Unintended Guardian (Full Story): A Mythos Legacy Short Story

Chapter Two: Part One

Griff’s lips almost curved into a smile before he caught himself. When had he last smiled? Before the curse, that was certain.

He turned to Niall in his fist and arched a brow. He’d found that successful in intimidating others, especially when combined with silence.

The little troublemaker propped his hands on his hips, only slightly out of sorts at being pinched up in the air after his cross-globe shipping adventure. “Well, now. Aren’t ye goin’ to put me down and kill her?”

“Why would I do that when she’s willing to help me torture you until you tell me what I want to know?”

Niall’s ruddy face paled, and his gaze bounced between Griff and the woman. “I don’t believe it. Since when would you—of all that’s Mythos—ever be workin’ with a human?”

Griff glanced at the human in question—the human who hadn’t been by the door when he’d checked before opening Niall’s cage. His assumption that her disappearance had meant she’d followed his instructions to leave had been sloppy of him, but it was too late to change that situation now.

Glossy, blacker-than-black hair framed her face, and the shape of her eyes marked her as being of one of the Far Eastern races. Not an area of the Earthen plane he’d explored much over the centuries. For all anyone knew, humans from that region of the world might irritate him less than the others did.

She wasn’t unpleasant to look at by any measure. The softness of her features, like water had blended the edges, even reminded him of some of the Mythos races.

Her dark eyes hid her thoughts, but an amused smile told him enough. His lips twitched in response, and the unfamiliar feeling nearly prompted him to touch his face and confirm his suspicion.

He forced his mouth into a thin line and faced Niall. The troublemaker’s brow had hardened into deep furrows, and Griff tightened his jaw so another twitch wouldn’t betray him.

“You’d be surprised what you’re willing to do after losing everything and being cursed to eternal darkness.”

“That was not me stealin’ from ye, Griff, and ye know it.”

“But I think you can tell me where my bound treasure is and how to get it back.”

The woman appeared at his elbow. “Yeah, and you’re going to tell him what he wants to know, or Buster will be getting a new chew toy. And I should warn you, he drools. A lot.”

Griff held himself still, fighting the instinct to enforce his space. A waft of her scent, strawberries and vanilla and everything soft and sweet and unlike him, drifted his way. He let himself breathe deep.

Niall grimaced. “Now I know why you’d be workin’ with this one. She’s as vicious as ye are, she is.” He shook his head, his red jacket shifting in Griff’s grasp. “I wish I could help ye, my friend, but I don’t be knowin’ where your treasure is. Not a bit.”

Griff poked the liar in his chest. “That’s not what the Great Owl told me.”

“Ye did not see the Great Owl.” Niall laughed. “There’s no such thing. A legend, she is.”

The woman tilted her head. “Are you sure about that? When I woke up this morning, I’d have sworn leprechauns and whatever-he-is were legends too.”

“Gryphon.” Why he told her, he didn’t know. But so far, she’d reacted better than he’d ever thought a human could, and the urge to test her—see what she could handle, learn what she could accept—burned in his chest.

“Gryphon?” She scanned him up and down. “I thought they were a cross between an eagle and a lion, not a guy who out-hunks Thor.”

Did he want to know what she meant by that comment? Probably not.

Heat flowed through his body at her expression anyway, adding to the distraction of allowing her close. However, that feeling—more pleasant than it should have been for all the alarms it set off in his logic—didn’t dissuade him from taking another deep breath and savoring the invitation promised by her scent.

Niall’s face contorted into a grimace. “He shapeshifts, he does.” His tiny body swung to and fro, his hands punching the air. “And ye, stop makin’ eyes at the human, and let me go. Whatever the Great Owl may or may not have said not be matterin’. I swear on my pot of gold that I don’t know where your lost treasure is.”

Heaviness weighed down Griff’s limbs, and the arm that held Niall aloft drooped. Leprechauns never swore on their gold unless they were telling the truth.

The woman gave him an appraising look, as though not at all disturbed by the details of his existence, and then her eyes scrunched. “You seem like someone just told you your dog died. Anything I can do to help?”

He didn’t have the words to provide an answer. His three-hundred-year quest to regain the lost treasure bound to him—the treasure that gave his life meaning—and to break the curse that had separated him from the sun couldn’t be understood by someone with the reference point of a human lifetime.

The curse. He lifted his hand again and stared at the mischief-maker in his grasp. “What about the curse? How else I can break it?”

“Ye be knowin’ that as well as I do. Only one thing can break your curse—findin’ your treasure.”

Griff’s other hand clenched into a fist. Someone had to be lying.

From the cardboard box, he pulled out the magically enhanced cage that kept Niall from teleporting away when not in his grasp. Maybe the troublemaker would talk after being locked up again.

Niall eyed the container and thrashed. “Don’t be puttin’ me back in there, Griff. I’m tellin’ ye the truth, I am!”

“We’ll see.” He stuffed the little man into the cage, locked it, and slapped the key onto the table before storming away.

Now what? Over a hundred years spent tracking down the Great Owl to learn the answer to his problem—all for nothing.

He moved toward the window out of a habit so deep even 300 years hadn’t broken him of it yet. And now he was out of ideas.

The thick material protecting him from the sunlight slid between his fingers. He let the fabric drop and sighed. It was time to face the truth. He would never see the sun again.