Too Late for My Shifters' Regret novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Hatchery

I went down to the gate in a borrowed coat with my braid still undone.

Jory stood with his hands behind his back.

The griffin girl stood beside him with her chin up.

"I'm not asking to come back," Jory said, before I could open my mouth. "Not on your wrist. Not ever. I want a job."

"Doing what?"

"Anything. I can lift things. I can stand at a gate and growl."

The steward, behind me, made a thoughtful noise.

"The gate's had nobody on it for five years," he said. "Look what came up the cliff path the last time."

I looked at Jory for a long moment.

He'd walked off the sand in the middle of a final.

"Gate guard," I said. "You eat in the kitchen with everyone else, and if you ever bring your brother here, you're done."

"He won't come," Jory said. "He's sweeping the arena for his supper."

The griffin girl held up her left wrist, where my thin gold ring still showed on her skin.

"I'm still yours," she said. "I don't want feeding like a pet. I want work too."

"Your wings aren't grown."

"They will be. I can see a boat twenty miles out from those cliffs. I'll watch the water."

Nobody was ever going to come up that cliff path again without her seeing them first.

"Done," I said.

The masons came the next week.

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