Karri

She awoke in the morning slowly and deliberately, a stark contrast from the normal bolt upright pattern that she’d become used to over the years of sleeping alone. A yawn split her mouth open and she rubbed sleep from her eyes before rolling over to see Andrew’s smiling face, wide awake and looking at her.

“Hi,” he said as the curtains behind him fluttered slightly in the breeze, letting in the light.

“Hey,” she replied, kissing him, even as a few rays of light played across her closed eyelids.

Light?! Karri pulled back without warning and whirled around to check the time.

“Shit!” she yelped. “I’m late!” she flung herself from bed, utterly uncaring about her nakedness as she headed for the shower. Andrew had seen her naked all evening. They hadn’t even put clothes on to eat. They’d also shared the shower, but this time he didn’t try to enter, letting her rinse away the last vestiges of sleep before she dried in a hurry and got dressed. Her long blonde hair found its way into the messiest bun she’d seen in a long time. It would be a pain once it dried that way, but she just didn’t have time.

“Come on you lazy sack of sexiness,” she ordered. “You’re out of here too so I can lock up. You don’t get keys yet, no matter how good you are at certain things,” she told him with a wink as he swept the covers aside, muscles flexing and moving clearly under his tight skin as she took a moment to shamelessly ogle him.

Andrew grinned, shook his hips slightly, and then put his clothes on swiftly while she just sighed at his childishness.

“How old are you again?” she asked sarcastically.

“Sixty-eight.”

She froze for a moment. “Wait, what? How old are you?” For the first time she realized they hadn’t actually asked that question. He looked around her age…give or take. So she’d just sort of assumed it.

“Sixty-eight,” he repeated.

“You look…pretty good for sixty-eight,” she said suspiciously. He sounded sincere, but obviously he wasn’t.

“I don’t age normally,” he said, tugging his shirt down and covering up the last of his abs, much to her dismay.

“Uh-huh,” she said, shooing him from her room, not even wanting to look at the clock a second time. Her father was just going to go livid.

“I’m serious,” he said, following her down the hallway. “Did you not know that?”

She shrugged. “You said you were a gryphon, right?”

“That’s right. We’re one of the longer-lived species. Even your normal wolves and bears will live to see their eleventh or twelfth decade. More than humans, though not as much. The cat shifters, tigers, and whatnot often live into their fourteenth.”

“And gryphons?” she asked. “You see what, 175?”

He grinned. “Ah, no. Most gryphons will see three and a half to four centuries.”

Karri’s jaw dropped. “I’m sorry, what? Did you just say you expect to live for another three hundred-odd years?”

“Pretty much,” he confirmed with far more nonchalance than should have been possible for such a stunning revelation. “That’s nothing compared to dragons. Most of them live into their twelfth century. Heck, some of the really old ones, like our king, can live to be over two and a half thousand years old if they choose to.”

The concept boggled her mind. It was too long to think about. She had a hard enough time realizing she’d likely still be alive in fifty years. The world was changing so rapidly…what would it be like in five decades? Or fifty? Karri couldn’t comprehend what some of the older shifters had lived through, or what some of them would continue to live through.

“So I just slept with a sixty-eight-year-old,” she said slowly, processing that.

Andrew laughed. “It doesn’t translate into human terms like that! I’m closer to say, twenty-two, I suppose, in human terms.”

“So I’m sleeping with a younger man.”

He grinned. “I guess so. Go me! I scored myself a hyena!”

Karri had been bending over to put on her shoes. Now she stood up slowly and looked at him. “Excuse me?”

Flustered, Andrew looked around. “Umm. A hyena?”

“Explain.”

Now he was confused. “I…I thought it was a common term. You know, where an older woman goes after a younger man. Was I wrong?”

Karri wasn’t sure what was more hilarious: his screwup, or the earnestness with which he seemed to be trying. Either way, she laughed so hard she had to lean on him for support.

“You mean a cougar?”

His face went bright red. “Oh. Umm, yes. That’s definitely…yeah.”

His embarrassment just served to make her laugh harder. The tears would ruin the hastily applied mascara, but she didn’t care. It was worth having to reapply it.

“A for effort,” she said. “But let’s wait a little longer before we break out the slang terms of human society, shall we?”

Hanging his head in embarrassment, the huge shifter nodded. “Definitely in agreement there.”

With his head down closer to her, it wasn’t too hard for Karri to snag his face and bring it to hers so she could kiss him goodbye.

“Okay Mr. Senior Citizen, get your aging rump out of here before you break a knee,” she teased, pushing him from his house.

Andrew complained but she just pushed harder. “Just let me know if you need a walker,” she jibed.

He just leaned in and kissed her. Hard. Then, just as she felt her blood began to rush, he pulled away.

“I’ll see you later,” he said, then took off down the driveway.

Karri shook her head, biting her lip even as she smiled. Watching his backside as he ran was almost as entertaining as the front.

Cute butt.

Then she opened the garage, picked her weekday vehicle, and headed off to work. The drive flew by, her mind preoccupied with the fact that not only had she brought Andrew home, but she’d spent all night sleeping with him over and over again, until they were both thoroughly spent. She didn’t necessarily regret it; their connection was undeniable and the sex had been good. That wasn’t what confused her. It was the way she’d felt that morning, waking up with him next to her, sharing a morning kiss, and looking forward to lounging in his arms. The last part hadn’t been able to happen unfortunately, but she’d wanted it, and wanted it badly, almost as much as she’d wanted him inside of her the night before.

But there were a lot of questions. First, he was older than her, and would continue to live long after she had died. He would stay young and vibrant while she aged and died in front of him. Why would he want that? And even if he did, could she allow herself to put him through it? That didn’t seem fair to him, or to her. So many issues would arise out of that. It was entirely feasible that as she aged he would no longer come to be interested in her. While he was still young and hearty, would he want to stay around with her? She’d never realized just how huge the gap would be in their lifespans.

Centuries. He will live for centuries longer than I will. It’s such a huge span of time it’s impossible to even think about it accurately. How can he dedicate himself to me, knowing what the eventual outcome must be?

There was no way around it. The laws of time would eventually catch up with her and she would waste away. Karri wasn’t sure she wanted to take the chance that he would up and leave her for someone younger. Maybe, she thought, maybe it would be best to cut things off now, so that she didn’t have to visit that topic.

That wasn’t the only issue, though it was quickly becoming a bigger one in her mind the more she thought about it. From there blossomed all sorts of other things. The question of children loomed large in her mind. Could they even have them? Karri wasn’t sure about that, but from there, would her children have his lifespan? Or hers? Would Andrew still be looking like he was thirty when her children passed on as well?

The problems just kept piling up, all of them driving a wedge between her and the dream life she’d constructed for the two of them in her extremely private dreams. With each thought, the split grew wider as she acknowledged all the difficulties that were present.

Which is when the final one presented itself in the shape of the car that was now following her into the parking lot, pulling up next to her.

“Hello, Father,” she said coolly as she exited the car, her words polite but neutral, the way she treated him most days now.

“Hello, Karri. I’m surprised to find you out here and not at your desk.”

She smiled. “I’m feeling under the weather this morning,” she explained, using that excuse to explain away her somewhat disheveled appearance.

“I see. Well, don’t fall any more behind on my account,” he said, gesturing for her to get inside.

With a sigh she proceeded to head into the building. That was the final straw when it came to being with Andrew. Her father was vehemently anti-shifter. To the extreme. So much so that she sometimes wondered just how he managed to keep his composure knowing that they were just in the city. If he found out that she was sleeping with one, that one of them had bedded his daughter, he would do one of two things.

One, die of a heart attack, though she just couldn’t picture him going out that like that. There was no way he was going to let a shifter get the best of him like that. It was the second option that was far more likely. That one included the twelve-gauge shotgun he kept in the back of his vehicle. Even if he never got his hands on the shifter himself, Karri knew that she would instantly lose the company. It wouldn’t even be an argument; she’d be ostracized from the family, fired from her position, and removed from any inheritance she might stand to make. All of that would take about two seconds, and then her father would really lose it on her.

She’d worked so hard for that company, to become the next president and owner of Blaine Enterprises. So many years of her life, so much hard work. Overtime and extra-overtime. Weekends, holidays, and more. She’d slaved away to learn the ropes of it, to understand how to run it effectively, and what it took to be a good leader. Her blood, sweat, and tears had helped take the company to the next level, and there was no way she was going to give that up, even if the sex had been mind-blowing.

With a hardening resolve to do what she needed to do, Karri headed into the office, determined to show everyone how right she was for the job.

***

The day passed swiftly, despite the many mental reminders of Andrew her brain decided to send her way. Why it felt the need to make her decision any harder than it already was she didn’t know, but right now they were feuding over it.

This is what I want. What I’ve worked so hard for. Why should I just give that up for him? He has no right to ask me to do that!

Her brain fired back with a reminder that he hadn’t asked her to do that. It didn’t matter though; it had to be done if she was going to be with him, so essentially he was asking her to do that, though maybe he didn’t know it. She was going to end things with him before they got too serious. Karri just couldn’t take the chance that her entire life would be ripped apart because of an emotional decision.

Heading outside, she blinked, realizing that the sun was already down. She’d worked extra late, both because she’d been tardy that morning, but also because her drive to prove that she was cut out for the job had been singing in her blood all day like a challenge, daring her to do more to prove herself.

Exhausted, she walked toward her car, fumbling in her purse for the keys. Finding them she hit the remote start button.

Nothing happened.

Curious, she looked up from her phone screen. The sight before her left her speechless for several long seconds as her brain tried to reconcile with what her eyes swore they were seeing. Finally things clicked.

“What the fuck?!” she shouted.

Her beautiful black luxury sedan, one of the few things in her life that she’d actually splurged on, was destroyed. It was a wreck. The bodywork was ripped and torn, the windows were smashed in. The hood was indented so far she thought it was touching the floor of the car. The tires were shredded and flat, long scratch marks all through the black trim.

Nervously she looked around, wondering what the hell was going on. Fumbling with her phone, she pulled it out and looked up a number, punching Send as fast as she could.

The night grew darker, the sounds of the small town sounding dim and faint. Shadows closed in and Karri began to retreat slowly toward the building, walking almost in circles as she kept looking over her shoulder, not wanting to get taken by surprise.

Finally the phone picked up.

“Hello, Andrew?”