Purple. Not the silver he expected from the ghost in front of him, but bright, brilliant, fake purple.
As she jabbed her makeshift weapon at him, he reflexively caught her wrist. Decades of training and indoctrination refused to let him return the blow, but he damned well would stop it.
Sunlight glinted off a razor sharp point at the end of the chopstick. Strength behind the weapon that should be impossible for any ghost strained Cal’s muscles but his training wouldn’t let him retaliate. Ghosts talked. They didn’t, they couldn’t interact with the physical world.
“Wait, c’mon, wait. Calm down!”
She stood only a couple inches shorter than his six feet and, as he grabbed for her other arm to stop the incoming kidney shot, he got a better glimpse at her face. His mouth went dry.
He could touch her. If there was physical contact, she couldn’t be a ghost, right? But he’d held her body, cradled her in his arms. She’d. Been. Dead.
He whispered her name, barely able to force the three syllables out. “Anniko?”
The woman’s lips drew back from her teeth in a feral snarl and he glimpsed slightly elongated canines. Yup, Sacred Mother gargoyle. No doubt about that, with the teeth and clearly fake eye color, which no doubt concealed her gargoyle-silver eyes.
That observation was as far as he got before she jerked forward and sank those sharp fangs into his wrist.
Cal yanked himself away and left a small portion of his skin between her teeth. Blood welled from the new wound.
“How dare you speak her name, you, you…dung beetle!”
Her name? He blinked, whipped around to avoid a crotch-shot.
Now that was playing dirty, and damn if it wasn’t somehow absurdly turning him on. He loved women who could handle themselves. Still, he needed to get a handle on this situation before Lucas swooped in.
“Wait, wait, can’t we talk like civilized…”
Thud.
Wind exploded from his lungs in response to the solid blow in his solar plexus from her free hand.
Nope, civility not on her to-do list.
He gasped, tried to suck in air, and stared at her as he staggered back. Her dark hair framed her face, Anniko’s perfect face.
“Anyuka died because you failed, Robin.”
Anyuka was the Hungarian word for “Mommy,” more or less.
“How dare you be here when she’s gone?” She clenched her fists, chest heaving as she battled with herself to gain control.
All the blood rushed from his head, and not to travel south. Cal wobbled and then his legs gave out on him. He plopped down on the winter-dried grass of the lawn with a hard thump. Her mother? As in…Could this be one of Anniko’s daughters? But…
She’d called him Robin. He hadn’t used that name since the massacre that he’d failed to stop in Hungary.
“Who, who are you?” Saliva had fled his mouth and he had to swallow hard. She looked like a carbon copy of the last Queen Sacred Mother he’d seen, the one who’d given birth to the next generation, the lost trio of Sacred Mothers. Well, identical except for the dark hair.
The woman twirled her chopstick-knife between her slender fingers, her eyes narrowed as she glared down at him. “My name is Rose. Brier Rose, Robin. I’m not Anyuka.”
He hadn’t heard those words spoken in a single sentence in twenty-four years. Brier Rose was the youngest of the three Sacred Mother hatchlings that had died that horrible day.
Cal stared up at her, at Brier Rose. Could she really be the little hellion all grown up?
He remembered Rose from before the massacre. Always climbing trees, daring her sisters to get into trouble. Clearly the ringleader of any hatchling trouble that cropped up.
“You’re not dead?” he stammered, amazed to find out his voice did still work.
Rose hissed, but nodded. “Brilliant deduction, Sherlock. I’m not apologizing.”
He frowned, trying to figure what she meant by that and why she’d suddenly stopped attacking him.
A dog barked from down by the road. He glanced in that direction and saw the HOA president staring at them as she tried to control her big German shepherd. The dog never looked like it wanted to walk with Sarah, yet she was out with the creature twice a day, every day.
No wonder Rose had stopped. She didn’t want any witnesses if she succeeded in killing him.
Damn, that’s hot.
He shook his head in disbelief. Hot and Anniko’s daughter, or any gargoyle, was absolutely not acceptable. He protected. He never got closer than that anymore. He didn’t trust himself.
Cal lifted a hand in a weak wave and called out, “Hey there, Sarah.”
The shepherd whined. Sarah yanked sharply on the leash. “Everything okay, Mr. Levesque?”
“Just fine, ma’am.” To his mind, all women deserved to be called ma’am unless he was invited to do otherwise.
He snuck a peek at the gasping Rose and amended the thought. Any woman not trying to kill him deserved the title of ma’am.
“We were just, um, having an argument.”
Sarah laughed and nodded. “Looks like she’s winning. Good job, girl! You keep him in line.”
Rose barely nodded, but apparently it was enough for Sarah to bark a command at Duke, and the two set off at a fast pace down the street.
Predictably, Tom, who had a major thing for Sarah despite the impossibility of a relationship between human and ghost, emerged at that moment and drifted off in pursuit. He never missed a chance to ogle the poor woman. Everyone needed a hobby, and Sarah-watching was about the only thing Tom had outside of watching ESPN.
He looked back up at Rose. “Can I get up now, or do you want to pound on me more?”
“I would love nothing more,” she snapped. “But it can wait.”
With that, she toggled something on her chopstick and the blade slid out of sight. He breathed a sigh of relief, grabbing the second chopstick as he climbed to his feet. Raising his watch to his mouth, he murmured, “Umm, I think you want be here, man.”
Static crackled in the earpiece before Lucas responded. “Don’t let that woman go anywhere.”
He had no intention of it. Nor did he have any doubts about who their mysterious visitor was anymore. Anniko’s face haunted his dreams.
A million questions ran through his mind. “How in God’s name did you survive? We thought you were dead!” Given the sheer number of body parts they’d seen that day, along with a total lack of survivors found on the grounds, they’d all believed the three little girls dead.
If looks could kill, he would have drawn his last breath. “Obviously, I’m not. No thanks to you.”
Obviously.
She turned on her heel and stalked back toward the porch. As she moved, Cal admired the view. He didn’t want to, but nature won out.
Whoa man, chill. Gargoyle woman, remember?
Rose stood shorter than her mother had. Her hips flared out more generously and, as she yanked open the screen door, which presented him with her profile, she had a bigger chest too.
Behave. If she’s Rose, she could be a second chance.
He shook his head. Failed bodyguards had no right to admire their charges’ children. He should have been there to protect them, but he’d been in Paris instead.
He’d been cleared of all official wrongdoing, since he’d been out of Hungary on the orders of his charge, but it didn’t help the guilt. He should have stayed at the compound, stayed by Anniko’s side.
“Be there in five,” Lucas said in his ear. “Are you sure about her?”
“Absolutely.”
As he stepped onto the shaded porch, he dug for his house keys. “My roommate will be here in a few. He’s gonna want to know the details of your escape, too.”
Rose cocked her head to one side, studying him. Something inside of him shriveled under her disdainful expression. “Lucas Rollins?”
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You know him?
She shrugged. “Hear
d of him. And Gwen gave me a letter for him in case I ever had to come here.”
“Gwen?” Shock tended to reduce him to basic sentences, and having one of Anniko’s daughters show up after twenty-four years was about as shocking as it got.
“Yup, Gwen,” she offered, with a hint of a snarl returning to her husky voice. “The one who took me in after you let Anyuka be slaughtered.” Then she stepped aside to let him unlock the door.
God, this would be a long-assed day if he had to deal with a hissing gargoyle and a cranky roommate/boss. But he’d gladly take it if it meant they might be able to stop the impending demon invasion. Unfortunately, Rose’s existence only raised their chances from nothing to .00003 percent.
At best.
Chapter Two
Tip from Gargoyle Dennis: Stay out of Alaska during the summer. It sucks being stone for eighteen to twenty-two hours straight.
Just a fraction of the tension tightening Rose’s shoulders eased as she crossed into the cool, welcoming darkness of Cal and Lucas’s home. At least here she wasn’t half-blind from sunlight. Yes, night-vision let her see ridiculously well even in almost pure black conditions, but it hampered her on bright, sunny days like this one.
Cool marble tile spread out before her, white with veins of green winding through it. A wide staircase led upward, branching off into left and right arms going into the second floor. She whistled softly. Being a Sentinel must pay really well for digs like these. Especially considering Sentinels had been useless for the past twenty-four years, with all the gargoyles gone.
Rose whistled softly under her breath, impressed by the easy signs of wealth around her. She was comfortable thanks to her work as a purveyor of hard-to-obtain-merchandise (a.k.a. smuggling), a profession she managed with ease because of her ability to fly, but not even in her wildest dreams had she ever hoped to score a mansion. Who needed one, when she was trying to stay out of sight? Money and conspicuous consumption made one noticeable.
“Where’s Mr. Rollins?” she asked, fixing Robin—no, Cal now apparently—with another glare. Her muscles twitched, adrenaline still running high. She’d noticed him whispering into his watch a few moments earlier. The man was probably somewhere close at hand, given they were roommates and all.
It probably wasn’t fair of her, but God, she wanted to strike out again. How and why was the universe so wretchedly unfair? He was still alive, after she’d thought all this time that there had been no survivors of the massacre.
Damn, but he was hot. That was something her childhood self hadn’t fully appreciated.
Stop it. You hate him, remember?
Cal made no apologies, nor did she expect him to. Sentinels were worthless creatures. “He was talking to security while I came here. Since you got past them somehow.”
She smirked. It really hadn’t been that difficult to whammy the guard. Emergencies called for extreme measures. As much as she hated them, she needed Sentinel help.
“How did you get in here? Someone’s going to get fired for the breach.” He looked surprisingly unhappy at the notion.
Rose ignored the niggling worm of guilt that gnawed on her gut. Gargoyle survival above all else. Hell, if not for that she wouldn’t have come here at all.
The grandfather clock ticked away twenty seconds before guilt won out.
“Don’t blame the security company. The guard is human, so I used a charm.” She kept a small supply of them on hand. It made parts of her job easier, not having to worry about objections to her removal of whatever she was in the process of obtaining.
Cal bobbed his head and then waved toward a long hall stretching into the distance. “Let’s go to the kitchen. I just came from a, um…” Red tinged along the high ridges of his cheek bones as he plucked at his shirt. “Paintball game.”
“Oh, aren’t you just oh-so-useful,” she said acidly.
She let him take the lead. She might be here, but she sure as hell didn’t trust him. Then there was the fact that he knew where they were going and she didn’t.
Cal led her into a kitchen any chef would envy. Gwen would have been blissfully happy cooking in a place like this. A double-oven nestled next to a microwave. A flattop stove sat on top of an island in the center of a room larger than her apartment in Anchorage. Copper pots and pans hung over the island. Gwen could have done a load of spelling here without worrying about a stray drop or two of potion ending up in the lasagna.
“Want a beer?”
Cal’s question jolted her out of a moment of extreme self-pity and she blinked at him. “Huh?”
“Yeah, want a beer? My mother would have my hide if I didn’t offer a guest refreshment. And Lucas would have my head for being inhospitable to a gargoyle.”
Right, he was thirsty because he’d been playing stupid games while she feared for her life.
“Water.” She could watch him pour and be certain he didn’t doing anything squirrely to it. As she stole another nervous look around the kitchen, her gaze collided with his as he watched her.
He smiled hesitantly. It was a nice smile, really, and he had perfect teeth. Not that she wanted to notice little details like that, but she did anyway. “Look, you’re pretty spooked about something, right Brier Rose?”
“It’s Rose.” Her insistence came out louder than she intended and her cheeks heated. No one ever called her Brier Rose, not since the massacre. That was an entirely different life. “Just call me Rose. Please.” She added the plea at the last second, deciding she might try to be nice, for the moment. Yes, he was alive, but maybe there was an explanation? That possibility hadn’t occurred to her before her temper exploded from the shock of seeing him minutes earlier.
He acknowledged her request with a nod and turned toward a tall teak cabinet to select a heavy tumbler. “Relax. If you’re running from something, demons particularly, you’re safe. Demons can’t come here.”
She frowned and peered at him. There were places Twisted Ones couldn’t go? “How can you be so sure?”
As he turned toward the fridge, glass in hand. “It’s holy ground. Most of the estate is blessed to keep the riffraff at bay.”
Huh. Go figure. Still, no way would she let his assumption about her fears stand. That implied weakness. It didn’t matter that she was afraid.
“I could be a super ninja assassin, you know. I got the drop on you outside.”
Weak at best, but she had decked him solidly a few times before stopping herself to avoid the dog walker witnessing anything bad.
His eyes glinted, their color a rich hazel, like Taylor Kitsch’s, and he shoved the glass under the water dispenser. “Uh huh. Mom taught me to never to hit a woman.”
“Your mother was a fool.” Just look at lionesses protecting their young. For that matter, from what she remembered of Anyuka, Sacred Mother gargoyles weren’t exactly mild when their hatchlings were threatened either.
His glass thunked loudly on the counter. “Watch it, Brier Rose. I get you being angry about my survival, but don’t you ever disparage my mother.”
Taking slaps at an unknown woman wasn’t very well done of her. Stay polite, stay polite. Blast. Best suck it up and apologize now before he got too mad. “I’m…sorry.”
Damn that hurt, to say the words. But it was all about survival.
“Trust me, I know just how deadly women are,” he added in a low tone before picking up the glass and holding it out to her. “I’m a big boy and I’ll take my chances. I won’t underestimate you again, be sure.”
As she took the glass from him, he rubbed the side of his jaw. A bruise already shadowed the area. She cleared her throat and looked away, startled that she felt some guilt about that.
“Good,” she muttered and glanced around. The only seats available in the kitchen were the stools pulled up along the breakfast bar. She settled in one as Cal yanked out a Corona and a Tupperware container of lime slices. What the heck did two men living alone need with so much food? There wasn’t a spare inch of space to be seen in
the ginormous fridge.
While he cracked open the bottle and stuffed a lime wedge down its slender neck, she set her purse on the counter and rested her right hand within to touch the locket she kept there. What little remained of her sisters rested within the locket’s tiny interior. Two swatches of hair, one pale yellow and one ginger, along with teensy pictures of Rory and Reny, nestled within. They’d been killed along with the rest of the clan during the Day of Hell.
He took a long pull from his beer before asking, “Now, about that letter you said you had for Lucas?”
Before she could answer, the side door flew open and a man the size of a small mountain strode in. Her purse flew off the counter as she yanked her hand out, instinct curling the fingers of her other hand around one of her chopsticks.
Cal could reassure her all he wanted about the safety of the house. There was more evil in the world than simply demons.
…
Having witnessed her temper and edginess up close and personal already, Cal blurted, “That’s Lucas, Rose. Lucas Rollins. He owns the house.”
His roommate wouldn’t appreciate being attacked in his own home and it seemed best to try to keep things on an even level at the moment. Rose looked like she wanted to bolt anyway, and he wasn’t about to let her without finding out where she’d been for so long.
Lucas quirked a brow at him before nodding shortly to Rose. He crossed to her, dwarfing her despite her height of about five-ten. The head of the Sentinels was six-five, weighed two-twenty, and enjoyed using his height to intimidate. Dressed as he currently was in all black—save for the blob of green paint on his combat boots—he could be downright scary to strangers.
Cal’s jaw throbbed from her wicked left hook and he decided, a bit ungentlemanly of him, to just watch the show.
Rose’s eyes narrowed and her fingers clenched around the chopstick as she stood toe-to-toe with the head of the North American Protectorate. She didn’t look even the least bit intimidated. Cal grinned, despite the tension rolling off the two, knowing how much that would annoy his roommate. If he weren’t just a little worried about a loose tooth or three, he’d salute her with his beer for sheer guts.
Locked in Stone Page 2
