Griffin

The kids were asleep and Margo was off sulking about her mate not being here. My parents and I sat a little distance off on logs we'd rolled to frame our campfire. It was a perfect night, the kind I really wished I could enjoy. It was hard to appreciate the beauty around me when so much of my energy was focused internally.

Dad and Pop were having a stilted conversation about Dad's work, so disjointed and with such long pauses between responses that I knew their real conversation was through the mind link they shared. If they were bothering to try and hide it from me, it must be about my situation. And I couldn't blame them; what else was there to talk about, really?

I was tired, but there was no point in going to bed yet. I'd only lay awake in the dark with no hope of distraction. And then, miracle of miracles, a distraction appeared.

Fen materialized in front of me with his foot almost in the fire. Dad shouted a wordless warning and Pop scrambled out of his seat to bodily shove Fen away from danger. Fen's eyes were wide and alarmed as he processed what had just happened, and then he actually laughed. It was just a shaky little thing, a little heh that was completely overshadowed by the way his eyes remained wide and fearful.

"Fen! Are you okay?" Dad asked in a whisper-shout.

"I'm okay," he said. His voice sounded uncertain. He brushed off his pants, or maybe wiped clammy palms, and nodded to himself. "Yeah, I'm okay."

"Why don't you sit down?" Dad asked, getting up and sitting in the space beside me. Did he do it so he could support me? Or so I could have a better view of Fen while he explained whatever the hell happened earlier when he brought my mate to me and took him away again? Probably both.

Fen sat next to Pop and looked between my fathers. It seemed like he was avoiding my gaze, especially when his eyes fell on me for just a second and he immediately looked down. His fingers twisted together in his lap and he seemed to fold in on himself, just a little.

"Sorry it took me so long to come," Fen said quietly. His voice was even softer than the popping and crackling noises coming from the fire, and I was thankful for my supernatural hearing. "I was busy all afternoon, and then I went home for a while to spend some time with Zale and Amara before she had to go to bed."

Amara being his daughter. Biologically, she was actually the daughter of his husband, Zale, and a princess from a bordering nation. Fen was her adoptive father. I always really, really wanted to ask him how he felt about the whole situation. It seemed to me it would be hard to raise your partner's child. I knew from experience – from the way my fathers loved me so fiercely – that it was possible to care for an adopted child like they were your own. But wasn't it hard to keep a balance? Were there ever times Zale had more say in Amara's life because she carried his blood? Did Fen ever resent that Amara wasn't genetically his, too? I wanted to know so badly, but had always known better to ask.

Maybe if I ever got him drunk, I'd get him to talk.

"How old is Amara now?" Dad asked with that soft little smile he got whenever he thought about kids. It was a wonder there were only four of us.

Fen's answering smile was the mirror to my fathers, and many of the questions I had for him died down. You can't be resentful of a situation that makes you smile like that. "Five, almost six. I can't believe it."

There was no doubting his devotion to his daughter, not when he looked that way just answering one simple little question. Dad looked my way with that wobbly smile he got whenever he was reminded we were growing up. "I know the feeling," he said, and hooked an arm around my shoulders. I leaned into the embrace, grateful beyond words to have him.

A flash lit up the night, and I scowled at Pop, who unrepentantly looked at the picture he had just snapped of me and Dad. "It's a keeper," he proclaimed, and tucked his phone back in his pocket. What a dork. Only, my chest felt warm at the attention.

See? See why I couldn't leave them? How could anyone willingly step away from the only people who had ever truly, deeply loved them to be independent and alone?

The warm family moment lingered in the air for only a few moments before Pop cleared his throat and took on a serious expression. "Look, Fen, I don't want to interrogate you, but we need you to tell us what happened earlier with Griffin's mate."

Fen sighed. "I'm sorry about all that. His situation is... complicated."

And then, he explained. My mate, Wulfric, was cursed, and I was the thing that would ruin him and his cherished little brother. He came to find me to learn how to stay away.

Complicated, Fen had said. But it wasn't. "So, he wants to stay cursed?" I asked hardly believing I was uttering the words. "Aren't curses supposed to be, you know, bad? Shouldn't he be happy to have it broken?"

"But it means they'll die, first Wulfric and then his little brother, decades later and alone," Fen said.

This was BS. "Okay, but weren't they human before they were cursed? This would just be reverting to what they originally were. What's so bad about that?"

Fen's brow crinkled, and he shook his head helplessly. "Just try and see it from his perspective," he pleaded. "All he's known for hundreds of years is being a vampire. His human life is barely a memory anymore, and the curse has forced him to watch his family die, one by one."

Okay, when he put it like that, I felt like a kid throwing a tantrum. Of course I couldn't imagine how all that was for Wulfric. And if I couldn't understand, what position was I in to judge?

But I'm his mate.

... Yeah. There was that.

"Don't you think he might be a little, well, old for Griffin?" Pop asked skeptically.

"Oh my god, Pop, that is so not the point right now," I whined. Though, now that I thought about it, what was he going to think of me still living at home with my parents, just a few years past teenhood? Would he think I was too immature for him?

He probably wouldn't be wrong.

I tugged at my hair, angry at the pile of circumstances that made this whole situation so complicated.

Dad patted my leg and gave me an encouraging smile, then glared at Pop. "That's not helping," he chided.

"But-" Pop protested.

"Later," Dad insisted. Pop frowned and crossed his arms over his chest, but backed down.

Silence reigned for a few seconds before I broke it. "So, that's it?" I asked. "He's just going to avoid me forever?"

If he did, I'd respect Wulfric's decision. I'd resent the hell out of him for it and probably curse his name from my deathbed someday, but I wouldn't force myself on him.

Fen's eyes went round and pleading again. "We need a little time." We? He kept explaining before I could ask. "Wulfric and his family are staying with Glenna and Safiya for now. Glenna thinks there might be a way to change the curse. We spent all afternoon looking for a solution."

He presented this like it was some wonderful thing. Like it was my salvation or something. He said it the way someone would say "You've just won a million dollars!" or "The jury finds the defendant not guilty." Did he not see the massive holes in this plan, even if they found a way to do it?

"So, what, he wants to find a way to be with me but stay an immortal vampire?" I asked derisively. I imagined my mate staying young and beautiful while I withered with age. It made my heart ache. Would we really be together if we weren't going through life together?

"Um," was Fen's brilliant response.

I sighed and scuffed my shoe into the dirt at the base of the log I was sitting on. I did it again, because it was the closest I could get to kicking something right now. "Great," I muttered.

Dad tightened his arm around me and I shifted a little until he got the hint and released me. "I'm going to go to bed," I decided. My dads would no doubt keep prodding Fen for information, and they'd tell me anything they thought was important tomorrow. For now, I had enough to think on and needed a little time on my own to sort through it.

Dad stood and gave me a firm but brief hug, then passed me off to Pop for an enormous bear hug. I halfheartedly waved to Fen and was halfway to the tent when I realized there was something else I wanted from him, after all. "I want Wulfric's phone number," I said.

Fen frowned and bit at his lip in thought. "I don't know if I'm allowed to give it to you."

How had he ended up taking Wulfric's side in all this? Shouldn't his friendship with my dad have given me an edge? But I wasn't going to argue with him. I was getting the sense Fen was a real pushover. "Fine. Just, get my number from one of my dads and give it to him, would you?"

Fen relaxed and smiled thankfully. "I'll do that," he promised.

I turned and stomped off toward the tent, looking forward to peace and quiet I wouldn't find there. Margo had pulled her sleeping bag over to my little corner and was clearly waiting for me. I really wasn't in my mood to talk anymore tonight, but as I approached, Margo tucked her phone away. That meant she was serious about talking with me, and it was rare to have her undivided attention like this. I knew better to pass up on this opportunity, however unwelcome it was.

I sat down on my sleeping bag and Margo shimmied hers closer until they were pressed together. She leaned her head on my shoulder like she used to do all the time as a kid, and something about it made me feel deflated. The anger – and, okay, maybe a little hurt – that had been keeping me left all at once, and I sagged into my sister.

"I'm sorry, Griffin," she whispered. Good thing Tyler and Blair didn't have their wolf hearing yet, or even this much could wake them where they lay just a few yards away from us.

"Yeah." So was I.

Her hand entwined with mine and she squeezed reassuringly. "No matter what happens, you always have us."

Margo was as much of a realist as I was. I appreciated that she wasn't trying to comfort me with empty platitudes about how Wulfric would come around. We both knew the truth: there was a good possibility he wouldn't.

"Did you hear all that?" I asked. The only way she could have missed hearing our conversation from this distance would be if she had her headphones on.

"Yeah." She inhaled deeply, pressing us closer together, and let it all out in an audible stream of air. "I keep trying to put myself in your shoes. I can't." She laughed a little, the sound derisive. "Remember what a brat I was when I met Krish? I was so sure I could talk our dads into letting him move in with us."

I laughed a little, too, though it had been anything but funny at the time. Our whole household had been tense for weeks while Margo did everything she could to try and get her way. "I really thought you were going to pull away from us for good," I admitted.

She pulled away to look up at me, tucking a lock of dark hair behind her ear. Her eyes were wide with disbelief. "No way! I thought about it for maybe two seconds before I realized what an idiotic idea that was." She punched my arm for good measure before snuggling back against me.

"Ow! Why are you hitting me? It wasn't a crazy idea for me to have. You just said you thought about it!"

"Yeah, but I never would. People think about a lot of things they'd never do, Griff. Like, have you ever been sitting in class and thought 'There's nothing stopping me from doing something crazy right now, like standing up on my desk and singing?'"

Or driving down a dark road and realizing you could just spin the wheel a teeny bit and go careening into a tree. Not that I ever would. But, yeah... I got what Margo was talking about. "Fine."

She made a little "Hmph" noise I translated to mean, so there. "But seriously, what are you going to do?" she asked.

"I dunno. Hope he calls? Go find him? Fen just said he's staying with Glenna and Safiya." If I asked Dad or Pop, they'd take me there as soon as morning. It was tempting, but... "But that would be stupid."

"It's not stupid to find your mate," Margo argued.

"It is when you know he doesn't want you there." And besides, I didn't want to do that to him. My mind kept flashing back to the image of him wearing that huge blindfold when Fen took him to find out where I was. Wulfric didn't even want to lay eyes on me. The curse must be some serious business if that was all it took to get him. Maybe it was like the bond connecting for me when I caught his scent.

Even if I were willing to inflict myself on him against his will, I knew better. Wulfric would resent me forever if I did that. At least when he did it to me, he had no way of knowing it would happen.

"I still think you should go," Margo grumbled.

"Noted."

She scoffed and scooted away from me, shoving at my shoulder for good measure. "You're impossible. I'm getting some sleep."

"Good night," I whispered. I knew I should, too.

I expected Margo to move her sleeping bag back to the corner of the tent she'd staked her claim over when we first arrived. She was so determined to have some privacy in this family-sized tent that she had built a little barricade around her sleeping bag made up of luggage and coolers. But she didn't go back. Instead, she laid down in her sleeping bag, just inches from my own, and smiled sweetly up at me. Margo looked younger, more innocent. She looked like someone who wouldn't chafe at being called my baby sister.

My heart warmed and I settled down next to her. "I love you," she said. Her voice was already groggy with sleep.

"Love you, too."

In the morning, I woke up surprised at how easily I'd fallen asleep. Margo was still sleeping, and I pressed a kiss to her temple. The whole experience was a nice reminder that her prickly teenage years were temporary, and our sibling bond was forever.