An irate sound, part huff, part growl escaped her. “No. Damn it!” she shouted. “Stop, you great brute.”
Her actions caught the attention of those waiting below. Four sets of eyes gazed up with looks of suspicion and worry. Unable to see him, they stared through him to where Lillian stood. By their baffled expressions, they wondered why Lillian was pounding her fists against empty air.
He added a lay of sound–deadening magic to his ward, then inhaled another deep breath and began sorting the different scents. Ah, yes. One was familiar: a vague memory, the old woman from the night he’d first come to this realm. In the chaos, he’d not had time to learn the grandmother’s name, but this was her—a few years older certainly, but still the same woman who’d stood before him without fear, the one he’d trusted enough to raise the Sorceress while he slept and healed.
He couldn’t have asked for a better outcome under the circumstance. It was all rather too convenient. And once again, that worrisome thought crossed his mind. Could the Lady of Battles influence events even in this realm? Unlikely, but not impossible.
“Sis, are you okay?” The younger man with brown hair advanced one slow step at a time.
“Jason, stay back,” Lillian yelled from inside the house.
“It’s okay, Lil. Tell us what happened,” the one named Jason said as he continued forward. Gregory moved to intercept.
“No! Leave him alone. Please don’t hurt him.” Lillian’s voice mirrored the panic he felt growing in her mind. She’d seen too much today, and now he was forced to threaten her family.
“Jason, do as your sister says.”
Gregory swung his muzzle in the direction of the new speaker: the middle–aged human who moved silent as a predator. This one posed more danger than the younger, untrained one.
Growling low in his throat, Gregory warned off both humans. The older male and the grandmother tensed at the sound, alert and ready for battle. Their bravery earned them a mote of respect. He rumbled a second time, and the one called Jason tightened his grip on his weapon until his knuckles stood out white against the dark wood of the staff.
“Easy, don’t panic.” The older man’s voice exuded calm, and had the grandmother not stepped out around him and taken the defensive position, Gregory would have assumed this male was the leader. Not so, judging by the older woman’s body language. She held her quarterstaff horizontal before her, her arms relaxed.
“Gran, what’s going on?” Lillian sounded bewildered.
The old woman cleared her throat. “Lillian, it will be alright. I’ll explain everything.” All the while the old woman talked with Lillian, her sharp eyes searched the shadows where Gregory stood.
He scented her summoning magic, like wood smoke it tickled his nose with its pleasant warm odor. The runes on the staff faded for a moment as her eyes took on an unfocused look. After a moment her eyes focused and scanned the area to either side of him, then above his head. She smiled.
Interesting; she’d found him by seeking the void her magic couldn’t penetrate. Clever woman. His estimate of her crept up another notch.
“Lillian, I know this is very strange and you have a lot of questions,” the old woman didn’t look away from Gregory’s direction while she calmed Lillian, “but I need you to focus for me now.” The old woman put force behind her words. “I need you to tell me what happened. Are you aware there is another creature here?”
Lillian stopped worrying at his ward, her expression transforming from annoyance to uncertainty as she realized he might have tricked her in some way. He smelled her rising fear.
“I was cornered by strangers. They weren’t human. They hunted me.” She paused, her eyes unfocused, trapped in her recent memories. “I ran, hoping to lose them in the maze, but they found me by scent. Something there stopped them, a power in the stones. But the pale man named Alexander did something to the ring of stones and they erupted. Shrapnel flew in all directions. I was hit … there was so much pain. I was scared. I heard your voice telling me to get to the gargoyle. I tried, but I’d lost so much blood, and my tree was bleeding. I felt death coming.” The flood of words issuing from Lillian’s mouth chocked off. She drew a sobbing breath.
His wings unfurled with the urge to comfort. Lillian’s need almost swayed him from his mission. Instead he used the distraction to stalk the group.
“Lillian, it’s alright. Tell us the rest.” The old woman’s voice soothed like the night breeze, calming, reassuring. It nearly swayed Gregory into answering the woman himself. With a shake he broke away from the old woman’s subtle spell.
Lillian continued in a daze. “I was dying. All I could think was I must reach the gargoyle. And I did. He … he came alive. I felt the stone warm under my hand. I thought my soul was leaving my body.” Her voice shook. “I passed out the moment I touched him. Later, I awoke on the kitchen table.”
Following the long shadows cast by the tree trunks, Gregory circled the small group, and came up behind the grandmother. When he stood on two legs again, he exhaled across the back of her neck. She stiffened, but no other sign betrayed her fear. He grinned, his lips curling back from his muzzle with humor, pleased she’d not seem him move. The woman’s scent was clean, free of evil’s taint. Good. He would not need to kill her.
“I know it’s unnerving that only Lillian can see the gargoyle, but let him get your scent,” the old woman said, her words a blunt order. “Do nothing he will perceive as a threat to Lillian.”
Gregory moved on to the middle–aged man next. As he scented along the human’s arm, the man flinched. Gregory continued until he was certain he could detect no evil upon the man. The one called Jason chose that moment to shift his quarterstaff from one hand to the other in a nervous fashion.
“Shit. Are we going to stand here all afternoon until he decides to eat us?”
“Jason, hold your tongue,” Lillian’s grandmother said.
“This really bites—”
“Jason, be quiet.” Lillian shouted from her position on the porch. “And listen to Gran for once.”
Jason held his position next to the vehicle, but his sour express said he wasn’t happy about it. “I swear, if the invisible beastie sniffs my crotch, I’m—” The male bit off his sentence as Gregory exhaled a lungful of air across the human’s forehead, blowing his fine brown hair straight back. The human jumped back with a yelp. There was no darkness upon this one either, so Gregory left him to dance in place. The human whirled one way and then the other, flapping his arms like a startled goose.
Gregory dropped to all fours and started toward the last human who had backed some distance away from the vehicle. When pale blue eyes followed the motion of his strides, Gregory realized this man could see him. He mantled his wings and allowed the wind to catch at the membranes until they unfurled. Destructive magic bled between the membranes in a blue–white sheet in obvious threat. Still the blond–haired human showed no fear; instead, his features were frozen in a look of awed disbelieve. Slowly his look altered as it changed to belief, and then subtle hope.
The breeze shifted, carrying the stranger’s scent. Clean, like spring’s return after a long winter, a hint of loam and wild forests. This was no human.
He paced closer and studied this new creature while he circled. Ah, he recognized what the man was now. Another surprise in an unusual day, but he had greater concerns, like when the Riven would return to threaten his lady again.
Dismissing the other immortal, he turned back toward the old woman. The scent of crushed grass and the sounds of footfalls coming up behind him served as his only warning. Had the blond–haired male cared to tread more quietly, he might have succeeded in disguising his approach. Gregory turned to confront his opponent and the smaller male collided into his chest. The man’s ribs cracked at the impact.
Driven by his crazed need, the injury didn’t faze the smaller male. He smashed a fist into the scratch marks on Gregory’s upper arm. The smaller male grunted and cradled his fist
against his chest, but whatever pain the injury caused was quickly forgotten when he spotted the dark smudge coating his damaged hand—gargoyle blood. The blond–haired male’s expression changed to one of rapture.
Gregory growled, more in annoyance than pain. He licked at his wound before any other magic–starved beast decided attacking a gargoyle was a good idea. A minor wave of weakness shivered down his wings as the other male began siphoning magic through the link of Gregory’s blood.
“I’m sorry,” the male said. “So many years surrounded by death. Death coming closer with each turning of the seasons. I couldn’t continue like this.”
“You might have asked.”
“And you might have said no.”
The gargoyle couldn’t fault him for his reasoning. In this magic–starved land, he might not have wished to waste magic on someone he didn’t know when Lillian might have need of it at any moment. But he couldn’t stop the other from feeding without killing him.
“How long have you been trapped in this form?”
“Centuries.”
Gregory had been about to award the other with a suitable punishment for the theft of his blood and magic, but anything he thought up would pale in comparison to what the other male had just done to himself. Besides, it might prove useful to have another immortal to help guard the Sorceress. There couldn’t be many other immortals he could trust in this strange land. “It will hurt to shed this form. Your body won’t remember its true shape after all this time.”
“I don’t care,” the smaller male whispered between clenched teeth. “If I live, I shall never again allow a woman to bewitch me into another form.”
The gargoyle snorted. That promise wasn’t likely to live long, knowing what he did about this one’s kind. “This is going to hurt. Perhaps more than you realize. Many lives ago, when my lady was born into a dragon body, I spent much of that life as a dragon since shapeshifting wasn’t one of her gifts. As I recall, when I periodically returned to my true form, it was exceedingly painful.”
“Thanks,” he hissed. “Might I learn the name of the gargoyle who is returning me to my true form?”
He remembered Lillian’s wicked smile, and hesitated a moment before answering the stranger. “My Mistress named me Gregory Livingstone.”
“Gregory … Livingstone? Seriously? That’s not a name, that’s a walking pun.” The other’s laugh was cut short by a grasp as a wave of pain rolled across his features. “Poor bastard, what did you do to piss her off?”
If the stranger would have said more, Gregory never knew. The body of the smaller male began to glow. A pale light hovered above his skin, like a thick mist. Then his bones began to grow and shift under his too–tight skin. It spilt and his moans turned to screams. In an act of mercy the fool probably didn’t deserve, Gregory placed his talons on the male’s forehead and commanded him to sleep. The smaller male lost consciousness a moment later. Quiet returned to the yard and he turned to seek his lady.
Lillian watched him with an expression of horror, like he’d expect to see if he’d eaten her beloved brother. He didn’t know what he’d done to earn such a look. He glanced over his shoulder to the body laying a few feet from where he stood. It continued its change, and was quiet hideous to behold. Surely not. She must realize this wasn’t his fault. The fool had stolen his blood. It was out of his hands.
Her look of horror changed to one of rage … or perhaps she did believe him responsible. Stupid magic–starved unicorns. Next time he crossed paths with a unicorn, he would dine upon roasted unicorn flesh. If building a fire was too much effort, he’d eat it raw. Unfortunately, eating this one would be a waste of magic so he let the equine continue to drink from the well of his power.
“Jason, no!” The old woman’s warning wasn’t necessary. Jason’s progress was reminiscent of a wounded deer crashing through thick undergrowth. Gregory whirled around, realizing as he did so the human could see him and was heading directly toward him. He was weaker than he thought if the unicorn had already drank enough of his magic that he couldn’t hide himself in shadow. The human was upon him, swinging a quarterstaff, and Gregory didn’t have time to worry.
Jason swept the quarterstaff at Gregory’s legs, forcing him to leap out of the way. While still in the air, he snapped his tail around the human’s quarterstaff. With an abrupt heave, he tugged the human off balance. Jason cursed. In an agile move, the human twisted in midair and landed a kick to Gregory’s ribs. Then the youngling released his hold of the quarterstaff and lunged away.
“There was no evil within him,” Jason cried. “He was my friend.” Drawing his knife, he continued to circle.
Gregory rubbed at his abused ribs and tracked the human with narrowed eyes. So far he’d been gentle on this human because the Sorceress would be angry if he damaged her brother, but he was starting to care less about niceties as his annoyance of this strange land and its people grew. First, he’d been attacked by the creatures of darkness, then by a crazed unicorn, and now a cocky human child challenged him. This was an odd realm.
Jason came at him again.
“Enough!” Gregory snarled. He grabbed the human by the shoulders and lifted him into the air. He jerked the dagger from Jason’s hand and flung it away. Then, uncaring if he clawed the fool of a human to shreds, Gregory roughly turned the human until he was suspended upside down above where the unicorn rested, exhausted from the change, but whole.
“Not—my—doing.” Gregory punctuated each word by shaking the human. “He stole my magic. He did this to himself. If you continue, I will damage you. Mortal, do you understand me?”
“Yes,” Jason moaned.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” He sounded weaker. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Gregory deposited the human on the ground next to his unicorn friend. They were both crazy. It might be contagious. Turning, he ran into Lillian. She glanced beyond him to the unicorn, concern drawing her eyebrows together.
“What did you do to him, and why?”
“I did nothing. He stole my blood so he could return to his true from. Did you not know your brother’s friend was a unicorn?
She mouthed the words, and then shook her head, looking lost. Her skin was paler than before, and he worried shock was setting in. His suspicions were confirmed when she started to shiver. He pulled her closer until her smaller frame was a solid line against his side, then wrapped a wing around her shoulders. She leaned into his warmth and didn’t look up at her grandmother’s approach.
“Forgive my grandson and his friend, ancient one,” Lillian’s grandmother said. An elegant bow accompanied the words. “You may call me Vivian, and as you can guess by the evil you’ve already discovered, these have been trying years for everyone. But let there be peace between us, and let us share food and histories. There are dangers which must be explained.”
He didn’t miss how she glanced worriedly at Lillian, but he didn’t question her more. There would be time for inquiries later. For now, he was more concern about Lillian. Her mind felt fragile.
“Lillian needs rest,” he said.
“Of course.” Vivian made a sweeping gesture with her arm. “This way.”
He inclined his head to Vivian in thanks before urging his lady back in the direction of the house. Lillian allowed herself to be herded.
Inside, Gregory followed Lillian as she made her way through the kitchen and on into the living room. There she collapsed into a chair and held a pillow in her lap, her eyes glazing with recent memories. Her grandmother stood next to her and whispered words of comfort. Right now, Vivian was the one Lillian would find safe and familiar, while his presence would only lead to more questions and worry. So he faded, blending into the room around him until he was once again part of the shadows.
Chapter Seven
Distracted by her grandmother, Lillian missed when the gargoyle vanished. She leaned forward in her chair, her fingers biting into the armrests. He’d been standing righ
t in front of her a moment ago and now he was gone. Nothing moved that fast. His magic must cloak him in some way she didn’t understand. A laugh bubbled up. She suppressed it with difficulty. What did she understand? Magic. Gargoyles. Unicorns. Her entire life was a lie.
When her mind threatened rebellion, she took several deep breaths and thought about the wind in her grove and the sound of bird song. Calmer, she approached the problem with a rational mind. What was she to do? A gargoyle followed her around like a lost dog. He must have a reason. And she needed to find out his motives. But how? Question after question whirled through her mind, but no reasonable explanations.
“You’ve had enough shocks for one day,” Gran whispered in her ear. “Come with me. The gargoyle is right: you need to rest. Everything will seem better after a good night’s sleep. Then I’ll explain everything I know in the morning.”
Lillian nodded at Gran, too tired to think.
Gran ushered her up the stairs, pushing on her shoulders to steer her in the right direction. After a few turns Lillian found herself in a room. Her grandmother handed her a bit of satin. Lillian blinked. Her favorite indigo chemise. And yes, that was her oversized bed. It had never looked so good. When the door’s click announced her grandmother’s departure, Lillian started shedding clothing as she crossed the floor.
The satin nightgown still a cold presence against her skin, she crawled across the bed and scrambled under the covers. Her eyes were already closed by the time her head hit the pillow. Before sleep claimed her, a worried thought flashed across her mind: where had her gargoyle gone?
****
Hearing was the first sense to awaken. A soft, slow whooshing teased the edge of her hearing, rhythmic like the ocean, almost like a purr. The soothing noise had a steady thump as its counter beat. Delicious warmth radiated throughout her body. A part of her mind wanted to embrace sleep, but other senses were sharpening. She inhaled a deep breath. Air perfumed with the scents of home baking filled her lungs—her grandmother’s pancakes and sausages if she was not mistaken. Her stomach growled, waking her farther. Still she didn’t open her eyes—there was something dancing at the edge of her consciousness, something she didn’t want to acknowledge or remember. She squeezed her eyes tight and wiggled closer to the heat, determined to recapture the mindless obviation of sleep. Another scent crawled across her senses and seeped into her mind like a drug, one reminiscent of wild places and the pleasant musky warmth of a purely male being—the scent of gargoyle.
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