Stone's Kiss (11 page)

She glared at him. It wasn’t her fault the damn gargoyle had suddenly decided he wanted to look more appealing for the three pretty dryads sitting across from her. He’d had plenty of time to wander around looking sinfully handsome and he hadn’t bothered for her. Not knowing what else to do, she pretended she hadn’t just spent the last five minutes checking Gregory out. She gave her grandmother a baffled look for good measure.

Gran didn’t bother to hide her smirk. “Jason, see if any of your clothes will fit the gargoyle. The nights still get cold.”

Gregory reached for Lillian’s hand where it rested against the arm rest. Caught by surprise, she let him intertwine his fingers with hers. Baffled, she studied his features to discern his mood. His expression remained blank a moment, and then with a sudden smile, he turned and dropped to sit cross–legged on the floor at her feet. He leaned back against her legs, and place her captured hand on his right shoulder, then laid his own over top. She would have jerked free of his grasp if it wouldn’t have made her look the greater fool. Fixing her gaze on the back of his head, she willed a calm mask to cover her rioting emotions.

Chapter Nine

Not for the first time in his many lives, Gregory wished he was just a gargoyle and Lillian was simply the woman he loved. But no amount of wishing on his part could make them anything other than the Avatars. Lillian was the Mother’s Sorceress. He was the God–blessed Protector. Nothing could even change that fact—stone was more flexible. Yet he still played this stupid and dangerous game with the Sorceress. He couldn’t help himself. Anger had stirred in his gut when the dryads talked of him as if he was a stud to win over with words of seduction and coy looks. Then Lillian had said she didn’t want him, that the young one with the look of a predator could have him. He narrowed his eyes, the ache in his heart still too fresh.

While the Divine Ones forbade their Avatars from mating with each other, his lady had always loved him without uncertainties or regrets throughout their many lifetimes. Even if they never fulfilled their deepest longing for fear of birthing a monster with godlike power upon the three Realms, they had their millennia–enduring love to rely upon when sadness became bitter. Until now, when the Sorceress had said she didn’t want her Gargoyle.

Her careless words had hurt more than he’d ever let her know, but the sting had diminished moments later when she defended him from the other young dryad. His lips turned up at the memory of how Lillian had said she would do many unpleasant things to the foolish youngling if Kayla tried to coerce him into mating with her. Not that Kayla could have tricked him. Nothing would make him even consider mating with her. He glanced at Kayla. She was pretty enough. It wasn’t her form which repelled him. It was her expression. She stared at him with hunger bordering on obsession. No, he would never mate with her.

When he inhaled a deep lungful of air, it was impossible to not taste Lillian’s essence, they sat so close. It was sap sweet, but thankfully lacked the heady tang of her blood. He’d already broken one oath to save her life. How many others would she tempt him to break in this life? He glanced down at his hybrid form. Unwise as it might be, perhaps he was the one doing the tempting now.

It was the nagging worry she saw him as more beast than man which had prompted him to first change his shape. His judgment was compromised when he was in the same room with his lady. It was the only explanation. For why else would he complicate the situation greater than needed?

He grimaced as the truth came to him. Had he been thinking rationally instead of acting like a hormone–drunk fool, he would have let her believe him a beast, some kind of loyal pet. Instead, his anger had swayed him into taking this form to show Lillian what she was throwing away, what she did not want.

All this would be so much easier if Lillian remembered who she was, but he dare not restore the Sorceress’s memories until he had time to investigate what the Lady of Battles had done to her. There was no telling what traps the dark goddess had cast upon Lillian’s soul.

He’d stalled long enough. While he couldn’t tell the full truth, there
was
information Lillian needed now. “I don’t know your world or its troubles,” he began, “but I have sensed an unbalance growing in this Realm while I slept in stone. It grows stronger with each season, and if I am not mistaken, it has cost you and your people much grief.”

“The Riven.” Vivian gave him an accompanying nod.

“Yes,” he rumbled, “these creatures you call Riven would like the name.” He glanced sidelong at his lady. She sat pressed into her chair, leaning back so far it looked like she might break the back off the seat in her attempt to put space between them. If he could have gotten away with touching some part of her, he would have read her thoughts. But to judge by her pale lips and pinched look, she was about to bolt, so he didn’t. Instead, he turned to Vivian. “I listened as you told Lillian about your troubles with these Riven, but when did these problems start?”

“A few years ago. Why?”

“Lillian and I first came to this Realm twelve years ago. Is twelve years a reasonable time estimate for when the dark ones arrived?”

“Are you saying you and Lillian are responsible for the creatures of darkness coming here?”

“Perhaps. I will start from the beginning so you can understand what has happened.” He stared at Lillian while he talked, focusing on her until the others in the room became distant to him, unimportant. “First you must know we share a link of magic and spirit, one which has endured many lifetimes together.” Lillian’s eyes widened at the word
lifetimes
, but she remained silent so he continued. “When I was still gestating in my mother’s tree, I felt you in my mind, calling me. I could not deny that summons. Newly born, the fluids of my mother’s tree damp and sticky upon my flesh, I answered your call. I was still learning how to coordinate my limbs when the memories of our past lives came to me, awakening with my power. Not yet a day old and I already knew my purpose—to protect you.”

He paused when she reached out to caress his hair. Her lips shaped his name. He intertwined his fingers with hers and brought her hand to rest over his heart. At the contact, her thoughts flowed to him from where her hand rested on his chest: an overwhelming sense of peace whenever they were together. Wonder and curiosity. Excitement mixed with a hint of fear at her new awareness of him. But eclipsing all else, her unconditional trust in him.

Her gaze flicked from his face to their interlaced fingers, then back again.

She didn’t pull away, so he continued his story. “Had my father not been near at the time of my birth, I would have run off in pursuit of you without any weapons but for what I was born with. He couldn’t stop me from seeking you out, but he gave me his warded jewelry as added protection until my magic awoke fully. I went on the hunt, following the direction of your calls. They led me to the Black Kingdom, home of our enemy: the Lady of Battles. I rescued you, but the escape cost me much of my magical strength. Passing through the Veil between the Realms is something only a limited number of immortals can survive. We were still too young. The Veil came close to killing us. Had I been older, with the full force of my magic at my command, I could have sealed the rift and returned home to our own Realm. But I didn’t have the strength and made the shorter journey to the Mortal Realm where I found a family to raise you. Then I surrendered to the healing sleep of stone until you woke me. It’s possible something from that realm followed us here.”

“Black Kingdom? Newly birthed. Sleep of stone.” His lady mumbled half to herself. She jerked her head up and met his gaze. Her eyes widened with each breath that hissed past her lips. She paled, her completion turning a waxy tint until he feared she was ill. Then she stood, and lifted her head proudly, shoulders straight. Her coloring improved, if a vivid red was better than a pallid shade. A foreboding expression settled over her face, casting her features into harsh lines. She looked angry—yet not at him.

Baffled, he waited.

She brushed her hand along his mane and her expression softened. “God. You’re just a child.”

“He doesn’t look like a child to me,” Kayla said. “And that brings us back to the reason we are here.”

Lillian whirled on the other dryads, and took a step toward Kayla. “I understood about a third of what he said, but I did catch the part about his age. You do the math. He was born, found and rescued me in less than a day, then came here and turned to stone only to wake and rescue me again. He’s not even three days old.”

“You’re looking at it like a human,” Kayla countered.

“No, I’m thinking like a non–perv. There’s a difference.”

“No matter what you think, he
is
a gargoyle. If you don’t believe me, ask him. Dryads normally gestate their girl children within their trees for three years. But a ‘gargoyle child’ is longer, closer to ten years. When they are finally born, they are mature, fully developed.”

Gregory nodded. “I was almost mature at birth. I finished maturing while in stone.”

“I don’t care, that’s not the same as life experience.” Lillian transferred her scowl to him. “You’re still a child.”

“No more than you. We departed the Spirit Realm together and were conceived within moments of each other.”

Lillian’s teeth clicked together and she exhaled another hissing breath. “Fine,” she said, and patted his hand, her voice calming. “But you still slept through childhood because you needed to heal. You took injuries protecting me, and you lack the experiences you would have learned during childhood and adolescences. Now it’s my turn to return a favor or three. This
situation
with the dryads isn’t your concern. I’ll deal with them. You are not duty–bound to … aid them.” Her lips twisted into a fierce smile. She sent another glower in Kayla’s direction, then turned her attention to Sable. “I’m not completely unreasonable to the plight of the dryads. Your kind requires a gargoyle and there isn’t a whole lot of them around I gather. Fine, I can understand your concern, desperation even. You or others of your kind can come back in ten years and make your case to the gargoyle.”

“Surely you jest,” Kayla said.

Lillian stood between him and the other dryads with her hands fisted at her sides, spine rigid. “I’m dead serious.”

The scent in the room changed to one of challenge. His little dryad was protective of him. It was … endearing. Gregory hastily swallowed a rumble of laughter. Sable coughed into her hand, while Lillian’s grandmother rocked back and forth in her chair like nothing had been said. The old woman’s serene expression must have infuriated Kayla, for she slammed her teacup down on the table before exiting the room with a stiff–legged gait. Lillian followed the other dryad’s retreat with unblinking eyes. If she stared any harder, she’d burn a hole in the back of Kayla’s head.

“Well,” Vivian said into the silence. “Glad we’ve aired that laundry. Now, where were we, Gregory? You were saying about how you came to recue Lillian.”

“Indeed.” His humor vanished with the reminder that creatures of darkness were still abroad in this realm, creating havoc and killing innocents. “I freed Lillian from her imprisonment in the Black Kingdom.”

“What is that?” To judge by Lillian’s somber tone, her earlier anger at the dryads was forgotten.

“Hell is as good a name as any,” Sable said. “It’s not like the Christian version of Hell, but something older: a world within a world—a prison where creatures with incurable darkness upon their souls have been banished to for millennia.”

Lillian seemed to mull over their words for several tension–filled moments, then with a frowned, she turned her gaze back to him. “And you found me in that place?”

“The Lady of Battles, a creature of extreme darkness, wanted your power. I put a stop to her plans.” Gregory winced at his evasion.
I hope
, he added silently.

“Who is she?”

“The Black Kingdom once had a keeper,” Gregory said, and then paused to sort through Lillian’s mind for the proper word. “A prison warden created by the Divine Ones to keep the prisoners in check. As their daughter, the Lady of Battles had great power. For millennia she served the Divine Ones. She had a twin, the Lord of the Underworld. The Lady also had a consort, the Shieldbearer. Although her consort was a god in his own right, he lacked the power of the twins. Jealous of the power the Lord of the Underworld had at his command, the Shieldbearer attacked the Lady’s twin, intent on taking that power for himself. The Lord of the Underworld saw the evil in the Shieldbearer’s heart and deemed him incurable. And as his nature dictated, the Lord destroyed that evil the only way he knew how. He killed the Shieldbearer and sent his soul back to the Divine Ones to heal.

“If he had realized what that one act would bring about, the Lord of the Underworld would not have killed his twin’s mate. The Lady of Battles went insane. She blamed her brother for her pain. And so the war began. The Twins would have destroyed an entire world had the Divine Ones not intervened. They punished both Twins by banishing them from the Spirit Realm and chaining them to their respective temples within the Magic Realm. Then in the greatest moment of upheaval the three Realms have ever seen, the Divine Ones sundered the Magic Realm in two, separating both halves with a portion of the Veil. The chaos caused by the sundering forced many who lived in the once–peaceful Magic Realm to flee for their lives. Some sought shelter with the Lord of the Underworld, but a great many more fled to the Mortal Realm, far from the influence of either Twin.

“But the Veil didn’t stop the Lady of Battles. Even imprisoned she drew a great army to serve her, the very creatures of darkness she was supposed to keep imprisoned. The Lord of the Underworld gathered his own army. I, like all gargoyles, belong to him. For centuries the Lady has been growing her army, and not all her warriors served willingly. I believe by capturing you, she planned to make me serve her.”

Lillian closed her eyes, her lashes a dark line along her cheeks. She spoke without looking at him. “So … I got captured by this Lady of Battles?”