by Susan Hayes
Damn, she was lovely when she was flustered. He was tempted to confess that she was correct the first time, just to prolong the effect, but he bit his tongue. The last thing he wanted was to upset his new mistress by telling her, now that he was human again, that he was experiencing every need that had been left unfulfilled for more than a century. In his dreams, they were lovers, but this wasn’t a dream anymore. Somehow, she had become his reality.
“I would be honored to meet your family, even your overprotective father. He might not approve of me, but as it happens, I’m immune to sharp, pointy weapons.”
She laughed, her earlier embarrassment forgotten. “That’s a definite advantage, but honestly, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Dad only breaks out the blades when he is meeting someone I’m dating. You’re my bodyguard, not my boyfriend.”
“It’s a father’s prerogative to test any man who comes courting his daughter. Anyone who was discouraged by a show of fatherly force doesn’t deserve your affection.”
“That’s more or less what Dad said the last time it happened. He wasn’t as eloquent as you were, but the point was the same.”
“Were I courting a woman as lovely as you, Adina, I can tell you that I wouldn’t let anything or anyone discourage me.”
Adina blushed again. “That’s sweet of you to say. Come on, we should head inside and find that drink we were talking about.”
“Are you feeling well enough to make the walk or shall I carry you?” Stone asked.
“Carry me? Uh, no, I’m okay to walk. It’s not very far.” Adina looked almost terrified at his suggestion.
“As you wish.” He offered her his arm instead. “Shall we?”
Her panic subsided as quickly as it came and she placed her hand on his arm with a shy smile. “I think that’s the first time a man has ever offered me his arm. It’s rather gallant.”
“You mean old fashioned. I suspect I will need your help catching up on modern manners and etiquette. Seeing it on television or the internet is one thing, but living in the world…I haven’t done that in a very long time.”
“You’re familiar with the internet? How have you managed the keyboard with those big talons of yours?” she asked.
“Carefully,” he joked.
“I bet! That would have been something to see, a gargoyle surfing the web and watching cat videos. Wait, how did you even get access to a computer?”
He shrugged. “The household staff lived on the estate. While my master avoided most technology, his employees didn’t.”
She was frowning as they reached the door. “So you prowled the estate like a ghost? There, but invisible to everyone?”
“Indeed. In fact, I’m the reason that my former home is thought to be haunted. Objects moving on their own, floorboards creaking, and the residents feeling as if someone was watching, were all attributed to a ghost.” He opened the door and blinked in the blazing New Mexico sun.
“I should have grabbed my sunglasses,” Adina muttered as she raised a hand to her face to block the worst of the sun.
Her home was a weathered farmhouse nestled in the shade of several massive oak trees. Of more interest to Stone, was the stretch of land between Adina’s house and her studio. It was carefully landscaped, with gravel pathways meandering through it. There was a multitude of plants and flowers he had never seen before, all of them clearly hardy enough to thrive in the arid climate. Scattered throughout the space were statues and stone sculptures. They ranged in size and styles, some of them nearly hidden by the plants surrounding them while others stood out in the open.
“Was this to be my new home?” he asked, gesturing to the garden.
“Actually, I had a spot picked out for you in front so you could guard the homestead. Of course, that was when I thought you were a statue. Since you’re something else entirely, you can have the guest bedroom. Maybe I’ll have you pose for me in your other form, and I’ll make a replica to go out front.”
The idea of posing for a statue of himself had Stone laughing long and hard. They made it through the garden and all the way to the back steps before he finally composed himself. It was more than her suggestion that had him in such a good mood. He was human again, alive and standing in the sunshine with a beautiful woman who accepted what he was without fear.
He reached for the door before she could, opening it and gesturing for her to precede him through. Inside the air was cooler, and the soft colors of the walls diffused the light that came through the windows. There was a delicate sweetness in the air accompanied by a hint of cinnamon.
Adina was darting around attempting to tidy up. “I’m sorry the place is such a mess. I made cinnamon toast this morning and hadn’t gotten around to the dishes yet.”
“I’m not concerned about the dishes. I’m concerned about you. You should be resting or at the very least taking something for that headache.”
“Does wine cure headaches? I believe I promised you a drink.”
“I’m sure it has some medicinal value,” he said.
She opened a cabinet door, pulled out two wine glasses, and then turned and pointed to a cabinet that was out of her reach. “Can you please pick out a nice bottle of wine from the cabinet? I keep it out of reach, so I’m not tempted to drink too often.”
Inside the cabinet were several bottles of liquor and a small but well-stocked wine rack. He chose a bottle of red and rejoined her in the middle of the kitchen. “Where to, now?”
“Living room. While you pour the wine, I’ll get something out of the bathroom for my headache and then we can talk.”
“Wine and conversation. You have no idea how good that sounds to me right now.”
“Just wait. Later on, I’ll order some pizza and hot wings. Hmm, maybe I should add in a few orders of garlic bread, too.” She eyed him for a minute and laughed. “Given how big you are and how long it’s been since you’ve eaten, maybe I should order one of everything on the menu.”
“Food, drink, and the company of a beautiful woman. You are making all my dreams come true.” Someday, hopefully soon, he would tell her exactly how true that statement was. He still wasn’t sure why she had been in his dreams. He never dreamed of his other masters. Not until her. Adina was special, and he wanted her to know that dreaming of her was all that kept the darkness at bay while he was trapped.
She had saved him twice now, once from madness and once from his prison. Stone intended to spend the rest of his life keeping her safe in return.
CHAPTER THREE
Maxwell Webb had waited for this moment for years. For generations, he and his family dedicated their lives to bringing down the Drummond family. He did it. Everything that had once been denied John Drummond’s first-born son was finally in his grasp. He had gathered the important pieces, one at a time, as they were sold off to cover the Drummond’s ever-growing debts. As he stepped out of his car and onto the estate of his family’s sworn enemy, he felt a weight lift from his shoulders. It was nearly over.
Maxwell’s ancestor, the first Maxwell Webb, had been cast aside because of rumors about Pearl’s infidelity. Labeled a bastard, he was raised in shame by distant relations of his mother’s. By the time he reached adulthood, he had committed himself to regaining what was rightfully his by any means necessary. The Webbs stayed in the shadows, building their fortune and manipulating events from a distance. They sabotaged business deals and interfered in love affairs. They played a long game that spanned decades, undermining the Drummond’s social and financial status at every turn. It took over a century and was the driving force of every generation, but that goal was finally complete. The Drummond family was ruined, and everything they had now belonged to Maxwell’s descendant.
Maxwell didn’t enter the house. There would be time for that soon, but first there was one more thing he needed to do. He made his way to the back garden, careful to keep to the path to avoid getting dirt on his hand-stitched, Oxford leather shoes. He noted that the grounds were in poor
shape. The hedges were overgrown, the paving stones that marked the pathways were broken or missing, and the flowerbeds were thick with weeds. He would have to hire a landscaping company to deal with it. Soon, the estate would look as it did in his ancestor’s time – a shining jewel of elegance and refinement.
Decades of meticulous research and recordkeeping had revealed every detail and habit about their enemy. From which roses they planted in the garden to the precise details of their investments and finances, no detail too small. Along with the dry facts and dirty secrets, his family had recorded a number of superstitious whispers regarding a guardian spirit who watched over the family. Over the years, the whispers formed a legend that only grew stronger with time.
There were stories of a trusted retainer who oversaw the Drummond’s fortunes. Only referred to as Stone, the position was handed down from father to son for generations. Around the time that the first Maxwell was cast out of the family, this retainer vanished from the records. Shortly thereafter, the legend of the shadowy protector started. Every generation had stories about a mysterious guardian who watched over the family. Stranger still were the accounts that described it as a monster with wings and horns.
It took years to put all the pieces together. Even now, it was difficult for Maxwell to accept his grandfather’s conclusions. The old man had been convinced that at some point in the Drummonds’ past, they came into possession of a magical talisman that offered protection to whoever possessed it.
Maxwell didn’t believe in magic, hobgoblins, or gargoyles. And yet, that’s what he was looking for in the garden. His grandfather’s last request was for Maxwell to locate a specific statue – a gargoyle as large as a man with wings and horns. He even had drawings of the damned thing. Once Maxwell found it, he was to claim ownership and then whatever powers it had should come to him, if the damned thing had powers at all. Hopefully, he wasn’t chasing an old man’s delusions. Maxwell didn’t expect anything to come of this adventure, but he had made a promise to his grandfather. He would see this through.
Twenty minutes later, Maxwell still couldn’t find the statue he needed. In fact, he didn’t find many statues at all. Empty pedestals and holes in the overgrown greenery were abundant, but someone had clearly taken everything else.
“Goddamn it!” he snarled and pulled a phone from the pocket of his well-tailored slacks. He had bought the house with the clear stipulation that he wanted everything left untouched, both inside the house and on the grounds. Someone had screwed up, and when he found out who it was, he would have their head. It wasn’t over until he fulfilled his final promise, and to do that, he needed the damned statue.
It appeared his victory celebration would have to wait a little while longer. He had a missing gargoyle to find.
* * *
The last thing Adina could have ever imagined doing was spending the evening sharing a bottle of wine and a supreme, double-cheese pizza with the man she had dreamed of for more than ten years. The dreams hadn’t been frequent, but they had been vivid, breathtaking and far more memorable than any of her real encounters.
She had never told anyone about her dreams. Her mother was always a little disappointed that neither of her children had inherited her gifts to any great extent. If Adina ever admitted to having a recurring dream about anything at all, her mom would have made a big deal out of it. If she ever learned that Adina dreamed about a handsome lover who came cloaked in shadow—Goddess, she would have wanted to do a reading and find out everything there was to know about who he was and when he would appear in Adina’s life. Adina had never wanted to know. She was afraid to find out that he was only a dream, or worse, that he was real but he wasn’t destined to be hers.
She went to her mother once to learn about her future. When she was fifteen, she wanted to know the name of her true love. An utterly cheesy question but one Adina had been determined to ask. The answer nearly broke her heart. No girl wants to be told that her true love was not a person, but a calling. It’s not that she didn’t love her studio or her life as a sculptor, she did, but rocks and stone would never love her back. Since then, Adina never asked for another glimpse into her future. She didn’t want to know.
“This was a feast fit for a king and a goodly portion of his court,” Stone said as he finished the last slice of pizza and leaned back on his side of the sofa.
“I’m going to need to eat nothing but salad for a week as penance, but it was totally worth it,” she agreed.
Stone looked at her with a frown. “You will do no such thing! There is nothing to atone for, Adina. Why would you starve yourself?”
She blushed and instinctively tugged her T-shirt to rearrange it, so it didn’t cling quite so tightly to her love handles. “I need to watch what I eat, or I’ll gain weight. I’m half dwarf, so I know I’ll never be tall or thin, but I can be less, well, dwarfy.”
“Dwarfy is not the word I would use to describe you. I’m not even sure that’s a word at all. Though the English language has changed so much over the years, I can’t be certain.”
“Is there a nice, old-fashioned term to describe someone built like me? Maybe we can start a trend.”
“Aye, there is, myn lykyng. Thou art fairest of all things,”
Stone’s accent thickened as he spoke, and her pulse quickened as he complimented her. She wasn’t sure what it all meant, but there was no denying how his words made her feel—desired and beautiful.
“What was that first bit, Myn lykyng?” she asked, trying to reproduce the words in the same lilting tone he used.
He surprised her by sitting up, then taking her hand and lifting it to his lips to kiss her fingers before answering. “Roughly translated it means something like ‘the one I delight in, or my lovely one.' You are a beautiful and delightful woman, Adina. That is how I would describe you.”
“You’ve clearly been out of circulation for too long if you think I’m beautiful. I liked the way it sounded when you said it, though.” She tried to pull her hand out of his grip, but he tightened his fingers around hers, holding her fast.
“I know beauty when I see it, Adina. Whether you see it or not, I can,” he told her, pressing their joined hands to his chest.
Adina didn’t know what to say. Men who looked like Stone didn’t give women like her a second glance. She had no illusions about her looks or her body. She wasn’t beautiful, but her art could be. Her sculptures were everything she would never be, and in creating them, she added a little more beauty to the world.
“You look like you’re about to argue with me. Don’t, because you won’t win,” he told her.
“Are you always this sure of yourself?”
“Only when I know I’m right. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, is it not? The delivery driver said I was ugly and you told him I wasn’t, that to you I was a work of art. Your actions prove my point.” his lips curved up into a smug smile as he finished speaking.
“You heard that?” she asked.
“I did. I could hear, and see, and feel everything you said and did even before I was freed.”
“You felt—oh. Oh Goddess, I groped you! I mean, I was inspecting the statue for damage but that was you and I—I think I owe you an apology,” she said, barely aware of what she was babbling.
“You have nothing to apologize for. You couldn’t have known I was alive and aware.” His gray eyes darkened with desire. “If I were to be completely honest with you, I enjoyed having your hands on me.”
At that moment, Stone appeared exactly as she remembered him from her dreams; handsome, strong, and looking at her with such hunger that it made her body hum in anticipation of what could happen next. “Is that why you’re still holding my hand?”
“I’m holding your hand because I want to. If you tell me to release you, I will, but I won’t promise not to do it again. And before you even say it, no, this is not because I’ve been alone so long. This is something else.”
Pulling away would be the smart thing to do.
She should take back her hand, get off the couch, and start tidying up the remains of their dinner. Instead, she turned so that she was facing him, one leg tucked in front of her. “You’re not the only one who has been alone a long time, Stone. I’m not going to ask you to let go of my hand, even though I probably should.”
“You were never this unsure of yourself in my dreams,” he muttered under his breath as he turned to face her, tugging at her hand so she was pulled in close.
“Dreams? What—“
He cut off her question with a kiss that left no doubt about his interest in her. His lips slanted over hers with an undeniable hunger that sent her pulse racing. Heat bloomed deep inside her, a firestorm of passion and need that grew wilder with every passing second. She let the flames take her. There was no point in resisting anymore. It was time to surrender to destiny. They were meant to be. Her dream lover wasn’t a dream after all, and she was determined to enjoy every minute they were given. For once, she wouldn’t let her mother’s prediction overshadow everything. She may be destined to spend her life alone, but she didn’t have to spend tonight that way. Tonight, she had Stone.
* * *
Stone didn’t mean to mention his dreams to Adina. Nor did he intend to kiss her, but somehow that’s what had happened. He had never been so out of control in his life. His first taste of freedom had him throwing caution aside. He wanted to revisit every pleasure denied him, and he wanted to experience it all with Adina by his side. He kissed her again and this time, she kissed him back. That was all the invitation he needed. Without breaking their kiss, he released her hand to reach for her, drawing her closer still. When she didn’t resist he simply gathered her into his arms and lifted her onto his lap.
