“I find that hard to believe.”
“As far as I know the people who took Piper aren’t looking for revenge for you killing their daughter.”
She sagged against the seat, her eyes sliding shut. Apparently fate wasn’t satisfied with her jumping from the frying pan into the fire. It wanted to see her swan dive.
“So it’s true then,” Vaughn added, when she didn’t say anything.
The fact that he didn’t sound surprised she had killed someone shouldn’t have stung, but it did.
“It was an accident, right?” Dare asked.
For some reason that question was worse than Vaughn’s comment. The younger wolf barely knew her, but because he had this image of the Shadow’s Angel in his head, he gave her the benefit of the doubt.
Her silence was telling.
“Who was she?” Dare pressed.
“Does it matter?”
He glanced at Vaughn who sat stiffly behind the wheel. Vaughn wouldn’t be the first to turn his back on her when he heard she had done something unforgivable, and he probably wouldn’t be the last. So why was she waiting for him to insist she deny it or demand an explanation?
“It wasn’t a sorceress you’d know, but she did have a sister if you need to be hooked up. Although,” she added, “your mate might have something to say about that.”
The pup frowned at the comment, not feeling her sense of humor apparently. “What happened to the girl?”
“Someone should have warned me there was going to be a pop quiz.”
“Enough,” Vaughn snapped, the chill in his voice worse than any growl.
“And you actually killed her?” Dare pressed, unfazed by Vaughn’s warning.
“Her fate was in my hands,” Elena answered, feeling the past creep into the present despite her attempts to stay focused on the here and now.
They drove in silence for a few minutes, but Dare wasn’t done with the subject just yet. “Are they tracking us somehow?”
“Rutger didn’t say.”
Which wasn’t out of character. The rebellion leader had a habit of only sharing information he considered need to know.
And apparently she didn’t need to know a damn thing.
“Did he know anything about Erec at least? Maybe he was engaged to bring her in.”
“I don’t think that’s what he was after.”
The mention of the former knight peaked her curiosity. “It’s a little convenient that you know the wraith who attacked me, especially when he shouldn’t be under anyone’s control,” she directed her comment to Vaughn, wanting to poke at him for believing she was some heartless killer.
“That doesn’t mean someone hasn’t found a way to keep a leash on him.”
“Then why am I still alive? If someone wants me out of the equation, what stopped him from coming after me when I ran out of the cottage? If he’s been tasked with taking me out, a gargoyle’s not stopping him, Shadow or not. No offense.”
“He and Vaughn used to be friends,” Dare put in, but Elena barely heard him.
Her heart thumped in her chest, her lungs suddenly fighting for oxygen.
“They were pretty close before Rhiannon cursed the Knights,” Dare continued.
She barely heard his words over the roaring in her ears. “Pull over,” she wheezed, gripping the door handle, needing air. “I think…” The already dim light in the car grew darker, her senses reeling. “I’m going to be sick.”
Something in her voice must have convinced Vaughn she meant it. He pulled over, and she thrust the door open before the car had come to a complete stop.
Her knees buckled the moment her feet touched the ground. Her throat burned, the fierce thump of her heart in her ears deafening.
She crawled away from the car, chips of asphalt biting into her palms, slicing her skin. She didn’t care. Her stomach heaved a moment later, her lungs on fire, the cool night air impossibly out of reach.
“Elena?”
She stayed on her hands and knees until she emptied her stomach, and only then could she manage short, painful breaths.
“Tell me what to do.” Vaughn crouched beside her, the same concern from last night written all over his face.
At least now she understood, and she really wished she didn’t.
She wanted to go back to missing the one thing she should have figured out long before now, maybe even before the wraith attacked and injured him Vaughn and he hadn’t turned to stone on the spot.
Wraiths might have powerful magic that fueled their abilities, but the gargoyles weren’t entirely defenseless. The venom in a wraith’s claws caused serious damage, but with gargoyles it triggered their shift to stone, overriding even their instinct to fight.
Unless they were mated.
Mated gargoyles could control their curse, could fight the automatic shift to stone when it meant protecting their families, and she was stupid for not remembering that sooner.
She leaned against the rear tire, still struggling to catch her breath.
“Elena?”
She closed her eyes, hating the way he was looking at her, hating that the bastard sounded like he cared when he was about to toss her away.
It had been bad enough when he looked at her like that last night, when he held her, when he kissed her like it would be the last time and now…
Her chest burned where the brand pulsed against her skin, struggling to contain the magic fighting to respond to the fact that she wasn’t just Vaughn’s prisoner.
She was also his mate.
Gods, she couldn’t breathe.
She rubbed at her chest but her lungs continued to tighten.
“Get on your knees.”
Chills danced across her skin and her heart threatened to break her ribs, making it impossible to object when Vaughn settled his hand on her back and guided her forward. He pressed her upper body down until her forehead was almost touching the ground.
“Breathe through your nose. Slow and deep.”
“I…can’t.”
She was his mate. How in the hell did that happen? Her nails scraped the ground, her throat constricting.
“Hey,” Vaughn crouched opposite her. “Another deep breath.”
She shook her head.
“You can do this, Ivy.” He took her hand and rested it on his chest. “Breathe with me.”
The pressure on her lungs eased a fraction.
“That’s it.”
“Vaughn,” she murmured, pulling away from him.
She didn’t want to care. Didn’t want this to be more than a one-night stand.
She hadn’t gone looking for this kind of bond, and now that she knew it existed, could see the weight of it in his eyes, it was killing her.
***
“Elena?”
The wolf, who’d been eerily silent, howled in Vaughn’s head, driven to comfort its mate. The man wasn’t far behind, his earlier frustration forgotten as he watched her curl into herself, her body shaking.
Weeks ago he might have thought it an act, a ploy to make him lower his guard, but Elena would never intentionally show this kind of vulnerability. She rested her head on the knees she drew up to her chest, her breathing still far too ragged.
“Talk to me.” He couldn’t do anything to help her if he didn’t know what the hell was happening.
Dare, who’d jumped out when the vehicle skidded to a stop, slipped back into the car, the click of the door shutting barely audible above Elena’s frantic pulse.
Vaughn reached for her.
Her head snapped up, blue lightning flashing across her eyes, the warning clear.
He let his hand fall back to his side, curled his claws into his palm, his control dangerously low. The wolf wanted out and would tear through Vaughn’s skin if it came to that. “Are you hurt?”
“Five by five,” she muttered.
Somehow doubting she was referencing the military term, he didn’t bother to get into it, not when her sarcasm didn’t quite mask som
ething he’d never heard in her voice before, something broken.
The wolf pressed against his mind, and he pushed to his feet, pacing away from her only to spin back around and return to her.
“Ivy—” He stopped himself from saying anything more, stopped from insisting she tell him how to help her. It was his fault she was here, his fault she was hurting.
Tears that wouldn’t fall shone in her eyes, and he knew she wouldn’t let him see her cry. She held his gaze for a long moment as if proving it to the both of them.
“Dare.”
His friend was out of the car, watching him over the hood of the car. Realizing immediately how close to the edge Vaughn was, his friend nodded, telling him without a word that he’d watch over Elena.
“I’ll be back. Stay with Dare.” The last of it was more a growl than actual words but Elena probably didn’t notice. She wouldn’t even look at him.
Vaughn turned and sprinted for the woods, the wolf breaking free before he’d barely crossed the treeline.
Colors burst across his vision, the wolf snarling to the surface as bones and muscles realigned, his animal half tearing into the world in a rage.
He ran in a wide arc, circling the immediate area for threats before he backtracked to find a spot to keep watch over his mate.
She stayed on the ground for a long time. Dare sat nearby, his gaze continually sweeping the surrounding trees as he talked softly to Elena. She didn’t respond with anything more than the occasional shake of her head.
Vaughn lost track of how long she sat there, each moment eating its way through what was left of his heart.
He needed to go to her. Be with her.
But Piper… She was counting on him to save her, to follow through on the Iron Brotherhood’s ultimatum.
Up until the moment he used the Fae enchantment to neutralize Elena’s magic, he’d tried to come up with some way around going through with the deal, and every scenario ended with someone dying.
Even if Elena was willing to work with him to double-cross Piper’s abductors, he couldn’t undo the power of the Fae glyph that left her vulnerable. If they realized she was working with him, they could decide she wasn’t worth it and kill her. If he tried to find a way around showing up without her, they would kill Piper. And in every scenario in between, all three of them ended up dead.
Elena rose, glancing over her shoulder as if searching for him, before she finally got back in the car.
“I’ve got this,” Dare said just loud enough for Vaughn to hear.
Leaving his best friend to watch over the one woman he never saw coming, he gave himself to his animal half.
The damp earth churned under his paws as he ran, the wolf fighting to work through the pain it barely understood. Smaller animals bolted in the opposite direction, sensing a predator in their midst.
He didn’t try to rein in the wildness, all too aware the wolf wouldn’t stray too far from Elena no matter how much it needed to run, to howl, to mourn.
He didn’t want to let her go, but he couldn’t abandon Piper. She needed him more than Elena did. His fearless sorceress was strong in ways that his sister never would be.
The wolf howled, the pained sound cutting into both man and beast.
When exhaustion crept in, he turned back, muscles burning from the fierce pace neither man nor wolf could maintain. This tired there was no fighting the wolf that hungered to return to its mate, and if he didn’t let the wolf have this much, there would be no repairing the damage.
When he finally reached the vehicle still in wolf form, he found Dare leaning against the side of the car. The younger gargoyle held the back door open.
Elena sat on the passenger side, her bare feet tucked under her. She didn’t pay any attention to him as he hopped on the seat, but she didn’t shove him away either when he settled next to her and laid his head on her legs.
Dare started the car, getting them back on the road. No one talked, the silence broken only by the hum of the outside world blurring by.
At some point Elena lifted a hand, stroking his fur, lulling both man and wolf until he did something he hadn’t done since the night he’d spent with Elena in Vegas.
He fell asleep.
***
The wolf was out cold.
Elena was torn between annoyance and envy that the wolf could sleep while her entire body continued to run on adrenaline since putting the pieces together.
She’d been determined to ignore him when the beast had sprawled across the backseat, taking up every spare inch of space before having the gall to put his head practically in her lap.
The wolf clearly still had a death wish.
He couldn’t have been counting on her touching him when part of her wanted to scream and set all that luxurious fur on fire. And she would have if her magic wasn’t locked down or if she could get that look in his eyes out of her head.
The look that vowed he’d walk through fire for her.
It was the same look she had glimpsed the night they’d spent together in Vegas. It hurt to remember the intensity of it, the sheer longing that beckoned her to walk through the fire right next to him.
Air puffed from the wolf’s nostrils reminding her to run her hand over his head and down the thick band of fur at the scruff of his neck. She sank her fingers deeper and the wolf seemed to sigh and slip deeper into sleep.
Was he arrogant enough to think he wasn’t vulnerable like this? Or maybe he just felt the same thing she did whenever he was close—safe.
Any other time she might have laughed at that. She hadn’t truly been safe a single moment she had spent in the wolf’s presence. Not during the Gauntlet, not in Vegas and certainly not now.
So why did it feel like he was watching over her even while he slept?
She turned her attention back to the window as if she’d find the answer among the drops of rain that danced across the glass, the midnight shower matching her mood.
The tightening in her chest was slightly more bearable now, but she wasn’t sure if it was the brand or her heart that ached the most.
“Does it hurt?” Dare asked, fiddling with the radio.
“Not as much.”
“Not as much,” Dare echoed, sounding confused. “I meant the brand on your skin.”
“I know what you meant. I don’t think it hurts me as much as it hurts him.”
It seemed ridiculous to believe for a moment that Vaughn’s suffering mattered when she was technically a prisoner, but she’d felt his arms around her last night.
She might be his ticket to getting his sister back, but that wasn’t why he had held her so tight when he had found her in the woods or why he looked like he would have changed places with her in a heartbeat when she had freaked out earlier.
She studied the sleeping animal. “He’d keep me, wouldn’t he?”
The car swerved slightly but Dare kept the vehicle on the road even as he craned his neck to look at her, his eyes wide. “What did you say?”
She ran her finger down between the wolf’s eyes and along the bridge of his snout.
She’d dropped by to visit Emma once and walked in to find Cian curled up next to her sister in his panther form. He’d cracked one sleepy eye open at the intrusion and dropped a massive paw across Emma’s chest to stop her from rising.
Elena thought it proved how much of a barbarian the gargoyle was, but Emma had only laughed, never looking happier at being half-suffocated by the cat. And here Elena was with a sleeping wolf all but on top of her and she didn’t mind at all.
“I said, he’d keep me, wouldn’t he?” If he didn’t have to choose between her and his sister.
Half a lifetime ago she would have pointed out that it wasn’t really a choice at all, that she was too awesome to give up for anyone, but things had changed.
She had changed.
She’d grown bored with the shock and awe routine a long time ago, but continuing to project the image of a self-centered immortal just looking
for her next good time still worked in her favor.
No one suspected her of working for the rebellion, undermining Morgana’s hold on Avalon from the shadows when she was the life—or the bitch—of the party.
She’d been content with that for a long time. Balancing both parts of her life, doing what she could to save those of her kind Morgana locked away where she could slowly siphon their magic, had been enough.
With Emma happy with Cian and her parents wrapped up in their own post-reunion drama, she’d been able to sink even deeper into the role with the rebellion.
And then Vaughn came along and everything changed.
He needed to save his sister. She couldn’t hold that against him when she would burn the world down to protect her twin.
But she couldn’t just allow herself to be handed over, not when there were so many counting on the Shadow’s Angel. She couldn’t be his lamb to the slaughter no matter what was between them. There were too many left to be saved.
“And by ‘he’d keep me’, “Dare prompted, “you mean what exactly?”
Elena shrugged. “It sounded like something you gargoyles would say. You’re known to be a bit territorial with your mates, aren’t you? Cian is with Emma. I thought she was crazy to put up with the whole caveman mentality, but maybe she wasn’t so crazy after all.”
“Mate,” Dare wheezed, like he couldn’t quite get the word out.
“I know I’m a little late to the party but how about we skip the part where you pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dare divided his concentration between her and the road. “How long have you known?”
“How long have you?” she countered.
“Last night.”
“Less than an hour ago.” And she was still processing.
If that’s what you could call wondering how in the hell chemistry, biology or fate—maybe all three—forged this connection between them.
She could deny it all she wanted, make herself believe the whole mate thing was Vaughn’s problem, but her heart wouldn’t hurt so damn much if their bond was only one-sided.
“I think I need a drink,” she mused aloud.
Primal Bounty_Pendragon Gargoyles Page 21
