“You make it sound predatory.”
“Isn’t it? Or maybe Nulls are more like scavengers? I never really thought about it before.”
Her glower returned. “You want me to come all the way over there and punch you?”
“You mean take two whole steps just so you can throw your punch, miss, and then hit the wall behind me? Because you’ll never hit me.”
“Almost worked last time.” She huffed and glanced back toward the noise outside. “How long do you think it will take them to get through the shield?”
“However long it takes my sire and dam to arrive and realize what’s going on. Your fellow soldiers likely think the spell is my doing, that I’ve already killed you and am attempting escape.”
“Well. That’ll light a fire under their butts.”
Gryton’s eyes crinkled a moment before he burst out laughing.
He was still laughing by the time a unit of soldiers led by the big gargoyle busted down the door and filed into the room, every gun trained on the still laughing fire elemental. Erika instinctively stepped in front of him and held her arms out wide.
“Wasn’t him. It was the leshii.” She was pleased to see the big gargoyle believed her. He turned from the cage and glanced behind him at Major Resnick. After a quiet word, the major nodded and ordered his men back out into the hall to go search for the leshii.
Erika hoped he would surrender without a fight. From the reports, she knew the leshii was one of the more powerful fae, which made him dangerous, but she didn’t think he planned to do more than annoy Gryton. The leshii didn’t deserve to die for that. She’d only known the fire elemental a short time, and already she could relate with the leshii in wanting to wipe that smirk from Gryton’s face.
“My sire has already summoned the one called Gran to aid in the hunt for the leshii.”
“Did you just read my mind?”
“No. Your body language is just exceedingly easy to read, even for a mortal.” Gryton didn’t even look apologetic. “Our soul-binding hasn’t advanced far enough to allow me into your head yet.”
“You’re still an ass.”
MAJOR RESNICK HAD ORDERED Erika to stay with Gryton while they hunted for the leshii. Sighing, she’d returned to her usual position by the wall to wait. The entire time Gryton pointedly ignored her. Or at least as much as he was able with the soul-binding linking them together now.
It was the damnedest sensation. One moment she’d be thinking about something mundane, and then the next their link would spark, and she was reliving fragments of his memories. While she couldn’t control when it happened, she could free herself by concentrating on something else in the real world.
Luckily it hadn’t taken the patrol units long to find the leshii, since he hadn’t bothered to hide. And as far as Erika could tell, the leshii had gotten off with little in the way of punishment. But that might have been because he’d claimed to know that she wouldn’t feed on Gryton enough to kill him.
Greenborrow had only sought to make Gryton ‘a little less of a surly bastard’ which made Erika even like the leshii a little.
“We have something for you,” Gregory said to Gryton as he approached the cage. After waving his hand at the cage in an almost dismissive manner, the lock disengaged, and the door swung open as if an electronic lock had been triggered.
Erika narrowed her eyes and admitted a touch of jealousy.
Why couldn’t her superpower be something cool like telekinesis or the ability to call upon the shadows to hide or a hundred other things she’d seen in Gryton’s memories? But no. Her superpower was magical gluttony.
The big gargoyle continued to the cage and held out the armful of clothes. “I asked the sidhe to provide something that would fit you.”
Gryton glowered at the one he called sire but snatched the clothing from his father’s hands with near eagerness.
“Once you are dressed, there is something your mother and I wish to show you. We’ve secured permission from the humans.” Gregory paused for a moment, glancing thoughtfully at his son. “While the leshii’s trick was an attempt to punish you, it actually benefited you. As far as the humans are concerned, you had an opportunity to harm the Null, but did not, proving that you are willing to embrace this new alliance.”
Gryton’s snort of disdain swiftly turned into a huff of surprise when the gargoyle’s tail thumped him across the back.
“If you act out at all, even so much as to glance at me in a way I don’t like,” Gregory threatened, “you’ll find yourself back in that cage. Do I make myself clear?”
Gryton continued to glower, but he nodded before retreating two steps to lay his newly acquired clothing on his cot. After returning his son’s glower, the gargoyle stepped from the cage. He didn’t close the door, though.
The woman known as the Sorceress came up beside Erika. “You can wait out in the hall if you wish. Gryton won’t try to escape. You’ve drained him of too much power to even make an attempt.”
“I need confirmation from Major Resnick, ma’am.” Erika hoped her tone came across as polite as possible. Because, really, one didn’t want to go around insulting demigods more than necessary.
“Of course.” Lillian glanced back at Gryton and then toward the hall. “I’ll go find Major Resnick.”
“It’s not required. One of the other soldiers will find him if something happens before he comes with new orders. I’ll stay here for now. I’m fine.”
The other woman laughed. “No doubt you are. However, I plan to spoil whatever my offspring has planned to intimidate you.”
“I wouldn’t be where I am if I was easy to intimidate, ma’am.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true. However, my son has already had too much fun baiting you.”
“Think it’s the other way around, ma’am.”
Lillian just laughed. “Perhaps you are correct.”
She would have said more, but the big gargoyle came and whispered something in his partner’s ear. Lillian grinned and then nodded once to Erika. “We’ll be back shortly to collect Gryton after we’ve spoken to Major Resnick.”
With that, the two Avatars disappeared out into the hall.
Erika was just returning to her earlier spot when Gryton’s laughter rang out.
“I’m aware some humans are lusty creatures, but I admit I thought you might have more discipline over your baser instincts, but I see you lack mastery there as well. Look your fill, inferior one.”
“Well, I was going to look in the other direction to give you privacy, but since you so kindly reminded me I have uncontrolled animal instincts that must be sated, I’ll just have to admit defeat and watch helplessly as you reveal your god-like body to me. I’ll try to hold myself back from ravishing you.”
A glance in Gryton’s direction showed him scowling at her.
She grinned. “Called your bluff, didn’t I?”
He merely glowered a moment more before he presented his back to her and reached down to examine the first garment. She had zero interest in seeing his naked ass, but she’d die before letting him call her bluff now that she’d issued a challenge.
He glanced over his shoulder and speared her with a look. A moment later, he slowly turned to face her.
Ah. Shit. She’d forgotten how good he was at reading people.
His grin was huge, positively deviant.
“You’re really going to make an ass of yourself, aren’t you?” She aimed her best scowl at him.
“Indeed. And you could leave if you wish. I’m not forcing you to stay.”
There was no way she was giving ground now. Locking eyes with him, she answered his challenge. His smirk grew even bigger—the asshole.
She returned his smirk. “Guess we’re both going to have to just stand here until one of us dies of old age because Hell will freeze over before I march out that door against orders.”
“Suit yourself.” He slid his thumbs into the waistband of his pants.
Damn. Com
e on, you can freeze over anytime now Hell.
But just then, God smiled on her, or maybe that was Major Resnick, because two other soldiers marched in. She didn’t know either of them, but that wasn’t a surprise. She didn’t know most of the soldiers assigned to Gryton. They were Special Forces, and she was a raw Private.
The shorter of the men spoke for them both. “Colonel Turner ordered us to take over. He’s out in the hall with Major Resnick. They want to talk to you.”
Colonel Turner was a full bird colonel overseeing the brigade she’d shipped in with. She’d never met him in person, only having seen him at a distance, but had heard he was a hard-ass and not to be crossed.
By some fluke that likely had something to do with how the Avatars only interacted with a select few humans, Erika had had more interactions with Major Resnick and a few other foreign officers these last few days than with her commanding officer or fellow infantrymen.
But right this moment, she didn’t care and would have taken orders from a penguin if it got her out of this room before the fire elemental flaunted his stuff.
“Ah. I see I finally found a way to make my keeper flee my side,” Gryton called after her with a laugh.
As she marched from the room, the mocking sound chased her.
“Fate may have forced me to concede this battle,” she called over her shoulder as she paused at the door, “Doesn’t mean I’ve lost the war. There’s always the next round.”
“I look forward to it.”
Chapter 11
Erika
WHEN SHE WALKED INTO the hall, more chuckles greeted her. This time from the devil’s parents. It seemed everyone had overheard her verbal exchange with the prick. With a scowl, she just took up her place with the rest of the guard unit out in the hall, her face neutral like she hadn’t just been yelling at the prisoner over her shoulder. It wasn’t the first time her mouth had gotten her in trouble.
Continuing to keep her expression neutral, she waited for Colonel Turner and Major Resnick to finish up their conversation with another officer. She wasn’t left to her own devices for long. The big gargoyle halted in front of her.
“Gryton will be a trying one, won’t he?” There was still humor in his tone, but his expression was serious. “If he ever oversteps, notify me. I shall make him regret it.”
“Thank you,” she hesitated, still not knowing how to address a demigod, “sir. I’ll keep that in mind, but I don’t think I’ll have a problem handling him.”
“You’re probably correct. The Divine Ones tend to partner up well-matched pairs before they set them on a quest.”
Erika was sure the gargoyle was trying to reassure her, but he really sucked at it. Not that she would mention that to the eight-and-a-half-foot-tall wall of winged muscle and sharp talons.
Luckily, Colonel Turner finished up his conversation with Resnick but didn’t seem interested in singling her out. And after a moment of studying the two Avatars, he turned and marched away, a few other support staff following. Major Resnick stayed behind, likely to directly oversee Gryton’s excursion.
They didn’t have long to wait for Gryton. A few minutes later, he joined them.
Erika eyed the fire elemental’s new clothing. With his long black tabard, leather bracers, a form-fitting pair of black breeches, and knee-high boots, he would look right at home in either a medieval renaissance fair or a fantasy movie set.
On Gryton the outfit looked natural. Which likely had something to do with how he walked with the natural grace of a warrior or martial artist.
Major Resnick ordered everyone to move out. The unit of soldiers formed up around the prisoner and his parents, then they headed off as a group. Before they left the community center that had become their base, the gargoyle called on his shadow magic. A moment later, he, Lillian, and Gryton all faded. They didn’t disappear, though.
The gargoyle glanced behind him and narrowed his eyes before huffing with humor.
“If you wouldn’t mind falling back a little, I won’t have to waste a greater amount of magic that would be better used elsewhere.”
Glancing toward Major Resnick, she waited for his nod before dropping back.
Lillian turned toward the gargoyle and said in a voice designed to carry, “And if you would take on human form once in a while, you wouldn’t have to use shadow magic to hide your big gargoyle ass all the time. Then I could just put a glamour on Gryton.”
The gargoyle rumbled something back in a language Erika didn’t know, but she’d bet it wasn’t pleasant.
THEIR DESTINATION TURNED out to be a maze. A real maze complete with forking corridors, dead-ends, and green twelve-foot-high walls. While it wasn’t the strangest thing she’d been exposed to since her arrival, it was so magically whimsical, she half expected to see honest-to-god fairies flying around corners or flitting over the top to vanish into the surrounding garden.
There were no fairies, though. At least none that she’d seen. The day was still young, though.
She continued to maintain her spot near the rear of the unit as they moved deeper into the maze. Lillian marched forward boldly, familiar with the twists, turns, and dead ends.
Erika memorized their path in case they needed to retreat in a hurry for any reason.
After another ten minutes of fast walking, they reached a clearing in the center of the maze. Smack in the middle was one of the biggest damn trees she’d ever seen. She’d been told it was a hamadryad and was presently gestating the Avatar’s daughter.
Really, some things were just too weird, and all you could do was shut your mouth and bob your head.
Scanning the area, she soon spotted something else odd. In the tree’s shadow, a stone statue lurked. By its silhouette, it was another gargoyle. If she’d had time, she would have asked about the stone gargoyle.
Major Resnick and Gregory spoke for a few minutes before Resnick ordered his men to stand at the perimeter of the maze. It gave everyone a good line of sight upon Gryton, but also gave him and his family a modicum of privacy.
After waving her over, Resnick leaned close to whisper in her ear. “I don’t trust Gryton. Stay near and drain him if he does so much as glances toward the exits.”
“Yes, sir!” She nodded sharply and hustled to follow the strangest family on the planet.
Lillian and Gregory led Gryton close to the tree until they were in its shadow.
“We’d like you to meet your little sister,” Lillian said.
“I...” Words seemed to fail Gryton.
Erika could see he was speechless by the fact his parents trusted him enough to visit with his unborn sister. Slowly Gryton reached out and tentatively touched the tree with a kind of reverence.
She arched one eyebrow but held her silence. To the best of her knowledge, he wasn’t doing any harm. Besides, she was just supposed to observe and stop Gryton from escaping.
Whatever else he did wasn’t her concern. She waited patiently for them to have what was probably their first family time together.
Eventually, Gryton finished greeting his younger sister, and he came to stand next to Erika, surprising her.
“I’m giving you a source of magic to feed on that isn’t my mother’s hamadryad or my little sister.”
Eyes widening, Erika took several steps farther back. “Why didn’t someone say something before now?”
“You weren’t close enough for long enough to be a threat. My sire and dam wouldn’t have allowed you near my unborn sister if they thought you were truly a threat to her. But you are so new to your abilities, I don’t wish to risk my sister’s life on their possible false belief that you aren’t a threat.”
Well. Here’s to insults all around. But he was in a talkative mood, so maybe she could learn a little more of what was going on in this new, strange world she’d walked into only days ago.
After all, this was a far cry from helping at the new provisional base north of town where she’d initially been assigned to one of the building d
etails. But within an hour of touching down, her destiny had changed and here she was, four days later, surrounded by demigods.
Her eyes tracked back to Lillian and Gregory. The gargoyle was slashing a wrist with one talon. If she hadn’t seen weirder shit, she’d have been more concerned. For once, the link was being quiet, so she didn’t have the benefit of one of Gryton’s memories to aid her.
But after a few minutes of the gargoyle circling the tree’s base, dripping blood the entire time, she concluded he was feeding the tree in some fashion. There was likely magic seeping into the ground along with the blood.
Briefly, she wondered if the child would be a demigod like Gryton and the parents. Probably.
She side-eyed Gryton. “Am I supposed to babysit that one once she’s born? Kids and I don’t get along. More accurately, they hate me and start crying at first sight.”
Beside her, Gryton coughed. She was sure the bastard was covering a laugh. “The hamadryad was the Sorceress at the time Lillian got pregnant. Later she gave the child to the tree to gestate and took back her Avatar soul. So, while my younger sister will be powerful, she won’t possess the great and destructive powers I and my sire and dam command.”
“Interesting.”
Gryton rocked back on his heels and gazed down at her. “And what about you?”
“About me?” The question took her off guard. As far as she could tell, Gryton couldn’t care less about her, or any human for that matter. Maybe he was bored?
“Yes. Surely you didn’t just spring forth from the ground at the Divine Ones’ command.”
“You already know my name, not that you ever use it.”
What else was there to tell? She’d led a relatively uneventful life.
“I was born in Texas. Granddad owns a ranch outside of Austin. Mom died of cancer when I was four. Dad was never in the picture much after that.” She shrugged. “Guess we have not knowing our parents in common.”
Gryton snorted disdainfully at the idea they would have anything in common. But he surprised her by gesturing for her to go on.
The Complete Gargoyle and Sorceress Boxset (Books 1-9) Page 163
