“You’re trying to escape?” Hurt crept into his voice.
“Hell, yes. What did you expect? I’m being held prisoner. If anyone finds me, the leshii pretty much said I’m dead.” She stopped and looked him over. “I’m sorry kid. My chances of survival are better if I’m on my own, and no one knows where I am.”
“That’s a half-truth.”
“Okay. We’ve been over this. I’m a soldier. I’m duty bound to report what I’ve learned.”
“They will imprison you, too.”
She looked sad. “Only if they can catch me. I didn’t say I’d report in person. I’m not suicidal. I know what will happen to me if they catch me. Best case—I’m locked in a cage for life. Worse case? Well, I don’t want to end that way. But I still have intel that could save lives.”
Ah. He’d almost forgotten. She was a protector as well. The introduction of his gargoyle blood would only heighten those instincts in her. Protecting those weaker than himself was something that made sense to him. His path became clear again and with a happy wiggle he leaped at her and planted gargoyle kisses on every bit of exposed skin he found. “I’ll help you then.”
“Argh!” her hands slapped at his muzzle, but her blows weren’t painful, so he knew she was holding back. “Enough. Stop. You win.”
He dropped to all fours and then padded over to the canvas bag he’d dropped before snatching her from the window. Grabbing the handles in his jaws, he walked into the bedroom and hopped onto the bed, pawing and rearranging the covers into a more comfortable nest. That done, he dug through the packages for the peanut butter cookies he could smell.
“Kid. We are not done talking yet.”
Shadowlight glanced up from his search. Anna was standing on the threshold, her hands on her hips, looking more than a little annoyed.
“We’re not?”
“No.” The one word was long, drawn out and made him think of his mother when he did or said something she didn’t agree with.
He tore open the package of cookies and watched her thoughtfully while he chewed.
“Oh…give me that,” she held out her hand for the bag. “Have you eaten breakfast yet?”
“No, but I thought we could eat together and talk.”
“Sounds like a good plan. Just one problem. Cookies aren’t real food.” She took the sack and pulled out a number of items. Some she put in a pile, off to one side—fruits and other items that weren’t as tasty as what she called cookies, landed in another pile.
To his disappointment, the cookies, rocky road bars, and almond bark all vanished back into the bag.
That left a selection of muffins, fruits, and a container of something called cottage cheese.
“Don’t suppose you brought cutlery?”
He shook his head. Cutlery—those things humans like to eat with. He’d forgotten about those items.
“Hmmm. Fingers it is.” She shoved the cottage cheese off to the side and took an orange and a banana. She peeled the orange, but her attention was all for him. “It was noble of you to offer your aid, but I can’t accept it. You shouldn’t be anywhere near enemy lines. It’s not your responsibility.”
His ears twitched and his tail flicked gently in confusion. That had to be one of the oddest things she’d said to him.
“Of course it is. I saved you and put you in your present circumstances where you are now forced to question your loyalty and morals.”
“That is not how it works. I’m not your responsibility. I’m the adult. Doesn’t matter the species. Adults protect the young.”
“I’m a gargoyle. I exist to destroy evil. My physical age has no impact on my duty to serve the Light.”
“Screw that. I want no part in serving your ‘Light’ if it requires children to be conscripted into its army. Having children fight your wars for you is pure evil. I don’t condone child soldiers and I certainly won’t allow you to put yourself in danger because you think I’m somehow your responsibility.”
Her words were truth, he felt it resonate within him. Yet, he was a gargoyle. His nature demanded he be a protector—a destroyer of evil. Those two truths did not rest comfortably within his mind. Children didn’t fight in the Divine Ones’ armies. Gargoyles did. Unable to hold her gaze, he rubbed his muzzle against his forearm, scratching a fake itch as a distraction.
His inability to hold her gaze didn’t stop her words. “Your family shouldn’t have included you in the attack on the transport. It was wrong on so many levels.”
“They didn’t want too. Nevertheless, they needed another gargoyle to have any hope for it to be both bloodless and a success. They knew I’d only have followed anyways.” He glanced back up hoping she’d show even a little bit of pride in his accomplishments, but her expression wasn’t warm or proud. “None of the humans were seriously hurt.” He ducked his head and stared down at his talons. “I just wanted to make my parents proud.”
“Oh, kid.” She came over to him and patted his back rather awkwardly, but he didn’t care and tucked his muzzle along her side, being careful his horns didn’t catch her in the throat. After a moment, her arms came around his shoulders in a comforting hug.
“Kid, you’d make any parent proud. You’re smart, brave, noble, and have the biggest heart. You don’t need to put yourself in danger to prove anything. You’re still a kid. Promise me you will work on just being a kid. No more of this warrior stuff, no more live-fire missions, hand-to-hand combat, or infiltrating behind enemy lines. There will be lots of time for that when you’re older.”
Shadowlight sighed. She’d basically just told him not to be a gargoyle. However, it was nice to be hugged, he decided as he snuggled closer. He would try to do as she asked.
“I won’t seek out trouble.” He agreed at last.
“Good.” She patted his back and then straightened. “If your mother is half the battleaxe I sense she is, I’ll deal with her if it becomes a problem. No more of this child soldier crap.”
He frowned. “What if danger comes hunting me?”
She gave him a grin, flashing her new fangs. “Then I’ll kill it.”
“And if you can’t?” he asked in the most reasonable voice he could manage.
“If it gets past me, you’re free to do what comes naturally. We’ll worry about morals later.”
Relief flooded his body. At least he’d tied himself to a malleable human. They were such a backward species in some ways, but he had hopes for this one’s trainability.
“Ha! Trainability! I’m not a dog. Nor am I the unreasonable one, my friend.”
He decided it was time to change the subject. “I’m going to be an uncle.” The word still tasted strange on his tongue, but he was excited all the same. Then something occurred to him. “What does an uncle do?”
“Uncle? Wow.” The human’s expression turned judgmental. “Your sister’s younger than me and she’s having a kid? She’s, what, all of nineteen or twenty?”
Shadowlight tilted his head, wondering what had caused the new round of questions tinted with displeasure.
“She’s twenty.”
“Kid’s having kids, great.”
This time, Shadowlight laughed. “She may only be twenty years old in this lifetime, but the Avatars are much, much older.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and then ran her fingers through her hair. “Thanks for the reminder that I’m now housemates with billion-year-old-demigods. That’ll be fun to explain in the report.” Sitting heavily in the chair across from the bed, she gave him a bemused look. “So the demigods are having a baby.”
“Yes. I’m going to be an uncle.” Shadowlight wiggled happily. “Do you think it will be a dryad or a gargoyle?”
Anna’s laugh sounded a tad bit hysterical.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A current of magic swept past Gregory’s feet and on out into the surrounding land as he stood at the entrance of the maze. It had been four days since he’d last been here. He was being neglectful in one o
f his duties.
The Sorceress missed him.
“What is it?” Lillian asked as she rubbed at her arms. She too felt the chill of Spirit magic. “Scratch that. I know what that is. Are we in danger?”
“No,” he said truthfully. They were likely safer than they’d been since they’d first come to the Magic Realm over twelve years ago. The Sorceress was awake and watching over them. He hadn’t expected that, though perhaps he should have. Normal hamadryads were moderately sentient. Combine that with the soul and magic of the Sorceress, and a humble hamadryad became something more.
“No? Care to elaborate?”
“Your hamadryad is becoming the Sorceress in truth.”
“Ah. That totally does not tell me anything more than I already knew.”
“It might be best to show you.” Gregory gestured her forward into the maze.
They made their way deeper, plodding through the familiar passages, until they reached the last bend and stood on the threshold of a small meadow. In the center the Redwood stood tall and proud.
He narrowed his eyes.
Make that taller and proud.
“Oh my god!” Lillian muttered.
“Goddess,” he corrected for her.
She glanced at him and scrunched her nose up while giving him a slow shake of her head. After that, she focused back on the tree.
“It’s grown fifteen or twenty feet in four days. Someone is bound to notice.”
“Doubtful, humans rarely look up. I think your tree is safe from discovery.”
“But why the sudden growth spurt? And how much bigger is it going to get?”
“She,” he corrected. “And I think this is likely a response to your pregnancy. The tree is preparing to receive our child in a few weeks. She probably wanted to be stronger to handle the gestation. I think this may mean the child will be a gargoyle, not dryad.”
Lillian gaped at him again, her hand dropping to protectively cover her stomach. “Weeks?”
“Yes.” He took her hand and guided her over to the tree. He set the basket of food on the ground and motioned her over to the tree’s base. With her hand still captured in his, he pressed her unresisting palm flat against the trunk.
Above and all around them the hamadryad shifted, her branches swaying even though there was no breeze.
Lillian jerked her head up to watch. “That’s new.”
A branch brushed Gregory’s shoulders, the soft feathery needles tickling his skin. He turned his head enough to touch the branch and then gave it an affectionate rub. “I missed you too, my Sorceress.”
The tree quivered, every branch shifting and swaying.
“Is my hamadryad about to uproot herself and go for a stroll? Because someone is sure to notice.”
“Of course not.” Gregory wondered where Lillian got some of her strange ideas.
“Uh, Gregory?” Her tone turned questioning as she slowly backed away from her hamadryad. A mass of questing branches followed her, attempting to pull Lillian back toward the trunk. “I thought you said she wouldn’t want the baby for weeks yet. She seems pretty eager to grab me now.”
Gregory laughed at Lillian, but was forced to keep half his attention on the hamadryad. The over-eager branches had nearly knocked his feet out from under him twice now. “She is just happy to see us. We have been through a lot. This is how she is showing her affection.”
Several branches entwined around him, snapped taut, and hoisted him off the ground before he could warn Lillian. The tree shifted him higher up within seconds.
“Gregory!”
“I’m fine,” he called down to her. “I’ll be but a moment while I extract myself.” He attempted to do as he said, but found for each branch he pushed away, three more would take its place.
Since struggle got him nowhere, he relaxed in the tree’s grip and let her do as she wished.
Three smaller branches emerged from the tangled mass holding him in place to flutter around his face and head. Realizing what the tree wanted, he tilted his head back so she could reach his neck.
Delicate needles stroked his throat and he felt the Sorceress’s magic flow over his body. The tattoo ringing his neck flared to life and snapped out at the hamadryad’s magic. The tree seemed unconcerned. Well, from what he could tell. Never in all his long lives had he seen what a concerned tree looked like, so he had nothing to compare it to.
The hostile power circling his neck flared a second time, burning the skin in an unpleasant way.
“Gregory! My tattoo is getting pissed off about something.”
“Easy. The Sorceress is examining the tattoos. She will not allow us to come to harm.”
“You know that for sure because…?”
Gregory sighed at her flippant tone. The hamadryad’s magic flowed over him in another stronger wave, sinking into his muscles and bones. Unable to help himself, he reached out for his own link to the Spirit Realm and was surprised when it answered his call without needing Lillian to first give him an order. Hope burned hotly in his gut.
Gregory’s lips pulled back in a toothy grin. Perhaps, his Sorceress would free him from the cursed collar earlier than he’d thought possible.
The tree shifted him off to one side and then with another great shifting of branches he heard Lillian squeal. It was in surprised alarm, not a sound of pain, so he waited, and as he expected, her sounds of disgruntlement grew louder as she joined him up in the tree’s canopy.
If it hadn’t been for the unpleasant heating around his neck, the hamadryad’s chilled Spirit Magic would have been soothing and renewing. Between one heartbeat and the next something changed. He stiffened, gasping as the wellspring of his Spirit Magic flowed into him faster than he could release it into this realm. He only had a moment to realize something had gone terribly wrong, and then even the trickle of magic he’d been bleeding off into the Mortal Realm stopped, but the magic rushing into his body didn’t. Too much. It was far too much power for any one body to contain, even his.
His wings quivered, as his body instinctively fought both the hamadryad’s hold and the magic continuing to flow into him. “My Sorceress, please stop this.”
“Gregory! What’s wrong?” Lillian cursed long and loud. “Talk to me!”
“My Sorceress,” he continued reasoning with the tree between waves of pain. “I appreciate your aid, but if you force this slave collar into killing me, we all will be returning to the Spirit Realm in defeat. I, for one, would very much like a chance to raise our child.”
The hamadryad didn’t respond with words or thoughts, but Lillian was suddenly thrust in front of him. When her wild-eyed stare landed on him, her brows scrunched up. “God Gregory. What the hell?” Then her lips parted in understanding. “I order you to stop drawing magic from the Spirit Realm. Stop now!”
Blessedly, the magic flowing into him slowed and then stopped. Yet, he still felt like his body was going to split apart at any moment.
“Beloved, talk to me. Tell me what the hamadryad did to you.”
“I don’t know.” Which was true. Gregory was still panting in pain and shock, so said the first thing that came to his mind. “Your tree, did you sense anything unusual about her just now?”
“Besides your pain! No. But I’d say death by homicidal tree counts as unusual.” Lillian fought to free herself. When that failed, she reached out to touch him but stopped, clearly horrified. Then in a softer tone, she whispered, “Beloved, you look like Frankenstein’s monster.”
Gregory groaned as the tree loosened her hold on him. He didn’t know what monster she spoke of, but he felt instant sympathy for it if it suffered half as much as he did at this moment. Blood welled up and flowed across his skin from a thousand tiny stone-ridged fissures. Even as painful and ugly as they were, the surface wounds were minor. It was the internal ones that were of greater concern. His body was already going about the business of healing them, but it would take days at this rate.
“Gregory, please talk to me. Why d
id my insane tree just try to kill you?”
He met her gaze and saw the fear in hers, fear for him. Then he glanced down at himself. Yes, between the hamadryad and the slave collar, they’d made a mess of him. He understood why Lillian might think her hamadryad had tried to harm him. “I will recover. And, no, the Sorceress wasn’t trying to kill me. She was trying to free me from the slave collar, but triggered some kind of trap.”
“You know that for a fact? Because from what I’m seeing, I’d say she has another agenda.”
“Order me to heal myself.”
“I don’t think more magic will solve anything.” Lillian had liberated her upper body from the hamadryad’s embrace and was now trying to leverage her legs free.
“I have internal injuries.”
Lillian swore again. “Heal yourself. I’m here now and won’t let my hamadryad harm you again.”
A warmer magic filled him at her words. He’d never been so happy to call on the warmer, less turbulent power from the Magic Realm. It was a much slower process, but he was more than happy to simply sit and wait for it to heal him.
He grunted in another pained gasp as the hamadryad shifted him closer to Lillian’s position. His beloved uttered an unladylike profanity and then she was suddenly within touching distance.
Slowly the magic engulfing him withdrew.
“Do you know what happened?” she asked a second time.
“Something changed the slave collars, mine at least. I can no longer summon magic from the Spirit Realm, not without killing myself and possibly anyone near me.” For the first time in any of his lifetimes, he found himself afraid of his most primary power. He could only hope the Sorceress had learned something valuable from all his pain.
As the warrior-protector half of their pairing, he was formidable and skilled in his own right, but in the past, the Sorceress had exerted an iron-like control upon her magic which he’d envied. Lillian once challenged him to admit the Avatars were equal in power—and yes, he was a great worker of magic, but he secretly thought the Sorceress’ strengths were greater.
Now with his primary power out of reach, he needed to rely upon the Sorceress. Dare he trust her?
Sorceress Hunting (A Gargoyle and Sorceress Tale Book 3) Page 17
