Stoneheart

by Cate Corvin

  “No,” his disembodied voice replied. “Another Ruby would be able to see me, but to everyone else, my powers remain the same.” Then he fell silent.

  I closed my eyes, mustering the pulse of power within my stoneheart. It reached outward, searching for a hint of the gargoyle, but the air in front of me was totally empty. Jules had moved on.

  I opened my eyes again, visually scanning the room alongside my magic. All I had to do was find the blind spot inside my mind where Jules should be, and -oh. There he was.

  I swiveled and caught a shimmer in the air to my left. As I watched, it resolved into the gargoyle, once again visible. “Gotcha.” This time, when he saw me watching him moseying around, he gave me a real smile.

  “I’m not surprised you picked it up so quickly. Victor had a very old, powerful heart. But to Gio and Roland, you’re just staring at thin air.”

  He shrugged off his invisibility, and the stoneheart quieted without magic to actively focus on. “From now on, I want you using your power at all times. It’ll become second nature to pick out hidden gargoyles before you even realize they’re invisible.”

  I nodded. “Can we try again? I want to make sure I know what it feels like to reach out for magic that I can’t see.”

  Jules patiently went several more rounds, appearing in various corners of the room, and once right in front of my face. An hour had passed when it finally clicked for me, and he didn’t become invisible at all, even though he assured me his chameleon magic was in full effect.

  My happiness was immediately doused with frigid dread. Since I was done practicing with Jules, it was Topaz time.

  Roland took his cue. He cracked his knuckles, a sound like pebbles grinding together, and stepped forward. “I believe it’s my turn.”

  I forced my shoulders to relax as Jules wandered over to Gio, saying something quiet to my bodyguard that I couldn’t catch. I honestly didn’t even try. All of my attention was focused on Roland. His golden wings fluttered, like he couldn’t wait to lay into me.

  “Alright. So you’ve got a good hold on mental immunity,” he said, taking on a business-like tone. It was way preferable to him referencing how sexually attractive he found me. “There’s a flip side to the Ruby, though. You can repel the physical types of magic, but you can also allow them to affect you.”

  I couldn’t catch myself in time to stop my brow from creasing. “I can turn off my immunity?”

  Roland nodded, but his eyes roved over me before jerking back up to my face. God, this guy. “Yeah. First, we’re going to work on you keeping me out. Once you’ve got that down, you’re going to turn it off, and let me in.”

  “Why would I do that?” I asked. Topaz was physical magic, almost telekinetic. They wielded invisible forces, able to punch a hole through a wall from across the room. I’d seen it happen in person, and it wasn’t something I wanted to ever see again, much less experience.

  He rested his hands on his hips. “Gio’s magic is physical. If you want the benefit of his shield, you need to learn to let gargoyles in. I’m going to keep it light at first. You’re just going to work on deflecting my strikes until you can repel most of my force.”

  I nodded, but my stomach had dropped to somewhere near my knees. My stoneheart pulsed back into action as Roland drew back a fist, even though he was standing twelve feet away from me.

  He thrust it out and the air rippled around his fist. A massive blast of energy ripped through the room and exploded against me, sending me flying back against the wall.

  I dropped to the floor, reeling from the force of his hit. “You said you were going to start light, asshole,” I snarled as I caught my breath, and Roland quirked his lips.

  “I wanted to see how much of a defense you were putting up. Not nearly enough, Zara. Not even close. Don’t assume the first strike against you is going to be gentle.”

  I hauled myself upright, irritated with myself for assuming he’d actually do what he’d said. If I got into a real fight, no self-respecting gargoyle was going to warn me up front, and they definitely weren’t going to go easy. “Right. Let’s take it from the top, then.”

  I got back into my position, brushing a strand of hair out of my eyes. Roland drew his fist back again, and I summoned every ounce of energy my stoneheart had, trying to focus that force outside my body.

  This time, when Roland sent a blast at me, I didn’t go flying head over heels. I did slide back ten feet, almost toppling off the mat, but hey, for a brand-new gargoyle that was definitely a massive improvement.

  Or so I thought.

  “That was a love tap,” Roland said. “Push it out from you. The Ruby is a natural shield against the rest of us.”

  He struck again and again, all of them the little ‘love taps’ he’d referenced. There was nothing gentle about them. I stumbled sideways, got knocked backwards, but at least it wasn’t as embarrassing as the first round.

  It took another hour before he was actually frowning. “Come on, Zara! If these bastards come for you and they have a Topaz, you’re fucked. Put your back into it.”

  “I am,” I gritted out. My head and chest were starting to ache from forcing my Ruby stoneheart to work overtime, the hardest I’d ever pushed it. At the end of the day, this was still a stoneheart against a fullblood gargoyle, and one with a very powerful Topaz in his chest.

  “Not hard enough.” He huffed in frustration. “You know what? We’re done playing games here. If Damien says this is life or death, it is. And you’re going to get that fine ass handed to you the moment you step outside this tower.”

  Fuck you, Roland. I didn’t say it out loud, but I thought it as hard as I could, and I knew my eyes gleamed with fury.

  “I’m coming for you. Stop me, Zara.” Roland’s wings rustled and spread outwards, gleaming with amber-like droplets of stone.

  He swooped forward, blasting me in the face. I ducked aside, the stoneheart straining to fend him off, but the power of his Topaz was as overwhelming as a battering ram.

  Roland took a step to my right, and I moved swiftly, aiming to knock him off-balance, but he sent another blast my way in an underhanded move.

  A second later I was lying on the floor and Roland was looming over me. He drew back his fist, and the air rippled threateningly.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, pushing my ability outward with everything I had. When the blast hit, I wasn’t crumbling into dust like I thought, but my skin was humming in a strange way.

  My eyes popped open. Gio was crouched over me, wings spread wide to block Roland’s view of me, and an iridescent shield was rippling over every inch of my body.

  I hadn’t deflected Roland’s attacks, but I’d let Gio in. His shield had bypassed the Ruby’s immunity and settled over me, ensuring I was protected.

  My breath sawed in and out of my chest, the Ruby in my chest throbbing and pulsing erratically. Panic had taken over when Roland loomed above me, flashbacks stalling my ability as I relived the worst night of my life.

  “My terms, Roland.” Gio was growling, his wings vibrating with anger. “She’s had this stoneheart for less than a week. It takes fullbloods decades to learn complete control.”

  Roland dropped his fist, and the hum of enemy magic faded from the air. Gio didn’t release his shield on me. “Give her some one on one time with me,” the Topaz said. “She doesn’t have decades, Gio. She was out of time the moment Damien planted that heart in her chest. Whoever’s gunning for the Kyrillians isn’t going to stop until she’s dead. You know I’m the lesser evil here.”

  I reached up and touched Gio’s back before climbing out from under him. Even out of contact with him, the iridescent shield still covered my body.

  “I’ll figure it out,” I told the Topaz. “At least we know I can let Gio’s shield cover me.”

  Roland’s amber gaze met mine. “I mean it. I’ll stay here and make sure you can handle yourself against a Topaz. Just you and me.”

  Was this asshole seriously flirting with
me after he’d knocked me around for an hour? I’d gotten the impression that he really enjoyed it, too.

  “I’m not going to stop training with you.” There was no way I was showing weakness now. “We’re going to do this every day until I get it right. But don’t get the wrong idea. I want Gio here to help me practice opening up to his shield, and making sure you don’t go overboard and kill me before I learn control.”

  Roland looked disappointed, but Gio’s face was thunderous. Something told me that in a fight between the Onyx and the Topaz, my bodyguard would win. “You can stay,” Gio told him. “But you’re to keep your hands off Zara at all times outside the training room, got it?”

  My adversarial trainer shrugged, hooking his thumbs into the waist of his sweatpants. “Sure thing. Zara: off-limits. Got it. But…” He ducked around Gio and leaned in close. “I’m not going to take it easy on you. Damien didn’t bring me in to coddle you like a lamb.”

  “I don’t expect you to take it easy.” It was hard to talk around Gio when he was defensively positioned in front of me. “I’ve never underestimated fullbloods.”

  He met my glare for a moment longer, then shrugged with a grin and strode back to where Jules was waiting. “See you tomorrow, then. Or earlier. I’ll be living right down the hall for the foreseeable future.”

  Jules shook his head and waved a hand at me before they left. As soon as the door shut, the palpable tension faded from the room and I relaxed. “What is with that guy? He’s the most audacious jerk I’ve ever met.”

  Gio spun around, his face still stormy with anger, and gripped my shoulders. I didn’t have time to ask what the hell he was doing as he pushed me back against the wall and claimed my mouth, forcing my mouth open for his tongue.

  Heat simmered just under my skin as his hands roved downwards, finding my waist, fingers digging into my hips. I made a muffled sound, my hips jerking forward instinctively when he nipped my lower lip.

  I didn’t have a single care in the world at that moment that Gio was assigned to be my bodyguard. There was something about his overprotectiveness, especially around particularly flirtatious gargoyles, that made him feel like a shelter in a storm.

  I kissed him back hard, twining my arms around his neck. His cock was already hard, straining against my lower stomach. After getting my ass kicked repeatedly for hours, being in Gio’s arms with having to worry about an impending attack felt like heaven.

  I had the presence of mind to pull my lips away, but I just ended up nibbling his earlobe. “They could come back,” I whispered, my voice already ragged.

  “I don’t give a fuck,” he growled, kissing my neck punishingly between words. “Let them see.” He almost sounded like he wanted them to, so they’d see just who I belonged to.

  Whatever had gotten into him, I really liked it.

  His hands slid down, and I heard fabric tearing. Goodbye, yoga pants. They were torn at the seams and he’d barely exerted any force. I had just enough time to reach down, tracing the deep grooves of his six-pack and the V of his lower stomach, before he gripped me under my thighs and lifted me up.

  Gio kept me pinned there with just his hips, still kissing my throat and making a trail down to my breasts. He yanked, shredding my sports bra and revealing my hard nipples to the cool air of the training room. Luckily, his warm mouth closed around one immediately, his teeth grazing my skin and sending shivers down my spine.

  There was one thing I really wanted right now, and that was my bodyguard’s pants off. I really should’ve had the presence of mind this morning to demand that he go nude, just in case of emergencies.

  I wriggled a little, slipping my fingers under his waistband and yanking the sweatpants down over his muscled thighs.

  Gio groaned, kissed his way back up my neck as his cock pulsed against me. I was already wet, still flushed and breathing hard from the workout, and it was only exacerbated by this ferocious need.

  Still holding me up, he pulled back, aligning himself with my wet center, and plunged in hard. The force of his pelvis slamming into me would’ve broken human bones, and I realized what he’d meant before by liking his women unbreakable.

  “Harder than that,” I gasped, sliding down the last few inches. My Onyx had two handfuls of ass, the muscles in his chest and stomach flexing as he stared at my face. There was no friendly, humorous Gio with me now. Something about him was deadly overprotective, and I had to admit, I liked being the center of his world.

  He thrust against me, pulling out and pounding back in like he was staking a claim on me. Pressure built in my abdomen, rising to a fever pitch when he ground those literally rock-hard muscles against my clit and forcing me to writhe against him.

  I was probably making enough sound for the entire tower to hear, but I didn’t give a shit about that, either. When the pressure finally exploded and I clenched around him, I bit down on his shoulder, my teeth just barely indenting his stony skin.

  Gio kept grinding into me, wringing every last bit of pleasure out of me until I felt his cock throb inside me. His thrusts came hard and fast and he finally groaned, sinking in deep as he grunted his release.

  I gasped for breath, flushed and feeling very much like an overcooked noodle. “Jesus, Gio. I guess ‘territorial’ was an understatement.”

  He didn’t pull out, but nuzzled my neck, kissing me here and there with more thoughtfulness than he’d had in the frenzy of a moment ago. His ebony eyes were still dark and shielded, but there was a possessiveness there that was new and sent another shiver through me.

  “You are mine to protect,” he said, deep voice rumbling through my chest. The stoneheart in my chest pulsed happily, reacting to my emotions. There was more to that than a simple statement of his duty as a bodyguard. “The next time that clown comes in here trying to stake out what’s mine, I’m going to rip that damn Topaz out of his chest and shove it up his—”

  “Gio, I’m shocked at you,” I whispered, placing a finger over his lips. His arms and shoulders were still tight as he loomed over me. “Don’t you know he’s overcompensating for something?”

  Surprise flooded the darkness in his eyes, followed by amusement. He laughed, and I twined my arms around him harder, my fingers finding the joint where his wings met his back.

  “Come on, Zara. Shower, then eat. Then we’ll spend the rest of the day avoiding that dickhead. I have a few… avoidance tactics in mind.”

  That sounded fantastic to me, and the tiny pulse of my clit agreed. But instead of putting me down, Gio carried me to the training room’s showers.

  There was no turning back now, but I didn’t regret a thing. Whatever this was, whatever it meant, I was going to enjoy the hell out of it. Gio grew hard again inside me as we made our way into the showers, and I clenched around him.

  Gargoyle sex was the best.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I was still high on Gio when we got back to the penthouse. A second round in the shower had wrung every last drop of pleasure out of my body, and against my protests, Gio had carried me into the penthouse like a damn bride. He finally put me down when I threatened to bedazzle his dick the next time he fell asleep. The threat of a little sparkle does strange things to men.

  When I caught my balance after he dropped me like I was on fire, I noticed Sawyer sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees, face resting in his hands. My stoneheart slowed to a crawl, the beats so far apart one could believe it had stopped completely.

  “What is it?” My voice was a croak, the hairs on the back my neck prickling along my stony skin. “What’s happened?”

  He lifted his head and caught my gaze, his eyes anguished. My knees went weak and I grabbed the back of the couch to stop them from giving out completely.

  “I’m so sorry, Zar. I swear to you, I tried. I did everything I could but they had already made up their mind before I even got to them. No matter what I did I couldn’t get them to see reason. I’m sorry, I tried so hard not to let you down.”

  I
knew. Even without him saying it explicitly, I knew. It was over. Everything I knew had ceased to be, and there was no chance it was going to change.

  “They let me go.” After everything I’d given to the job, the dedication, the blood, sweat, and tears. I’d changed into something slightly different, something even better equipped to handle the dangers being on the force entailed, and yet that difference was enough for them to throw me away like so much trash. I should have seen it coming, but my tiny kernel of hope had been founded in the slim chance that performance would outweigh the arbitrary rules of the Accords.

  Shame on me for ignoring the obvious.

  “We can fight it, we’ll find another way to—”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No, I don’t want to fight it.”

  “You don’t mean that, Zar, you’re just upset and hurt right now.”

  “I am. I am hurt, and I am upset, but I’m not going to pursue it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they don’t want me there, Sawyer. I don’t want to walk into a building everyday filled with people who hate me for what I am.” I shook my head and swallowed hard past the lump in my throat. “It’s not fair to me, especially since I had no choice in the matter. And you know what? It’s not fair to them to force them to work with someone they fear.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Sawyer spat, anger coloring his cheeks and tone. “That’s bigoted crap that assholes like Selter spew, but it’s not true.”

  “No, but I was guilty of it not too long ago. They fear me because they don’t know better. All we tend to see is the worst side of gargoyles, so it makes sense that they’d be too afraid to work side by side with me.”

  “You can say what you want, but I’m not gonna let this stand, Zara. I won’t let them railroad you like this when you did nothing wrong.”