Ashes (The Slayer Chronicles Book 3)

by Val St. Crowe

  I shifted on my feet, uncomfortable. “Logan is right in the other room. He’ll walk in and see us making out, and that’s only happened like a zillion times, and next time he’s going to strangle you.”

  “No, he’s not,” said Naelen, kissing my jaw.

  I sighed a little. “You think you could take him, but he’s a gargoyle. He’s stronger than you think.”

  “I know how strong he is.” Naelen kissed my cheek. Then my nose. “But he won’t hurt me.”

  I surveyed him. “Sometimes I think you’re going to hurt him.”

  “No way,” said Naelen. “He’s like… the brother I never had. He knows more about me than anyone on earth except you. It’s not easy all the time, watching each other with you, but we’re good, I swear.”

  “Why?” I said.

  Naelen shrugged. “Just are.” And then he kissed me again, and he slid his hands around my hips and pulled me tight against him.

  “Naelen, seriously, we’re supposed to be working.”

  His lips at my ear. His voice urgent. “Right here, on the floor.”

  “No,” I said. “If Logan doesn’t walk in, Riley will, and that’ll be awful.”

  He groaned. “God, Clarke, I think I might lose my mind around you sometimes.”

  “Well, don’t.” I pushed him away, my heart racing. I felt flustered. “You know what? I’m just going over here.” I looked for some other pile of stuff to categorize. There was lots to choose from. “I don’t know what the hell has gotten into you.”

  “Gotten into me?”

  “Yeah, you weren’t like this before.”

  He lifted his chin. “Sure, I was.”

  “No, you weren’t. You say you’re okay with Logan, but you’re not.”

  “It’s not about Logan.”

  “So, there is something.”

  “No.” He sat back down on the floor. “How would you know how I am, anyway? We weren’t in a relationship before Cunningham.”

  I sighed. “Well, maybe not.”

  He picked up a talisman on a chain and tossed it in a pile. “For that matter, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a relationship at all. So, this could be utterly normal for me.”

  It was true enough that he’d only had one-night stands when I met him. He was intent on not falling in love.

  I chewed on my lip. “Is this what your parents were like?”

  “No.” He kicked over a cardboard box. “This has nothing to do with any of that. You and I, we’re not mated. I chose you.”

  I just stood there, unsure of how to respond.

  He righted the box, shaking his head. “Let’s just go back to work, huh?”

  “Yeah, okay.” I said. I went to him and put a reassuring hand on his back.

  He let me. Closed his eyes.

  We were quiet.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I thought for sure I’d sleep like the dead that night, because Naelen had been insatiable. We’d made love not twice but three times, and every time had been better than the time before, and when we were done, I was loose-limbed and out of breath, just a puddle of satisfied goodness.

  But while Naelen fell asleep quickly and was even gently snoring next to me, I found that I couldn’t sleep at all.

  I lay there, rolling around, trying to sleep snuggled against him and then completely away from him, not touching him at all.

  Nothing worked.

  And then I heard the noises from above me again.

  Definitely footsteps, right above my head. Someone was walking around up there. I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling as if I’d be able to somehow look through to the other floor.

  Then I thought I heard the murmur of a voice too.

  I strained to try to hear. I could only hear a little bit of the voice, and it wasn’t as deep as I thought Riley’s brother might sound. Not that I thought his brother was up in the attic.

  Suddenly, there were footsteps in the hallway, just next to me.

  I knew that Naelen was with me, but I wondered if Logan was up, pacing because he didn’t sleep or something like that. Maybe if so, he was hearing the noises from overhead. Even if he wasn’t, maybe I could get him to hear them, and he could tell me what he thought.

  I pushed aside the covers and climbed out of bed. I wasn’t dressed, so I stopped to pull on my pajamas, and then I crept across the floor toward the door. In the scant light from the dark window, the gouges near the knob seemed to glow.

  I shivered, and then carefully pulled the door open.

  It wasn’t Logan in the hallway.

  It was two of the gargoyle servants in their black ties and suits. They were carrying platters of steaming food.

  “What are you doing?” I said. “Who’s that for?”

  “It’s our supper, ma’am,” said one of the gargoyles, eyeing me. But there was something in his gaze that unsettled me. Sometimes, I get an inexplicable vibe from certain men, something that sets off alerts in my lizard brain. This was like that. My pajamas left a portion of my skin bare, my legs and arms. The shirt clung to my body. I felt far too uncovered all of the sudden, and I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. I backed into my room and shut the door.

  Then I locked it.

  Safe, I leaned against the door, my heart thumping. That wasn’t their supper, and I knew it. It didn’t make any sense for them to carry it all the way up to the fourth floor. They were going somewhere, but where?

  There was nothing but other bedrooms down this hall. I’d seen that when I explored the first night.

  I puzzled over it for a while, but I couldn’t come up with anything.

  Eventually, I climbed back into bed with Naelen, resolving to try to figure it out under the covers. But instead, I found myself dreadfully tired all of the sudden. I fell asleep before I even had a chance to put any more thoughts together.

  * * *

  “I think there’s another entrance to the attic,” I announced to the guys at breakfast the next morning.

  “What?” said Logan, who had been down in the breakfast room when we’d arrived. There was no sign of Riley, not even a note that he’d be sleeping late. He seemed to sleep late every morning, though. Breakfast was the same every morning. Bacon, biscuits, gravy, eggs, coffee, and orange juice. I wasn’t complaining. I was pretty sure I could eat that for breakfast every day for the rest of my life. In fact, if I did end up living at one of Naelen’s big houses where he had servants and crap, I would totally have that made for myself as my standing breakfast order.

  I took a gulp of coffee. “Okay, so last night, I saw some gargoyles in the hallway. They were walking down with big platters of food, and they told me that the food was for them, but that doesn’t make any sense. And I couldn’t figure out why they were walking down our hallway. It’s a dead end.”

  “Gargoyles?” said Naelen. “In the hall? When was this?”

  “You were asleep,” I said. I turned to Logan. “Did you hear anything?”

  “I found a television in the lounge downstairs,” said Logan. “I’ve been in there most nights.”

  “Why?” said Naelen. “Can’t sleep?”

  “He doesn’t sleep,” I said. “It’s another side effect of whatever Cunningham did to him to keep him from being stone.”

  Naelen wrinkled his eyebrows. “Whoa. Seriously? You’ve been awake this whole time?”

  Logan shrugged.

  “That must suck,” said Naelen.

  Logan snagged a piece of bacon off my plate. “Better with television.”

  “Hey,” I said. “Get your own bacon. There’s a whole rasher over there.”

  “Sorry,” said Logan, but he didn’t look sorry.

  I stabbed my eggs and took a bite and chewed. “Anyway, I think they were trying to get into the attic.”

  “The gargoyles?” said Naelen.

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s what I think, and I think there’s another entrance down there somewhere.”

  “Why w
ould they want to get in the attic?” said Logan.

  “There’s someone up there,” I said. “Last night was the second time that I’ve heard footsteps above my head. Someone is up in the attic, marching around, and the gargoyles are feeding whoever it is.”

  “You heard footsteps up there?” said Naelen. “But you said you heard footsteps and it was gargoyles in the hall.”

  “Right,” I said. “Two different kinds of footsteps. One from above, one from next to me.”

  “You sure the sound wasn’t just bouncing around?” said Naelen.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” I said.

  “Well, I guess we can go up there and look around,” said Logan. “See if we can find the other way into the attic. But I’ve been down there, and there’s only a couple musty bedrooms.”

  “Maybe it’s a hidden passage in a closet or something,” I said.

  The guys exchanged a glance, and then they shrugged. They were humoring me.

  * * *

  But it turned out that I was right. There was a tiny stairway tucked into the corner of one of the bedrooms. It wasn’t easy to see from the door of the room, and I hadn’t gone inside any of the bedrooms the first night that I’d explored, so it only made sense that I would have missed it.

  “Ha!” I said when I saw it. “I told you.”

  “You were right,” said Logan, grinning at me. “Wonder why they’d go up this stairway instead of the other one.”

  “It’s air conditioned,” I said.

  “Makes sense,” said Naelen.

  Together, we all went up the steps. They were just as narrow and steep as the other steps. When we got to the top, there was a door. It was closed, and it had a big padlock on the front of it. But the padlock wasn’t locked.

  “This is weird,” I said.

  “Still air conditioned up here,” said Logan, pushing at the door. It creaked open.

  We emerged into another bedroom. There was a tall window to one side which let in the morning sun. There was a four poster bed against the far wall and a wardrobe next to it. In the center of the room was a fluffy rug.

  “Look at this,” said Naelen.

  We both turned.

  Naelen shut the door. There were gouge marks all over the inside of it.

  “That looks just like the gouge marks in my room!” I said.

  “What?” said Naelen.

  “I didn’t show you those?” I said. “They’re just like these.”

  Logan knitted his brow. “You think the same person was in both of those rooms?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe somebody was locked in that bedroom down there most of the time and then moved up here when there was company in the house so that no one would have to see the person.”

  “I always thought it was weird that there was an air-conditioned portion of the house on the top floor,” said Naelen. “But that’s got to be because of whoever was kept up here.”

  “You think it was the brother?” I said. “I asked Riley about that. I said that maybe my room was used to contain his brother while his father was trying to bind his power.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He dismissed it. Said that no one had been locked in a room. But he was angry with me for bringing it up.”

  “Maybe it was the sister,” said Naelen. “Calliope?”

  “Yeah,” said Logan. “She seems like the kind of person you’d lock up.”

  “But Riley just let her run free in the house,” I said.

  “Well, he probably didn’t agree with it,” said Naelen. “I get the impression that his family has done a lot of stuff he didn’t agree with.”

  “Okay, maybe,” I said. “It could have been her.”

  “He did say she was in a facility,” said Logan.

  “And it doesn’t look like anyone’s used this room in a long time,” I said. The whole place was covered in a thick layer of dust. “So, if they did lock her up here, it would have had to have been a long time ago.”

  “When she was a little girl?” said Naelen, looking disgusted. “What kind of people would do that?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. But this place continues to creep me out. Let’s find the stupid cup, find Riley’s brother, take care of him, and get out of here.”

  * * *

  Another unfruitful day looking for the cup.

  Riley didn’t show up at all. At first, we thought it was late, so we had just gotten started looking for him and expected him later, but then he failed to appear. Lunchtime rolled around. We found sandwiches in the refrigerator as usual. We ate. Still no Riley.

  We searched all afternoon, and he didn’t show up.

  When dusk fell, Logan went to speak to Frederick and tell him that we would prefer not to have a huge to-do for dinner, and so we were able to eat in the breakfast room and serve ourselves. Afterward, we took our dirty plates to the kitchen, which seemed to make the gargoyles a little annoyed.

  “Maybe they’re bored,” said Naelen. “Maybe they have nothing better to do.”

  “Maybe it was an insult,” I said. “Maybe it made them feel as though we thought they couldn’t do their job properly.”

  “Who cares?” said Logan. “They don’t need to wait on us hand and foot.”

  We watched a little television together in the room downstairs that Logan had found. But when I started to yawn, I said I was going to bed. And since it was Logan’s night, he came with me. Naelen stayed in the TV room, pointedly not watching us leave.

  When we got upstairs, we went into my room. I sat down on my bed and started pulling off my shoes. “This all still feels so weird to me.”

  “What? This house? The gargoyle servants? The killer brother outside?” said Logan.

  I laughed. “Okay, all that, but I meant this relationship we’re having, the three of us.”

  “Ah.” Logan sat down on the bed next to me. “Is it feeling weird because it’s my night?”

  “No,” I said, giving him a funny look. “Why would you say that?”

  He shrugged. He picked at the bandage on his arm. “No reason.”

  “Hey, how’s that looking, anyway?” I said. “Should we clean that, put a new dressing on?”

  “Nah, it’s almost healed,” he said. “In fact, maybe I’ll let it air out tonight.” He removed the dressing, and I could see that his wound really was almost healed over. That was amazing to me.

  I touched the skin next to the new scar tissue. “Does it hurt?”

  “Barely,” he said.

  I kissed him. “I’m sorry you got shot.”

  He smiled. “I’ve been through worse.” He ran his knuckles over my cheek. “So, what makes you feel weird about this?”

  “It is weird,” I said, pulling back. “Don’t tell me you think that this is normal.”

  “I don’t see why it couldn’t be,” he said. “As long as we were all okay with it.”

  “Well, we aren’t though,” I said. “I don’t think any of us like it.”

  “No?” said Logan, furrowing his brow.

  I got up off the bed and went over to the wardrobe, where I’d stored my bag of clothes. I tugged open the wardrobe and pulled out my pajamas. “Well, you don’t like it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  I turned around, clutching my pajamas to my chest. “Well, Naelen hates it.”

  “He told you that?”

  “Not in so many words, but the way he acts, he’s always…” And then I felt like I shouldn’t be sharing this stuff with Logan, because maybe it was private or maybe it would make him jealous.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” I said. I tossed my pajamas on the bed and yanked my shirt over my head. I didn’t think anything of getting undressed in front of Logan. I’d known him forever, and I’d done it a zillion times before.

  Still, when he saw my bare skin, he sucked in breath.

  And suddenly, I felt a little shy. I pulled my pajama shirt over my head. “Maybe it’s just t
hat I don’t really like it.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?”

  I tucked my hair behind my ears. “Is that so hard to believe?”

  “Kind of.”

  I sighed. “Because this is all my fault? I’m the one who created this crappy situation?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “If I could have chosen between the two of you, then Cunningham would never have found out what was going on between us, and he would have never been intrigued in his sick, twisted way, and he wouldn’t have made us do all the things he made us do.”

  “Well, two can play that game,” said Logan. “If I hadn’t shown up at your house and asked you to leave Naelen and come with me, then you never would have had to choose.”

  I picked up my pajama pants. “That’s not true.”

  “Isn’t it? I mean, you were done with me,” he said. “You made it very clear that you were done with me.”

  “I really didn’t,” I said, unbuttoning my jeans. I knew he was watching now, and I was a little shy about it, but I also kind of liked that he was watching. I shimmied out of them and tugged on my pajama pants. “Every time you’d show back up in Sea City, I’d always end up in bed with you.”

  “Except the last time,” said Logan, and there was something bitter in his voice, “the time after you’d met Naelen.”

  “Oh, come on, nothing was going on between Naelen and me then,” I said, although I distinctly remembered that he’d started hitting on me pretty much right away.

  Logan took a deep breath. “You don’t like this arrangement because of me. If I was out of the picture—”

  “No,” I said. I went to him. I kissed his jaw, his chin, his mouth.

  He stopped me, pushed me back. “I’ve been thinking that maybe I should leave and let the two of you—”

  “You can’t leave,” I said. “I won’t let you leave. God damn it, Logan, leaving is what you always do. If you leave me again…” I clenched my hands into fists and beat them against his chest.

  He caught my wrists, a smile creeping over his features. “Careful. You don’t know your own strength.”

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “A little.”