Chapter Forty
Griffin could remember only a handful of times in his life when waking was this hard. And all those had been bad times. He felt sure this would be no different. There was a strange buzzing sound that seemed to fill his ears. He shook his head but it made no difference. The beep of a machine was what prompted him to open his eyes. Huh.
It all came back in a rush of memory, alive with color, smell, and surround sound. He was in Doctor Mac’s clinic. There was a drip in his arm, replacing all the blood he’d lost. He was alone… no, wait, he wasn’t. There was a crib near his bed, blankets bundled within. Cautiously, he sat up, ready to swing his legs to the floor when a bout of dizziness had him flopping back against the headboard. Where was Beau? Where were the others? Why was that buzzing sound not going away?
The door opened, and he looked up eagerly to see who it was, disappointed when he realized it wasn’t his mate.
“Hey, can you tell Beau I’m aw-”
Whatever else he was going to say died when he realized just who was walking into his hospital room. Antoine. Virgil. And two bodyguards. Where the hell was everyone? Why-
“There you are. You look very pale, Griffin, darling. But nothing that a few minutes in front of a mirror wouldn’t fix.”
Griffin gave the crib a sideways glance. It was too far away from the bed to make a grab for the baby. He’d have to get out and walk to it, which, right now, might not work out the way he planned.
“What are you doing here?”
“Can’t a grandparent congratulate their only child on the birth of his first child? The cycle of life is so beautiful, isn’t it.”
“That noise…” A noise he’d heard previously, right before he’d been ambushed in Louis’ place. “… you’re doing that.”
“Just a little white noise generator. Makes our presence less noticeable. We wouldn’t want to cause a disturbance.”
“You won’t get out of here with me, I promise you that.”
“Oh, my dear,” Virgil said, regarding him with a look akin to pity. “After your betrayal at Beaumont’s party, why would we want you? You’ve proven you can’t be trusted.”
“But we’ve talked it over,” Antoine said. “We were quite impressed by how your pack handled themselves there. And we’ve been watching how you conduct business over the past few months. Destroying your pack would serve no purpose. But if you were to work for us, all that expertise at our fingertips… so much could be achieved.”
“Not going to happen,” Griffin said firmly, pushing himself upright as he noticed Virgil wandering across the room to the crib. “We don’t work for anyone except ourselves.”
He slipped a hand under his pillow. He and Beau knew each other well enough for him to know there was no way the alpha left him undefended. Sure enough, his fingers closed around the handle of a knife.
“That’s what we knew you’d say,” Antoine told him. “We knew we’d need leverage to get you to agree. Admittedly, I thought it would be harder to get, but we just waltzed right in here without anyone noticing.”
Virgil moved closer to the crib, and Griffin tightened his grip on the knife.
“Stop.”
“Now, now,” Antoine said. “You’re not really in any position to be giving orders. Don’t worry, Griffin. Your child will be very safe with us. As long as you do what we ask. Think of it as a… business arrangement. We’ll train him, of course, which I know you’ll appreciate. A fighter if he’s an alpha, a seductor and assassin like you if he’s an omega. If he’s a beta… well, there are many types of training, all with their uses.”
“Don’t you touch him,” Griffin growled at Virgil. When the alpha kept moving, he pushed himself off the bed, knife in his hand, hidden by his side, determined to get between him and the baby. But Antoine was there, shoving him backward, blocking his path.
Griffin took a different tact, grabbing Antoine’s shirt and pressing the knife to his neck.
“Leave my baby alone.”
The bodyguards coming toward them froze at the sight of the knife, but it didn’t faze his parents.
“Come now,” Antoine said, unmoved by the knife at his throat. “It’s a fait accompli. There’s no use in crying over it. He’ll have the best of care.”
“That’s not care,” Griffin spat, pressing the knife hard enough to make the alpha wince. “You never cared. All you did was take from me.”
Before Antoine could open his mouth to retort, Virgil cursed, holding up an empty blanket. Griffin stared at it in confusion. Where was his baby?
Antoine rounded on him, taking advantage of Griffin’s confusion to grab the arm that held the knife.
“Where is he? Where is the little brat?”
The door to the en suite bathroom on the other side of Griffin’s bed swung open. All eyes turned to look as Beau stepped out, the baby, swaddled in a blanket, cradled against his shoulder.
“He’s right where he belongs,” Beau said simply.
Griffin took advantage of the distraction to scramble across the bed, feet hitting the floor. Beau grabbed him with his free hand, pushed the baby into his arms, and shoved them both backward into the bathroom, shutting the door.
Shouting, yelling, and sounds of fighting followed. Griffin, dizzy but managing to keep his feet under him, backed into a corner, the baby held close with one hand, the knife held tightly in the other. A long time seemed to pass before the door opened again. Standing there, with a bloody lip and grazed knuckles, was Beau.
“They’re gone,” he said quietly.
“Dead?”
Beau gave a short, sharp shake of his head.
“They had back up. Used their guards to keep me and the others occupied while they made their escape. But I am going to kill them,” he said simply.
“You’re right. They need to die. But it won’t be that simple.” It never was.
“We’ll handle it. Later. Are you okay? Is he?”
Beau reached his side, helping them out of the corner Griffin had wedged them into.
The hospital room was suspiciously empty but from the trail of blood on the floor, he guessed there’d been a hasty relocation of any bodies.
“Is everyone else okay?” he asked, sitting down on the bed at Beau’s urging and reluctantly letting go of the knife.
“A few cuts and bruises, that’s all,” Ronan replied, stepping into the room, Doctor Mac right behind him. “The doc is going to check you over. If she gives the okay, we’re going to head for home.”
“I’m so sorry, Doctor Mackenzie,” Griffin said, taking in the chaos of the room and the pallor of her face.
She gave him a wry smile. “This isn’t the first time my clinic has become a battleground. Ronan explained the circumstances. A little warning would have been nice.”
“We weren’t expecting this,” Beau said shortly.
“They tried to take him.” It suddenly hit Griffin how close he’d come to losing their baby.
“That was never going to happen, Finn. Never.”
Beau lifted the baby from his arms, letting Doctor Mackenzie approach. She did a quick but thorough exam on him and the baby, pronouncing them both ‘in good health, all things considered’.
Which was how he found himself back in the car again, Beau by his side, their son in his arms as Ronan drove them home. They had back up, two more cars from Briar Wood, one driving in front and one behind. An escort home.
“He’s such a little thing,” Beau was saying, staring down at the sleeping baby.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Ronan said from up front. “They don’t stay like that for long. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
Griffin was tired, a heaviness that weighed him down. He let his head rest against Beau’s shoulder taking comfort in his scent and the scent of their newborn.
“Today was a good day, right?” It had its low points, sure. But, overall…
“It was a great day,” Beau confirmed. “We got to go on a drive, see Doctor Mac, this little guy arrived. And…” He hesitated. “…any fight you walk away from, you know?”
The maxim fighters lived by. When Griffin had still been under Virgil and Antoine’s control, he’d believed something similar. In some ways, life had been simpler then. He’d traded that simplicity for a life of his own, one he felt was worth living. Looking from Beau to their son, he could only marvel at how the trade had paid off.