tugged on his arm to make him bend down so that she could kiss his cheek. “Mom, I’m sorry, but you’ve never won a bet . . . not once.”

“You’re supposed to show your mother more respect than that,” she grumbled. “You’d better hope your father doesn’t hear you.”

Bas chuckled since the aforementioned father was standing not twenty feet away working on a painting and doing a hell of a job ignoring both his wife as well as his eldest son—entirely normal, in Isabelle’s estimation. Whenever Cain Zelig was working on his art, he was hard-pressed to notice much of anything else around him. Gin had often joked that the mansion could burn down, and Cain would be the last to realize it if he was painting or sculpting.

“Back me up here, Bitty,” Bas said, leaning toward her.

Isabelle laughed. “You’re on your own, Bastian,” she deferred. “Merry Christmas, Grandma. I brought your presents out.”

Gin smiled as she hugged Isabelle, her eyes sparkling mischievously at the mention of gifts. “Are you sure you can’t make it out for Christmas day?” she asked as she headed over to Cain’s side.

“Unfortunately, no,” Isabelle went on with an apologetic smile. “I’ve still got a couple ladies who are due any time, and I’d hate to be out here if one of them suddenly went into labor. Besides that, the weather forecasts are predicting a foot more of snow on Christmas Eve.”

“Of course,” Gin agreed as she wrapped her arms around Cain’s waist. He started slightly and blinked, looking completely disoriented for a moment as he glanced around the room. “If it snows, we can play outside! I can make another snow-Cain.”

Cain snorted but grinned. “Snow-Cain, indeed,” he mumbled, blushing slightly before blinking and glancing at his eldest son. “Oh, Bas, when did you get here?”

Bas rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I’ve been here, Dad. You just didn’t notice.”

Cain’s grin widened, and he set his brush aside before reaching behind him to pull Gin against his side and kissing her forehead. “No hug for your grandfather, Isabelle?”

Isabelle giggled as Gin wrinkled her nose. “You’ve got paint all over you, Zelig-sensei! You’ll get it all over her sweater if she hugs you.”

Cain glanced down at his paint smeared bare chest as his smile turned sheepish. “I suppose I would.”

Gin pushed against Cain though she didn’t seem to be exerting any real effort in her quest for freedom. “You’re getting paint all over me!” she protested.

He chuckled, his eyes sparkling dangerously. “That’s all right,” he assured her, kissing her forehead once more. “I buy your clothes, don’t I?”

“You’re bad, you know,” she pointed out as her cheeks blossomed with color.

“I’m not bad, baby girl; I’m good . . .”

“Oh, God,” Bas interjected with a wince. “Can’t you be like normal parents and pretend that you don’t have sex?”

“You’re so puritanical, Bastian,” Isabelle said with a giggle, hurrying over to kiss a clean spot on her grandfather’s cheek. “Hi, Grandpa!”

“Isabelle brought presents,” Gin said with a wide smile.

Cain shook his head. “I know what you’re getting at, baby girl, and no, you’re not getting your presents from me early.”

“I wasn’t even thinking about that,” she countered haughtily. “Aren’t you ashamed for having such a low opinion of me?”

“Nope,” Cain replied, letting go of his mate so that he could reach for a cloth on the worktable. “That’s exactly what you were thinking, and don’t try to deny it. You really suck at lying, you know.”

“Anyway, Dad, I just stopped by to let you know that Gavin called me earlier. Jillian wants to go see Avis again, so he wanted to make sure that there weren’t any problems with it,” Bas cut in.

Though neither Gin nor Cain said anything against the proposed trip, Isabelle could feel the tension rising, and she could understand their feelings. Though both Gin and Cain knew that no one could ever replace them as the only real parents that Jillian had ever known, how painful must it be, to be supportive of their daughter when the unwanted implication was that they had somehow lacked in their ability to raise her? Jillian, of course, had never felt that way, Isabelle knew. It was only natural, she supposed, to want to know where she’d come from; to need to know what sort of people they were, and no matter how perfect her childhood was, Jillian likely felt as though she’d know herself better if she understood the parents she’d lost, even if she’d never have the chance to meet them face to face.

Cain heaved a sigh and let Gin take the cloth from him, standing patiently while his wife wiped the paint smears off his skin. “Yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Bas nodded slowly, understanding his father’s reluctance but unable to do anything to stop Jillian, either. “All right,” he agreed. “Do you want to call Gavin back, or I can . . .”

“I’ll do it later,” Cain said, leaning to the side and reaching around Gin to snag his dark green pullover off the nearby stool.

“You know, I’ll go make some tea,” Gin suddenly said, dropping the rag onto the worktable and pasting an overly bright smile on her face.

Cain watched as his wife hurried out of the studio before following after her without a word.

Bas let out a deep breath and slouched against the desk that Gin used when plotting out her children’s books.

“It’s hard on Grandma, isn’t it?” Isabelle ventured quietly.

Bas nodded, his gaze stony as he stared toward the wall of windows at nothing in particular. “Yeah, it is. She tries to be understanding, but . . .”

“But it still hurts her, doesn’t it?”

“Something like that. Jilli’s not trying to do that, and Mom does a fair job of hiding it from her, but you know Mom . . .”

Isabelle nodded. “Jillian isn’t just an ‘adopted daughter’ to her.”

Bas sighed and dragged a hand over his face before shifting his gaze to the side to meet Isabelle’s. Seeing the distress on her face, he forced a wan smile and shrugged as though the entire affair were of little real consequence. “Jilli’s not the ‘adopted’ anything to any of us. Even Evan . . . well, even he’s been a little upset about the way things turned out. Sort of caught between them, I suppose. He’s always been a mama’s-boy, and he and Jilli were raised like twins . . . He understands Mom’s upset, but he also understands Jilli’s feelings, too.”

“You know, you have a tendency to sell Evan short,” Isabelle stated rather pointedly. It was true enough. Through the years, Bastian and Evan’s relationship was one that had always baffled her, maybe because she got along so well with her own sisters. It was hard to fathom the underlying hostility that separated Bastian and Evan. It seemed as though Bastian was constantly underestimating Evan, and as a result, Evan was perpetually antagonizing Bastian, yet she also knew well enough that Bastian loved Evan, too, even if he refused to admit as much. After all, he and Cain had gotten up at the crack of dawn just to be the first ones in line at the local record shop to buy Evan’s debut CD . . .

“. . . Maybe,” he agreed though his tone was noncommittal at best.

Isabelle shook her head then shrugged. She couldn’t mend their relationship, could she? No, it was something that they had to want, too . . . “Anyway, why don’t you tell me what you got that gorgeous wife of yours for Christmas?” she teased, offering her cousin a conspiratorial wink.

Bas smiled almost bashfully—she adored that particular grin most of all—and dug his hands into the pockets of his faded Levi jeans. “Truthfully? Nothing yet.”

“Nothing?” Isabelle echoed, her eyebrows disappearing under her bangs as she stared incredulously at her adored cousin. “As in, not a thing?”

“Not yet . . . You know Sydnie . . . She always wants things that are absolutely useless—her words, not mine—and I haven’t figured out what she’d consider ‘useless’ this year. Besides, that idiot cousin of ours had an aquarium installed in the office, you know? Called it an early Christmas present for Sydnie . . .” Bas paused here to roll his eyes and drag a hand over his face in a show of complete exasperation. “She goes in early; it’s nearly impossible to get her to leave . . . The other day, I went to tell her something only to find her stretched out on top of the damn thing, leaning over the side, batting at the fish that dared to swim close to the glass . . . She’s enthralled by those damn fish . . . Must be the cat in her . . .”

Try as she might not to smile at Bastian’s thorough disgust, Isabelle couldn’t help the soft giggle that escaped her, either. “That’s not so bad,” she ventured.

Bas snorted and shot Isabelle a disgruntled scowl. “She killed them all the first day. Dumped the entire canister of fish flakes into the tank. Gunnar replaced them all before she realized it. She said that she thought they looked hungry after she fed them the first time . . .”

“Well, her heart is in the right place,” Isabelle remarked, lips twitching as she tried not to laugh at her exasperated cousin.

“Uh huh . . . do you know? I caught her holding a fish in her hand, giggling as the poor thing flopped around. She thought it was playing with her.”

“Maybe it was?”

Bas snorted again. “It was dying, Bitty—dying. Poor things. My kitty’s going to kill every last one of them, and all Gunnar does is replace the ones she inadvertently kills off, and you know what he says?”’

She shook her head and waited, almost afraid to hear what sort of ridiculous reason Gunnar had given.

Bas heaved a sigh. “Gunnar swears that he just wants to make Sydnie happy,” he grumbled.

“Oh . . . that’s so . . . noble . . . of him,” she replied slowly.

“A little too noble, if you ask me,” Bas went on. “Too bad I know damn well that there isn’t even the tiniest bit of ‘noble’ anywhere in that bastard’s black soul.”

She had to laugh at the cryptic tone in Bas’ voice, especially since she wasn’t feeling overly magnanimous toward that particular cousin at the moment. “Maybe he really is just trying to do something nice,” she offered though she sounded far too dubious even to her own ears.

“Maybe,” he allowed, sounding anything but agreeable. “I doubt it, though. Sometimes he just doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone . . .”

Isabelle sighed, too, rubbing her arms as her humor faded; as she turned abruptly to stare out the windows at the softly falling blanket of whiteness. “No, he doesn’t,” she murmured as the sudden and fierce need to see Griffin’s face assailed her. “He never has . . .”

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Griffin frowned as he turned the white velvet jeweler’s box over in his hand and finally pulled it open to inspect the delicate bit of gold that he’d purchased.

He hadn’t really taken the time to look it over in the store, and he grimaced as he scowled at it. Pretty enough, he supposed. The length of the chain alternated between openwork links hooked together by clasps in the shape of tiny bumblebees that might not have been nearly as suspect had the single charm attached to one of the links not been a stupidly grinning likeness of the idiot bear perched atop the Christmas tree that Isabelle had managed to talk him into buying.

“Oh, God,” he grumbled, unable to staunch the flow of blood that washed into his cheeks. Grimacing as he snapped the case closed, he fleetingly considered taking the damned thing right back to the store but changed his mind just as fast. Given the first encounter with that place, he’d rather die a thousand miserable deaths than go back, and even if he did manage to talk himself into it, by the time he got there, he’d be sorely pressed not to heave the offending thing through the plate glass window—and run like hell.

In short, there was no way that he could possibly give the stupid thing to her. If she didn’t laugh outright, she’d absolutely think that he was encouraging her to continue with the unwelcome teasing about the foolish bear, and that was just something that he really, really didn’t want.

‘Damn it,’ he thought with an inward scowl as he heaved a sigh and slowly shook his head. ‘Back to square one . . .’

The sound of the front door opening drew his attention, and Griffin glanced around almost wildly since the very last thing he wanted or needed was to be caught with the jeweler’s box in his hand.

“Griffin? I’m back . . .” Isabelle’s voice rang out in the silence.

‘Crap . . . crap, crap, crap, crap, crap!’

He could hear the soft whisper of her feet as she padded toward the living room. Without stopping to think about it, he dropped the box into the nearest stocking and stepped back just as Isabelle wandered through the doorway.

“It’s getting colder and colder out there,” she said, rubbing her arms through the thick sweater. He could discern the smell of the winter wind; the vague traces of wood smoke and pine trees warmed by her body heat and clinging to her in an entirely familiar sort of way, and she spared a moment to smile at him before hurrying off toward the kitchen. “Did you miss me?” she called back over her shoulder.

He snorted but couldn’t help the tinge of pink that burned just below the surface of his skin. She didn’t see it, thank God. “Of course not,” he grumbled, frowning as his eyes lit on the stocking where he’d hastily hidden the bracelet—her stocking, damn it. He’d have to remember to get it later so he could find a better place to hide it, like in a fifty-foot hole, maybe . . .

Her laughter drifted out of the kitchen, and when she re-emerged, he wasn’t entirely surprised to note that she was carrying two mugs. “You could say that you missed me,” she pointed out as she sashayed toward him and held out a steaming mug of dandelion tea.

“That’d be a lie,” he insisted, taking the mug and sniffing the contents, lest she had decided to drug him.

Isabelle rolled her eyes and giggled softly. “You’re so suspicious,” she remarked as she sank on the sofa and set her mug aside in lieu of the notes he’d left spread out on the coffee table. “What’s all this?”

He shrugged and plopped down beside her, pausing for a moment to take a drink of his tea before answering. “What’s it look like? It’s more of the translation.”

“You got all this done today?” she queried, shuffling through the pages that he’d finished.

“Yes. They weren’t too difficult. He must’ve felt a little lazier than normal.”

“Hmm,” she intoned, her attention focused squarely on the research—something that irritated Griffin more than he cared to admit. “Excellent . . . excellent . . .”

He snorted and hid his scowl behind the steaming mug of tea.

‘Oh, for the love of . . . you’re actually jealous?’ his youkai blurted.

Griffin nearly choked on the swig of tea he hadn’t managed to swallow. ‘Jea—no! Hell, no! Of course not!’

‘You are . . . you really are . . . you’re all kinds of irritated because she’s looking over the translations . . . your work, you moron!’

‘Hardly!’ he scoffed, sounding much more self-assured in his mind than he probably would have if he had spoken out loud. ‘It’s rude; that’s all. She was gone all day, and she’s not home ten minutes before she’s got her nose buried in those papers.’

‘Wo-o-ow . . . you’re a little pathetic, you know.’

‘. . . Shut up.’

“According to this, if we took samples from full youkai and isolated the gene that controls transformations, then we could develop a serum that could, in all likelihood, protect hanyou from the same transformation,” she mused, almost more to herself than to him.

Griffin grunted and set his mug aside, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees and shrugging offhandedly. “You mean like a vaccine.”

She nodded slowly but didn’t look up from the documents she was still reading through. “Yeah . . . the same principle as injecting the body with a bit of the virus in order to stimulate the production of antibodies.”

“Yeah, that never made sense to me,” he mumbled.

“You’re right; it does sound odd when you first hear it, but it actually does make complete sense. If the antibodies are present, then the chance of actual infection is significantly lowered.”

Griffin shook his head and cast Isabelle a sidelong glance. She was gnawing on her bottom lip, and somewhere along the way, she’d slipped on her glasses, too. Her hair caught the warm glow of the fire on the hearth, and it took a moment for him to recall that he really shouldn’t be staring at her. “I suppose,” he allowed. “You’re the doctor; not me.”

“All of this just seems like common sense, really,” she went on, ignoring Griffin’s commentary entirely. “This is something that could have been figured out long ago if we’d only realized which gene triggered the youkai-reaction in hanyou . . .”

There was something entirely childish about the absolute sense of excitement that surrounded her. The soft, triumphant little giggle that escaped her caught him entirely off guard, calling to mind a memory half-forgotten; one that hurt him and somehow managed to comfort him at the same time. A little girl’s laughter—that’s what it brought to mind—and the imaginary scent of cherry blossoms carried on the spring breeze . . .

“I can’t believe you got all this done today,” she said, her voice breaking through the memory, shattering the half-formed image before it could clearly solidify in his mind.

Griffin blinked and shook his head, and he had to clear his throat before he could find his voice to speak. “It’s nothing big,” he maintained with a little shake of his head, ducking his chin as unaccountable heat filled his cheeks at the warmth behind her tone. “It’s just . . .”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Dr. G,” she chastised, dropping the stack of pages and shifting on the sofa, bringing up her knee as she turned to face him. “You really are amazing, you know.”

He swallowed hard at the tender little smile that lent an uncanny brilliance to her gaze, and for a moment—just for the moment—he almost allowed himself to believe her. Too bad he knew that some things were inevitable; too bad he understood everything that she never would, and yet . . .

And yet she was the single most precious thing to him; the single being that dared to remind him of beautiful things—the insular thing that he absolutely had to protect, no matter what the cost. Reaching up, touching the scars on his cheek, he heaved a sigh and shrugged, wincing inwardly at the palpable reminder of a lifetime of sins. “Translating simple words . . . it’s not really that big of a gift.”

“One of these days, I’m going to make you see what I see when I look at you,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Then you’ll understand.”

He grunted noncommittally. “Will I?”

She nodded, her smile widening as she continued to stare at him. “Yes, you will.”

Griffin looked away, frowning at the mess of papers strewn on the coffee table where he’d left them; where she’d dropped them, as he wondered why it was that his chest ached so badly—and why it was that he couldn’t help but wish that she was right, after all . . .

Chapter Text

“Well, if it isn’t my prodigal daughter . . .”

Isabelle grimaced then smiled as she drummed her claws on the kitchen counter. “Hello, Mama . . . Merry Christmas.”

“Hmm, merry Christmas, yourself. So tell me, how is everyone?” Bellaniece queried dryly.

“Just fine . . . I drove out to Grandpa and Grandma’s house earlier to drop off presents. How’s Sami? And Lexi? I haven’t heard from her in a while . . .”

“Sami’s doing well . . . a little stressed out since she’s got a few exams coming up, but fine, nonetheless, and Lexi? She and John flew in for the holiday. They’re staying until after New Year’s. I have to admit that I rather hoped you’d be coming home, too . . .”

Grimacing at the not-so-subtle hint, Isabelle sighed. “I know, and I’m sorry. Everything’s a little hectic around here right now . . . is Papa around?”

Bellaniece didn’t answer right away, and when she finally did, Isabelle didn’t miss the hint of censure in her mother’s dulcet tone. “He’s reading the newspaper. Don’t you want to talk to your mama?”

Rolling her eyes, Isabelle slowly shook her head. “Of course I do . . . it’s just that I also need to talk to him.”

“I see . . . but suppose you tell me about this man you’re seeing?”

“You’ve . . . heard . . .?”

“I’m your mama. I hear everything.”

“Who told you?”

Bellaniece sighed. “Really, Isabelle. Do you think your father is stupid? A patient, indeed . . .”

She stopped with her hand poised on the coffee pot handle and laughed. Of course Kichiro would figure her unspoken feelings out easily enough. He was touted as being a genius, wasn’t he? “Well, what do you want to know?” she hedged.

“Oh, everything,” Bellaniece said without preamble. “Is he handsome? Is he a good kisser? Is he good in bed?”

She couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her as she poured a cup of coffee. “Yes, very handsome . . . and I don’t know.”

“You mean you haven’t kissed him?”

Wrinkling her nose as she reached for the sugar bowl, Isabelle heaved a melodramatic sigh. “Unless you consider a quick one to get rid of his hiccups ‘kissing’, then no.”

“Oh, Isabelle . . .” Bellaniece chided, clicking her tongue melodramatically. “I brought you up better than that . . .”

“I’m sorry, Mama,” she giggled. “We’re just taking things slowly.”

“I suppose there could be something to that,” Bellaniece agreed rather dubiously. “Is he your mate?”

Pausing long enough to peek around the doorframe to ascertain Griffin’s whereabouts, Isabelle couldn’t help but smile. He wasn’t anywhere to be seen—still downstairs, she figured. “Yes,” she said as a silly little grin surfaced. “Yes, he is.”

“Oh? That’s wonderful! But don’t you think that you ought to be testing out the kissing then?”

“He’s shy, Mama. Anyway, did Papa get you anything interesting for Christmas?”

“You know your Papa. He won’t even give me a hint, no matter how hard I try to weasel a clue out of him,” Bellaniece complained.

“I’m sure you’ll love whatever he gets you.”

“Hmm,” she sighed then laughed. “Here’s your father. Love you.”

“Love you, too, Mama, and merry Christmas.”

“My Baby-Belle,” Kichiro’s voice greeted warmly.

Her grin widened. “Merry Christmas, Papa.”

She could hear the rustle of the newspaper as her father set it aside. “Did you get our present?”

“The money?” she questioned. “Yes, I did. Thank you.”

“Yeah, your mother was complaining that it wasn’t personal enough, but I didn’t figure you wanted another baby doll or anything . . .”

“It’s fine. I bought few new outfits with it.”

“Good. So what’s the real reason you called?”

“I was homesick?” she deadpanned.

Kichiro grunted. “Yeah, I’m not buying.”

She sighed. “Well, to be completely honest, it’s about the research . . .”

“What about it?”

Setting the plastic jug of nondairy creamer in the refrigerator, Isabelle brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes and cleared her throat. “I’m not sure . . . something’s just bugging me, I guess.”

“Mm, what do you mean?”

“The theories are sound,” she replied, taking a sip of coffee. “But I wonder . . .”

“About . . .?”

Picking up the mug, she shuffled out of the kitchen and into the living room where the translation notes lay scattered on the coffee table where Griffin had left them. “The differences in youkai . . . I mean, at first glance, everything makes logical sense, but the more I think about it, I have to wonder . . . if it’s as simple as injecting a bit of a youkai’s DNA into a hanyou . . .”

“You’re wondering if that will have adverse effects on the hanyou’s system,” he concluded.

“Something like that.”

Kichiro was silent as he contemplated Isabelle’s dilemma. “I don’t really know without looking over the research, myself . . . exactly what part of a youkai’s DNA does it suggest using?”

“The transformation gene, but it goes on to mention that it is closely connected to the inherent ability gene, too, which is what really presents a problem. In best case, it might mutate into enhanced abilities for the recipient, but if it is a conflicting sample . . .”

“You mean for elemental youkai?”

“Yes.”

“That might be true, and if it’s the case, then special care would have to be taken to make sure that it didn’t happen, but youkai who manifest inherent abilities are rare and normally confined to those who have stronger blood ties to the most powerful youkai—take Sesshoumaru, for example. His energy whip might be considered a blood trait—there aren’t many others who possess the ability to produce that. Toga doesn’t even have that, though it seems to be something that isn’t developed until later in life. He’s only seventy-one now, and he’s never really had to fight despite his training, so it’s difficult to say.”

“And grandpa’s incineration.”

“Right . . . not exactly something you’d want just anyone to be able to duplicate.”

She grimaced and nodded in silent agreement. Though she’d never actually seen the incineration, herself, she’d heard about it once; overheard Bastian talking to Ben. Apparently it was an inherent ability that had also belonged to Cain’s father, and while it was something that he’d only used once in his lifetime, Isabelle knew that it was an ability that Cain hadn’t ever really wanted.

“Don’t give up,” Kichiro offered in encouragement. “Maybe there’s more in the notes; a way to separate out the part you need for the serum from the rest of it.”

“I hope so,” she agreed. “If they were about ready to do a clinical trial, then I assume they were well aware of the potential risks.”

“Yes, well, make sure that you check into it thoroughly before writing up your proposal. Don’t worry, though. I have every faith that you’ll do just fine.”

“Thanks, Papa.”

“Any time, baby.”

“Merry Christmas. Give Mama my love, too.”

“I absolutely will.”

She clicked the cell phone off and sighed, dropping it onto the coffee table atop the notes. Hopefully her father was right, and she really was just worrying over nothing. After all, the Carradine brothers seemed to have been quite thorough in their research thus far. If they did overlook it, it was probably because of the lack of knowledge of the inherent abilities of some youkai. She supposed that the only reason it had occurred to her was because of those in her family who possessed the rare abilities, in the first place.

Blinking suddenly as the clock on the fireplace mantle struck midnight, Isabelle slowly smiled. ‘Christmas Eve,’ she thought to herself as she smothered a yawn with the back of her hand and stumbled to her feet. She shuffled over to the basement door as she finished off her coffee and lifted her fist to knock, but stopped before she did. “Merry Christmas Eve,” she murmured, kissing her fingertips and pressing them against the closed door.

Then she took her cup to the kitchen before shutting the lights off and heading to bed.

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Griffin turned the small hunk of wood over his hands and carefully drew the claw of his right index finger along the faint outline he’d marked earlier. The crackle of the fire added an ambient sort of sound to the otherwise silent basement, and he glanced up long enough to stare at the dog curled up on the ratty old pillow near the hearth before turning his attention back to the simplistic work once more.

Normally he did some of his best thinking while he worked on the silly little carvings, didn’t he? Too bad it wasn’t working for him tonight, which just figured, really. He’d retreated to the basement shortly after supper, prepared to try to figure out something else that he might be able to get for Isabelle that wouldn’t be stupid and, most importantly, wouldn’t make him look absolutely ridiculous in the long run.

But there wasn’t anything, was there? As much as he hated to admit it, there wasn’t a damn thing he could give her that she didn’t already have or didn’t have the means to get for herself. No, it didn’t matter what he considered, the end result was always the same. She either had it or could get it . . . or maybe she just didn’t want it.

‘So swallow your pride and take the bracelet back. Exchange it for a necklace or something—just listen to the woman if she tells you it’s from the Walt Disney collection.’

‘I don’t remember asking for your advice,’ Griffin thought with a mental snort.

‘Yeah? Too bad you’re not having any luck on your own. Beggars can’t be choosers, can they?’

Wincing as the block of wood slipped out of his hand and thumped on the threadbare rug on the floor, Griffin spared a moment to flex his fingers before leaning over to retrieve the piece. ‘I’m not going back in that store,’ he insisted, cheeks reddening at the very idea. ‘Hell can freeze over for all I care; I’m just not doing it.’

It was all her fault, anyway, wasn’t it? If she hadn’t been singing Christmas carols under her breath all night, Griffin wouldn’t have retreated to the basement. As it was, he’d felt just a little guiltier with every song she sang, and he hated the very real prospect of not giving her a thing come Christmas morning when she’d gone through the effort of buying presents for him.

It just didn’t matter, did it? There really wasn’t a damn thing he could buy for her that didn’t seem trite and stupid when he stopped to consider it. Clothes? Hell, she had more than enough of those, and even if she didn’t, what did he know about fashion? Nothing, that was what. A bauble or trinket seemed ridiculous. What would she do with something like that? Set it on a shelf and forget about it, he figured, and God only knew that he’d tried—and failed—in the jewelry department. He supposed she’d like candy well enough, but given that he complained about her deplorable diet already, he didn’t figure that was a good idea, after all, and since he’d seen firsthand the almost perverse number of presents she’d toted into the house just after dinner, he figured that anything he’d consider getting for her was probably wrapped in one of those boxes stowed under the tree.

‘What do you expect?’ his youkai chided with a weary sigh. ‘If it weren’t bad enough that her father’s a world-famous surgeon and youkai researcher, her great-uncle has damn near a mountain of money at his disposal, too. Add to that the Zelig fortune, and I doubt there’s a thing on earth you could ever buy her that could actually come close to comparing with that.’

‘Hmm, well, that was positive, thanks,’ he grumbled, stifling a sigh as the hunk of wood slipped out of his fingers once more. He retrieved it and set it on the table beside the old sofa and pushed himself to his feet. He might as well get a mug of tea or something since his hands weren’t going to cooperate, at least for the moment. His very bones ached, or so it seemed. There was a snowstorm coming. He could always tell a day or so before something like that because of the throbbing pain that just never quite went away . . .

Charlie braced his front paws against the floor and leaned back to stretch, his mouth stretching wide open as his lolling tongue unfurled and with a decided grunt, he padded after Griffin, his claws clicking softly against the wood floor. “Oh, so you finally decided to wake up?” Griffin mumbled, shaking his head as the dog half-groaned, half-grunted in response.

He wasn’t surprised, either, when the animal trotted over and sat beside his empty food bowl. Charlie’s tail scraped over the floor in a rhythmic cadence as he tried his best to look pathetic enough to convince Griffin to feed him. Too bad it he was immune to it. “Forget it, dog. You’re fat enough, as it is.”

Griffin almost stumbled over the idiot cat that materialized out of seemingly nowhere right under his feet, rubbing against his shins and rattling out a rusty sounding purr as he scooted her aside and reached for a clean mug. Between Isabelle and her ridiculous traveling zoo, he figured it was just a matter of time before she brought home something else that she found out there, probably something hideous like a skunk . . . “Move it, Butt-Ugly, before I step on you,” he grumbled. The cat blinked and stared at him as her purring ratcheted up a notch.

Heaving a disgusted sigh, he shook his head and carefully sidestepped the ignorant cat who was rubbing against his leg once more to set the mug on the counter. Maybe the little beast would leave him alone if he fed her . . .

With that in mind, he carefully measured half a cup of cat food out of the bag under the sink and dumped it into the pink earthenware bowl on the floor. Charlie danced around, his body quaking at the very idea of being fed, and with another sigh, Griffin dipped into the dog food, too, since he didn’t put it past Charlie to steal the cat’s food if given a chance.

Satisfied at last that they’d leave him alone, he washed his hands methodically before filling his mug and trailing a spoonful of honey into it.

Heading back toward the basement door, Griffin stopped short and frowned. He could have sworn he’d heard a sound coming from the darkened hallway—Isabelle’s bedroom. Setting the mug on the dining table, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and veered to the left, quickening his step as he strode down the hallway and shouldered open Isabelle’s door.

Everything seemed fine. The sound of her breathing lent him a feeling of reassurance. Hidden in the shadows of the murky night, she lay curled on her side in the middle of the bed, her hair pooled around her in the softest waves.

‘Are you sure you heard something?’ his youkai asked carefully.

‘Of course I did,’ Griffin maintained with a shake of his head.

‘You know, you don’t really have to make up reasons for checking up on her . . . I’m on your side, remember?’

‘I’m not checking up on her. She’s trouble. Why shouldn’t she be trouble while she’s sleeping, too?’

‘If you say so.’

‘I do.’

Blinking suddenly, Griffin closed his eyes for a moment as he hunkered down beside the bed—he hadn’t realized he’d come into the room. Somehow simply being near her was enough, wasn’t it? Enough to lend him a sense of calm that he couldn’t quite credit; a sense of well-being that he hadn’t known in centuries . . . enough to bolster his desire to move forward when everything seemed to be turning inside out . . .

Reaching out with a reluctant hand, he brushed an errant lock of hair out of Isabelle’s face and almost smiled when she shifted closer to his touch. A contented sigh, the slight upturn of her lips . . . she seemed to sense his presence, and it occurred to him that maybe—just maybe—those things that he felt whenever he was close to her . . . maybe she felt them, too. Her skin was smooth, impossibly soft—not like those stupid clichés that compared a woman’s skin to silk or satin, no . . . Those things were cool to the touch, weren’t they? Almost cold and definitely not like the Isabelle he knew. No, her skin brought to mind the finest cotton: warm, inviting, gentle . . . everything she was.

She was beautiful, and it wasn’t the kind of superficial beauty that dissolved the moment she opened her mouth. No, it was an incandescence that shone through from the inside; beauty that was only embellished by the vibrance of her smile; by the sweetness of her laughter; by the sparkle in her eyes. It was that quality that made her dangerous; that quality that drew him closer when he knew deep down that he really ought to be fighting harder to keep his distance. Somehow she’d managed to insinuate herself into his life, becoming as necessary to him as the air he breathed. She was precious; so precious, and the sudden surge of nearly painful emotion that shot through him made him wince.

That was the crux of his problem, wasn’t it? That was the real reason that nothing at all seemed to be good enough to give her. There wasn’t a thing he could give her that would come close to showing her just how much she meant to him, even if he couldn’t bring himself to admit as much to her, and it didn’t help, knowing damn well that she’d be happy with anything at all. He knew as surely as he knew that the sun would rise in a few paltry hours that she’d still give him that brilliant smile of hers and tell him that she loved ‘it’, no matter what ‘it’ happened to be. She would tell him that it was special because he gave it to her, and he’d roll his eyes but be pleased somewhere deep down that she had looked genuinely happy when she’d said those words. Unfortunately, the truth of it was that he didn’t want her to tell him those words. He didn’t want her to have to say them, at all. He wanted to be able to tell from the look on her face and the sparkle in her eyes that he’d pleased her . . .

She sighed softly and snuggled down into the warmth and safety of the thick comforter and downy pillow, and he swallowed hard. The scent of her seemed to beckon him closer, drew him in even as he protested in the back of his mind. “Beautiful,” he mumbled, unsure if he’d said it out loud or if it was just the insular thought that kept running through his head. “What are you doing here with a . . . a . . . with me?”

As if she’d heard his words, she smiled just slightly, pressing her cheek against the palm of his hand as though she needed his touch. The unconscious gesture set off a spiral of conflicting emotion in him: a tightening in his throat as a deep ache exploded in his chest; an unsettling stinging behind his eyelids as he blinked to dispel the foreign sensation as a warmth that he couldn’t credit, a surge of something he didn’t understand took root in his mind, only to slowly blossom. Was it hope? Surprise? Something deeper? The feeling that if he closed his eyes and never woke again, he wouldn’t mind as long as Isabelle was there beside him . . . but he didn’t know how to label the emotion. He wasn’t sure exactly what to call it or how to retain a grip on it . . .

‘Something . . . rare . . . something special,’ he mused as he almost clumsily ran his knuckles over the rise and hollow of her cheek. ‘Something . . . something . . .’

Wincing as the realization that he wasn’t any closer to figuring out just what to give Isabelle for Christmas came abruptly back into focus, Griffin reluctantly let his hand fall away as he got to his feet and pulled the comforter up under her chin more securely. ‘Rare, huh?’ he sighed as he shuffled toward the door.

Too bad he had less than a day to figure out what that could possibly be.

Chapter Text

Griffin trudged up the stairs, scowling at the sadly wrapped package in his hand as he tried to tell himself that he wasn’t being colossally stupid after all.

He’d spent the better portion of the day and most of the night laboring over the smallest details on the stupid sculpture—ridiculous since he really believed that she’d just laugh at him in the end. Still, it was the only thing he had been able to come up with, and to that end, he’d given it his best effort. Isabelle hadn’t seemed to notice his absence, absorbed as she’d been in the translation notes. The few times he’d ventured upstairs, he’d found her scribbling notes as she read and re-read the pages.

The weak and watery sunlight that was just starting to filter through the windows should have brought a smile to his face, he supposed. Holidays were supposed to be fun, weren’t they? So why was it that he couldn’t quite shake the feeling of impending doom?

Heaving a sigh, he shook his head and glowered at the pathetic looking present in his hands. It looked . . . sad, didn’t it? He’d tried, though—tried for over an hour to get the damn thing to look decent, and maybe it did look alright, given that it was the first time he’d tried to wrap a gift. Catching sight of the perfectly wrapped presents she’d painstakingly arranged under the tree only made the one he was holding look that much more ridiculous.

‘What the hell am I doing?’ he fumed, grimacing as his grip tightened. The wooden box inside the plain brown paper creaked and groaned, and with a heavy sigh, he forced himself to let up on it before it splintered into bits.

“Merry Christmas, teddy-bear,” Isabelle greeted as she emerged from the hallway, wrapped in a thick fleece robe.

Griffin blushed at her choice of words and turned slightly to hide the sad-looking package against his chest. “Jezebel,” he grumbled without looking at her.

“Want some tea?” she asked. She either hadn’t noticed his peculiar stance or she simply figured it best not to comment on it. Either way, he grunted in agreement and breathed a sigh of relief when she shuffled off toward the kitchen.

He’d spent the better part of the night telling himself that maybe she’d like it, convincing himself that it wasn’t nearly as asinine as it seemed. Somehow, though, he felt even more ridiculous than he had while he was wrapping the dumb thing.

Hunkering down before the tree with the softly glowing lights, he couldn’t help but grimace as he tried to figure out where to stick the gift. It looked sorely out of place amongst the ribbons and bows, the brightly colored wrapping paper and the shine of foil. The plain brown paper of the present in his hands was tied with a simple bit of twine since it was all he could find in the dusty old basement. His idiot youkai had assured him the twine added a ‘rustic flair’ to it, and while he’d bought into that at the time, he couldn’t help but think that maybe he was a bigger fool than he’d ever been before . . .

“I stuck a candy cane in your tea,” Isabelle called as she shuffled through the dining room.

Smothering a gasp of surprise—he’d almost forgotten that she was only making tea—he tossed the modest gift under the tree, but he tossed it a bit too hard. Barely grazing the lowest branches and clearing the modest stash of presents, it skittered across the bare floor and into the shadows of the floor-length curtains.

Her soft laughter rattled through him, and she held a mug of tea over his shoulder. “I knew it,” she gloated. He didn’t have to look at her to know that she was still grinning. “So you want your presents, Dr. G?”

He snorted loudly, refusing to look at her as he pushed himself to his feet and took the mug before turning away and taking his time while gulping down the drink—a gesture that he should have realized wasn’t a good idea since the water was still way too hot for comfort. Gritting his teeth, he made a face at the added sweetness of the candy cane but didn’t comment since he was fairly certain that he’d managed to blister his vocal cords with the boiling hot tea.

“Here,” she said, taking the empty mug from him and setting it on the coffee table. She’d retrieved a long, flat box from beneath the tree—a garment box, he supposed—and he frowned at it when she shoved it into his hands. “Merry Christmas.”

“Th-thank you,” he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. His discomfort was slowly waning though he was of two minds about opening the gift. As much as he hated to admit it, he really was curious, but the same curiosity was tempered by the sneaking suspicion that whatever was in the box just couldn’t really be good . . .

But seeing no way around it, he heaved a sigh and lumbered over to the sofa, pausing momentarily to watch as Isabelle—now sitting on the floor in front of the tree with her feet neatly hidden under the copious fabric of her robe—tried to coax Charlie into opening a very-obviously bone-shaped gift.

She was beautiful, wasn’t she? Sitting there on the floor with her hair still tousled from bed and a gentle smile on her face, the absolute joy of Christmas shining through her eyes . . . Was that how she’d looked as a child? Had she run into her parents’ bedroom on Christmas morning, demanding that they get up to watch as she opened her gifts with her eyes glowing with anticipation, with her cheeks rosy and flushed with excitement? It was the life she was meant to have, wasn’t it? Happiness, laughter, the warmth of being secure in the knowledge that she was loved . . . that was what he wished for her . . .

“Well, open it!” she prodded, planting her hands on the floor and swiveling to face him.

He heaved a sigh but opened the box and blinking at the deep crimson cotton dress shirt nestled in the folds of pristine white tissue paper. Though it wasn’t a color he would have picked for himself, he had to admit that it wasn’t bad. Not nearly as flashy as he had feared, the fabric felt soft to the touch, and he slowly lifted it out of the box to give it a more critical once-over.

“I already pre-washed it to make sure it wasn’t going to shrink up,” she explained with a satisfied little grin quirking the corners of her lips. “I’m sorry if my ironing job wasn’t quite up to snuff.”

He didn’t answer right away and couldn’t do much more than nod since he really couldn’t find fault with the garment. He caught her little grin out of the corner of his eye and sighed. “Thank you,” he mumbled, carefully laying the shirt over the back of the sofa.

She giggled and thumped over to him on her knees and bearing another gift that she brandished with a flourish before sticking it right under his nose.

He jerked back to avoid getting a mouthful of ribbon and narrowed his gaze on the suspect package, turning it from side to side, inspecting it before he made a move to unwrap it.

“It’s not a bomb, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she remarked somewhat dryly, returning to her place by the tree and batting a gray fur covered fake mouse in the general vicinity of the kitten, who hopped straight up in the air only to pounce on the toy before rolling away with the unsuspecting mouse in a death hold.

“Sure, it isn’t,” he shot back, slipping his claw under the ribbon and cleanly slicing through it.

Her response was easy laughter. “You’re such a grump,” she chided though she didn’t sound irritated in the least.

He snorted and tore away the paper, scowling at the box in his hand. “A cell phone?” he questioned. “And just why do I need one of these things?”

Her eyebrows disappeared under her bangs as she shook her head. “You need one,” she assured him. “I mean, what if I need to get a hold of you when you’re out?”

“What for?”

She giggled, leaning to the side to bring her knees up. “To tell you how hot I think you are?”

Snapping his mouth closed, he scowled at the hideous rush of blood just under his skin at her offhanded and completely bawdy commentary. “Jezebel,” he hissed, setting the cell phone on the table with a heavy thump and rubbing the palms of his hands on his slacks.

She set a small stack of presents on the table beside the phone and winked at him. “You’re so cute when you blush,” she commented.

“You know, you’re kind of a pain,” Griffin grumbled.

“Am I?” Isabelle challenged.

“Yes you are,” he said.

She laughed; he figured she would. Still, he was relieved to know that her gifts weren’t really as bad as he had feared. She stood up, grabbing his cup, and hurried off to the kitchen to get him a refill, pausing long enough to cast him a sly smile.

He watched her go and grimaced inwardly. He didn’t trust that look; not in the least, and especially not coming from her . . .

The next couple of presents weren’t bad: a book on ancient Aztec texts and a Christmas-themed glass jar full of mixed nuts. The jar had holly and candy canes painted all over it and a dark green ribbon tied around the neck—a bit garish, really, but given the season, he supposed that it wasn’t too bad. Better still, the nuts were honey roasted, so that made up for the rather gaudy packaging.

Popping the plastic seal around the lid, Griffin sat back and shook a handful of nuts into his palm as Isabelle re-emerged from the kitchen, carefully balancing his tea, her coffee, and a plate stacked with the pecan-molasses cookies she’d baked the night before. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that cookies really didn’t constitute a decent breakfast, but remembering that he was stuffing the honey-roasted nuts into his mouth at the moment, he thought better of complaining out loud.

She rolled her eyes as she set his mug on the table. “I should have known,” she said lightly. “Save some room for the turkey, okay?”

“A few nuts aren’t going to fill me up,” he intoned with a grunt.

“You’ll eat that whole jar,” she predicted, her voice echoing in her cup as she blinked over the rim. Both hands wrapped around the cup and completely ignoring the handle, she reminded him of a child drinking a glass of milk. Charlie whined, and she laughed, setting the cup aside in lieu of paying attention to the animal, who was sitting in front of the fireplace, tail wagging happily as he stared at the lumpy stocking hanging from the mantle. “Aww, does my Froofie want his sockie?” Isabelle asked, using a high-pitched, entirely silly tone with the poor dog.

“It’s Charlie, and of course he does,” Griffin muttered, leaning forward to reach for a cookie. “You jammed about a thousand dog treats in there, didn’t you?”

Isabelle fluttered her fingers over her shoulder in blatant dismissal and pulled down both the dog as well as the cat’s stockings. Charlie took it and trotted across the floor, only to lie down, holding the stocking between his paws and burying his nose in the open end. The idiot cat just stared at the one that Isabelle set on the floor in front of her.

“Here,” she said, carefully unhooking the stocking she’d written his name on.

He eyed it for a moment before hesitantly reaching for it. He hadn’t noticed when she’d put anything in his stocking. It had been empty the night before, hadn’t it?

Wrinkling his nose as an unmistakable sense of guilt rippled through him, he sighed inwardly. “Isabelle,” he began only to stop short when he noticed that she was eyeing her own stocking rather dubiously. She hadn’t made a move toward it yet, and his eyes flared wide when he realized that he’d forgotten to grab the God-forsaken bracelet out of there. When she’d arrived home a couple days ago, he’d hurriedly stuffed it in there since he couldn’t think of anywhere else to hide, and he’d had every intention of going back later to retrieve it until he figured out what to do with it. Unfortunately, he’d gotten sidetracked by her interest in the translation notes, and then he’d spent the day yesterday preoccupied with what he could get her that wouldn’t be completely humiliating . . .

‘Damn . . .’ Clearing his throat to draw her attention, he shot to his feet and started toward her in hopes of intercepting her before she found the stupid bracelet. “Uh, Isabelle—”

It was too late.

Grimacing as she shoved her arm into the stocking only to come away with the damned jeweler’s box, he couldn’t help the hot wash of color that flooded his cheeks.

“What’s this?” she murmured, flipping up the lid and shaking her head at the shining bracelet nestled inside.

“Wh—oh—uh . . . th-that?” he stammered, feeling more and more foolish with every passing second. “It’s, um . . . c-c-cat,” he blurted as his face darkened from pink to crimson, bypassing magenta completely. “Collar for the cat.”

“Really,” she said, amusement lighting her gaze as she slipped the bracelet out of the box and set the box on the mantle. “That’s a shame . . . it’s lovely, you know,” she teased.

He grunted and crossed his arms over his chest, unable to meet her gaze; unable to do much more than stand there like an idiot and wait miserably for the other shoe to drop, so to speak.

“Would you help me?” she ventured, extending the bracelet to him in a very quiet, almost shy, decidedly un-Isabelle-esque tone of voice.

‘She . . . isn’t going to tease me . . .?’ he wondered as he forced himself to reach for the delicate bit of jewelry. Grimacing as he tried to grasp the clasps—God, they were tiny in his huge and clumsy fingers. He had a difficult enough time trying to hold onto something like a pen or pencil. The bracelet was damn near impossible, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to admit that he couldn’t do it, either; couldn’t give voice to the frustration he felt surging through him as he gritted his teeth and tried to dislodge the eyelet.

She cleared her throat, her discomfort rising in the air. She must have just realized that he was having distinct trouble with the bracelet, but she didn’t comment.

Somehow, he finally managed to flip open the clasp, and after a couple of tries, he pushed on the miniscule nub that popped free. Isabelle seemed to relax in an instant as he carefully draped the bracelet over her narrow wrist and fumbled with the clasp once more. When he let his hands drop away, flexing his fingers from the onset of stiffness that had set in, she rewarded him with one of the brightest smiles he’d ever seen.

He blinked and stood, transfixed, unable to do much more than stare. With a soft giggle, she pushed herself up on her toes, slipping a hand around his neck to pull him down as the warmth of her lips brushed over his cheek; as the heat of a rioting flush suffused his skin.

“Thank you,” she murmured, letting go and stepping away though the smile hadn’t faltered at all. “I’ll never take it off; I promise.”

“Don’t get carried away, Jezebel,” he grumbled, dragging his gaze away and shuffling toward the sofa. “It’s just a stupid bracelet.”

“Then maybe I’m just a stupid girl,” she remarked, her tone light, teasing.

He grunted in response, snatching up his tea mug for want of something better to do.

“Anyway,” she said briskly, skittering across the floor and plopping down beside him only to lean on his shoulder in an entirely playful sort of way, “you need to look in your stocking . . . Do you suppose you got coal this year, Dr. G?”

“You should have,” he stated, wiping his chin since he had been mid-quaff when she’d so unceremoniously descended on him.

She just laughed—he’d figured that she would. Ignoring the stocking that she picked up and held out to him, he finished off the tea and sighed. “I don’t really believe in Santa Claus, you know.”

“Shame on you,” she chided. “You’re never too old to believe in that.”

“Fairytales and rainbows,” he muttered, scowling at the idiot cat who was busy accosting the dog, who, for the most part, was trying his best to ignore the irritating feline as he gnawed on the huge bone he’d been given. “Did you chase those when you were a cub?”

“Hmm,” she drawled, considering his question. “The fairytales or rainbows?”

“Either.”

“I suppose . . .”

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

She laughed again, but whether it was because he hadn’t really sounded as gruff as normal or because he’d somehow managed to amuse her, he wasn’t sure. Either way, it was a soothing sound; a nice sound, and he couldn’t quite help the small smile that quirked on his own lips . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

The laughter died in Isabelle’s throat, and she knew that the grin on her face was slowly fading, too, but she couldn’t quite help herself, either, not when faced with the one thing she’d never seen Griffin do before. The smile on his face was gentle, sweet—such a far cry from the gruff man that she’d come to know and adore. She swallowed hard, unable to breathe, unable to do much more than stare as the depths of his eyes took on a sort of glow: a spark that she hadn’t realized wasn’t there before. The emotion was fleeting—his smile was gone almost as quickly as it had come, and yet she couldn’t shake the image of it from her mind, either.

He’d gone from handsome to devastating in the space of a moment, in the blink of an eye. If she’d been standing, her knees probably would have given out on her. Staring back at him, willing him to understand the things she couldn’t put into words . . . and the curious knowledge that somewhere deep down, he did understand, after all . . .

“So,” he said, letting his gaze fall away as a hint of redness entered his cheeks once more, “does that thing have coal in it?”

“Coal?” she echoed, all sense of comprehension gone as she stubbornly tried to cling to the moment.

“Yes, Jezebel; coal.”

“Oh, right,” she blurted, feeling a hot flush filter into her skin. Heaving a sigh, she cleared her throat and shoved her hand into the stocking. “Nope . . . here,” she said, holding out a festively wrapped present.

He shifted his eyes to the side and looked at the present for several seconds before hesitantly taking it from her. She sat back, flicking her wrist to adjust the bracelet, gently rubbing her fingertip over the smooth gold while she bit her lip and tried not to smile at the tiny little Winnie the Pooh dangling from the links.

“What . . . is this . . .?” Griffin asked, breaking her out of her reverie.

She couldn’t help but smile at the look of utter disgust on his face as he stared at the sunglasses inside the plastic case. “What do you think they are, silly old bear?” she countered sweetly.

He snorted. Loudly. “I’m not wearing those,” he stated, setting the case on the coffee table with a second loud snort.

She rolled her eyes and leaned forward to nab the sunglasses. “You should,” she informed him, slowly choosing her words.

“Why?”

“Because,” she said with a simplistic shrug, “your eyes bother you when you’re in direct sunlight, and don’t try to tell me that they don’t. They’ll help.”

“Th-they’re not prescription,” he insisted, casting about for reasons, she supposed.

“Actually, they are. I borrowed your extra glasses.”

That earned her a narrow-eyed stare as he slowly shook his head. “I’m still not wearing those.”

“Well, you have them,” she said, reining in the urge to smile.   “You know, in case you need them.”

He grunted in response to that and grabbed a cookie, shoving the entire thing into his mouth. Isabelle rolled her eyes and reached for one only to have her hand slapped away. “Hey!” she protested as he pushed her fingers aside and grabbed another cookie.

“Forget it, fat ass. The last thing you need is cookies.”

“Saving me from myself?” she asked, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

“. . . Yes,” he stated, shoving that cookie into his mouth in one bite, too.

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. There was just something about Christmas that was magical, wasn’t there?

‘Or maybe . . .’

Her smile widened as she watched Griffin get to his feet and lumber off toward the kitchen with his tea mug and her coffee cup in his hands.

Or maybe it was because of the man she was spending her holiday with . . .

Chapter Text

Griffin propped his cheek on his hand, shaking his head enough to let his hair fall over the other side of his face and thus effectively blocking out the entirely too-distracting image of Isabelle as she lounged on the sofa in what had to be one of the most God-forsakenly heinous things he’d ever clapped eyes on.

‘Oh, please! You know you like it,’ his youkai said.

‘W—I—N—Shut up!’ Griffin snarled, the pen in his hand groaning as his grip tightened precariously.

‘She’s completely beyond reason,’ he fumed, his cheeks burning at the mere thought of exactly what the woman was wearing.

‘So, she bought you a bright red shirt,’ his youkai went on a little too casually.

Griffin snorted. It wasn’t the bright red shirt that was the problem. No, it was the hideous orangey-yellow word ‘Pooh’ across the front of it that was, and worse, she’d actually given it to him as one of his presents.

‘I despise Christmas.’

‘Oh, you don’t, and it isn’t that bad. So she got you one silly gift. The rest of them were fairly nice, even if you don’t want to admit as much.’

He snorted again, tapping the tip of the ink pen on the blank page before him. ‘Did you see the stupid cell phone number?’

‘It could be entirely coincidental that the last four digits of the number spell Pooh . . .’

‘Right . . . So, you didn’t notice that she was way too happy to point out.’

‘Do you really think she’s that bad?’

‘Yes . . . Yes, I do.’

‘Well, maybe, but in an entirely playful sort of way.’

‘Bad is bad is bad is bad.’

‘Save it for the hangman, Griffin. I’m not buying.’

‘Good because I’m not selling.’

‘Have you ever considered the idea that you take yourself way too seriously?’

‘Someone has to because you never, ever do.’

His damned youkai laughed.

“So how about it, Griffin?” Isabelle said as she leaned against his desk.

He swatted at her hip in a vain effort to move her. “How about what?” he countered.

She laughed. “You’re not really going to say that you haven’t been listening to me, are you?” she demanded, and he didn’t have to look to know that she had one of her eyebrows arched and very likely had an amused smile on her face, too.

“. . . What was that?” he intoned rather blandly.

Heaving a melodramatic sigh, she pushed herself away from the desk and wandered aimlessly around the living room. “I asked if you wanted to take the Christmas tree down.”

That got his attention fast enough. Glancing at her over his shoulder, he tried to decide whether or not he thought she was being serious. She appeared to be . . . “After all that fuss about putting the damn thing up, you’re ready to take it down already?”

She shrugged offhandedly and paused in her pacing long enough to smile at him. “Well, I did displace your recliner for the duration,” she admitted.

“Did you?” he parried almost sarcastically since she hadn’t bothered to apologize for that in the beginning.

She shot him a cheesy grin. “And you were a very good sport about it all, so I figured that the least I could do is offer to take the tree down. Besides, it’s dropping needles like crazy, if you hadn’t noticed.”

He grunted.   Of course he’d noticed that. He’d noticed that the morning after he’d hauled the damn thing into his living room. For a man who tended to be meticulous to a fault, it was almost enough to drive him mad. Isabelle wasn’t a slob by any means, but she wasn’t nearly as anal about housekeeping as he had a tendency to be.

“So you want me to carry it outside and . . . do what with it?” he asked, unsure if he really wanted to hear her answer or not.

“Put it out and the tree-recyclers will be around to pick it up, but let me take the decorations off, first . . .” trailing off as she turned away from him, she tapped the claw of her index finger against her lips as she considered . . . something . . . “Now where did I put those boxes . . .?”

“Boxes?” he echoed, shaking his head and dropping the pen, giving up on the idea of working, at least for the moment since he was pretty sure that the woman just couldn’t be trusted. “What boxes?”

“The boxes that the ornaments came in,” she said as though he should have known exactly what she was talking about.

He didn’t reply to that. He wasn’t entirely sure she’d have heard him, anyway. Even so, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room since he’d packed the boxes away in a large wooden box in the hall closet. She’d been so preoccupied in surveying her handiwork that she hadn’t noticed it before.

She blinked in surprise when he came back into the room with the storage box. With a smile and a shake of her head, she waited as he set the crate on the coffee table and pushed back the lid. “Do you suppose we could leave the things in the front yard until New Year’s?” she asked, taking the ornament box he held out to her.

“Do we have to?”

She laughed. “I suppose we don’t, but it always depresses me when Christmas is put away so quickly after the holiday.”

He stopped with a box in his hands and scowled at her. With her back facing him as she carefully studied the tree for the ornaments that went in that specific box, she didn’t seem upset about the entire affair, but he couldn’t shake the twinge of guilt that the only reason she was willing to remove the tree was ultimately because of him. “You don’t have to take that down tonight,” he offered at length.

“Oh, it’s okay,” she assured him as she carefully stowed the ornaments in the plastic tray. “I don’t mind.”

Did she have to sound like she really didn’t mind? Why didn’t she pout or cajole to get her way? He’d seen Maria do that often enough—not blatantly but there, nonetheless. Isabelle, with her quiet sense of tranquility . . . she really wasn’t like any other woman, was she?

She worked without comment for a while, humming under her breath while Griffin packed the crate up once more, taking care not to break any of the delicate glass baubles. The entirety of the moment filled him with a comforting sense of familiarity, and he had to wonder why something as simple as packing away Christmas ornaments could lend him a sense of peace—something that had eluded him for so very long.

Maybe it was the mundane nature of the actions; there wasn’t anything outstanding about the disassembly of the tree. Still, watching as Isabelle moved from one side to the other in her quest to locate matching ornaments, the calm that infiltrated his very being both soothed and frightened him. Every day, he grew more and more accustomed to her presence, and every day she became more and more necessary to him, but the precarious balance of his life was too fragile, too easy to upset. He’d never been good at living for the moment; never had been able to cast away the worries of what would come with the rising sun in the morning. That was the real reason he had always kept everything in a measured order, in a carefully contrived pattern that never, ever deviated from the norm.

At least, that was how it had been until the day he’d answered the door only to find her standing on his porch with that laptop computer and her nervous little smile . . .

He probably should have sent her away back then. That would have been the safest thing to do, but he also couldn’t say that he honestly regretted his decision to help her, and maybe that was the most frightening truth of them all.

“Now about him . . .” she said, carefully plucking the idiot bear from the top of the tree and gathering the cord in one hand.   “He won’t fit in that box . . .”

“Damn shame,” he grunted, making a show of closing up the lip and reaching for the thick rope handles. “Guess you’ll have to throw it out.”

“Don’t be silly,” she chided, heading out of the living room toward the hallway to stash the stupid thing in her closet, he supposed. “He’s perfectly adorable. He needs to be on our tree every year.”

Griffin snorted at that but couldn’t staunch the flow of blood that shot to the surface of his skin at the implication that there would be another Christmas for the two of them, and as loathe as he was to admit it, he couldn’t help the feeling of well-being that surged in him, either; the wild hope that maybe . . .

‘Stop being stupid,’ he told himself firmly, snatching up the crate to put it away. ‘She didn’t mean that the way it sounded.’

Of course she didn’t, did she? Scowling as he stacked the crate atop another one in the back of the small closet and adjusted the coats hanging in front of them, Griffin sighed and tried to ignore the voice in the back of his mind that told him that denying the truth wouldn’t help. What was done was done, or so the saying went.

It didn’t matter, did it? As much as he might wish otherwise, there were some things in life that couldn’t be changed; some sins that couldn’t be absolved. A lifetime of good deeds meant nothing in the end when there would always be the one black mark that nothing could ever expunge . . .

Stomping back into the living room, he shook his head as he moved toward the barren tree. He’d drag it outside for now, at least. It was too late to mess around with cutting it into burnable pieces, anyway.

He wasn’t sure which was worse, really; the hope that coursed through him every time Isabelle smiled at him or the animosity that he knew could replace that smile just as quickly when she learned the truth. Grasping the tree and dragging it out of the stand, he tried to brush aside the unsettling thoughts as he lugged the tree toward the back door . . .

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

“So how are your parents?” Bas asked as Gunnar dropped his cell phone into his pocket and blanked his expression.

“Well, as always,” Gunnar replied, pasting on a tepid-at-best smile as he reached for the glass of whiskey before him.

Bas nodded slowly, downing half of his beer while he waited for his cousin to speak. Gunnar was always a bit of an enigma, but Bas had a feeling that something entirely different was bothering his cousin lately. He also knew damn well that Gunnar would never fess up to it, even if Bas asked, so he opted to wait until Gunnar felt like clueing him in—if he ever did, that was . . .

“Your mom lay the guilt trip on you for not coming home this year?”

Gunnar shrugged offhandedly and deliberately took his time quaffing the drink. “No.”

“Really? That’s surprising.”

Gunnar snorted and sat back, lifting his hand off the table to motion the waitress over and held up his glass. She nodded and hurried over to the bar, her cheeks pinking slightly, probably at the very idea of being able to talk to a man like Gunnar, in any capacity. The Crow’s Nest wasn’t exactly a high-brow establishment, but Bas figured that beggars couldn’t really be choosers since the number of bars that were actually open on Christmas night could be counted on one hand—maybe one finger. That was the only reason that Gunnar would deign to enter the place, Bas figured. Gunnar had a snobby streak about as wide as the Atlantic Ocean, and then some . . .

But then it had surprised Bas, too, when Gunnar had suggested going out for drinks to start with. Standing in the middle of the Zelig-family’s kitchen as they picked over the leftovers from the huge dinner that Gin had spent hours preparing, he’d suddenly stated that he needed a drink, and while Cain kept liquor stocked at all times, for some reason, Gunnar had wanted to go out, instead . . .

“You make my mother sound like a veritable harridan,” Gunnar remarked dryly.

Bas chuckled. “No, but I know that she does it every year that you don’t go home for the holidays.”

“Mother knows that I’m busy,” Gunnar evaded, idly twisting the empty glass in circles.

“Of course she does,” Bas agreed.

“Oh, shi-i-it,’ Evan Zelig piped up, leaning back in his chair as he craned his neck to get a better look at something—very likely female—who had just walked into the bar.

“Keep it in your pants, Evan,” Bas grumbled, restraining the urge to reach out and wallop his sibling. “Mom’s here, remember?”

True enough. Whether Gunnar had intended the invitation to extend to everyone in the mansion, it had. The women were flocked around the jukebox at the moment, while the men were sitting at the hoard of tables they’d pushed together to form one big one.

“Aww, bubby, did you see her tits?” Evan grumbled, slumping forward and strangling his bottle of beer. “Ah, never mind . . . those are fake, damn it . . . false advertising, at best . . .”

“Pervert,” Bas mumbled, shaking his head and figuring that he’d be better off to ignore his deranged sibling.

Cain grunted, probably thinking about the Azujubu phallus totem that Evan had given him for Christmas. Disturbing, it was . . . a four foot penis sculpted out of ivory that he’d picked up while he was out on tour in Africa . . . Pretty much everyone had picked up on the shape of the statue in seconds. In fact, the only one who hadn’t was their mother, and that was only because Gin’s mind simply didn’t work in that way. That she’d absolutely loved it and had gone on to set it on the raised marble hearth beside the fireplace in the center of the living room . . . well, Bas had to wonder just how Cain was going to be able to hide it since he was reasonably sure that his father was already considering the best way to make the disturbing thing miraculously disappear . . .

“So, Bas,” Gunnar cut in before the conversation could degenerate any further, “you’ve traveled around Canada some, right?”

Bas blinked and nodded, setting his empty beer bottle aside and giving Gunnar his full attention. “Yeah, why?”

Gunnar shook his head and shrugged, dropping some money onto the waitress’ tray as she set a fresh glass of whiskey in front of him. “Just wondered . . . you, uh, hear any interesting stories up that way?”

“Interesting stories?” Bas echoed. “Nothing remarkable.”

“Depends on your definition of ‘interesting’,” Evan drawled, leaning back in the chair and turning enough to drape his elbow over the back, “and you are talkin’ to the king of boring.”

“Just because the only thing that interests you is sex doesn’t mean that everyone is as warped as you are,” Bas retorted.

Evan just grinned.

“Interesting stories?” Cain muttered, dragging his attention off Gin long enough to cast them a curious glance. “That’s pretty broad . . .”

Gunnar grinned though he didn’t look amused in the least. “Eh, you know, like . . . any regional legends or . . . anything . . .?”

Bas considered his question then shook his head, leaning back as Sydnie crawled into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Not really,” he admitted. “Can’t say I do.”

Gunnar nodded.

“Dance with me, Zelig-sensei,” Gin insisted, grabbing Cain’s hands and tugging.

Cain rolled his eyes but chuckled, letting Gin pull him to his feet. “All right; all right . . .”

Jillian giggled and leaned over Gavin’s shoulder, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek loudly. “Come on, Gavvie,” she prodded. “Dance with me, you big stud.”

Gavin blushed crimson but let Jillian drag him off. Evan chuckled and stood up, pausing long enough to stretch before reaching for Sydnie’s hand. “Come on, pussy-puss. I dance better than the ol’ dog, anyway.”

Bas grunted and narrowed his gaze on his sibling but let him pull Sydnie off to dance just the same, deciding that Gunnar’s uncharacteristically strange line of questioning took precedence, at least for the moment. He did, however, spare a moment to watch as Evan pulled Sydnie into his arms. She laughed at something he said—probably something really perverted—and Bas couldn’t staunch the little growl that surged out of him.

“Really, Bas, jealousy is an ugly thing,” Gunnar remarked rather dryly.

“Shut up,” Bas grumbled, dragging his attention off his mate and pinning Gunnar with a calculating stare. “Gonna tell me what’s with the sudden interest in obscure legends?”

Gunnar grinned rather lazily. It looked completely contrived. “Did I say I have an interest in them?” he countered.

“Sure, you did,” he replied, dragging a hand through his long golden-bronze hair. “So why?”

“Call it mild curiosity,” Gunnar drawled, claws flashing in the paltry light. Eyes darting around despite the sense of calm that he strove to maintain, in Bas’ eyes, Gunnar seemed like he was searching for something—a habit of his whenever he had something on his mind.

“Hmm,” Bas drawled, deciding that if Gunnar wanted to beat around the proverbial bush that there wasn’t really much he could do about it. “If you say so.”

Gunnar heaved a sigh, rubbing his forehead in a tired sort of way—a strange gesture from him. “Do you know what irritates me the most?” he began slowly, his eyes glowing when he finally met Bas’ gaze.

Bas didn’t answer since the response to that particular question could change in the blink of an eye.

“People that try to hide things,” he concluded, his eyes taking on a dangerous glint. “People who go out of their way to hide things . . . and people who can’t see the truth when they’re staring it in the face.”

Bas’ eyebrows shot up, and he leaned back in his chair as he carefully regarded his cousin. “So find out why this person is hiding stuff,” he replied simply enough.

Gunnar’s lips twisted in a half-smile that was colder and more cynical than any that Bas had seen before. “Oh, don’t worry about that, Bastian. I fully intend to.” Lifting his glass, he drained the liquor in one gulp. “I promise you that.”

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

Isabelle shook out the red flannel plaid Christmas tree skirt and carefully folded it in half before laying it over the back of the sofa so that she could drop it off at the drycleaner in the morning. It didn’t look dirty, but she knew from experience that tree sap could be quite tricky if it set in.

It was a little depressing, she had to admit. Putting away the Christmas tree always had been one of her least favorite things, but given that Griffin had humored her in the first place, she knew that she’d be pushing her luck to try to leave it up, and even then, it was one of the best Christmases she could remember. The bracelet that he’d given her jingled softly on her wrist, and she couldn’t help the little giggle that bubbled up inside her.

He’d gotten her a Winnie the Pooh charm? That had amused her even though she’d hidden it well enough. Given his reaction, though, she had to wonder if he’d realized when he’d bought it that his nemesis was dangling from the bracelet. Either way, she’d been good and hadn’t teased him about it at all despite her desire to do exactly that.

Wrinkling her nose at the needles that had fallen when Griffin had taken the tree outside, she shook her head. As neat and tidy as the house normally was, the spray of needles looked sorely out of place.

It didn’t take long for her to fetch the broom and dustpan. At least with the wooden floors, the needles were easy enough to sweep up, but somehow the irritating things had spread all over, or so it seemed. There were even some near the wall. Padding across the floor in the thick alpaca yarn socks that Gin had given her, she bent down to pull the curtain out of the way only to stop and frown at the nondescript package hidden beneath the heavy folds.

‘Isabelle’ was written in Griffin’s bold but neat printing, and she leaned the broom against the wall before carefully retrieving the package and standing up.

‘What . . .?’

Looking around as she idly turned the gift in her hands, she glanced at the back door. The silence of the house echoed in her ears, and she frowned thoughtfully, her attention returning to the package once more. Griffin hadn’t acted like there was a missing present, had he? Why hadn’t he mentioned it?

She uttered a soft sound, almost a whine. She knew why, damn it. As shy as the man tended to be, it wouldn’t surprise her if he had panicked at the last minute and tried to hide it from her . . .

Which, of course, left her with the biggest dilemma of them all: should she put the gift back and pretend that she hadn’t found it or should she open it anyway and assure him that she adored it no matter what it happened to be?

Wandering absently over to the sofa, she sank down with the gift in her lap and waited. Why was it that Griffin always thought that everything he did just wasn’t good enough? It was enough to send a surge of righteous indignation straight through her; irritation that he would ever feel inadequate. It wasn’t true, and she knew that. She’d hoped that he was starting to understand that, too . . .

The scrape of the back door opening followed moments later by a blast of frigid air and the accompanying sounds of Froofie’s claws clicking against the hardwood floor did little to dispel Isabelle’s unsettling thoughts. Griffin stomped his feet on the mat near the door, and in her mind, she could see him slipping off his boots. He’d leave them there until they were dry—Griffin was a creature of habit, wasn’t he? The image of him, leaning against the door handle as he pulled off his boots, being careful not to let any snow fall on the wood floor made her feel like smiling.

So why did her eyes sheen over with suspect moisture, instead?

Dashing the back of her hand over her eyes, she cleared her throat and squared her shoulders as Griffin’s footsteps—absolutely silent though she could feel the floor tremble just the tiniest bit—drew closer. “Yet another reason why cutting down a real tree just to stand in the living room for a few weeks is a complete waste,” he mumbled, surveying the pine needles strewn over the floor.

“This is for me?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, her words halting and breathless, and she couldn’t quite make herself meet his gaze.

Griffin stood stock-still for a moment. Then he sucked in a breath so sharp that it whistled as the air rushed into his lungs. “Y . . . you . . . i-it’s stupid,” he blurted, leaning down and reaching out to swipe the gift out of her lap.

She grabbed it and smashed it against her chest, scooting to the side and out of Griffin’s reach. “No!” she yelled as hot color flooded her cheeks. “I-I mean . . . it has my name on it,” she insisted, modulating her tone as she slowly shook her head.

He looked like he wanted to argue with her. His scowl was black when she finally dared to look up at him, but she didn’t miss the embarrassed color suffusing his skin, either. Standing with his hands on his hips, he scowled at the room almost angrily but stubbornly refused to look at her.

Isabelle bit her lip, slipping a claw under the twine that he’d tied around the package and giving a little tug to cut through it. It fell away with a slight snap, and the paper slipped free, too. He hadn’t messed with tape, or maybe he hadn’t realized that it would have made the job of wrapping the gift a lot easier.

She smiled at the smooth wooden box revealed. Simplistic and sturdy, the only embellishments were the delicate bronze hinges on the one side and the minimal carving on the lid. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed.

He snorted. “It’s just a box,” he mumbled. “It isn’t the . . . the gift is inside,” he admitted with a sigh.

It took a moment for her mind to digest that, and she couldn’t understand why her hands were shaking when she started to lift the lid. Maybe it was Griffin’s own sense of reluctance that swayed her. She didn’t know, but she couldn’t help but smile, either.

“Oh,” she gasped, blinking at the wooden sculpture inside. Small, certainly, but the attention to detail was remarkable. The dog was curled up on his belly with his nose nestled between his paws, and she laughed softly when she lifted it out of the box to inspect it closer.

“Like I said, it’s dumb,” he mumbled, turning away before she could look at his face. “Just . . . throw it in the fire or something. It’s wood. It’ll burn . . .”

“I will not!” she huffed, scowling at Griffin’s wide back. “He looks just like Froofie,” she commented.

He snorted but didn’t turn around again. “It’s just a stupid hunk of wood.”

“Says you,” she shot back, stroking the statue’s head with the tip of her finger. “It’s the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever given me.”

He snorted again but didn’t respond.

“You can see it, you know,” she murmured, reaching out to scratch the real Froofie behind the ears.

“See what?” he asked rather grudgingly.

“The love,” she replied simply. “Whoever made this . . . he loved making it, didn’t he?”

Griffin was silent for a moment. Isabelle didn’t notice.   So enthralled with the simple gift that only Griffin would think of giving to her, she couldn’t help the complete and utter warmth that filled her as she stared at the carving.

“Maybe he did,” Griffin said, his voice oddly husky.

Isabelle blinked and glanced up at him, but he was already heading out of the living room. “Griffin . . .?”

“Want some tea?” he asked over his shoulder without slowing his gait.

“Sure . . .”

“Don’t ask for sugar,” he warned. “Honey . . . that’s what’s supposed to be put in tea . . .”

Slowly, so slowly, Isabelle smiled. Somehow, she always seemed to understand all those things that Griffin just never could bring himself to say . . .

Chapter Text

Isabelle stood back and rubbed her arms through the thinner material of the tweed coat. It wasn’t nearly as warm as her normal winter jacket, but when she’d actually managed to talk Griffin into going to one of the area’s nicer restaurants, she’d opted to wear something a bit more apropos with the short black dress that had left the man speechless for nearly five minutes when he’d clapped eyes on her . . .

He mumbled something—she didn’t quite catch it—and pushed the door open before stepping back to let Isabelle inside.

He’d looked pretty damn spectacular, himself, she allowed with a secretive little smile. The blazer he’d worn was clean and neat even if it was a little dated. She’d never seen him wear such a thing before, and it had amused her when he’d kept tugging on the sleeves and straightening his tie in a decidedly nervous sort of way. He’d kept looking at her, too—something that certainly hadn’t gone unnoticed—and she couldn’t help but laugh when he’d suddenly excused himself from the table only to return from the bathroom a few minutes later with freshly combed hair and an entirely endearing, if not completely chagrined, expression on his face.

“I had such a good time,” she said as she knelt down to greet Froofie. The poor dog was beside himself. He’d always hated to be left home alone, but the cat, of course, was nowhere to be seen. Whining and prancing around between bouts of rolling on the floor, Froofie nudged her hand then licked her fingers, trying to do everything at one time, she supposed.

“Did my Froofie-kins miss me?” she asked in an exaggeratedly contrite tone.

“It’s Charlie,” Griffin interjected, “and he didn’t. He just wants to know if you brought home a doggy bag.” Shoving the door closed to block out the frigid night air, Griffin wiped his shoes off on the welcome mat and leaned against the wall to balance himself while he removed his shoes.

“No, no, he missed his mama, didn’t you, Froofums?” she went on, kissing him loudly right between the eyes and giggling at Griffin's use of the term 'doggy bag'.

“Nice . . . Rub your lipstick all over the poor beast,” Griffin grumbled.

She laughed and stood up, watching with a broad grin as the dog galumphed past her to greet Griffin. “I did not,” she argued, unbuttoning her coat and starting to shrug it off. Griffin’s hand grasped the garment, and he gently pulled it away from her. “Thank you,” she murmured, craning her neck to look up at him. His cheeks were pinked, and he looked acutely embarrassed as he turned away to hang her coat in the closet.

“Are you going to go change now?” he asked, his tone even more surly than normal, and his voice muffled by the closet.

“Why the rush?” she asked, slipping off her shoes and arranging them neatly beside Griffin’s.

He snorted. “There’s no one to impress here,” he said, pushing the closet closed and slapping his thigh to get Froofie to follow him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded, trailing after him as he headed for the back door. She stopped to turn on the lamp beside the sofa, amused by Griffin’s commentary.

“Are you going to try to say that you weren’t enjoying the attention you were getting?” he countered, yanking the door open and letting Froofie run out into the back yard.

Isabelle rolled her eyes and shook her head but didn’t laugh though she was hard-pressed not to. He almost sounded . . . jealous, didn’t he?

“Now, Dr. Griffin, you know very well that you’re the only man for me,” she assured him.

Griffin grunted. “Jezebel,” he hissed.

She did laugh at that while he disappeared into the kitchen.

To be completely honest, it had bothered her quite a bit. During dinner, the waiter had approached their table a couple of times with drinks sent over that she certainly hadn’t ordered. Both times she’d smiled and told the waiter politely albeit firmly that she didn’t want the drinks, but still . . . Griffin had tried to hide his feelings, but she could sense his irritation over the situation, and she couldn’t blame him, either. How must it have seemed to him? After all, it should have been apparent that she was dining with Griffin. In her opinion, it had been more than a little rude, and she’d been hard-pressed not to march right over to them and dump the drinks in their perspective laps . . .

‘Of course it bothered him,’ her youkai chided. ‘You know how sensitive he is about the way he looks. That probably made him feel even worse, after all . . .’

She heaved a sigh and shook her head, slowly sinking down on the sofa with a wince. She knew that, certainly. What she didn’t know was what she was supposed to have done instead. Would it have done any good to be rude to the men? She hadn’t encouraged them in any way. In fact, she’d gone out of her way to make sure that she didn’t as much as smile at them. Still, he hadn’t seemed to mind the restaurant otherwise, and that was something, wasn’t it?

Besides, it was New Year’s Eve; a night for celebrating the ending of one year and the beginning of another. She’d considered trying to talk Griffin into staying at the restaurant for the midnight celebration, but in the end, she hadn’t bothered to mention it. It was enough for her that he’d agreed to dinner, and even then, she had to admit that the idea of having Griffin all to herself at midnight was far more to her liking, anyway . . .

“Here.”

Isabelle blinked and jerked back as Griffin stuck a mug of tea under her nose. She could smell the honey he’d added to it and smiled. He’d told her early on that she wasn’t allowed to get into ‘his’ honey. It was telling, wasn’t it? Willing to share that with her though she seriously doubted he’d ever share his honey roasted nuts . . . “Thank you,” she said, taking the mug and holding it in both hands, watching as steam rose from the surface in delicate wisps only to disburse in the air.

He nodded but didn’t comment, heading over to his desk and tugging on his tie with his free hand. He’d discarded his jacket after letting Froofie out, too . . .

“You’re not really going to work on the translation tonight, are you?” she asked, arching an eyebrow as she drew her feet up beside her and leaned on the arm of the sofa.

“That was the plan, yes,” he allowed without facing her.

“But it’s New Year’s Eve,” she protested with a petulant little scowl.

“Just another night,” he countered mildly. “Anyway, we did what you wanted to do. I let you drag me out for dinner, didn’t I?”

“Oh, come on, Dr. G . . . New Year’s Eve is special . . . the greeting of the new year is important, you know.”

“You’re kind of a pest,” he remarked with a shake of his head. “Anyone ever tell you that before?”

“It doesn’t count when it’s your cousin saying such things,” she said, waving one hand in the air in blatant dismissal.

“Your cousin is a smart man,” he intoned.

Her lips twitched. “It was Mamoruzen.”

“I take that back.”

She laughed outright. “You know, you at least have to have a glass of champagne with me at midnight,” she pointed out.

He snorted. “I don’t drink.”

“It’s just champagne,” she shot back.

“I doubt your parents let you drink champagne as a cub,” he argued.

“Actually they did—just a sip. Well, mostly seltzer water with a dab of champagne in it, but that’s entirely beside the point. It’s a tradition back home, and traditions should be upheld, especially since I wasn’t able to go home for the holidays.”

He was rolling his eyes; she knew he was. Sometimes he was just a little too predictable . . .

“Forget it, Jezebel. I’m on to you.”

“Fine, fine,” she said with a melodramatic sigh. “It’s fine; just fine . . . who cares if my entire year will be thrown off because I didn’t honor my family’s long and fabled traditions . . .”

“You didn’t get spanked nearly enough as a child, did you?” Griffin asked.

Isabelle lifted the tea to her lips to hide her smile. “Not even once,” she assured him.

He tugged the tie off and dropped it onto the desk. “That’s why you’re such a pariah,” he maintained.

“A pariah? That’s such an archaic word, Griffin . . .”

He grunted.

“Are you going to spank your children?” she teased.

“Every day.”

She giggled. “I don’t think you would. I think you’d be a big old softy when it comes to your pups.”

“There will be no pups,” he muttered, pushing himself to his feet and retrieving his tea mug before shuffling over to the sofa. “I know I’m going to regret this, but . . . what other ‘long and fabled’ traditions does your family have?”

“The midnight kiss?” she said, unable to keep the hint of hope out of her tone.

He blushed and shook his head. “Dream on, fat ass.”

She laughed. “Oh, and the all-important ‘New Year’s Twister’ game?”

“New Year’s Twister? I’ll pass.”

She shrugged. “I don’t have a Twister game, anyway,” she allowed.

“That’s not really one of your traditions, is it?”

Her smile widened impishly as she leaned toward him, nudging him with her shoulder. “No, but it sounded good . . . it should be one, don’t you think?”

“Hrumph . . . no.”

“We could play it naked,” she suggested.

Griffin choked on a drink of tea. “Jezebel,” he wheezed, clearing his throat and coughing madly as he wiped his chin with the back of his hand.

“You’re incredibly sexy when you blush,” she couldn’t help saying.

Griffin grunted and blushed a little darker. “You didn’t need spanked; you needed to be beaten,” he grumbled.

“Probably,” she agreed lightly. “You know, I always felt so grown up when Mama gave me that glass of weak champagne . . . kind of silly when I was normally sitting there in my footy-pajamas . . .”

“Footy-pajamas?”

She nodded, leaning forward to set the empty mug on the table. “Yes . . . the ones with the enclosed feet; all fuzzy and warm and cozy . . .”

He shot her a look that stated quite plainly that he thought that she was joking. “Sounds very sophisticated,” he remarked.

Isabelle laughed softly then sighed as a slight pang of homesickness swelled in her chest. It didn’t happen often, but there were moments when she missed the simplicity of the past, and holidays . . . it was easier to miss those things when she thought about the years of her childhood. “Absolutely,” she agreed with a little smile. “It’s funny . . . all the years growing up, I kept thinking that I couldn’t wait to be an adult, and then once I realized that I had grown up, I can’t help but miss my childhood, too . . .”

He considered her words carefully, a strange sort of sadness lending a glassiness to his gaze. “Attean told me that New Year’s Eve was the night when you were supposed to think back over the past year and let go of the things that that had happened that you couldn’t change.”

“Sound advice,” she said.

He shrugged and sighed, rubbing his forehead with a slightly trembling hand. “I suppose it is,” he replied though he sounded like he wasn’t very convinced.

She didn’t really know what to say to him; he seemed so pensive, so sad. She hated to see him like that, and yet she realized that there wasn’t a thing she could do when he stubbornly, almost selfishly, held onto his silence.

The moments passed, punctuated by the tick of the clock on the mantle. Griffin drained the last of his tea and set the mug, standing up and lumbering toward the fireplace to drop more wood into the glowing embers. “So what other traditions did your family have?” he asked at last. “Real ones.”

Isabelle twisted a lock of hair around her finger. It had escaped the simple chignon she’d swept her hair up into before they’d gone to dinner. “Mostly we’d just sit around and talk about the past year . . . the things that had happened, the things that we hoped for in the new year . . . that sort of thing . . .”

“Sounds . . .”

“Boring, I know,” she supplied when he trailed off. “I suppose it doesn’t sound very glamorous or anything . . .”

“I was going to say ‘nice’,” he corrected quietly.

His response caught her off guard, and she smiled. “You think so?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice deep and warm. “Did you make New Year’s resolutions, too?”

“Sometimes,” she allowed. “Papa swore every year that he was going to devote more time to his family, but you know, I don’t remember a time when he was ever too busy for me or my sisters . . . We sat on the floor in his study while he worked in the evenings, and we’d play games and stuff while Mama read, but any time we asked Papa something, he always put his work away to answer us or play with us . . . I don’t think that we ever felt as though we weren’t the most important things in the world to him, so maybe he really did keep his New Year’s resolutions . . .”