Shadowlight didn’t have a reference for the words she used, but her tone said enough.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re saying my only hope of safe haven is with your kind?”
“That is not entirely accurate.”
The line between her brows deepened. “Feel free to start filling in details at any point.”
“You’re still too human in your thinking, your loyalties, and your motives. I think it best none learn of your existence for now.”
“You’re awfully astute for a kid.” Her lips compressed in thought and her brows descended slightly. She inhaled a sharp breath. “You plan to keep me as a pet, don’t you? For how long? Until you get bored with me?”
Shadowlight felt the first traces of annoyance and anger filter through his being.
He’d saved her, a selfless act.
Shouldn’t she be grateful?
Apparently, he wasn’t handling the situation well. It didn’t matter if she was grateful or not, all his gargoyle instincts and his father’s memories said he was still responsible for her. He’d saved her. Now she was his responsibility.
To start, he’d have to protect her from both the fae and the humans. She seemed like a reasonable person. He was sure he could gain her trust...eventually.
“What happens when you get tired of your shiny new toy?”
An ear flicked forward and then back. Even his tail twitched slowly as he worked through the meaning of her question.
Oh, she was the toy.
His ears swung forward, snapping to attention. “You think I would harm you?”
She held her rigid pose. “What am I supposed to think? You just explained I belong nowhere, and you hadn’t fully thought out your actions.”
In a moment of clarity, Shadowlight dropped to all fours and bounded over to her, butting his muzzle and head under her hand for a scratch. “Foolish human.”
As he had hoped, his action so caught her off guard, she didn’t use the knife she held.
“I saved you because I liked your spirit. I’m not about to kill you just because you think I now find you an inconvenience.” Shadowlight wiggled closer as he felt the first tentative scratch behind his ears. “That goes against every instinct a gargoyle has. We protect. We guard against evil and eradicate it where we find it. We don’t harm those we consider our responsibility.”
“Because you saved me, you now consider me your responsibility?” Her tone was thoughtful, not flippant, he noted.
“No, not because I saved you. Because my blood changed you. I did not fully think through what I’d be forcing you to accept.” Oh, there was more, and he debated telling her now or later. He wanted her trust. Lies and omissions would only bring harm later down the road. “And there is the possibility you may require more of my magic-laced blood at certain intervals to keep you strong.”
Her fingers froze in his mane. “Say that again.”
Hmmm. Maybe he should have waited a day or two for that detail.
While he was still flailing for something to say, she squatted down in front of him and stared him in the eye. “How often?”
He flinched at her tone but answered truthfully. “I’m not sure. My mother is a healer. She would have a better idea. Unfortunately, her memories weren’t that detailed.”
“Is this a ‘for life’ condition?”
“I think so, yes.”
“I need a time out.”
With those brisk words, she took herself over to the fallen tree shelter and sat down with her head on her drawn up knees.
She stayed like that for a long time.
With a dejected sigh, he sat on his haunches to give her the time she needed to cope with that new knowledge.
Then he napped, one ear cocked in her direction, so he’d know if she stirred.
But it wasn’t the sound of the human soldier stirring which dragged him from his sleep—no this was a tremendous droning tone that swiftly grew until it reverberated within his very bones.
The noise grew closer, and the human jumped to her feet and tilted her head back to study the sky.
Shadowlight flared his wings out, tensed his powerful haunches, and called his magic as he prepared to launch himself into the sky to face whatever enemy was bearing down on them.
“You may want to keep your feet firmly on the ground unless you enjoy a world of pain.” She shrugged. “Your choice, my friend, but those big boys are going to be armed to the teeth. Although, I don’t think they are after us. Moving too fast. They’ll overshoot us in....”
As if she’d synchronized the timing of her words to their flyover, seven mean-looking machines buzzed over their heads and were gone moments later.
“What were those?”
She looked him in the eyes. “Well, the two escorts were ours. The other five were United States Army. Things just got a whole lot more complex for you, my young friend.”
He gave her a questioning look.
She clarified. “They have more resources to hunt you down.”
“Are they from a neighboring kingdom?” he asked, growing concerned for his family’s well-being. His mother and father could hide easily enough. But Lillian and Gregory were known and couldn’t just vanish without drawing suspicion.
She arched an eyebrow at him. “You have so much to learn.”
He gave a little shrug, entirely unapologetic.
“I was just born three days ago.”
Her jaw dropped as she stared on, mute. Shadowlight left while she was still too shocked to waylay him with more questions. He had to find his family and make sure everyone was safe.
Chapter 16
“ARE YOU DONE YET?”
It was the fourth time Lillian had heard that question in the last two hours. The first time had been in the first drugstore she’d hit, the second in the long lineup at the coffee shop. The third complaint had been in the grocery store when two miniature tyrants—Gregory’s title for them—had rammed him in the hip with the cart. She’d sweetly promised him a special treat of his choosing if he didn’t decapitate the two boys.
They’d left the grocery store without further issue. Their silent tails, two dour looking military types, pretended to pick up a couple of things at the store as well.
When Lillian had driven away, she’d spotted their new friends following behind in an armored vehicle. Was that their attempt at undercover? Or maybe they just didn’t care if they were spotted.
She made a few more stops, and her tails followed faithfully. She was almost tempted to set Gregory upon them. She was sure he’d have enjoyed tormenting the humans.
It would distract Gregory, too. Which would be handy, she admitted as she pulled into the second drugstore’s parking lot.
She needed to pick up a couple more items for her peace of mind. The threat of pregnancy still hung over her head. Gregory hadn’t remembered anything from the night of the masquerade, but that wouldn’t help her if she was pregnant and began showing signs. Which brought her to her next issue. Being a gargoyle-dryad hybrid, she didn’t even know what the symptoms of pregnancy would be.
She didn’t have a monthly cycle like a human. Hers came once every three months. She’d always wondered about that, but Gran had said it was a normal genetic blip on her side of the family. Being young and naïve, she’d trusted Gran. Then again, who would have equated a longer cycle than usual with being a dryad-gargoyle hybrid?
“More stops?” Gregory asked, sounding grumpy.
Lillian got out of the car and came around to his side while he was still trying to extract himself from the vehicle. She leaned down and gave him a quick kiss on the lips while running her fingers along his tattoo. “I would say you could wait in the car, but...”
Gregory snorted without humor. “As if I’d leave you undefended.”
Yes, picking up a few pregnancy tests from the drugstore without Gregory knowing was going to be problematic.
Feeling ornery and flippant, she waved to her two tails a
s they pulled into the parking lot. Gregory gave them a toothy grin, and a wave as well.
Lillian marched into the drugstore and snatched up a basket as she ran through her mental list of things to pick up.
She figured if she grabbed lots of stuff, Gregory wouldn’t notice a few pregnancy tests among everything else. Not that he would know what they were anyway, but he could read, which gave her an idea as she walked past the magazine racks. She grabbed a local newspaper and gave it to Gregory. “Read it and let me know if there is anything interesting in there we may need to know.”
Gregory frowned but nodded and began to skim through the paper. Lillian continued her task with military efficiency and came to the aisle she needed. She didn’t pause to read or study the packages, instead grabbing three of each variety on the shelf.
The number would make the girl at the checkout do a triple take, but Lilian wasn’t sure when she’d have a chance to get more.
She knew gargoyles were warm-blooded and dryads had breasts, so they were mammals in theory. Also, dryads looked enough like humans that they probably had some shared ancestry somewhere far enough back on the evolutionary tree. She didn’t know if they were enough like humans for the test kits to be useful.
Personally, she doubted they’d be accurate, dryads and humans probably didn’t have the same hormones. In fact, it had only been two days since the incident so the tests wouldn’t show anything yet, anyway. She planned to use one tonight as a sort of baseline test, and then space the others out on a weekly basis to check for any changes. At least she hoped it would work, and she really hoped not to see any changes.
By her estimate, she was maybe two-thirds of the way through her fertility cycle, which once again, told her nothing.
Damn, she really needed an Idiot’s Guide to dryads with a bonus chapter on gargoyles.
Basket at her side, Gregory a few steps behind with his nose still buried in the newspaper, Lillian rounded the corner of the next aisle and nearly ran head-on into one of her friendly tails.
It was the taller of the two clones. Up close, she noted this one had brown eyes where the other guy possessed a lighter shade—hazel maybe?
She compressed her lips and then replaced the encroaching frown with a smile instead. “Nice day,” she said. “Enjoying the town?” Because really, what did one say to their tails?
“Ma’am,” Brown Eyes acknowledged and then glanced down in her basket.
His one eyebrow rose slightly. Yep, he was so adding the basket of pregnancy tests to his report. Damn. As long as he didn’t say anything in front of Gregory, she didn’t care.
“Well, I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again soon.” She sidestepped around Brown Eyes and nodded to military clone number two.
They didn’t stop her, so she continued toward the checkout. She was halfway there when the tattoo around her neck tingled and she realized Gregory hadn’t followed.
A glance over her shoulder showed him having a staring contest with the taller soldier. She sighed and briefly wondered if there was a sudden bout of testosterone poisoning sweeping through the town.
She ignored the tattoo’s second warning twinge and continued to the checkout. Eventually, Gregory returned to her side while she was bagging her purchases, but his attention was still for the two soldiers.
With a sigh, Lillian plucked the forgotten newspaper from his fingers and gave it to the cashier to add to the other items.
Without a word in exchange, and apparently Gregory being none the wiser about what she’d purchased, they returned to her car under the watchful gazes of her two tails.
She’d just slammed the trunk when she heard a loud rumble approaching. The sound increased in volume alarmingly quickly as seven heavy-bodied helicopters, which were armed to the teeth, tore through the skies overhead.
The townsfolk came out to gawk at the helicopters until they vanished behind the tree line.
She couldn’t be sure of their destination, but she’d bet the lower branches of her hamadryad, those helicopters were there to transport the prisoners to a more secure location.
She turned to Gregory and whispered, “We need to get home, now.”
“Yes,” he agreed but didn’t take his eyes off the place they’d last seen the helicopters before they’d vanished.
Chapter 17
BY THE TIME THEY MADE it back to the spa, Lillian had discovered everyone else was already home. Gregory stomped into the house loaded down with eight bags of groceries while she scooped up her own bags and ran them upstairs where she hid the pregnancy tests in her bathroom vanity. She was just headed back down the stairs when the second warning tingle crawled along her tattoo.
Gregory emerged from the kitchen, rubbing his own throat and watched her with a questioning look as she crossed the living room floor and returned to his side.
“Sorry,” she mumbled as she joined him. “I figured I could run the stuff upstairs and be back before the collars reacted.”
Gregory merely nodded and then added, “Darkness is in the kitchen. He has news.”
He didn’t say or do anything else to outwardly show his excitement, but she could sense it all the same.
The trip to town was almost too much for her poor gargoyle, and now he was clearly itching to do something dangerous.
She felt her own blood surge at the thought of danger, and she began to wonder if their DNA was coded to hunt out dangerous situations.
Rather like they equated danger with fun. Now she had to lump herself in with them.
She pushed open the kitchen door and was only halfway through when she was scooped up in another strong embrace.
“Father says I get to help with this mission.” Shadowlight vibrated with happiness. He spun Lillian around once and then put her down.
Her little brother made an aborted motion toward Gregory, who was still in human form, but her other half lifted an eyebrow in warning and bestowed a grim look upon the youngest gargoyle which promised pain to anyone foolish enough to attempt to pick him up.
Shadowlight dropped to all fours and butted Gregory in the stomach instead.
With a sigh, and a smile he couldn’t hide, he gave the youngster a few affectionate scratches before turning to the other gargoyle in the room.
Darkness stood in the corner of the kitchen with the most shadows. He wasn’t actively trying to hide. Perhaps it was just an unconscious instinct on his part.
Her mother stood off to the side, speaking with Gran and Jason. Gregory went straight to Darkness. Lillian joined them.
“Those loud flying machines landed at the humans’ camp,” Darkness was saying. “I overheard one pilot,” he hesitated over the foreign word before continuing, “Say to another member of his team he had orders to be back in the air within the hour.”
“Not long,” Gregory chimed in. “They must be planning to move our people.”
“There was a flurry of activity at the base. I agree. They will move your allies soon.”
Lillian glanced out the window, eyeing the sun as it started its descent toward the horizon. She knew Gregory and Darkness were able to hide even while the sun was still high. Shadowlight she wasn’t so sure about. Though, he was a proper gargoyle and had inherited their father’s memories and skills to a much greater degree than she had. He, too, might be able to hide while the sun was still high.
Lillian knew she wasn’t ready to infiltrate the base again so soon but didn’t see another option. “We have to get them out. Now. In the daylight.”
Gregory nodded. “The base is too well guarded. We’ll take them on the wing.”
Darkness nodded agreement, and they both went over to Gran.
Lillian was left standing with Shadowlight, who leaned against her, happy to be included in the hunt. She finally found her voice and chased after Gregory so quickly, she heard Shadowlight lose his balance and stumble into the cupboard door next to where she’d been standing a moment ago. He made a disgruntled sound but bounded after h
er.
“You can’t be planning to attack those helicopters. It’s suicide to even think to try.”
Gregory huffed. “They won’t expect an attack on the wing. Nor will they be able to see or hear us coming. This way we won’t have to deal with the entire armed camp. Just what those machines can carry.”
Lillian’s stomach fluttered nervously. “Those things house weapons Gregory, ones like the guns the soldiers carry, but the ones strapped to the helicopters will be bigger and meaner.”
“We know of these things now and can use shielding magic against them.”
“And how do you propose we go about catching them once they’re in the air? Kind of hard to rescue our friends if we can’t even catch them.”
Darkness tilted his head in her direction, and she had the distinct impression he was translating her words in his mind into something he understood. “Oh, but gargoyles can match speed with those things, and if we dive from a much higher vantage point—”
“You’ll get sliced to ribbons,” Lillian cut in.
Her father’s look of disdain didn’t earn him any sympathy from her, but he continued anyway. “I saw how those things keep themselves up. It will be no great challenge to bring them down. If getting close proves too dangerous we can do it from afar. Gargoyle magic is adaptable. Those machines are not.”
“We can’t bring them down. Whitethorn and Goswin wouldn’t survive, and the humans are just doing their jobs.”
Gregory placed a hand on Lillian’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “We don't need to harm the humans, but you need to trust me. I am not underestimating the humans, and you should know by now I would not embark upon this quest if I thought you would be placed in unnecessary danger.” He gestured to Darkness. “That’s why I’ve asked your father to do a partial memory transfer so you’ll have the skills and knowledge you’ll need for this mission.”
Oh, he made it sound so reasonable, but she couldn’t help thinking about all the ways this attempt could end in painful disaster.
The Complete Gargoyle and Sorceress Boxset (Books 1-9) Page 62