Stoneskin Dragon (Stone Shifters Book 1)

by Zoe Chant

  "Not weak," Reive murmured. "Never that." He brushed her hair back from her forehead, and she fought to get her blurry vision to focus on his face. Finally her eyes cooperated and he came into slow focus, the warm bronze skin and golden-hazel eyes. There was not a trace of stone anywhere on his face, and not the slightest hint of pain in his eyes.

  "You're back," she whispered, moving her lips just enough to frame the words.

  "So are you." He stroked her hair back again. "Mace said you'd be very tired."

  "Mace is ... alive?"

  "He is. He's back at Stonegarden."

  "And we're not?" But they weren't; she could hear the boom of the surf on the rocks. They were still in the grotto.

  "I waited here for you. I wasn't leaving without you."

  She had so many more questions to ask, but frustratingly, her body wouldn't cooperate. She was losing her grip on consciousness. Exhaustion kept trying to drag her down.

  "It's all right, sweetheart. You've done enough." His fingers ran through her hair, stroking over her scalp. She was so tired that even her hair seemed to hurt. "Rest now. Sleep. I'll take you back to Stonegarden. I won't leave you, I promise."

  His words wrapped around her, the warm strength in his voice. He was here. Everything would be all right.

  She let go.

  Jess

  She slept and slept, and every time she woke, Reive was with her. Hunger finally roused her long enough to groggily wolf down the enormous bowl of stew and plate stacked with toast that Reive brought her, and then she slept again.

  She woke at last, drifting out of a deep and pleasant sleep. Her body felt heavy and tingly. She flexed her hands, and looked down to see normal human hands curled into the sheets. She hadn't been entirely sure what shape she was in. They both felt equally natural to her now.

  She rolled over and sat up, recognizing the room in Stonegarden where she and Reive had slept on their first night here. There were various signs of occupation: garments thrown over the backs of chairs, a half-demolished tray of pastries and other food on the table. Her eyes were drawn toward that as if by magnets. She was starving.

  But mostly she wanted to know where Reive was.

  "Reive—" she began, and then broke off. She didn't have to ask. She could tell he was nearby.

  A moment later, the door opened and Reive came in. He was carrying a tray, and broke into a brilliant grin at the sight of her.

  She collapsed on her elbows and grinned stupidly back at him.

  Reive looked great. He was wearing a white T-shirt and dark jeans—probably not Mace's, since they fit him—and his black hair was shower-damp, curling around his shoulders. But the thing that really struck her, down at the pit of her belly, was the graceful, easy way he moved, and the relaxed, cheerful expression on his face.

  She had never known him relaxed and pain-free and happy. Her first thought was that she was seeing the real Reive for the first time—but she realized instantly how silly that was. He had been the real him the entire time. The way that a person dealt with stress and pain was just as much of a window into their soul as the way they handled joy.

  She had seen all the sides to Reive now ... or at least she had begun to. And she loved every side of him that she had seen.

  She couldn't wait to see a hundred more.

  "You look amazing," he said, and she realized that he had stopped in the doorway and was just grinning at her.

  "I haven't showered and my hair's a mess and I'm covered with sand."

  "That's what I said." Still smiling, he moved the old tray and set the new one down. "You looked like you were starting to wake up, so I figured I'd go and get breakfast. Mace said you'd be hungry."

  "I could eat a cow," she admitted. She scrambled out of bed, realizing that she was partly naked, but not entirely; she was still wearing her underwear. Reive took in her body with lavish appreciation.

  "You know, if you're planning to take a shower ..."

  Her body tingled all over with the memory of their last shower. "I cannot wait, and yes, you're welcome to join me, but first I have to eat before I die."

  She proceeded to suck down a huge stack of pancakes and a plate of sausages, while Reive sat beside her and petted her hair and occasionally stole one of her sausages.

  "What day is it?" she asked when she was able to come up for air. Two large cups of Mace's excellent coffee, along with the food, was making her feel a little more human again. Or ... gargoylian. Less sleepy, anyway.

  "You've been out for two days," Reive said. "Mace, surprisingly, is up and about, though he probably shouldn't be. He was hurt pretty badly in the fight."

  "What about that guy? Did you, um ..."

  "He got away," Reive said. He growled low in his throat; it shivered through her belly.

  "I'm not glad he escaped, but I'm glad you didn't have to kill him."

  "I would gladly have killed him if it meant you'd be safe," Reive muttered. He reached for a piece of toast.

  "Who is he, anyway? What is he? Does anyone know?"

  Reive shook her head. "Mace has his friend Gio working on it, and I guess he's going to be doing some research once he's feeling better. Well, he already is, technically, but he can't yet do that thing—what's it called? Stonewalking? Anyway, he's stuck here."

  "You two have been talking," she said, surprised.

  "There wasn't a lot to do other than watch you sleep. Not that I couldn't do that for hours, mind you." He booped her nose with his fingertip.

  She found herself grinning again, silly with love. She couldn't believe how much lighter and more playful he was. It was amazing, the change in him. He must have been fighting so hard, spending so much of himself, just to stay on top of the pain and the worry.

  "So about that shower ..."

  Reive stood up and pulled her with him.

  Later, loose-limbed and happy, they got dressed and wandered out into the garden.

  "These are my actual clothes," Jess said, plucking at the sleeve of her blouse.

  "Yeah, Gio had them overnighted from Italy. Mace also had his housekeeper buy us some things in town."

  Jess looked down the serene sweep of the hillside. It seemed impossible to believe that a week ago, she had gone to work at the library just like any normal day, with no idea of how her life would change.

  And now here she was, in some kind of gothic castle in Newfoundland of all places. She had learned of the existence of dragons and magic, she was in love, and she was slowly learning to embrace the gargoyle side of herself.

  Her feet were still bare; she wasn't cold, and she had wanted to leave them that way, feeling somehow better when she was a little bit grounded without shoes in the way. Now she wriggled her toes in the smooth stones of the garden path.

  Sandstone. Siltstone. Granite.

  There was still a lot to figure out. She had the place back in Indiana, and probably a job if Marion hadn't fired her, and her car. She was going to need to go back and deal with all of that.

  But there was time.

  "And you're well now, right?" she asked Reive. "No stone on you or anything?"

  "Better than well. Better than ever. Although it's not quite right to say there's no stone on me at all." Reive grinned brilliantly. "I've been dying to show you. I couldn't do it inside, but now that we're out here where there's space, look what I can do."

  And without any further ado, he shifted into a stone dragon.

  She had seen him briefly at the pool, but in the darkness, with everything else going on, she hadn't fully appreciated what had happened.

  Where Reive had been gleaming copper, now he was flexing, living stone. Jess reached out a hesitant hand to touch his flexing stone scales. He was amazingly variegated, not just gray, as if every one of the many diverse kinds of rocks in the Atlantic pebbles at the bottom of the tidal pool had translated to his new body. There were a million colors in him, and he glistened under the sun like wet, polished rock.

  He was the mos
t gorgeous thing she had ever seen.

  "Our cultist magician friend's magic doesn't seem to work directly on gargoyles," Reive explained. His voice as a dragon was different, deeper, with a gravelly, grinding quality. "So it doesn't affect me now, either. And I'm much heavier than a normal dragon. I can crush his stoneskins like so much gravel."

  "Are you a gargoyle now, do you think?" Jess asked, looking up at him.

  "I don't know. I think I'm something new. And there's something else too."

  He shifted, collapsing effortlessly back to his normal human shape, and knelt on the gravel. Jess crouched to see what he was looking at. She couldn't figure it out until he picked up a polished pebble, swirled with red and white.

  "So here's something interesting," Reive said, rubbing his thumb across the surface of the pebble. "I know what my hoard is now."

  "Rocks?" She laughed aloud, in surprise more than anything. "I didn't know you were interested in rocks!"

  Reive grinned. "I wasn't, until I met you. Now suddenly I can't get enough of them. It's weird. Everybody always told me that I wouldn't have any doubt about what to hoard, just like they told me that I'd know my mate immediately as soon as our eyes met. They were wrong about both of those things, but right about one part of it. Once you're sure, you're sure." He switched the pebble to his other hand, and reached out to run his thumb down her jaw. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Jess. And I'm going to collect every rock on the Atlantic coast, if I can get my hands on them."

  "Between my books and your rocks, I guess we're going to need a big house," she said, laughing. And it wasn't until the words were out of her mouth that she realized what she'd said.

  A house. Their house. An entire future together. Kids. A home. The sheer size and scope of it staggered her.

  "You're welcome to stay here for as long as you like," said a voice behind her.

  They both jumped like teenagers caught necking. Mace had just come out in the garden. He was in his human form, moving slowly and carefully. His torso was swathed in bandages, easily visible because he wore only a dressing gown thrown over the top of it and a pair of loose sweat pants.

  Jess ran over to fetch a chair from the patio table. Mace smiled at her and settled into it carefully.

  "Nice to see you up and about," he said. "I don't know if Reive told you, but we've been having some pleasant discussions while you were asleep. And truly, it's nice to have the company. I've been alone in this house for a long time. Speaking of which ..." He reached into a pocket of his dressing gown and took out a folded handful of papers. "A fax came in that I've been waiting for. It's about you, Jess."

  Her heart lurched all the way up into her throat. Reive moved forward to fold his fingers through hers.

  "Is it about my mother?" Jess asked, her voice a choked whisper.

  Mace's habitual slight, sardonic smile turned sadder. "It is. I've been having a private detective look into what happened to her, and having found out where you're from finally gave me something to work with." He hesitated, holding the papers in both hands. "Are you sure you want to see this?"

  Jess nodded without speaking. Mace handed them over and she unfolded them.

  It was a death certificate and a set of typed notes. "Margery MacKay," Jess whispered. "My mother."

  "And she is your mother," Mace said. "Of that I've no doubt. She died in Georgia in a car accident, a few weeks after you were born. There's also a marriage certificate."

  Jess's hands shook. She flipped to the next page.

  "Harrison Scott. Also dead," she read aloud. Her voice cracked.

  "I believe he's human. There are no Scotts that I know of among the gargoyle families. If that's so, then it would explain why she never tried to contact us. My parents would never have accepted it." He swallowed heavily. "And so they ended up losing not only their daughter, but also the son-in-law and granddaughter they might have known. Such is the way of old feuds. I hope your generation is wiser."

  Jess felt the comforting warmth of Reive's hip pressed against hers. "I think we are," she said quietly, flipping pages. "Is this all we need to prove it?"

  "We still need to get your birth certificate. A DNA test might be necessary. However, if at least one of your parents was Canadian, you have Canadian citizenship automatically, which means you can live here forever, if you like." Mace shrugged slightly, and winced as he rolled his injured shoulder. "If you want to. I understand that living in a remote place like this isn't everyone's choice."

  "It's ... it's just so much, all at once." She looked up at Reive, met the warmth and support in his eyes. "I don't even know what you want to do. We ... we talked about it a little, but everything was so uncertain then."

  "I don't care where I am as long as it's with you," Reive said. "I know I'll always have a place with my clan, but I no longer feel that I fit in there." He turned his head and kissed Jess's cheek, just below her eye. "We'll make our own clan. I feel like ... do gargoyles have alphas?"

  "What's an alpha?" Jess asked.

  The corner of Mace's mouth quirked. "A natural born leader. Shifter clans have them. When you end up with more than one alpha in a group, there are often fights. Do you think you're an alpha, kid?"

  "I never used to be," Reive said simply. "I was happy to go along with whatever my clanlord wanted. I thought it was my duty to my clan. But ... I feel different, since I went through all of this. Better. Stronger. More in charge." He wrapped his arm around Jess's waist and tugged her closer to him. "I don't want to fight anyone, but I also don't think I'm going to be anybody's underling from now on."

  "I don't think either of you have to worry about being anyone's doormat," Mace murmured. "Gargoyles don't really have the same clan structure as dragons do. On the other hand, I've lived alone for a long time and I'm set in my ways."

  "Like I said, I don't want to fight," Reive said. "I'll go where Jess goes. But I think, eventually, we're going to want to set up our own clan, whether it's here or somewhere else."

  Jess leaned into his side. "I think in a way, we already have. But I'm so glad I know where I come from. It's wonderful to know more about my mother, and I ... I still haven't quite managed to wrap my head around having relatives. Should I call you Uncle Mace?"

  "If you must," Mace said dryly.

  Jess smiled. "I think we'll both have to figure it out together." She held out the papers to Mace. "Do you want these back?"

  "You can hold onto them if you want. I have copies." He grunted with effort as he heaved himself out of the chair. "I think I might go lie down for a bit. Unlike some people, I'm not 25 anymore. Help yourself to whatever you want, and see Ruby in the kitchen if there's something you need."

  After he had gone inside, Jess leaned into Reive for a bit. It was very peaceful, with that incredible rural quiet that she was slowly getting used to.

  Finally she said, "Do you really want to live here?"

  "I meant what I said. I want to be where you are." He rocked her slowly, a gentle swaying in place. "What about you? Can you picture yourself living here?"

  "Well, it's not like we'd be stuck here, right? We can go wherever we want in the blink of an eye."

  Reive's arm tightened around her. "I don't know how I feel about you trying to do that stonewalking thing again. I almost lost you the last time."

  "I feel like I'm the one who should be afraid of it. But I'm not. You got me out." She turned her head to kiss him. "I know you can help me get back no matter where I go. I think it might be a little while before I'm ready to try again, but I'm actually looking forward to it."

  "That makes exactly one of us," Reive murmured. "I can tell you're going to give me gray hairs."

  "You're an alpha," she said sweetly. "You can handle it."

  "Touché."

  "What does that feel like, anyway? Being an alpha."

  "It's hard to explain. It's kind of a sense of ... not being in charge, exactly, but being in charge of myself. My entire life," Reive said, "pe
ople have been ordering me to do things I didn't want to do. And I did it, because I felt it was my responsibility. But I don't think I'm going to be taking orders anymore."

  "You know what I think?"

  "What?" he asked.

  "I think I like that very much about you, Reive."

  Reive

  It felt like a lifetime had passed since Reive had seen the mountain that used to be his entire world. From the air, it looked smaller, somehow. It was high autumn here in the mountains, and the hills flamed with gold, red, and the dark furry green of pines. He couldn't have asked for a more beautiful way to introduce his mate to his former home.

  "You know," Jess said, leaning forward so he could hear her over the wind rushing across them, "I could have stonewalked us here in no time."

  "Flying is more fun," Reive said. He stretched out his stone dragon body, enjoying the clean rush of the air. He was still learning how to fly with his new body weight. It tired him in ways that it didn't used to, but he was also stronger than he once was.

  "Or flown with you." Her tone was still playful, but there was a hint of genuine annoyance. Back at the hotel, they'd had ... not an argument, exactly, but a slight difference of opinion about it. Jess preferred the idea of flying in under her own power.

  "I know. But I don't know how Uncle Heikon currently feels about gargoyles, and I don't want to them to attack first and ask questions later, you know?" He twisted his head around to look at her, sitting on his back between his wings. "You don't have to do this, you know. I don't want you to be in danger, not ever, not even from my clan."

  "I'm not in danger," she said cheerfully. "If anyone gets to be too much, I'll just turn to stone, or let the ground swallow me up."

  "I bet you would too," he muttered.

  After that one terrible night at the tidal pool, it was still hard for him to watch her vanish into the ground, even knowing that she was being careful about it. And she was careful; they had agreed on ground rules beforehand—she started small, and was extending her trips slowly—and he knew that he had no right to protest something she clearly enjoyed. It was hard to forget the sheer terror of knowing that she was underground and there was nothing he could do to help her. On the other hand, as Jess liked to point out, first of all he had helped her, and second, she'd already had to watch him die once that evening, so it was only fair to return the favor.