Lavinia stopped at the edge of the bed, glancing over her shoulder at her nephew. “Get on with this, boy.”
Uthman took a step toward her, expression menacing. “Go put the fucking dress on.”
She sniffed, rising, hiding her broiling rage under an insouciant swing of her hips, and changed in the attached bath, emerging a few minutes later.
A few more of Uthman’s men entered–witnesses. Unease pricked. Consummation was no longer required to formalize a marriage—and certainly public consummation had been done away with centuries ago–but she wouldn’t put it past Uthman to force himself to get over his distaste in order to make sure the marriage was legal.
Surah glanced at the only other woman physically in the room. She wore the long black robe of a cleric, her hair drawn up and hidden carefully under a hood.
“I want on your record that I was kidnapped and this marriage is against my will.”
It wouldn’t stop the proceedings–with highborn women consent wasn’t required by law. But it would be part of the formal record, and once she was married, she was allowed to sue for divorce–on almost any grounds. It was a stupid, contradictory law. Men had created it.
And Surah had a sudden, blinding wtf moment of clarity. She was half-human, a Princess by decree of law, and now by blood since she was mother to the Heir, wealthy in her own right. She was nearly a certified genius in the arena of science, so she didn’t have the excuse of a lack of natural intelligence. She’d spent so many years obsessed with her own form of service to the Ioveanu’s–out of love, but service was service. They weren’t the worst dynasty to rule, but they weren’t the best. Geza sometimes listened to her and Malin…she could likely talk Malin into anything that was reasonable.
But she’d done nothing to use the power she had to change how female gargoyles were treated, especially those of higher rank. She’d encountered the problem first hand with Sililu, who’d rather become a handmaid to the Princes’ cast off half-sister than remain under the control of her family. When she got out of this, things would have to change. She would have to change. She couldn’t be obsessed with her own personal problems anymore, not when that meant standing by passively as women were used as pawns.
“Please rise,” the officiant asked softly.
Surah assessed her situation. She was alone, and pregnant, and a passable warrior but in closed quarters with three to one odds? No. Logic did not compute. She could put up a fight, but that would end with her possibly injured, restrained, and give an unhappy Uthman an excuse to punish her. And, while the law didn’t allow spousal abuse, the law sucked in the first place, anyway.
So Surah rose, cradling her anger and terrible helplessness close to her chest, knowing that her cooperation was at this time, the best strategy. It was just a ceremony. Just a paper. When the time was right, she would eat that paper and then shit it out and flush it down the toilet.
They’d made a mistake by not somehow luring him into an ambush in full daylight. That, and the fact he’d been hiding just how effective Surah’s latest serum was–even from her. Especially from her. Instinct had told him that to win the war he knew was coming, his enemies–the ones out in front and the ones still hiding behind the face of neutrality or friendship–would need to think he was weak. And he was–but not quite as weak as he’d been.
He held the shift close to the surface and when he stepped out into the fading sunlight, knew he had the advantage. A gargoyle at full strength could change forms at this time, but it would be painful. Because of his disease, he straddled the moonlight and sunlight worlds. The moment of pain was gone and it was as if he was in full moonlight.
When they attacked, they attacked a warrior who was not flinching from the remnants of the sun, as they were.
Six winged warriors, all with shades on their eyes and blades, attacked. Malin waited until their dive took them within a few feet and then his wings snapped to their full width and he drew his sword in one smooth, blindingly fast motion, and leaped into the air.
“To the death, is it?” he shouted. “Ioveanu!”
He battled. Several new war cries filled the air moments later as Kausar, Niko, and Kausar’s students arrived.
“Why bring newbies?” Malin shouted.
“Training exercise,” Kausar roared. “These traitors aren’t enough meat for real warriors.”
His words enflamed the traitors, and they renewed their attack with venomous eyes. Strength filled Malin’s veins, the fully emerged moon sending a rush of power through him that increased his speed, hardened his blows. He dispatched one, and then two opponents to the ground, hacking off wings with contempt, but leaving them alive. One did not kill soldiers for obeying orders, but decommissioning them for a long time was a wise move.
When the enemy was littered on the ground, the stronger of them silent and watchful, waiting on Malin’s final move, and the weaker…Malin curled his lip.
“Stop the shrieking,” he said to a male who curled in a pool of his own blood. The wounds would congeal rapidly, he wouldn’t die. And while it was painful, did the warrior have no dignity? “You will live. With dishonor, until your wings grow back, but maybe some quiet time in the mountains will do you good.”
“Yes,” the male agreed, voice faint. He knew a thinly veiled threat when he heard one, evidently.
Nikolau landed at his side. “The training has been piss poor since Kausar retired.”
Malin glanced up. His old teacher and weapons master surveyed the roof with contempt, blade dripping blood. “We have to go after Surah.”
Niko nodded, and they launched into the air. Security would clean up the mess they’d made later.
“Go away,” Uthman said, after the officiant declared them husband and wife. Surah’s signature wasn’t necessary on the paperwork, and no one had asked her anyway.
She stood, watching as everyone filed out, abdomen tense. He turned toward her when the door shut and grabbed her around the waist, tossing her onto the bed.
Surah scrambled to her knees, hissing, but he just stood in the middle of the room, staring at her. “Lavinia told me to fuck you,” he said. “But bestiality isn’t my thing. Still….”
“I’ll gut you, you pig.”
“Yeah, yeah. I think I’ll have to go get drunk first. Don’t go anywhere.”
He laughed and left the room, obviously taken with his joke. Surah took a deep breath, released it. And shredded the bedspread with her nails. She stared down at the rents in the cloth, stunned, then smiled. He might rape her, but she would make sure the act cost him. Dearly.
And when Malin came and she was back in her lab, she’d do blood work on herself to find out why all of a sudden, she could partially shift her human nails to gargoyle claws.
Chapter 4
Uthman rushed into the room hours later. Surah took one look at his tight face and agitated wings and knew.
“Malin found you so quickly?” Her brow rose. “Please tell me you had a Plan B.”
He strode forward and backhanded her. Surah didn’t fight the blow. She needed him to take her out of this room, needed to get to where there was space to maneuver, and if he was pissed off he wouldn’t be thinking clearly. Uthman was a terrible fighter when his temper was riled–or when he was excited. In melees, his plans were rushed due to his push to get to the goal. She knew from listening to Malin and Nikolau discuss training exercises she’d been excluded from. And recalled how acerbic Malin’s tongue could be. He’d mellowed over the last ten years.
He probably wasn’t feeling too mellow right now.
Surah smiled, ignoring the swollen heat in her lip. Uthman grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the room. “Try anything,” he hissed, “And I’ll disembowel you with my claws. I don’t need you for anything but a hostage anymore.”
So his plans, such as they were, were unraveling. If Malin was approaching and Uthman’s only option was evacuation, then he’d thrown all his dice in a turn that had failed.
“What?” he snapped, and shook her.
She was getting tired of being manhandled. Surah took a deep breath, exhaled. Patience. Wait until the best time to use her wit, speed and whatever weapons were at hand to make her escape. The narrow hall wasn’t an option–there wasn’t even a picture on the walls she could lunge for and shatter in order to use the glass as a blade–which would be stupid anyway, without something to wrap around her hand to avoid slitting her own palms. The best revenged was patience–Uthman was a dead man.
They emerged from the hall into a mudroom. She realized that this was a ranch style home–unusual for gargoyles who preferred height. But Uthman was on a poor branch of the Mogren family. Unless he’d brought her to a safe house or barracks for human staff. That made more sense. The door to the mudroom opened into a garage with several vehicles, both ground and aerial. She heard the loud thuds of feet hitting the roof and knew gargoyles were landing.
“You’re more fucking trouble than you’re worth,” Uthman snarled. “Always causing fucking issues.”
“Excuse me–I didn’t tell you to kidnap me. If you’re stupid enough to get involved in Lavinia’s schemes while she’s all snug in a jail cell—”
He turned on her. Surah dove, rolled and continued to play whack a mole. She inhaled and screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Malin!”
It was undignified–but she remembered very well one of Kausar’s lessons to her when she’d been young, after just getting her face beat into the mud during a spar.
“You don’t have the luxury of fighting honorably, Princess,” he’d said. “Or being worried about looking graceful. You’re shorter, weaker and you can’t fly. Do what you have to do to survive in a fight–even if you have to grovel at an enemy’s feet to buy yourself a few minutes to think or wait on allies.”
She’d protested. “But—”
Kausar fixed her with a gimlet eye. “What is more important? Your life or your dignity? Your dignity is gone if you’re dead, girl.”
True that.
So decades later, she had no compunction against screaming her head off like a toddler if it would get her allies to her quickly. Her one goal narrowed in on not letting Uthman get her into a transport. She was lucky Malin had found her so quickly–and that luck was likely due to Uthman’s impatience to get to ground and get them married.
She shuddered, dodging another swipe as clawed hands tried to catch her, rolling underneath a sedan and flattening herself on the cold cement floor. Married. She had a husband. Malin would be so pissed.
A loud boom sounded on the garage door, followed rapidly by another then another. “In here!” she shouted.
Uthman cursed, his boots disappearing across the room. She shimmied to the edge of the car in time to see the garage ceiling peeling away. Surah stared in disbelief. What a moron. Was this really the best Lavinia could come up with at the last moment?
He took off and she scrambled out from under the car, looking up to see him gain height rapidly. The thumping on the garage door stopped and there was snarl and shout as a guttural voice issued an order. A moment later the shadows of several pursing gargoyles followed Uthman into the night.
She trotted to the wall panel where the controls to the garage were and pressed another button randomly. Lights flooded the area and she winced, eyes far more comfortable with the natural darkness. The surussh of wings warned her and she turned, looking up as Malin landed with a hard thud, several hairline cracks appearing at the edge of his boots. He was in full gargoyle form, a tall, heavy beast with tangled skeins of dark hair streaming over massive shoulders, eyes red with rage.
“Surah,” he said.
She crossed her arms, cocking her hip. “You’re late. I’m a married woman now.” She probably shouldn’t have teased him, but she tended to default to really tasteless humor when stressed.
“What did you say?”
She hadn’t thought it possible, but his shoulders swelled even more. “Uh….”
“Come here.”
She wouldn’t dare toy with him when he used that tone. The tone of a man barely hanging onto sanity. Surah approached, walking casually at first then ending in a flat out run as she threw herself into his arms.
“I’m okay,” she whispered. “No one hurt me. No one touched me.”
She repeated the words over and over again until she felt some of the tension leave him. He lifted her into his arms and took off. Surah clenched her teeth against the knowledge of the kind of energy and strength he had to expend to complete a vertical takeoff in dead air with the added weight of another person. All gargoyles used a touch of magic to fly…but just a touch. Either his rage was fueling him or the serum was working overtime. Either way, she knew once he came down from the high, he’d pay for it for days.
He didn’t fly far. Once they’d cleared the house by a mile he set back down, gargoyles–some she recognized, some she didn’t–landing around him in a scatter pattern, far enough away to give them privacy. A few hovered in the night sky, aerial scouts. Everyone had a blade in their hand.
“I don’t like being the damsel in distress,” Surah said in his ear. “It’s humiliating.”
Malin glanced down at her. “You are their Princess, and mother to the next ruling Prince. It’s their honor to fight for you.”
“I’m half-human.”
“No one cares but you, Surah.” He brushed her cheek with his thumb. “Those who claim you are unfit are jealous of your brilliance, beauty, and power.” His brows drew down in a scowl. “Why do you think members of the court scorn you? Because they know they could never match you.”
He was sweet. Surah filed his words away to take out and dust off when she was feeling down, but took them with a grain of salt. He loved her, so of course he would see it that way. She was more practical.
Uthman was dragged out of the sky several moments later, escorted back by the pair Malin had dispatched to retrieve him. She squinted until she recognized Kausar and Nikolau. They held him by either arm, throwing him to the ground at Malin’s feet once they were a man’s height from landing. Surah didn’t feel sorry for Uthman, but the contempt of throwing a fellow gargoyle into the dirt like trash…stung.
“Get up,” Malin said, voice chilly.
Uthman rose to his feet, a sneer on his face. “You touch what doesn’t belong to you. She is my wife.”
Niko crossed his arms, looking bored as Kausar simply stood, impassive.
Malin laughed. “She will be your widow. Because you didn’t rape her, I’ll grant you a warrior’s death. Give him back his blade.”
Kausar handed Uthman the sword, hilt first, then he and Niko backed away, giving Malin and Uthman space.
Malin ran a hand down her hair. “Join our teacher, my love. It’s time for me to play.”
Surah joined the pair, though reluctantly. Her phantom claws ached, hand clenching as if there was a sword at her side. If she’d been armed, she might have pushed Malin aside. She glanced at Niko, eyeing the weapon he held.
“I don’t suppose.…”
He glanced at her. “No. This isn’t a training exercise.”
She sucked in a breath. “I can fight just as well as—”
Kausar touched her shoulder. “Allow our Prince the honor of avenging you and your child, Princess.”
“He’ll be hell to live with for the next month,” she said with a sigh.
“You chose to mate a warrior,” Niko said. “This is what you get. Women. Always whining. If he didn’t defend you, you would accuse him of not caring. But when he—”
“What do you know about it? When’s the last time you—”
“Garlings,” Kausar said. “Pay attention or I’ll see you both on the training field tomorrow evening.”
She shut her mouth. When the former weapons master used that tone of voice, not a single warrior he trained did anything but shut up. Immediately.
The moon
flashed on steel, reflecting light with a jewel like intensity. Both warriors closed their wings tight to their bodies, circling each other with the calculated bloodlust of professional killers.
Malin’s blade sang, cutting through the air as he feigned. Uthman moved aside, countering with a bright clang of metal. The first few steps in the dance were exploratory, and then Malin attacked.
Watching him fight was like watching the composition of a song. He flowed as if his old strength and grace had never left him. Uthman’s eyes widened slightly, an unforgivable lazy tell. But no one had expected Malin to fight so well, not when he’d moved like a middle-aged human for the last several years.
“You’ve cured him,” Niko said in a hushed voice.
“No. But…I think we’re close.”
“I didn’t believe you could do it.” Nikolau stared at Malin with disbelief, then turned and looked at Surah, face intent. “If you can cure the Ioveanu’s, every gargoyle will honor your name.”
Surah ignored him, a little shaken by the open astonishment in his face. What did he think she’d spent years training as a scientist for? But soon her attention refocused on the fight. The males launched into the air, abandoning ground for flight like true gargoyle warriors. Uthman was no match for Malin. He’d always been an emotional, sloppy student. Which was why Lavinia had been able to use him–he didn’t think, and he was expendable. Which meant sacrificing him on a feint like this wouldn’t hurt her real plans.
“Is Lavinia still secure?” she asked Kausar.
He nodded curtly. “Geza is interrogating her security detail himself, or he would be here.”
She grimaced. She knew what her younger brother was capable of, and even though sometimes his treatment of her was piss poor, he would eviscerate anyone else who thought to usurp that privilege. Brothers.
She continued to watch the fight, feeling her cheeks pale. “He’s playing with him.”
Summer Shifter Nights Page 22
