“Go to sleep, my love.” And I could no longer fight the heaviness in my eyes.
Sleep didn’t last long. It was interrupted by a crack in the night. I sat up quickly, my warm breath curling from my lips into a thick fog. On either side of me, my gargoyle guardians were lying on the ground, sleeping through whatever had woken me.
The fire had died while we slept, and darkness permeated the small clearing. Another crack split through the night. Heart flickering, I slowly stood and held my breath tight in my throat for fear that whoever—or whatever—was out there could hear even the slightest of sighs.
Body taught and tense, I eased out from between Marcus and Eli, past where Sebastian slept, and peered into the dense forest. Even with my enhanced nighttime eyesight, I couldn’t see much with all the thick trunks and heavy leaves in the way.
Another crack. This time, it was closer. Could it be an animal? Or an unsuspecting human who had wandered too far onto Circe’s property during a night camping in the wilderness?
A flash of long white hair, of pale yellow, and of bright red eyes. My heartbeat picked up speed, though not out of fear but out of excitement. It was the Fury, drifting through the trees like a wraith.
“Come out and talk,” I said so quietly that I wasn’t entirely certain the Fury would be able to hear me.
“No,” she said, almost in a sigh. “You come to me. And don’t wake the gargoyles, or I’m gone.”
I shot a glance at the gargoyles and frowned. They’d be pissed as hell if I left them here while I approached the Fury by myself, but this might be our only chance to get another shot at her. She knew we were were following her now, and she clearly had no issues with plunging around in the forest at dark. If I woke the gargoyles and she ran, we might never find her again.
So, I stepped into the deep forest and pushed through sharp branch after branch, following the flash of yellow in the dark. I didn’t know how long I followed her like that. At least twenty minutes, long enough so that I was too far for the gargoyles to hear me if I needed to call them. And, I was certain, that was the entire point.
Finally, she stopped. We were on a thin trail, packed tight with dirt. Trees grew closer on either side of us, forming a canopy of claw-like branches over our heads. The Fury stood a mere five feet away, her pale face swallowing up the darkness.
“I know what you are, and I know what you’ve been trying to do,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. The Fury didn’t scare me, strangely enough, despite the fact she’d taken all four of us out in the caves. I’d faced far more terrible things than a winged creature who couldn’t fly.
“I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t figured it out,” she said in that strange emotionless voice. “And I assume you’re here to kill me.”
“What? No.” I shook my head. “Look, you’ve pissed me off, but I’m not a murderous asshole.”
“I see.” A pause. “Then, why have you followed me through the mountains?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Why the hell do you think? I want you to reverse whatever you did to Jasper, and I want you to break your stupid oath with Eli.”
Silence whispered through the forest until she tipped back her head and laughed. Chills swept along my skin, both at the suddenness of her emotions and at the eerie sound that spilled from her mouth. It wasn’t a normal laugh. It was nothing like human, a stark reminder that this creature was not from this realm at all.
“If I reverse the gargoyle oaths, then I lose the small hit of power it gave me,” the Fury said. “So, why would I do such a thing? It would do nothing to benefit me, and it would do everything to make my miserable existence even worse. Without my power, I am nothing, and I can never return to the realm of the gods.”
Interesting. “So, that’s what this is about then? You want more power so you can go back through the veil?”
“Only those with great power can move between the realms. I’m stuck here, in this dreadful mortal place, unless I can gather enough power. Things were going well until those idiot gargoyles began losing their magic. For awhile, I thought I’d just give up and spend the rest of eternity in this place, but when you showed up with all your hopeless gargoyles, I realized I had another chance again.”
“Which is why you tricked us into making that oath to you,” I said with a nod. “And then why you tempted us to break it.”
She gave a nod. “You were easy enough to manipulate.”
“So, then why are you still here?” I asked. “Why haven’t you gone back to the realm of the gods?”
Her hair whispered behind her as she took a step closer to me, her eyes glittering even with the absence of light. “It seems it wasn’t enough. It was such a silly little oath after all. I should have known it wouldn’t work. No, I need something bigger. Stronger. Much more powerful. The kind of oath that a desperate goddess might make in order to save the man she loves.”
I blinked and stepped back, pure dread creeping up my spine. “What are you talking about?”
“You see, I am not alone on Mont Circeo,” she continued, taking a step closer just I took another step back. “There are other Furies, ones who can fly. And they have your precious gargoyles surrounded. You will make an oath to me, and you will keep it. Or else we will kill your lovers. And I don’t mean we’ll turn them to stone. We will slice through their flesh and bone, and their blood will spill on Circe’s land.”
“You’re lying,” I whispered, trying to hold down the panic that was clawing up my throat. “If there were other Furies here, we would have seen them.”
A shout rang out in the distance. A familiar shout. My stomach turned over itself. It was Marcus.
The Fury pressed her lips together, almost in a strange smile. “So, you see. You will make this oath to me, Rowena Mortensen. Or I will let the Furies kill every single one of them.”
“Just tell me the damn oath,” I said, far too quickly. She knew she had me, right in the very depths of my gut. She knew I’d do anything to make my gargoyles safe, and that included making this oath.
“You will never touch any of your gargoyle mates again, or else they will turn to permanent stone. This includes Jasper, who I believe will be waking up from his stone coma right this very instant.” She ticked off her fingers. “That makes three, though let’s make it four to be safe. Silas will be included in your oath as well. As for Sebastian...” She shrugged. “I’ll leave him out of it so he can carry you back to your home. There’s no love there to worry about.”
I fisted my hands by my sides, hope and despair battling within me. “You can’t do this.”
“Oh, but I can.” She took a step closer, so close that her nose almost brushed against mine. The scent of her consumed me. The fiery acrid scent that transformed her pale, weak form into something much more dangerous, something much darker than she appeared. “Make this oath, or they die.”
My lungs ached, and my eyes welled with tears. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t fair. She had me trapped, and she knew it. If I didn’t agree to this, Marcus, Eli, and Sebastian would die. But if I did, I could never again feel Marcus’s strong arms wrapped around me. He’d been my anchor, my rock. When I’d felt as though I had nothing to give, he’d been the one to show me just how much power I had within me. He’d pushed me, he’d held me, and he’d loved me.
The thought of having that yawning chasm between us for the rest of our lives...it ripped my heart to shreds.
“Tick tock, Rowena,” the Fury said. “You came here to turn Jasper from stone to man. This is your only chance to take it.”
Of course I had to say yes. I had no other choice. This wasn’t about me, after all. It was about them. And I had to do whatever it took to keep them safe, to keep them alive.
With a shuddering breath, I closed my eyes and nodded. “I agree.”
Part III
A Man of Stone
Chapter 19
“Rowena, what have you done? I heard the Fury say we could never touch you a
gain.” The look of pure torment on Marcus’s face made me fall to my knees when I returned to the clearing where we’d camped for the night. Tears streamed down my face, hot and heavy. My heart felt as if it had broken in two. No, it felt as if it had shattered. No longer was it healing from a lifetime spent in a tower. It was in a million pieces, and I doubted I would ever be able to put it back together.
Not when I could never again feel Marcus’s loving touch. The moments we’d shared, they would now be nothing more than distant memories. We would still be mated, but it wouldn’t be the same. There would always be that horrible dark force holding us apart.
“She said they’d kill you,” I whispered, barely able to get the words out of my raw throat. “She said they’d kill you all if I didn’t agree to it.”
“Who’s they?” Sebastian demanded, dropping to his knees to glare right into my eyes.
I flinched back. “The other Furies. She said they had you surrounded.”
“Dammit! She lied to you. There were no other Furies!” Marcus shouted and spread his wings as fury ripped from his soul. And then he was off, charging through the forest at an impossible speed. Eli followed just behind.
“You stay here. I should go with them,” Sebastian muttered as he stood.
“It’s no use. It’s over, Sebastian. There’s nothing to be done.”
“Oh, yes there fucking is,” he said, grasping my chin in his strong hand. “There’s no way in hell we’re going to let this one stand, princess.”
“How?” I asked. “She said if I break the oath, then all of you will turn to stone. Well, everyone except for you. For once, you being an ass turned out to be a good thing.”
“She threatened one of us, she threatened us all. I’m not going to let a damn Fury control who we can and can’t love.” He stood and held out a hand. “We’re going after her, and we’re getting her damn blood so Zoe Bennett can reverse the fucking oath.”
“She won’t let us just take her blood from her, Sebastian.”
“Yep. You’re right. She won’t let us, so we’ll have to take it by force.” He gave me a hard pat on the back, so hard that it knocked me forward. But it also knocked the tears out of my eyes, like a sudden jolt of reality. A new kind of determination settled over me, one that was driven by fury and little bit of desperation. She’d tricked me. Again. And she’d tried to take away what I most held dear: my gargoyles.
I should have fought her when she’d presented the oath, but I’d thought I had no other choice. I’d thought she’d had my gargoyles surrounded and that their lives had been only moments from ending when they’d been anything but.
With a deep breath, I stood and narrowed my eyes. My hands became fists, and my stomach turned to knots.
“Ah, there she is,” Sebastian said. “Never thought I’d be happy to see that crazy spark in your eye, but there it is.”
Sebastian grabbed my waist, and we were off. Turned out, we’d been out of range of Circe’s no-fly zone for awhile, but we hadn’t realized as we’d followed the Fury’s trek through the forest. Sebastian lifted us high above the trees. In the distance, three dots whipped around in the sky, two with dark ebony wings and another with feathers the color of vicious red.
I’d seen those wings when we’d been down in the caves, but I hadn’t known what they meant. Now, I did. They meant we were out for blood.
The three dots tumbled through the sky, growing bigger as Sebastian hurtled toward them. One speck slammed into the Fury, and she shot back across the sky, her feathered wings arching in to slow her plummet to the ground. But then she was back, recovering from the blow. Streams of red hot fire exploded from her fingers, and she hurled them with all the force of the wind.
Marcus dodged the fire, easily swooping out of the path of the flames. Eli rounded the Fury and came at her from behind. She was trapped between them, but the move didn’t slow her down. My oath to her had given her a hit of power, alright. A terrifying amount. Watching her go from one gargoyle to another, flames streaming from glowing hands, I realized that there was nothing I could do up here in the sky. In fact, I would only slow Sebastian down.
I twisted my head to shout over my shoulder. “Put me down on the ground.”
Sebastian frowned. “Why the hell would I do that?”
“You can’t fight her if I’m in your arms,” I said. “Put me down. Try to get her on the ground. I’ll be ready for her.”
I wouldn’t let her get away again, and I wouldn’t let her trick me into not fighting. She might have the power of flames, but I had the strength of my sword, and she was no match for that in close combat. And she knew it.
Sebastian grunted, as though he wanted to argue against my request, but he didn’t. We flew closer and closer to the fray, ebony wings flashing against red. Marcus got another punch in, but barely dodged a burst of fire that exploded from the Fury like breath from a dragon’s lungs. He dipped and spun, the edges of his shirt disappearing into ash.
For a moment, I wanted to call out for him to stop, for us to give up and go home with defeat hanging over our heads. Deep down in my gut, I knew Marcus would never agree. I could see it in every tense muscle in his body, the way his eyes had turned to a pure brilliant silver, blocking out the violet that softened the gray. I knew what he was thinking. The Fury had ripped away his mate. With another deep-throated roar, he patted away the fire and took another shot at the fiery-feathered creature from the realm of the gods.
Sebastian dropped to the ground and left me there with a nod before shooting back into the sky to help his fellow shifters. I watched from below, helpless. There was nothing I could do without growing a pair of wings myself.
The fighting continued above. Bodies slammed into bodies. Smoke and fire arched through the air. It went on for long and torturous moments where all I could do was hold my breath and watch. But finally, Sebastian got in a punch at the same instant as Marcus. The Fury shrieked when their fists hurtled into her gut, a sharp cry that scraped against my eardrums. And then she began to tumble to the earth.
The Fury fell in a crash, her body slamming into the ground. Dirt and leaves spun through the air as the ground shook beneath my feet. I stumbled back and caught my balance, tightening my grip around the hilt of my sword. My breath curled from my lips as I stared at her fallen form. She was motionless, quiet. But the creature was from the realm of the gods. I wouldn’t make the mistake of believing that she was dead.
With a bitter laugh, she slowly stood with her pale hair cascading down her back. Her entire body had turned the color of the flames that twisted along her arms. She rolled back her shoulders and faced me, eyes locked on the weapon in my hands.
“You’ve made a terrible mistake, Rowen Mortensen. One that will haunt you to your grave.”
“I think you’re mistaking me with yourself,” I snapped. “You should have never messed with me and my gargoyles.”
“You think you’ve won?” she asked in a laugh. “You cannot kill me. Why do you think those gargoyles held back?”
I frowned. I hadn’t noticed that they were doing anything other than using their entire brute strength against the Fury, but thinking back now, she was right. Despite the raging anger that spun through Marcus’s veins, there had been something measured in the way he’d thrown his punches. Enough to weaken, but not to kill.
“That’s right,” she said. “If the participants of the oath kills the oath-maker, the oath is counted as broken. If you kill me, Rowena, then your gargoyles will turn to stone.”
I gripped my sword and let out a scream. I’d had enough. These gods, these fae, these creatures from other realms, I was sick of their oaths and their games. Without another thought, I swung my sword at the Fury. She dropped to the ground just in time. My blade hit nothing but air, swinging me hard to the side.
“You’re lying,” I said, readying myself for another swing. “You’ve been lying this whole damn time. There’s no extra rule. You’re just trying to save your own ski
n.”
“Maybe so. Maybe not.” She glared up at me from where she knelt to the ground with one hand placed firmly on the dirt. “The only way you can truly know is if you kill me. Tell me, Rowena. Are their lives worth that gamble?”
“Fuck you,” I seethed, stalking closer with my sword trembling in my hands.
The Fury kept her gaze locked on mine, the flames melting away from her skin to leave nothing more than the weakly pale flesh that hid the truth of her twisted power. “Your choice. Kill me and risk losing your gargoyles forever. Or turn away and admit defeat.”
I grabbed her long silky hair and yanked her closer, dropping to my knee so I could hiss the words right into her face. “Or how about a third option? I take your blood and have your oaths undone. Then, nothing you have done will ever matter again. You will leave this place and never return. This is my home, and you’re not welcome here.”
She let out an eerie laugh, but I didn’t let it stop me. No more games. No more tricks. I was done. It was time to take the Fury’s blood and forget that Mont Circeo even existed. The last thing I wanted was to see her face or this place ever again.
I sliced my sword against her arm, just enough for some blood to spill onto her skin. With my teeth, I ripped a part of my shirt and pressed it firmly against the wound so it could soak up the blood. And then I let go, stumbling back from the Fury. Everything within me wanted to end this right here and right now, but she was right. I wouldn’t risk my gargoyles just for vengeance.
And besides, once this oath was reversed, all this newfound power would vanish just as quickly as it had appeared. We’d beaten her. It was over.
Chapter 20
Sebastian flew me home with Marcus and Eli on either side of us. No one said much of anything. We were all tired and angry, battered and beaten. We’d gotten what we’d gone to Mont Circeo for, but it had come at a price that none of us had anticipated. If Zoe wasn’t able to reverse the bond created by the oath...
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