by Faith Gibson
TAMIAN
Stone Society Book 11
By Faith Gibson
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction.
Copyright © 2018 by Faith Gibson
Published by: Bramblerose Press LLC
Editor: Jagged Rose Wordsmithing
First edition: October 2018
Cover design: Jay Aheer, Simply Defined Art
Cover photography: Deposit Photos
ISBN: 978-1732864801
Dedication
For Elizabeth. Your friendship means the world to me, and you made these last few months a little more bearable. I love you.
Acknowledgements
It seems like it took forever to get Tamian’s story out there, and in my writing world timeline, it did. There was a lot of stuff going on in my life that took me away from the keyboard, but my tribe was there for me, keeping me sane. Candy, Jen, Kendall, Kerstin, and Nikki, thank you for your support when the going got tough. I don’t talk to each one of you every day, but you all reached out at the right moment.
I have to give a shout out to Rachel W. While your work experience may have been creepy as hell, the way you told the story not only had me laughing out loud, but it spawned an idea for this book. So, thank you for that.
My girl Jen, you are my light in the darkness, and I couldn’t do this without you.
Jay, your artistic talent grows greater each day, and I’m blessed you continue to take time to make my covers be exactly what I ask for.
To the man - Thank you for all your love and patience while I was trying to find myself again. I love you.
Table of 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
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Epilogue
Coming Soon
About the Author
Other Works by Faith Gibson
Prologue
New York
2044
The cylinders squeaked as the rose-colored casket was lowered into the grave. A mound of dirt turning into mud due to the downpour waited to be shoveled back into the hole. Four sparse flower arrangements stood around the battered tent, which was doing its best to keep the rain off the single row of metal chairs beneath. Only one of those chairs was occupied. Lucia Harlow Ball sat alone, her eyes painfully dry as she stared at the scene in front of her.
Vera Ball slowly disappeared into the earth. The minister had given a quick speech about ashes and dust and the afterlife. There was no long, drawn-out sermon. No mourners to heed the call of the clergy to make things right with God before it was too late. No one holding Lucy’s hand or offering words of condolence. No limo driving Lucy to and from a lavish funeral home where family members brought meat trays and baked goods. No one waiting at home to do the same.
There could have been a huge crowd had Lucy allowed it, but she couldn’t bring herself to listen to strangers offering empty words while deep inside Lucy was dying. She would rather suffer alone than have to listen to people laugh as they told stories about her mother. Because they would laugh. Vera had been the type of woman to bring a smile to everyone she came in contact with. She was the good-natured, quiet person who never met a stranger. It wasn’t how Vera would have wanted it, but she knew Lucy. She left instructions for her obituary to come out after she’d been buried so Lucy didn’t have to deal with the crowds.
Lucy hadn’t shed a tear. Not when she got the call. Not when she sat in a stuffy room with a greasy man in a too-small suit who tried to upsell her mother’s funeral arrangements. Not when she numbly pointed to the pink, metal box her mother’s body would reside in for eternity. Not when the minister patted her on the arm and told her to call if she needed anything. Not when the last shovel of mud landed with a “plop” on top of the grave. Not as she made her way in the rain to the only car in the parking lot.
As she drove the twenty miles to the house she grew up in, Lucy shivered from the cold. Or maybe it was the loneliness. Lucy had taken her last living relative for granted. Having lost her father almost four years before, she should have realized how fleeting life really was, even for someone like her. Just because she and her father were special, it didn’t guarantee them a long life, even though that’s exactly what she’d been promised. If only her mother had been like them, maybe she would have dodged the cancer. Or at least have been able to beat it.
Instead of studying molecular biology and genetics at MIT, Lucy should have gone into medicine. She should have tried to understand how the disease that stole her mother wove its way into a body, latching on with a finality for some people. Research had come a long way, but not far enough. Instead of studying the hows and whys she was different from others, she should have focused on a cure to save her mother. But that hadn’t been the dream. Not her dream, but her father’s. They couldn’t change what they were any more than a person could change the color of the skin they’d been born with.
Lucius Ball was a brilliant scientist, and he raised Lucy in his likeness. Her mother encouraged her to be whatever she wanted, even if that wasn’t what Lucius wanted. But her father had ingrained in her the need to continue his research for as long as she could remember. Her father was gone, so if Lucy decided to drop out of MIT and change career paths, he would never know it.
The house was eerily quiet when Lucy closed the front door behind her. When her parents were alive, the house had been filled with soft tones. Lucius would get excited when he made a discovery, but his joy had been celebrated with a low chuckle at best. Vera had been a meek though lively woman, never raising her voice. Lucy couldn’t remember a time her mother had been angry. She always had a smile for both Lucy and her father. Vera had taken Lucius’s death hard, and when the cancer invaded her body, she only fought it long enough for Lucy to grow into an adult. It was like the day Lucy turned twenty-one, her mother decided her job was done, and she gave up fighting. She refused treatment, saying she was ready to look death in the face and embrace it. Lucy had known the day would come when she would walk into her home alone, but it still seemed like a bad dream.
Instead of dropping out of school and staying with her mother in the three-story, stone house nestled between lush trees and a pristine lake on twenty acres, Lucy had continued with her classes at Vera’s insistence. When Vera could no longer care for herself, hospice had been called in, and she died peacefully in her sleep.
Lucy had already closed the d
oor to her parents’ bedroom, putting off the inevitable. Normally, she would have grabbed a glass of wine and enjoyed the view from the back deck. The rain made that impossible, so Lucy changed out of her black funeral attire into sweats and a long-sleeve tee. She still opted for the wine to dull some of the ache in her chest as she wandered around the place she’d called home for the last twenty-one years.
Finding herself in her father’s study, Lucy placed herself between the worn, leather chair and the antique mahogany desk. The contents of her parents’ safe deposit box waited on the desktop, hidden within a cardboard banker’s box. Her father’s attorney had met Lucy at the bank the day after she arrived home from college, handing over the secrets Lucius had hidden away from prying eyes. The house, the cars, the bank accounts, all of it was now Lucy’s, but she’d give it all back for one more day with her sweet mother.
The box had remained on the desk, untouched. With the burden of burying her mother, Lucy hadn’t had the time nor the energy to dig into what she figured would be her father’s journals he’d written every time he made a new discovery. She had been there more often than not when he jotted down notations and theories. Her home had been her sanctuary growing up, but it had also been her prison. Instead of having sleepovers with friends, Lucy’s time had been spent learning from her father. She didn’t begrudge him, though. Her parents had given her a life most kids only got a glimpse of in the movies.
Not only had Lucius been brilliant in the laboratory, he’d been a whiz at investing. At least, she assumed that was how he’d amassed his fortune. So now, at twenty-one, Lucy had more money than the gods. Fat lotta good that did her, though. Lucy didn’t want the money. Didn’t need the status it brought. She wanted her simple life back. Going to school. Studying hard. Going on a date once every few months when she got tired of saying no. Visiting her mother on breaks and spending every waking moment catching up.
Lucy took a sip of wine before lifting the lid off the cardboard box. Peering inside, she was surprised when she didn’t find her father’s papers. Not on top, at least. There, waiting for her, was an envelope with her name written across the front. She didn’t recognize the handwriting. Whatever was waiting inside couldn’t hurt her any more than losing her mother. Instead of reaching for the letter opener, Lucy ripped the seal with her index finger, cutting her skin as a result. As she sucked the appendage into her mouth to staunch the blood, Lucy used her other hand to remove the contents. As she processed what she was reading, her finger fell from her mouth, and Lucy sat down hard in the chair behind her.
For the first time since she’d received the call about her mother, Lucy cried.
Chapter One
Norway
2048
The leggy female disappeared into thin air. Tamian jogged toward the woods where she’d been walking, but she was nowhere to be seen, even with his shifter sight. How was that possible? Harlow, as he thought of her, was a mystery. He had chosen that particular alias because he liked the way it rolled off his tongue when he imagined being buried in her heat. Or in her mouth. Never before had he dwelled on sex, but now that he’d gotten a glimpse of the one who turned his world upside down, it was all he could think about. He’d heard that was normal, but for him, it was anything but.
While a couple of the local Gargoyles were convinced the stranger was a spy, figuring out exactly who she was spying on was becoming a challenge. The woman had been in Holmesvik for almost two weeks, and Tamian had trailed her for almost half of those days. Other than driving into Oslo and hanging out around the palace, she spent most of her time outside enjoying the fresh air. Watching her wasn’t a hardship. Well, other than his cock wanting to misbehave anytime he was around her. He was still trying to convince himself she wasn’t his mate, but the longer he followed her, the more his body reacted to her, and the more difficult it was to deny.
When Tamian had slipped into the small home where Harlow was staying, there had been nothing lying around to indicate who she really was or why she was in the small Norwegian town. The house was being rented under the name of Warryck Lazlo, but Tamian had seen no sign of anyone other than Harlow.
Looking around to make sure she hadn’t slipped up behind him, Tamian stepped into the confines of the trees, keeping his senses open. The only footsteps were his own. Birds moved from branch to branch, and leaves rustled in the soft breeze. A large eagle took flight, drifting swiftly away from where Tamian was standing, and his eyes were glued to the bird. Not that he was all that familiar with the sea eagles of Europe, but this one’s coloring seemed... off. When it was out of sight, he returned his attention to the area around him. If the female had gone into the woods, she wasn’t there now.
He didn’t see her, but by the gods, he felt her. So, where the hell was she?
Giving up, Tamian retraced his steps and turned toward town. It wasn’t the first time Harlow had given him the slip. If he wasn’t Gargoyle, he would think she knew he was following her. But he was a shifter, and stealth had been his best friend since he was a toddler. If she kept to her pattern, the female was returning to the small house she’d called home for the past twelve days. Julian had yet to find a connection between the renter, a psychology professor, and Harlow, but the female was an enigma, having multiple aliases. Hell, the man could also be another alias, considering Julian hadn’t seen anyone other than the female in or near the house.
Having put it on silent, Tamian removed his phone from the back pocket of his jeans and brought it to life. Taking a seat on a metal park bench, he opened the app which allowed him access to the cameras he hid in the small bungalow Harlow was staying in. The app would have pulsed a notification had she activated the motion sensor on one of the cameras, but he looked anyway. From where he last saw her, it would have taken Harlow four minutes to walk the short distance to the house.
He knew it was pointless, but he waited a few more minutes before closing his phone. The female had gone somewhere else, so Tamian headed toward the town center where the café was located. Other than the small park, it was the place she visited most often. Gargoyles could sense their mates when they were near. They had an invisible link to the one the fates had chosen for them. Tamian felt the connection when he was close to Harlow. In spades. The odd thing was he sensed her even when he couldn’t see her. The stranger thing was he couldn’t listen in on her thoughts.
Tamian was no mere half-blood. He had been created from more than his sister’s cells. Jonas had added his own to the mix, thus making Tamian closer to a full-blooded Goyle. As with the full-bloods, Tamian had transitioned when he was young, not having to wait to find his mate to trigger the change. Not only that, but somehow his abilities were enhanced above what the average Gargoyle was born with. It had taken him years to control some of his powers, like being able to hear thoughts. If it hadn’t been for Jonas, Tamian would have gone mad before he was a teenager. No one other than Jonas, Caroline, and eventually, Xavier knew of the things Tamian was capable of. Not even his sister.
While he was walking, Tamian passed by the house Freyda owned. Since she had taken up with Gautum, Banyan’s uncle, the house stood empty at night, but during the day, the female utilized her massive kitchen for baking the best bread Tamian had ever put in his mouth. At first, Tamian didn’t know what to think of the older Gargoyles. Urijah’s parents, Tabor and Halina, had welcomed Tamian into their home as if they’d known him all his life instead of someone they’d only just met. Tabor spent his days at the armory with Gautum. The two of them were waiting on Uri and Banyan to take over the armory so they could travel the world with their mates. The four of them were certainly different than Tamian’s parents in that they were old souls. On the outside, they looked to be in their early forties, but when they talked, years of living came out of their mouths. Their homes were on the smaller side yet thoroughly lived in. Love permeated the air.
Xavier Montagnon’s name was on Tamian’s birth certificate, but the Italian King had little to do wit
h how Tamian had been raised in his early days. Instead, Tamian had grown up with Jonas as his father figure, having stayed with the male who created him more often than he did with his mother and Xavier. Being a clone, it was hard for Tamian to think of either male as a father.
Xavier split his time between New York, where he had a secure estate built for Elizabeth, and his Italian chalet nestled at the foot of Mont Blanc. Elizabeth had been a wonderful mother, but she had spent the first thirty-three years of his life hiding from Gordon Flanagan, her human husband. Now that Flanagan was no longer in the picture, Elizabeth was free to move about as she pleased.
When he was older, Tamian divided his time between the Italian chalet and following his sister around the world, keeping an eye on her. It was only when Tessa mated with Gregor, and the Stone Society welcomed her whole family into the Clan, that he stopped being such a recluse. Now, here he was in the thick of things with members of the Stone Clan and their families. Having played an integral part in helping Julian spring his mate from the FBI’s Super Max facility, as well as in the fight against the Greek King, Tamian had been welcomed into the fold even more than before. It was something he was still getting used to.
“Ya gonna walk on by like ya don’t know me?” Freyda called after Tamian. Grinning, he turned around and made his way up to the female shifter’s porch. “Why the hurry?” she asked, hands on her hips.
Keeping his voice low, Tamian admitted, “I was looking for Harlow.” Instead of continuing to call her “the spy,” Tamian told the others he preferred to use one of her known aliases.
Freyda, more than the others, was curious about the female Tamian was watching, convinced she was up to no good. The house Harlow had been staying in was just across from Freyda’s, giving her the perfect opportunity to do a little spying of her own. Tamian was of the same opinion, only because the female had so many aliases. Tessa has just as many names, he reminded himself.
“She entered the house across the street about ten minutes ago.”
