“Ah, well, you have me there.” Griff straightened the plaid draped over his shoulder, smiling. “Though…my outfit choice may have something to do with the fact that I happened to notice that Hayley has a complete collection of Outlander novels. In hardback.”
The Fire Commander tilted his head a degree, acknowledging the point. “You are in a good mood tonight.”
Griff’s smile twisted, just a little. “I’m pretending to be someone else.”
“Ah.” Ash’s dark eyes studied him for a long moment. Even to Griff’s eagle-sharp senses, the Fire Commander was a completely unreadable book—not just closed, but bound in chains and locked away in a deep vault. “So the situation is unchanged. I am sorry to hear that.”
Griff leaned his elbows on the table, folding his arms. “I went to see Ivy this evening.”
Ash didn’t so much as blink at the apparent topic jump. “And is her situation also unchanged?”
“Aye. She still wants you to burn away her wyvern.”
“No,” Ash said flatly, without even a second of hesitation.
Griff let out his breath. “She just wants to be able to touch people, Ash. Even if that means becoming a mundane human instead of a shifter.”
Ash was respected in the shifter community for who he was…but he was feared for what he was. It was widely known that the Phoenix could burn anything. Not just physical materials like stone and steel, but metaphysical things as well.
Memories. Personality traits. Even a shifter’s inner animal. Griff knew that he’d only done it a handful of times, in situations of dire need, but it was the reason most shifters kept as far away from the Fire Commander as they could.
Ash shook his head. “She does not know what she is asking. If the Parliament of Shifters had not demanded that I use my power to punish arsonists, I would not do it to any shifter under any circumstances. Not even to my worst enemy.”
Griff looked out at the cheerful crowd without speaking for a long, long moment. “How about to a friend?”
“I will not burn away Ivy’s wyvern. Not even for you.”
“To a friend, Ash,” Griff said, very quietly. “Not for a friend.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ash go very, very still.
“Is this a conversation which it is safe to have?” Ash said at last, just as softly. “I would have thought your beasts would…object.”
Griff’s eagle was motionless, staring intently into his soul as though his thoughts were prey scurrying through long grass. His lion stirred a little, disturbed by the eagle’s focus but unable itself to understand what had caused it.
“If we speak elliptically, we should be fine.” Neither of his animals were good at abstract thought, or following a metaphor. Nonetheless, Griff kept a tight rein on his emotions, erecting a firm mental wall between himself and them. “I’ll let you know if there’s a problem.”
Ash nodded in understanding. “Do you remember Bertram Russell?”
Well, I did tell him to speak elliptically. Griff had no idea where this was going. “The dragon shifter who attacked Dai and Virginia?”
Griff had never met him in person, but all of Alpha Team had been involved in helping Dai protect his mate from the arrogant, ruthless dragon shifter. Ash, however, had been the one to finally stop Bertram. The Phoenix had burned away his dragon, permanently removing his ability to shift.
Ash toyed with his glass of water. “Do you know what happened to him, afterwards?”
Griff shook his head. “No idea. Didn’t really care, as long as he didn’t bother us again.”
“He is a tour guide at a small Roman heritage site,” Ash said quietly. “He helps visiting schoolchildren dress up in costumes and color in pictures of the mosaics. He answers their questions, as much as he can. By all accounts, he is happy.”
Ice ran down Griff’s spine. Bertram had been fiercely competitive, a brilliant academic with an ego the size of his dragon.
And now he’s content in some little backwater local museum…
“Our animals are woven through our souls,” Ash said, when Griff didn’t speak. “Even I cannot tell where the fire will race, once I light the spark. I took a dragon, and ended up also taking a man’s pride, his ambition. I once had to take a man’s wolf, and it left him unable to work in a team ever again. What else could I end up inadvertently destroying? A man’s courage? His astuteness?” He looked straight at Griff. “Everything that made him who he was?”
Griff moistened his dry lips. “A man might be willing to destroy anything, in order to protect his mate.”
Something flared behind Ash’s eyes, a black fire like a dying sun. “I understand that well.” The crack in his calm lasted barely a heartbeat, sealed over so quickly that Griff almost doubted he’d ever seen that brief moment of anguish at all. “It is…possible, that I could burn away just enough, and no more. It is possible that I could take one thing, and leave another. But I do not know for certain.”