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Griffin's Protection(3)
Author: Lola Gabriel

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She uncrossed her legs and sat forward, smiling. The tension melted away slowly. “I’m thrilled to make your acquaintance. My family’s always spoken so highly of you.”

“Lies, I’m certain.” He smiled back, locking eye contact with her and clearing his throat. She didn’t look away. “Donny had a way of making me seem better than I am. In reality, I’m boring. Terribly dull, I’m afraid.” He bared his fangs in a teasing smile.

Her smirk grew wider. “Somehow, I don’t think I believe you.”

He leaned back and stretched. “And you? Tell me about yourself.”

She took a drink, pausing for a brief second. “My name’s Poppy. I own and operate the apothecary. My sister, Magnolia, lives in Montana, but she’s helping me expand. Right now, she’s in Montana with her family, so it’s just me.” The lust in her eyes faded, and her lips drew down in a sour grimace. “And then, the Immortal Council showed up and said I’d killed Raz. I was arrested, stripped of my powers, and put here…in house arrest, awaiting trial for something I didn’t even do!”

As she spoke, he shoved his passion down. Now was not the time, and as difficult as it was, he needed to have a clear head to discern if she was actually telling the truth or not. There were a few indicators for when someone was lying, indicators that he’d gotten damn good at seeing over the years of practice. She kept direct eye contact, confidently, earnestly, her voice frustrated, but not desperate. Her hands remained at her side, except when one jolted up to accompany “something I didn’t even do!”

His eyes narrowed. He took another sip, soaking in the information. The base information didn’t matter so much. He’d already known what had happened before now, so he wasn’t listening to what she was saying so much as he was watching how she said it. He’d heard some ridiculous stories that were completely true. He’d also seen people lie over a completely convincing and reasonable explanation.

He crossed his legs. “Tell me more.”

Her eyebrow twitched, and she studied him for a second before nodding. “Oh, uh, okay. What do you want to know?”

Anything, really. Signs of guilt, signs of innocence. “Tell me about Raz. What was your relationship to him?”

For just a second, her eyes darted down before they shot back up. She shifted in her seat before speaking. “Raz…Raz is one of my regular customers. He comes in pretty often and wants a scale cream for shininess.”

She was smart. She’d almost hidden the reaction that she’d had about the demon. It’d been subtle, but there nonetheless. “Okay, but tell me more. What was your individual relationship to him?”

There it was again—a slight tensing. “Professional? He’d just come in and order something, then I’d make it? He usually never even came back to pick it up. Normally, we sent one of our delivery guys with it.”

He took another sip, pausing and watching her stiffen. Her fingers lightly tapped her thigh, and she pulled in a bigger breath of air. “Are you going to tell me what you really felt towards him?”

She held the breath for a second or two, before releasing it in a whoosh. “He was an idiot.”

There it was. He smiled, cocking an eyebrow up. “Oh? Do tell.” He’d been right. Something was under there. Nobody ever completely came clean the first time. It was just a matter of how much you had to dig. Fortunately, with Poppy, she appeared to be absolutely terrible at hiding her emotions. Good. She had big tells. People who were shit at hiding their feelings never learned to develop that. The person who seemed perfect, the person who gave off a slimy, superficial front…that was the person to watch out for. People like Poppy…well, the time for judgment wasn’t right yet.

She spoke, spitting the words out like they’d been behind a dam that just broke. “He’s a creep. Or, he was a creep. Whatever… He used to come in all the time, but we had a few complaints about him. He made the other customers uncomfortable, and I had to talk to him a few times about it, but he never seemed to get it! it was like he’d just sit there and listen to what you had to say, and then he’d just keep doing it! But we couldn’t refuse his business, because he bought a lot of stuff and we needed the money! So, we just sent stuff out for him. Deliveries.”

She closed her mouth, flashing a worried smile. “Look, the guy was an ass, but I’d never kill him! And I’d sure as hell never sleep with him.”

He believed her. In this sort of thing, lots of factors that could confuse justice, such as prejudice, prior experience, family loyalties, or just ignorance. The brain could lead people astray, but the gut was a little more trustworthy. Sometimes, he could look at a person and tell if they were innocent or guilty. He’d fought, hard, to put away the ones that he knew were guilty, and sooner or later, the incriminating piece of evidence came out. It was his knack, his skill, the reason he had such a reputation.

And he knew, in his gut, that the witch sitting across from him was innocent.

Not because she was related to Donny, not because of the passionate feelings she stirred in him, not for any of that. Plain and simple, objectively, his gut told him that she wasn’t the person they were looking for. And not because of what she’d said, but the way she’d said it, the wording, the language, the tone, and most importantly, the heart behind it.

No, Poppy hadn’t done it. This was good and bad news. The good news was that Donny’s family hadn’t turned into a homewrecking clan of murderers. The bad news was that, now that he knew that, he couldn’t leave, couldn’t bail. The initial plan of hearing her out and returning washed away, revealing the cold, hard fact that he had to help. To keep an innocent person from being locked up for a crime they did not commit. An uneasy feeling writhed its way into existence in his gut. This wasn’t going to be easy. All the evidence pointed towards her. Every bit of evidence, every testimony, everything pointed towards Poppy being the murderer. They even had witnesses saying that they’d been passing by the apothecary and saw Poppy inside, having sex with the demon before he ended up dead.

This was going to be hard.

 

 

3

 

 

In what was perhaps the most confusing hour of her life, Poppy explained herself and her situation to Oakley. None of it was how it was supposed to happen, and none of it was how she imagined it, and the entire time, she felt like she was in some sort of weird dream, as though at any moment she might lunge awake and realize she wasn’t going to meet Oakley for a few hours. Or maybe it was a longer dream, and she’d never been arrested and Raz hadn’t been killed.

Maybe this was a dream. That would certainly explain the weird things going on. It would explain how Oakley looked and acted, and it would explain how she’d gotten into this mess, and it would explain the passion she felt towards the griffin across from her.

Or maybe, just maybe, this was real.

She’d somehow gotten wrapped up in a murder mystery and she was the lead suspect, and her saving grace, or the man who might be able to pull her from the fire, was an old family friend, an immortal griffin who carried serious weight in the Immortal Council despite being retired.

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