by Scarlet Dawn
Gargoyle
Copyright 2015 Scarlett Dawn
First Edition
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of these publications may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the Author. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Editing by Rogena Mitchell-Jones Manuscript Service
Cover by J.M Rising Horse Creations
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To all of the Woodland Creek authors...you rock! We knocked this project out of the park. You're all aces to me.
DEDICATION
To Jennifer Stevens and Jennifer Munswami,
Thank you so very much.
Your dedication and hard work helped this project turn into a success.
Much love,
S.D.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Epilogue
About the Woodland Creek Series
About the Author
Preview of the Cold Mark Series
Preview of Valan Playboys
Preview of King Hall
Isaac
A drunken woman grabbed ahold of my cock.
My claws twitched to rip her offensive hand from her arm, but thankfully, my dick was made of stone—no cock snapped off. Her human, delicate fingers gripped hard as she leaned over the edge of the clock tower, staring down at my city, Woodland Creek. I was tempted to move, to break free of my perched façade, and scare the woman enough to fall to her death.
Fucking humans were a nuisance.
Her blonde hair whipped around her face, never giving me a clear view. I rolled my eyes and held still, letting her have her drunken fun. If I was going to kill a human, I enjoyed seeing the fear in their eyes as death stalked them. The night breeze was her saving grace.
My brother, Finn, perched next to me, tilted his hideous stone head in my direction. He lifted an arched brow behind the human’s back. He would have no problem killing her.
The air misted in front of my frozen lips, a huffed negative. I preferred to take care of my own business, even if Finn was overly protective.
“Hello, Woodland Creek!” the human shouted, her words slurring. She lifted the beer she held, waggling it to and fro into the night air. The liquid sloshed over the edges, but she didn’t appear to notice. Her grip tightened on my cock as she leaned farther over the edge. “You are a beautiful town!”
A fine mist formed in front of Finn’s lips, a constant puffing. My brother was laughing his ass off. Though he quickly tilted his head forward, returning to his pose when the human leaned back and released my dick.
She turned her attention to the left, her hair still whipping in her face. Her shoulders stiffened slightly, and she mumbled, “Huh…what’s that?”
I held perfectly still, unable to look.
But I froze even further when she turned and walked a dangerous path on the edge of the tower. I watched her feet stumble over each other as she passed my sister, Mandy, on the other side of me.
“Woo…woo…shit!” she screamed as she tumbled over the edge. Her arms fluttered about her, blonde hair flying like a tornado touching down, right before gravity took hold. The beer can and her body disappeared from sight.
My other brother, Mike, grunted softly on the other side of Finn. His tone was utterly humored. “I wish her beer hadn’t fallen with her.”
I sighed heavily, her scream finally cutting off. “That took a while.”
On the other side of Mandy, my mother grumbled, “Ridiculous humans.” Her wings unfurled and then snapped back tight against her frozen pose. “Well, that’s one less to worry about.”
Kennedy
My scream rent the night air…as I fell down.
Down.
Down.
I stared up at the edge of the clock tower, my lungs expanding inside my chest.
I screamed again. I was going to die!
The ground would be splattered with…Kennedy.
But with an abrupt breeze, my cry of terror choked off.
The air was soft. It surrounded me. My arms tight against my terror filled chest twitched. I blinked up at the edge of the clock tower.
My body had stopped moving.
I was…suspended…in the air a foot off the roadkill sidewalk.
“I’m dead,” I whispered, my throat constricted in fright.
Shouldn’t death feel peaceful?
A man snorted to my right. “You’re not dead, Kennedy.” A quiet pause. “Though I will be tonight.”
My terror filled gaze snapped in the direction of the voice. There was a man dressed all in black standing in the shadows of the building. I held perfectly still, my body floating on…nothing. I said the first thought that came to mind. “Are you an angel? Did your wings catch me?”
He laughed outright, his shadowed head tipping back, only the glint of white teeth showing in the darkness. His laughter…warmed me enough that my body began to uncurl from my panic seized position.
I tilted slightly to the side and chanced putting an arm and a leg on the ground. I fell hard, the air holding me up gone. “Umph!” I rubbed at my skinned elbow as I lay on my side, the concrete beneath me chilling my exposed flesh.
He waggled a finger at me, his hilarity cutting off. “Do try not to harm yourself.”
I blinked, glancing around. My mouth bobbed. “I’m not dead.”
“I already said that, Kennedy.”
My attention flicked to him as I slowly picked myself up from the ground. Alcohol and adrenaline weren’t a great mix. My limbs were shaking so badly, my own shadow cast from the moonlight on the side appeared to be wavering in water. My voice was quiet, trembling, my thoughts trying to catch up from my fall from the clock tower. “How do you know my name?”
He waved a hand. “That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you listen carefully.”
I blinked. If this man had saved my life…somehow… “I’m listening.”
His eyes suddenly glowed brilliant amber in the darkness.
My entire frame locked down.
If I wanted to run, I couldn’t.
Literally, my body was stuck as I stood.
I couldn’t even twitch my left pinkie.
Once more, trepidation flooded my being.
The man stated smoothly, “My time on this earth is done this eve. But the knowledge I hold cannot go on to another. Not yet.” He walked toward me into the moonlight. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t see his face. “When it’s time, you will hand over that knowledge. I have foreseen this. You carry the salvation of this town with the true love of your life. The two of you will beat the night.”
He kneeled down on his right knee and placed a book on the sidewalk in front of my feet. “There is much information held in this book. Names. Shifter types. Abilities. You won’t understand all of it, but you are free to read it.” He reached forward and tapped my left shoe.
My body came alive at the touch, a deep-seated sizzling in my veins. I stared at the man…at the wizard. A power radiate
d around his body in a sea of waves.
If I hadn’t been frozen before, I would have been now, my heart rate skyrocketing.
“What you see is real. What you know is real. Never forget that.” He stood straight from his lowered state, shadows ever swirling around his face. He began an easy stroll down the sidewalk, away from me. “And do not tell others what you see. Not unless you want to be dead.” He paused, his dark head peering back over his shoulders. “And quit drinking. It won’t do your body any good. You need to be vigilant to the truth around you.”
When he disappeared completely into the quiet of night, my body jerked forward.
I was free. Free of the wizard’s hold.
I choked on air, trying not to pass out, and crumpled to my knees. My eyes never left the black, ancient book before me. I swallowed down the burning bile in the back of my throat.
Perhaps Woodland Creek wasn’t so beautiful.
I shouldn’t have accepted the package.
I had known the woman was a wizard. She radiated power, her voice even wracked with it. But I had taken it from her, accepted its intended destination, and now I was standing outside an office building where I could see many shifters inside. With the full moon and the lights shining brightly inside the building, it wasn’t hard to make them out through the windows. It appeared to be a drunken celebration.
They had probably just killed a new load of campers at Nightmoon Creek. Yay for them.
Killed innocents.
The shifters were s-h-i-t. Shit.
I hated them.
Hated. Them.
And I had to go in there. With them.
Sighing heavily, I unclipped my helmet from under my chin and set it on the seat of my Moped. No one would steal it here. Hell, no one wanted to come here after dark, this area of Woodland Creek…not so guiltless. But I needed the money. I would take just about any job right now.
Wiggling my shoulders past the nerves beginning to etch into my gut, a fluttering that made me half nauseous, I cleared my throat and began making my way up the concrete sidewalk that was pristine and unblemished, whereas the main street had been cracked and filled with potholes. It was just another indication that this was an otherworldly building. The woman inside hovering above everyone’s heads, with her angel blue wings beating heavily to keep from slamming into their drunken party, really wasn’t needed to tell me this. Nor was the man with the tiny devil horns, arm wrestling an average looking woman…if you didn’t count the fact she had only white bones for a hand. She was also winning by the looks of it, the man’s horns growing longer in his frustration.
At the large front door surrounded by floor to ceiling windows, I started to press the buzzer on the intercom, but a couple stumbled outside, their beer sloshing over the edges of their cups. I gritted my teeth against their voices that sounded like shards of glass threatening to burst my eardrums, and quickly caught the door before it swung closed. I don’t think they even noticed me, they were so plastered. That was one reason why I didn’t drink anymore. My eyes were wide open now to the way the world was and I wasn’t about to be caught unaware from imbibing.
I muttered a quiet curse when the scents of sour alcohol and sickly sweet substances—marijuana, I was pretty sure—attacked my nostrils. Though the music blaring wasn’t half bad, a jungle type with a hypnotic beat. It was music I might actually download later if I could catch any of the words over the shouts of revelry off to my right inside the ‘party room.’
Glancing around my surroundings, my black brows lifted slightly. There was no security here inside the lobby. Or a receptionist, the desk void of any living being to take the small package in my hand. I peered around a bit more, my eyes scanning from ceiling to marble floor. A delicate, beautiful green grass had grown up between each tile, giving the area a patio sort of vibe. Walking carefully on each tile—not about to allow the seemingly harmless grass to touch my feet—I rested against the receptionist’s desk. I even pressed the little bell on top of the counter, an ancient form of communication to indicate there was a customer here.
No one came.
Not even after ten minutes with me ringing the damn bell twenty more times. Maybe more.
Grinding my teeth, I tossed the package on the chair behind the desk.
The wizard woman hadn’t said I needed to have it signed for. I had been paid in advance, too. The chair was good enough.
It happened as I was turning to leave.
A blast of something…unnatural…crept through the air.
The feeling wasn’t harmful. At least, it didn’t feel like it.
Instead, it stroked like the sunshine…I groaned. My hand instantly went to my lower stomach. “What in the…” My God, my voice was throaty. I slammed my other palm down on the receptionist’s desk when another wave of unusual power pulsed through the air, radiating around me, ruffling my hair as if it were in a soft breeze. An excruciating tidal wave of need made my legs weak.
I doubled over, glaring at the door. “I knew I shouldn’t have taken this job.” Clenching my muscles between my thighs, an intimate wetness felt, I carefully placed a foot toward my exit. “Gotta get out of here.”
Groans and moans were my answer from the ‘party room’ along with cries of surprise.
My brows instantly furrowed, my narrowed gaze immediately moved in that direction. It didn’t sound as if they knew what the hell was going on either. That…couldn’t be a good sign. I didn’t like the clamor of their chairs and tables being knocked over either, the ruckus looming closer.
A pulse wave of sunshine-lit-carnal power—it was the only way to describe it—brought me down to my knees, my hands jarring on the tiling, barely catching myself. “Oh, holy…hell.”
At least, the grass wasn’t killing me. It felt like normal blades of fine, soft grass under my fingertips where they hung over the edges of the tiles. I was pretty sure there was even dirt under it, my fingernails digging into it as I moaned. Loudly. There was no stopping it.
Pressing my thighs together, a blaze of sunbeams shivered down my spine, then up. Out to my limbs. I was a trembling mess of lust and pure need. “Lord, help me.”
He didn’t answer.
A wizard did.
The door that appeared so damn far away now flew open, bringing a gust of damp night air, and suddenly, I was nose-to-nose with a wizard as he blurred inside, then stumbled as another wave of molten power pulsed through the air and fell to his knees right in front of me. His orange hair was a windblown mess and he was panting heavily, a sheen of sweat coating his dangerously handsome features. His black clothing even clung to him as if he had just run a marathon. He also had a cellphone pressed to his ear as he leaned heavily on one arm. His silver eyes glowing and blinking repeatedly, he merely ignored me, growling dangerously into the receiver, “I’m here. Where the fuck are you?”
The ‘party room’s’ door slammed open…and a shifter stumbled outside of it, a horde of other shifters close behind her, but they were falling all over each other. The door swung shut behind her. Her cheeks were flushed bright pink, her breathing just as heavy as mine, and she lowered a cell phone she had to her ear and stared at the wizard in front of me. “I need you.” Damn…her chin began to tremble. “I’ve missed you.”
The wizard’s breath caught, then he blurred to his feet, wobbling a bit where he stood.
I didn’t make a sound. Didn’t plan on it. Not until the wizard paused and seemed to remember I was there on my hands and knees before him. I shook my head slightly and barely managed to moan, “I’m not stopping you. Go get her.”
He eyed me for another heartbeat longer, his silver gaze scanning over my face. If I wasn’t mistaken, committing my features to memory, then he blurred toward the shifter when the door handle to the ‘party room’ started to turn. My hair blew to the left in his breeze, then to the right as he flew back past me, with the woman in his arms—I guessed—since she had disappeared, too.
One of the doors on
the far right side of the room opened and slammed shut.
A lock clicked.
“Christ,” I muttered under my breath. I hadn’t even seen them slip inside. My gaze honed on my exit, my salvation from this shifter pit of Hades. I had a hand lifted, but the stampede of shifters had made it here, the door to the ‘party room’ literally unhinging and flying over my body. And to match with the pure hell my night was turning into, another pulse wave of carnal demand lashed the air, sending me to my stomach.
Suddenly, the ground started to shake beneath me.
It wasn’t because of the shifters falling down heavily where they stood either.
I had no clue what the fuck it was, but it felt like an earthquake.
One of the shifters chose that moment to let out a piercing shriek, not handling the floor vibrating well.
In a domino effect, the lights above started popping and bursting left to right, in what appeared to be the entire building, from her heinous wail. I shouted, slamming my hands over my ears—my injured shout not the only one heard—horrified, I could feel so much agony, my ears feeling like they were going to bleed and still be turned on at a nuclear level at the same time. One by one, the lights burst…leaving the entire place in darkness, only the moon shining in through the front windows on either side of the door, the windows now cracked in a wicked spider web, an entrance worthy of this shit hole.
One shattered as the wailing continued.
Just as suddenly as it had started, the screeching stopped.
I moaned in appreciation to whoever had shut her the hell up. Though partial sanity quickly returned when I felt someone brush past me. Quivering in need, I swiftly began army crawling around the receptionist desk, my way slow going with the ground vibrating as it was. The front door was too far, and too many shifters were between it and me now. The desk would provide some cover.
Banging ensued on a door, in the direction that the wizard and shifter had escaped to, then a growling voice demanded on a brutal shout, “Cut that shit out!”
