Hyacinth - By Abigail Owen Page 0,53
sister a hug.
“Any luck with what?” Selene glanced back and forth between the twins.
“Griffin!” Lila squealed, rushing to greet him. Adelaide offered him a shy smile.
“Where have you been?” Adelaide repeated Selene’s question.
Griffin offered a slightly crooked smile to the girls. “It’d probably be best if we gathered the entire family.”
A knock sounded at Selene’s door, and she opened it to find Desmond standing there. A lock of his golden hair fell into his eyes. He pushed it back with a casual hand.
Her face hardening with irritation, Selene moved to slam the door in his face, only to have him stick out his foot and block it. In an uncharacteristically serious voice he said, “I had nothing to do with that suggestion, Selene. You have to believe me.”
“Do I?” She tilted her chin and met his gaze with steely resolve. “I’d like you to leave.”
“Can we just talk for a— ” He broke off and glanced over Selene’s shoulder where Griffin now stood beside her, his hand on the door.
“Can we help you?” he asked.
Selene fumed and crossed her arms over her chest. She wasn’t quite sure which of these two men she was angrier with at the moment.
“Desmond, Griffin. Griffin, Desmond.” She waved an irritated hand between the two men.
“Desmond,” Griffin gave a quick nod. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too, Gary,” Desmond replied,
“Griffin,” Selene corrected him with a frown.
Desmond’s eyes cut back to Selene. “Can we talk? Please?”
Her lips tightened. “Maybe later, Desmond.”
Ignoring Griffin, he leaned in closer. “It’s Dez. And I’ll hold you to that.” He turned and walked back down the corridor. Selene softly closed the door behind him. She’d thought he was her friend. With a small sigh and a shake of her head, she turned back to the others.
“All right. Let’s get the rest of the family in here. Apparently, Griffin needs to tell us what he’s been up to.”
As she finished speaking, Charlotte appeared, accompanied by Dexter, Hugh, and Nate. “Griffin, you scared me half to death popping into my head so suddenly like that,” Charlotte gently chastised him while giving him a hug. “I didn’t even know you were back.” She then disappeared to gather Ramsey, Lucy, and Alex. Once everyone had been collected, all eyes turned to Griffin.
A grim solemnity settled over Griffin. He stood behind Ellie’s chair and grasped the back of it with his hands.
“No good,” he said simply.
“What was no good? Can someone please explain to me what is going on?” Selene demanded, her patience wearing thin.
“Griffin has been out trying to negotiate with the clans that Maddox has infiltrated,” Ellie answered.
Selene’s shocked gaze darted to Griffin, who merely shrugged. “I thought I might be able to show them the truth and defuse this situation before it escalated.”
“Were you able to find any of them?” Alex asked.
“Yes, a few. I found one clan in Brazil, one in Egypt, a couple across Europe, and one in Louisiana.”
“Wait.” Selene held up a hand, “How did you find them?”
“Oren and Sheila have been helping me locate them,” Griffin admitted.
Selene absorbed that piece of information in silence, repressing her annoyance at being kept in the dark. She motioned for him to continue.
“Most of the tribes refused to speak with me. The Louisiana clan, who are holed up in a swamp, by the way, sicced a metamorph on me. So I would say they were rather hostile.”
“What kind of metamorph?”
“An alligator.”
“Awesome!” Nate crowed. “Ellie, you gotta touch that guy so you can be an alligator, too. Add it to your list.”
Griffin wasn’t amused. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t so awesome when I didn’t have the option to fly away. Ellie was too far away for me to use her falcon.”
“Still think it’s pretty cool,” Nate muttered. Adelaide gave him a gentle nudge.
“Something I don’t understand, though,” Griffin continued, “is that all three clans appeared to be fairly large. I’m talking twenty-five, fifty, even a hundred in number. How is that possible? I thought Gideon would’ve found them for sure.”
Selene cleared her throat. “I hid them from him,” she admitted. “Or more accurately, I hid them from Sheila.”
“But Sheila found us,” Hugh pointed out.
“And I thought you could only hide small numbers of Svatura,” Alex added.
Selene folded her hands neatly in her lap and sat up straight. “I knew about those clans because we’d attacked them before,” she explained. “When I started hiding the survivors from Sheila’s watch, as I did with you—” Her eyes flicked to Ellie and Griffin. “They were in very small numbers.