Chapter 4

R hys didn't return to consciousness with a gentle fluttering of eyelashes and a drifting into awareness, so much as he crashed back into life like a sledgehammer going through a slab of concrete.

He gasped, confusion still gripping him, as he sat bolt upright on… whatever it was he was lying on, grasping at his throat. The last thing he could remember was the sensation of it closing too tightly to let his breath into his lungs, the sound of his straining heartbeat thudding in his ears as it struggled to keep going…

"Welcome back."

A voice to his left had him whipping his head in that direction, confusion still fogging his brain.

Where am I? And how did I get here? What the hell?

But Rhys calmed down a little as, finally, his eyes registered what – or rather, who – they were looking at.

"Brooke."

Brooke Saunders, his team's medical officer, was looking at him with a slightly wry smile on her face. She raised an eyebrow as he looked around, still not quite sure what exactly was going on, even if he was a little more reassured now that he wasn't in danger.

"Disoriented? I'm not surprised. Wyvern venom will do that to you. Not to mention the whole almost dying thing."

Rhys looked down at his chest, to where his hand still rested over his heart, which had, the last time he remembered, been beating slower and slower with every passing moment.

Wyvern venom? he thought, shaking his head. His memory felt completely fuzzy, as if he was moving blocks of vaguely colored smoke around in his head, trying to make them fit together to create a picture that made sense.

But then, it all came back to him in a sudden rush: the suit guy at the café. The offer they'd made him. The way they'd attacked him in the alley when he'd turned them down. And then…

Rhys frowned. There didn't seem to be any and then, as far as his memory was concerned. It was all a big blank.

But that didn't matter, he decided – the important thing was that he was here now, and he needed to tell someone about what had happened.

"I have to talk to Robb," he muttered, struggling to get his hands to obey him and pull back the sheet on his sickbay bed. "I have to –"

"Hey, hey, just hold your horses there," Brooke told him, reaching out and pressing him back down against the thin mattress. "Right now, you don't have to do anything except lie there and recover. You're doing fine, but you're not in any fit state to go charging off. Just stay put for a minute while I do some tests, all right?"

Rhys knew it wouldn't do any good to complain – Brooke might have looked diminutive, but she was tough as nails and she didn't take any talking back from anyone. So he lay as still as he could manage while she carried out whatever these tests were that she wanted to do – shining a light in his eyes, poking a dry wooden stick into his mouth and making him say ahhhh , and prodding at the still-healing wounds on his chest and side.

Those should have healed up ages ago, Rhys thought as he looked down at the still pink-looking bullet hole in his shoulder before Brooke re-covered it with a bandage.

But then, memory hit him like a ton of bricks, as well as what Brooke had said a moment earlier: wyvern venom.

No wonder it hadn't healed, Rhys thought. And no wonder this had been such a close call.

"How long was I out?" Rhys asked, as Brooke, apparently having finished her tests to her satisfaction, rolled her latex gloves off her hands. The motion prodded at something in Rhys's memory, but he really wasn't quite sure what, or why.

"Long enough," Brooke said, giving him a small, tight smile. "You're a lucky man, Rhys Richardson. Another few minutes and I don't think there would have been much I could have done for you. Lucky I had enough antivenom on hand to pump you full of a few doses. And even then it was touch and go for a bit. Good thing you're a griffin and you have that extra healing power, is all I can say."

Rhys nodded, the realization at how closely run a thing it had been sobering him a little.

But I'm still here, aren't I? he thought a moment later. And I have things I need to do…

And, annoyingly, there was still something pressing on the back of his mind, something he knew he should be remembering – but every time he tried to grab hold of it, it would slither away from him before he could pin it down.

Frustrated, he shook his head.

"So, am I just going to have to lie here all day?" he asked, a little more gruffly than he knew Brooke deserved – and she knew it too, judging from the look she gave him.

"You will if you give me that tone," she said. "How about a ‘thank you for saving my life, Ms. Saunders'? Or is that just way too much to expect these days?"

"Sorry," Rhys muttered, but he knew he was being churlish… and kind of a dick. "Thank you."

"Not as grateful as I would have expected, but I'll take it." Brooke crossed her arms over her chest. "Anyway, it's not just me you have to thank."

Rhys looked up, his eyebrows drawing together. "Huh?"

"Since you just almost died I'll forgive you the lack of articulateness," Brooke said. "And anyway, I don't even know what's going on with that. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything."

"Am I still disoriented, or are you just being deliberately mysterious now?" Rhys asked, wondering if Brooke would give him another scolding if he swung his legs over the side of the bed to sit up properly.

To his surprise, Brooke didn't tell him – again – that he was acting like a dickhead. She just screwed up her mouth a little as if she was deciding what to say, or whether to speak at all. But luckily for her, her dilemma was solved by the sound of the sickbay door opening, and both she and Rhys turned to see his boss, Robb Lockwood, and his mentor since he'd been in the academy, James Eyre, standing in the doorway.

Rhys swallowed. He guessed he had just almost died, but still, the situation had to be pretty serious if Robb and James were here now – they really weren't supposed to have any contact with each other while he was suspended and the investigation into his conduct was ongoing. But, for whatever reason, here they were.

Hopefully I'm not in any more trouble than I already was, Rhys thought, as he looked back and forth between the two of them, taking in their grave faces.

"Rhys. Seems like you pulled through all right, then," Robb said.

Rhys swallowed. Robb's voice was cool and he didn't sound particularly happy or relieved to see Rhys alive, but then, that was just his style, Rhys guessed.

"Yeah. Fit as a fiddle," he muttered.

Your tone is very churlish when speaking to your superiors, his griffin informed him, as if Rhys really needed to be informed. For all their wild ways, griffins did have a pretty strong sense of hierarchy, and the griffin was quite shocked at the way Rhys often resented being told what to do.

It was different when the griffin was the one who wanted to disobey orders, of course. Rhys had never quite been able to get the griffin to explain that one to his satisfaction. Something about how it wasn't disobedience when it was the griffin acting up, because the griffin itself wasn't employed by the Agency. It was all very convenient.

In any case, right now, Robb wasn't really someone Rhys wanted to see. He hadn't seemed to listen at all to his explanations about what had gone wrong on the mission, and hadn't spoken in his favor at the hearing.

That's what loyalty gets you, I suppose, Rhys thought, doing his best to keep his scowl off his face, though he was aware he wasn't exactly succeeding.

Still, Robb, true to his nature, didn't seem to notice it or care.

"I was concerned when I heard what happened," James broke in. "Wyvern venom is no joke – I thought for sure we were going to lose you." He winced, looking pained. "I admit, I know I shouldn't have favorites amongst my former students, but I did always think you were promising, Rhys. I was worried."

Rhys had to stop himself from raising an eyebrow. True, he'd always considered James a good mentor, who'd been actively involved in helping him after he'd graduated and had started his career with the Agency. But James hadn't had much to say in his favor at the suspension hearing either – and yet, here he was, acting all concerned.

Don't be such a dick, he chided himself. If they didn't speak up, it was because they need to seem impartial. Who knows what they're doing behind the scenes?

"How're you feeling?" Robb asked, as together, he and James crossed the room to stand by Rhys's bedside.

"Can't complain," Rhys said with a shrug, and winced as the movement pulled on his still unhealed shoulder.

The wyvern venom, he thought.

Suddenly, the urgency of earlier came flooding back to him. He had to tell Robb about what had happened, no matter how much he was currently in the doghouse.

"Listen, boss," Rhys said, sitting up a little straighter on the bed and turning to Robb. "The guys who attacked me – before they did that, they were clearly scouting for agents they might be able to compromise. They approached me in a café, saying some shit about how if I'd get them some classified information, they'd make me a job offer. I dunno who they're working for or what exactly they want –"

"Yes. We know," James interrupted him smoothly. "And we know they're from Hargreaves."

Rhys blinked.

Hargreaves.

That made sense.

Rhys felt his face twisting into a snarl even at the sound of the name. Hargreaves Incorporated were mercenaries – though they preferred the term private security.

And they were very well known to him. Even if Hargreaves hadn't caused an awful lot of trouble by supplying private armies and weapons shipments to whoever had enough cash to pay for them, he had a personal score to settle with them too.

After all, they'd tortured his brother Hector while trying to get their hands on his daughter, Ruby – who, as an alicorn, had been born with the power to control minds and actions, though she was now no longer capable of such things. They'd paid a massive amount of money for the egg she'd hatched out of, in the hope of raising her to be their tool, and to force people to do their bidding. If Hector and his mate, Myrtle, hadn't been able to rescue Ruby, then Rhys shuddered to think what might have happened.

But why would they come after me , then? he wondered. They had to know, with his history, that he'd refuse their offer – otherwise, what kind of shithouse brother and uncle would he be?

Though maybe they just assumed I'd be blinded by money, Rhys thought, remembering what Hector had told him about the time he'd been captured by them – the woman who'd tortured him, Cecelia, had just seemed to expect that he'd roll over if the price was right.

But then, maybe most people did, Rhys thought with a sneer.

"Well, if you know that, then why aren't you going after them?" Rhys barked, knowing he was just being belligerent now, but unable to stop himself.

He just really, really hated Hargreaves.

"We did." Robb's voice was as inflectionless as always, as if Rhys hadn't basically just shouted at him in a very insubordinate way.

"So… what happened then?" Rhys asked, after taking a moment to digest this information.

Robb's face twitched, and James looked concerned, his mouth pulling down into a frown.

Not a great sign, Rhys thought. If Robb was showing an emotion, that must mean something had gone extremely wrong.

"They're all dead." When Robb spoke, however, his voice was just as calm and cool as ever, as if he was relating the weather.

Rhys, however, was shocked. He sat back in his bed, blinking in surprise.

" Dead? "

Robb nodded. "That's what I said. Someone called in the sound of gunshots, but we'd had our eye on those guys for a while. Believe me, you weren't the first person they approached. We were just waiting for the right moment to go make the arrests."

Rhys frowned. "But you just said they were all dead. How exactly did that happen?"

He knew Robb and James didn't actually have to tell him anything, and for a moment, he thought Robb was going to say it was none of his business – which, really, it wasn't. Rhys was more or less used to only having as much information as he needed and nothing more, but this time, he wanted to know how this had happened.

"Well. As far as I can tell, those men who approached you were under orders to die before they could be captured. So when we closed in – that's what they did."

"You mean… they killed themselves? "

Unease bubbled up inside him.

Something about this doesn't make any sense.

And it really didn't.

"Okay," he said cautiously, after a moment or two. "You verified that yourselves, did you?"

"As much as we were able to, after the fact," James said. "But I don't have any reason to lie to you, Rhys, and the agents we sent don't have any reason to lie to me . But when it became clear they were surrounded and couldn't run, they took their only other way out."

There was something about this Rhys really didn't like.

But then again…

Was he just overreacting? It was hardly unknown, after all, for Hargreaves agents to do such extreme things. But it just seemed… odd to him that they'd do it over something relatively trivial. It wasn't as if the Agency didn't know Hargreaves agents occasionally tried to recruit them for insider info. Why would they do something so extreme?

Rhys glanced at Robb, then at James. Neither of them, at least, seemed to think there was anything amiss, but then, Robb was famously unrufflable, and James, even if he seemed a little more concerned about the whole thing, didn't seem to find it weird that some Hargreaves agents had killed themselves rather than be captured.

And it isn't as if you have the best track record right now, Rhys told himself, as doubt crept into his heart.

Could he really trust himself on this?

"Okay. Got it," he muttered, looking down. He wanted to ask more questions, but just for once, he decided to keep his mouth shut. He really was in enough trouble as it was, without getting into an argument with his boss and his mentor as well.

And then there was the fact that his memory really wasn't the best right now. He didn't know whether it was the wyvern venom or the injuries or what, but he felt like a huge chunk of the last couple of hours was completely missing from his brain, and the things he could remember were fuzzy at best.

But aside from the fuzzy memories of the men who'd chased him down and apparently shot him full of wyvern venom, Rhys had a feeling there was something else he wasn't remembering – and it was something big.

You don't remember? His griffin sounded incredulous. How can you not remember?!

Do I get a hint? Rhys asked it – but the griffin, seeming disgusted, just retreated to a far corner of his mind. Whatever its problem was, it was clearly planning on ignoring him and forcing him to figure it out for himself.

Great.

What was the point of sharing his head with a giant mythical creature if it abandoned him at critical moments?

"Hey, doc, any idea when I might be able to get out of this bed?" he asked, turning to Brooke. He knew he sounded irritated, but irritated was how he felt – but then again, he thought, wincing, perhaps he could stand to be a little nicer to Brooke. She had, after all, just saved his life…

… Though that came with questions of its own.

Wait… if I collapsed in an alley – which I only just barely even remember doing – how did I get here?

"I want to keep you in here for about half an hour or so, at the minimum," Brooke said, with an eyebrow raised to indicate that she'd noticed his tone and didn't much appreciate it. "Ideally I'd keep you overnight, but I think I've already had just about enough of you."

"We should be going too," Robb said.

"Really, we shouldn't even be here now," James cut in. "But I felt you had a right to know what went down." He shook his head. "Didn't I tell you at the hearing to stay out of trouble?"

"This wasn't exactly my plan ," Rhys growled, before quickly checking himself. "What I mean is, I didn't really intend for all this to happen. I just thought I'd get out of town for a bit. It wasn't like I wanted to get shot full of wyvern venom."

"No, I suppose not," James said, giving him a half smile, and choosing, apparently, to ignore the slight belligerence in Rhys's tone. "But try to stick to that for the next week at least, okay?"

Rhys grimaced. Were the pair of them going to lecture him on the importance of keeping his head down during this time? As if he didn't already know his future was hanging by a thread?

"Yeah," he muttered. "Cross my heart and hope to die."

So much for fixing the attitude problem.

Thankfully, neither Robb nor James gave him much of a reaction, lecture or otherwise.

"Good. Since you're suspended anyway and you've just been injured, I'd say getting away for a bit is a great idea," James said. "Go on a trip. Visit your sister or something like that. Hanging around here moping isn't doing much for your disposition."

Before Rhys could look up and ask James if that had been supposed to be a joke, he'd turned away, he and Robb crossing the room, the door closing softly in their wake.

Rhys stared after them.

Okay?

Had he just been ordered to go on a holiday?

Rhys shook his head. He felt like he still had a lot of questions, but he really doubted Robb or James would be answering any of them even if they were still in the room.

"Okay, well, let's have a look at those bullet wounds," Brooke said a moment later. "Now that the antivenom has had a chance to take full effect, your natural healing powers should have kicked in."

Quickly and efficiently, she peeled back the bandages on his shoulder. When Rhys looked down, he could see that Brooke was right – there wasn't even much of a mark left where, before, he could remember only the sensation of incredible pain.

"Great. You're almost back to normal already," Brooke told him. "I wasn't expecting that for another hour or so. I guess that's griffins for you. So you can get out of my hair as soon as you like."

"Thanks." Rhys hoped Brooke could hear the sincerity in his voice. She hadn't really deserved all the guff he'd given her earlier. But still, he really did have some questions. "So… you just pumped me full of antivenom, huh?" he asked, as he sat up straight and looked around for his shirt. "Did I… fly here somehow? Am I going to get another ding for discipline reasons as soon as I get my suspension sorted out?"

Brooke threw him a look – not just a look, but definitely a look .

"You mean you don't remember?"

Rhys shook his head. "Nope. Nothing."

Brooke raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay," she said, after a pause which Rhys could, unfortunately, only describe as ‘pregnant'. "I guess I just assumed… but, well, it's none of my business. There's a clean shirt and pants for you hanging on the rack there – sorry about chucking the ones you were wearing in the bin, but I don't think you would have wanted them back, what with them being covered in blood and wyvern venom. As soon as you're done you can go, I guess."

Rhys nodded, feeling, if anything, even less enlightened than before.

After Brooke had left, closing the door behind her, he hopped out of bed and shed his hospital gown, pulling on the clean shirt and jeans Brooke had left for him. They always had a change of clothes here, at least, so he wouldn't have to somehow get home looking like… well, like he'd just been shot twice in an alleyway.

His phone and keys were sitting on the counter, and Rhys grabbed them before heading out. He felt a physical pang in his chest at the fact that his ID card wasn't there with them – usually they were the three things he always grabbed before heading out, and he always kept them together. The missing card was just another reminder of how precarious his future had become, and how much it seemed completely out of his hands.

Rhys felt as if a little of his sense of stability, his sense of self , had been taken from him, and he wasn't sure when – or if – he'd get it back. The realization that he couldn't even enter the building unless someone else decided to let him in hurt almost as much as the wyvern venom had.

The office was dark, but it was after hours, after all – through the long windows that ran along the far wall, Rhys could see the view of Sydney Harbour they overlooked, the city lights sparkling on the water, the opera house lit up from below, traffic streaming across the bridge.

You really wouldn't know it was half-destroyed by a water monster a couple of years ago, Rhys thought, as he looked at the Opera House. Well, he guessed only he and his teammates really knew about that. Everyone else thought it had just been a freak weather incident, and Rhys hoped the truth would never come out. And thanks to some passing helpful alicorns, it seemed it wouldn't.

Rhys frowned as he stared out at the gloomy evening. There were so many things about this whole situation that just weren't sitting right with him. But right now, with his head feeling like it was packed full of foam peanuts, he knew he couldn't do much about any of it – he had to get somewhere and think .

And he knew that he couldn't sit around here. Technically, he wasn't supposed to be here at all. Robb would probably appear at any moment, still aware of his presence with his all-seeing eye, and tell him to get the hell out.

Sighing, Rhys turned and went to the lifts. He supposed he could do worse than go home and get a good night's sleep and hope things seemed a little clearer in the morning.

The night air was fresh on his face when he emerged from the front entrance – but Rhys could also smell impending rain.

After about thirty seconds, the rain became a lot less impending and a lot more present, bucketing down from the sky with a suddenness that Rhys, after having lived in Sydney for several years now, really should have been used to and yet somehow wasn't.

Great, he thought as he ducked his head beneath the onslaught. The perfect end to a perfect day.

But then, he guessed, rain never hurt anyone – hell, maybe it'd help him clear his head.

From outside, the building that housed the Agency's offices looked deeply unimpressive, but that was by design, since it wasn't supposed to seem like anything out of the ordinary was going on inside – just a regular Sydney office building, maybe even a little run down. But that hid a world of secrets.

Secrets I won't get to be a part of anymore if this shit doesn't get sorted out, Rhys thought glumly as he started walking along the footpath.

His griffin was evidently still sulking for some reason, too – it hadn't appeared to voice its often-unwanted opinion for some time now. So Rhys supposed he had that to deal with now as well.

I guess I can't do anything about it, he thought. Maybe I'll go make that phone call to Evie after all—

"Hey! Hey! Hey you! "

It took Rhys a moment to realize the voice that suddenly broke out through the night was talking to him .

He swung around, squinting through the pouring rain. The last thing he needed right now was some rando trying to start a fight.

Or it's the last thing some rando needs, Rhys thought with a growl, although really he knew he couldn't actually take out his temper on randos, whether they accosted him or not.

But the person storming toward him now wasn't exactly what he'd been expecting – though, now that his head had cleared a little, he realized it had been a woman's voice he'd heard.

But the particular woman now marching across the footpath, not seeming to either notice or care how wet she was getting, was… well, she was a little short, for starters, but she didn't seem to notice that from the way she was barreling toward him. And she was wearing hospital scrubs. And she was cute – a few strands of her honey blonde hair had escaped the bun the rest of it was pulled back into, and she had freckles dotted across her nose, and big blue eyes that right now were blazing with a kind of fiery fury that took Rhys aback.

Had he… done something to offend her, he wondered – though honestly, he'd never seen her before in his life.

He didn't think?

A memory started jiggling away in the back of his mind.

A memory of pain, and falling, and then… warmth. A kind of soothing, healing warmth that had overtaken his whole body, pulling him back from the brink of some kind of cold, terrible darkness that had been trying to envelop him.

What the hell? Rhys thought, as the woman, puffing a little, stood before him, her cheeks flushed, her hair disheveled.

"You!" she said again, raising her finger to his face. "I want a word with you!"

Rhys stared at her, uncertain what to tell her – and at that moment, his griffin reared up within him, opening its beak in a mighty screech.

Mine! She is mine! Ours!

Rhys's mouth dropped open as once again the woman started speaking to him, but her words were completely drowned out by the realization that thundered through him.

Oh my God. She's my mate.