Obviously, he considered her natural smell to be an improvement over dried blood and gore. “You’re certainly friendly.” She mumbled into his chest. Mumbling was all she was able to do with his arms locked around her; his chest may as well have been made of stone. She should have been screaming and fighting, driven by panic. But she wasn’t. She trusted him without question.
He shifted her in his arms as he folded his wings against his back. Then he unbalanced her more, reaching for something on the table behind her.
“You could let me go; I can stand on my own. I won’t even run away. Promise.” Her words went unanswered.
A loaf of bread appeared an inch in front of her face.
“Okay. A little room, please.” She shoved at his chest. After the third time, he seemed to get the point and allowed her to put a little space between them. She was still locked in the circle of his arms, but at least now she could take a deep breath without cracking a rib. He gestured with the bread again.
“Persistent fella, aren’t you.” She could stand there all night with a loaf of bread bombarding her face, or she could take the food. She accepted the loaf and tore a chunk off, cave–woman style.
When she dutifully started to chew, he gestured for her to eat more. She swallowed and took another bite. He nodded his head and released her. Somehow it didn’t surprise her he’d be pleased by her compliance.
When she finished her chunk, he tried to get her to eat more. “Sorry, no.” She shook her head and hoped he would understand.
He gestured again.
“Not unless you plan to force feed me.” She crossed her arms and glared at him. “I have questions. To start, what’s your name?” She pointed to him and he grasped her hand. His head tilted to one side and his ears flicked forward than back.
Lillian sighed. This is going to be a long day.
She tugged on her hand until he released her. While pretending to brush at crumbs, she stepped out of his personal space. He didn’t follow her, so she walked over to the sink and filled the tea kettle with water—all the while fighting the urge to turn around. After she placed the kettle on the element, she glanced out the window. Her breath caught. Bodies slumped near the maze. How had she forgotten about them?
Seeing them again, the horror rushed back. But unlike the first time, her mind was sharper, and now a greater concern wormed its way into her mind. Her family would be home soon, and there could be more of those monsters outside somewhere. A spike of dread lanced her insides.
Her back muscles clinched into knots, winding tighter by the minute, and her jaw ached with the need to do something. If she called her family and told them to stay away, they would only rush home faster. She chewed the corner of her lip.
“Lillian.”
That voice again, lulling as the night breeze. His arms enclosed her from behind and her moment of panic dissipated. Of course he had killed all the monsters. Her gargoyle would never let them hurt her family.
Interesting. If she was in physical contact with him, calmness engulfed her, but when he was away, something rose within her … fear or panic, she wasn’t sure which, but either reaction was concerning.
Was he controlling her thoughts, her emotions? Doubts grew and she again stepped away from him to think. He let her go.
The kettle’s shrill whistle startled her. The gargoyle leapt into action. He swept her up into his arms and spun in a circle, seeking the source of the noise. His talons poised to rend his enemies.
“Easy,” she soothed. “Whoa. It’s alright.” She placed her hands flat against his muzzle, and eased them up to his temple. The room swam, blurring with motion. When her vision cleared, the ground was a greater distance away, the room smaller, claustrophobic. Her horns rasped against the ceiling unpleasantly. Tail lashing in agitation at the shrill sound hurting her ears, she looked to the small object causing the noise and backhanded it. It sailed across the room and landed with a clatter, but at least the horrid noise bouncing around the room died off.
“Holy shit!” Lillian jerked her hand away from where it rested against his temple and the stream of sensations coming from the gargoyle slowed. “What the heck?”
She twisted in his arms and pushed at his chest in an attempt to slip free. When that failed, she slumped against him. He still didn’t release her, but at least the strange parade of foreign sensations stopped.
“Okay,” she said, more to calm herself than him. “We need ground rules. No more of the mind–merging crap. I don’t want to ever know what it feels like for my horns to scrap the ceiling ever again, nor do I want to discover anything else deeply personal about you either by accident or intention on your part. Hands off until you can keep that under wraps.”
A soft whine issued from his throat as he bumped his muzzle under her hand a second time. Warmth and contentment, like a deep radiating sense of peace she’d never known before, surrounded her. Then it was shattered. Accompanying the new sensation was the image of the whistling teakettle. Foolishness. Embarrassment. Regret.
After a moment, she understood he was using touch to communicate, trying to apologize for his rash behavior. He’d been caught off guard by the shrill teakettle. He’d thought it was an attack. She might have found it funny if it wasn’t unfolding in her kitchen.
By way of apology, the gargoyle retrieved the teakettle and refilled it with water and placed it back over the element. Then he returned to her side and watched in his silent way.
His ears flicked forward, and back—like a horse listening for reassurance in his rider’s voice. A gargoyle with insecurity issues?
“I’m sorry,” she said in a calmer voice. “I get pissy when I’m scared. And I was more scared today than any time in my life.” She took one of his larger hands into both of hers, hoping he could pick up on her emotions like she had his, and concentrated on projecting her feelings of gratitude and the lessening of her fear. “You saved my life, healed me. I can’t even begin to figure out how or why, but I’m alive and you seem genuinely interested in keeping me that way. The least I can do is hear you out.”
Now, her day would improve if she could find a way to communicate in complex sentences. His touchy–feely voodoo gave her an idea. She intertwined her fingers with his—she felt like a child; his one hand could engulf both of hers without difficulty and his claws … huge didn’t do them justice. But for all his massive strength and formidable weaponry, he hadn’t harmed her. She patted his hand, and then tugged him in the direction of the cupboard over the kitchen sink. Pulling out a package of English Breakfast tea, she held it out to him. He blinked at her, but dutifully sniffed at the packaging. “Tea,” she said, giving it a little shake.
She took a teabag and dropped in the teapot, then poured the boiling water in after. Next she showed him how the stove worked. He absorbed knowledge with an unreasonable quickness, and she wondered if his magic was aiding him in some way, or if he was able to pick the meaning of her words from her mind directly. Whatever the case, in less than a half–an–hour he was pointing at random objects in the kitchen and saying the words and demonstrating how they worked. From the kitchen, they moved to the living room and then to the other parts of the house. The TV and stereo he didn’t understand, but at least he didn’t try to “kill” the television like he had the teakettle.
****
After an hour the gargoyle could recite a couple hundred words; she was mildly envious of his ability to learn so quickly. Sentences were still beyond him, but that was probably her lack as a teacher. She didn’t know how to teach him something she couldn’t show or demonstrate.
Since she was growing tired of think of him as “gargoyle” she’d tried to persuade him into revealing his name without any luck. Frustrated, she tried again, slapping her hand against her chest. “Lillian.” Then she pointed at him.
He blinked at her, and nodded, giving her a flash of teeth. He found it funny; he was laughing at her. Great.
The tip of his tail flicked like a cat
’s, and he leaned down and licked her across the cheek. She sputtered and growled other nasty words. His grin stretched further, showing white curving teeth. His tongue darted out again, catching her across the ear. “Lillian,” he rumbled.
“I know my name, Sherlock.” She pointed at him again. “Do you have one?”
“Yours,” he said, his expression turning serious. He bowed until his horns touched the ground and his wings pooled around him like a silk cloak. “I am yours.”
Chapter Six
A deep laugh rumbled in his chest at his lady’s expression. When he laid a finger under her chin and closed her mouth, her teeth came together with a soft click. The sound must have galvanized her, for she snapped out of her stupor.
“Yours? As in mine—like you belong to me? I … I don’t … I … Wait one minute. You can speak perfect English.” She folded her arms under her breasts and stood there attempting to stare him down. “You’ve been holding out on me. After that info bomb, you can’t stand there all silent and stoic.”
He’d come to understand she’d wanted to know his name a while ago, and after the second time she’d touch her mind to his, he’d been able to read her thoughts. Her memories were his now. He understood her language as well as she did. The word games weren’t necessary, but they gave him a chance to study her, and since she thought she needed to touch him so he could pick up her thoughts, she’d held his hand for the majority of the time. He found he craved contact after years locked in stone.
“I am your protector. It’s your right to give me my name. What would you have of me, my Mistress?” he asked.
“Mistress?” She sucked in a breath, held it a moment, and then expelled it thought her teeth, her expression thoughtful. “Okay, you’re really going to have to explain the mistress thing to me, and answer some questions.”
Remaining silent, he tried and failed to come up with words to erase his drastic tactical error. He should have known she’d have questions; ones to which she wasn’t ready to hear the answers. Lillian, the Mother’s Sorceress, avatar of the Goddess—an avatar without knowledge of her past or what she was capable of—a very dangerous situation.
She cleared her throat. “First question—you saved me. Why? Who am I, and what am I to you? Those creatures, why did they attack me? What do you … ?” She let the sentence die as her eyes widened. “You know something about my childhood. Please, if you have knowledge … I need to know. It’s all a blank void to me. Please.” Her voice softened on the last ‘please’.
Blinded by his joy at saving her, he hadn’t fully thought out the dangers. While he no longer detected the scent of corruption on her, he couldn’t forget where he’d found her. Eight years she’d been raised by the Lady of Battles. There was no telling the long–term damage the Lady had inflicted on her. Stripping Lillian’s memories had not undone the dark goddess’ work. At best, it had bought him a little time, long enough for Lillian to mature.
Lillian’s expression of desperate yearning changed to a frown when she realized he wasn’t going to say anything more. “Oh, don’t think you can play ‘mute beast’ now. I heard full sentences come out that muzzle of yours.”
He recalled she’d said she got “pissy” when she was scared or things didn’t go her way. “Pissy” was a good word for the way she stood with her hands fisted at her sides and her narrowed eyes tracking him like an enraged bear’s.
Now was not a good time to explain. She was already under enough stress.
“Talk.” She hissed something else under her breath which sounded like no more handholding and paced away from him.
She was adapting too quickly, her agile mind thinking up too many questions. It would make hiding the truth harder, and he didn’t actually want there to be falsehoods between them, but he needed more time to understand what had been done to her as a child. There were too many unknowns. And for every uncertainty, new dangers could arise.
She exhaled a deep sigh. “Okay. Trust goes two ways, and I gather you’re not comfortable talking about everything yet.” He heard her heart rate slow as she calmed. “Fine, we’ll take it slow. No pressure. What would you like to talk about?”
“My name,” he replied.
“Wasn’t that what I was doing before you blurted the ‘mistress’ thing?” She sighed out a long, frustrated sound.
He couldn’t prevent the corners of his lips from curling away from his teeth so he dipped his head down in a bow, hiding his expression. “The Sorceress has always named me.”
“Right, so what? She was negligent?”
He tilted his head to the side, puzzling over her words. Once he gathered the meaning from her thoughts, he grinned, pointing at her. “Yes, my Mistress, she is very forgetful in this lifetime.”
With her mouth shaping a dark void of shock, her expression reminded him of a hungry fish. She snapped her teeth together a moment later. “You … I … I can’t be a sorceress, or your mistress.” Doubt colored her words.
“I’m very certain. You are my Sorceress and I am your gargoyle, your protector. It’s your right to name me.” He’d intentionally not referred to them by their full titles for fear those names might nudge her memory.
She closed her eyes, the wrinkles on her forehead smoothing out. After a moment her expression became peaceful. “Okay.”
“You will name me?”
“Yep.” She flashed him a mischievous grin.
He waited with ears poised forward, tail flicking gently.
“Gregory.”
“Gregory?” he said, trying the foreign name on his tongue. It was short, like the name Lillian, and he wondered if all the names of this world were as lacking in sounds. He didn’t completely dislike it; she’d gifted him with this name.
“Gregory Livingstone.” She started to laugh, and he wondered at the name’s meaning.
A distant rumble caught his attention. He spun away from Lillian and ran to the back door. There were many strange sounds in this realm, and he didn’t know what this was, but it sounded large and dangerous. Whatever it was came closer, roaring up the stone–covered lane. An open window allowed the breeze within, and upon the wind he detected an oily odor and the tang of fumes like which the deep vents in the earth gave forth. A moment later, one of the metal–and–glass–enclosed carriages which the people of this world used for travel sped up to the stone cottage. He’d learned of these things from Lillian’s thoughts, but the noise and smell were much muted in her memories. Or she was simply nose–dead.
Now that the vehicle rolled to a halt, the noise was less, but a quiet hum still set Gregory’s teeth on edge. He eased into a crouch and flexed his talons on the tiles as he limbered up stiff muscles. Whoever they were, if the intended Lillian harm, he would send them on their way to the spirit realm. The tip of his tail twitched as he waited for the ones within the carriage to show themselves. After a moment the vehicle rumbled to silence. His ears swiveled forward as he advanced another step.
From behind, Lillian wrapped her hands around his arm. Her fingers bit in, nails scratching at his bicep while she tried to tug him away from the door. He didn’t know what she thought she’d accomplish, he weighed three times as much as her. She jerked on his arm with greater panic. Her nails bit into his arm hard enough to break the skin. Surprised, he glanced down at the few scarlet drops beading up along the length of the scratches. Strange; a dryad didn’t have claws. Before he could study her nails, she dropped her hands to her sides.
Her nostrils flared and she locked eyes on his small wound. An unfathomable expression crossed her face. After a moment, she shook her head and mumbled an apology. She continued in a clearer voice. “Don’t hurt them. Get away from the door.” She renewed her tugging on his arm. “Please.”
He swung back to face the invaders.
“Wait, you said I am your mistress—I order you to stay here. I need to go talk to them first. It’s bad enough the gardens look like a war zone; they certainly won’t be expecting an eight–foot
–tall gargoyle in the kitchen! Let. Me. Talk. To. Them. ”
In all other situations, he would respect her wishes, but not at the risk of her safety. While she might know and trust these people, he didn’t.
A series of soft creaks and metal groans came from the direction of the vehicle. He spun back to the strangers. The doors on either side of the carriage stood open, and with a slow caution, the occupants eased out. Two males emerged first. The older man had a crossbow gripped in one hand. He took the lead, while a younger brown–haired man followed close on his heels. The younger man reached into the metal carriage and withdrew a quarterstaff from between the seats. Behind the first two men, another male emerged, his white hair a startling contrast with his youthful features. He was empty–handed as far as Gregory could tell. Last, an old mother with many years of wisdom upon her exited the vehicle.
The old woman also carried a quarterstaff. Each staff was carved and painted with ruins which glowed to Gregory’s magic–enhanced sight. He eyed her quarterstaff more intently: perhaps it was more than a weapon.
The breeze carried their scents to him. And while there was no stink of evil, he wasn’t done studying these ones yet. They had power, and all power could be dangerous. He called the shadows for concealment.
After he faded out of sight, he paced forward until he stood in the threshold of the cottage. Lillian crowded him from behind, trying to squeeze past him and rush out the door. Winding his tail around her waist, he held her secure against his side for a moment, just enjoying having her close. When he looked down at her, she had her eyes closed and an intense look of concentration spread across her face. A moment more and her thoughts flooded his mind. Like a waking dream, images formed before his eyes. The first showed him releasing her so she could go join her family and explain. A second image formed—in this one he was waiting patiently for her to finish.
He called his own magic to dispel her visions, then lowered his muzzle and swiped his tongue across her face from chin to hairline. Hers eyes popped open and she flailed her arms, hollering and trying to push his muzzle away. Punishment complete, he shoved her behind him and stalked forward. Lillian grabbed at his tail, her fingers locking around it in a pinching grip. With a powerful flick, he slipped free of her grasp and darted through the ward blocking the door. She smacked into the solid ward.
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