Blood surging in her veins, she wanted to shout that she was still free.
For the moment.
But she didn’t fool herself into thinking there would be many more moments of freedom. Her body was tiring, it was only a matter of time before it failed her. She was fast running out of options.
Gregory showed no signs of returning to himself, and she had no other tricks up her sleeve.
There was only the medallion bumping against her breast as she ran. Gran had given it to her, and Lillian had never doubted her grandmother’s wisdom before, but as she ran and mulled over who else there was to offer aid, her mind kept going to one logical conclusion no matter how her heart shied away from the answer.
Gran had given her the medallion, knowing what could happen. But did she dare to use it?
Was Tethys worse than what aid the medallion might bring?
Lillian feared she was, but also feared Gregory would not agree.
But presently, he was a mindless tool of the siren’s making, and Lillian wasn’t feeling too confident in allowing the siren to continue unchecked.
Oh please, let this work and not backfire in my face.
With a prayer, she skidded to a halt and brought one talon to her palm and sliced a small line in the fleshy base of her thumb. Three beads of blood welled up as she hastily smeared it across the medallion’s surface.
She half-expected the medallion to absorb the blood, or for the metal to flare up with bright fire in her hand. Even a slight glow? Something to show the magic worked.
A whole lot of bloody nothing was what she got for her trouble.
Useless medallion and overrated magic.
Was she doing something wrong?
A full body-bruising weight slammed into Lillian’s back. It drove her to her knees and then flat to the ground with her muzzle half-buried in the forest loam. Breath rushed out of her lungs in a pained whoosh. She grunted and dragged in a new breath of air; it hurt worse going in than it had coming out.
Jolly.
Her mane covered her eyes so she couldn’t see a thing, but she did feel an earthworm wiggling between two front teeth.
She snarled and spat, trying and failing to get her limbs back under her so she could leverage the dead weight from her back.
A rumbling purr was the only response to her struggles.
“Gregory, get off me.”
A warm, wet tongue stroked a path between the joints of her wings. She debated boxing his ears with them but decided he might take it as an invitation to play. Another happy rumble emanated from just behind her head. She supposed she should be glad it wasn’t one of the darker sides of his personality dominating him at the moment.
A half-ton of happy, wiggly Gregory seemed a whole lot less dangerous than an eight-foot-tall, winged killing machine.
“Mmm, Gregory, I love you, but get your big ass off me before you break some part of me I’m really fond of, like my spine.”
With one last lick, Gregory shifted his weight.
Well, well, he actually listened, she noted with growing interest. What other commands might he obey?
With an over-exaggerated slowness, she got up and brushed off the specks of loam and leaf mold covering her body. Her stalling tactic gave her a moment to think. A quick glance down confirmed the medallion still hadn’t reacted to her blood in any discernible way.
She was out of options, but at least she’d managed to lure Gregory away from the siren. Frowning, she rolled her eyes in his direction where he quivered at attention like a dog at point, his barely contained exuberance palpable in the air around him.
Lillian amended her earlier thought. She’d managed to extract him physically, but in spirit, the Gregory she knew was still missing, buried under layers of enchantment.
It seemed fundamentally wrong that someone as powerful as her protector could be compromised so quickly and thoroughly by a song.
“Oh Gregory, I know you’re still in there somewhere. I hope you can hear me and understand. I’m not sure how I’m going to free you from that over-evolved fish, but I will.”
She’d stick with her earlier plan to try and keep him away from the siren as long as possible. Her mad run had bought them a little time. It would take them a good four hours to run back the way they’d come, longer if they walked.
He approached her slowly. Once he reached her, he leaned into her, looking for a scratch.
Then before she knew what he was doing, he scooped her up. Her world tilted until everything was upside-down. One of his steel-like arms clamped across her thighs, preventing her from kicking free. Simultaneously, his mobile tail curled around her shoulders, pinning her wings to her back before she’d thought to use them in some way to leverage herself free.
She was working herself up to deliver a solid bite to Gregory’s vulnerable side when she felt the coldly familiar chill of his magic flowing across her skin.
From her inverted vantage point, she could only peer around Gregory’s muscular hip to see him weaving magic. It rose up out of the ground, pale and ethereal, for all the world looking like a thick fog. It spiraled around two tree trunks, climbing them until the silvery haze was above head height and then the two spires shot delicate filaments toward each other, forming a web before Lillian’s bewildered eyes.
“Gregory, what is that? What are you doing?”
No answer, though he did pat the back of her leg, which may have been an attempt at reassurance.
“Gregory,” Lillian called softly, then changed tactics. “Durnathyne, My Hunting Shadow. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to listen to Tethys.”
Lillian hoped calling him by his name from his last life would jog some rationality back into his head. He did pause his spell-work and twisted his neck to meet her gaze at the awkward angle, and Lillian’s heart jumped with hope, but then he shook his head with a snort and returned to his spell.
Following the direction of his gaze, she saw the spell was now a vaguely door-shaped object. Her fears were confirmed a moment later as the entire construction flashed a blinding white. Still blinking grey spots from her vision, her other senses came to the fore to fill in the details.
The scent of cedar reached her nose. More telling, though, was the distinctive fragrance of tropical water lilies Gran had planted in the small stream that flowed past Lillian’s hamadryad.
Her vision cleared, confirming what her nose and ears had already told her.
Gregory’s spell was some kind of doorway, and on the other side, the siren waited patiently.
“Don’t do this. Tethys is dangerous.”
“Yes.”
Lillian was surprised Gregory answered her.
“But not to us,” he continued as he walked toward the strange, spell-woven door hovering in the air. “She has offered to help us fight our enemies. She will stand with us against the Lady of Battles.”
“She lies to gain control over your power.”
Gregory sighed and then shifted her off his shoulder and set her down, so she was facing him, her back to the flickering door.
“I have always been able to detect lies. The siren has spoken only the truth to me. She will aid your hamadryad in destroying the demon seed within it, and then you will be free to take up the mantle of Mother’s Sorceress once more. All will be as it should.”
It was the same promise the siren had given Lillian, and perhaps there wasn’t a lie in the offer. And it was the one thing in all the Realms which would tempt Gregory.
He placed his hands on her shoulders and guided her toward the doorway. If it came to a contest of physical or magical strength, Gregory would win.
That only left her with cold, logical reason. “Please listen. I know what she offers is what we ultimately want, but why did you wait to agree until after you awoke from stone? By what she told me, you had already turned down her offer while you still rested in stone. Why was that? What was it about her offer that gave you pause? It’s important.”
Gregory halted his advance toward the doorway, a frown line forming between his brows and his ears swung forward in question.
She met his gaze and saw a hint of the old Gregory there.
He blinked.
“Gregory, bring your beloved to me where she will be safe from the Riven.” The siren’s voice floated through the doorway and slid across Lillian’s senses like a mother’s soothing caress. Her earlier worries seemed unimportant.
Distantly, with only a mild concern, she saw lines of power crawl across Gregory’s skin.
He snarled. “I am not yours to command, siren.”
His angry words slid past the warmth cocooning Lillian, and she blinked as if waking from sleep.
What? Lillian gave herself a shake.
Gregory. The siren.
It dawned on Lillian the siren had released her to turn her full powers back upon Gregory.
Tethys began to sing, and Lillian felt herself going under a second time even though this enchantment wasn’t focused on her. Cold power shimmered along Gregory’s skin as he summoned defensive magic. His skin took on the rough seeming of stone.
Tethys sang, and runes blazed to life along his skin, preventing him from resuming his stone form.
Gregory roared in anger and pain, lashing out with magic. The wave of magic was unfocused and shot over the siren’s head, though she did hunch lower in the water.
The wave continued past the siren to shear through one wall of the cedar maze. Its momentum carried the magic, and its destructive force, beyond Lillian’s field of view.
Having expended so much power in one shot further weakened Gregory, and he slumped down onto his knees, panting with his head bowed.
Desperately wanting to help, Lillian crouched next to him and flared her wings, mantling them around Gregory in a vain attempt to shield him from the siren’s song.
But of course, her action did nothing to prevent Gregory’s enslavement.
Helpless to do anything, Lillian could only watch in despair as he fell under Tethys’ song a second time.
Her gut tightened. This was a mild version of what the Lady of Battles wanted to do to them. Maybe Tethys would be the kinder mistress. The warm fog was back—soothing, coercing.
“Lillian,” a voice called from behind her, the words dark and rich, the tone deep and beautiful. So like Gregory’s voice, and yet not.
Swaying, Lillian found herself hovering at the threshold of the magic doorway, Gregory at her side. She didn’t even remember standing up, but she was at the doorway, ready to take the last few steps to accept the siren’s offer.
Curiosity flared briefly but died as the siren’s song swelled to match the dark beauty of the second voice.
“Lillian! I did not sire you so you could become a slave.”
Chapter 26
THE MEDALLION AROUND Lillian’s neck heated to the point of pain, and then a wave of scorching magic raced across her skin. Suddenly, she was herself again, Tethys’ voice weaving nothing more than a beautiful song. Shadows to her left shivered, and a gargoyle similar in build to Gregory appeared before her startled eyes.
With a gasp, Lillian stepped away from both the doorway and the newcomer. Her hurried backpedaling nearly had her running over a smaller body behind her.
The delicate female sidestepped in time.
Lillian whirled to face this second newcomer while she tried to determine if there were others with these two, or if they had come alone.
That they were a threat was all too certain.
She’d seen the petite, dark-haired woman and the tall, muscular gargoyle once before. That time it had been at a distance when Gregory had first discovered the demon seed within her and had tried to dig it out with less than favorable results. That day Lillian had only a glimpse of the dryad and gargoyle standing before her now. They had been a part of the first eight years of her life, a time that was nothing more than a blank void except for a few details filled in by others and what she had uncovered. But she knew them on a visceral level, nonetheless.
Her birth parents.
The amulet Gran had given her and the cryptic message now made sense.
It all did—why Gran had been reluctant to give it to her, and the command to use it as a last resort.
Well, this was as last resort as it got. She needed to know one thing first, however, and she modulated her voice to be heard over Tethys’ song, which she noted seemed not to affect her at all now that the medallion was hot to the touch. Lillian’s parents seemed similarly immune. Handy trick that.
“If you come only on the Battle Goddess’s order, then leave me to my fate.” Her voice came out strong, almost like she was in command of the situation, though her words were false bravado. She couldn’t detect lies as well as Gregory. And even he might have trouble judging her parents. If they had been double-crossing the Lady of Battles for the better part of twenty years, they were masters at twisting the truth.
“We knew we could never sit by and allow the Lady of Battles to destroy you.” Lillian’s mother spoke for both parents.
A loud growl crested above the siren’s song.
Gregory and his usual timing. Crap.
She jerked her gaze back toward him in time to see him launch himself at her father. Her mother danced nimbly out of the way and dragged Lillian stumbling along behind as both males rolled past in a biting, snarling ball of winged fury.
“Do you accept our offer of aid, daughter?” her dryad mother asked as she calmly watched the two males continue to inflict damage on each other. “We are running out of time.”
Lillian started toward the two, concern driving her forward even when she knew she wasn’t ready for a fight in gargoyle form, not like the one she was witnessing. The two fighters would break apart, then, with lightning-fast moves, come together again in a fury of slashing, biting, and lethal kicking. Even their tails and wings were weapons. Both fighters already had an alarming number of bloody welts, bites, and slashes covering their skin.
“Do something. They are going to kill each other.”
“Kill each other? Perhaps. But not for days. They’re both hard-headed gargoyles and at the moment, fairly well-matched.” The dryad made a gesture to the two males. “Normally, your other half could finish your father with ease, but Gregory has had a hard time of it in this cursed Realm, yes?”
The heat from the medallion increased, forcing Lillian to clasp its chain and hold it away from her skin.
“Ah, yes.” Her mother nodded at the medallion and then inclined her head in the direction of the siren. “There lays the true danger. The medallions are reaching the limit of their ability to protect us.”
At her words, Lillian noticed her mother was also wearing one of the medallions. Had her father been wearing one?
More importantly, could one help Gregory?
“Time to exchange greetings with the siren,” her mother said and motioned Lillian forward, back toward the door in the air. When they were almost to the threshold, her mother pulled ahead and gave a formal bow, like something from a long-ago court, or two martial artists facing each other. Her skirts swirled around her, made of some glorious burgundy and black fabric.
Lillian blinked, then a second time to be certain, but yes, her mother had just plucked a bit of black off the skirt.
As she straightened, she spun the bit of glassy, black shadow in her fingers, readjusting her hold on the shard and then flinging it almost faster than Lillian’s gargoyle-enhanced vision could track. The bit of black—a tiny little throwing knife made from shadow magic—she realized, flew through the air. Unwaveringly, it hit its mark and buried itself inches deep in Tethys’ throat.
Her song cut off mid-note as she gagged on blood and the solid bit of blackness lodged in her vocal cords. Clawing at the knife, the siren bent over and retched blood as she dug it out.
“That will not slow her for long,” her mother said as she dragged Lillian away from the doorway. Seconds later, a blast of power s
treaked through the magic construction, lashing out at the empty space they’d stood in only a moment ago.
“Now!” her mother shouted.
Another gargoyle emerged from the shadows near where Gregory still fought with her father. Instinctively, she drew breath to call a warning to Gregory, but her father sprang away before she could, his momentum carrying him in front of the doorway. Gregory followed close on his tail.
And the third gargoyle struck with a blast of magic. It slammed into Gregory and tossed him right through the doorway and halfway to where the siren still thrashed in the stream. Gregory rolled, his arms, wings, and tail all trying to slow his momentum; however, it was one of the stone rings circling her glade that finally stopped him. Lillian winced at the impact that shattered stone.
Looking beyond Gregory to where Tethys struggled, Lillian saw her lips moving, but only blood came out. Oh, she would have been screaming orders to her other slaves, but without her voice to command them, the other fae stood waiting, blank as sleepwalkers.
Concern for Gregory drew her eyes back to his hunched form. He remained still for several moments, and Lillian’s traitorous feet were already moving her toward him.
With a grunt and a shake, he righted himself and then bolted back into motion.
Lillian’s mother flicked more of the black shards, but her aim wasn’t for Gregory. They collided with the magic doorway, sinking deep into its border. She continued to throw more shards into the weaving until it bristled with them. Then with a high-pitched whine, the magic holding the threshold open collapsed, taking the door and its view of the center of the maze with it.
Gregory vanished still on the other side, trapped there with the siren. Lillian felt hollow inside. She’d allowed her parents to betray him.
She’d betrayed Gregory, her protector, the other half of her soul.
Unaware of Lillian’s inner turmoil, her mother brushed her hands clean of residual magic and turned to Lillian. “We must strategize how to capture and hold your gargoyle long enough to free him from the siren’s power, but we need to move first before Gregory returns. It will not take him long to build another portal to this place, even weakened as he is. He will be desperate to find you.”
The Complete Gargoyle and Sorceress Boxset (Books 1-9) Page 43
