Guardian

by Rhonda Print

  Claire managed to keep her excitement in check when Robert Wilshire, president of the European Art Museum in New York, asked her to join him in an on-camera interview with Samantha Stowe of the NNT, National News Tonight network. This one simple interview could launch her work nationwide, maybe even take it global. She’d worried over this interview more than anything else, tossing and fretting until Roman finally gave her something else to think about.

  She led Mr. Wilshire, Ms. Stowe and a cameraman to the shop behind the showroom. After a little positioning from the cameraman and a quick set up, the red light on the camera started blinking and Ms. Stowe started asking questions.

  * * * *

  Claire was glowing, Roman noticed as he stood in the corner of what was now The Gallery. She was dressed in an elegant black dress, trimmed in satin lace that fell just below her knees. She moved among the crowd, describing her art and talking comfortably among the people gathered here. Roman recognized many local network celebrities had accepted her invitation, including a couple from the national news networks. Photo journalists angled for the best shot of various pieces of her work while the local mayor and a rival congresswoman vied for competing airtime. If it bothered Claire they were using her venue as an opportunity for media coverage, she didn’t show it. They were here, in her gallery, looking at her work.

  He’d seen her escort a portly aging man and a blond woman he recognized as national news anchorwoman Samantha Stowe into the back shop with a cameraman trailing behind them.

  The rational part of his mind knew she was giving an interview, one that could boost the hell out of her business. If he interrupted he might blow her chance, but she’d been out of his sight for too long. His senses were on high alert, warning sensations tensing his shoulders and back.

  Five more minutes. Roman would give Claire five more minutes to come back to the party before he went in after her.

  No harm though, he thought as he worked his way closer to the shop door, in staying nearby. He’d get just close enough to hear the interview, make sure she was safe.

  All pretense of calm shattered when he heard her voice, muffled yet shrill, coming from the shop. Humans never would have picked up the sound but his Gargoyle senses heard it well enough to pierce a dagger through his heart. He made it behind the closed door before his wings emerged and his face elongated into his Gargoyle form.

  The portly man lay unconscious on the floor, the cameraman lay face down next to him as Samantha had Claire backed up to the wall. The dark shroud of evil Spirit was consuming Samantha.

  Roman raised his dagger above his head and thrust it into the Spirit. If he was lucky, he could save both women.

  The evil Spirit gave a high-pitched wail as it started to vortex around Roman’s dagger. That was when he saw the second Spirit.

  Roman watched it slip out of Samantha’s body, willingly giving up its Host while still straining to get inside Claire.

  * * * *

  The moment the Spirit left it, Samantha’s body began to decompose. The famous blond hair began to thin and her skin shrank from her bones and shriveled. What was once her body turned to dust before Claire’s eyes. The hand that gripped her became merely bone and that too crumbled away.

  “Why?” It was the only thing Claire could say.

  “She gave her soul for fame and fortune,” the gravelly voice of the Spirit answered.

  “This is the price she paid.”

  Claire’s breath caught in her throat.

  “You will not come willingly but I will have you just the same.” The Spirit’s voice echoed all around her.

  Roman swept in front of Claire, ready to attack.

  With a force of energy so fierce, the Spirit knocked Roman’s dagger from his hand and sent it flying across the room.

  Roman pulled Claire to him, positioning himself between the Spirit and her. He moved her back until he reached the bodies of the two men sprawled on the floor. “Hang on.” Roman turned her into his arms, her head resting on his chest.

  “What?” Claire shrieked.

  “Just don’t let go,” he ordered, “it will buy me some time.” Claire gripped onto Roman as he spread his wings and rose to the rafters. He set her down, making sure she was seated on a narrow access stairway and able to hold on to two supporting beams. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Her breath was slightly constricted but not unbearable.

  Roman dropped to the floor in a blur and confronted the Spirit.

  Claire kept a tight hold on the stair rails as she watched Roman strike out again and again against the Spirit who would shift forms just long enough to lash out at Roman then try to dissolve back to smoke before Roman could retaliate.

  The battle was unlike anything Claire had seen before. Roman’s large canine teeth snapped as his claws tore at the Spirit.

  Roman was losing ground. Each time he’d get closer to the dagger he needed to end the Spirit, it would drive him farther away. Claire remembered that Roman told her Spirits were single-minded creatures. If she shifted its focus onto her, she may be able to keep it from destroying Roman. In love and desperation Claire slowly descended the staircase then dropped the remaining ten feet to the concrete floor below. She straightened and walked purposely toward the Spirit.

  “No!” Roman shouted as the back entrance to the shop burst open. Another Gargoyle flew, literally flew, into the room. He didn’t have the half-human appearance of Roman.

  His entire body was that of a human-sized dog-slash-dragon. His legs curled up like a bird of prey as he swooped into the room. He had the elongated face and lethal-looking fangs Roman had in his Gargoyle state yet there was nothing human looking about him.

  Claire didn’t know if he was friend or foe.

  The Spirit leapt toward her, filling her vision with the black smoke of its existence, and instantly the breath was stolen from her lungs. She could feel the weight of it coiling around her like a snake, constricting her neck and chest. She became dizzy and her thoughts no longer made sense to her. They fired randomly from her oxygen-deprived brain as her vision began to clear.

  “Kill me,” she pleaded with Roman, her voice barely audible. She would willingly give her life if it would spare his. “If you kill me, you kill the Spirit.” Before Roman could act, the second Gargoyle swooped down from the rafters and plunged a dagger into Claire’s chest. She heard Roman howl with fury and sorrow. He was at her side instantly, cradling her head in his hands.

  “I love you.” Claire’s voice was garbled with blood.

  They were the last words she spoke as the world went dark around her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Light, so intensely bright, pressed against Claire’s closed eyelids, coloring everything white. And from the light came warmth. She was surrounded by heat, bathed in it. She had a fleeting thought people who recovered from near-death experiences always mentioned the white light.

  “No!” she screeched. Claire wasn’t ready to die.

  Not now, not when her gallery just had a promising opening and she’d found someone she loved, someone who loved her.

  There was too much left for her to see, do and experience. Too much life left to live to let it slip away now.

  Claire tried to shake away the warmth before it lulled her back to nothingness again.

  She fought to open her eyes against the white light, ignoring the piercing stabs of pain it sent through her. She felt something press upon her shoulder, then the warmth dragging her back into the abyss. She fought harder and managed to free one hand, used it to push at the weight on her shoulder. She freed the other hand and waved it frantically in front of her, searching for something to help her climb out of the ever-widening hole that seemed to be sucking her under.

  Claire heard a laugh, a sound that came from deep within someone … or something.

  “This one is strong.” The words came from a voice as deep as a canyon.

  It wa
s no one she recognized and the fear shot adrenaline through her veins.

  Fight or Flight?

  Claire would fight, there was no question. If she retreated she only had the warmth of the hole she was trying to escape to return to. She would not give up.

  With a new determination she flailed her arms only to have them restrained. She focused on her legs and thrashed them out, pleased when they found purchase and she heard a resounding grunt of pain. She hooked her legs around whatever it was and heaved her body out of the warm abyss.

  It tangled around her so that she was still wrapped in its tendrils. The hole of warmth did not want to let her go.

  Her eyes burned but it was still only white she saw.

  “The lights.” She heard a distant voice speak before everything went black.

  She heard herself cry out in frustration before the realization there was something familiar in that last voice.

  Claire stilled as the light filtered back in, gentler this time, outlining the shapes in the room.

  A shadow of a man loomed over her. He seemed to be as wide as he was tall. Light filled in the shadows revealing a square, hard face with smiling dark eyes. “Fear not, young one.” His deep voice filled the room. “You are safe now.” She let her eyes shift around the room as things became clearer. Claire was home, half out of her own bed, with the blankets tangled around her.

  “Are you sure, Roman?” the man with the cavernous voice asked.

  “To keep her safe,” Roman replied, sorrow tinting his words, “I have no choice.” Her head jerked toward him. “Roman?” she cried.

  He stood near the door, purposely keeping distance between them.

  “I’m sorry.” He turned as the door shut softly behind him.

  Claire felt the tears scald a trail down her face. He was her Guardian. More than that, he loved her. Didn’t he?

  How could he just abandon her?

  She tried to free herself from the other man’s grasp. She wanted to dart out of bed and chase down Roman Hunt. If he didn’t love her he should at least have the balls to tell her to her face.

  She struggled, cursed, even bit the other man until she could taste blood, but he only laughed.

  “I am Gideon.” The man turned her face toward his. “The only consolation I can offer is you will not remember him.” Gideon leveled his eyes on hers as their foreheads touched together.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Roman sat in Bookworms at his usual table, his coffee cold and untouched before him. He watched as Claire strode in, her casual gait shooting a pang of regret straight through his heart. He wondered if the pain would ever fade and hoped it wouldn’t. If it was the only thing he could allow himself to feel for Claire, he would gladly accept it.

  Pain was better than nothing at all.

  It had been two weeks since the night he nearly lost her. Gideon had arrived just in time and managed to destroy the Spirit and save Claire. He would be forever in his debt.

  He’d known his life was too dangerous to bring a woman into it. Even if the woman was a Hybrid, a fact Claire no longer remembered. Gideon was the most powerful of the Gargoyles in the use of Persuasion and at Roman’s request they combined their power and erased every memory of Roman, Spirits and Gargoyles from Claire’s mind. Then Roman used his own powers to wipe his memory from the minds of her friends.

  She had woken in her own bed with a wound resulting from a fall. At least that was what Gideon had put into her mind. He’d sacrificed love to keep her that way. It was a decision that would haunt him for eternity. He had only the memories of the scent of her body, the taste of her skin and the feel of her sheathed around him.

  He would not regret loving her.

  Or letting her go.

  She was safe without him. He would content himself with watching her from a distance, as he always had.

  She now came into Bookworms each evening, not to work, but to visit with Cassie and take a cup of Cappuccino back to her art gallery.

  Roman even dared visiting her gallery once—just to be sure she didn’t recognize him he told himself. He purchased a statue, one that closely resembled Gideon. Yet there was no spark of remembrance in her eyes or her voice.

  Gideon had done his job well.

  Claire stumbled against the counter, breaking his reverie.

  He watched as she pressed her fingers to her temples then waved off Cassie’s concerns. She’d been working long hours, Roman heard her tell Cassie. She was just tired.

  Roman followed her out of Bookworms, keeping a safe distance. His concern grew as she passed her Gallery and continued walking toward her apartment. She stumbled again and it took every ounce of his will to keep himself from running to her. She raked a hand through her hair, steadied herself then crossed the street and disappeared into the door of the building she called home.

  Roman stood across the street for a moment to make sure she didn’t come back out before he strode across the street himself and disappeared into the shadow of the alley.

  He felt the familiar heat radiate from his back as he spread his wings and drifted to the top of the building adjacent to hers, the perch where he could see through her windows and still stay hidden.

  She kicked off her shoes and threw open the window. With her eyes closed she breathed in the cool night air in deep, blissful gulps.

  Roman growled in horror as she fell limply to the floor. Without thought he flew into her window and kneeled beside her. Panic welled inside him as he lifted her from the floor and placed her gently upon her bed.

  She was breathing, a little too rapidly but breathing just the same. He could place a call to 9-1-1, leave the phone at her hand so she’d think she made the call.

  He turned to reach for the phone.

  Claire shifted and threw her arms around his neck, knocking Roman off-balance so he fell to the bed beside her.

  “Did you really think I would forget you?” Love and just a touch of amusement danced within her eyes.

  “How long have you known?” he asked, relieved she was unharmed.

  “I never forgot.”

  “Gideon…?”

  “His Persuasion doesn’t work on me any better than yours. I just let him believe it did.”

  Roman widened his eyes in surprise.

  “Gideon thinks he did his job well,” Claire continued, “so well he felt secure enough to talk about you.”

  Roman raised his brows suspiciously.

  “He worries about you, Roman.” She slid her hand over his cheek. “You’ve been alone a long time.” She shushed his attempt to intervene. “I knew you were a solitary person, Roman. But why won’t you let me in?”

  “I couldn’t even save you,” Roman muttered. “It was Gideon who killed the Spirit and brought you back to life.”

  “That’s what people who care about each other do, Roman. They protect each other.

  There is strength in numbers.”

  “Why did you let him think your memory was erased?” Roman stroked his fingers along her face.

  “I needed to know. I needed to know if you left,” her voice cracked with emotion,

  “because you don’t love me.”

  Roman knew it was all there in his eyes, the shock of her deception, the pain of her thinking he didn’t love her and the depth of that love all visible to her now.

  “I have always loved you, Claire. So much I couldn’t bear to put you in danger.” He raised a finger to her lips when she started to protest. “That is where I live, Claire, in constant danger.”

  “And when the Spirits caught up with me and realized I still existed,” she challenged, “the Hybrid daughter of Persidian?”

  “Then I would have been there to protect you.”

  She wound her hands around his neck and pulled him to her.

  Her lips scorched his and melted his resolve to live without her. He accepted what she offered and deepened the kiss, moaning a protest whe
n she pulled away.

  “You do not get to make those decisions for me, Roman Hunt,” she told him sternly.

  “I love you but you have to make your own decision, just as I have made mine.” She cut off his complaint with a kiss. “I will always be in danger,” Claire continued,

  “the question is whether you will hide among the shadows waiting to defend me or be lying next to me in my bed.”

  Roman’s heart swelled with pride and love. “There is only one place I have ever wanted to be.”

  “I need to know you will always be with me, Roman. That you won’t push me out of your life when things get dangerous.”

  “I don’t think I could if I tried.” He kissed her again. “I love you, Claire. I always have, and I always will,” Roman promised.

  She smiled up at him. “I needed to be sure.” Claire pressed his hand to her stomach.

  “We needed to be sure.”

  Roman’s breath caught in his throat and tears welled within his eyes. “We?” he asked hopefully.

  “Yes, Roman, both of us.” She smiled and tears of joy flowed down her face.

  “You’re going to be a daddy.”

  Roman bent gently and placed the barest of kisses on Claire’s stomach. It was the happiest he had ever been in his entire existence.

  The End

  About the Author:

  Rhonda Print and her lifelong love of reading were inspired by the beauty of the desert southwest to write Nightwalker, the first book in the series. She is diligently working on the second book. She lives in Arizona with her husband and three children.

  You can visit her at rhondaprint.blogspot.com