Chapter Twelve

Ben

"You've got to be joking," Griffin said to the hotel receptionist, her name badge declaring her as Rachel. "You're pulling my leg, right?"

Rachel gave a practiced apologetic smile that she'd probably used on hundreds of customers before. I wondered what its success rate was because it wasn't working on Griffin or me, neither of us reacting to the news the hotel only had one room available at all amenably.

"Well, it's my room," I pointed out less than charitably. "You weren't supposed to come. You'll have to find another hotel."

"I'm afraid," Rachel said with a slight grimace, "that you'll find all the other hotels are booked up."

"All the hotels in Manchester?" I queried with a disbelieving tone. What was this? Some elaborate practical joke that wasn't at all funny? Had someone at the station set it up? It wouldn't be the first time they'd pissed themselves laughing over something in poor personal taste. Except, they would have had to know Griffin and I had once been an item to even think of doing it. And as I hadn't breathed a word of our past relationship, and Griffin hadn't had any opportunity to do so, that wasn't possible.

Rachel nodded. "It's the Commonwealth Games. All the hotels in the city are booked up months in advance." Now, I thought about it, I vaguely recalled Manchester seeming to have gone overboard on the Union Jack's, but I'd been too busy fuming over Griffin's presence to pay it much mind. "The only reason you got a room was because we had a last-minute cancellation. You were lucky."

Lucky? Right. As if. As Griffin sighed, a sinking sensation started in my gut. Share a room with Griffin? Given the whirlpool of emotion in my chest, that wouldn't be a good idea. I needed away from him, and I needed it now, before my tongue decided it knew better than my brain. The whole day had been a challenge, but sitting next to him in the back of a cab while he stared at the mobile number scrawled on the back of Professor Rafferty Hart's business card had been the icing on the cake. It had taken every ounce of willpower I had not to open the door and shove him out into traffic. I fixed Griffin with a cool stare. One that hopefully got across that he'd messed with me enough for one day and that I didn't have boundless patience. "You'll have to get a train back to London, even though it's late."

"There are no trains heading south currently," Rachel supplied helpfully with a smile. "There's been an accident at Stockport. They may start running again tonight, but I wouldn't take my chances if I were you. Better to wait till tomorrow morning." Well, wasn't that marvelous? No trains. No hotel rooms. The universe was obviously determined to take a crap on me from a great height today. "The room is a double," she said as she pushed the card key over the desk toward me.

I snatched it up, fearful Griffin might try to grab it first. The only saving grace was him not looking any happier about this than I did. Had he found it amusing, I wasn't sure I would have been responsible for my actions. "Twin beds?" I asked, inevitability already pressing down on me.

Rachel tapped a few keys on her computer. "No, a double." Of course it was. Me. Griffin. And a double bed. Fuck my life. If this was fate trying to tell us we'd messed up, then it was wasting its time because I already knew that. It was Griffin who refused to listen. No surprise, though. He hadn't listened three years ago, so why would now be any different?

Griffin waited until we were in the lift, the room on the top floor. "It's not like we haven't shared a bed before."

How much force did it take to strangle someone with your bare hands? We were of a similar height, but Griffin was stockier than I was, more muscled. Even the drink problem he wouldn't admit to having didn't stop him from having a great physique. "I need you to be quiet," I said as calmly as I could. "If you're not, I'll make you sleep on a park bench."

For once, he took it to heart, remaining silent as we checked out the hotel room. It was nothing fancy, but it was perfectly serviceable. And clean. I boiled the kettle while Griffin disappeared into the small bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Finding myself alone, I concentrated on pulling air into my lungs and then letting it out again. I could do this. It was only one night. If we didn't speak… If he didn't so much as look at me or breathe in my direction… it would be fine. We'd eat. In silence. We'd watch some crap on TV. In silence. We'd go to bed and sleep. He'd stay on his side and I'd stay on mine. And then in the morning, there'd just be breakfast and the train journey back to London to endure.

By the time the bathroom door opened and Griffin came out, I felt calmer. I sat on the side of the bed I'd claimed as mine—I'd reverted to the way round it had always been when we were together, so I doubted Griffin would argue—and was flicking through the TV channels. He stood in the doorway and stared. So much for him not looking in my direction. "I assume you're annoyed because Rafe gave me his number?"

It was like someone had lit a fuse. I could almost picture the blue flames snaking from Griffin's feet where he'd just lit it to me. And then it reached me, fury exploding in my chest and pushing me to my feet. It felt like I'd been holding my tongue ever since he'd walked into the DCS's office. And while it might only have been days, it felt like years, and I couldn't do it anymore. "Why would it bother me?" I hissed as I stalked toward him. "It's not like we were meant to be together. Not like we had our whole lives planned out."

Griffin's expression was wary as I drew close. "Marriage. Children," I spat out. "Do you remember that? Do you remember how we talked through the options at length? Adoption? Surrogacy? We even made a list of female friends we could ask. One of our many lists. We had one for wedding venues as well. Do you remember that?" I didn't leave Griffin space to answer. There was no point when the questions were rhetorical. He might have blanked things out, but there was nothing wrong with his memory. "And then you just ended it and I didn't get to have any say in it. One day, I had my entire future in front of me, and then the next, I had nothing. And you wouldn't even talk to me about it. You wouldn't take my calls. I emailed you in the end. I fucking emailed the man who was supposed to be in love with me because I couldn't think of any other way of getting in touch with you. And trust me, I'd thought of nothing else for forty-eight hours. I hadn't eaten. I hadn't slept. I'd just thought about how to make you speak to me. It wasn't like I could turn up at your workplace and beg an audience because the place is a literal fucking fortress and Cade would have taken your side the same way he always does."

I stopped for a breath, Griffin still not having said a word, which was about right. "I spent hours on that email. Rewording it, rephrasing it, making sure it included everything I wanted to say, that I needed to say. Did you even read it?"

"I…"

I didn't need him to answer my question; the answer was written all over his face. I backed off a few steps, scared that I'd punch him if I got too close, my fury like a snarling beast in my chest and refusing to abate. I was saying all the things I'd wanted to say for three years. All the things I hadn't been able to. First, because he'd become a fucking ghost, impossible to track down and get anywhere near, and then in the past few days, because I'd wanted to remain professional.

Well, fuck that. He was already affecting my thought processes with the case, my time in the professor's office mostly spent resenting him for attempting to build a bond with Griffin—Professor Rafferty Hart, clearly interested in getting in his pants. If things continued as they were, I wouldn't even notice if the murderer walked straight past me, all my focus on my ex.

"And yes, since you asked, it bothered me that the professor gave you his phone number. How could it not? You dumped me. Without a conversation. Without a proper explanation. The cruelest and most callous way possible. So I don't need you rubbing my face in it. It's bad enough that I have to feel you having sex."

"That works both ways."

I rounded on him again. "No. No, it doesn't. Because you chose this. I didn't. I'm the innocent party here."

"I'm not going to call him."

I laughed. If that's what Griffin had taken from my entire tirade, then I really was wasting my breath. "Why? Because your boyfriend wouldn't like it?"

"I don't have a boyfriend."

"No? Then who were you fucking the other night?"

"A friend. And you're acting like you've been completely celibate, which we both know isn't true."

Just as I'd think I might calm down, Griffin would say something with such quiet and implacable logic, that my adrenaline would spike once more. Where was the passionate man I'd once known? The one who could enthuse over a good meal like it was a matter of life and death? The one who'd made love so beautifully that he'd made my toes curl. It was like looking at a stranger. Only with the added complication of the stupid necromancer fated mate's bond dictating that stranger or not, I still wanted him with every fiber of my being.

"We're not talking about me," Griffin said, his voice still irritatingly calm and measured.

"Convenient," I ground out.

"Us being at each other's throats won't help the case."

"I don't give a fuck about the case right now."

"That's not true. You're just tired and overwrought."

"Overwrought!" I gave a harsh laugh. "Don't fucking talk down to me. "

"I'm not. I'm just…" He rounded the bed, and I watched him with a frown, trying to work out what he was doing. I realized as he kneeled. "Oh, right, of course… Have a drink. That's your answer to everything, isn't it?"

He scowled at the tiny miniatures he'd pulled out of the fridge. His distaste wasn't enough to stop him from unscrewing the lid of one and downing it in one swallow, my dig going completely ignored. Once he'd drunk it, he lifted his gaze to mine. "Have you finished?"

If he hadn't said that, I might have been, but it was like a red rag to a bull. "What do you think Whitney would say if she knew how much you were drinking?"

The change in him was instantaneous, the mention of her name melting away the calm from Griffin like it was acid. "Don't say her name."

"I just did." I knew what his next move would be, beating him to the door before he could run from the conversation and blocking his way.

"Get out of my way, Ben."

"No!"

Griffin's eyes blazed with fury. "Get out of my way or I won't be responsible for my actions."

"Punch me if you want to," I goaded him. "But I'm done following your rules. Your sister died, Griff." He reeled back, like I'd hit him. "Whitney died. She killed herself, and it wasn't your fault. And it wasn't my fault."

"Please Ben." Griffin had dropped the antagonism and was trying some good old-fashioned pleading instead. "Please get out of my way. I don't want to talk about this. I can't talk about this. "

"No." I gripped him by the shoulders and forced him to look at me. "It wasn't your fault. Whitney had been depressed for a while. You knew that."

He shook his head. "I should have been there that night. I was supposed to be there that night."

"I know." And that was where my share of the perceived blame came into it, not only dragging him out for dinner when he'd shared his concern about Whitney being down in the dumps, but insisting when he'd mentioned going round to check on her that it could wait until the next day.

There hadn't been a next day for Whitney, Griffin's younger sister deciding that she'd rather swallow a bottle of pills than deal with the perpetual sadness that she hadn't been able to shake, no matter how many medications she took, or how many therapists she saw.

"We were screwing," Griffin said with bitterness in his voice. "And while we were in bed together, she was killing herself."

"I know." I prized the rest of the alcohol miniatures out of his hand and held them up. "But this isn't the answer. You think Whitney would want this? I know she wouldn't. She'd want you to live your life." I tossed them on the bed before he could make a grab for them. At least he'd stopped trying to get me to move out of the way, seeming to see how futile it would be. "If you'd been there," I said gently, "it might not have been that night, but you're fooling yourself if you don't think she would have found a way, eventually."

"You don't get it," Griffin said, his voice brittle. "It wasn't about stopping her. It was about getting there in time."

My hand slid from his shoulder to cup his neck. "In time?"

"To bring her back. To speak to her one last time. "

Realization hit me like a bolt of lightning, and I wondered how I'd never worked it out before. Griffin was a necromancer. He spent his days bringing back the recently deceased, so that loved ones could say their last goodbyes. Why wouldn't he have wanted to use it on his own family?

"Oh, God," I said, my fingers stroking his skin, the simple contact between us seeming so natural. "I'm so sorry. Why did you never tell me that? Everything would have made far more sense if you had." Griffin hadn't just been grieving his sister's death, he'd been grieving the lost opportunity to speak to her one last time. She'd left a note, but it wasn't the same. What would she have said if he had spoken to her? Would it have made him feel better? And if I was asking myself these questions three years later, then how many times must Griffin have tortured himself with the same questions? No wonder he drank.

I thought about Griffin's sister. On her good days, she'd been a beacon of light. It was just that her dark days were far more frequent. "Whitney wouldn't have wanted you to be miserable. She wouldn't have wanted you to punish yourself." Because I got it now. Griffin ending things with me hadn't been about blame, as I'd always assumed. It had been about punishing himself, Griffin believing that he didn't deserve to be happy. So he'd severed a bond that was the most important thing to him. Or at least he'd tried to sever it. In reality, we'd both discovered the hard way that there were no take backs with a fated mate's bond. There was only carrying on and trying to ignore the gaping hole where someone else should have been. Maybe that had been part of the self-inflicted punishment. Because there was nothing that cut deeper than being able to feel what someone else did .

Something wet touched my hand, and I jerked my gaze to Griffin's face to find him crying. I'd seen him sad, but I'd never seen him cry. Had he cried since Whitney's death? I suspected not, Griffin doing everything in his power to avoid giving in to that emotion. Tears were cathartic, and he hadn't allowed himself to go there, but it was long overdue.

I gathered him in, pulling his head onto my shoulder and rubbing soothing circles on his back as I held him as tight as it was possible to without breaking something. He cried harder, great racking sobs that almost tore me in two when I had to feel them as well as witness them.