Heart of Stone

by Christine Warren

  Ella watched as his eyes narrowed and the harsh planes of his face shifted from frozen rage to bloodthirsty anticipation.

  “You are right, little human,” he rumbled, warmth returning to heat the gravel of his voice. “My brothers must hear of this. The must be woken as I was, and for that, we will need to find other members of the Guild.” He bent his head to look down at her. “I still do not know how you woke me from my slumber, but I have never heard of it happening before, so we cannot rely on your ability to wake the others, even if I knew where all of them were located now.”

  “I agree. I don’t even know what I did, let alone how I did it. We need to find surviving Wardens, and hopefully those with enough experience to know how to wake the other Guardians. They will at least know how to find them, won’t they?”

  “The Guild always knows where each of the Guardians lies at rest. If we find the Wardens, we can find my brothers.”

  “Okay.” Ella’s mind raced as she considered the possibilities. “With the headquarters of the Guild destroyed, and so publicly, we have to assume that any Wardens who survived also believe that every member of the organization is under attack. If I were in their shoes, I think I’d be keeping a pretty low profile at the moment, so I think we should move forward on the understanding that the remaining Wardens have gone underground. That means we won’t be able to track them through their association.”

  She was mostly talking to herself, playing through the idea to see where it led, but she knew Kees had been listening. She had come to recognize the feel of his gaze on hers. She just knew when he was close by, and when he was paying close attention. It was a little weird and a little cool.

  “I’m going to need some specific names to search for,” she informed him. “That’s the quickest way I can think of to track them down, especially if they’re trying to escape notice. Do you remember any that you can give me?”

  Kees grimaced. “I know the name of my own Warden, and the names of the three High Initiates of my last waking, but most of the others I would never have had reason to meet or to know. I cannot guarantee the names I give you are for Wardens still living.”

  “Crap.” Ella chewed her lip as she considered what to do. She couldn’t say she was surprised by what Kees told her. From everything she’d learned of the Guardians and the Guild of Wardens, it was a loosely banded confederation, to say the least. Now, with the central authority taken out with the fire, stringing the pieces back together would be a challenge.

  An idea occurred to her, and she felt her lips curve at the edges.

  “Wait a minute. You said that most of the time, Wardens pass on their duties to their kids, right? The sons and daughters of Wardens usually become Wardens in their own right and take over when the parent retires.”

  Kees nodded.

  Ella flexed her fingers and plopped down in her computer chair. “Perfect. Give me those names you remember.”

  “You think you will be able to locate them after so many years? They were not young the last time I woke. I would be very surprised if they still lived.”

  She dismissed the concern, still smiling. “They don’t need to be alive,” she explained and pulled up the homepage for a huge genealogical database. “They just need to have offspring. Give me the names, big guy. If I can’t find the people themselves, I’ll bet you a toonie I can find their families. From there, it will be a. Piece. Of. Cake.”

  Chapter Seven

  Okay, so “piece of cake” might have been a slight exaggeration. Ella worked the Web site for four more hours, but hit a wall sometime after midnight. Considering how little she’d slept the night before, it shocked her that she hadn’t keeled over before the first of the prime-time TV lineup came on.

  Damn, but she needed a nap.

  Pushing away from the desk, she rose and stretched until every muscle in her body screamed a protest. The way they all fell back into place when she relaxed made her sigh. Better, but when this was all over, she needed to treat herself to a massage.

  Of course, that idea raised the question of when all this would be over, and perhaps even more significantly, what all this was to begin with.

  Somehow in the last twenty-four hours, Ella had gone from not knowing magic existed to working side by side with a living gargoyle to muster the forces of good and defeat the powers of evil. Along the way, she’d discovered that the thing she feared most about herself was of no concern to Kees, just magic she needed to learn to use, like somehow she’d gotten through school without learning how to read and now she was about to get a tutor to help with her ABC’s.

  She’d also found out that demons existed, on more than creepy-fun television programs, and that they had a hankering to destroy the world. More than that, she—Ella Marie Harrow—might just be able to help stop them.

  And underneath it all, Ella had learned that something about the huge, mythological monster who was guiding her through this fun house of her new reality drew her like nothing else she’d ever experienced.

  Ella sighed and wrapped her arms around herself to ward off a sudden chill. She glanced around the open living-dining area of the apartment and realized it lay empty. Frowning, she recalled—vaguely, as she had a tendency to get lost in her head when she was concentrating on something—that Kees had excused himself a while ago with a rumble about fresh air. She didn’t, however, recall hearing the front door open or close, and she would swear in the Crown Court that he hadn’t shifted forms before he left. The process was so compelling and fascinating to watch, there was no way she would have missed that.

  Recalling the moment when he had first introduced himself, Ella padded on her stocking feet through the door into the bedroom. Sure enough, the window was open and she could see a dark shadow leaning against the high railing of her fire escape.

  She stuck her head out the window and looked up at him. “Aren’t you worried someone might walk by and see you out here?”

  Kees snorted. “And what is a human more likely to think if they do see me? That a Guardian is hanging out on a human’s fire escape? Or that the human in this apartment has a strange fixation with Gothic sculpture?”

  “You’re right. I suppose if you can refrain from singing or tap dancing while you’re out here, no one would think anything of it.”

  “I think I can contain myself.”

  The idea of the huge, muscular, fierce-looking creature beside her breaking into an old Fred Astaire routine made Ella grin. She could just imagine him in a top hat and tails.

  She sobered as she caught him up on her efforts. “I didn’t find anything yet, but I did make progress. I think I can track down at least one or two of the descendants of the names you gave me, but it might take me another day or two.”

  He grunted, but said nothing.

  Kees and his enormous form filled every last square inch of space on Ella’s tiny fire escape, so rather than trying to climb out and join him, she tugged a footstool over to the window and knelt on it, bracing her elbows on the sill and leaning her upper body out into the crisp night air.

  She looked up and drew in the clear and cool. “I can’t see very many stars tonight.”

  “One of the reasons I never understood the human impulse to cram themselves into cities and light lamps that never burn out. The first time I looked up at the night sky, I saw so many stars that if I had started counting that instant and never slept, I would still be counting right now.”

  The poetic words from the figure carved with fangs and wings and devil’s horns only made them somehow more evocative. They made Ella long to see that same sky and count those same stars.

  Lord, was this the exhaustion starting to get to her?

  She and turned her gaze back to Kees. “Has the fresh air helped any?”

  He glanced down at her. “I already told you how I feel about cities. Do you wish to discuss my opinion of the air in them as well?”

  “Hey, I’m just trying to make conversation. You went from sticking to
me like Velcro and insisting I couldn’t be out of your sight for more than ten seconds at a time to brooding out on the fire escape in the space of a few hours. And let me just say, that asking personal questions of someone who could eat me with ketchup if I pissed him off is not the easiest thing in the world.”

  She huffed and looked away, staring toward the street at the end of the alley beside her building. “I wanted to know if you were okay.”

  She felt the air stir as his wings rustled and resettled behind him.

  “I am fine.”

  Ella rolled her eyes and glanced back at him. “Fine? Wow, it really is true that all males are alike, no matter what their species. You don’t look fine.”

  He didn’t. In spite of his stony expressions, Ella had learned to read him in the short time she’d known him. She knew what it meant when he set his jaw at a certain angle, when his eyes glinted with a particular pattern of flame. Right now, those subtle little clues told her the Guardian was not fine at all. He was angry and frustrated and shocked and, unless she missed her guess, grieving, too.

  “I really am sorry,” she murmured, watching his profile as he gazed up at the sky. “No matter how few of them you’d met or how little you knew them, I know losing those Wardens upsets you. I know that the Guild was attacked while you were asleep bothers you, too. But I hope you realize that the fact that you didn’t stop it doesn’t make it your fault.”

  He stiffened, but he didn’t look at her. “You make many presumptions about my feelings, human. Perhaps you would think again if I informed you that you may keep your concern and forget your soft heart. Guardians are sons of the stone. We do not experience human emotions.”

  Ella couldn’t help it. She laughed.

  Kees looked down at her and frowned. “What do you find amusing about that, little human? You laugh at hearing the truth?”

  “I laugh at hearing bullshit,” she countered. “And trust me, I spent six years in foster care. I know bullshit when I hear it.”

  “Foster care?”

  She shrugged. “My parents died when I was twelve, and I didn’t have any other close relatives. I lived in foster homes until I went to university.” This wasn’t where she’d pictured this conversation going, and she steered it right back onto a more comfortable track. “The point is, I’ve heard a lot of stupid stories, but the idea that you don’t have emotions is about the dumbest one yet.”

  “I do not tell you stories. I speak only the truth. I was summoned to this plane for the sole purpose of battling the Seven. Why would I need to feel human emotion? I think you forget that I am not human.”

  “Forget you’re not human? Don’t make me laugh. I’m looking at you right now, Kees. You. With your wings and your tail and your horns and your fangs. Trust me, my vision is just fine, and there’s no way that anyone seeing you like this could forget that you are something entirely different from human. But different doesn’t mean diametrically opposed to. I know you’re not human, and I also know that you feel emotions just like me. Whether you want to admit to it or not is an entirely different story.”

  Kees rounded on her and glared, temper lighting tiny little sparks that flitted through the blackness of his eyes. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her as if he could intimidate her into changing her opinion.

  “And how is it that you think you know what I feel or do not feel, little human? You have some other magical talent that is trained enough to allow you access into my mind? That would be quite a feat, considering that at this time last night, you did not even recognize magic when it was pouring through you like floodwaters.”

  “I don’t need magic and I don’t need to be psychic to know you feel emotion, big guy. You’re feeling it right now. Admit it. At the moment you’re feeling more than a little irritated with me.”

  His lip curled, baring a gleaming fang. “Irritation is not an emotion. An animal feels irritation when a thorn sticks in its fur. This is no different.”

  “First of all, let’s not get into a debate about whether or not animals feel emotion, because I will have to kill you before it’s over. Second, thanks for calling me a thorn in your side. I appreciate that. And third, irritation is totally an emotion. As is jealousy, which I know for sure you felt this morning when the police detective was flirting with me.”

  She mimicked his pose, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him. The fact that she was currently bent at the waist with her ass sticking up halfway into her bedroom maybe put her at a slight disadvantage, but she ignored it. Or pretended to.

  “Do not be ridiculous, human,” Kees scoffed, his brows drawing down so far, she worried he might blind himself. “That was not jealousy. It was merely another example of irritation. I found it irritating that the human male had interrupted our attempt to acquire information from the museum.”

  “Uh-huh. And that’s why you made it a point to kiss me in front of him, right? To punish him for ‘interrupting’ us? ’Cause that makes a lot of sense. I know that my immediate thought when I try to come up with ways to punish people for interruptions, kissing someone is always the first thing I think of.”

  Her sarcasm lit more sparks in his eyes until the tiny pinpricks of flame joined together in a steady blaze.

  “Would you prefer I had kissed you for another reason, little human?” Somehow his voice dropped even lower, until Ella could feel it vibrating through her, like the aftershocks of a major earthquake.

  Faster than she had thought possible, he moved, his enormous hands wrapping around her arms until his claws overlapped onto the heels of his hands. He tugged and her lower body slid through the open window until he had her out on the fire escape with him, once more with her feet dangling inches and inches above the floor. But this time, he didn’t pin her against a wall. This time he pinned her against his own body, her breasts flattened against his massive chest, her hips bumping against his, dangling boneless and helpless at his whim.

  She had a fleeting, frantic thought about his size—my God, he was huge—before his head descended, and he sealed his mouth over hers for the second time that day.

  There was no comparison to the first.

  No matter what Kees claimed when she had taunted him a moment ago, Ella knew very well that the first kiss had been a show, deliberately staged and carefully gauged to stake a claim on her that Detective Mike McQuaid would have to be blind, deaf, and brain-dead not to recognize. The fact that Kees thought he could convince her there had been no emotion behind the act then by repeating it now—repeating it and outdoing it by a landslide, mind you—almost made Ella want to laugh.

  Instead, she groaned.

  She also squirmed against the body holding her, not because she felt the need to escape, but because she wanted to get closer.

  Their earlier kiss had taken Ella by surprise. Despite his taking on the disguise of being her boyfriend in front of the museum staff and the police they had encountered this morning, until that moment, Kees had given no indication he thought of her in any intimate or sexual way. He’d never so much as hinted he wanted to put the moves on her.

  This, however, this kiss was definitely a move.

  His lips covered hers, warm and exciting, sealing her off from the cold night air. At first they settled, nudged, shifted, exploring the softness of her, the contrast of it against his own, more unforgiving planes. The teasing made her shiver, and his arms closed tighter around her. She pressed close, wanting more.

  Her lips parted on a sigh of longing that she had never intended to let escape, but she couldn’t regret it, not when it seemed to spur Kees on. His mouth opened, his tongue pressed forward, demanding entry she gladly gave him. Even this small part of him inside her made her body tighten, her hands shake, and she longed to steady them by pressing them against his skin, tangling them in his hair, touching him any way she could.

  He seemed to hear her thoughts. A groan rumbled through his chest and his grip shifted. He released his hold on her upp
er arms, one hand drifting down to cup her bottom, supporting her weight on his palm and muscular forearm. She gasped and melted against him, feeling a surge of heat at the core of her. Kees slid his other hand up her back until she felt his fingers tangle in her hair, pulling her head gently but firmly to the perfect position, allowing him to dive even deeper into the kiss.

  Now free to touch him, Ella took instant advantage. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and clung, wanting to twine around him and climb toward the sun like a honeysuckle vine. The fact that it was after midnight didn’t bother her in the least. She’d be more than happy to take her time and savor every minute.

  She gasped when she felt the sharp edge of a fang against her tongue, but there was no fear in her. Her subconscious had stopped telling her to look at Kees as some sort of monster hours ago. Like she’d told him, she knew perfectly well he wasn’t human, but that didn’t matter to her.

  When he touched her, nothing mattered but that he continue to touch her.

  In fact, Ella found herself savoring his uniqueness. He kissed her as if he wanted to devour her, but he took care not to so much as prick her with a fang, and his claws never broke her skin where he touched her.

  His skin fascinated her and she ran her fingers back and forth over the surface again and again until the tips tingled. When she smoothed her hands down, his skin felt silky smooth, no hair marring the lines and grooves of his extraordinarily developed musculature. But when she ran her fingers back up in the opposite direction, the sensation changed to something like unpolished stone, or a fine-grain emery board. The contrast had her nearly hypnotized, and the thought of that skin rubbing against hers made her shiver uncontrollably.

  Kees felt the ripples and lifted his head, his dark eyes blazing down at her. “As you can see, instinct can be a powerful thing, little human.”

  She stared right back up at him. “My name is Ella. And you can hide behind instinct all you want, but we both know that’s what you’re doing, so let me point out: fear is just another kind of emotion.”