He snapped fully alert then. No, that wasn’t his body’s weariness trying to woo him back to sleep. It was most certainly the drags of an enchantment, one very powerful one, too. Ah, yes Tethys, a demigod of the ocean. The spell had been broken. Only a few fragments remained, but it was no wonder why he’d slept. That spell was no trifling thing.
Another scan of Lillian showed she wasn’t under the siren sway, though there was some residue from where Tethys had tried to enslave her. Shame flared to life in his heart, remembering how he’d chased Lillian down like a deer. Well, not a deer, she’d put up a fight worthy of any gargoyle, and he was a little proud she’d been able to out run him for well over two hours. Her speed and stamina would only grow with practice and time.
Hearing was the next sense to sharpen, and he tracked Lillian as she rose from her crouch and paced over to him. He detected another emotion he hadn’t noticed earlier. Anxiety. He reached farther and found her mind, her thoughts and emotions coming to him.
Her distress and worry was over something she’d done—worry that he’d be angry and never forgive her for a rash mistake.
Gregory jerked awake fully, bolting upright to discover what was causing his beloved so much stress.
And he choked on his first deep breath.
The second wasn’t any better.
Glancing down at himself, he found he was coated in a layer of the vilest smelling mud he’d ever had the misfortune to encounter in all his lifetimes. Merciful Father, what had he been doing? Rolling in a bog?
His gaze sought Lillian, looking for an answer to this, since he didn’t remember how it had come about.
Come to think of it, there were a few other holes in his memory. He remembered the siren, and hunting Lillian, capturing her and then losing her—to another gargoyle! Lillian’s parents had come to her aid. Against him.
Had she called them?
He feared she must have.
“Hello, how are you feeling?” Lillian asked, her voice held an edge of uncertainty.
“Like I’ve been stomped on by the Lord of the Underworld,” he answered her truthfully. What had happened? He hardly dared to breathe, for more than the obvious reason. It couldn’t be good if Lillian was acting skittish around him.
“Fancy you should mention him. He might be the only one able to save us from my stupidity.”
Lillian ducked her head and swallowed hard, he could see the muscles working in her throat and could smell her guilt even over the stench of the bog mud. Why in light’s name was he covered in the sticky crap?
He refocused his attention on Lillian and said, “Tell me what has happened,” instead of the ‘what have you done, now?’ that he wanted to ask. Over and over, throughout their many lifetimes, he’d always bowed to her command in every facet of their lives except when it came to her protection. In that, his word was law. And she’d always bowed to his demands without question.
But not in this lifetime. This time around she repeatedly tried to protect him when she judged him to be in danger, every time at the expense of her own safety. On one hand, he secretly admired her for she valiantly defended those she loved, but on the other hand, she was going to give him a stroke. He’d played with the idea of tying her up to keep her out of trouble upon a few occasions this lifetime already.
By her expression, she’d found her way into another great steaming pile of trouble.
Perhaps he should put serious thought into tying her up for her own protection.
Lillian’s eyes narrowed.
“I caught that one,” she said with a spark of anger, then seemed to change her mind and came over and hugged him. “Maybe you should in the future if we survive this.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“You know,” she said in a weak voice. “Tie me up for safety’s sake. You’re going to hate me, and I’ll deserve that hate.”
He was about to say that was nonsense, but she tilted her chin up and brushed her mane back from her neck and he saw it.
It circled her neck, the golden glow of its spell shimmered ever so slightly in the moonlight.
****
With equal parts shock, horror and disbelief, Gregory reached up and touched the twin to Lillian’s tattoo where it circled his own neck. At his touch, the wardspells flamed briefly but didn’t cause pain or otherwise incapacitate him.
The stirring of power was more of a warning. One Gregory acknowledged by moving his fingers away from the slightly raised skin.
“Lillian,” he pitched his voice low, holding steel in the tone. He needed answers not evasions, or worse, apologies. “Tell me what happened. Tell me everything. Leave out no details. It might mean our survival.”
Lillian swallowed nervously, but she started to speak, haltingly at first, and then with more certainty. “I’ll tell you what I remember and what I think I know.” She paused and fidgeted with the tattoo around her own neck. “There were times when things became foggy. The siren almost rolled me under with her tidal power more than once. I only escaped because you fought, and she had to turn all her attention back to you or risk losing us both.”
What she told him coincided with the few snippets he did remember when he wasn’t fully under Tethys’ control. He still didn’t relax since nothing she’d said even remotely hinted at an explanation about the powerful weaving circling their necks.
She continued her tale, and Gregory interrupted at key parts for clarification. A hollow pit opened up in his middle where his stomach should have resided. He’d never been ill a day in any of his lives, but for the first time he thought he just might discover what it felt like to heave up one’s last meal.
Lillian described how she’d escaped from the siren through the help of a spell laid upon her by her grandmother.
Gregory’s emotions churned within him, hopelessly out of his control—part guilt that he hadn’t been strong enough to fight off the siren’s spell, and part anger over the fact her grandmother had led Lillian into danger in the first place. What was Vivian thinking?
“Why didn’t you stay away where you would have been safe? Why must you always act so rashly?” The words flowed out of him. He hadn’t meant for it to happen, but more came flying out. “Had you only gone to ground somewhere, I would have remained as stone, out of the siren’s reach.”
Lillian jerked like he’d slapped her. Then her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. With her tail flicking in agitation, her anger was impossible to miss. “Well forgive me for caring, I was concerned,” she snapped her teeth at him, her wings unfurrowing as if she prepared for a physical fight. “Tethys was enslaving everyone in sight.”
“And you, what? Thought it would be a good idea to make it easier to get to me through you.”
“You’re being an ass,” she said and whirled away from him and then spun around and slapped him on the chest. “How dare you judge me? If our positions had been reversed, you would have run to my side without a second thought, even if I’d been standing upon the steps leading up to the Lady of Battles’ bloody throne. So you don’t get to judge me for coming to your rescue.”
“I protect you. It’s my purpose.”
“Says who? Did the Father sit you down on his knee when you were a mere speck of power and tell you that was your role?”
“It was implied!”
“Ha. I call bullshit! We’re two halves of the same being, equal in power and purpose.” She smacked him along one arm for emphasis. “I bet in the beginning we were more similar than we were different. How could we not. We were one creature. Did our separate personalities develop over time? It makes sense in a way. You always choose to be born as a gargoyle, whereas, from what you’ve said in the past, I’m more varied in my choice of forms. You’re stuck in a rut. Always choosing to be a gargoyle, imbibing more and more of their nature into your own. Gargoyles are protective by their very nature, it’s hardwired into them, and it’s becoming hardwired into you. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me to my face without lying. Go on tel
l me.”
“Why must you question everything? Can’t you just do what you’re told?”
“Do what I’m told? Like a child! Is that what you think I am? I’m twenty-one. By human standards, I am an adult. Start treating me like one.”
Gregory slapped his ears flat against his mane. “I’ll start treating you as an adult when your actions show a rational, mature reasoning behind them. Choosing agents belonging to the Lady of Battles over Tethys is not a mistake my Sorceress would ever have made.”
“Well, I’m not your Sorceress, am I? I don’t have her memories or her magic. I don’t even possess her soul at the moment. My hamadryad stripped me of all that. Even she didn’t think I was worthy.” Her voice quivered and she turned from him.
“Lillian, it’s not…that’s not what I meant.”
“But it’s still true. An ugly truth, but true all the same.”
“No,” Gregory said, feeling again that sick heaviness in his middle, but for different reasons this time. His words had harmed her, and he would do anything to take back that pain. “Your spirit is beautiful. You’re brave, noble and protect those you love with everything within you. Perhaps you’re not, at present, the Mother’s Avatar, but you are and always will be my Sorceress.”
Lillian turned back to him. “But I lack her power and we sorely need it.”
She fell silent and so did he. In good faith, he couldn’t contradict her.
“We’re supposed to be equals, Gregory. But we’re not.”
He sighed, feeling cold seep into his body. “I know.”
She gripped his chin and lifted it until his gaze was level with her throat. “I may not be the Mother’s Sorceress at the moment, but as a mature adult, I accept that this,” she touched the tattoo-like brand, “is one hundred percent my fault, and the stupidest thing I’ve ever done and that it might get us killed. I gambled and lost. Yep. My epic fail. But I had to try to get you away from Tethys. She was going to use you, use us, to kill humans by the millions.”
“All the Magic Realm will suffer if the Lady of Battles can now command us.”
Lillian flashed fang. “So save the Magic Realm and screw all the humans in the Mortal Realm?” she sounded more tired than angry, or perhaps defeated was a better word. He could understand that emotion.
He shook his head, his own anger and frustration spent. “All the Realms will suffer equally under the Battle Goddess’s rule.”
“Okay, that’s a trump. You win this round.” Lillian drew in a big breath, her shoulders squaring, and with a little shake, she seemed to rid herself of her weariness. “We’ll just have to defeat her, but first we need to free our allies from the siren. As I see it, I tossed a wrench in her plans. I’m free of her influence and, now, so are you.” She gestured at him. “You’re coherent and capable of logical thought. Which, I might add, you couldn’t have claimed two hours ago.”
Gregory drew in a deep breath, and let it out again. He couldn’t really counter her argument this time either. He had been, without a doubt, firmly under the siren’s sway.
Oh, but he knew in his gut Tethys would have been a better choice for the greater good of all. “It shames me I failed you so badly, that you were forced to make such a terrible choice to begin with.”
Lillian took three swift steps toward him, and then she was hugging him with all the strength in her arms, even her wings came up to encircle him. “Can we stop raking ourselves and each other over the coals for a while?”
“Yes.” He hugged her back, the act giving him much needed comfort.
“Promise?”
“Yes,” he rumbled, “And, Lillian, it is you as you are now, sweet and rash dryad and fierce and equally rash gargoyle, who has captured my heart. You, not the Sorceress of old, which I fell in love with all over again in this life.”
“I love you, too.” She held him in her fierce grip for a few minutes more. “Would it be naïve of me to hope the villains will take a break for a while, long enough to figure out an action plan?”
Gregory barely refrained from snorting in humor. Instead, he said, “Tell me more about your family, and everything they said about the collars they gave you.”
****
After questioning Lillian twice, he debated what he’d learned for some minutes. When she talked about her parents, it was with a bitter tone, though it soften when she mentioned the unknown brother.
Clearly, she had come to the conclusion that her parents had, in the end, purposely betrayed her.
Gregory was not so sure now. Not after learning more about the collars. From the little he had gathered based on his long experience with magic and his enemy’s tactics, the physical collars were merely designed to carry the true enslavement spell—the ones designed to merge with body and spirit. It was an ingenious way to insure that the victim could not simply cut off or use magic to otherwise remove a physical collar.
What made Gregory think Lillian’s parents were innocent, was that the collars, at least the physical ones, had disappeared within seconds of attachment. He could only surmise that the solid collars were designed to return the wearer back to the Magic Realm, probably to some dark chamber deep within the Battle Goddess’s temple.
That he and Lillian were presently still here in the Mortal Realm instead of enjoying the dark twin’s hospitality, might mean that Lillian’s father had tampered with the collars as he’d said, changing the spells woven into them, thereby preventing Lillian and himself from falling victim to the Lady of Battles—at least not this day.
Of course, they still had the secondary spell burned into their skin like a brand. But that in itself didn’t prove malicious intent on the part of Lillian’s father. In fact, the spell was very similar to the type of magic his adversary had used to graft the demon seed onto Lillian’s soul.
And he had very nearly missed that spell’s existence until it was too late. The other gargoyle could have overlooked a well-hidden secondary spell.
However, he wasn’t telling Lillian any of his theories yet. She’d already been hurt enough, he wouldn’t intentionally give her false hope, only to cause her more pain later.
In the end, the only way to learn the newcomers’ intentions was to confront them and use magic to learn if they spoke the truth.
His plan had only one glaring problem.
He couldn’t call on his magic. It was walled off, out of reach for now. He had a sneaking suspicion only Lillian’s command could now unlock that power.
They hadn’t tested that theory yet. Gregory was reluctant to try, fearing any order might open up a mind-link between them, which, with his thoughts so focused on her parents, could only give away more about his theories than he wanted to risk at the moment.
And that, as Lillian would say, was a catch 22.
His eyes narrowed in displeasure.
He hated human sayings. They were more contagious than common ailments.
Looking over at Lillian where she sat on a fallen log, he wondered if they dared risk finding out what the ward spell would and wouldn’t allow them to get away with.
One of the first things he found was that the spells wouldn’t let them travel more than twenty feet apart, which suited Gregory fine.
Lillian wouldn’t be able to get into trouble without him knowing about it, and the forced proximity might allow him to find out just what Lillian was keeping from him.
She was still visibly upset by today’s events. Her tale had been fairly detailed, except for a few parts, like the times when she’d almost fallen prey to the siren’s song and later when the collars activated.
By all accounts, Lillian’s distress was justified but he still couldn’t shake the feeling something was off.
What wasn’t ‘off’ about this situation? With a mental shake, he gave a great huffing cough.
Regrettably, that action graced him with a big whiff of his own scent.
Mercy, that stink certainly didn’t mellow with age. Even with the mud now mostly dry, it wa
s still breathtakingly terrible.
The sound of distant hoof beats reached Gregory’s ears and they swung around to the south, tracking the sound as it grew closer.
“Now what?” Lillian asked, echoing his own silent thought.
Honestly, Gregory didn’t know.
Though by the sound, the hoof beats came from two different equines. His pooka and unicorn allies seemed always capable of finding him, even when he didn’t particularly want to be found.
This time, he couldn’t assume they were coming to his aid.
Chapter Thirty
From his hiding spot in the deepest shadows underneath the boughs of a young fir where even the light of the full moon couldn’t touch, Gregory watched and waited. No more than ten feet from the same tree line, his other half sat in a patch of moonlight, intentionally badly hidden in the waist high grasses.
It was Lillian’s idea to act as bait.
He hated it, but agreed only because it was the best way to observe the two equines and judge whether they were presently still his allies in truth.
Besides, he mentally reassured himself, I’m close enough to protect Lillian.
Even without using his Avatar magic, which he feared to use until he learned more about the tattoo around his neck, he was still more than capable of taking out both the unicorn and the pooka should that be required.
He sincerely hoped it didn’t come to that.
A glimmer of silver between the trees quickly resolved itself into the unicorn. He galloped into the meadow and stopped when he spotted Lillian.
He approached her with a nicker, and craned his neck to sniff at her. “You’re not actually trying to hide, are you?”
“Yes,” Lillian said and Gregory watched as she slapped playfully at the unicorn’s muzzle.
Sorceress Rising (A Gargoyle and Sorceress Tale Book 2) Page 21