Firefighter Griffin (Fire & Rescue Shifters 3)

Griff

“Are you certain you are strong enough for this, oath-brother?”

“John, if you ask me that one more time, I swear I’m going to get out of this wheelchair and walk the rest of the way on my own three feet,” Griff retorted. “Push me faster, damn it. I’m not made of glass. If we don’t hurry, we’re going to miss the final verdict.”

John sang a soft, worried chord, but sped up his pace. Despite what Griff had told the sea dragon shifter, every tiny rattle of the wheels over the courtroom foyer’s tiled floor sent agony spiking through his guts. He gritted his teeth—as best he could, given that his jaw didn’t close properly anymore—and endured.

We must be there. We must be at our mate’s side, in her hour of need.

Griff didn’t know whether the all-consuming, driving thought came from his lion, or his eagle, or his own mind. All three of them were so intertwined that even he couldn’t tell them apart anymore. His lion’s instincts, his eagle’s instincts…they were all just his instincts now.

And every instinct compelled him to go to his mate.

If Griff had had his own way, he would have been at Hayley’s side for the entire three-day hearing. But the hospital doctors had flatly refused to sign him out. When he’d raged at them, they’d just shot him full of sedatives and restrained him. Apparently any display of anger was just another symptom of his unstable, bestial state.

Of course, when Griff had woken up and tried calmly reasoning with the doctors instead, they’d decided that obviously Hayley couldn’t really be his mate, as he wasn’t showing enough emotional agitation at her predicament. Griff had been very tempted to show them exactly how much agitation he could cause, but that would have just got him tied down to the bed again.

Instead, he’d smiled and nodded. And, as soon as the doctors had left, called John.

Shortly thereafter, the hospital had suffered a severe, sudden, and curiously localized flood. The shifter ward staff had been much too busy panicking over the two feet of seawater sloshing around their break room to even notice a patient being quietly wheeled away.

“I do appreciate this, you know,” Griff said to John. “You can consider this payment of your life-debt.”

John grunted as he picked up the entire wheelchair—Griff included—in order to carry it down a flight of stairs. “This, payment of a life-debt? This is a worthy adventure, oath-brother. I am indebted to you for allowing me to participate in it.”

Griff’s breath hissed between his fangs as the wheelchair bumped down to the ground again. “You’re going to have to allow me to call the debt quits one day, you know.”

“Perhaps.” A slight smile tugged at John’s stern mouth. “But not this day. Through here?”

“Yes.” Griff could hear Michael’s refined, measured voice even through the thick closed door. “Quietly. They’re making final statements.”

We must stay high and hidden. We must scout out the terrain in order to judge how best to join our mate in this hunt. We must stalk softly until we are ready to pounce.

Unfortunately, a seven-foot-tall blue-haired knight pushing a completely shrouded figure in a wheelchair tended to attract people’s attention. Especially when someone started shrieking and waving at them the instant they appeared.

“Mr. Griff!” Danny yelled in delight. Only the restraining hand of the social worker seated next to him kept the boy from hurling himself straight at Griff. “You’re here, you’re here!”

Griff grimaced underneath his concealing hood as heads turned all around the large, circular hearing chamber. To Michael’s credit, the lawyer barely hesitated a second before smoothly continuing to deliver his closing statements. The judge and court officials also returned to the business at hand, though many of them stared curiously at him for a few moments longer.

“I didn’t know you were coming!” Hayley whispered, as John parked his wheelchair next to her seat. Her hand found his, squeezing it in gratitude through the sheets swathing his distorted body. “I didn’t even know you were being discharged!”

“Neither did the hospital,” Griff murmured back. “Tell you later. How’s it going?”

Hayley shook her head. “I thought that Reiner wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, not after what happened at his house. But somehow his lawyer twisted all Danny’s testimony, made it sound like he’s some sort of juvenile delinquent arsonist. Now it all keeps coming back to the question of who can be Danny’s alpha. Michael’s arguing that it can’t be Reiner, since he can’t be trusted with Danny’s welfare.”

The dark circles under her eyes looked like smudges of soot against her ashen skin. Griff knew that the rest of Alpha Team had been looking after her—he’d made sure of that—but she still looked like she’d barely eaten or slept for days.

“…Outstanding testimonies from varied, prominent citizens in the local shifter community,” Michael was saying. The overhead lights struck blue highlights from the faerie hound’s midnight skin as he pointedly held up a thick sheaf of papers. “Not least of which is a personal statement from the Phoenix, known as Ash, testifying that it is his professional opinion that my client holds absolutely no blame for the fire on the evening of November the first. I submit that this utterly refutes and repudiates Mr. Ljonsson’s claim that this incident can be used as evidence to deny my client custody. I further counter that as the fire occurred while Mr. Ljonsson had sole responsibility for Daniel Jamie Parker-”

Griff noticed that Reiner’s lawyer was staring hard at him. Griff recognized the man—he was a shark shifter of some notoriety, with an excellent track record and a reputation for deviousness. The last time Griff had encountered him had been at an arson trial. Griff had been giving evidence against the shark shifter’s client.

On that occasion, the lawyer had lost.

The shark touched Reiner’s sleeve, leaning over to murmur in his ear. The two fell into an intent, whispered conversation.

Hayley had spotted them too. “What are they up to now?”

“I don’t know.” To Griff’s frustration, he couldn’t quite make out the words over Michael’s impassioned defense. “But it’s something to do with me. And Reiner doesn’t look happy about it.”