by Marie Dry
“Hey, lady, I’m a man and not scared of this half pint.”
In spite of his words, the young gargoyle’s voice shook. How he managed to speak with Mark choking him, she had no idea. Men.
Thailog shook his head, as if resigned to what was coming.
Sabrina staggered over to Mark, put her hands over his, and tried to pry them open. The young gargoyle’s face was turning red. “Please, Mark, don’t kill him.”
“I’m going to crush the life out of the little shit,” he said through clenched teeth, not looking away from the now-terrified male.
“You can punish him later.”
“He hurt you.” Mark didn’t look away from the young gargoyle who struggled for breath, his eyes wide in his face. When she’d thought Mark would make them sorry, it had been prophetic.
“He was just over eager, trying to impress Thailog. Please let him go. You’ve punished him enough.” She pulled at his hands again and could’ve cried with relief when he slowly relaxed his hold on the gargoyle.
He shoved the gargoyle violently away and gently took her in his arms. Sabrina burrowed close to his warm body, still shaking with cold.
“Bring me hot tea and a blanket,” Mark demanded.
Moments later, they all sat drinking tea as if Thailog hadn’t burst through her window, flown with her over Cape Town, and then chained her in a cellar. Sabrina voiced the question that had niggled at her. “Why does he think you’re using me for bait?” Something buried in her mind tried to surface.
“Why else would Marku, ‘Mr. I’ll Never Take a Mate,’ pretend to get married?” Thailog said.
Next to her Mark’s body turned rock hard.
“The drogge--you’re using me to draw out the drogge,” she whispered.
Her intestines twisted into painful knots, as if tacked together with sewing pins. The betrayal, the hurt, left her speechless. Again something stirred in her mind and she instinctively pushed it down, knowing if she let it out, she’d be devastated. Sabrina refused to fall apart in front of these arrogant gargoyles.
Mark gave Thailog the finger. “Here’s what I think of your respect.” He turned to her. “I can keep you safe, Sabrina.”
Again he’d lied to her. He didn’t believe she’d be safe once the drogge had her. And he still wanted to use her as bait? Betrayal assaulted her like hale denting a tin roof.
“Why me? Why would I draw them out?”
“Exactly what I’d like to know,” Thailog said.
Mark and Sabrina both ignored him, totally focused on each other in this moment of realized truth and spoken lies.
“We can talk about this later, Sabrina.”
They would have the mother of all discussions later. Sabrina stared at the fashion magazine on the coffee table. It looked shiny and frivolous in the room filled with bristling gargoyles. That terrible thing buried in her mind tried to drift to the surface.
The gargoyle tilted his head, a curious look on his face. And fear--mixed with the curiosity, was an instinctive fear. The kind a person felt when he knew he was prey, hunted, and could be killed any moment. The temperature in the room dropped and her teeth chattered.
Thailog got up and started to pace, much like Mark liked to do. “You’re hunting the drogge? You think they’re here?”
“Yes,” Mark said and rubbed her arms.
Normally it would’ve helped to warm her, but she was cold from more than just the chill of the cellar.
“Shit. I was hoping I’d got it wrong. That you wanted the crown. Then I could just kill you and get on with my life.”
Mark’s body relaxed slightly next to her. “In your dreams, Thailog.”
He’d been tense and she’d seen him draw a knife while they talked. Now he made the knife disappear, with a smooth motion, so fast she didn’t know where he put it. Where was Mark in the gargoyle and vampire hierarchy?
They treated him with such contempt, calling him half pint, and yet they obviously feared him. When they dragged her out of the cellar she’d been vaguely aware of more gargoyles around the house. She’d think they would feel safe from him with their greater numbers.
The gargoyle and Mark--she’d never be able to think of him as Marku-- started talking in a strange guttural language. Abruptly they switched to English.
“Why should we become involved?” Thailog demanded. “They’re hunting human women.”
“You know as well as I do that they go after the nations when they emerge.” Mark rubbed his eyes. “Two vampires are missing. They don’t know yet if they went to ground, or if they’ve been taken.”
If these drogge went after the vampires, why would Mark need her for bait? Her heartbeat increased, hope blooming. Maybe Thailog had gotten it wrong, after all.
Thailog swore long and fluent--whatever language he spoke worked even better than Klingon for venting.
He turned and nailed Mark with a look so vicious she shrank back. “What do you want from me?” Thailog asked.
Mark remained relaxed. “Why would you think I want anything from you?”
“You would’ve taken your property and left, otherwise.”
“Hey, stop calling me property,” she objected.
Strong gargoyle or not, the next time he said something like that, she’d hit him with something.
“There will be a reckoning for the treatment of my wife.” They exchanged a look she didn’t understand. “I want you to look for anything out of the ordinary. The vampires are scouring the city, but you may see something they miss from the air.”
“Why should I risk my men? We might not be targets.”
Mark shrugged. “It’s your choice, but if you do become a target, do not come to me or my allies for help.”
Mark had allies? Somehow she’d gotten the impression that he was hunting the drogge alone.
They stared at each other in fraught silence for a long time and then Thailog nodded. “We will do this, but do not think it means I take orders from you, half pint.”
Mark nodded, seeming satisfied, but Sabrina could feel waves of fury and sadness coming off him. He stood. “We’re going. Touch Sabrina again, or if you even look at her wrong, I’ll kill you.
A small thrill went through Sabrina, spreading a measure of comfort over the ache in her heart. She knew she shouldn’t, but she still felt a thrill at his words. She half expected him to make them appear at her house, but they left through the front door. She took one last look at the fashion magazine on the coffee table, that thing in her mind coming loose, threatening her sanity.
Samuel stood in front of the car, a large strange-looking gun in his hands. Mark shrugged off his jacket and put it around her shoulders.
“Thanks, I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again,” she said through chattering teeth. More than the cold, was the shock of knowing creatures she only thought existed in legends were real. And on top of that the revelation that her husband may be using her for bait.
“There will be a reckoning,” Mark said.
“You don’t seem to be on good terms with your fellow gargoyles.” She’d prefer to run away to a place where the world was normal. Where she didn’t have to know that these creatures existed. She feared that would never be possible again, never again would she wake in a world where monsters didn’t exist. Even more than that, she feared that she was bait after all.
“She okay?’ Samuel asked.
“They chained her in the cellar,” Mark bit out.
Dangerous waves emanated from both men. She was touched that Samuel was so angry on her behalf. Before today, she would’ve sworn he wouldn’t feel any regret if anything happened to her.
Or were they just concerned about keeping their bait alive? Did he know what Mark planned? Everyone but her seemed to know. That irritating wolf pretending to be a dog probably knew too.
Mark opened her door and helped her in before rounding the car to open the passenger door on the other side.
She noticed that Samuel kept his spot u
ntil Mark was seated next to her. They left with a sedate speed that surprised her. Sabrina had to suppress the urge to beg Samuel to put his foot down and get them out of there at high speed.
The gargoyles lined the road they traveled, like grim specters, their black and gray marble skins blending into the shadows cast by the trees. She saw them appear and reappear until Samuel turned into a bigger dirt road. They might look fearsome and outnumber them, but even from here she could sense their fear of Mark.
Again, what did she marry? If she was really married. That gargoyle had seemed pretty sure of his facts.
“Why do they fear you?” She meant to ask him why Thailog thought they weren’t married, but she couldn’t make herself ask the question that would set the thing in her mind free.
“I have vampire blood. Those fuckers will not accept anyone not pure gargoyle, but my mixed blood makes me stronger than them.” He smiled, a grim baring of teeth. “Much stronger.”
“I’m sorry they treat you like that.” Her father used to rub his thumb over her skin. As if he could rub the black away. At least then, she’d believed her father loved her, had acted out of concern of how she’d be treated because of the color of her skin. How much worse for Mark, to be so totally rejected. Her eyes narrowed. If he was so much stronger than them, why did they kidnap her? Wouldn’t they be scared of what Mark could do to them? Unless they believed he only saw her as bait.
“Is that all I am to you, bait?” The question burst from her before she even realized she was going to ask it.
“You are more than bait to me.”
He didn’t deny that he was using her as bait. How many times would this husband of hers shatter her heart?
Mark sat clenching and unclenching his fist, a brooding look on his face, as if the mention of the gargoyles’ attitude toward him had awoken dark memories.
“Thank you.” He turned to her, frowning as if he didn’t understand what she thanked him for. “For coming for me,” she said. She had this horrific sense that he cared for her, but whatever he was looking for was more important, that he was only using her, that nothing about their relationship was real. Still, he did come for her.
“Stop the car.” Mark sounded like a man about to commit a murder he’d planned for a long time.
“What’s going on, why do you want him to stop? Are the gargoyles coming for us?” she asked and peered out of the window.
He seemed really angry that he didn’t get to do some violence to the gargoyles. Maybe it was a supernatural thing.
Samuel brought the car to a standstill.
“Take a walk,” Mark said to Samuel and pulled her closer, lifted her until she straddled him. The spacious backseat of the car suddenly felt cramped. She was only vaguely aware of Samuel’s door opening.
“Don’t talk to him like that,” was all she could think to say.
Samuel was already gone.
“Mark what’s going on, what are you going to do?”
His eyes glittered down at her, hot lava instead of backlit ice. “You never thank me for rescuing you. You are my wife, I will always come for you.”
Sabrina stared up at him and sadness infiltrated her body. She touched his high cheekbone, cupped his strong jaw in her hand. “I always feared that if I married, my husband would leave me, the way my father left my mother and me.” She swallowed before she could continue. “I thought you loved me, forced myself to believe it and not to let me insecurities get in the way.” She smiled, but couldn’t manage more than a pathetic little upturn of her lips before they straightened. “We aren’t even married, and you’ve left me already.”
That thing in her mind had fought its way to the surface. She didn’t remember or understand how, but she knew, a deep instinctive knowing, she and Mark never got married.
“You’re being overly dramatic. We are married, because I say we are married. I rescued you from Thailog, I’ll always rescue you.”
“Even when you use me as bait to get the drogge?”
A look of such fury crossed his face, she shrank back from him. He fisted her hair in his hand, leaned down to snarl at her. “Don’t you ever ask me that again?”
“Why not? It’s the truth, you’re using me as bait to get the drogge.”
He kissed her, an openmouthed wet, sucking-away-her-soul kiss with lips that tasted of bitter chocolate and sacrificial wine. “You’re mine, I’m keeping you.” His voice was so guttural, she barely understood him. He pulled her face up with his hand still tangled in her hair. “Tell me you’re mine. That you believe I’ll always come for you.”
Sabrina stared up into his savage face. She didn’t think he was aware that he changed between gargoyle and human, like two songs put on a continuous loop.
“I believe you’d come for me if you can. I also believe that you’ll sacrifice me for the greater good.” Because she sensed whatever he hunted, whatever evil it was that was coming, would destroy them.
“Shut up, don’t you ever say that again.” He kissed her, as if trying to kiss their reality away--that lingering taste of bitter chocolate and wine seducing her again.
Sabrina melted into the kiss. She wanted to believe this man was her husband. That he loved her and would never use her as an instrument against evil. For this moment, she wanted the illusion to remain intact.
He drew off his jacket that still covered her and unbuttoned his shirt. “Take off your dress.”
She gasped and grasped her evening jacket closed, looked frantically through the car windows. No one was on the deserted road, but that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t come this way. She had this horrific image of gargoyles surrounding the car, watching them. “No, not here, let’s go home and do this in private.”
“Now, I want you now.” He tore her dress in his haste to push it up to her hips. “I have a glamor around us. No one will see.”
Sabrina knew she should be scandalized or even angry, but excitement coursed through her. She loved that he wanted her so much that he didn’t care they were on an open road.
His lovemaking was passionate, rough, and quick. He tore her panties. She opened his pants and held him in her hands for a moment, caressing him with a soft up and down strokes. He groaned, then lifted her, and impaled her. They froze for one long moment, staring into each other’s eyes. Outside everything stilled, the far away sounds of cars, the trees rustling, all of that disappeared, as if even nature didn’t dare move in this moment. He set a deep harsh rhythm and she matched him stroke for stroke. Wanting him, wanting the oblivion his passionate lovemaking brought.
“You’re mine,” he hissed and thrust.
She didn’t care that they were on an open road, probably close to a highway, she didn’t care that Samuel was around, or that gargoyles might be flying overhead. All she was aware of was Mark, who made love to her with a kind of savage desperation. As if he wanted to imprint himself on her very bones.
He held still, pulsing deep inside her. “I don’t care if the world goes to hell.”
Her muscles tightened around him, milked him, her ears losing the capacity to hear and each nerve ending overloaded with pleasure. This was her husband, the man she loved more than life itself, and he made love to her as if she was the only thing in the world he cared about. His hands clamped down on her hips to fasten their pace. He lifted her, almost withdrew from her body, and then thrust deep again. “All I care about right now is you, being inside you, seeing pleasure on your face.”
She opened his shirt and touched his muscled abdomen, moved her hands up to rub over his flat male nipples. He shivered and his movements became frantic.
“Your knee,” he mumbled, while he pushed her bra down and sucked her nipple into his mouth. His thrusts were shallow, almost lazy now. Her body was going to explode. No woman could endure this much pleasure.
“S’all right. Not hurting,” she said and didn’t know if it was true. She couldn’t feel any pain in her knee, because the pleasure was so intense, spiraling higher a
nd higher until her whole body tensed and she heard herself cry out in pleasure.
He kept her moving on him and in her and it started again, her breath catching, the pleasure spiraling higher this time until she came again. She tightened her inner muscles and he threw back his head, a look of either intense concentration or intense pain on his face. He shuddered and came and pleasure coursed through her again.
She fell forward with her head on his shoulder. Limp and sated, she didn’t think she could move.
He swore softly. “Your knee.”
He touched her knee and that curious warm feeling sank into her bones again. Before she could become aware of any discomfort it was gone, burned out by his warm hand.
“How do you do that?”
He shrugged. “Gargoyle trick.”
Avoiding her eyes, he helped her restore her clothes and zipped up his pants. Why would he feel shame that he could give her relief from the pain in her knee? And it was shame, she could feel it coming off him in waves.
Sabrina didn’t see him give any signal, but suddenly Samuel came into sight, walking up to the car. She touched her heated cheeks and quickly rolled down the window to dispel the smell of sex. She’d felt sated and happy, but now, facing Samuel who knew what they’d done, embarrassment took over.
With an amused smile, Mark waved his hand and a cool breeze swept through the car, dispelling the strong odor of sex.
Samuel didn’t give any sign that he was aware that anything had happened and simply got in behind the wheel.
“Home?”
“For now, yes. Have someone repair the window.”
“It’s already taken care of,” Samuel said and slowly pulled into the road.
While they drove home and the soft shivers of after pleasure shocks diminished, her brain started working again. Mark had admitted to manipulating her mind and pretending they were married for reasons of his own. And still she made love to him. What kind of wimp was she that she couldn’t resist his love making? At least until she’d made him tell her exactly what was going on? She thought about that magazine on the coffee table in the gargoyle house and suppressed a whimper.
