Chapter 567 Chapter 567
Blaise was happy to be doing something other than being stuck in a small space with Griffin. They had the generator set up in the storage area, a hole for the cables and now had them run halfway up the stairs. Outside was good, the cold air diluted the smell of Griffin. The least he could do was try to stink bad instead of smelling like something she needed to sniff him, and lick him and more—
She smacked the stapler on the step. “It’s jammed,” she looked up at him, “go grab me a screwdriver.”
He nodded and carefully set the two coils of cable on the step.
If he weren’t here, she would have had to run one at a time. Popping the cartridge out, she scowled at it. The temperatures were dropping and holding the metal stapler was freezing her hand. Snapping it back in, she aimed it away from her body and smiled when a staple flew out. “Perfect.”
Grabbing a clip from the box, she lined it up over the cable and secured it to the side of the step. Moving up one, she pulled a bit more of the black cable, it caught the roll of red and then proceeded to slide off the edge.
“Crap.” Leaning over, she pulled enough back up so she could get the clip over it and staple it in place. As she leaned down to pull some up, strong hands lifted her up under her arms.
Griffin set her back from the edge. “You take a dive off these and I’m on my own,” he tilted his head, “and I wouldn’t want you to damage your lovely face.”
The rant about how she didn’t need to be coddled and was perfectly capable of looking after herself died on her tongue. Lovely? He thought her face was lovely. In her entire life, no one had thought her face was anything other than something to avoid staring at. She didn’t know what to say.
“Give me a second, I’ll roll them back up.” He held out the screwdriver.
Taking it, she stood there watching him roll up the cables. Her phone buzzing in her back pocket almost made her drop the stapler. It was Kenzo. “Hey boss,” she hoped it was good news, like the kind that would have her taking Griffin somewhere else.
“Blaise. How are you doing? Any problems?”
She looked down at Griffin on one knee. Other than being here with him. “No. All quiet here.”
“Good. I need you to go to wherever you get good receptions, there’s a group call being set up in an hour.”
“Okay. The team?” It wasn’t uncommon for him to call the whole team at once.
“No. A much larger group, around twenty.”
She raised an eyebrow and glanced at Griffin. “Is it something my guest can hear because I don’t exactly have a room I can hide in?” She wasn’t going to sit in her bathroom for a group call.
“That’s fine. Part of it pertains to him, so Shepard says he can be included.”
The King was going to be on a call she was. “Okay. Anything I should know before it?”
Kenzo snorted, “yeah, good luck if you want to get a word in, most of them are team leaders.”
“Oh.” She looked at the distance to the top of the stairs, “I’ll finish up what I’m doing and get set up for the call.”
“Sounds good.”
She hung up and looked at the phone before putting it back in her pocket.
“Everything all right?” He stood up, once again holding the two rolls of cable.
“Yeah. There’s a big group call in about an hour.”
He looked up the stairs, “we’ll have it finished by then.”
Nodding, she went up a few steps and waited for him to unravel enough wiring.
“Is it a good call?”
She grabbed the box of clips and set them a few steps ahead of her before taking one out. “I’m not sure, but it must be important because the king is part of it.”
“Shepard Addison.”
She paused and looked at him.
He shrugged, “I listened in on a lot of conversations.”
She secured the clip to the cable and then stapled it. “Your—Aiden isn’t very intelligent. He completely underestimated you.”
“I’m a half-breed, the shifter DNA cancels out the other half according to him.”
She gave him a dumbfounded look, “I guess he’s going to find out the hard way how wrong he is.”
Griffin grinned, “I can only hope to be there when he does.”
Blaise smiled back and grabbed another clip.
Griffin cleared his throat, “did your boss happen to tell you of my fate?”
Moving up a few more steps, she waited for him to unroll the wire. “No, he said you can be part of it because some of it is about you.”
“Mmm, I wonder if that’s good for me or otherwise.”
Blaise shrugged, “I don’t know, but we need to get this done before the call.”
That spurred him into action again. She studied his face as he untangled a section of the wire so it would lay flat. His brows were drawn, and small creases surrounded his mouth. His expression was very grim. She wanted to reassure him that everything was going to work out, but none of that was in her control. Her current task was to keep him safe until she was told otherwise that’s what she was going to do. It had to be weighing on him though, where his life was headed.
All she knew for sure was that until Aiden Tomas was gone, Griffin would have to live under guard. Was his life better than it had been before? She wasn’t sure. She knew was she couldn’t have lived as he had. She needed her freedom. Keeping her head down, she stapled the next few clips. None of it compared to those that had been abducted thoughts. What they went through made her see red. Her cat stirred and then she noticed her vision was shifting back and forth between hers and her animal.
“Blaise,” Griffin put his hand on her shoulder. He’d sensed the conflict in her. She looked up at him and watched him pause to study her eyes. “I can finish this, why don’t you go for a run or whatever it is full shifters do when their animal is too close.”
She stood up slowly, watching the compassionate expression in his eyes. “Yeah,” she handed him the stapler. “I’ll go run the perimeter before the call.”
He nodded and offered her no further words.
Turning, she ran down the stairs.