The Greystone Bundle (Books 1-4)

by Taylor Longford

  Arrgh. More doing-of-the-right-thing. It was enough to drive a modern girl crazy.

  "But I've given all that up," he murmured and pulled me away from the wall, wrapping his arms around me and molding me against the delicious heat of his long frame. "You've corrupted me. Defiance or Dare will have to take over my position in the pack. I'm staying with you in Boulder."

  I searched his face, amazed that he would give that up for me, knowing how much his pack meant to him. Right then and there, I swore to myself that I'd make sure he got to spend every weekend and every holiday—and every spare minute—with his family.

  "I've got my arms around you, Elaina," he muttered gruffly. "Would it kill you to hug me back?"

  "I'm sorry," I answered and gave him a light squeeze. "I guess I'm just having a hard time believing all of this is real."

  "You know what I think?" he asked in a low drawl. "I think you're afraid to admit that you love me. Because you're afraid I don't love you back. But you're not kidding me, Elaina. I know you're desperately, horribly, helplessly in love with me."

  Still fighting to hide my feelings for him, I gave him a careless smirk. "What makes you think so?"

  His face got all serious as he watched me from hooded eyes. "Because that's the way I feel about you."

  His words shocked through me like a haywire jolt of elovetricity. And I made that funny vulnerable noise you make when you gasp sharply. At the same time, I felt something inside me melt. I think it might have been the previously frozen lump of my heart.

  "It's a scary feeling," he admitted, softly. "Being so dependant on another person for your happiness."

  "It's a scary feeling," I agreed breathlessly. "But I'll never let you down, Rees."

  "And I'll always be there for you," he whispered solemnly, his lips coming down on mine and scorching me as he took my mouth with an intense aggression that branded me as his forever.

  Epilogue

  So, what can I say? I love a happy ending, complete with gloppindop, and that's exactly what I got. I don't even care if it's a real word or not; at this point, it's entrenched in my vocabulary.

  Reason and I had our steamy ten minutes together before the pack piled back into the apartment. Then we had to get down to business. Victor made his brother sit down right away so Reason pulled me into the corner of the couch and draped his arm possessively around my shoulders. While the rest of the pack found seats around us, Reason explained how MacKenzie's deep red hair made her a powerful witch and how she'd helped him attain his living form after Hamilton shipped him back to Pine Grove. She's also what he called a "healer" and that meant she was able to mend his leg.

  "But I have to be carrying or touching wood," MacKenzie explained. "That's where my power comes from."

  "So, you had a piece of wood in your hand when I came up to the bedroom?" I asked, remembering the small rod I'd found in the dining room.

  "That's right. And I was sitting in a wooden chair."

  "So, why didn't you fix his nose while you were at it?" I challenged her with a grin.

  "I tried but I couldn't do a thing with it," she admitted. "So, I guess my healing powers don't work on broken bones. But I think the nose suits him, don't you?"

  "Totally," I answered, and elbowed the handsome gargoyle beside me.

  "Enough about me," Reason insisted, looking a little embarrassed, a warm slash of color riding his cheekbones. Then he took a deep breath before launching into his report of our encounter with Chaos. I could tell it wasn't easy for him to break the news to his brothers. The first thing he told them was that the ends of Chaos's hair had turned white.

  "They weren't always white?" I interrupted, kinda surprised. I didn't know it was significant and hadn't reported it earlier.

  "Not the last time we saw him," Reason told me. "A gargoyle's change in hair color is caused by extreme stress."

  "Oh," I said soberly. That was unsettling, to think of someone under that kind of duress. I couldn't help but wonder what Dare had gone through that caused his hair to turn white. But I didn't ask because I wasn't sure I wanted to know. Not that I'm soft hearted or anything but I do have a weak stomach.

  Getting back on track, Reason continued his report and finished up with, "Chaos said he'd have to fight us if we tried to rescue him from the harpy."

  Victor's shoulders slumped. "That means she's wearing his rune," he muttered.

  "It might be worse than that," Reason warned in a strained voice.

  The look in Victor's blue-green eyes was a terrible thing, like he knew what was coming next and didn't want to hear it.

  Reason took in another deep lungful of air and continued. "When I asked him if it was that bad, he said it would be worse in the spring."

  A heavy pall of silence fell over the room. I've been to a couple of funerals before, and this was worse than that. Victor slid off the barstool and walked across the room. He stood in front of the plywood-covered window with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes angled toward the floor. I didn't think there was any way to break that horrible, dead silence.

  "He's just so young," Victor rasped. "It wouldn't be so bad…if it were me."

  "Don't kid yourself," Defiance murmured, leaving his stool and crossing the room to sling an arm around his cousin's shoulders. "It would be bad if it were any of us."

  "It's certainly not good," Dare agreed quietly from his seat at the end of the hide-a-bed couch. "But maybe not quite as bad as you're thinking."

  "What do you mean?" Victor asked, his voice hoarse with emotion as he turned to face his cousin.

  Dare pushed out a sigh. "You're probably thinking that a set of young harpies will be born in a few months. But harpies don't mate in the winter. They only mate in the spring."

  A glimmer of hope flickered in Victor's eyes. "Are…you sure?"

  Dare nodded. "It's not something I talk about if I can avoid it, but the harpy that captured me in England was hoping I'd mate with her in the spring. Fortunately, I managed to go stone that winter."

  "So that means Chaos has only given the harpy his promise, in return for…we don't really know what he got in return, but he said there was a lass involved." Victor's shoulders squared up and he got a determined look in his eyes. "We have to find him before the weather gets warm."

  The mood in the room lightened considerably when the guys realized there was still time to help Chaos, and I had a chance to tell them about Simpson's visit before the pack left for Pine Grove.

  Then Reason and I were alone and we took advantage of it for the next hour or so, which got pretty hot, believe me. After that, I got him to answer some of my questions. Mostly, I wanted to know why his barbs hadn't leaked around me like Valor's had with MacKenzie and Dare's had with Mim. He said it was because he was older than his cousins and better at burying his emotions. No kidding; the guy must have been born with a shovel. He also explained that milking his veins every day to give me my dose of venom helped to ease a lot of the pressure. So, that was that sorted.

  A week later, we'd replaced the glass in the windows of my apartment. By then, I was an official member of the Greystone pack and the guys organized a trip out to Limon. We knew there were no more harpies out there on the plains, and we assumed that Courage and Force were probably somewhere between Limon and Boulder, one of them having been dropped along the way. Looking at the map, we decided that the harpies had probably flown north before turning west toward Boulder.

  At dusk, the entire pack took to the air and searched the ground for any sign of the missing gargoyles but the plains were covered with a foot of snow that had fallen two weeks earlier, and the trip didn't turn up any new leads. So, the pack decided to focus their efforts on locating Chaos, for the time being. But before we left Limon, they painted the rune that means home on the roofs of several deserted buildings, each symbol accompanied with a plastic bag containing MacKenzie's address.

  Since then, Dare's probation has ended and we all celebrated at an evening basketb
all game down at MacKenzie's high school. Dare thought it would be the sort of outing that Mim's mom would be comfortable with because it was in a public place and all of us were going, making it a "group date". So, the entire pack crowded into two cars and drove down to the center of Pine Grove to watch Mac's friend, Whitney, play basketball.

  Honestly, I don't think Mim and Dare saw much of the game. They sat with their heads together the whole time, just getting caught up on being with each other. Valor and Mac probably saw a little bit more, and Reason was fine with watching the game as long as I was tucked against his side. He's so cute. Despite our rocky start and his strong independent streak, he has to be near me if we're in the same room. He tries to act all cool and indifferent but he's not fooling me. The guy's in love and I love him right back.

  Anyhow, it turned out that Mim was on the half-time entertainment committee and she'd lined up Havoc to give a short clogging performance. So, I got to see him dance. He did a little number with Mac's young stepsister, whose parents' had brought her up from Denver for the event. I didn't know it, but Havoc and Sophie had been practicing together for at least a month. But, oh my god, they were so cute together you wouldn't even believe it. And after they finished, they got a standing ovation from all the kids and parents in the stands. But little Sophie didn't even notice. She only had eyes for Havoc.

  Everybody had a great time. Well, except for Defiance. After the game, he was pissed for some reason. We could tell by the way he stalked out to the parking lot and slammed into the car then stared out the side window all the way home.

  Back at the guys' place, I gave MacKenzie a questioning glance as we crossed the driveway into the house.

  She got this determined look on her face and followed Defiance into the living room where he threw himself down on one of the couches. "What's wrong?" she asked him as Valor snagged her waist and reeled her into his side.

  "She flipped me the bird," he muttered. Then his voice got louder. "She flipped me the bird!"

  "Who?" MacKenzie asked.

  "Who do you think?" he growled, his fists knotting on his thighs. "Your tall, blond, arrogant basketball-playing friend."

  "That doesn't sound right," MacKenzie told him. "That doesn't sound like Whit. Are you sure you even know what it means to flip someone off?"

  "I saw it in an old movie last week," he rumbled. "But they called it flipping the bird."

  "Well, you must be mistaken," Mac argued defiantly. "Because Whitney wouldn't have done that. That's not her style."

  Defiance shook his head like a terrier with a rat. "There was no mistake. She didn't come over and sit with us during the break. She didn't talk to me all night. And as the game ended, she flipped me off! With not just one, but two fingers!"

  I exchanged a look with MacKenzie and asked, "Two fingers? Which two fingers?"

  "These ones," he snarled and showed us.

  My eyes went wide. I wanted to tell him, to explain to him, but I started snickering, then I started laughing, then I curled up in a ball on the couch and almost laughed myself sick. 'Course Mac would probably have been okay except that she started laughing at me, and neither of us could spare a breath to explain to Defiance.

  A look of deep betrayal darkened the blond gargoyle's angular features. I don't want to take anything from Reason, but Defiance has the sexiest frown. "Humans are cruel creatures," he spat.

  "I'm sorry," I giggled as Rees helped me back up into a sitting position and eyed me curiously. "I'm sorry, Defiance, but Whitney didn't flip you off. That sign with the two fingers doesn't mean 'up yours'."

  "What are you saying?" he growled, looking like he wanted to stomp from the room but didn't want to miss an explanation that might sooth his bruised ego.

  "It's the sign for love," I wheezed as I leaned against Reason and tried to catch my breath.

  Funny, huh? At least, we all thought so. Well, all of us except for Defiance. He really couldn't see the humor of the situation. But at least he wasn't so mad anymore. When the laughter had died down to the occasional snicker, MacKenzie made an announcement. "Listen up," she said. "Mim needs to tell us about a dream."

  Everyone got real serious. Evidently Mim's dreams are semi-prophetic. She'd dreamed about Reason's fall into Hamilton's pool and had helped the pack figure out what was wrong with him after he was returned to Pine Grove in his stone form. So, I got serious and listened too.

  "I'm not sure it's important," Mim said, blushing self-consciously. "But I've been having this recurring dream and since the last one turned out to be about Reason, I thought I'd better report this to you guys, just to be safe."

  "Go ahead," Victor told her encouragingly.

  Mim closed her eyes and started. "In my dream, it's dark and there are puddles shining on the rocky ground. I'm looking at a young girl. Her hair's short and pale. She has a ring in her eyebrow and another one on her bottom lip. Her face is streaked with dirt and she looks afraid. Behind her, there's a dark shadow…something big. Something at least as big as a harpy." Mim opened her eyes again and looked apologetic. "That's it. It's really short and it doesn't tell us much, does it?"

  "Yes, it does," I said slowly as my brain made several connections all at once. I jumped up from the couch and started pacing the living room carpet, wondering why I hadn't figured it out sooner.

  After all, we knew that Chaos had sacrificed everything for a girl. And if the harpy had a girl in her lair, surely there'd be news of a missing person in the Boulder area. And there was. Except that the police considered her a runaway…because her parents had tried to ground her after she'd come home with a couple of new piercings. I knew her name was Victoria from what I read about her on the news websites, but Chaos had called her Torrie and I never connected the dots.

  I lifted my head and locked my gaze on Reason. "Mim's dream is about the girl who was with Chaos."

  "Was?" he questioned me carefully. "Are you sure?"

  I gave him a sharp nod. "She's back home now, so the harpy must have let her go. And we know her name."

  Rees shared a look with his older brother. "She might be able to tell us where Chaos is," he suggested hopefully.

  Victor pushed away from the wall he was leaning against and crossed the room to the windows, folding his arms over his chest as he stared out at the dark forest. "We have to find her," he said.

  ###

  DEFIANCE

  A GREYSTONE NOVEL

  Book Four

  by

  Taylor Longford

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  I was fourteen when I killed my first harpy. A gang of the winged monsters attacked our town and carried off a young human girl, perhaps ten or eleven years old. My father and his brothers decided to go after the harpies and bring her back. They took with them the three oldest boys in the pack. Technically, that should have been Victor, Dare and Reason. But Reason was helping one of our neighbors and he wasn't on hand when it was time to go. So I went in place of my older cousin.

  It's always meant a lot to me that I was a part of that rescue mission. Especially since it was the last time any of us saw our fathers. They held the rear guard, vowing to die before they let themselves be captured, wh
ile Victor, Dare and I whisked the girl out of danger and back to York.

  And while our fathers took out many harpies that day, I was the only one of the pack lads who managed a kill. Even Victor failed to pull off what I did. But both Victor and Dare tend to be defensive in battle. I'm not like that.

  My mother was descended from the tall, blond warriors who invaded England in the ninth century. And despite my gargoyle blood, I'm proud of that heritage. I took a page from what I like to call their "Berserkers Book of Warfare". One of their common strategies was to fake a retreat then turn on the enemy after they'd abandoned their defenses. That's what I did to the harpy.

  I spun away from the towering she-devil I was fighting and took several running steps. Then I opened my wings and acted like I was going to take to the skies and bail. It cost me a long slash from the top of my shoulder to the base of my spine, but it was worth it. As the harpy closed on me, I whirled to face her. She wasn't expecting that and she ran me over, falling on me. But as she crashed down on top of me and drove me to the ground, I jammed my long knife between the plates that protected her ribs, angling the sharp blade up into her heart.

  With savage satisfaction, I felt the monster's thick blood coat my arm, from my hand to my elbow. Alright, that's probably too much information, but I'm trying to say that I wasn't squeamish about killing the harpy. I can kill when it's necessary, easily and efficiently. But I'm not like the men who murdered my mother three years later.

  By both gargoyle and human standards, my mother was a beautiful woman. And by that, I mean that gargoyles have a very different perception of human beauty because we see what's on the inside of a person before we see what's on the outside. And a person's inner beauty often overshadows their physical features. But some women are lovely to both men and gargoyles. My mother was such a woman.

  And it's difficult for gargoyles to understand why human men will often destroy beautiful things they want, but can't have. They'd never have touched my mother if my father had still been alive. And they knew that the men of her family—me, my brothers and cousins—were safely occupied, working down at the River Foss, preparing to lay the foundation for a new bridge.