When a Gargoyle Awakens (26 page)

Kylie screamed and without thinking, she threw out her arm and the three men flew across the room.  She didn’t pause to think about that as she ran to Luc.  He groaned and the burns on his red body sizzled.

“Luc, Luc!” she cried almost hysterically.

“Are you okay, little one?” he rumbled.

She clutched at his shoulder, trying to pull him up.  It was like trying to move a stubborn elephant.  “Me?  I’m fine, I’m more worried about you, you big dope.”

“Dope?” he chuckled, breathlessly before his face turned grim.  “You look very pale, and you have been crying.  I am very angry with you.  You disobeyed me.”

“I just bumped my head but I’m fine, and I was kind of hoping that you’d forget the other thing.”

Laboriously, he rose to his feet.  He was a little shaky, but his grip as he held her waist seemed sure.  “No, little one, you can trust that I will not forget, but my relief at your safety is more important at this moment.”  He traced a thumb over her cheek, and she managed a watery smile.

“Oh, you big dope!”  Kylie pressed a kiss to his lips.

“I don’t believe it,” rasped Holling from behind them.

Luc growled, and in spite of his injuries, in spite of how tired he was and how much pain he must have felt, he pulled her behind him.

Holling shook his head in horror.  “The two of you… but he’s a monster!”

“You’re the only monster here!” snapped Kylie, which she later lamented wasn’t the best comeback.  But, emotions were running high, and she could just as easily have burst into tears – her go-to move in a crisis.

Luc didn’t even react to his insult.  He was focusing on the gun that Holling was waving around indiscriminately.  Through the peeks that Kylie got of Holling, she saw that blood was seeping from a wound on his head.

“You know, this doesn’t have to end badly,” said Holling, unsteadily.  “It’s Lucifer, isn’t it?”

Luc growled, and Holling took this as a yes.  “I’m sure we want the same thing – to awaken the other gargoyles.”

Luc trembled in his anger, but slowly his stance seemed to soften.  Holling relaxed, and a smile even seemed to play on his lips.

“See, there’s no reason we can’t work together.”  He sounded almost ingratiating now.  Kylie dreaded where this was going.  “Kylie has the ability to wake the others, and I have a lot of friends who could help.  The amount of magic it will take will drain her; she’ll need my support.”

Luc half-turned to Kylie, he took her hand, and she frowned.  What was he doing?  He turned her hand over in his and looked at her wrists.  The rope had burned pink marks into her skin.  He traced a thumb over them, and she flinched from the rawness.

His eyes shuttered, and he turned back to Holling.  “You hurt my mate.  I cannot forgive you for this.  I cannot trust you.  There will be no alliance between our clans.”

Holling twitched as he considered arguing, but he snorted.  “Fine,” he ground out.  “Have it your way.  You were supposed to live, but I need her.”  He jutted his chin at Kylie.  “I’ll just kill you and take her.  I have the spell to awaken them.  She’ll perform it over and over until it kills her.”

Luc roared in fury, and Holling raised his gun.  Before he could do anything, an iron-like grip clamped onto his arm.  He turned to find a furious Ophelia holding him.  She yanked the gun out of his hand and then crushed it.

“What are you doing?” asked Holling in bewilderment.

Ophelia snarled and snapped his neck.  Kylie shrieked and Ophelia, with barely a pause, leaped over to the other side of the room and killed the three men who had been hurting Luc with the cattle prods.

Maggie and Andrew came running in.  “What the hell?!”

Kylie gave up and fainted.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Kylie groaned awake.  The whole passing out and getting knocked out thing was starting to be a habit.  A very irritating and wussy habit.

“Take it easy, dear,” came the comforting and melodious tone of Bea’s voice.  Not to mention highly welcome.  “You fainted.”

“Luc?” she whispered and licked her lips.  Her mouth felt drier than the Sahara Desert.  At that moment, she couldn’t remember the last time she had a drink.

“He’s fine, dear.  Andrew would you mind telling Luc that Kylie’s awake.”

“Sure,” he said meekly.  Kylie smiled at him, and he gave her a hopeless look in return.  He looked how she felt – stunned to the brink of catatonic.

“Where is Luc?” asked Kylie as she propped herself up on her elbows.  She found herself in a very large and luxurious bed.

“Talking to Ophelia,” said Maggie brightly, as she jumped on the bed, making it ripple lightly.

“Ugh.”  Her head swam with some disturbing bright lights as she tried to sit up.  How many blows to the head would it take before she should consider getting a CAT scan or something?

“Slow down,” murmured Bea.  “Maggie, please can you bring her some beef broth.”  Maggie slid off the bed and disappeared.

“Beef broth?”  The sick person food.

“You haven’t eaten anything for two days,” Bea told her, gently.

Kylie held her head in her hands as she tried to think.  Thoughts were not easy at that moment.  “That can’t be right.  What time is it?”

“It’s Thursday – and the sun just went down.”

“I’ve been asleep for almost a whole day?”

“Clearly you needed it,” said Maggie, returning and handing her an unappetizing bowl of what looked like sludge.

Under Bea’s insistent glare, she started eating.  “Ugh, what happened?”

“After you fainted, Maggie called me, and I came up here with Gustave to find… the bodies…” 

Ugh, now she remembered why she fainted – seeing someone actually die was a bit too much to handle.  Bea didn’t know where to look.  The world of antiques could be pretty cutthroat, but it didn’t usually involve vicious killings.

Kylie looked at Maggie.  “What happened after I fainted?”

“Luc was pretty pissed at Ophelia, but he seemed happy that she was alive.  Although, I think he was more concerned about you.”  Maggie arched an eyebrow in a suggestive way; it said more than a thousand words could.  Kylie blushed and focused on her broth, only wincing slightly at the taste.  It contained an awful lot of vegetables.

“Andrew’s still pretty shook up about everything.  We don’t know what happened to Lara.”

“He’s not going to…”

“No, he won’t say anything,” said Maggie, quickly.  “He’s coming to terms with the gargoyles.  Luc and Gustave explained about his uncle’s collection.  It seems as if Lara and Holling came into his life, specifically to find the gargoyles.  Knew that bitch couldn’t be trusted.”

“What about the… bodies?”  Ugh, when did her life resemble a crime scene?

Bea smiled, bleakly.  “Gustave was pretty handy at that – he’s feeling a lot better now.  Apparently this wasn’t his first… time handling dead bodies.”  Kylie wasn’t going to delve into what that meant.  “He’s a handy man to have around.  As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Holling and all his friends left this house last night for places unknown.  I better see how he’s doing, he started cleaning up the house.”

Bea kissed her temple and left, and Maggie punched her arm, lightly.  “A gargoyle?  A freaking gargoyle and you didn’t think to tell me?”

“It was a secret!”  Kylie rubbed her forehead.  “You’re taking this very well.”

Maggie put her hand on her heart.  “Hey, I’ve always believed in the supernatural – just now I have proof.  But you?  I’m impressed; I saw the way that Luc was fawning over you.”  She smirked.  “Bride of the gargoyle.  You ought to have your own erotic romance novel.  I’m really pissed at you for not telling me.”

Kylie tore off a hunk of bread and dipped it in the broth.  “Get in line, I think Luc’s annoyed at me, too.”

“Very,” agreed the gargoyle of the hour, making them both jump.  “But more relieved that you are well.”

Pleasurable heat bloomed on Kylie’s cheeks.  All the affection she felt, combined with all her fears of losing him, jostled for space in her heart.  With all the emotions coursing through her, she wanted to say something to him, to show how she felt, how important he was to her and how she couldn’t imagine trying to live without him.  “Hi.”  Well, it was a start.

“Little one,” he purred as his wings fluttered. 

“I’ll leave you two alone,” said Maggie with a knowing grin.  Yep, Maggie wouldn’t even bat an eyelid if Kylie eloped to Vegas with a sasquatch. 

Maggie was about to close the door when Ophelia stepped past her, almost pushing her out the way and giving her the evil eye.  Maggie scowled in a way that perhaps would beat down the Library Committee, but didn’t have much effect on a gargoyle warrior.

Kylie nodded to her friend that it was okay, and Maggie reluctantly left the three of them.

Luc knelt by the bed and took one of Kylie’s hands in his.  “How are you?” she asked trying to inspect his body for wounds.  She couldn’t see any; the only things on display were his acreage of dark red skin and his taut, impressive muscles.  Her arousal stirred, and she scoffed at its bad timing.

His brows knit together in concern.  “No, how are you?”  He inspected her wrists, and his face tightened as he took in the bruising to her skin.  “Are you in pain?”

“No,” she replied quickly.  “But what about you?  I saw what they did to you.”

He seemed to be confused by her concern.  “I have slept since then, little one, and I am much improved.”

“Gargoyles heal faster than humans,” declared Ophelia.  Kylie had almost forgotten she was there.  But when she looked at the female gargoyle, she was struck by the thought that it would be a very dangerous thing indeed ever to forget about her.

“You should eat,” said Luc, encouragingly.  He grasped the dainty spoon between his huge, clawed fingers and tried to feed her.

“I’m okay.”  Her stomach growled, furiously just at that moment.

“Clearly,” he chuckled as Ophelia huffed.  “But you must eat, you will waste away.”

“I think we may be a few months away from that,” Kylie said, wryly.  Still she allowed him to feed her, were it not for Ophelia’s impatient presence, it might have been a tender and even sensual encounter.  Instead, Kylie felt more like a badly behaved child who couldn’t be trusted to feed herself.  Ophelia didn’t have to say it, but it seemed like she agreed that was the case.

After draining more than half the bowl and eating two bread rolls, Kylie cried uncle and Luc seemed to be satisfied.  He removed the tray of food and sat on the edge of the bed.  Luc smiled, and she stroked his cheek; he nuzzled against her hand.  Had it only been a matter of days since they were together?  Everything felt so right between them, like they’d been together forever and yet the magic of new love had never left them.  She wanted to bask in his loving gaze forever.  It was more warming than a hundred suns. 

Of course, the moment wasn’t quite perfect.  Kylie felt a shrinking sensation when she looked at the female gargoyle.  There hadn’t been much time the previous night, but now she grasped the opportunity to really look at her.  She wasn’t nearly as big as Luc, but she was bigger than the average man.  She stood at least six foot three inches tall, and over seven feet including her wings.  Like Luc, she had long black hair.  Unlike Luc, she was an orange, almost terracotta color.  Kylie must ask him about the variations between gargoyles.  Her horns extended back over her head, curling into points at the crown of her head.  She was, undoubtedly, a daunting presence, but the scariest part of her were her eyes, which were deep blood red.  She was wearing a loincloth similar to Luc’s and thankfully she was also wearing a bandeau over her depressingly impressive bust.

Throughout Kylie’s ‘feeding’, Ophelia hadn’t said a word, but neither had she tried to leave.  She had simply stood and watched.

“I will get you some other food, little one.  What do you desire?  I know you enjoy your cookies.”

Ophelia huffed again and walked over to the window.

“I’m fine, thank you, I’ll let my stomach settle first.”   Kylie flicked her eyes over the female gargoyle.  “So, Ophelia…”

Ophelia spun to look at her with narrowed, accusing eyes.  That was as far as Kylie got.  She didn’t have anything to say further than that.

Luc didn’t look at the other gargoyle, and that seemed to annoy the female; his intense gaze was focused on Kylie.  He brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face.  “Ophelia was my second in command back in my time,” he explained.

“I remember,” said Kylie, in what was supposed to be a friendly voice.

“You remember?” repeated Ophelia, with just a hint of snark.  So much for friendly.

“I remember Luc telling me.” 

“Ophelia,” murmured Luc.  “Naturally, I have told my mate much about my life before I met her.”  He kissed the wounds on Kylie’s wrists.

“Naturally,” echoed Ophelia as she watched him.

Luc didn’t seem in the least embarrassed by his open affection, but Kylie blushed.  Perhaps if it were someone other than Ophelia watching them, she’d be okay.  Although probably not with Bea – making out in front of family members – even those who aren’t blood-related is a big no-no.  But Ophelia was still a stranger to her, and she was getting a serious ex-girlfriend vibe from her.  Perhaps she should talk to Luc about that later.