Read Online Bloodline (Whyborne & Griffin Book 5) by Jordan L. Hawk - Free Book Online

us when I swung open the lid. A
picture of her husband, Earl Randolph Gravenwold, and another of a baby in an
enormous christening gown, which I assumed must be her young son.
    Had Father sent word to England already, telling the earl of
Guinevere’s fictional sickness? Was the man even now worrying over the health
of a wife who would never return to him? And what of her son, doomed to grow up
motherless? Would the earl find a second wife, and if so, would she care at all
for the child of her predecessor?
    How would I feel if Griffin died, alone and far away from my
side? If never got to see his face again?
    “How are you managing, my dear?” Griffin asked softly.
    The scars on my right hand pulled, and the pictures frames
cut into my fingers. I’d been clutching them, one in each hand, staring blankly
down at the sepia figures. I forced myself to set them aside. “I don’t know.”
    “We’re almost done,” he said gently. Reaching into the
trunk, he took out a small object wrapped in cloth. As the cloth fell away, the
electric lights caught the gleam of gold.
    It was a bracelet, or perhaps an armband, but of no style
I’d never seen before. Fully revealed, I reassessed my earlier impression:
perhaps it was a gold alloy of some kind, for the luster brought forth by the
light struck me as not quite right. Some incredibly skilled artisan had cast
it, and high reliefs showed all along the outside. Most consisted of
geometrical shapes, but others clearly represented marine animals, although the
stylized fashion depicting them came from no tradition I recognized. Large
black pearls had been set into the bracelet at regular intervals, interspersed
with smaller white ones.
    “It looks old,” I said, turning it over in my hands. “But
I’m no expert on jewelry.”
    “I wonder why it was in the trunk, instead of with her other
ornaments,” Griffin mused.
    I snorted. “Because it’s…well, not hideous, but utterly
outside of today’s fashions. She wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing it.”
    “Then why bring it with her?”
    That was the question, wasn’t it? “A memento? Or perhaps she
didn’t bring it. Maybe she obtained it after returning to America.” I set it
aside with the photographs. “Is there anything else?”
    “One more item.” Griffin drew out another object wrapped in
black silk. A corner of the cloth fell away, and I heard…singing.
    I blinked and shook my head. No. I didn’t hear singing. And
yet the song was still in my mind. Too distant to make the words out, but
there. “Griffin…” I said, but it came out a whisper of breath.
    “What the devil?” he murmured, pulling aside the silk. A
small black stone lay in his palm, a design carved into its surface.
    The song swelled into a command. I had to touch it. Had to
trace the design and find its beginning and end. Had to.
    I reached for it. The man—what was his
name?—holding it pulled it away irritably. “Hold up, I’m trying to
see—”
    “No!” I shouted, and lunged for the stone, knocking
us both to the floor.
    ~ * ~
    “Whyborne! What are you doing?”
    The words were meaningless—I had to get to the stone,
had to touch it, had to, had to, but he kept it from me. I tore at his clenched
fingers, snarling like an animal.
    “Ival!”
    No. Something was wrong. I was wrong.
    I took a deep breath, even though the need to touch the
stone crushed the air from my lungs. For a moment, my brain spun like a machine
with a slipped cog, frantically going nowhere. The words, what were the words?
    “Griffin,” I whispered, and concentrated on the word. The
name. Yes.
    What came next? Griffin meant love. Safety.
    Safety. Home.
    I closed my eyes, clung to the vision of slamming shut a door
and locking it, drawing the curtains over the windows. Nothing could come
through. Nothing could get to me now.
    The unearthly song faded away. I sat back, scrubbing at my
face. To my horror, I saw I’d wrestled Griffin in my inexplicable frenzy