Interview With a Gargoyle (23 page)

“Can you help me?”

“I can.” The man raised a hand swiftly to still Lise’s protest. “Hush, child. This is beyond you at the moment, and it is not your place to judge. Nor is it mine.”

For the first time in more years than he could count, Percival’s heart lifted. He’d have grabbed Lise and kissed her if he wasn’t certain she’d have spit in his face. “Thank you. Thank you.”

“Don’t waste your gratitude. You may find my brand of help lacking since I cannot break the curse myself. Only she who cast it should make that choice, but I can tell you where to look for her.”

Percival sagged. More searching, more disappointment. “And if she won’t cooperate?”

The woodsman placed a hand on Percival’s arm. “It’s not her cooperation you seek.”

“What then?”

“It’s her forgiveness.”

Melodie awoke with her heart pounding, unsure of where she was or why she’d been asleep. She pulled herself upright and groaned at the stiffness in her legs and the ache in her lower back. She’d been dozing in the chair in Blake’s living room, and unfolding herself from the pretzel shape she’d curled into took every ounce of effort she could muster.

An unfamiliar sound drew her attention to the couch where Blake’s gargantuan form bowed the cushions. He thrashed once, his arms thrown out as if reaching for something just beyond his grasp. He moaned.

Mel scuttled across the dim room. Dusk had settled. She’d slept too long and allowed him to miss what might prove to be his one and only “day” in ten years. Racked by sudden guilt, she shook him awake, her eyes on the shadows lengthening around the room. He had only moments before the day he’d dreamed of for so long slipped away, and it was her fault. “Blake!”

He growled at her intrusion, and for a brief second, she feared he might attack. She froze when he gripped her arms and snarled at her. Then his eyes snapped open, revealing the man trapped in a monster’s body.

“What time is it?”

She bowed her head. “I don’t know. Maybe six. I’m sorry. I fell asleep too. The hazards of being up all night, I guess.”

The couch creaked piteously as he rolled to his feet. He crossed to the window and swept the filmy curtains aside to look out on the last few seconds of daylight. “More like the hazards of being a demon. Most of them hibernate during the day when they’re above ground. I doubt either of us could have stayed awake if we’d tried.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe tomorrow we can—”

“No. It’s okay.” Dismissing the purple light of dusk, he turned back toward her. “Where’s Calypso? And what happened to Van Houten?”

“She’s not back yet, and I haven’t heard from Palmer all day. I hope he didn’t lose his job.” Mel watched Blake pace across the room. The floorboards groaned under his weight. “What’s wrong?”

“The witches have to find a way to break the curse. They have to.”

“They will. I know they’ll think of something. We just need to—”

“Percival sought forgiveness.” His words came out as a strangled whisper that Mel wasn’t quite sure she heard correctly.

“What?”

“He knew he had to ask forgiveness of those he’d hurt in order to end the curse. Once he realized that, he set out to find Birgid Cooper, the witch who’d cast the spell.”

The conviction in Blake’s eyes and his voice made Mel nervous. How could he know what Percival’s motivations had been in seeking out Birgid Cooper, if indeed that’s what he’d done? “Obviously he never found her. Or maybe he did, and she refused to break the curse.”

“Even so, whether he found her or not, he wanted to be forgiven. I know that. I see his life when I’m…transformed. I live in his head.”

“But just now, you weren’t transformed. You were only dreaming.”

That silenced him. He swallowed and turned away from her. “But it felt the same. I’m still part of Percival, and he’s part of me. Maybe that’s why the curse can’t be broken. Maybe I’m Percival’s soul reincarnated, and I still have to do his penance.”

Mel crossed the room and put her hand on his broad shoulder. His gray flesh was cool to the touch, so much like stone. “I don’t believe that, but even if it’s true somehow, you shouldn’t pay for his crimes. What he did has nothing to do with you.”

“No, lass. It has everything to do with me. I’ve been with Percival from the beginning, and I know everything he did. I feel like I’m a killer just like him, and maybe that’s why the curse can’t be broken.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Blake didn’t expect Melodie to understand. He’d relived so many moments in Percival’s life over and over again, they felt more like his own personal history than something lost in time. Though this last trip to the past had been a dream, and not quite like the too-realistic visions he experienced while encased in stone, it felt just as authentic. What he’d seen might have been a manifestation of his own desires, but his gut told him this was how the events had actually played out.

Percival had come to repent his sins, and he’d been determined to find Birgid Cooper and beg for her forgiveness.

Blake watched the streetlight on the corner begin to glow, and he sensed the stirring of Fremlings in the shadows outside. He glanced at Melodie, who watched him from the couch, and all the doubts he’d lived with over the years fled. From this moment on, he’d no longer wonder if perhaps Percival’s crimes were so vile that ten men deserved to bear punishment for them.

Melodie rose. “I’ll call Calypso ag—” Mid-word, her jaw dropped.

Blake felt the change immediately. Sunset cast the room in shades of indigo, but even in the strange light, he saw the difference in his skin. A cold ripple of sensation raced across his back and up and down his spine. He tensed, fearing this was the end of him for the night, but rather than turn to stone, his skin paled. His body morphed as he stared down at his own familiar self.

In seconds, he’d become human again.

When the transformation was complete, Melodie let out a cry of relief and flew into his arms.

She felt like heaven, warm and bright—an armful of sunshine. He’d have reveled in the physical contact, but the power of the Cabochon hit him like a wall. A hot arc followed the cold tingle through his nervous system, leaving him breathless.

Her own transformation would follow on the heels of his. The darkness would steal her soul tonight, the same way daylight had stolen his for more than a decade.

Gripping her arms, he held her away from him. “We’ve got to hurry, lass. You can’t take another night of this.”

“Kiss me.” Her demand caught him off guard. “Now, Blake. Please?”

How could he argue? All consideration for their mutual plight drained out of him, leaving nothing but raw need. He threaded his fingers through her hair, pulled her face to his and captured her lips.

Warm and sweet, tasting of forbidden desire, she opened to him instantly, and between them as their bodies collided, something sparked.

“Take me upstairs…” she whispered against his throat.

He could do nothing but oblige. She gasped when he swept her up into his arms. The bedroom was so far—he’d have taken her on the couch, but that didn’t seem right. He’d compromised for too long not to have everything perfect now.

She clung to him, her fingers tangled in his hair, her warm breath on his neck. He wasted no time, took the steps two at a time and placed her in the center of his bed.

He paused long enough to pull off his shirt and kick off his boots. Then he joined her.

Melodie reached for him and dragged his half-naked body across hers. When he’d settled atop her, she wrapped her thighs around his waist.

This intimate contact stirred the demon in her. Blake sensed the spike in power and felt it in the sharp grip of her nails along the flesh of his back. He should have stopped, should have torn himself away, but to have her beneath him, demanding his kiss, commanding his movements, felt too good.

“Blake—Blake…” She panted his name between breathless kisses and tore at his belt buckle. “I need you.”

“Easy, angel. We’ll get there.” He helped her unfasten his jeans but refused to let her slide her eager hands into his briefs. As much as he wanted her, he had to know who, or what, was in control. Catching both her wrists in one hand, he pushed her arms above her head. He used his free hand to tease her and himself by gliding his fingers along the smooth skin of her belly, up under her shirt and over the satiny cups of her bra. He’d taken this journey before, when he’d searched her in the abandoned house. He’d struggled then to remain a gentleman. Now his inhibitions were gone. He could do as he pleased—as
she
pleased, and she let him know with a satisfied purr that his explorations did please her.

Little by little, the desperate tension left her body. She relaxed her wrists and allowed her arms to come around his shoulders gently while he kissed her.

“It’s you,” he told her before sliding her shirt up over her head. He pushed the delicate straps of her bra off her shoulders and ran appreciative fingers over her tender flesh his ministrations revealed. “It’s got to be only Melodie tonight.”

She nodded, then arched into him and moaned when he released the clasp against her back. He tossed the garment aside and bent his head to take a hardened nipple into his mouth. There was definitely a little demon in the sound she made when he flicked his tongue over the tight bud.

His own growl answered hers. Together they’d be wicked, evil and magnificent.

“I want you now.” She bucked her hips up, sending a sinuous wave rippling through the bed beneath them.

“Soon. Soon.” He soothed her with gentle strokes up her arms, across her breasts. So beautiful. Her skin smelled like lilac, and her lips tasted like sin.

Blake couldn’t hold out much longer, but there was one thing he had to do before giving in to all of her demands. The condoms in the nightstand drawer had been there awhile, but they’d have to do. Blindly, he searched with one hand through the junk in the drawer, kissing Melodie breathless, until his fingers finally closed around a familiar foil packet.

For a moment, he thought she might protest. She seemed surprised when he ceased his sensual onslaught to tear the packet open. “I can’t let anyone else inherit the curse,” he said, stripping off his jeans. “I’m the last of my bloodline. Even if Calypso and the Witches’ Council can’t break the curse, it ends with me.”

Mel’s eyes glistened. She sat up and sidled into his arms, kissing his jaw, his throat, his chest. Silently, she helped him strip her bare and slide the latex over his erection.

“Right now, there is no curse,” she whispered as he pushed her supple body back onto the pillow. “There’s only us.”

He took her mouth as he entered her, swallowing her gasp at his first full thrust. “Ah, Melodie, I’ve wanted this—” He couldn’t express how much in words. He could only show her by giving her everything he had.

Mel struggled to maintain control of her thoughts and her movements. The power of the Cabochon seemed to pulse each time Blake’s hard body connected with hers. The inner surge left her breathless, drunk with a demonic longing for more of everything he offered her, while the feel of him moving inside her left her weak, humbled by his perfection.

She hadn’t been loved this way in so long, hadn’t allowed herself to let go and experience a complete release of all her inner fears and inhibitions. Blake made it easy. Every touch, every ragged breath of his told her she was everything he needed. All she had to do was surrender completely to every delicious sensation, but one lingering fear remained. If she did let go, the demon would take over.

There, under the surface, it boiled, waiting to spill out and overwhelm her tenuous consciousness.

It wanted to destroy Blake as much as it wanted to possess him. Her fingers ached to dig into his taut muscles, to score his flesh and draw warm blood to the surface of his skin. She fought to keep from biting his lip when he kissed her, to keep from pushing him onto his back so she could straddle him and wrap her hands around his throat.

She couldn’t let it win. She wouldn’t let it use him up and discard what remained when it was through, not when she needed him as much as she did. Not when she loved him.

Her climax came fast and hard on that realization—an explosion of hot light behind her eyelids, a wash of molten sensation in her core. She moaned and clutched at him, then held her breath while her body shuddered to completion, terrified of what she might become if she relinquished this last shred of control.

Above her, Blake tensed. He had to have felt her come. He smiled against her lips and ran hungry hands down her sides to grasp her hips. “It’s good, angel. I’m there with you.”

And he was. The energy of his orgasm fed the Cabochon until its power engulfed every nerve ending in Mel’s body. She clung to Blake and cried out, stunned by the heat of it and the intensity of sensations she’d never even imagined before.

She’d lose herself if she let it have her, but she’d have given everything for this—for the moment Blake DeWitt claimed her as his own.

“There, Melodie. There. I’ve got you.” Blake eased her through it. His strong arms around her kept her grounded, kept her in control. He anchored her to reality and held the demon at bay until, finally, her inner tremors ceased, the heat of the Cabochon subsided and she relaxed against him.

“Blake…”

He smoothed her hair and kissed her temple. “Shhh. Just let it be. We’re both still here.”

She met his gaze, and the clarity in his tawny eyes made her heart skip a beat. “Blake, when this is all over…when—”

He hushed her anxious question with a firm kiss. “Ah, Melodie. I don’t think you and I are ever going to be over.”

Despite having slept most of the day, Blake would have gladly remained in bed all night as long as he could have kept Melodie safe and warm in his arms. Her deep, rhythmic breathing told him she’d finally fallen asleep with her head on his chest, her hand splayed on his stomach and her legs entwined with his. The moment would have been utterly perfect, except for the steady beat of the Cabochon hiding within her perfect body like a parasite. It would only grow stronger as the night wore on.