The Greystone Bundle (Books 1-4)

by Taylor Longford

  I smiled at her. "Aye."

  She shifted on the hearth and turned her knees in my direction. "What was it like back then?"

  "Eight hundred years ago?" I considered her question for a moment before answering. "Not as clean. Not as grand or comfortable or…easy. But the community we lived in was smaller so we played a bigger part, if you know what I mean. We weren't so anonymous. People knew us and came to us for advice, or for our opinion."

  She smiled softly. "What kind of advice?"

  I moved closer to the fire and let the flames flicker their warmth over my back. "Well, we were bridge builders—"

  "You built bridges?" she exclaimed. The glint of admiration in her eyes made me feel ridiculously worthwhile. "I thought maybe you made bows since that's what you're doing now."

  "We built hunting bows for ourselves but that's not what we did for a living. There were better bow makers in York and better bowmen, for that matter."

  "And people came to you for advice?" she asked, steering me back to her original question.

  I nodded as I turned and added some more wood to the fire. "We knew quite a bit about building with stone so we'd get a lot of questions when someone wanted to construct a wall or dig a well. It was a family business and we apprenticed under our fathers. I was working when I was fourteen and helping before that."

  "Did it help that you could fly? Did you use your wings to cross the water, while you were building a bridge?"

  I tilted my chin upward. "Our ability to fly was an advantage, though we rarely used our wings and only at night when people wouldn't see us."

  "So you kept your existence secret from the humans you knew?"

  I shrugged. "Yes, for the most part, although we had friends who knew what we were."

  "And gargoyles don't need sunlight to fly?"

  "Not at all," I replied. "We only need it to change from our living forms to stone and back again."

  Her lips pulled together in the shape of a rosebud and I wondered if she realized how attractive it made her. "And you were in your stone form when the harpies sealed you between those walls?"

  "That's right," I answered quietly. Her question took me back eight hundred years and rekindled the guilt that always came with the memory of that day. I couldn't help but feel responsible for the pack's long years of imprisonment.

  "Does that mean you slept for eight hundred years?"

  I shook my head. "We were dormant, meaning that we didn't get any older, but we knew what was going on around us."

  "Really?" The way her eyes widened made me smile. "I assumed you were asleep."

  "If we'd been asleep, we wouldn't have known anything about your world," I explained. "We wouldn't even have been able to speak your language. As it was, we learned the language as it gradually changed over the centuries we were trapped."

  Mim's expression turned sympathetic and the color in her eyes deepened. "Weren't you bored most of the time?"

  "Most of the time," I admitted. "But not always. Our hearing is really good and we listened in to what was going on around town. People sang and told stories. Shared riddles. Told jokes. Later on, the people who lived in our house read aloud from books or from newspapers. Then there were the wars. World War II was pretty exciting, actually."

  Again her eyes widened and her eyebrows arched upward. "Was York bombed during the war?"

  "Not as much as some of the other cities in England. The radio had just come along so we got a lot of news about the bombings across the country as well as information about the fighting in Europe."

  "The radio must have seemed amazing to you at the time."

  I nodded slowly. "Yes…only."

  "Only what?" she asked gently.

  I gathered my thoughts before speaking. "It's just that the advances that made the radio possible were the same sort of advances that made the wars bigger and more violent. In our time, a battle involved a few thousand guys with swords and shields. It was messy but it wasn't as…big or devastating."

  Her understanding nod made me feel like we'd made a connection. I slid toward the center of the fireplace and let the small blaze spread its heat across my back. I couldn't remember when I'd last felt so warm or good or hopeful about my future.

  In moving to the middle of the fireplace, I'd moved closer to Mim. She was within reaching distance and I wanted to touch her, to seal the connection we'd kindled together. I wanted to make it more permanent. While I hesitated, I thought of Victor rolling his eyes at me when we were up on the rocks.

  I slanted my gaze down to her hand on the hearth; her finger slowly traced the border around a tile. Taking a chance, I put my hand over hers, relieved when she didn't pull away.

  Her startled gaze connected with mine again and it was a few moments before she spoke. "Weren't you afraid a bomb might fall on you while you were trapped in that house?"

  "Yes and no," I answered as I trailed my fingers over hers, amazed by the silken warmth of her skin. "We're virtually indestructible when we're in our stone forms so a bomb might have actually freed us."

  "But?" she prompted me.

  I rolled my shoulders. "The house was filled with children during those years and we knew all of them by name. We knew them by the sound of their laughter. And by the weight of their footsteps on the stairs. We lived in dread that one of them might be hurt in an air raid."

  "You must have seen a lot of families come and go over the years," she mused quietly.

  I nodded as I watched her face. The children had grown up while we never aged a day. They got jobs when they were teenagers, met sweethearts and moved on. "We made a lot of friends that we never met. And lost a lot of people we'd grown to love."

  "They couldn't all have been good," she murmured.

  "Nay," I agreed. The house had gone through a number of changes and renovations over the years. At one point it was home to a privileged family with several servants. At other times it was little more than a crowded slum. "Some of the people who lived in our house were proper scoundrels."

  "Scoundrels?" she questioned me on a melodic chuckle.

  "Jerkoffs," I corrected myself swiftly, hating it when I used the wrong language. "Just before the first world war there was one old bastard who beat his wife and kids. It was hard listening to that. If we could have gotten free…" I let my voice trail away. I didn't want Mim to think we were violent or anything but gargoyles are protective by nature. And if we'd been able to get loose, we'd have damn well stopped the beatings.

  Chapter Six

  The sound of sizzling meat drifted down from the kitchen as the mouthwatering smell of Havoc's pepper steak filled the house. I answered Mim's questions about gargoyles and even squeezed in a few of my own, finding out that she didn't have a car but borrowed her mother's when it was available. History and literature are her favorite subjects and she loves homemade mac and cheese. I knew what cheese was; that's been around for ages. But I wasn't so sure about the mac part. I made a mental note to look into it. 'Course I already knew she could sew like no other.

  If Mim had asked me about my wings, I probably would have told her I didn't want to talk about them. But she didn't ask. And for some reason, my entire history started pouring out of me. I told her things I'd never shared with anyone before.

  I curled my fingers beneath hers and rubbed my thumb over her knuckles. "After Grotchka captured me, she flew to her aerie in Scotland. Her home was a deep crack in the face of a cliff. With the help of her sisters, she chained me at the back of the cave where the sun couldn't reach me, and the next morning she ripped out my wings. Without them, I was cold most of the time. Especially in winter. The winters in Scotland can be pretty frickin' harsh."

  Mim frowned slightly. "Grotchka?"

  "Grotchka was the name of the harpy who kidnapped me," I explained.

  "Why did she kidnap you?" Mim asked.

  "She was hoping to get my venom."

  "Venom?" she questioned.

  "Aye," I answered and realized
I had some explaining to do. "Gargoyles have poisonous barbs hidden beneath their knuckles that extend when we're threatened. The poison can be deadly to humans and animals but it doesn't harm harpies or other gargoyles. Harpies try to get us to share our venom with them. Once it's in their bloodstream, it makes them more…human. Less monstrous. Or so they think. They still look damn ugly to us."

  "Really? Why's that?"

  My hair slipped into my eyes and I pushed it out of the way. "When we look at a person, we don't only see what's on the outside. We see what's on the inside as well." Mim seemed to struggle with this idea so I tried to explain. "Do you remember that girl we met in Boulder on Halloween night?"

  Her brow creased as she thought back two months. "Do you mean Alexa Thompson?"

  I nodded. "Do you think Alexa's pretty?"

  Mim laughed softly. "All the guys at school seem to think so."

  "Well, we don't find her particularly attractive."

  She tilted her head and searched my face. "Really?"

  "Really," I answered. "I mean, she's not a monster or anything. She's just not as nice as…" I stared into the deep color of Mim's eyes. "She's not as nice as some of the other girls we've met."

  Mim snickered. "I agree that she isn't as nice as MacKenzie or Whitney."

  "Nor you," I added softly. I pressed her hand while her cheeks turned an endearing shade of pink. "Anyhow," I said, clearing my throat and returning to my original story, "the harpy who captured me was an especially wicked old trout and as ugly as a flying corpse."

  "Was she unkind to you?" she asked hesitantly.

  For a moment, I wondered how to answer Mim's question. To be honest, harpies made most modern dictators look like schoolyard bullies. As I gazed into her eyes, I decided to water down the truth. I didn't tell her about the time Grotchka returned to the cave with an armful of human limbs she planned to boil up for dinner. I didn't tell her that harpies ooze wicked like Victor oozes charm.

  "Not on purpose," I lied. "But she was careless. At one point, I almost starved when the old hag flew off and left me with nothing to eat."

  Mim shivered. "How long was she gone?"

  "I'm not sure. I lost count of the days. Maybe a week or two."

  "How did you live without water?" she exclaimed.

  I waved my hand dismissively. "Water wasn't an issue. The aerie was a leaky old pile of rocks. I used a leather cooking bag to collect the water that dripped from the ceiling."

  Mim shivered again and I pulled her hand onto my knee, capturing it between my palms.

  "When Grotchka finally returned, she was carrying a joint of venison. The roasted meat smelled so good, I almost fainted. And my mouth watered enough to drown me. I was so hungry, I let her feed me." I shook my head at the memory. "I ate from her hand…like a dog."

  "But the harpy never got what she wanted?"

  "My venom? No way," I snorted. The story continued to pour out of me like infection easing from a wound. It felt so good to get it out that I just kept going without thinking about how Mim might react to my next words. "I destroyed my barbs in the fire before she could make me share my venom with her."

  Mim's pretty eyes widened as her gaze flew to my hands.

  Slowly, I turned my wrist so she could see my scars. I suppose that was a mistake made bigger. I knew how tenderhearted Mim was. Her eyes filled with tears and a deep sob wracked her frame. When she tried to cover her eyes, I didn't let go of her hand. Her hot tears burned against the scarred skin on my knuckles.

  I hated to see her cry. Without releasing her hand, I got up and sat on her other side, sliding my free arm around her shoulders. "Don't cry," I whispered. I tried to insert a little laughter in my voice but it just made my words come out uneven. "It was ages ago. It's all but forgotten."

  Okay, that was probably the biggest lie I've ever told in my life. Up in the harpy's aerie, I'd plunged my fists into the red coals with as much force as I could scrape up and I'd left them smashed against the burning heat for as long as I could stand it. It was probably only four or five seconds but it felt like a long, painful eternity. And when I pulled my blackened hands from the fire, that's when my suffering had started for real.

  Mim trembled in my arms, the force of her sorrow shuddering through her shoulders. "Did…did the harpy let you go after you ruined your barbs?"

  I leaned my forehead against her temple and shook my head. My lips brushed against her cheek and I ached to feel her mouth against mine. But I sensed it wasn't a good time to try for a kiss.

  "Why?" she cried. "Why didn't she let you go?"

  Finally, I released her hand and lifted my fingers to her face. With my knuckles, I brushed the tears from beneath her eyes. "She hung on to me, hoping I'd agree to be her mate."

  "Mate?" Shock filled Mim's huge, watery eyes.

  "By that time, the old tart fancied she was in love with me," I explained in a low mutter.

  "Love?" The word was a sharp cry on Mim's lips.

  I nodded and made a sour face that was meant to make her smile. It didn't work.

  Mim was indignant. "I don't pretend to know a lot about love but I don't think it involves tearing wings off."

  "I don't think so either," I agreed grimly.

  "And didn't you say she was really old?"

  "She was," I growled. "I only escaped from her aerie after she died of old age." I turned my face and pressed my lips against her temple. For several moments we sat there until some of Mim's sorrow had run its course. "After I destroyed my barbs, Grotchka took off my chains so I could build her fires and cook her food. She reckoned I couldn't escape without falling to my death. She didn't notice that a tiny sliver of light reached the aerie for one week in the winter. One cold morning, I reached the light and turned to stone. I stayed in my stone form until she died two years later."

  "Did you climb down the cliff after she died?" Mim asked, wiping her eyes and holding her breath.

  "Nay. I jumped from the rocks into the sunlight and changed to stone so I wasn't harmed when I hit the valley below. Then I waited for the sun again, changed back to my living form and walked home to York."

  Her eyes filled with sorrow at the idea of me footing it across England. "How far did you have to travel?"

  I checked her face. "Promise you won't start crying again 'cause it wasn't that far, really. It only took me a little over two weeks and I found food and water along the way."

  She sniffed and nodded her head. "I promise."

  I watched her carefully, trying to find a good way to ease into the truth. In the end, I just spat it out. "It was only like two hundred miles."

  She accepted the news bravely and didn't cry. Well, only one tear but we both agreed that it didn't really count.

  "About your wings," she mumbled after taking a long, shuddery breath. "I'd like to help…"

  I pushed out a sigh. Mim was the best and I knew she'd want to help when she found out about my wings, but they were gone. There was nothing she could do to bring them back. "They can't be healed."

  "But I was thinking—"

  I cut her off with a quick shake of my head. "I know you want to help, Mim, but it's hopeless."

  She opened her mouth to argue but, just then, Havoc appeared at the top of the stairs. He leaned into the room and told us dinner was on the table. Glad for the interruption, I jumped up and pulled Mim through the house to the dining room.

  Mim sat next to me while we filled our plates from the steaming bowls on the table. The pepper steak was amazing. Back in our time, Havoc did all of the cooking for the pack but he never had much to work with. He was totally tearing it up in the twenty-first century. The conversation during the meal was pretty upbeat, probably because we finally felt like we knew what was going on with Reason. Not that the news was good but it was better than knowing nothing.

  "How are your dancing shoes coming along?" Valor teased Havoc as he reached for the salt and sprinkled a light rain over his plate.

  "They should
be finished in a day or two," he answered lightly.

  "Dancing shoes?" Mim questioned curiously. She speared a small piece of meat on her fork and popped it into her mouth.

  "I'm carving a pair of wooden clogs," he explained for her benefit.

  "What are you going to do for music?" I challenged him as I balanced a mound of rice on my fork. "Are you gonna gather us all together and have us hum one of the old tunes from back in the day?"

  Havoc's green eyes went suddenly wide. It seemed like he hadn't considered dancing music.

  MacKenzie stepped in and rescued him. "I think some Flogging Molly would work," she suggested with a laugh.

  "Flogging Molly would be perfect," he agreed. He reached for the serving bowl and ladled a second helping of meat over his rice. "What's Flogging Molly?"

  MacKenzie laughed again. "It's a band that plays a mix of rock and traditional Irish music. I think you'll know what to do when you hear it."

  Havoc agreed with a nod. "When the music starts up, instinct will kick in and I'll—"

  "And you'll make a fool of yourself," Defiance snickered.

  Havoc shot him a dirty look but a dirty look combined with a grin doesn't have a whole lot of impact.

  Defiance grinned back. "You can't fight instinct."

  "Can I help with the dishes?" Mim offered a little later when the serving bowls were empty and we'd all given Havoc props for his splendid cooking skills.

  "That's my job," Victor spoke up right away and began stacking the plates. Actually, loading the dishwasher had always been Reason's job but Victor had started filling in for his brother when he shipped out to Texas.

  "I'll get them," Defiance insisted. He pushed back his chair and grabbed the serving bowls, elbowing Victor aside on his way to the kitchen.

  MacKenzie grinned at Mim. "They love the modern appliances."

  "Especially the electric floor sweeper," Valor chuckled.

  "Defiance really has a thing for the vacuum cleaner," MacKenzie agreed in a secretive whisper.

  "If he ever has kids, he'll probably name the first one Hoover," Havoc snickered.

  The idea was so ridiculous—yet totally possible—that the rest of us started snorting with laughter.