The Greystone Bundle (Books 1-4)

by Taylor Longford

  At the end of the stands, a gaggle of girls giggled and jumped and clapped their hands. I sent them a wry smile. Yeah, I was totally showing off. And I was glad Havoc wasn't around to call me on it. I jogged across the room and retrieved the ball, turning it in my hands as I made my way back toward the locker room door. On the way there, my gaze caught on Whitney's parents who were standing at the bottom of the bleachers, talking to another couple.

  Her mother's troubled gaze rested on me for a few seconds before she was distracted by something the other woman said. I wasn't too surprised by the look she'd given me. It was something I was used to. Back in the thirteenth century, mothers were always worried about me when it came to their daughters. I figured mothers hadn't changed much over the last eight hundred years.

  About then, the dressing room door swung open and several of Whitney's teammates hurried through, many of them dragging their feet long enough to give me an inviting smile. But they kept going when I gave them nothing back. It wasn't that they weren't nice girls. I could tell that some of them were great. It was just…Whitney. When it came to her, I was pathetic. I swear I watched the dressing room door like some sort of love-struck lapdog complete with wagging tail and a long, sloppy tongue. It took a friggin' eternity and I swear Whitney was the last one out of there but, finally, the door opened…and all I saw was the back of her white sweater and beige chinos as she strode swiftly across the gym toward her folks.

  "Whitney," I called out, which just seemed to hurry her pace. I took a few long steps and caught up to her, snagging her elbow and turning her toward me.

  Her hair fell in damp tangles around her shoulders and her cheeks glowed a delicate pink from the heat of the shower she'd just taken. Her eyelashes were still wet and sparkled beneath the overhead lights. Faced with this sight of unearthly perfection, my breath caught in my chest and I about swallowed my tongue…which made it real difficult to get any words out.

  Whitney's gaze flicked toward her parents then back to my face. "S'up?" she asked as if she wasn't interested in the least, which about drove me crazy. Every other girl in Pine Grove would have been more than happy for my attention. But not this one. And yet, I could have sworn that she was interested in me earlier, a few months ago. Havoc wasn't the only gargoyle who'd won Parcheesi games and collected kisses. I could still remember the taste of her mouth, the heat of her kiss, the way her lips had yielded beneath mine. She was warm then. Now she was all ice and frost.

  I shoved my hands into the front pockets of my jeans. "We haven't seen you much lately," I started, feeling suddenly awkward. She shouldn't have rattled me the way she did, considering I had two years on her.

  "I've been busy," she said lightly, already moving away from me across the polished wooden floor toward her family.

  "I'd…like to see you sometime," I said, hoping I didn't sound desperate but feeling like I was already running out of time as she walked away and I tried to keep up.

  "I'm sorry," she answered. "But…"

  "Why did you flip me off?" I asked, cutting to the chase.

  That slowed her down a little. "I didn't flip you off!" she exclaimed.

  I forced my voice to be calm and tried to produce a friendly smile. "After that last basketball game. You flipped me the sign for love."

  "Oh, that." She shot a nervous glance at her parents a few feet away then cleared her face and shook her hair behind her back. "What makes you think it was for you?"

  I hadn't expected that kind of answer because she'd been looking right at me when she did it. I'd thought she might tell me that I'd misunderstood the gesture. Or that I was out of luck because she'd changed her mind and didn't feel that way anymore. And of course, I'd hoped she'd break down and admit that she'd flipped me the love symbol because she liked me.

  For like two seconds, I searched her face, confused. But before I could put together a reasonable response, she turned on her heel and joined her parents who herded her through the door and out of the gym. As I followed them with my eyes, my gaze snagged on the gaggle of girls who'd clapped for me earlier. They'd moved from the stands over to the exit and were staring at me with wide-eyed sympathy. I'd just been shot down, pretty fatally. In public. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. I felt a burn of heat scorch my cheekbones and, right then, I promised myself that the high-maintenance blond would never make a fool of me again.

  Out in the school's big lobby, I caught up to the rest of my pack—or gang, as Havoc preferred to call us. Only, our jackets weren't all the same and I think that's a gang prerequisite. Valor and Reason wore black leather like me but Victor's jacket was soft brown kidskin. And Dare wore a long dark trench coat while Havoc was wearing a red plaid lumberman's jacket. So, other than the blue runes tattooed on our throats, our belts were the only things that came close to pulling us together. And maybe I'm wrong but I don't think there's such a thing as an emo gang.

  MacKenzie had bought the belts for us at Christmas. I actually avoided wearing mine because I noticed nobody our age wore light-colored belts like that. From what I could tell, they were outta style. But that didn't stop the rest of my family from wearing them and loving them. Personally, I preferred the dark sunglasses she gave me at the same time. I wore them everywhere.

  A bunch of high school girls were gathered around the pack. At least, they were gathered around the guys who were still single. Valor had his arm around MacKenzie's waist, making it clear that he was taken. Dare was kissing Mim, their dark heads so close that you couldn't tell where her hair started and his ended. And Elaina stood beside Reason, her bright blue eyes flashing, her black ponytail tossing as she glared down any of the younger girls who dared to look sideways at her blond boyfriend.

  According to Elaina, she had to fight off the college girls back in Boulder, and said it had actually gotten worse since Reason had broken his nose. Apparently, the girls liked the rough edge it gave to his features. MacKenzie had tried to fix his nose with her witch's powers but while she could heal flesh wounds easily enough, she found she couldn't do anything with broken bones.

  "How'd it go?" Havoc asked in a low murmur as I reached his side, obviously talking about my conversation with Whitney.

  I held his pale green gaze for several heartbeats. I didn't know what game Whitney was playing but I wasn't without pride. I was descended from a great Jarl on my mother's side. That's fricking royalty! I wasn't going to grovel, even though that's exactly what I wanted to do most of the time. And I refused to make a fool of myself over a girl. My first instinct about human females had been right; they couldn't be trusted. "I'm done with her," I growled and crushed my fist around the paper card inside my pocket.

  Chapter Three

  I got up early the next morning determined to banish Whitney from my thoughts and even my vocabulary. It's not like I didn't have other important things to do, like help the pack track down Chaos and my brothers. But even as I sat on the edge of my bed and told myself those things, I was wishing Whitney was in our camp for the search. She's so…chill and levelheaded.

  She'd actually been instrumental in interpreting one of Mim's dreams that helped us to resurrect Reason when he was locked in his stone form. And she'd managed to do it without even knowing what we are. She was just a good person to have at your side when things got tricky. But enough about Whitney. With a conscious effort, I removed her from my thoughts…again. And focused on the missing members of our pack.

  We'd been up to Boulder and searched the foothills from the air at dusk for any sign of Chaos or the harpy that had captured him, but hadn't found any trace of them. So, the next step was to talk to Torrie. Elaina had scoped out the teenager's high school and tried to get close to her for a short conversation, but her family and friends had erected a safety net around her that was hard to get through. So, for now, we were stuck. But the Pine Grove girl's basketball team had made the semi-finals and was playing Boulder in two weeks. And the pack was going up to watch the game so we thought we might g
et lucky and run into the elusive girl there.

  I rolled up onto my feet and opened my wings just to give them a stretch. What looked like a black vest wrapping my upper body lifted away into a dark set of leather sails fit for flying. From the corner of my eye, I caught my reflection in the mirror above the dresser and dragged my hands back through my loose hair, slicking it away from my face. As I folded my wings down, I reached for an elastic band and pulled my hair back. Then I started looking for the jeans I'd worn last night. I found them underneath a pile of laundry that I should have washed a week ago.

  Across the room, under the window, Dare's bed was neatly made up. Feeling a little guilty about the condition of my side of the room, I dragged the rumpled quilt on my bed up to the pillow and called it good.

  We had two long singles in our room, same as Victor and Reason. Val had recently replaced his single with a larger double and had offered his bed to Havoc. But Havoc insisted on keeping the cheap garden hammock he'd bought at the local hardware store. At the end of the day, he'd throw himself into the rope net and sway three feet above the floor. And most mornings, he'd wake up humming some old sea shanty that he remembered from back in the day. I think he would have liked to have been a sailor back when clipper ships crossed the Atlantic. But those days were long gone. And Havoc's crazy but there's nothing I can do about it.

  When I got downstairs, the pack was just heading through the door on their way to MacKenzie's place so I grabbed my jacket and joined them, hoping for breakfast somewhere along the way. And fortunately, Havoc got to work as soon as he cleared her front door. Twenty minutes later, we sat down to thick French toast dusted with powdered sugar, crispy bacon and hot black coffee. As I swallowed my last bite, I wondered if Whitney liked French toast. I knew she took cream in her coffee, no sugar…

  I stopped myself, realizing that I was doing it again and got up swiftly to help Victor clear the table. And while I was loading the dishwasher, I decided I really needed to do something to clear my mind. MacKenzie's property is bordered by a large park on one side and it's pretty much deserted in the wintertime so it's a great place to go for a twilight flight or some simple solitude on a sunny day. So after our morning reading lesson was out of the way, I pulled on my jacket and gave MacKenzie's big wolfhound a quick look. "Wanna go out for a run, boy?"

  But Hooligan didn't budge from his station at Havoc's feet in the dining room. I wasn't exactly surprised. It was no secret that the big dog preferred the company of Valor and his brothers. I think he could sense the darkness in me. So, I was on my own.

  "Where are you going?" MacKenzie demanded, charging from the kitchen before I could reach the door. She'd recently had her walking cast removed so she was in full-charge mode, even though she listed to one side. The doctors had warned her that she'd probably always have a limp. And Valor had promised her a staff but was waiting for the wood to dry before he could carve it out.

  "Shouldn't you be on your way to school?" I asked the determined-looking redhead.

  "I have first period off on Fridays," she reminded me.

  "I'm going out for a walk," I told her as I padded barefoot into the entry and pulled on the boots I'd bought on our last shopping trip to Denver.

  "Well, be careful," she lectured. "You've heard the news reports of rabies in the foothills."

  I scoffed. "Not up here. That's down in…" I hesitated. I knew the reports of rabies were closer to Denver but I couldn't remember the name of the community.

  "Lakewood," Havoc supplied.

  "Littleton," MacKenzie corrected him sternly.

  "And that's at least twenty miles away," I pointed out as I shrugged into my jacket.

  "Well, keep your eye out for aggressive foxes," she warned me.

  "The ones that shave their heads and ride motorcycles are particularly nasty," Havoc joked.

  MacKenzie ignored him. "They look like little red dogs. With white tips on their tails. And some of them are black," she added, chewing on her lower lip.

  "I know what a fox looks like," I snorted, and rolled my eyes. "There were plenty of foxes in medieval England."

  MacKenzie propped her hands on her hips and challenged me. "Okay, but what are you going to do if you run into a fox that decides to attack you?"

  I made a fist and gave her a sharp smile as my barbs slipped from beneath my knuckles. "I'll give you four guesses," I told her. "And the first three don't count."

  Her backbone didn't look quite so stiff anymore. "I guess that would work," she mumbled sheepishly.

  Yeah, it would work. And then some. The poison in my barbs would turn even a large animal to stone. Permanently. So, if a rabid fox attacked me, that just meant we'd have a dramatic new statue for the windowsill in our living room. And if I didn't get my barbs out in time, I had my long knife hanging from my belt. I gave Mac a half-smile and curled my hand around the doorknob.

  The air was crisp and the skies were sunny as I headed through the front door. I pulled my sunglasses down over my eyes and headed for the park with my hands in the pockets of my jacket. Right away, my fingers found the crumpled paper valentine and I wadded it into a tighter ball. That had been a crap idea right from the start. Planning to throw the damn thing away the first chance I got, I pulled in a deep breath of cool air and put it out of my mind.

  We'd had a number of sunny days recently and there were wide patches of bare ground, making it possible to avoid walking in the snow. I was in no hurry to get anywhere so I picked my route with that in mind, and took a meandering path through the forest, all the time focusing on my surroundings and purposefully not thinking about Whitney.

  Instead, I thought about Dare. He'd recently given Mim his rune, carving it into her shoulder and making his commitment to her permanent. Instinct would bind him to her for the rest of his life. Of course, Mim wasn't bound by the same instinct. Only by love. But I got the impression that Mim's love was at least as strong as Dare's instincts.

  Reason had marked Elaina a few weeks earlier and I knew their bond was tight as well. It's a good thing they were sharing an apartment in Boulder because you couldn't pry Reason from Elaina's side. He adored her but that didn't mean he gave into her all the time. They laughed. They disagreed. They argued and fought. Then two minutes later they were plastered together, kissing like their lives depended on it. Those two were all fire and sparks when they were together.

  Of course the same could be said about Valor and MacKenzie. Their relationship was full of the fire that Reason and Elaina were famous for. And the tenderness that Dare and Mim had together. But it was steady and rock solid, too. It was like Val and Mac were on the same wavelength all the time. Like they knew what the other was thinking, feeling. I think I envied their relationship the most.

  But I wasn't supposed to be envying anybody's relationship so I turned my thoughts to Victor and Havoc. Victor had always been a player and was too sensible to lose his head over a girl. And traditionally, the pack leader was the last gargoyle to give away his rune, making sure that everyone else in the pack was paired off before committing himself to a girl. As for Havoc, he was more interested in clothes and jewelry than girls. Always had been. Nothing had changed in that respect, except that he'd discovered shoes to add to his list of favorite things.

  A smile twitched at the corner of my mouth when I thought about the heavy wooden shoes he'd carved for Mac's little stepsister so he could teach her to clog. He and Sophie had even put on a little show together during half time at one of the high school basketball games. That was the night Whitney had flipped me the love sign.

  I shook my head and pushed out a sigh, realizing that it hadn't taken me long to work my way back around to Whitney Anders.

  Chapter Four

  I checked out my surroundings and found myself in a small clearing that was closed in on three sides by towering pines. The fourth side opened into a wide meadow of dry yellow grass that sloped down to a large gray building with several fenced areas. The building rose from th
e ground in a high arch and I couldn't help but admire it. In my time, it was difficult to build a small arch, let alone a huge one like that. But modern builders weren't limited to stone and wood anymore, and I assumed the structure was fashioned from steel. I marveled at the idea. Back in the thirteenth century, steel was in short supply, and way expensive.

  Over on my right, several large rocks slanted from the ground and I headed in that direction, parking on one of the tilting slabs, pushing back my sunglasses and lifting my face to the sun. I don't know how long I sat there soaking up the sunshine, but eventually a rhythmic clomping reached my ears. Something was headed my way. Something too heavy to be a deer or even an elk. But the sound wasn't unfamiliar. I cracked my eyes open and surveyed the hillside from behind the screen of my lashes. Sure enough, I saw a tall sorrel horse making its way uphill toward the park.

  Looking beyond the creature, I could see it had broken through the wooden fence down below. Together with three of its companions, it was moving away from the enclosure, slowly at first, then breaking into a canter as a figure carrying a coiled rope jogged from the building and followed them up the slope.

  I levered myself away from the rock and found a tree to lean against, smiling as I watched the scene unfold below me. Every time the human got close to the horses, the willful animals frisked away. It didn't look like the woman who was chasing them was ever going to catch up.

  With my hands buried in the pockets of my jacket, I sauntered toward the small herd. I'd owned a mare eight hundred years ago, back in England, and I knew the horses wouldn't run from me. Because I wasn't human and I didn't smell like one. Evidently, gargoyles smell crazy good to horses. I put it down to the venom in our veins.