by Trisha Telep
Then his attention turned to the female. Her hands were wrapped around his neck, her cheek pressed against his chest.
“You came back,” she murmured. Her fingers stroked his neck, reminded him of how she’d touched him when he’d been locked in stone.
Who was she? And why couldn’t he leave her to her fate?
Kami stared at the man settled on her couch. Mord. That was all she’d got out of him - his name. He’d given no reaction when she had supplied hers. She’d needed him to know it, hoped he would repeat it, like that would somehow make all this more real. But he’d done nothing, barely blinked or breathed.
Still, he was sitting on her couch, nothing could be more real than that.
His chest was bare. A cloth of some sort was wrapped around his hips. She’d mistaken it for a kilt before, but now could see it was less structured than that. It was more a strip of wool he’d knotted in place.
His wings had disappeared, and his skin was no longer marble pale, but she knew he was the gargoyle. Nothing he said would convince her otherwise. She’d traced his features with her fingers, memorized each chiselled inch of him.
A tingle ran through her. She clenched her fists and tried to ignore the need to run her hands over him again, to feel those same planes and angles, now warm and human. But male, still very male.
“What are you wearing?” she asked. It was an asinine question, but all she could think to say. Her mind seemed to have gone blank.
He glanced down, brows lifting. “A cloth.”
Well, that explained it.
Mord stared at the female, struggled to make sense of why he was here, why he hadn’t left before now. She stared back, her eyes huge in her heart-shaped face. Minutes ticked by with neither saying a word. Finally, unable to sit still, he stood, wandered to a far corner where a drop-sheet lay on the floor. Sealed buckets were stacked around its edges. In the centre sat a rectangular piece of stone. Alabaster. He moved towards it, bent to trace his finger over its top.
“You carve?” he asked. Perhaps this was the reason for his reluctance to leave. Perhaps she had a connection to the stone, thus a connection to gargoyles - to him.
She stepped closer, her gaze darting to the block of stone. “Not yet, but I want to. That’s why I was on the ledge. I wanted to . . .” She raised her hand, held it up as if she were going to touch him, like she had when he was frozen in sleep.
Suddenly, he knew what kept him here, why he couldn’t leave. He stood still, his heart thumping slowly in his chest. She took another step towards him. He could feel her warmth, smell her ginger scent. Her hand shaking, she reached closer, touched his shoulder first then ran her flat palm down his chest and over his abdomen.
He held perfectly still, used his gargoyle skills to keep from moving. Didn’t even breathe.
“What happened to your wings?” she asked. She walked around him, her fingers still tracing his body, skimming his sides.
He didn’t answer. She wasn’t supposed to accept him so readily, believe the statue she’d seen would come to life. No human he’d encountered in his past ever had.
“They were here.” She rose on her tiptoes, prodded his back where in his gargoyle form his wings appeared. “But I don’t . . .” She paused, moved her fingers round and round then found the nub that hid his wings when human. “Here. Is this it? How?”
She continued her explorations. Mord’s body tensed, tightened. He bit back a groan. Her touch was torture on this most sensitive part of him, but he couldn’t tell her to stop, couldn’t acknowledge what she was doing to him. That would give him away, be an admission that he was different. And, his mind whispered, he didn’t want to, had been untouched for so long. Even gargoyles enjoyed being touched. They didn’t feel like humans did, not emotions anyway, but they enjoyed physical sensations, and she was providing him with plenty.
She leaned closer. Her breath warmed his skin; her hair brushed against him.
He could stand it no longer. He was at risk of exploding, jerking her warm human form against his, showing her exactly what her innocent curiosity was doing to him.
“You’re imagining things,” he blurted, his voice rough.
Her hand paused in its movements, hovered above his skin. “Imagining?” She leaned forwards, spoke with her lips almost touching his skin. “My imagination isn’t this good.”
He took a step and turned. He needed to see her, decide what powers she held. She wasn’t a simple human. He knew that. But what was she? And why had she come so close to death twice in their short acquaintance?
“Who wants you dead?” he asked.
She jerked, frowned. “I don’t . . .” She shook her head. “I fell. It was stupid of me to climb out on the ledge, but I’d seen ... I ...” She closed her eyes. “I had to get closer.” Her eyes opened, pinned him. “I had to see you. But I never imagined . . .” Her words drifted off. She curled her fingers into her palms and waited, like she expected him to say something more, to acknowledge that he was the gargoyle she’d sought out, or that he felt the strange pull between them, too.
He couldn’t give her any answers. Secrecy was one of the gargoyles’ greatest strengths. If humans learned the statues they walked by every day could come to life, that these statues had the strength and power to destroy mankind, fear would take over. His kind would be hunted. Attempts would be made to capture or kill them as they slept.
And the gargoyles would be forced to make a choice - destroy or be destroyed.
It was unthinkable.
As was admitting he felt the same pull she did. She was a human. Humans and gargoyles didn’t mingle. And gargoyles didn’t feel. Whatever was happening to him now was due to the sorcerer, and the wearing off of the spell, not her. It couldn’t be her.
“Someone in the machine tried to run you down.” He laid the words in front of her, stated them as the fact they were.
“Someone . . .” Her eyes widened and her fingers pressed against her lips. “Someone tried to run me down,” she repeated. She caught his gaze. “And pushed me. Someone pushed me off that ledge. I remember now. I felt a hand.” She pulled her shoulders back, as if the fingers still pressed against her skin. “Why?”
He waited, made sure her reality had sunk in, then headed towards the door. He’d done his part, made her aware of the danger she was in. Now he had a bigger threat to search out, one potentially disastrous to humanity as a whole - the chimeras.
“Wait!” She hurried after him, grabbed him by the arm.
A shock shot through him like a chisel hitting marble. He contracted his still-hidden wings, felt them reverberate in his back.
“You can’t leave yet. You haven’t told me anything, or explained who you are, how you are.”
He gritted his teeth and took another step towards the door, but not far enough, not fast enough.
She moved with him, wrapped her hands around his biceps. “You can trust me,” she murmured.
The one word that could stop him cold: trust. He’d believed in trust once, before he’d been betrayed by his brother ... or the one being he’d let close enough to think of as a brother.
He turned. His shoulders pulled back and his eyes narrowed, he looked down at her. “Who can you trust? That’s what you should be thinking about, not letting your mind run wild with some fantasy you created while you were falling.”
She dropped her hand. He started to turn again, thought he’d shaken her, put her in her place.
Then she smiled. “So, I did fall. Over twenty floors? And what? That fountain saved me?” She laughed. “Now who has the imagination?”
He huffed. He wasn’t used to humans — anyone — talking back to him. His wings tingled beneath his skin, screamed to be unfurled. That sight would overwhelm her, force her back into her place.
And it would reveal with absolutely no doubt that he was a gargoyle. A hiss escaped from between his closed teeth.
She placed her hand on his chest. “I know you were stone and so
mehow came to life. You flew. You saved me.”
Her gaze was intense. It threatened to burn through him.
He wrapped his thumb and index finger around her wrist, plucked her hand from his chest. “Believe what you want. I can’t stop you.”
“Who . . .” Her hand shook. He could tell she wanted to touch him again, and damn everything, he wanted it too. She swallowed, glanced at the block of alabaster beside them then back. “Are you a man or a statue?”
He needed to leave.
“Did someone create you?”
He stopped at that. She was right; someone had created him, had created all of his kind. A sculptor turned sorcerer. He’d carved Mord, carved all of them, then infused them with life. He stared at the female with new interest.
Could she create more gargoyles? Did her touch awaken him? Could she awaken the others without awakening the chimeras?
“Touch me,” he ordered.
Three
Touch him. She wanted to do nothing but touch him. Afraid he’d change his mind, continue on his trek out of her apartment, Kami placed both hands on his chest.
His skin was smooth and firm, colder than hers, but not as cold as the marble creature she’d touched on that ledge. And he was perfect, every inch of him. She ran her hands down his sides, let her fingers dip where his muscle dipped, rise where it rose. If he had been carved, his creator had been a master, better than she could ever dream of being.
She looked up at Mord, placed one hand on his chin. It was smooth too, no sign of stubble. There was a cleft in his chin. She hadn’t noticed it before. Now she focused on it, ran the pad of one finger over it. What care had the sculptor used to perfect that?
Her heart was beating loud and fast, as if she’d sprinted up three flights of stairs. She exhaled. Her hand that had been resting on his chest moved upwards. He had inhaled.
She exhaled again. He inhaled.
She shifted her gaze to his eyes, wondered if he was playing with her. For a second he stared back, wonder and something close to fear reflecting back at her. Then he stepped backwards, breaking their connection and his gaze shuttered closed.
“Someone wants to kill you and I think I know why.” The statement was low and earnest. The look on his face was startling, ferocious.
For the first time, she was unsure around him, scared. She glanced at the door, but he seemed to have forgotten it.
“When did these attempts on your life start?” he asked.
She stared at a bucket filled with clay, wondered what had possessed her to bring him here - to be here alone with him. “I ... I don’t know. Not until tonight on the ledge, I guess.” Even after recognizing that she’d felt a hand press into her back, she still couldn’t believe someone was trying to kill her, couldn’t fathom the possibility. She was no one. It had to be a mistake, an accident.
“On the ledge. When you were next to me?”
His voice was so level . . . safe. She looked up and frowned. “Yes.” She could see the truth in his eyes. He truly believed someone wanted to kill her. Yes, she’d felt a hand, but . . .
She thought back. Memories flooded her brain - little sounds as she was perched on the ledge, sounds she’d disregarded. Did someone lean through the window and reach towards her? If it had been an accident they would have screamed, right? Called someone? Done something? Reality hit.
Someone had pushed her, and on purpose. Someone wanted her dead.
His lips thinned. “I don’t think this is about you. Not really.”
“How can it not be about me?” she asked, her mind reeling. Someone tried to kill her. The thought shook her, more than anything that had happened that night. Meeting Mord, learning that gargoyles (whether he would admit it or not) weren’t just the inanimate hunks of stone people thought - that hadn’t surprised her at all. It had actually been reassuring.
Deep inside, she’d always known there was life inside stone. She’d felt it but been afraid to let the thoughts creep into her consciousness. Still, deep down, she’d known. Mord coming to life had been the evidence she’d always been lacking, the proof she needed. For the first time, everything made sense.
But a killer targeting her? That made no sense.
Mord held out his hand - large, square and reassuring. She slipped her fingers into his, let out a breath as his hand enclosed hers.
“I think I need to tell you a few things.”
Kami’s fingers were so small, so fragile, but they made Mord tingle with life.
How could he have missed it at first? Then doubted it? It was obvious she was no simple human. She held the secret to life in her touch. She was the reason he was awake, and he was the reason someone wanted her dead.
“Have you carved around anyone? Has anyone shown an interest in your work?”
She shook her head. “No, I ...” Her words trailed off, her gaze shifted to the block of alabaster. “There was ...” Her head tilted, her brows drew together. “No, that’s silly. It wouldn’t make sense.”
“What?” The word came out more order than question.
She licked her lips, blew air out of her rounded mouth. He breathed in, couldn’t stop himself. Pulling air into his body that had just left hers seemed to strengthen him, make him more alive than he’d ever been before.
She continued, “The man who sold me the alabaster. He called himself the Mason. He talked to me about what I was going to do. He had pictures of gargoyles, lots of them.”
“He wanted you to carve a gargoyle?” Mord asked.
“Yes, but . . . not like you. All his pictures were of mixed animal grotesques - lions with wings, cat heads on eagle bodies. That kind of thing.”
Chimeras. He had wanted her to create chimeras. Mord hid his shock, concentrated on getting Kami to talk. It wasn’t hard. She almost bubbled over with information.
Within minutes she’d shared enough that Mord knew he had to find the man who’d sold her the stone, question him at least.
But the sun would rise soon and Mord would turn to stone. Hopefully, when night fell again, he would awake. Mord clenched his jaw - hopefully. There was no guarantee. He wasn’t supposed to be awake now. Was supposed to still be under the sorcerer’s spell. Once night fell, whatever magic had awakened him might disappear. He might go back into his rocky sleep never to wake again.
Kami’s fingers flexed in his hand. She smiled up at him — trusting. And unexplainably, he wanted her to trust him. Wanted to wake the next night to be with her again.
But why? She offered only complications to his situation, kept him from travelling out and checking on the other gargoyles, the chimeras. He should want to be free from her.
What was happening to him? Some other piece to the spell?
He shoved the questions from his mind. Daylight was still a couple of hours or more off. He’d concentrate on Kami for now, then perhaps he’d be able to forget her.
Mord had been silent since they’d left her apartment. He was still human. There was no sign that he was in reality a gargoyle, except his perfect physique - a physique so well developed and balanced it had to have been crafted. No amount of training or special diets would have given those results.
And he was dressed as a human. Kami had gone next door and explained to her neighbour, who was just returning from a party, that her date had spilled marinara on himself at dinner. Luckily her neighbour was huge, although not in the same way as Mord, and generous. He’d supplied her with pants that managed to cover Mord’s muscular thighs and a shirt that was able to close over his chest.
She’d sighed when Mord had pulled on the clothing. She missed being able to study him, press her fingers against his bare skin. He’d started to leave without her, but she’d insisted he take her, assured him she’d go alone to the Mason’s if he didn’t. Still, he’d only agreed when she pointed out that he couldn’t know for sure where the Mason was - that he could be hiding nearby, to attack her as soon as Mord left.
She unlocked her car and waited
outside the driver’s door as Mord eyed the machine, then started to slip his massive body into the passenger seat. Her apartment was within walking distance of Mord’s skyscraper. She’d walked by him every day for the past three years, but to get to the Mason’s shop, they would have to drive - or fly. Although Mord had quit denying what he was, he had made no move to reveal his wings. She hoped he’d get past his hang-up and learn to trust her.
Lights came down the street, blinding her. She raised a hand to protect her eyes and fought the surge of panic that rose in her breast. It was just a car. Yes, someone had tried to run her down with one earlier, but she couldn’t jump at every automobile that drove by. And last time she’d been alone. Now Mord was with her.
The car turned into a side street, an alley really, covered in gravel. She relaxed, laughed. See, silly.
She waved at Mord who was wedged into the passenger seat, looking crowded and tense. She laughed again and forced herself to find humour in his situation, to pretend all of this was normal.
She somehow dropped her keys in the process.
She bent to retrieve them and heard tyres crunching over gravel. Panic shot through her so quickly, she knew it had never really left her. She clawed at the ground.
An engine roared. She didn’t have to look, she knew the car was speeding towards her.
Mord heard the auto turn. Kami had disappeared out of sight after bending to retrieve her dropped keys. Without seeing her, he didn’t know if she sensed the danger, but it didn’t matter. The human female had no hope of out-running the car. She was trapped between the one swinging towards her and her own. It had taken Mord a lifetime to wedge himself into Kami’s tiny vehicle. He’d taken extra care so as not to damage the seat or frame as he shoved his too big body into the constraining space, but it took only seconds for him to free himself.
He thought of the danger approaching her. His anger rock hard, his body immediately shifted, grew even larger, more muscular. Wings sprouted from his back. Metal shrieked as they unfolded and ripped through the vehicle’s roof. The door he’d just carefully pulled closed flew from its hinges; one strike of his elbow sent it sailing into the building Kami called home.