Stone Passions Trilogy (Stone Passion 1, 2, & 3)

by A C Warneke

  A devastatingly gorgeous man with short red hair was the first to his feet, his handsome face melting into a stunning smile as he rushed towards Rhys with his arms out, “Welcome to our humble abode, Rousseau! Father said that you were coming but we did not expect you until tomorrow.”

  “Rowan,” Rhys grinned, hugging his red-headed brother, seemingly unconcerned by the man’s nudity. “Everything came together much sooner than expected and so here we are.”

  “Rousseau,” another nauseatingly perfect man said, clamoring to his feet and grinning. His hair fell to the middle of his back, gleaming black with vibrant blue streaks. He reminded her of a less uptight Armand, with his pale eyes and flawless lines. He joined in on the hugging, taking Rhys in a warm embrace. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You too, Artaire,” Rhys said, his voice becoming tight with emotion.

  “Rousseau,” the third brother managed to say through a tangle of slender limbs. Kissing a blond-haired beauty on the lips, he gently nudged her off his body before standing up. His hair was slightly shorter than Artaire’s and light brown, almost blond. He was just as gorgeous as his brothers and the four of them together were really quite… yummy.

  “Bar,” Rhys returned, hugging him as well.

  “Come,” Artaire said, clapping Rhys on the back and guiding him away from Jenna. “We’ve much to discuss and the sun is about to rise.”

  “I want you all to meet someone first,” Rhys said, coming to a halt and forcing his brothers to stop as well. As one, the four men turned and saw Jenna standing in the doorway, three of them wearing similarly wary expressions as they took her in. They were unquestionably brothers, despite the minor differences of hair style and eye color. The London brothers had a certain ennui about them that was lacking in Rhys, a certain weariness that more closely matched Armand. And like Armand they were absurdly, perfectly beautiful.

  Rhys held out his hand and with only the slightest hesitation, Jenna picked her way through the naked bodies on the floor and slid her palm into his. Bringing her hand up to his mouth, he pressed a kiss to the back of her fingers, his eyes glittering brightly in the dim light. “Brothers, this is Jenna. She is the sister of Vaughn’s mate.”

  The three of them simply stared at her before Rowan finally stepped forward and bowed over her hand, “It’s a pleasure, Jenna.”

  Almost reluctantly, the other two followed suit, perfectly polite but distant. She felt like an intruder and if Rhys hadn’t been standing there looking at her with his heart in his eyes she would have bolted. “It’s an honor to meet all of you.”

  Artaire turned away from her, dismissing her as he grinned at Rhys, putting his arm around Rhys’s shoulders and leading him away from her. “Come, the sun is about to rise. We can converse on the roof.”

  Without hesitation, Rhys came to a stop and waited for her to join him, once again holding his hand out to her. Bar put his hand out, effectively stopping her, and looked at her with pity, “I fear we do not allow humans on the roof as we change. Trixie, show the hum… show Jenna to the guest chambers.

  “I suggest a nap and then you may explore London at your leisure while the sun is in the sky,” he continued, talking to her once again. “Trixie will show you to your room and she has promised to behave so you have nothing to fear from her. Of course a fairy’s promises are contingent on whether or not she wishes to keep them.”

  Jenna’s eyes widened and flew to Rhys, who stared at her with longing and resignation. Stepping forward, he wrapped his arms around her and leaned his forehead against hers, “I promise to come to you the moment the sun sets.”

  “Okay,” she managed, accepting his kiss, wishing it could last longer even as she felt the subtle shift in his body as the sun began to rise. Forcing a smile to her frozen lips, she watched as the four of them made their way to the roof, their taut butts perfectly matched. As they went, Rhys pulled the clothes from his body and she couldn’t help but stare. Unfortunately, he disappeared from her sight before he removed much more than his jacket.

  “Come,” a seductively beautiful voice murmured from the side. Turning her head, Jenna saw the blond Trixie standing next to her, the woman’s smoky topaz eyes compelling and striking. For the first time, she noticed the delicate wings that sprouted from her back, from all of the naked ladies’ backs. They were finer than the succubus’s wings in the elevator, finer and more intricate, an extension of the fairy’s body. Jenna now realized that the succubus’s wings hadn’t quite fit properly. They had been too delicate for the much bolder woman.

  The fairy named Trixie smiled, the expression dazzling and terrifying for the lack of warmth in her jeweled eyes. “Because Artaire is a generous and inventive lover I shall be kind. Besides, it is not as if I can harm your pretty little head beneath the Guardians’ noses, now, can I? However, if you were to step foot outside the boundaries of their protection I would be able to have some fun. Now come, let us get you to your room so I may join my sisters and return home.”

  “Of course,” Jenna managed, following the lithe beauty through the maze of rooms and halls, paying partial attention to where she was going, getting distracted by the amazing artwork on the walls and fervently praying the fairy didn’t take to the notion of causing mischief.

  “We have heard about your sister,” Trixie said conversationally, startling Jenna out of her silent prayers. “It is a pity she failed to arrive on time.”

  “Well, we hope to remedy that,” Jenna muttered, her eyes growing wider with each priceless work of art she passed. They were most likely originals from some of the world’s most famous as well as its most obscure artists and all of them were perfectly suited for the rooms.

  The fairy laughed, cold and delighted, “We wish you luck with that, human, but you must know you are destined to fail. Vaughn will not be returned to your sister and we shall enjoy comforting him when he wakes.”

  Jenna sucked in a painful breath, knowing the fairy only spoke what she believed to be true. The woman obviously didn’t know how stubborn Melanie could be or how determined Jenna was to fix things. “Perhaps.”

  As they stopped in front of a closed door, Trixie turned around and faced her head on, capturing her with those stony topaz eyes, “You must forgive the boys. They have all fallen prey to the lures of a human at some point in their lives and I fear they do not trust your kind very much.”

  “Why are you being so kind to me?” Jenna asked, taking the fairy’s words as genuine concern. “I mean, Altiare can’t be that fantastic of a lover.”

  Trixie smiled slightly as she shrugged her slender shoulders, her wings shimmering in the low light, “Perhaps I know what lies in store for you and wish to offer some comfort before your heart is torn from your chest.”

  Frowning, Jenna stepped through the door to her quarters. Before she could think better of it, she turned and faced Trixie, “Literally or metaphorically?”

  The corners of Trixie’s full mouth tilted upwards in an enigmatic smile but she did not answer. And Jenna was okay with that.

  As the sun rose behind the cloudy skies, the four brothers shifted to their gargoyle forms: Rhys the monkey, Artaire the eagle, Bar the Boar, and Rowan the smooshed-faced man with a large, garish smile and exaggerated brow ridge. All four had bodies that were humanized versions of their gargoyle forms, from their thickly muscled arms and legs, to the massively powerful chests and thighs. The large, stone wings sprouted from their backs folded around their hard bodies as they hunkered down on the edges of the building.

  “It’s good to see you again,” Artair reiterated, his stone beak moving as he spoke. “It is unfortunate that it is under such trying circumstances but I fear your quest is in vain. You must know that there is no thwarting the spell once the female has declined our gift.”

  “Melanie was on her way back to the castle when she was in an accident,” Rhys countered, the hopes that had been steadily building wavering in the certainty of his brother’s words. “It was not her f
ault.”

  “That may be so but it is our brother that must pay the price,” Rowan uttered with no lack of sympathy.

  “We do not wish for you to suffer the way we have. The way Armand has.”

  “I haven’t said anything….”

  “We all saw how you looked at her,” Bar interrupted, his stone eyes steady. “This journey is unwise and Father should have known better before he sent you on such a foolish quest. You should send the human home and spend a few weeks engaging in debauchery with us. What you saw this morning is just a taste of what we have in mind.”

  Rhys snorted, shaking his head no, “I think I will take my chances, brothers. When Jenna touches me in my gargoyle form I feel it in my soul and I do not wish to give that up because you worry she will refuse my gift should I offer.”

  Three sets of stone eyes turned and fixed on him and Rhys felt the weight of all of those stares in his gut. Clearing his throat, Artaire asked, “What do you mean? Our stone bodies cannot feel as greatly as that.”

  “It’s incredible – like a jolt of lightning that burns through the skin and leaves only pleasure in its wake,” Rhys exclaimed, feeling his body respond at the thought of Jenna’s slender hands on his body. “I assume it was the same for Vaughn when Melanie touched him the first time. He was much luckier than I was.”

  The three exchanged a look before edging closer, “Yes?”

  With a wide, toothy smile, Rhys leaned his big, stone body closer, “She brought him off.”

  “In his gargoyle form?” Bar asked in disbelief, “Impossible.”

  “Not impossible,” Rhys countered. Glancing at each brother, he asked, “Have you never felt anything? Even for the women for whom you gave up your nights?”

  “I may have felt a twinge of something when Emma touched me,” Rowan admitted reluctantly. “But it could have just as easily been indigestion.

  “I never felt a thing when Rosalyn touched me, when she worked up the nerve to touch me when I was like this,” Bar bit out. Unable to disguise the bitterness that laced his voice, his snout flaring in indignation, he shot a glare at Artaire as he sneered, “She preferred the eagle to my boar.”

  “I did not encourage her,” Artaire protested. “I had offered my gift to her grandmother generations before and there was no way I would give up my nights again. Besides, it was nearly six hundred years ago; I thought we had moved on.”

  “We had,” Bar said on a soft exhalation, looking out over the buildings. “But I know you felt something when she touched you but I hadn’t thought about it at all. Listening to Rhys makes me wonder if she was meant to be yours had you not been a coward.”

  “After she passed and you awoke you understood why I refused,” Artaire bit out, not wanting to rehash something that happened so very long ago. “Let it go.”

  Rhys watched in fascination as his brothers argued, the sense of similarity between this group and his own group was eerie. As his brothers glared at one another, the tension threatening to crack apart and shatter, he softly asked, “Did any of you love the woman to whom you offered your gift or did you offer out a sense of… obligation.”

  The three stone heads ground together in their haste to turn to face him, similar dumb struck expressions on their gargoyle faces.

  Chapter 10

  Jenna’s eyes popped open and for a moment she had no idea where she was or why she was surrounded by opulent luxury that she had only dreamt about. For another moment she thought that perhaps she was still dreaming, except the sun was slanting through the window and piercing her brain right through her eyes. Plus, she was starving. Groggily, she forced herself to get out of bed as she belatedly remembered that she was in London and she wasn’t going to waste any more time sleeping.

  Glancing at the clock, she swore; it was nearly four and she had slept the day away. It was only a six hour time difference and she shouldn’t have crashed so hard. Yet it was the first time she had had a chance to relax since discovering her sister had been in a car accident and was completely in love with a gargoyle.

  Plus, Rhys was by nature a night owl so perhaps she was simply adjusting to his schedule to make it easier to spend time with him. She hoped he would be willing to show her some of the local night life… or the supernatural night life. She was sure that was bound to be interesting. And with no responsibilities, she was planning on embracing everything he offered.

  Rubbing the sleep from her eyes and chastising herself for missing a full day of sightseeing, she picked up the phone and punched in the international code and the phone number to reach Melanie, wanting to let her sister know that they had landed in London safely and to check in on Ferris.

  “Hello?” Melanie’s voice came through clearly and tears smarted in Jenna’s eyes at the sound.

  “Lenni,” she smiled. “It’s Jenna. How are things?”

  Melanie’s familiar laugh burbled over the phone and, though muffled, Jenna heard her sister call for Ferris. “Things are good… well, as good as they can be considering Vaughn is a stone statue and you’re half way around the world from me. How was the flight?”

  “I slept through most of it,” Jenna admitted. “And then I slept most of the day away, too. How’s Ferris? Is she causing any trouble?”

  “I love having her, Jenna. I think you should plan on staying away for a month so I can keep her.” Melanie laughed lightly before adding, “Of course she misses you but she’s holding up; she’s a real trooper. Oh! Before I forget – her grandparents want to take her to Florida next week and I wanted to clear it with you before I said yes.”

  “That’s kind of last minute….”

  “I know but they said they got a really good deal and are planning on taking the whole family,” Melanie expounded. “All of her cousins will be there and I think it would be good for her.”

  “Of course she can go,” Jenna said, her stomach tightening at the thought of her baby growing up and becoming more independent as time went on.

  “They were really hoping you could go, too,” Melanie continued. “And now I feel bad for making you go on this quest.”

  Laughter rippled out of Jenna’s mouth before she could stop it, “Like you had to twist my arm to make me fly off to Europe and spend time with a gorgeous man.

  “So, you like him?” Her sister’s voice bubbled with enthusiasm. Without waiting for an answer, Lenni squealed, “I knew you’d like him! Have you guys done it yet? Is he a fantastic lover?”

  “Lenni!” Jenna scolded, laughing a bit hysterically. “We haven’t… done… anything yet.”

  “Oh.”

  The one syllable was laden with disappointment and Jenna felt the need to explain, “We weren’t alone on the plane and we arrived just as the sun was rising so there really hasn’t been time. Besides, I barely just met the man.”

  “I had sex with Vaughn only a few hours after I met him.” Melanie laughed slightly, though there was a certain wistful quality to it. “Actually, I molested him in his gargoyle form before I ever even spoke to him. I think Rhys will be good for you.”

  “Lenni,” Jenna warned. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  “They’re already up, Jenna, you must know that,” Melanie said fervently. “Aha! Here’s Ferris and she’s making faces trying to make me give her the phone.”

  “Melanie….”

  “Mommy!” Ferris’s sweet voice shattered her ear drum and she had to forget her conversation with Melanie and concentrate on her daughter. What Melanie had said was true: Jenna just didn’t want to think about what was happening between her and Rhys. “I am having the bestest time! Aunt Mellie let me style her hair and eat ice cream, but only after I ate my oatmeal. She says we can go to the animal shelter one of these days and pick out a puppy or a kitty for Mr. Armand and I miss you and Mr. Rhys… and Mr. Vaughn. Sometimes Aunt Mellie cries but when I ask her about it she tells me she’s not crying but she is. I think she could use a puppy, too, but she says that we’ll worry about that when the time comes
….”

  Ferris stream-of-conscious conversation made Jenna smile, even as she tried to keep up with her little girl’s topics. Her heart ached as it filled full to bursting with love for her daughter; Ferris was such an amazing child and it was thanks to Melanie for being such a huge part of Ferris’s life. What would have life been like had Melanie decided to pursue her goals instead of staying home? Jenna didn’t want to think about it, knowing Ferris would be a much different character had Melanie not been there.

  The familiar pressure in her chest flared up and Jenna rubbed the tender spot. She wasn’t going to waste any more time worrying about what could have been. Her daughter was too important to her and when she got home she was going to make up for lost time. With Jenna’s introduction into the supernatural world she had something more to connect over with Ferris.

  As she sat on the patio overlooking the private courtyard below, Jenna stared off into the distance as the sky began to darken. After she hung up the phone, she opened her door and found a tray of food laid out before her. Remembering Trixie’s words from earlier, she thought it might be better to keep to her room until sun down, in case the fairies were hanging around and decided to have some fun. Despite Trixie’s assurances that they couldn’t harm her beneath the Guardians’ roof she didn’t want to take the chance of them following her out the door to try something.

  So she gathered up the tray and took the food onto the balcony to enjoy at the little outside table, breathing in the air. It was chilly and overcast but she didn’t care because she was in London. If she tilted her head back she could just make out the tip of one of the gargoyle’s wings, until it became too dark to see and the wing tip disappeared. She knew they would be changing soon.

  Eventually the air around her altered, becoming almost electric, and she knew Rhys had come down from the roof. Inhaling deeply of the twilight air, she took a moment to calm her racing pulse and her fluttery nerves. She pictured the night to come and smiled slightly because tonight she was going to throw all caution to the wind and get Rhys into her bed, dragging him if need be. After her talk with Melanie she no longer wanted to wait. She knew how short life was and she wanted Rhys and her entire body buzzed in anticipation and shivers of excitement chased each other beneath her skin. She wanted to feel his lips against her throat, his body against hers. She wanted Rhys.