The Avatars Series: Books 1-3

by Blackwood, Lisa

  That’s how the siren will use him, Lillian thought with growing panic. All Tethys need do is command him to protect his ‘Sorceress’ against the threat the humans represent. And he would.

  Hell, she needed to escape, buy herself sometime to think and strategize. There had to be a way to breach the siren’s influence on Gregory.

  Lillian glanced at the surrounding forest.

  Maybe she could escape and lead Gregory deeper into the woods. If she got him away from the siren’s immediate vicinity, then maybe he could rest and heal enough on his own to shake off Tethys’s influence.

  Gregory would know how to fight the siren. Lillian relaxed, realizing fighting with him was getting her nowhere. She lay still while Gregory cleaned her Riven inflicted wounds, but her mind was far from idle, and she formed the basis of a plan.

  He’d loosened his hold marginally as he worked his way lower. When she shifted her weight enough to free one arm, he tensed. Lillian followed through with the motion anyway, pretending his mane had been her destination all along. Once her fingers were buried in his thick mane, she started to groom the few tangles loose.

  Gregory’s death grip eased enough to allow her to shift positions so she could better reach his mane. The new position placed her sitting more upright with only one leg still trapped under him. He sprawled against her, curled in a semi-circle around her, his tail completely encircling her. She changed position again, bringing her muzzle closer to where his neck met his shoulder.

  As she reciprocated his grooming, Lillian dragged in another breath of his heady pheromones and nuzzled him in return. Her tongue lapped at his skin a moment or two before her teeth scraped over where her tongue had been moments before.

  Gregory rumbled in appreciation, shifting his body enough to reach the soft, delicate skin of her throat. Lillian freed her leg from under him and sat on her haunches.

  Leaning forward, she pressed her forehead to his and their horns clicked against one and other. She nuzzled him in a heartfelt apology and then brought to bear a palm sized river stone from where it lined the border between the manicured grass and the stream’s edge.

  The impact against the side of Gregory’s head made a dull thud, which turned her stomach. He keeled over sideways with a little push from her, but he caught himself on his arms and braced himself as he shook his head.

  Lillian darted forward, placed a kiss on the abrasion she’d just created, whispered another apology, and then launched away from him.

  Her leap landed her a good ten feet from where she’d started. She didn’t slow or look behind like instinct clamored for her to do. The knowledge that Gregory would follow was equally instinctive.

  He had always been her Hunting Shadow. It didn’t matter what spells or enchantment might have been cast, he would always follow.

  She might not know what had befallen Gran and the unicorn, but once she freed Gregory from the siren’s influence, they would return together to face Tethys and learn the fate of their friends.

  With an easing of the despair, which had gripped her earlier, she raced into the depths of her maze with a lighter heart.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Lillian made it clear of her maze, and quickly left the garden, cottage, and spa grounds far behind as she made her way deeper into the forest. The darkness under the trees didn’t hinder her gargoyle eyesight, and she barely slackened her pace. The only times she slowed was to maneuver around patches of underbrush too thick to go straight through. More often, she was forced to hurdle over a group of sleeping Fae or human soldiers.

  But the latter became fewer the deeper into the forest she fled. She didn’t really have a destination in mind, as her plan didn’t go much beyond running for her life and hoping Gregory followed. Once they were far enough away, she held a small, naïve hope he might shake off the siren’s spell if he wasn’t within range of her song.

  Part one of her plan had worked far better than she’d ever dared hope. Her hearing was mostly recovered and she had only to twitch an ear to her back trail to easily hear Gregory following even over the whistle of the wind in her ears. He wasn’t bothering to be subtle, which also told her he was still firmly under the siren’s sway. Had Gregory been in sole command of his wits, he’d never have made so much noise.

  Refusing to be disappointed, she continued doggedly northward, her gargoyle body not even winded after running for the better part of an hour.

  ****

  It had to be close to midnight. Two hours of running had worn away her earlier exuberance, but still she ran. Her muscles burned and her strides grew shorter even as she ordered her body to run faster. As if sensing victory, Gregory put on a burst of speed until his nose was even with the tip of her tail. She could feel the heat of his breath.

  One lunge would spell disaster. She had no doubt if he caught her this time, he would take her back to the siren, and she wouldn’t get a second chance at escape. Jumping over a fallen tree, she used the momentary cover it provided to veer sharply to the left.

  Gregory leaped over the trunk and changed course in the air, flapping his wings and shooting ahead of her to drop down almost directly in her path.

  She dropped to the ground, kicking up a wave of loam and leaf litter in front of her and then kept rolling, right under Gregory’s out stretched arm. She felt his fingers graze her hip as she slid by. But then she was off and running again faster than he could catch up.

  Blood surging in her veins, she wanted to shout that she was still free.

  For the moment.

  But she didn’t fool herself into thinking there would be many more moments of freedom. Her body was tiring, it was only a matter of time before it failed her. She was fast running out of options.

  Gregory showed no signs of returning to himself, and she had no other tricks up her sleeve.

  There was only the medallion bumping against her breast as she ran. Gran had given it to her, and Lillian had never doubted her grandmother’s wisdom before, but as she ran and mulled over who else there was to offer aid, her mind kept going to one logical conclusion no matter how her heart shied away from the answer.

  Gran had given her the medallion, knowing what could happen. But did she dare to use it?

  Was Tethys worse than what aid the medallion might bring?

  Lillian feared she was, but also feared Gregory would not agree.

  But presently, he was a mindless tool of the siren’s making, and Lillian wasn’t feeling too confident in allowing the siren to continue unchecked.

  Oh, please, let this work and not backfire in my face.

  With a prayer, she skidded to a halt and brought one talon to her palm and sliced a small line in the fleshy base of her thumb. Three beads of blood welled up as she hastily smeared it across the medallion’s surface.

  She half expected the medallion to absorb the blood, or for the metal to flare up with bright fire in her hand. Even a slight glow? Something to show the magic worked.

  A whole lot of bloody nothing was what she got for her trouble.

  Useless medallion and overrated magic.

  Was she doing something wrong?

  A full body bruising weight slammed into Lillian’s back. It drove her to her knees and then flat to the ground with her muzzle half buried in the forest loam. Breath rushed out of her lungs in a pained whoosh. She grunted and dragged in a new breath of air. It hurt worse going in than it had coming out. Jolly. Her mane covered her eyes so she couldn’t see a thing, but she did feel an earthworm wiggling between two front teeth.

  She snarled and spat, trying and failing to get her limbs back under her so she could leverage the dead weight from her back.

  A rumbling purr was the only response to her struggles.

  “Gregory, get off me.”

  A warm, wet tongue stroked a path between the joints of her wings. She debated boxing his ears with them but decided he might take it as an invitation to play. Another happy rumble emanated from just behind her head. She suppo
sed she should be glad it wasn’t one of the darker sides of his personality dominating him at the moment.

  A half tonne of happy wiggly Gregory seemed a whole lot less dangerous than an eight foot winged killing machine.

  “Mmm, Gregory, I love you, but get your big ass off me before you break some part of me I’m really fond of, like my spine.”

  With one last lick, Gregory shifted his weight.

  Well, well, he actually listened, she noted with growing interest. What other commands might he obey?

  With an over exaggerated slowness, she got up and brushed off the specks of loam and leaf mould covering her body. Her stalling tactic gave her a moment to think. A quick glance down confirmed the medallion still hadn’t reacted to her blood in any discernible way.

  She was out of options, but at least she’d managed to lure Gregory away from the siren. Frowning, she rolled her eyes in his direction where he quivered at attention like a dog at point, his barely contained exuberance palpable in the air around him.

  Lillian amended her earlier thought. She’d managed to extract him physically, but in spirit, the essential Gregory was still missing, or more likely, buried under layers of enchantment.

  It seemed fundamentally wrong that someone as powerful as her protector could be compromised so quickly and thoroughly by a song.

  “Oh, Gregory, I know you’re still in there somewhere. I hope you can hear me and understand. I’m not sure how I’m going to free of that over evolved fish, but I will.”

  She’d stick with her earlier plan to try and keep him away from the siren as long as possible. Her mad run had bought them a little time. It would take them a good couple hours to run back the way they’d come, longer if Gregory was content to walk.

  She was certain his order would have been to bring her back, but perhaps she could even stall for more time.

  Sweat glistened on her body, her muscles were certainly feeling the exercise, but she could manage a trot. There was, however, a growing hollowness in her middle. Maybe she could convince Gregory into hunting, thereby creating more time before he forced her back to the siren.

  Sadly, she had no way to know how long it would take Gregory to overcome the siren’s power on his own, if he even could, which, with every hour that crept by, she was beginning to believe might not even be possible.

  “Any chance a girl could stop and get a bite to eat?”

  In answer he flicked an ear at her.

  Could he even understand what she was saying? She began to doubt he could reason even that much on his own. His actions were by rout, like a sleepwalker’s.

  “Oh, please fight it, Gregory. I need you.” Shamed to hear her voice shake, she squared her shoulders and said in a stronger voice, “We all need you.”

  She was unaware she’d been crying until Gregory brushed away the evidence with one large thumb. Pressing her cheek into his palm, she started to cry harder. Then before she knew what he was doing, he scooped her up. Her world tilted strangely, and she suddenly found herself upside down over his shoulder, one of his steel-like arms clamped across her thighs, preventing her from kicking free. Simultaneously, his mobile tail curled around her shoulders, pinning her wings to her back before she’d thought to use them in some way to leverage herself free.

  She was working herself up to deliver a solid bite to Gregory’s vulnerable side when she felt the coldly familiar chill of his magic flowing across her skin.

  “Oh, for the love of dog.” Lillian cursed under her breath. “Now what?”

  From her inverted vantage point, she could only peer around Gregory’s muscular hip to see him weaving magic into something. Her lack of knowledge reared up and bit her in the ass again.

  Whatever spell he wove rose up out of the ground, pale and ethereal, for all the world looking like thick fog. It spiraled around two tree trunks, climbing them until the silvery fog was above head height and then the two spires shot delicate filaments toward each other, forming a web before Lillian’s bewildered eyes.

  “Gregory, what is that? What are you doing?”

  No answer, though he did pat the back of her leg, which may have been an attempt at reassurance. Lillian perked up. That was a reaction to her question.

  “Gregory.” Lillian called softly, then changed tactics. “Durnathyane, My Hunting Shadow. You don’t have to do this, you don’t have to listen to Tethys.”

  Lillian hoped calling him by his name from his last life would jog some rationality back into his head. He did pause his spell work and twisted his neck to meet her gaze at the awkward angle and Lillian’s heart jumped with hope, but then he shook his head with a snort and returned to his spell.

  Following the direction of his gaze, she saw the spell was now a vaguely door-shaped object. Her fears were confirmed a moment later as the entire construction flashed a blinding white. Still blinking grey spots from her vision, her other senses came to the fore to fill in the details.

  The scent of cedar reached her nose. More telling, though, was the distinctive fragrance of tropical water lilies Gran had planted in the small stream that flowed past Lillian’s hamadryad.

  Her vision cleared, confirming what her nose and ears had already told her.

  Gregory’s spell was some kind of doorway, and on the other side, the siren waited patiently.

  “Don’t do this. Tethys is dangerous.”

  “Yes.”

  Lillian froze, surprised Gregory answered her.

  “But not to us,” he continued as he walked toward the strange spell-woven door hovering in the air. “She has offered to help us fight our enemies. She will stand with us against the Lady of Battles.”

  “She lies to gain control over your power.”

  Gregory sighed and then shifted her off his shoulder and set her down so she was facing him, her back to the flickering door.

  “I have always been able to detect lies. The siren has spoken only the truth to me. She will aid your hamadryad in destroying the demon seed within it, and then you will be free to take up the mantle of Mother’s Sorceress once more. All will be as it should.”

  It was the same promise the siren had given Lillian, and perhaps there wasn’t a lie in the offer. And it was the one thing in all the Realms which would tempt Gregory.

  He placed his hands on her shoulders and guided her toward the doorway. If it came to a contest of physical or magical strength, Gregory would win.

  That only left her with cold, logical reason. “Please listen. I know what she offers is what we ultimately want, but why did you wait to agree until after you awoke from stone? By what she told me, you had already turned down her offer while you still rested in stone. Why was that? What was it about her offer that gave you pause? It’s important.”

  Gregory halted his advance toward the doorway, a frown line forming between his brows and his ears swung forward in question.

  She met his gaze and saw a hint of the old Gregory there.

  He blinked.

  “Gregory, bring your beloved to me where she will be safe from the Riven.” The siren’s voice floated through the doorway and slid across Lillian’s senses like a mother’s soothing caress. Her earlier worries seemed unimportant.

  Distantly, with only a mild concern, she saw lines of power crawl across Gregory’s skin.

  He snarled. “I am not yours to command, siren.”

  His angry words slid past the warmth cocooning Lillian and she blinked as if waking from sleep.

  What? Lillian gave herself a shake.

  Gregory. The siren.

  It dawned on Lillian the siren had had to release her in order to turn her full powers back upon Gregory.

  Tethys began to sing, and Lillian felt herself going under a second time even though this enchantment wasn’t focused on her. Cold power shimmered along Gregory’s skin as he summoned defensive magic. His skin took on the rough seeming of stone.

  Tethys sang and runes blazed to life along his skin, preventing him from resuming his stone form.


  Gregory roared in anger and pain, lashing out with magic. The wave of magic was unfocused and shot over the siren’s head, though she’d hunched lower in the water.

  The wave continued past the siren to sheer through one wall of the cedar maze. Its momentum carried the magic, and its destructive force, beyond Lillian’s field of view from this side of the doorway.

  Having expanded so much power in one shot weakened Gregory, and he slumped down onto his knees, panting with his head bowed.

  Desperately wanting to help, Lillian crouched next to him and flared her wings, mantling them around Gregory in a vain attempt to shield him from the siren’s song.

  But of course, her action did nothing to prevent Gregory’s enslavement.

  Helpless to do anything, Lillian could only watch in despair as he fell under Tethys’s song a second time.

  Her gut tightened. This was a mild version of what the Lady of Battles wanted to do to them. Maybe Tethys would be the kinder mistress. The warm fog was back, soothing, coercing.

  “Lillian,” a voice called from behind, the words dark and rich, the tone deep and beautiful, so like Gregory’s, and yet not.

  Swaying, Lillian found herself hovering at the threshold of the magic doorway, Gregory at her side. She didn’t even remember standing up, but she was at the doorway, ready to take the last few steps to accept the siren’s offer.

  Curiosity flared briefly, but died as the siren’s song swelled to match the dark beauty of the second voice.

  “Lillian! I did not sire you so you could become a slave.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The medallion around Lillian’s neck heated to the point of pain, and then with a wave of scorching magic racing across her skin, she was herself again, Tethys’s voice weaving nothing more than a beautiful song. Shadows to her left shivered and a gargoyle similar in build to Gregory appeared before her startled eyes.