“Her magic infiltrated my defenses while I was weak. She said she’d make you whole, make us one. Once she had you, she promised that she’d convince you to possess me, hold me so close to your heart and soul that it would be like we were one again. I would be complete.” Gregory shuddered in her arms. “I so very much wanted it to be true, even as another part knew it to be wrong. I tried to fight it in the beginning. But she didn’t want to harm you, she wanted to make you whole.”
“I know.” Lillian caressed him, whispering soothing words. “She promised me the same thing.”
As he poured his heart out to her, she held out hope he was returning to himself, that he might be able to break the siren’s hold without the collars.
“Tethys’ spell grows stronger by the hour as she takes strength from the other fae. I can feel her tendrils tightening around my mind.”
Now that didn’t sound good.
“If she had only tried to order me to do something to harm you, my magic would have tagged her as a threat and destroyed her while she was still weak enough. But she knows what we are, what we mean to each other, and had the wisdom to order me to protect you.”
Lillian tightened her hold on Gregory. “It’s okay. I have a plan to free you from her influence. I have two magical artifacts I want you to examine. I’m told they will protect the wearers from outside magic—I just don’t know if I can trust the source. I’m rather hoping you might know better by looking at them. Because if they are safe to use, we will be immune to Tethys’ magic and able to neutralize the threat she represents. Gran told me a siren’s enchantments die with her.”
“That is true.”
“While my plan will free you from the siren, there is something I will be asking for in turn. And I fear it will be a heavy price.”
He braced himself on one arm, so his upper body lifted away. His gaze sought hers, and twin pools of shining dark anguish looked down upon her. “Anything. I would pay anything to solely belong to you again.”
“I must own you body, heart, and soul...though I hope it will only need to be for a little while.”
Gregory shuddered above her. “All those things have been yours for a hundred millennia, all you ever had to do was claim them. Take them now, I offer them freely.”
Her heart pounding with dread and shame, she took up a collar from where it rested in the grass. It was the one intended for her own neck, she saw, its workmanship of a more delicate nature. Fear sparked through her mind, but she forced her hands to snap the collar around her own neck. It was heavier than she’d expected, and cold, so cold. Only slowly did it begin to warm to her body.
The second collar remained on the ground, untouched.
She ran her fingers over the unmistakable shape of the collar around her own throat. This was wrong. She knew it was, and yet what choice did she have?
If Tethys remained in control of Gregory, it would only be a matter of time before Lillian became a slave as well. And if that were to happen, there would be no one left to save the billions of innocent humans from the siren’s vengeance.
She took up the other collar. It was heavy and still her hands shook uncontrollably. With agonizing slowness, she inched the collar closer to Gregory. He merely watched her in silence.
He trusted her, she realized in a moment of absolute self-loathing.
No matter how many ways she tried to justify it, she’d still be betraying Gregory by enslaving him, and it didn’t matter if the collar was a better choice than the siren, Lillian still couldn’t bring herself to collar Gregory.
“I can’t,” she choked. “Not even to free you from the siren.”
“Yes, you can. For me,” Gregory said, almost pleading.
“No,” she repeated, her voice growing stronger. “I won’t. I will not make you my slave.”
With a desperate decision, she attempted to whip the offensive magical device as far from her as she could, but Gregory caught her wrist, preventing her. As she watched, he gently pried the collar from her clutched fingers. He turned it over in his hands, and she felt him call magic as he studied it with a sense more acute than sight. He sniffed it, huffing softly to himself as he continued his study. Then as she watched frozen in horror and denial, he placed it around his own neck.
Golden light, bright enough to force her to blink and shield her eyes, twisted among the jewels embedded in the collar. Her own grew warm around her neck in answer to the magic triggered in his. The heat intensified, warming the metal and her skin. She reached up, intent on prying loose the one around Gregory’s neck, but two powerful hands locked around her wrists, preventing her.
Magic boiled up from deep within his spirit. She felt it wash over her body. Then with a snap, it severed the ties that had bound Gregory to the siren. Waves of magic continued to roll out across the meadow, making the grasses sway violently.
She was still gasping in shock at the force of the magic swirling around them when Gregory shifted enough to free himself from his loincloth and then tore hers away as well before she knew what was happening.
“Yours,” he rumbled, “I am yours now and forever.”
Gods, no. “It’s forbidden!”
“My beloved, my soul’s mate,” he roared. With those words, he pressed between her thighs, jerked forward, and slid home in one thrust. He tossed his head back and groaned, his wings jerking open and flapping once, twice, and then a third time before folding down around them both. Magic continued to flare wildly for a moment, rippling over them both and then the light vanished, taking the weight of the collars with it.
Lillian gasped and tensed at the first, sharp flush of pain from Gregory’s sudden invasion, but within moments, her magic welled up and her body began to adapt, welcoming him home. He bowed his head down to bury his muzzle in her hair as he started to move against her with his powerful strokes.
A new heat stirred low in her abdomen and he soon drove any thoughts of the collars and what they’d done out of her mind.
He gentled after a few strokes, murmuring words of love to her in an unending stream, sometimes aloud and other times only in her mind. It was so clear, just there for her to see, that no matter how forbidden it was, he needed her in this way, required this closeness, a moment more vital to him than the next breath.
Belatedly, Lillian wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She told him of her love with everything that she was. “My heart, I’m here. Take what you need. I offer it freely, and I promise we will get through the coming days together.” Shifting slightly, she wrapped her legs around his hips, crossing her ankles under his tail for better leverage.
Her actions drove him right to the edge and on over.
“My Lillian,” he roared, back arching. After a few short, urgent strokes, a great spasm shook his wings as his entire body quaked with his release. He slumped against her and just panted while he tried to catch his breath.
Gradually, the waves of magic emanating from Gregory’s body grew less until all that remained was a shimmering, knee-high mist swirling around the meadow grasses.
Exhaustion stole over her body, and she allowed her head to slump back onto the ground, but she continued to gently stroke his back and wings in a soothing manner. Her eyelids drooped. Even though she hadn’t found her own release, her body felt heavy and sated, rather like she had shared Gregory’s, and now she was drifting at the edge of sleep.
She may have indeed slept then, for when her senses sharpened once more, everything came rushing back in horrible detail. In contrast, Gregory was still a warm, heavy weight draped across her body, his wings cocooning them from the chill of night, and his scent soothing to her.
But they’d just done the one thing that they weren’t supposed to.
The Big Rule.
Shattered to little tiny bits.
It was all her fault. She should never have let the collars within a thousand kilometers of him. No matter that she’d thought her parents were acting in good faith or that Gregory had looked t
hem over, it was she who had accepted the gift and presented it to her poor befuddled gargoyle.
She’d gambled and lost.
Her mistake was still there, glowing ever so slightly in the moonlight. This mistake didn’t look like it could be easily fixed. Encircling his neck, where the collar had been but a short time before, was a gold tattoo-like brand. It twisted in elegant whorls all the way around his throat. When she ran a finger over it, the skin felt slightly raised, but otherwise unharmed. She fingered her neck and felt the same raised pattern circling it. With a heavy heart, she turned her gaze back to Gregory.
As if the focus of her thoughts caught his attention, he stirred from his lethargy.
“Lillian?” he asked and cracked an eye open, his voice sounding a touch confused and groggy with sleep. He didn’t bother to lift his head from her shoulder. “Where am I? I feel strange.”
“Rest, my love. All is well, and we are safe for the time being.” Though that was probably a lie, she thought as she looked at what the collar had wrought.
He huffed out a contented snort and slumped farther to the side. Enough that only a little push was required to get him to roll off her. She disentangled their limbs and slowly sat up, taking a quick inventory as she did.
She ached in a few interesting places, and that wasn’t really a surprise. However, the faint streaks of blood on her thighs made her glad Gregory wasn’t awake to see. He never handled the sight of her blood very well, and somehow, she was sure he would blame himself for every little drop.
He would never forgive himself for this. She worried this event might kill a small part of him. He held duty and loyalty in such reverence, she knew he’d see what happened as a personal failure on his part. Then an even more troubling thought surfaced. Would he believe he’d just raped his Sorceress?
She replayed what had happened in her mind. Was it rape? Gregory might think so. She knew him well enough to know that he’d blame himself for centuries. This night would certainly haunt her for many nights to come, but did she see it as rape?
It was an ugly word, but accurate. Though she was not traumatized by the act. She hadn’t been afraid, not of him, never of him.
But if it was rape, she wasn’t the sole victim. Gregory was compromised by the siren’s enchantment through no fault of his own.
Sighing, she admitted that if she’d just allowed him to take her back to the siren, none of this would have happened. She’d known the stakes and the risks if things went badly. Oh, and they had. But she might still be able to avert complete disaster if she acted quickly.
“Gregory,” she called gently. His one ear swung around to listen, but he didn’t open his eyes or otherwise move. She touched the tattoo encircling her own throat and loathed herself. It was quickly becoming a familiar feeling. “It is important that when you wake, you don’t remember anything that happened here in this meadow.”
Gregory made a worried little growl at her demands. Lillian was quick to stroke his mane to soothe him.
“It won’t change the fact that I am your mate, and I love you more than life, but this is to protect you, to keep you strong so that you may better protect me in turn. I need you strong and undivided in your convictions. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he breathed out on a sigh and drifted into what appeared to be a deep, restful sleep.
She and Gregory had promised to tell each other everything, to abstain from telling lies. Would omissions count as lies?
Yes. But just this one time more, she would omit something. Oh, he might figure it out. His heightened senses might scent the truth, or he might read the emotions on her face, but in the end, the risk justified the means. They both needed Gregory strong and his faith intact if they hoped to defeat the Lady of Battles in the coming months.
She rested a hand on her bare stomach. And if something more became of this than another one of her mistakes, well, she’d just deal with the consequences.
Surely, she wouldn’t conceive just from this one time? The odds were against it. The only thing that kept complete and total panic at bay was that presently she wasn’t the Sorceress. Her hamadryad tree had that honor. She was merely Lillian, not an Avatar capable of birthing a monster with god-like powers. And besides, in the past, Gregory had broken his celibacy on a few rare occasions to beget a child with another. He’d even said that she’d done the same thing at least once.
And those times had never brought down the wrath of the Divine Ones. Surely, this time would be no different if the worst did happen?
Lillian shook herself out of her reverie. What was she doing? There was probably almost no chance of her getting pregnant. She had greater concerns to deal with now. Like what to do about the collar tattoos, Tethys, her parents, and the Riven. Oh, and there was the small problem about what to do with the naked gargoyle asleep next to her.
Somehow she had to keep him from finding out the extent of her mistake.
Well, to start, she’d just have to hide the evidence. She’d already done what she could to keep him from remembering. Though she didn’t know if that would be enough. Gregory was good at ferreting out the truth. And there was no hiding the collars.
Then again, he might be so angry over the collars that he’d completely overlook the foggy, dream-like events that led up to the collaring and never think to find out what other events might have occurred afterward.
But he certainly wouldn’t mistake it for a dream if she didn’t get them cleaned up and the evidence washed away quickly. She untied her scarf-like top and dropped it next to her discarded loincloth. A glance at Gregory showed him still sleeping. She didn’t dare go far, or as past situations had shown, he would wake if she strayed too far from his side.
Lifting her muzzle into the air, she scented the surrounding meadow, this time looking for a water source. The only water within the needed radius was a small, brackish little pool, home to a few bog plants and an assortment of amphibians. The boggy smell was enough to make her eyes water, and when she stalked through the muddy edges into deeper water, the muck proved to be worse than the water alone.
She splashed herself with liberal amounts of the pond water. To call it a bath would be a gross injustice as she came out far dirtier than she went in. However, the pond water—and the mud now sticking to her lower extremities—certainly performed the function she wished.
It was doubtful if she’d be able to smell anything other than the little pond for days, no matter how many times she showered. Jaws gapping, she breathed through her mouth in a desperate effort to defuse the wretched stench, only to snap her jaws back together after the first breath. She could taste it on the back of her tongue.
She gave herself a shake, sending drops of water and pond muck flying, and then walked back to Gregory and her discarded clothing. She donned her beaded loincloth; one of the right-side sashes was now shorter than the other, but she rigged it so it would hold together. Then she tied on the scarf-like top.
That done, she couldn’t ignore it anymore. “Oh gods, that smell.” She almost felt sorry for what she was going to do next. With a delicate shudder, she returned to the pond’s edge and scooped up generous handfuls of the muck, then returned to where Gregory still rested. After another half-hearted apology, she proceeded to smear his lower extremities with the mud in such a way it would look like he’d chased her through a bog.
Chapter 29
HE AWOKE BY DEGREES, fighting off sleep as if it was one of his more insidious adversaries. It clung to his mind, almost dragging him back to the land of slumber more than once. With a mental snarl that in the waking world might have been a sleepy mumble at best, he shook off the clinging tendrils of sleep, and his mind finally sharpened enough that his other senses started to relay information to him.
That part of him, buried deep in his brain where his soul resided, the one that always knew where Lillian was and what her condition was, began feeding him details about her. She was close at hand, her mind alert, scanning the world
around her for dangers while also keeping an eye on him. There was no panic or fear or pain, no urgent need for him to wake to defend them—his weary body tried to convince him that he could nap for a little while longer.
He snapped fully alert then. No, that wasn’t his body’s weariness trying to woo him back to sleep. It was most certainly the dregs of an enchantment, a very powerful one, too.
Ah yes, Tethys, a demigoddess of the ocean. The spell had been broken. Only a few fragments remained, but it was no wonder why he’d slept. That spell was no trifling thing.
Another scan of Lillian showed she wasn’t under the siren’s sway, though there was some residue from where Tethys had tried to enslave her. Shame flared to life in his heart as he remembered how he’d chased Lillian down like a deer. Well, maybe not a deer. She’d put up a fight worthy of any gargoyle, and he was a little proud she’d been able to outrun him for so long. Her speed and stamina would only grow with practice and time.
Hearing was the next sense to sharpen, and he tracked Lillian as she rose from her crouch and paced over to him. He detected another emotion he hadn’t noticed earlier. Anxiety. He reached further and found her mind, her thoughts and feelings coming to him.
Her distress and worry were over something she’d done—worry that he’d be angry and never forgive her for a rash mistake.
Gregory bolted upright to discover what was causing her so much stress.
And he choked on his first deep breath.
The second wasn’t any better.
Glancing down at himself, he found he was coated in a layer of the vilest-smelling mud he’d ever had the misfortune to encounter in all his lifetimes. Merciful Father, what had he been doing? Rolling in a bog?
His gaze sought Lillian, looking for an answer since he didn’t remember how it had come about.
Come to think of it, there were a few other holes in his memory. He remembered the siren, and hunting Lillian, capturing her and then losing her—to another gargoyle! Lillian’s parents had come to her aid. Against him.
The Complete Gargoyle and Sorceress Boxset (Books 1-9) Page 46
