Locked in Stone

by Tory Michaels

  The knots bound in her belly loosened at the words. “Oh.”

  “And yeah. No more pushing you away.” He traced his lips with his pointer finger before leaning forward for another hard kiss. “But we will have to talk. I mean really talk. Set boundaries and all that. Like not using you as bait again.”

  She dug her teeth into her lower lip, automatically bristling at the notion of being told what to do. Then again…Damn it, he was right. “Fine, fine,” she offered, placating him. Give him a little, and maybe he’d give a little. “But only if you swear you won’t lock me away in this mausoleum. Anyuka was a warrior and fought for the gargoyles. I want to be like her.”

  Something strange flickered across his eyes before he rested his forehead against hers. “Deal. Anniko wouldn’t have let me shut her out either. She came to me in the Nexus, you know.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “What?”

  “Said that she was able to come because of you.” He held up the hand marked with the Horus symbol. “I guess this is what she meant. My blood mixed with yours gave her a link to me.”

  Who would ever have thought that just bonding with him in this world would make something like that happen elsewhere? God, the world was a weird place when dealing with Sentinels. She was never going to get used to it.

  But she had the rest of her life, right?

  Cal trailed his fingers along her collarbone and she shivered, feeling goose bumps trail in the wake of his touch. More. She wanted more and leaned forward to press a kiss to the new scar, reveled in his answering tremor.

  “Forgive me for being an idiot on the plane?”

  “For trying to bullshit me about staying away?” She poked him in the ribs. “Why did you do it? Seriously! Did you really think you could get rid of me that easily?”

  He groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Chalk it up to me being a total dumbass. I wanted to protect you. I thought…well, let’s just leave it at I was a fool.” The hand in her hair slid farther south and traced down her back until his fingers curved around her butt. His following squeeze nearly sent her eyes rolling up in her head.

  “Don’t be an idiot again, Cal.”

  “No worries there.”

  He rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes.

  He was so warm, so solid and very much alive. If she wasn’t half afraid Mr. Ray might walk back in, or that Cal might still be weak from blood he’d shed and which now stained the carpet behind them, she’d start pulling his clothes off. Damn, she’d never had sex and suddenly she couldn’t wait to finally try it.

  Was that what bonding did to a gargoyle?

  Nah, no way. No way, given Dennis and Lucas were bonded.

  At least she hoped not. She definitely needed to go back and read more in the binder about the Sentinels.

  “I’m never letting you out of my sight again though, Rose. Never. I still shudder at the thought of what could have happened because I let you go to California.”

  She felt her mouth turn up even as aggravation at his words ground deep. “You let me? Get this straight, Calhoun Levesque.” She opened her eyes and jabbed him with her finger. Because of his recent trials, she’d save jabbing him with her chopstick for another opportunity. “You better get rid of the phrase ‘I let you’ when it comes to me. I will continue to do what I need to do. Just like you will.” She offered him a huge smile. “But no more being bait. I choose not to be bait. Make sure it’s clear in that skull of yours that it’s not because you said I couldn’t be.”

  His eyes had opened when she poked him and heat entered his expression. He linked the fingers of their right hands and cupped her chin in his left. “Agreed. We’ll plan together in the future, and work out the details as we go along.”

  She nodded and curled her face into his hand. It would take some practice, but she could definitely get into working as part of a team. When Lucifer came, they’d fight together. “We’re a team.”

  And then, because there wasn’t anything else she wanted to say, she kissed him again and decided she didn’t give a damn if Mr. Ray walked in right then. Nothing had ever felt so perfect in her life.

  She was home and Cal, one of those “damned, useless Sentinels,” was all hers.

  Long live the Protectorate.

  Epilogue

  Three days later

  Lying flat on the roof of the crudely built hut once more, Cal’s fingers tightened on his rifle, his quarry just coming into view. Tragically, it wasn’t Lucas, but it was still damned good hunting. The big bastard deserved what he had coming to him.

  The target moved closer.

  That’s it. Come to me, big boy.

  Dennis crept through the open field approximately one hundred fifty feet from him, weapon held close as the gargoyle searched for him. They were at the paintball grounds for a little night-op training while people at Central continued chasing any possible leads on Serenity. Tom had been “killed” early on in the match, unfortunately, and he’d been one of the prime reasons Cal had set up this little exercise. He’d have to work with the ex-Casper to get him up to speed.

  He let out his breath and made a minute correction to his aim. The crosshairs of the scope aligned dead center on Dennis’s chest.

  His eyes narrowed in concentration.

  Three.

  Two.

  A solid missile slammed into his butt before he pulled the trigger, claws digging into his back as a feminine voice sang out, “You’re dead, Cal.”

  Despite the little trickle of blood from where her talons gripped him a shade too hard, Cal’s mouth stretched into a grin. “That’s cheating, Rose. Flying’s not in the rules.”

  Leather fluttered and her foot moved. He rolled to his back and leered at the long legs topped off by a short skirt that he saw right up, given his position on the ground.

  Rose’s wings settled around her shoulders and she tossed her head to flip her braid down her back. Her full lips turned up with a smirk. “You’re right. Flying is neither prohibited nor expressly allowed.” She knelt over him, resting her hands on his shoulders to pin him, quite gently, to the roof. “Not my fault you silly Sentinels didn’t consider all our abilities.”

  In all fairness, he’d never taken the gargoyles out for a paintball game before. That had always been a purely daylight activity. He chuckled and called out, “I yield.”

  As usual, he’d been the last member of his team standing, or laying down, as the case might be.

  “I like hearing that,” Rose murmured before she leaned forward, her head tilting to one side. He met her halfway in a slow kiss. When it broke, she snickered. “You should yield more often.”

  Cal touched her cheek gently. “For you, I yield anything.”

  She bit her lip, then cupped her hand over his, holding it against her face. Her lips parted to say something, but his butt chose that second to buzz. He jerked, startled out of the moment by his cellphone in his back pocket.

  Crap, he had to answer it. Lucas was on patrol, which left him with the device in case of emergencies.

  He hoisted himself up enough to grab the phone, sneaking one more kiss as he yanked the device into range. It continued to buzz and he recognized Ang’s number on the display. Was there some new crisis?

  “Levesque,” he said after hitting the connect button.

  “Cal, good. Glad you answered.”

  He always answered when he was on phone duty. He rolled his eyes at Rose, who grinned and swung her leg over so she could sit next to him while he talked.

  “What’s up?”

  “I, uh, I think you need to get back down to Orlando, ASAP.”

  Every nerve ending leaped to awareness. Ang sounded positively rattled and given she’d been with the Protectorate longer than Cal had been alive, that took quite some doing.

  “Calm down and tell me what’s wrong?”

  “You remember the Masters, right?”

  “Corpse couple sacrificed to open the T’chan, yeah, of cour
se.” Rose frowned and pressed up against him to better hear the conversation. He wrapped his arm around her bulky shoulders to make it easier on her.

  “Well, their daughter showed up to claim their bodies from the police today. I’m sending you a picture of her right now. A contact at the police station sent it to me.”

  The phone buzzed in his hand. He took the cell from his ear and studied the picture on the screen. A cute redhead, big eyes, and a sad expression on her gentle face.

  “Okay, what am I looking at?”

  “That’s Daughter Masters. See anything interesting about her?”

  He studied the picture. The girl looked to be somewhere in her mid-twenties and wore a tank top of dark blue. Rose sucked in a startled breath and he blinked at the same instant, bringing the phone closer as he enlarged a portion of the picture.

  “No…” Rose whispered. “It’s impossible.”

  A trail of silver and gold lines tracked down the young woman’s arms in an exquisite tattoo.

  He met Rose’s stunned expression and knew she was thinking exactly what he was. “But…Serenity had blonde hair.” He swallowed. Serenity’s markings had been on her belly, not her arms.

  Only one of the triplets had been marked on her arms. Cal remembered more than one picnic with the girls where they’d been running around in bathing suits, so he’d seen all of their markings multiple times.

  Somehow, some way, all three of the girls had survived the massacre. Gwen hadn’t been lying about rescuing Serenity, even if she’d dumped her somewhere along the way. And Aurora had ended up with a couple sacrificed to open a T’chan.

  “We better go,” Rose croaked. “That’s Rory. I’d bet my life on it.”

  So would Cal. “I’m calling Lucas,” he said into the phone, and cut Ang off.

  In the darkness left behind by the call ending, the two of them stared at each other. He gripped Rose tight as anticipation threw his heart rate into high gear. “We have a Queen.”

  Her smile lit up the night. “My sister’s alive.” Her fingers tightened around his shoulders to the point where he wanted to protest, but he wasn’t going to ruin her excitement. “If she’s alive, and if we can find Reny, we could just get the Rift closed after all!”

  He leaped to his feet and pulled her close for a kiss. They might just have a chance.

  “Let’s get to Orlando.”

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  Acknowledgments

  Books take a team effort (cliché, I know) and this one is no exception. I never could have finished this without my awesome crit partner and fellow brainstormer, Angelyn S. She never gave up on my gargoyles, and sat through umpteen million drafts of Locked. She has my eternal gratitude

  Also – can’t leave out Mr. Michaels – on more than one occasion he let me ignore our offspring so I could work on this book.

  Finally – I have to pay tribute to Gargoyles: The Series. Without Demona, Goliath, and the rest of the clan as a solid part of my youth, I don’t know if I could have ever given birth to my version of gargoyles.

  About the Author

  Originally from the Sacramento Valley, Tory packed up and moved all the way to Southwest Florida in 2004 with her husband (a Florida native). She loves music, considers herself a ‘book slut’ whose reading habits would break her family financially if given free reign, and is (usually) delighted to be a mommy of twin Shrimpettes Jackie and Sammie, and not-so-much-a-shrimp-anymore Garrett.

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