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*After toying with new titles, I ultimately decided to stick with this one. It has an ominous touch to it and hints at something more than a perfect relationship between the main characters, in a perfect world. *

So, what's Gryphon's Bane about? Well, to start with, it's the promised novella that arrived later than intended. I know, I know, I didn't keep my promise, but this first chapter had some quirks I didn't like. Because of that, I had to scrap and rewrite about 2.000 words before I was pleased with the characters' personalities, their relationship, and the world building. There isn't too much of that because the story's just getting started, so please bear with me and wait for the upcoming installments to clear up any questions you may have.

Stalling aside, delve in *and show your appreciation by treating the kitty with the following: *

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***

The door to the barn was stuck again.

Sarenadd tried a tug, then a fierce pull. It only creaked, its hinges rattling.

Sarenadd caught the rusty handle with his other hand and pulled so hard he stumbled when the damn thing finally budged. Lythra's thin squawk burst from the barn's dark depths. If she rose to greet him, Sarenadd couldn't see. Swirling ribbons of dust swept past him, rushing out into the stale air of late afternoon.

He took several steps inside the musty bowels of the barn; eyes squinted against the gloom, a hand over his nose to muffle the faint reek of pig droppings wafting from the side pens. Sarenadd had cleaned them. Even buried them under piles of surplus hay. Yet they still reeked, and a glimpse of the rusted iron fences never failed to remind Sarenadd where he lived. Not in a gryphon's roost, like an ordinary man, but inside a pig's shithole.

"Found nothing," he croaked when the thick silence weighed too heavily upon his ears. "Went to Uppertown, tried the Market by the River, crossed half the city, descended through the slums and climbed all the way up to the Onyx Keep. Nothing."

He kicked more hay onto the pens to cover their shameful existence.

"There's always something, Sary," Lythra cooed. "You just have to wait until tomorrow to find it."

"If there is something, why don't I find it?" He kicked more hay when the previous strands slid to the floor, then another kick, and another. No matter what he did, the crooked iron stood more bare than ever. He had to crouch, grab an armful of hay, and neatly blanket the pig's pen. "What makes tomorrow better than today? I'll still be me."

He paused to do the same with the other four pens, then dusted off his roughspun leather tunic and leggings. "It's me they don't want, Lyth, no matter when I come. Morrow, high noon, low noon, makes no difference."

"Go after they eat. Humans are even less hospitable than gryphons on a growling stomach."

"As if that matters," he whispered to himself, then said out loud, "I'll try, blasted damnation--but that doesn't mean we'll have a patron. Trying is not succeeding."

"Neither can you succeed without trying," Lythra pointed out. "Cold slithers along the floor. Let's rest for now and let tomorrow decide what it brings."

Rest. He needed no rest.

Sarenadd ran a hand through his short cropped hair and squinted in the direction of his gryphon's partner. His scalp itched something fierce from the dirt mixed with hair grease, and stung even more from his repeated scratching. Sarenadd's fingers curled with the urge to dig into the skin and tear away the discomfort, yet he stopped when his eyes began adjusting to the gloom.

In the darkness stood Lythra, curled into a ball, nestled between two piles of hay. Dapples of shifting light filtered through the cracks in the roof, making her grey plumes gleam slightly.

"Tomorrow, yes. But what until then, eh?" His knees shivered from his prolonged walk, his stomach growled from the lack of food. Yet, something stirred within him at the sight of her pads. Pink, just like her sleek nether depths. His back straightened at that, his muscles grew taut, and he scratched at his groin when his member tingled.

"We even went through our winter supplies, and I have nothing more to sell." He dug his face in his cupped palms, to avoid her amber eyes. They would settle on his rabbit hide satchel, and her beak would clatter at the discovery.

Sell those, she had to say, any moment now. What use have we of healing vials and poultices when we're so far from the wilderness?

Only, no sound came, save for Sarenadd's faint breathing. He took another deep breath, then groaned and clenched his jaws when his member shifted within its confines. It pulsated, and grew, and sent a sharp tingle through his stiff frame. The faint throbs rippling through his blood engorged member made his brow furrow as he fought back his lust.

"There is something left." Lythra said.

Sarenadd scrunched his eyes shut at the jarring screech of metal being dragged across bare stone, but Lythra didn't even flinch. She brought her meal cauldron around her side and rested both of her front paws on it once it rested in front of her.

"My meal for the day, if you care to cook it." She summoned a limp, bloody chicken from its bowels, clutched between two talons.

"Your meal is your meal, and you'll eat it tonight."

She disagreed with a sharp squawk. "All I did was preening myself. Gryphons don't get hungry by lounging in the hay until light dies in the sky."

"Then we'll keep it for later," he concluded on a tone grave enough to make Lyth bow her head.

"It may spoil," she cooed. "Better to consume it now--"

"I won't, Lyth. My incompetence is mine to deal with," he shook his head, "not yours."

She stomped her front paws at that. "And hunting is what gryphons do." She stretched her wings and flapped once. The hay mounds around her thinned as hay swirled around the barn. "Let me out, so we can have a proper feast for once."

Sarenadd shielded his face from the onslaught of hay and dust. "No." He waited for the storm to pass, and for Lythra to shift onto her belly and cast her glare on him. "You could sneak a buck past a dragon. Could outfly a family with a few rodents in each paw. But a colony of them?"

She snorted at that, and clacked her beak in defiance. "Slow, clumsy, predictable is what makes a dragon, a dragon. The more they are, the faster the forest's creatures betray their presence."

"Nevertheless, I'll have you here, in the city, protected by Skybeams." Sarenadd's jaws tightened, and he clasped his hands behind his back as he strolled forward. "We earned our place here. Paid for it. That's where we stay, that's where we work," he growled.

Lythra opened her beak, but only a faint chirp came out. She blinked several times before she fanned out a wing to preen. "May tomorrow bring you what you want. More search," she said.

He didn't need to be reminded twice. That was him. Always searching, always coming back to her empty handed.

And horny.

Sarenadd half walked, half strode towards her. His erection made every step difficult, and the hug more so. His arms wrapped around her thick neck, and his loins sank into the thick plumage of her breast until his bulge met her muscular chest.

"I'll search, I'll find something, and we'll fly," he whispered through tight, dry lips, right into one of her perked ears. "That's why you have to be the one who eats."

Sarenadd buried his head under her beak, forehead rested against her neck as he drew in a sharp breath rich with her fragrance. He leaned against her, allowing his arms and torso to melt into her lush feathers. And her warmth! It felt divine to his stiff muscles.

She let out a mellow chirp as her coal black beak settled on top of his shoulder. Sarenadd flinched under its weight, and Lythra lifted her head to preen his hair instead.

It tickled. It hurt when she pulled at his locks with curt tugs. Yet he let her do her thing, if only to spend a moment longer trapped in her embrace, amidst her warmth. It seeped through his roughspun leather garb, past his torn linen shirt, making his skin prickle. He caressed the thinner feathers of her nape with one hand while the other scratched her under the chin, where her beak blended with the softest of feathers. Lythra hummed, her sounds rich in a barn full of nothing.

Tomorrow won't be any better, Sarenadd thought. And you won't fly, dear Lythra.

It had been more than a fortnight. Perhaps even a month since he lost his courier job. The city had enough of them, just like it had a surplus of scouts, combatants, and avian guards. If it involved a sword and a gryphon, the job was taken.

And that's all Sarenadd had. No trading skills, no tracking talent, no deft hands to weave fabrics, no sharp mind to remember runes, and definitely no acumen to empower runes with his dormant magic.

He bit his lip at that. His muscles grew taut, his heart beats picked up, and his member became an unbearable tightness ramming against the rough burnt leather of his leggings. A wince escaped him as his sensitive tip brushed against the coarse material, and his hands pushed Lythra's neck away out of their own accord.

Sarenadd stepped over a front paw and rubbed her shoulder while his other hand slipped towards the lacing of his leggings.

Lythra's neck shifted. Her gaze fell upon his groin, and she rose just a moment after, bristling her feathers and swaying her body to brush off the stray hay covering her. Her pads made a thin squelching sound as she stomped her feet to get rid of the last rebellious strands of hay trapped within her fur. They slid with unexpected ease, down her striped flanks and onto the cold stone floor below.

Then, she flicked her tail.

The motion caught Sarenadd's attention. He licked his lips at the sight of her hindquarters, rocking back and forth with anticipated restlessness. The few dapples of light caressing her thin gray coat emphasized the silvery stripes running along her back and sides until they blended with her wan underbelly. He took a step forward, towards her muscular haunches, his fingers turning into hooks as they ran through her sleek coat and along her taut backside.

With each step he took, Sarenadd's heart beat faster and harder. He had thought of Lyra for the better part of his way back. What should he tell her? Do to her?

The answer became obvious when she shifted her hindquarters towards him, her tail flicking back and forth to reveal the patch of pale fur underneath her tail. In its center, her slit stood out. Small and narrow to a human, yet the perfect fit for a gryphon.

Sarenadd wasn't one, yet his member still lurched at the sight. It was just a crease separating her smooth lips, sealed too tight to reveal her tunnel.

He lifted a tentative hand, and shared a glance with Lythra. The gryphoness nodded and raised her tail for him, even though no trickle of arousal fled through her crevice.

Sarenadd's temples throbbed too hard to allow room for doubt. He swallowed hard and reached out towards her slit with two fingers. He ran them along her shuddering length, caressing her sensitive lips until her tail rose even higher and her haunches spread further apart for extra balance. Claws poked out of Lythra's hind paws, their sharp tips scratching against the floor as the gryphon's hum attained a fainter tune.

Shudders of budding pleasure ran through her muscles. Her haunches rippled with them, and her lips began to loosen enough for a ray of light to fall upon her pink sanctuary. Sarenadd didn't penetrate her with his fingers just yet. Not until he rubbed her slit thoroughly.

Lythra's breath picked up under his pleasant treatment, and her tail tip rocked with renewed vigor once a glob of arousal wet Sarenadd's parched fingers.

She didn't look back when Sarenadd undid the clasp and laces of his leggings, too focused on riding the waves of euphoria flooding her senses. Only her ears perked when the leather fell into a heap at his feet, and her blissful coo stopped for a brief moment during which Sarenadd pierced her with a single finger. Lythra's head shot up in unison with her tail, and her limbs rocked slightly in comparison to the tremors wracking her insides. She sucked in Sarenadd's finger up to his knuckle, where she clasped down upon him and released a sharp cry. Hot arousal flowed through her depths, along Sarenadd's finger, until it trickled down her shuddering rump.

That was fast. Faster than the last time. Sarenadd tried a smile, yet his numb lips refused to budge. His erection seeped all of his focus, along with the need to pierce Lythra's comforting depths and release his entire burden inside her.

Sarenadd began by slathering her thin, slimy arousal around his member. He gasped at each stroke, as did Lythra when he dipped his finger past her lips and into her tight insides to stimulate her further. By the time he finished, Sarenadd's breath turned to ragged huffs. He sweltered within his leathers, and sweat ran down his furrowed brow and along his beet red cheeks. Yet dealing with the buttons of his shirt and leather vest took time and patience, both which Sarenadd lacked. He drew in a sharp breath, draped Lythra's muscular tail around his neck, pressed his thighs against her haunches, grabbed his cock and directed it towards her twitching slit.

Her shriek broke into sporadic cries when Sarenadd shoved his entire length through her tightening depths in one powerful stroke. Her wings spread and fluttered once, and her tail grew stiff around his neck as ripples of delight washed through her frame. Sarenadd noticed her talons, curled around bare rock. He glimpsed her eyes, half shut and glazed. He drew back, his jaws tight to hold back the pressure welling within his groin. Once his member plopped out of her pussy with a faint squelch, he delved inside her again, and again. Fast but brief strokes, meant to keep her from trapping Sarenadd's member into her tight embrace like she would a gryphon's.

The fiery, intense haze of pure bliss hung around Sarenadd's frame as he plowed Lythra's dainty furrow. His legs shook from the speed of his erratic thrusts, and his balance wavered when a jolt of pleasure spiked through his member. He crashed against Lythra's back, wrapped his arms around her and pressed his knees tight against her haunches in a failed attempt to keep her shuddering body still.

Her hindquarters buckled as a shrill left her half parted beak. Her tail grew taut around Sarenadd's shoulder and pushed against him, so hard he crashed onto his knees with a groan. The stupor of mating lost its hold on Sarenadd for a brief moment, during which he blinked hard and stared into Lythra's amber eyes while her muscles kneaded every inch of him. They were narrow, and not because of the light streaming through the loose boards in the walls.

Then, she squeezed him tight enough for Sarenadd to cry out in pure bliss. His vision flickered from the overwhelming shudders wracking her insides, and all he heard were Lythra's keening shrieks. She collapsed on her chest under the might of her orgasm, and brought Sarenadd down with her. In his half dazed state, Sarenadd fell on his side with the momentum, and not even Lythra's powerful muscles could keep him inside her. His member plopped out of her nether depths, writhing with ecstatic bobs.

Sarenadd tried to get back onto his knees. He even made it onto his bottom and grabbed a haunch with one hand when the sheer might of the orgasm paralyzed his body. He crashed onto his back, his knees tight against each other and his hands curled around fistfuls of hay as strands of seed shot upwards in repeated arcs.

Sarenadd clenched his teeth to suppress a moan as he sought his member with a shivering hand. He found it only when his fire died down and the pleasure subsided to a few smoldering throbs. He stroke himself, squeezed his flaccid length to milk out a mere droplet of seed. A droplet!

"Damnation, damnation," he rasped while staring at his patched roof. His head pounded, and everything felt numb. Empty. No satisfying prickles after a hard mating. No smothering gryphon pussy engulfing his flaccid member, milking him of any remaining droplet of seed.

Nothing.

"Ngaaaaah," a groan escaped him as he rolled onto the other side to face Lythra. The gryphoness laid on her back, paws twitching in unison with each mellow caw that rumbled in her throat. Her sex overflowed with juices, and her lips and nethers still shuddered with orgasmic quivers.

At least he managed to please her...

Sarenadd allowed her to bask in her afterglow while he grabbed a handful of hay to wipe off the cold, sticky goo from his sack and pubes with methodical strokes. It stung more than it cleaned, and Sarenadd threw away the fistful of hay and kicked away his damnable leggings.

Was the barrel still around in this pig's shit hole? Or maybe the washing basin, or the pouch with the deerskin fur to wipe his seed on. Sarenadd squinted in the gloom, trying to make out their shapes, but all he saw were Lythra's hind paws.

They stood eye level with him, her smooth pads moist with excitement from their previous rutting. Sarenadd grabbed one paw, eliciting a shuddering squawk from Lythra. She twitched her foot several times before her eyes snapped open. She saw him, and the tips of her claws retracted back into their sheath.

"Thought you released too hard to still be tense," he rasped.

Lyth let out a drawn-out gasp in reply as she spread her toes, inviting Sarenadd to indulge her with yet another pleasure. When he merely cupped her oversized paw between his hands, the gryphoness clacked her beak in annoyance. Still, Sarenadd didn't twitch a finger.

"Where are your leggings?" She inquired.

Sarenadd shrugged. "Where are the rinsing barrels? Or that thing, you know, the thing which I use to--" he paused to reach at his waist and bring out his rabbit leather satchel for emphasis. A scoff escaped him when his fingers met his bare waist. "The thing that had the deerskin patches, whatever it was called." He applied slight pressure on Lythra's central pad as his gaze hovered across her fluffy belly and up to her amber eyes. "Gone too, eh?"

She wriggled her toes, rubbed the pads of her other paw against his wrist in an attempt to get his fingers moving. Sarenadd merely sighed, let go of her paw and whirled on his heels to crouch and rest his back against her belly. "What's left, Lyth? The hay? This iron?" He kicked at the cauldron that held her meals, but it was so far out of reach his boot caught nothing but emptiness.

"Us," the one word fled from her beak.

Sarenadd shuddered when her wing engulfed him, the plumes curling around him, their tips poking at his bare loins. Lythra curled tighter around him, pressing her haunches against his arm, bringing her hind paws up to his ankles. Then, she laid her beak atop his thighs. Sarenadd tried to shift when her feathers tickled his flaccid member, but the gryphoness pushed the sharp tip of her beak into the muscle of his thigh.

A sharp yelp fled through Sarenadd's tight jaws.

"I can cover you better than any blanket, hold you tighter than any human lover. What else do we need but each other?"

"A roof over our head?"

Lythra fanned her plumes. Every trace of light vanished, replaced by impenetrable darkness. "I can provide it."

"And I'm supposed to sleep soundly while you're wet and shivering?" Sarenadd shot.

A sliver of light wafted through Lythra's feathers as her head broke through. "Wet feathers are just irritating, and there's always shelter to be found. In the city," she added for emphasis.

"Not during winter," Sarenadd rushed his words.

Lythra cocked her head. "Especially during winter. Sary, we can huddle behind a bakery store, where the stone is dry and warm. The roof's slant is low enough to--"

"Shh," Sarenadd interrupted her. He closed his eyes and rested his head against her belly. It rose and fell in unison with her steady breathing; a slow, lethargic rhythm that seeped into his frame and soothed his taut muscles.

"That's called being homeless. Last I recall, there is no such thing as a hobo gryphon." His stomach knotted at the idea filling his head, and his lips and tongue turned numb. Yet, he had to say it. For her sake.

"I can huddle behind a bakery store, but not you." His voice faded to a husky growl by the end, and nails bit into his palms as his fists clenched. "Female gryphons have a better purpose to serve than huddle with a homeless human."

His eyes bore into hers. "They'll take you from me. Toss you into a rookery, with a dozen males to breed you every moment you breathe." He rolled his head at that, and his brow furrowed in revulsion at the thought of a rookery. "Once you swell with eggs, they will--will..." Sarenadd's throat grew too tight, and his tongue too dry to continue. He wiped the beads of sweat forming on his brow and took in a deep breath, laden with her earthy scent.

"Rookeries is what we used to hit, me and Dari and the rest of the crew. Freed the gryphons, sold the eggs to smugglers who crossed the Yanidian border. Savages is what we call them, yet they don't train their gryphons. They nurture them until they fly, then let them soar. None ever returns."

"I would," Lythra added.

Sarenadd placed a hand on top of her beak while he rubbed her cheek with the other. "No you wouldn't. Only a gryphon's seed can bloom inside you." He began stroking her forehead. "A male gryphon helps raise your clutch, hunts for them, protects them." He shook his head and pursed his lips. "Not a human."

Lythra blinked several times, her pupils wide as dinner plates in the gloom. "What can two gryphons do that we can't?"

"I...I suppose...nah," he waved the thought away with a flick of his wrist, yet he smiled at it nevertheless.

Her head thrust forward before Sarenadd had the chance to reply, rubbing and stroking the side of her neck against his torso while she chirped and cooed and hummed. Sarenadd chuckled before he broke into curt sniffles. Her soft feathers tickled, and Sarenadd feigned a forced laughter to cover the true reason behind the tears welling on the corner of his eyes. He brushed them off fast while stroking Lythra's cheeks to keep her eyes shut. He hated seeing him weak, like a human.

"That's--" he coughed to clear his voice. "Yes. You are right. We're lovers. We're already--" his tongue twisted when the one word followed. He never truly mated Lythra. He violated her, with his too big cock and its uneven mushroom head. Better that he spilled his seed outside of her than torment her with the promise of a clutch.

"What matters is that we have each other," he finally added.

At least she spoke no further. So caught up in her haze of delight she was, that Sarenadd twisted his head away from her pleasant hum and allowed himself to cry while stroking his lover's neck.

Once his silent hiccups subsided and he finished wiping his tears, Sarenadd pinched the tip of one of her ears to draw her out of her reverie. She shook her head, released a sharp squawk and brushed her cheeks against Sarenadd's chest.

"Careful with the beak," Sarenadd urged.

"You didn't yelp, so that means I am."

"Modest, too," he added as he fondled her ear between her fingertips. "Maybe that's why our humble abode suits you."

One of her eyes darted upwards, and Sarenadd turned his bloodshot gaze away from her.

"I love you, Sary. Your lean chest," the tip of her beak hovered across his taut pecs, "Your limbs." She trailed across one arm and down a thigh before stopping in front of his flaccid member. Dried seed flaked on Sarenadd's shaft and balls. Lythra's nostrils flared as she inhaled his scent. Then, she released a soft chirp. "Why is your member covered in seed?"

Sarenadd winced at the mentioning of that particularly unpleasant memory. "I got too excited, pulled out fast, this happened." He tried to stroke her brow, but she already lifted her head to match his gaze. "It's in the past already."

"That's why I didn't feel your seed inside me."

He nodded and caressed the sides of her beak with his fingertips. "Does it even matter, Lyth? It won't quicken. It won't give you a clutch. It just..."

She released a mellow thrum. "You took me like a gryphon, Sary, even if you aren't one. And you also have this," her beak pointed at the tip of his member. "Your bulge is...it's unlike a male's gryphon tapered tip," she concluded.

For good or worse, Sarenadd didn't care. He stretched an arm forward to grab one of her hind paws while covering his growing member with the other. "Yes, you told me before. For gryphons, the female's climax triggers the male's. With me..." he trailed off when Lythra tucked her wing tight against her side and splayed upon her back, one paw aloft while the one in Sarenadd's grip twitched and jerked and moistened with excitement. Her tail whipped against her belly, each swing allowing him a fleeting glimpse of her dampening sex. One moment, she was dry. In the next one, her lips swelled slightly while a liquid torrent gushed out of her shivering depths.

Sarenadd, too, hardened with purpose. Yet, when he sought to rise, his knees shivered and buckled, and his mind whirled from the exhausting task ahead. To mate his gryphon. To burst inside her. To watch her roll and chirp in glee while her pussy suckled in his human seed.

An empty promise, nothing more.

He pressed his jaws tight against one another, ignoring his painfully needy throbs as he trailed a hand across her warm belly. His fingers inched closer with each panting breath he took, until they met a patch of slick fur. His cock lurched with unspent lust, and his grip tightened around the pads of her paw, so hard her claws poked out.

Sarenadd mentally scolded himself before he rubbed her central pad with broad strokes and fondled her toes one by one. She liked that. Loved it, by the looks of her wetness. Sarenadd had heard of how sensitive a gryphon's hind paws were. They used them to feel for the softest of materials while building a nest, and for other things his lust addled mind couldn't recall.

He let go of his cock once Lythra's head splayed to the side, and grabbed her other paw to rub and stroke it with the same slow, methodical caress. Her hum flared in her throat, and both of her paws jerked as her lips pushed out glob after glob of translucent arousal.

Sarenadd's released the paw he held in his right hand. His fingers slowly slithered down her haunch, along her lower belly, and down to the slick dampness that her slit became.

He swallowed hard before joining two fingers into a whisk and sliding them inside her slick nether depths. Lythra's paw jerked in his grip, and a whine pierced through the barn. Her tail shivered and froze while her hindquarters rocked and jerked in an attempt to get more of Sarenadd inside. He complied by filling her up to his knuckles, then stroking her silky insides with curt dabs.

Lythra's toes spread to their maximum width as her wheezing breath caught in her throat. She clenched around Sarenadd's fingers, several times, weaving and curling around his intruding appendages like the hottest, moistest of embraces.

Sarenadd dug his head in his chest, his jaws tight as his cock began to bob from the sheer mental stimulation. He almost felt the pressure exerted upon his two fingers curl around his shaft. It urged him to thrust, and thrust, then break loose inside his mate.

Only, he was already inside his mate, and she had an even better time. A quick glance allowed Sarenadd to see her head splayed on the floor, her tiny tongue lolling as her beak clattered with dire need. Her paw twitched in his grip as well, toes curling and flexing around Sarenadd's thumb to coerce him into rubbing them.

He did, all while plunging it and out of Lythra's slit with slow, deep, elaborate thrust.

She didn't last long, not when Sarenadd added a third finger to stretch her even more. Once he sank up to his knuckles, he spread his fingers in every direction; feeling her, caressing her, stimulating her past the point of no return.

Lythra shrieked. Not the tame shriek from before, but a feral shrill, so loud and sharp Sarenadd let go of her paw to cover one ear. He tried to jerk his fingers free, but she squeezed him so tight, Sarenadd gasped and shouted at the same time.

She only let go of him when her hind paws curled upon one another, when her talons twined and her beak spread wide open to allow a drawn-out murmur out. The tips of her wings jerked--or flapped--as spasms wracked her pussy.

Lythra broke loose a moment after, along with a mellow trill that reverberated within Sarenadd's chest. He watched her climax. He watched translucent rivulets of tangy release drench her rump and tail while her paws kicked at the air and her beak trembled and clattered from the sheer intensity of her orgasm. He watched, and bit his lip hard enough to suppress the urge to grab his rock hard member and rub himself to completion. That took time; time he didn't have.

Sarenadd forced himself onto his swaying feet, then wobbled up to his leggings. He didn't get into them, not until he made it to the stiff door of the barn that always got stuck. Only then did he dress up, one leg at a time while he watched her purr in the most suave of ways.

He had to force his erect member inside, and winced with every wobbling footstep he took away from the barn, away from his mate. He gave her the most potent of distractions, and the most draining.

Lythra wouldn't even notice his disappearance. She would be asleep while Sarenadd braved the city, empty handed but for his sword and rabbit skin satchel, in search of a wizard. By the time she came to her senses, the deed would already be done.

He would be a gryphon too, and a true mate to her.