* * *
Zach blinked. Being dead was brighter than he’d thought it would be.
There was a weight on his chest. The form was so close to his face that it took a moment for him to focus.
Blue eyes in a gray, furry face.
Buffy sat on his chest. She blinked.
Zach groaned and covered his face with one hand. What heaven included Cara’s damned Familiar? But when he peered through his fingers, the cat was still there.
She meowed at him.
Birds. He heard birds. And the wind soughing through leaves. He was lying on the ground in a bed of moss. He couldn’t see the sky because there was something between him and it. Something huge.
Rich topaz eyes blinked at him. Feathers rustled as they bristled erect around a vicious, hooked beak.
Zach panicked. Buffy sprang free as he scrambled backward on his hands and heels.
His back hit something hard—a tree trunk. The branches swayed above him. A few leaves drifted down.
The creature filled the tiny clearing he’d lain in. She—somehow, he knew it was a she—tilted her head to regard him. Although the beak was pure predator, the eyes were not. They contained a gentle wisdom that slowed his racing heart.
Her forelimbs ended in toes with great, hooked talons. The feathers around her head yielded to soft fur on her forequarters and altered again to iridescent scales on her hindquarters and tail. And over her back—enormous wings, the colors of the feathers dancing as the breeze moved the dappled sunlight.
He’d read the books. She was a bloodyGryphon. Only she wasn’t supposed to bereal. And if she was, where the hell was he?
His head ached, but it was more an irritant than an aggravation. He searched his memories. Laura. Her face and body writhing. The chaos in her mind, dragging him under. His gut twisted. And then Jessie, as a beast. She’d made a damned gorgeous Were.
But other than Buffy’s mild curiosity, he couldn’t feel anyone. Not even when he mentally stretched, seeking. It was like he was in a bubble ofcalm.
It felt like Cara.
The woman herself appeared from the dense bushes, slightly out of breath, like she’d been running. She skidded to a stop, her frown smoothing with—what? Relief?
“I see you’ve met Aphostra,” she said.
Zach looked from her to the Gryphon. The creature snorted at him.
“Uh. Yeah,” he offered intelligently.
“She’s a healer,” Cara explained, setting a sack down on the moss and kneeling beside him. “Much more powerful than me.”
Zach blinked at her, struggling to get his thoughts in order. Buffy came and sat on his other side. His hand unconsciously sank into her soft fur.
It calmed him. “Where am I?”
“You’re home,” she said.
Zach glanced past the mythical beast in the clearing. He was surrounded by rampant plant growth. It appeared familiar—
“This looks like your garden.”
“Yes. I have created a lodestone in your forest,” she explained. “Started it a year ago, but I’ve been working on it ever since I’ve been here. And I had to add a gate, for Aphostra to come.” She smiled. “People tend to notice a forty-foot airborne Gryphon.”
Zach stared at her. “I’m sure all that would be helpful information if I had any idea what you were talking about. Gate, okay. On my land, confusing. And what is a lodestone?”
“The lodestone is an accumulation of energy. I call Cryptids to it, and they pour energy into it too. It creates a zone of power.”
