Stone Romance (Stone Passion #2) (16 page)

“Fuck you,” Rhys growled, never ceasing in his caress.

“It’s the way it is meant to be,” Omari interjected, his voice calm, reassuring. “Now, Rhys;
I want you to go to your mother and ask her for a vial of ambrosia.”

“No,” Armand bit out, his green eyes blazing with frozen fire.

“Ambrosia?”
Rhys asked,
the
excitement
in his voice, hope in his eyes, snapping Jenna out of her stupor.

“She’ll know what I’m talking about,” Omari giggled, which was slightly disturbing; most men didn’t giggle for fear of losing their man card. This strange man made male giggling into an art form. Clapping his hands together in private delight, he continued, “Your mother has to believe that the two of you are wildly in love but Jenna is reluctant to perform the ritual. Tell her you need another option, something that will give you… time.”

“What does this have to do with Vaughn?” Rhys asked, his brow furrowing in confusion.

Omari
didn’t answer the question as he
stood up and held his arms out to the side, once again giving Jenna the impression that he was very powerful and much, much older than she could possibly imagine. “The two of you will go on a… quest and Vaughn will be restored to us. Well, that was already a given since he would be released from the curse whence Melanie passes into the next life
.
” Waving his hand through the air, dismissing the callous words with a wave, he added, “You will take your trip and get to know one another on a much more intimate level and Vaughn will be restored to Melanie.”

He yammered on some more but Jenna was lost within moments as he talked about Greece and Vaughn. Greece? “Greece? You want me to drop everything and go to Greece?”

Omari abruptly stopped talking – Jenna hadn’t even realized she had interrupted him with her question – and
looked at her as if she were mad.
He
was the mad one. “Yes, Greece; now pay attention.”

Numbly, she tried to follow along and eventually he managed to convince her that going to Greece on the spur of the moment was the good and prudent thing to do, that Ferris would be well provided for and if she ever wanted to find peace it was something she had to do.

By the end of Omari’s lecture, Jenna was almost positive it had been her idea to begin with.

After the decision was made to go on the bizarre quest, Jenna was finally allowed in to see Melanie and the sight that had greeted her eyes made her gasp in shocked disbelief. Her sister had no injuries; she was completely healed and in no way resembled the
bloodied and broken
photograph that had caused Jenna’s mad dash to the city. Still, Lenni had lost too much weight and her bones were protruding outwards, just beneath her skin; it was not a good look on her.

Dragging her sister out of the cool shower, she managed to get a towel wrapped around
Lenni’s
skinny body and set her on a chair so
her
could brush her sister’s damp hair. “You’ve been keeping a lot of secrets from me, Melanie.”

Her sister gave her a sheepish look as she tried to explain but her words were disjointed until Jenna told her that there may be a way to get Vaughn back. Melanie immediately perked up at that, begging to be allowed to go with. Jenna was on the verge of giving in when Rhys appeared, denying the possibility before Melanie could get her hopes up.

Standing in the doorway he looked so incredibly handsome and Jenna had to fight the urge to throw herself into his arms. After all, he had promised that the next time he had her in his arms he was going to make love to her. It wasn’t the appropriate time but she knew that they would be consummating their relationship as soon as the plane took off.

After a few minutes of discussing the upcoming journey, Rhys let out an exclamation and dug in his pocket, pulling out a chain with a pendant attached. With a sultry smile, he handed it to Jenna, “Omari asked me to give this to you; it’s a protection charm.”

Jenna had seen a similar charm around
Lenni’s
neck, a disc with a greenish colored stone in the center. It looked ancient and knowing what she now knew she wondered if it were truly enchanted. Absently, she took it, sliding it around her neck as she drank in the sight of Rhys. When he touched the tip of his finger to the pendant, she sucked in a breath as electrical currents zapped along her skin. “Tell him I said, ‘Thanks.’”

“Will do,” he grinned, as reluctant to leave as she was to let him go.
But she had her sister to worry about and when Melanie made a slight sound of distress, he made his excuses and left.

After she managed to get Melanie dressed and looking almost human, Melanie teased her about liking Rhys and being attracted to him while he was a gargoyle. Jenna stumbled backwards and sat down hard on the bed. She hadn’t put two and two together to come up with the fact that Rhys was the stone monkey she had admired all of those weeks ago.

And he had seen her while she had been sunbathing topless on the roof.
She fervently hoped that he couldn’t see when he was a gargoyle.
And if he could….

Jenna’s cheeks went up in flames as she realized
she had been in
practically nothing; and a skimpy pair of biki
ni bottoms hardly counted. But
she had seen him naked, too. Granted, at the time he had been in his gargoyle form: a laughing monkey with a wide, toothy smile, large, proturbant ears, intricately carved stone wings, and a massive, muscular, anatomically correct, male physique.
He had been gorgeous and very well hung.

Rhys was that gargoyle. She was stunned and oddly giddy.

“Melanie, you have to come home with me,” Jenna said softly, holding her sister’s eyes as they lay on Vaughn’s
massive bed. “I freaked out when I saw you on the news and mom and dad are probably worried sick.”

“I don’t want to leave,” Melanie protested in a small voice, as if staying close to Vaughn would bring him back sooner.

“I know, sweetie,” Jenna crooned, stroking her fingers through Melanie’s long, dark hair, gently kissing the crown of her head. “It’ll just be for a few days and then you can come back.”

Melanie looked at her with wide, sorrow-filled, blue eyes and Jenna would have promised her anything to get the desolation out of those eyes.
“Promise?”

“Of course.”
But her heart pounded against her ribs; how could she leave her sister alone when the love of her life was frozen in stone? How could she not when the trip could mean bringing him back? Standing up, she pulled Melanie to her feet and offered her a trembling smile, “Now, let’s go home so you can help me pack because the sooner I leave the sooner Vaughn will be back.”

Melanie threw her arms around Jenna then, hugging her for all she was worth. “Thank you, Jenna; this means the world to me.”

“I know,” Jenna kissed her sister’s cheek as she returned the hug with the same desperation that Melanie felt.

When they were in the car, she wanted to erase the forsaken expression on her sister’s face so she murmured, “It must have driven you nuts not to be able to tell me that you had been right all along.”

At Melanie’s blank expression, Jenna chuckled, “About magic and dragons and gargoyles; you were right.”

She blushed and caught her lower lip between her teeth, gnawing on the tender flesh as she admitted, “There were so many times that I wanted to tell you something, about Vaughn, about the castle, but my tongue always got tangled up.”

Jenna laughed out loud, “That’s a first; you’re tongue never gets tied up.”

“I know,” Melanie even managed a small smile. “I kept asking Vaughn all of these questions, trying to figure out what he was, and he simply couldn’t tell me; even when I guess
ed
outright what he was! Can you imagine being so close to discovering a huge secret and being denied? It was awful!”

Jenna laughed, easily imagining how hard it would have been, especially for someone like Melanie, who had never stopped believing.
Glancing at her sister out of the corner of her eyes, catching the dreamy smile on
Lenni’s
lips.

“It was so frustrating not being able to share everything with you but I guess that’s how the powers that be keep their secrets secret,” Melanie continued. “I didn’t even know Vaughn was a gargoyle until he caught me when I fell from my balcony.”

The car almost flew off the road as Jenna’s hands jerked at that announcement. Straightening the wheels, her heart jack knifing in her chest, she glared at her sister, “What?”

Melanie worried her lower lip some more, averting her gaze as she mumbled something about imps and Peter and the necklace around her neck. “But everything turned out all right; nothing actually happened.”

“Jesus, Lenni,” Jenna growled, concentrating extra hard on her driving now that her hands were shaking slightly.

“I’m okay.” Melanie reached over and put her finger over the medallion around Jenna’s neck, “You have to be sure to keep this on at all times, Jen; it saved my life.”

Jenna glanced over and looked at Melanie’s neck, to the necklace that was no longer there. Lenni blushed, putting her fingers to her throat, “I gave my necklace to Ferris to keep her safe. I am under the protection of a gargoyle now.”

“It’s been a very eventful year for you,” Jenna deadpanned, still freaking out about how close she had come to losing Melanie and not even knowing about it. She had to remind herself that Lenni was all right, that she was protected by a gargoyle and she was all right.

“You have no idea,” Melanie blurted.

After a weighted silence, Jenna hesitantly asked, “Does it bother you that the fates, or whatever, aren’t putting me through all of these trials to discover their secrets?”

“Gosh, no,” Melanie gushed in all honesty. “It is such a huge relief to be able to talk to you about all of this. From the very beginning I have wanted you to know.”

“And why is that?” Jenna asked, unable to keep the smile off her face.

“Duh,” Lenni snorted. “You and Rhys are perfect together. You are going to love having sex with a gargoyle.”

“Lenni!”
Jenna gasped, not truly scandalized by her sister’s candor. But it was still a little embarrassing; she hadn’t even had sex with Rhys yet and Melanie had been acting like it was a forgone conclusion for weeks. An awful thought crowded out the excitement and she narrowed her eyes as she looked at her sister; her innocent sister who acted without thinking. “Did you put Rhys up to this, Len?”

“What do you mean?”

Licking her lips, Jenna lowered her voice, not wanting to say the words out lout, “Did you put him up to flirting with me?
To making me feel… desirable?”

Melanie stared at her for a long moment before she burst out laughing, the sound wonderful and frustrating. “I can’t make that man do anything he doesn’t want to do; I simply knew that the two of you would be perfect together and wanted you guys to have a chance. I never asked him to seduce you.”

Jenna took comfort in her sister’s words; whatever was between her and Rhys was genuine and she could go into it with her eyes wide open. “All right, then.”

As they pulled up in front of their parents’ house, the door opened up and their mom and dad, Jenner and Ferris all spilled out, their arms wrapped around each other, their eyes wide in their pale faces. Jenna smirked, “They’re worried.”

“Yes,” Melanie
whispered,
her voice barely audible. Jenna turned her head and saw the horror and dread on Melanie’s face. “What was I thinking, Jenna? It never even occurred to me to call home and let all of you know I was all right.”

Jenna took her sister’s hand, squeezing it in reassurance, “We understand, Lenni; As long as you’re safe now that’s all that matters.”

Gulping, Melanie gave a tremulous smile before opening the door and stepping out. Jenna heard her mother’s low yelp of relief as everyone crowded in on Melanie and took the wayward girl in their arms and led the group back inside. Laughing uneasily, Melanie returned the hugs, saying, “It wasn’t me, guys; obviously it wasn’t me. I’m just so sorry that you had to go through all of that.”