Chapter 8

P erfect! Our mate thinks we're perfect!

Rhys barely managed to refrain from rolling his eyes. She said nothing of the sort.

The griffin huffed. She said we were nice.

He frowned. She said it was nice – it , not we – and that's not even close to perfect!

It matters not. You know what she meant.

The griffin went off to wherever the hell it went off to when it was feeling particularly smug and wanted to revel uninterrupted in its own sense of superiority, and Rhys suppressed a sigh.

Yes, it had been nice. Very nice. More to the point, it had been a massive frigging relief to get that particular secret off his chest. He'd never really understood it when people talked about literally feeling lighter once they'd rid themselves of their emotional baggage, but he thought he finally got it.

One secret down, about five hundred to go.

Maybe he might as well tell Maisie that they were mates while they were here. She'd taken everything remarkably well, all things considered – Our mate is resilient! he could almost hear his griffin squawk – and perhaps it would be best to just get it over and done with so that it wasn't hanging over their heads.

I mean, really, what's the perfect time to tell someone they're your mate? Should I spring it on her while she's watching TV? Get down on one knee at a restaurant? Schedule a Zoom meeting?

He almost wished that he'd paid more attention to when all his teammates had been talking about when they'd met their mates so that he could get some pointers for what to do now. Not that he wasn't happy for them – of course he was happy! – but they all tended to be so enthusiastic that he'd just kind of tuned it out after a while.

Now, he realized, maybe he should have listened a little when Hector had been telling the story of how he'd met Myrtle for what had to have been the seven hundredth time, or Callan had been waxing lyrical about Ella and how incredible she was, or when Euan – of all people – had been head over heels for Delilah, or Trent had been going on and on and on about Zina.

Well, Rhys thought, trying not to pull a sour face, I've made my bed, and now it's time to lie in it.

Best to do it now, while they were on a roll. It was just the kind of thing that he could imagine putting off and putting off, until it became a whole big thing , and that would just make things worse.

Rhys squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. "Maisie, I –"

"Ugh. Sorry." Maisie sat down suddenly on the sofa, raising a hand to her head, and Rhys felt a sudden surge of protectiveness sweep over him as he realized that her hand was shaking slightly. "Hang on a sec."

"Are you okay?" he asked, alarm rippling through him. Was something wrong with Maisie?! Was all of this just a bit too much for her after all?

Hold her! his griffin screeched. Comfort her! Put your arms around your mate and tell her nothing will ever happen to her, so long as we are by her side!

He wanted to, he really did – and in fact his arms had jerked up from his sides before he could stop them – but considering he hadn't had the chance to explain a thing yet, he just wasn't sure how Maisie would take it.

Not that this seemed to mean much to his griffin, which was still raging and snorting, insisting that he sweep Maisie up in his arms and take her somewhere safe right this instant.

She's human, Rhys tried desperately to explain to it. She won't understand! And anyway, we don't even know what's wrong!

Irrelevant! his griffin screeched. Throw her over your shoulder and assure her nothing will harm her ever again! She will be reassured! She will know we will protect her forever!

Rhys was pretty sure throwing Maisie over his shoulder would have pretty much the exact opposite effect, but it still took all his effort to regain control of his own body as the griffin rampaged through him.

"Ugh," Maisie said again, still looking down at the floor through her fingers. "I think everything's just hitting me all at once, now that we're safe – or, at least, I hope we're safe." She peered up at him and gave a little nervous laugh. "And I just realized that I haven't had anything to eat or drink since… well, since breakfast. Maybe I need a little something in my stomach. It's been kind of a… well, a day."

As if on cue, her stomach gurgled… and Rhys realized that he was starving as well.

His griffin reared up. Who cares how you feel? Feed your mate! How could you have neglected her in this way?

The griffin provided him with a handy mental image of a bird feeding worms to its young, and Rhys wished that he could reach inside his head and slap it.

It had a point, though. Not about the worms, but about food in general.

He glanced around the disaster of a room, at the sea of half-finished meals and open snack packets, and winced.

Water, water, everywhere…

"You wait right here," he said. "I'll go get the others and see if there's something edible in the house. If not, I'll head out and get you something."

Yes! his griffin cried, agreeing with him for once. Provide for your mate!

Again, it provided him with a useful mental image of soaring over some random forest, picking up an entire feral hog in its talons, and then flying back and depositing it in front of Maisie, before preening in a ridiculously self-aggrandizing way.

Maisie nodded. "Yeah. That'd be good." She glanced around. "If it could be something that hasn't touched even one single surface in this house, that would be even better."

Rhys hurried through the remains of the door in search of Michael and Shaz. Part of him was disappointed about not being able to tell Maisie that she was his mate, but that could wait. This was much more important.

He wended his careful way through the towers of junk, sticking his head into the first room he came across. The theme of the clutter here seemed to be ‘clothes', its multicolored layers dating back to at least the cretaceous period. There was also a vague lump under all of it that Rhys knew from past experience was a bed, though he wasn't sure how any newcomer would be able to discern it.

In any case, the room contained neither quokka nor cassowary, and so he followed his nose – and the sounds of quiet bickering – to the kitchen.

Walking into the kitchen was like walking into a magazine spread. A nice magazine, not Disgusting Bachelors Monthly . It was the one room of the apartment that was Shaz's domain, and it showed. Rhys knew that Michael was allowed in here only under the condition that he didn't touch any of Shaz's stuff, and that if he dropped so much as a crumb on the floor, he'd have a pissed-off cassowary to answer to.

And it smelt fantastic, as well. There was something in the oven that was making his mouth water.

The two of them looked up from their animated conversation as Rhys entered the room.

"Back so soon, love?" Shaz asked, tilting her head in a disturbingly bird-like fashion. "I thought for sure that you two lovebirds would be out there for a while."

Rhys chose to ignore that, for his own sanity. Plus, he was on an urgent mission. "Maisie needs something to eat. Do you have anything here that's actually edible?"

"Typical," Michael sniffed. "You invite yourself over, get the door kicked in, insult my food, and then demand a meal. That is so you."

"How the hell is that door my fault?!" Rhys demanded. "This kind of crap is why I don't come visit more often."

"Thank God," Michael muttered.

"Boys, boys," Shaz broke in. "If Rhys's girl needs a feed, then we'll give her one. Actual food, not that crap you shovel into your mouth." She cut off Michael's protests with a wave of her hand. "I actually have some barra in the oven right now. This one here won't appreciate it, but I'll share it with you and your girl out of the goodness of my heart."

Rhys nodded gratefully. "Thanks, Shaz. I always knew there was a reason why I liked you best."

"Several, I'd hope," she agreed, ignoring Michael's bitching with an ease that was obviously born of long practice. "It's only got about five minutes to go – if you head back out to the study, I'll bring it out to you."

"Thanks," Rhys said. "I mean it."

And yet, he hesitated. He knew that he should go back to Maisie, but curiosity was humming at the back of his brain like a particularly persistent mosquito.

"Uh," he began, fully aware that the other two were watching him with great interest. "What makes you think that Maisie's, uh…" He grimaced. "… My girl?"

"What, you mean other than the way you stare at her?" Michael smirked.

"Yeah, it's pretty obvious that you've got the hots for her," Shaz added. "Like, you've got it bad ."

Rhys tried not to wince. Am I really that obvious?

… Nah, can't be. They're just having me on.

So why did he feel like he'd just been caught with his hand in the biscuit barrel?

Michael simpered. "Oh, Maisie! Let me show you my big, bad shifter form! Don't be scared, Maisie! I'll protect you! Let me rest my hand on your thigh for an inappropriately long amount of time!" He screwed his face up and made kissy noises, and Rhys was sorely tempted to deck him.

"Okay, okay. Let the poor man have his dignity," Shaz said soothingly.

Bit late for that, Rhys didn't retort, though it was a close thing.

Shaz went on, "But seriously, it's as obvious as the nose on your handsome face. You've got it bad for her. And who could blame you? She's gorgeous, and she has a good head on her shoulders."

Well, Shaz was right about that, at least. But, still.

"We only just met today!" he protested. "And I was unconscious for half of it. We barely know each other."

"That's even worse," Michael said. "Just met her, and already you're falling all over yourself for her? Get some self-respect."

"Now, now," said Shaz. "It's not like it's all one-way traffic. She's obviously just as gaga for him as he is for her."

Rhys's griffin perked up at that, as did Rhys himself.

Our mate is ‘gaga' for us! And we are ‘gaga' for her! I am not entirely certain what that means, but I am certain that it must be positive. Truly, today is a day to be recorded in the annals of history.

"Really?" he asked, before he caught himself.

"Oh, yeah," Michael laughed, and Shaz nodded.

"Definitely," Shaz confirmed. "Couldn't take her eyes off you. She was almost as bad as you were."

A warm feeling spread throughout Rhys's body, even as he schooled his face into his best attempt at indifference.

"Am I really that obvious?" he muttered. "So much for being a secret agent."

Shaz laughed. "Don't worry, it happens to the best of us. I mean, I shacked up with this idiot here, so who am I to judge? You have better taste than I do."

Michael started to yell something that was probably pretty rude, though it didn't really matter – Shaz was so much more physically imposing than him that anything he could threaten her with was basically water off a cassowary's back.

The oven timer went off at that moment, saving Rhys from the indignity of trying to find a way to extricate himself from this conversation.

"Well, I'll just go and head back out there," he said, jerking his thumb in the general direction of the rubbish tip that was the rest of the apartment.

"Yes, you hurry on back to Maisie ," Michael said with an innocent smile, and, exiting the room, Rhys wondered why he was even friends with him.

Well, he is a really good hacker. And he's pulled your arse out of the fire more times than you can count. And he basically has a not-technically-quite-legal copy of every computer game that ever existed.

He made his way back, picking his careful way around the piles of junk. Maisie was still sitting on the couch, leaning back with her eyes closed. Now that things had calmed down, Rhys could see just how exhausted she looked.

Go to her, his griffin urged. Demonstrate your undying devotion.

Rhys didn't know about that , but he did ease himself down gently next to her. She didn't even stir.

He looked at her, finally having a moment to really see her. To take in her beautiful face, the slight frown line between her eyebrows finally smoothed out in sleep. Her golden hair, tumbling down from its bun. Her freckles, which, he had to admit, were pretty damn cute. Her long lashes, twitching slightly as she slept. Her perfect mouth, hanging open and emitting a light snore.

His griffin nodded approvingly. Even her snores are enchanting! Truly we have been graced with the finest of all mates.

Rhys found that he couldn't disagree, even if his griffin was being ridiculous about it.

He watched her for a few more long moments, letting all the other events of the day drift from his mind as he just let himself look at her and be in her presence.

My mate.

… Shit, I'll probably have to tell Hec about this at some point. Though I might wait until she actually knows we're mates and has said whether she thinks that's a good thing. Bastard would never let me live it down if he knew I'd met my mate and then stuffed it up.

Not that he thought that would happen, but hard-won experience had taught him to keep his cards close to his chest at times. He knew, in his more self-aware moments, that he could be a bit defensive… but then again, that came at least partially from having two older siblings who were both griffin shifters.

There had been a point in his life where they had both been able to shift, and he hadn't, and the two of them had thought it would be hilarious to do things like stand outside the toilet in griffin form so they could scare the shit out of him when he opened the door, or pick him up in their talons and fly him around while he yelled at them. Typical older sibling behavior really took on a whole new level of obnoxiousness when the older siblings could turn into giant beasts.

In any case, he knew he would talk to Hector about it at some point. And he knew that Hector would be sympathetic if things didn't work out. But for now, he wanted this to just be for him.

He shifted a little, the movement causing him to sink down further into the decrepit old couch… and causing the couch cushion beneath Maisie to dip, sending her tumbling right into his chest.

"Whuh – huh?"

Rhys froze as Maisie sleepily groped at his chest for a moment, before opening her big blue eyes and staring up at him in confusion, hand still plastered to his chest.

Rhys stared back. He was aware that his mouth was hanging open, but he wasn't sure if he could've closed it if his life had depended on it.

"Uh…"

Eloquent as always, his griffin sneered. No wonder you are always being pursued so relentlessly by human women. And sometimes men.

Shut up! Rhys told it, as he stared into Maisie's wide, crystal-blue eyes.

The moment seemed to stretch out forever, and he was intensely aware of the heat of her body against his, as well as the pulsating, electrical buzz of the mate bond. He wondered dazedly if she could feel it too, not being a shifter.

He also wondered, suddenly, what had happened earlier today when they'd met. Things had moved so quickly that he'd almost forgotten that a big chunk of his memory from today was missing. Apparently he'd sucked on her finger, which –

"Are we interrupting something?"

Rhys jerked to attention at the voice, though he knew without looking who it was. There was only one person who could sound that fucking annoying.

Michael .

He looked up, to see Michael bearing both an enormous smirk and two plates piled high with steaming-hot fish and vegetables. Rhys directed a frustrated glare in his direction, but the smirk just got even larger.

Maisie scrambled to untangle herself and sit up straight, clutching at way more of Rhys's body than was probably strictly necessary, and frantically tried to smooth out her hair.

"Grub's up," said Shaz breezily, sweeping a pile of crap off the table in the corner that Rhys hadn't even noticed. Despite her earlier threats, she had brought in enough food for Michael as well… which was probably more than he deserved, but Rhys wasn't about to complain when he was getting free food into the bargain.

And, he had to admit, it smelt amazing .

The two of them hurried over to the table, studiously not looking at each other, but not meeting Michael or Shaz's eyes, either. Better to just pretend none of that ever happened.

"Oh my God," said Maisie fervently, as she slid into one of the seats. "You have no idea how much I want to cram all of this into my face." She blinked, her cheeks turning pink. "I mean, this looks delicious. Thank you."

"Yeah, same," Rhys said, cutting off a piece of barramundi and shoving it into his mouth. He'd never been the kind of person to wait for other people to start eating out of some misguided sense of politeness – if there was food there to be eaten, he was bloody well going to eat it, rather than wait for everyone else to dance around the issue. Especially when he was this damn hungry.

Maisie smiled at him gratefully and followed his cue, and for the next minute or so the two of them just concentrated on getting enough food into them to avoid passing out from hunger.

After a minute, Rhys was able to slow down enough to actually enjoy the food. And it was good – the barramundi was cooked to perfection, flaking apart as his fork touched it, and the lemon butter sauce was rich and perfect.

Probably going to clog my arteries something shocking, but I don't even care.

Even the veggies were good, and Rhys didn't say that kind of thing lightly, being more of a carnivorous kind of guy. Perfectly roasted potatoes, crispy on the outside and fluffy in the middle, plus roast carrot and garlic, and steamed asparagus – yeah, he could happily eat more of this.

How the hell a loser like Michael had ever gotten a great woman like Shaz, Rhys could not begin to imagine.

She's a great cook, and she turns into a fearsome cassowary. Michael is useless, unless your life depends on distracting a tourist with a cute marsupial. And he's not even that cute of a quokka.

"Mmph," Maisie said, wiping her mouth, and Rhys noticed with some surprise that she'd already cleaned her plate, wiping up the remains of the lemon butter sauce with her last piece of potato. "That was absolutely amazing. Thank you so much."

"No wukkas, love," Shaz said with a grin. "I love to see people enjoying my food, especially since this one barely eats anything other than instant noodles and sugar."

"I'm just dedicated to my work," Michael sniffed, as he picked at his fish. "I don't have time to cook. Or eat anything that doesn't come out of a packet. It's economical. "

"You're dedicated to playing Call of Duty until five a.m. and nothing else," Shaz growled.

Rhys could see this was going downhill fast – and being in the middle of a marital brawl was something he really wasn't too interested in right now. He had to remember that he'd actually come here for a reason.

"Well, Call of Duty or not," Rhys said, putting his plate aside despite the strong temptation he was currently experiencing to lick the lemon butter sauce off it, "I did actually come here to ask you a favor."

Michael looked up, an expression of obvious curiosity on his face. "Your favors are usually pretty interesting work," he said. "So go on. Hit me."

Rhys glanced across at Maisie. As yet, she still didn't know a thing about him or his job – this really wasn't the way he'd wanted her to find out, and yet, how else was he supposed to break it to her?

"I need you to hack into the Agency's records and find out about an incident that took place today," he said.

Michael sat back, whistling through his teeth. "That's a pretty tough job."

"But can you do it?" Rhys asked, tense. There'd never been a job Michael hadn't been able to manage yet, but he realized he was asking for something pretty big.

Not to mention, I'm technically spying on my own place of employment…

"Wait," Maisie broke in, looking confused. "The Agency? What is that, exactly? It sounds like something out of a corny spy movie."

Rhys pulled in a breath. "Well, I guess it would be, if we were in a spy movie," he said, wondering how he could explain this. "It's… it's where I work. And it is a spy agency, I guess you could say. But we don't look into human crimes – we're strictly shifters only."

"You mean… shifter crimes? You investigate crimes committed by people… people like you." Maisie glanced around the table, clearly including Shaz and Michael in what she meant by people . "People who can… turn into other things."

Rhys nodded. "That's right. Shifters are pretty slippery when it comes to the law – after all, the human cops can't exactly chase down a kangaroo for questioning, or go after a goanna that's been smuggling drugs. Or a dragon that's been getting into human trafficking – or shifter trafficking. Those kinds of crimes are where we come in."

Rhys gave Maisie a moment to absorb that, watching her mouth dragon to herself once or twice before she shook her head.

"And… so you're telling me you're like, some kind of James Bond, if James Bond could turn into a griffin," she said after a moment. "Is that actually what you're saying?"

Rhys chose to ignore the rather rude way Michael snorted in derision, as if he'd just heard something completely outlandish.

Hey, I'm closer to being James Bond than you ever will be, he thought sourly. But what he said out loud was, "Not exactly, but I do do a lot of… well, I arrest shifter criminals. That's pretty much the gist of it. How I do that can get pretty interesting at times."

"So… is that why you were shot today?" Maisie asked slowly, looking him in the eye. "It must have been something to do with your job, right? And that stuff – the wyvern venom –"

"You got shot with wyvern venom? " Shaz interrupted, looking plainly shocked. "And you're still walking around?"

Rhys grimaced. He'd been hoping to avoid this. He was fine now – he didn't need people causing a fuss about it.

"I'm right as now," he said, hoping they'd drop it. "I was lucky enough that Maisie found me before I got too bad, and she took me to the Agency. They knew what to do, and they got me patched up."

"Still, that's pretty serious," Michael said. "Does this have something to do with what you want me to look up? Can't you just do that yourself? If you were involved, then you must have access to those files."

Rhys grimaced again. Here we go.

"Ordinarily, yeah, I would," he said. "But right now… look, it's complicated. But I've been suspended. So I don't have access to anything right now, not even the building."

"Suspended? You?" Michael looked him in the eye, presumably for any sign that Rhys was joking, but obviously he realized that he was being completely serious. "What for? You finally lose your temper with the wrong guy?"

Rhys grimaced. "No. It's… a long story. If you want to know, hack into my personnel file and find out."

"Cheers, I might just," Michael said. "But yeah, I get why you need me."

"I could ask Callan or Euan or Trent to look into it, or ask Trent to ask Zina to hack in for me. But it'd be putting them in kind of a tough position, and I'd rather not do that," Rhys said.

"Well yeah, I can see that." Michael let out a small, snorting laugh. "You don't want to ask them to spy on their own workplace for you. No matter what, that's an ethical dilemma they don't need."

"Exactly." Rhys nodded. "So that's why I've come to you."

"That, and because I'm the best in the business and you know it," Michael said, standing and going over to his computer. "So what am I looking for?"

Rhys stood, leaning over Michael's desk as he typed – though he didn't really know why he bothered, since the computer screen was just covered in a bunch of cascading windows that opened and closed as Michael typed more rapidly than anyone should really be capable of.

"I want to find out what really happened today," Rhys said. "Like I said, I got accosted and shot full of wyvern venom. The guys who did it told me they were recruiting double agents for Hargreaves."

Michael whistled through his teeth again. "Nasty customers."

"You can say that again." Rhys could feel anger swelling inside him at the thought of it. "But according to Robb, every single one of them died before the Agency could arrest them for questioning."

Michael raised his eyebrows without slowing his typing even for a moment. "That's kind of sus."

"Tell me about it." Rhys frowned. "It's not that I want to think something funny's going on. But there's just been a bunch of things happening that make no sense at all at the moment, and it's giving me a bad feeling in my gut."

"Always trust your gut," Michael said, still typing. Then, he abruptly stopped. "Huh."

"What is it?" Rhys asked, not able to figure out anything from looking at the impenetrable lines of code swirling around on the computer screen.

"Well, usually hacking into government servers is a piece of piss," Michael said, sitting back in his expansive computer chair. "CIA, ASIO, MI6, the tax office – it's not that hard. But I've hit a wall when I try to get into this particular batch of files you want."

Rhys leaned forward. "Can you get around it?"

"Hmmm." Michael tapped his fingers on his keyboard. "Yeah, I reckon. But it'll take me some time. Can't say how much."

"A day? More than a day?" Rhys prompted him, impatience roiling through him.

"Like I said, I can't say," Michael told him, and Rhys could hear the frustration in his voice – he probably didn't often find something he had to think about how to hack. But then, a smile quirked over his mouth. "Great – a challenge. Finally."

He looked positively demonic in the light of the computer screen as he leaned forward again, and started typing manically.

"So… you can do it, then," Rhys asked, glancing at him.

"Yeah, I can." Michael nodded. "Give me a bit. I'll let you know as soon as I'm done. But like I said – time."

"Um, if you're having so much trouble accessing those files, doesn't that mean someone is definitely trying to hide something?"

Rhys's head jerked up. He hadn't even noticed Maisie coming to stand on the other side of Michael's computer chair.

He hadn't thought of that yet. But Maisie definitely had a point.

"Maybe," Michael said. "Or it might just be that there's extra layers of security because the Agency knows whoever sent people after you has pretty good hackers, and they don't want them finding out what's happened to their guys."

Maisie glanced at him. "Really? Are they dangerous?"

"Nasty fuckers," Michael muttered as he typed. "Mercenaries – but shifter mercenaries. And they have pretty deep pockets. You're lucky I have things like morals and ethics – you should have seen the amount of money they offered me to join their cyber espionage team. I could have been living in luxury by now, lounging around by my own private pool, getting brought champagne by beautiful women –"

"Hey," Shaz interjected. " What beautiful women would these be, exactly?"

"Beautiful woman ," Michael quickly amended. "The only beautiful woman in the world, as far as I'm concerned."

"Nice save," Rhys muttered, even though it absolutely wasn't. "But like you need any money. You've been making a pretty good living for yourself since the Agency training academy kicked you out."

"Oh… you used to work for this… this Agency too?" Maisie asked, blinking. "What went wrong?"

"He didn't – he only went to the academy," Rhys said. "And he got expelled after six months for hacking into the vending machines and stealing Cheezels."

"That seems pretty harsh for Cheezels," Maisie said.

"Forty-eight thousand dollars' worth of Cheezels," Rhys told her. "And then he tried to say he didn't, with a stack of Cheezels boxes as high as the ceiling in his dorm room."

"Water under the bridge," Michael said hastily. "Anyway, do you want me to look into this thing for you or not?"

"You'd do it anyway, just for the challenge," Rhys snorted.

"Well, you do have me there," Michael said. "But I'll tell you now, this isn't going to happen tonight. This is whack. I've never seen anything like this before."

Rhys didn't like the sound of that at all. He hadn't wanted to believe it, but the more he found out, the more suspicious he became.

"I got told to take some leave and get out of town for a bit," he said. "But now I'm thinking I should hang around here."

"Who told you to go out of town?" Shaz asked, from where she was still sitting on the couch.

"Robb, my boss," Rhys told her. "Especially after the close call this afternoon. He said I needed rest, even though I don't ."

Though it's not like I have anything better to do, Rhys thought gloomily. Except sit here and watch Michael type.

"If someone at the Agency told you to go, and you said you would, I'd suggest you go," Shaz said. "If something weird really is going on here, then you don't want to do anything that might seem like you're onto it."

She had a point, Rhys had to admit. If he hung around now, it might seem a bit suspicious, if there really was something weird going on, and someone really did have their eye on him. He felt a chill slither down his spine.

"You got somewhere to go, love?" Shaz asked him, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I was only thinking of going up to Evie's, and seeing if there was any way I could make myself useful on the station," Rhys said. He looked over the top of Michael's head at Maisie. "Evie's my sister. She has a cattle station a bit north of here. You'll get to meet her –"

He abruptly cut himself off.

I can't exactly say that! he reminded himself. Of course he hoped Maisie would meet Evie and her wife, Penny, at some point, as well as Hector and all his other teammates. But right now, Maisie still didn't know they were mates. He couldn't exactly just tell her he had plans to start introducing her around his family.

"Oh, my family are out in the sticks as well," Maisie said. "But I left when I went to Sydney to study nursing, and I guess I just stayed in the city. I do miss it sometimes."

Ask her to come with you to the cattle station, his griffin screeched loudly enough that Rhys almost winced. Invite her to your family's domain! Make her part of our clan!

I will, I will, Rhys told it, but before he could open his mouth, he noticed Maisie looking at him out of the corner of her eye, as if she was trying to work up the will to say something.

"Um," she said a moment later. "I know it seems like… you already have plans and everything. But, uh, well, it's just that… I have a holiday booked. To Burr Island. And I have two plane tickets booked, even though I only need one of them now since… well, I have two tickets, and I only need one for me. So the other one is free. For… someone else." She swallowed. "Which could be you, if you wanted it."

Rhys blinked.

Did I hear that right?

Had Maisie just… invited him to come on holidays with her?

"Burr Island, niiiiice," Michael said. "Tropical. Sun, sand, surf. All you need."

"Well. I'm staying in the cheapest accommodation I could find," Maisie said, making a face. "But it is only a… well, a fifteen-minute walk from the beach. But I heard the minigolf course is pretty good."

"All the way to Burr Island and it's fifteen mins to the beach? Lame," Michael said. "Let me fix that up for you."

Rhys managed to wander out of his euphoric daze at the idea that his mate had, unprompted, just invited him to come on a holiday with her for long enough to get suspicious. "What do you mean, fix that up? "

"Relax, relax," Michael said, typing. "I'm just getting you a little upgrade. And I'll change your plane seats to first class while I'm there. We all need a little luxury in our lives."

"Michael –" Rhys started, alarm coursing through him. Wasn't he in enough trouble without getting busted with illegal hotel upgrades and first-class flights?!

"Too late, it's done," Michael said, as he smacked the Return key and turned to Rhys with a smug look. "No point in getting upset now."

Rhys was tempted to tell Michael to go back into the hotel and airline servers and put everything back how he found it – at least until his griffin crashed into his consciousness once more.

You will do no such thing! You will allow our mate to live in the lap of luxury! You will pamper her! You will give her the finer things in life! You will –

All right, all right, I get it! Rhys tried to stuff the griffin back into the corner of his mind it sometimes went to when it wanted to sulk, but his acquiescence seemed to have pacified it anyway, and it left him in peace without so much as an outraged squawk.

He swallowed heavily, glancing across at Maisie. It was entirely possible, he supposed, that she'd made the offer impulsively, and now that it was out there she was getting cold feet.

And… he had to admit, she did look a little green around the gills.

"First class?!" she blurted out after a moment. "And what hotel did you change our booking to? I don't have clothes even remotely fancy enough to pass as someone who belongs in a five-star hotel! I'm wearing scrubs , for crying out loud! Scrubs with little kangaroos all over them!"

"Oh relax, love," Shaz said. "We go off to the fancy-arse places all the time, and do you think I can ever get Michael wearing anything other than trackies and a flanno? If you're there, they assume you belong there."

Maisie did not look especially assured by this, not even when Michael said a moment later, "Look, if you're worried about it, take one of my credit cards – uh, one of the legal ones, not that you heard that, Rhys, and anyway, I'm not ripping anyone off but the bank, and it's not the credit card itself that's the issue, I just go in and fiddle with the credit limit every now and then so don't blow your stack – and get yourself something nice while you're up there, okay?"

Michael shoved a few – empty, hopefully – McCain's pizza boxes aside to reveal several shiny, new-looking credit cards. He flicked through them until he found the one he was apparently looking for, and then handed it to Maisie. "Go nuts," he said. "I'll just go in and clear the debt later." He glanced up at Rhys. "You're still not listening, right?"

Rhys very much was listening, and he did not approve, but the moment he tried to open his mouth to object his griffin came rampaging back into his consciousness.

You will not impede our mate in this! Or do you not believe she is deserving of every material object we can bestow upon her?! You are unworthy to call yourself a griffin!

Rhys knew it was pointless to tell it that he wasn't bestowing anything at all, and any bestowing that was going on was entirely down to Michael and his ill-gotten credit limits.

He sighed. "No, I'm not listening."

"Great!" Michael said. "Now, let me get down to business."

Michael hunched back over his keyboard, goblin-like, and started tapping furiously at the keys. Rhys knew that when he was like this, nothing would get his attention except the promise of material goods, or something that could be exchanged for material goods. Which was fine, because Rhys had about hit his limit for today as far as Michael was concerned.

As far as Maisie was concerned, however…

He lifted his gaze up above Michael's head, and found Maisie staring back at him, beautiful, wide-eyed, and apparently very flustered. Rhys was unable to look away, entranced by the nervous way she licked her lips.

"Uh…" she began.

Tell her she's your mate! bellowed the griffin. Do it now, imbecile!

Rhys thought that maybe it was right. Not that this was exactly the ideal location for it, but maybe the kitchen wouldn't be a completely disgusting place to let her know that the cosmos had decided they were fated to be together?

He opened his mouth, but so did Maisie – to emit an incredibly long, loud yawn.

"Oh my God," she said, her eyelids drooping. "I am so tired. Oh, God."

"Sounds like you could do with a bit of shut-eye," Shaz said, raising an eyebrow. "I have a feeling this has been a long day for both of you."

"Oh, no, I'm – I'm fi—" Maisie started to say, before she was cut off by her mouth opening again for another huge yawn.

"C'mon, I'll show you to the spare room – the clean spare room," Shaz said. She glanced at Rhys, her eyes piercing. "You'll be right on the couch, yeah?"

No! No we will not! Tell her we shall not be parted from our mate! his griffin immediately bellowed.

That's not going to happen, Rhys told it firmly – however much he personally also was having trouble resisting the idea of being in a bed next to Maisie, he thought Maisie herself might take a different view of the subject. Even if she had just agreed to go on an impromptu luxury holiday with him.

"Yeah," he finally managed to get out, even as his griffin screeched and cavorted and told him he was a foul, disgusting coward, a disgrace to griffins everywhere.

He directed a longing gaze at Maisie's back as Shaz shepherded her out the door – and he couldn't help but notice the way she glanced back over her shoulder at him before she disappeared behind Shaz's broad shoulders.

He swallowed. Shaz had said Maisie was clearly gaga for him, or whatever word she'd used, but right now, she pretty much just looked exhausted.

I'll tell her tomorrow, he promised both himself and his griffin. She just found out shifters even exist in the first place, and she's dead on her feet right now. No need to hit her with anything else.

You make excuses for your obvious cowardice however you want, his griffin sniffed.

Rhys glanced at Michael, who was obviously off in his own little hacker world, lines of code streaming across the screen in time with his machine-gun-fast typing. It reminded him of when he'd seen Trent's mate Zina at work – he supposed all computer nerds were kind of the same in the end, though Trent would probably smack him one for comparing his mate to Michael, who didn't look like he'd seen natural light in about three years.

With a sigh, he started clearing junk off the couch, just in time for Shaz to arrive back in the room.

"Don't let that one go, eh?" Shaz said with a smile. It was even a friendly smile, mostly. It felt more like she was warning him than teasing him, and he wasn't sure which was least annoying.

Rhys felt his face twisting into a grimace. "I have no idea what you mean."

"Sure you don't," Shaz said, tapping her nose knowingly.

Rhys huffed and lay down on the sofa, not even bothering to take his shoes off. Knowing this place, a horde of cockroaches would probably make their nest in them overnight.

I'll just have a quick doze for a few minutes.

He had a vague thought about how he should've checked what time their flight was leaving, and then he thought about nothing at all.