“Yes. The demon is tied to the Sorceress’s soul and can’t escape. A hamadryad is different than her dryad. A demon must prey on emotions of jealousy, greed, rage, and fear to overwhelm its host’s mind and take command of the body. Unlike a normal host, a hamadryad lacks the type of emotions a demon can manipulate. The demon is rendered impotent.”
“I don’t trust the demon. She’s a cunning bitch. She’ll find a way to hurt or corrupt my hamadryad.”
“The demon can’t hurt your tree. Your hamadryad is doing more than passively trapping the demon.” Gregory pointed at the redwood, then made a sweeping motion to indicate the far distant forest. “What do all trees do?”
Lillian didn’t think Gregory wanted a scientific answer, so she waited.
“A normal tree can purify the soil and water. A hamadryad does much more.”
Lillian looked back to her hamadryad with renewed interest. “My redwood is purifying the demon?”
“Yes. Killing its evil. But hamadryads work slowly.”
A new concern wormed its way into Lillian’s mind. “How long will this process take?”
“Two or three seasons,” Gregory answered.
“So I can’t reclaim the powers of the Sorceress until then. That’s going to be a problem.”
Gregory nodded. “I fear so. The Lady of Battles will send her minions before the hamadryad has killed the demon. You can’t merge with your tree at all until the demon is dead or it will migrate back to you with your soul. And it isn’t stupid enough to be tricked a second time.”
“What can I do?”
“We’ll unite all the Clan and the Coven and create a force to battle the Lady herself. I still am the Father’s Avatar. I’m far from helpless. As long as the hamadryad holds the demon trapped, it can’t reach me through you.”
“I’m glad you’re safe from the demon, but we’ve just traded one problem for another. Without magic, I’m useless. I’ll be a liability when the Lady of Battles comes calling.”
“That Lady can’t actually come to this Realm. We’ll just have to deal with her underlings.” A glint of humor sparked in Gregory’s eyes. “I don’t think you’re half as helpless as you think. The demon is gone, and your hamadryad has blocked you from touching your dryad magic, and that of the Sorceress. But if I am not mistaken, you still have one formidable talent.”
“What? Polishing swords?”
He looked baffled for a moment then chuckled. “It does have to do with weapons. Natural weapons.” Gregory flared his wings and gave them a little shake.
Lillian’s mouth dropped open. He didn’t mean? Surely not.
“The power to shapeshift into a female gargoyle is a power that has nothing to do with your power as the Avatar. Up until now, there were no female gargoyles but because of the Lady of Battles’ . . .” Gregory paused, seeming to search for the correct words, “because of her breeding program, you are now the first female gargoyle. You are equal parts dryad and gargoyle. Where the other female dryad children sired by gargoyles carried the potential, none of them had the ability to take that next step and become gargoyles themselves.”
“You’re talking about the genetic code—recessive and dominant genes.”
Gregory looked uncertain.
“Nevermind.” She grinned from ear to ear. “So I can be a gargoyle if I choose?”
“You’ll need rest and then training first, but yes, my lady, you are still gargoyle.” He reached for her hand, his engulfed hers.
She squeezed his hand. After what the demon had forced her to do, Lillian wasn’t sure what Gregory wanted. Yes, he loved her. He’d always loved his Sorceress. But she was no longer the Sorceress. She didn’t even have a soul.
“I love you regardless if you’re dryad, gargoyle, or demon possessed.” He tapped his fingers on the back of her hand.
Of course, they were touching. He could read her every thought and emotion. Heat mounted her cheeks and she stared at the ground.
A finger under her jaw tilted her head up. She was just wrapping her arms around his neck as the sound of hooves on gravel intruded.
Gregory sighed, then rested his chin against her hair. “It’s probably that one-horned fool.”
She chuckled as she curled her arm around his waist. “If he’s here, Gran can’t be far behind. She always knows what I’m thinking before I do—she probably knew down to the hour when my hamadryad was going to go into labor.” As Gregory had predicted, it was a white blur that bolted from the nearest maze entrance. The unicorn galloped toward them, grass and clumps of dirt flying in his wake. “Bet Gran has a feast laid out for us.”
“I hope so.”
Lillian took note of her gargoyle’s eagerness at the mention of food. “Come on, let’s go greet the unicorn and then eat.”
“Mmm, roasted unicorn meat.”
She swatted Gregory in the arm, then took his hand as they walked out from under the canopy of her redwood. Once again her maze felt like home, her life complete, the void of missing memories no longer important. Some things she could live without. Gregory wasn’t one of them.
The End
Lillian and Gregory’s story continues in Stone’s Song.
STONE’S SONG
The Avatars:
Book 2
LISA BLACKWOOD
Back Cover
Ignorance nearly killed Lillian once.
That time, she’d known nothing of magic until Gregory, her Gargoyle Protector, awoke from his stone sleep and saved her from demons escaped from the Magic Realm. They defeated the demonic Riven at great personal cost, one which forced them both to hibernate for months while they mended.
Healed, Lillian wakes to a world greatly changed, one where her sleepy northern town has been overrun by military, scientists, and paparazzi. Apparently, her battle with the Riven didn’t go completely unnoticed, and her actions put her Coven family at risk of exposure.
These new tensions unearth another concern. Lillian and Gregory may be one being in the Spirit Realm, soul mates in the most literal sense, but it doesn’t guarantee a perfect accord here on earth, especially when Gregory’s clearly defined sense of good and evil urge him to eradicate anyone he deems as evil—which, to her dismay, includes a good chunk of humanity.
But their troubles are not limited to humans, not when another, older power rises from the ocean’s depths. Tethys, a siren of the ancient world, has her own plans for Gregory. For the first time in their many lives, Lillian finds herself at odds with her other half.
And if she doesn’t master her own magic, this battle will become her greatest defeat.
Stone’s Song
Copyright © 2014 by Lisa Smeaton
All rights reserved.
****
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and characters are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any print or electronic form without the author's permission. Please purchase only authorized editions and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.
COVER ART BY: Rebecca Frank
EDITED BY: Laura Kingsley
https://laurakingsley.wordpress.com/
Prologue
A tremor shook the silent underwater world. Fish darted into the safety of vast schools as other marine life took shelter in the deep crevices of the living reef. A moment later, the ocean floor bucked and shivered in the grip of an earthquake. Fierce shockwaves rolled out from the underwater epicenter, displacing vast quantities of water. As the pressure built, water rushed toward the distant landmass—a series of great waves building in height and power.
Deep in the heart of the coral reef, the siren shifted and turned in her sleep. Chunks of calcified reef broke away. The tiny bodies of coral from centuries past crumbled, sprinkling her with sedim
ent.
The earthquake, and the destructive monster it had unleashed, registered on Tethys’s consciousness. The great surge of waves were within her power to control, yet they were a normal part of the balance between life and death. Great destruction would come this day, and new life would arise from the old. All was as it should be. She shifted again, content to return to sleep, for the Mortal Realm would continue as it had for all the ages of her long life.
She drifted closer to sleep, but the ocean currents, disturbed by the earthquake, filled her living tomb with fresh water and new scents. An unknown flavour coated her tongue and tingled along the scales of her lower body. Her gills burned with it.
Heavy. Oily. A smothering chemical taste.
Like, and yet not alike, what the vents on the ocean floor spat up.
The siren opened her eyes for the first time in well over a thousand years. Even while she slept, Tethys was aware of the passing of time, the earth’s cycles of renewal and destruction, but this was not nature’s work. It did not belong in her world. A foreign taint. Unnatural. This was nothing the earth would spawn—but there was one creature upon the land capable of such a depravity.
With a spark of rage, her magic expanded outward. The coral reef trapping her body burst apart, and she thrashed free of her resting place. Fish and other reef dwellers darted away or sought fissures to hide in. Free at last, she hovered in the water, surveying her surroundings. Near at hand, a sleek, agile predator sliced through the water, drawing closer with each flick of its tail. She sensed its cold frustration at having its hunt disrupted first by the earth’s trembling and now by her rising.
Unable to give voice to a song of enchantment while underwater, the siren hummed instead. The deep sound carried far out into the surrounding ocean.
Currents swirled at her command, coiling and dragging the shark closer. It fought water made solid by her magic. She swam a circle around her prey, coming ever closer with each revolution. Even helpless in her power, the shark still struggled. Reaching out, she slid her fingers along his smooth, sleek skin. The male’s thoughts were clouded with panic and base instinct. Through all the chaos, memories flickered across her mind, slippery and hard to hold. After focusing her magic, only one image came clear to her. Tethys frowned. She would get nothing useful from this one. She must try something else, locate one of the other sea creatures capable of understanding her.
With a gentle pat, she released the shark. Her rage wasn’t directed at him, after all. Her effort wasn’t completely without benefit. She’d gotten one clear image from the shark, that of a strange two-legged creature peering at it from within a great metal cage, and accompanying it was the familiar oily scent. Though much weaker than what tainted the ocean, it was alike enough to confirm her earlier assumption. Humans were behind this catastrophe.
She’d hoped the passage of time would grant the young species wisdom.
Apparently, it had not.
It was time for another lesson.
Chapter One
Gran bustled around the kitchen in a whirlwind of activity, shifting dirty bowls into the sink, snatching clean ones out of a cupboard, and then gliding over to the stove to pull a tray of muffins out with one hand while sliding a sheet of cookies in with the other. Before the oven door had fully closed, she was already halfway across the room, attending to what Lillian could only assume was the beginnings of French toast. Gran possessed a culinary efficiency Lillian—and most everyone else—lacked, but at this exact moment it was Gran’s ability to compartmentalize emotions she truly envied.
She currently would have benefited from a large dose of Gran’s stoicism, too. It might help numb some of the environmental ‘noise’ rubbing her newly heightened senses raw. Even watching her grandmother work almost caused Lillian vertigo. Sounds came too clear and sharp. What were once subtle scents like the salty warm scent of butter melting in a pot, the hot metal smell of the oven, or maple syrup and brown sugar—she now found overpowering to the point of inducing nausea.
In a desperate attempt to tune out some of the other senses, Lillian fixated on the heavy earthenware mug between her palms with its rich, dark coffee. A small chip marred the rim, but she couldn’t bring herself to toss out her favourite mug over so small a blemish.
Tiny drops of coffee slowly slid down the side of the mug where her trembling hands spilled it over the edge. Her vision swam and her head took up a steady pounding.
She closed her eyes for a moment, but snapped them back open as a sharp tearing sound assaulted her ears. Her focus zoned in on Gran where she stood at the sink, innocently enough, just pulling labels from jars destined for recycling. Lillian’s ears twitched in time with each and every auditory detail.
Focus on the coffee, damn it. Just one thing at a time.
Strange, how the scent of coffee, and the sight of rich cream clouding the dark liquid had suddenly lost their usual comforting effect. Lillian gave her mug an idle swirl before raising it to her lips and inhaling a deep breath of the warm steam.
Nope, nothing.
She sipped at the coffee and grimaced. Nope, not nothing...downright nasty. Just three months before, she’d been a certifiable caffeine addict.
Who would have thought a three month sleep inside a tree could cure addictions? Or heighten her senses to the point of pain?
And just what other changes, besides the ones I’ve already experienced, has my meddling hamadryad inflicted upon me while I lay senseless?
Truthfully, she knew without her hamadryad tree’s aid, she would have died, and Gregory, noble loving being that he was, would have followed her into death.
Just thinking of the gargoyle, her soul mate in the most literal sense of the word, had her turning toward the door leading to the living room. Presently, the other half of her soul was showering in the upstairs master bathroom. It was the only one in the house big enough to accommodate a gargoyle’s massive wingspan.
She’d finished her own shower a half an hour ago, a long arduous affair of scouring and scrubbing to rid herself of her tree’s pitchy afterbirth—a somewhat disgusting side effect from hamadryad healing, apparently.
If only the other magical side effects were as easily washed away.
Magic had saved her life—probably even saved her soul. After Gregory had woken to her call, he’d examined her hamadryad and informed her the tree had also trapped the demon seed Lillian had been unwillingly incubating. Without it, she now felt lighter and cleaner—not so strange, she supposed, since the demon seed had been feeding on her spirit and magic.
So she thanked her hamadryad tree for its many gifts, but it didn’t lessen the slow, creeping fear from invading her mind. Honestly, the fear wasn’t so much about how deeply magic had interwoven itself into her life, it was the fact what she did know about magic was so very slight.
Frowning, she acknowledged she could probably write everything she knew about magic on a sticky note and still have room to spare. After she’d awoken from her tree, she hadn’t had much time to talk to Gregory before the rest of the family had descended upon them with hugs, laughter and tears. The snippets of what she’d been told only added to her uncertainty. Then Gran had chased everyone away—to give Lillian and Gregory a chance to clean up, she’d claimed. But Lillian would bet it was more a chance to collect their thoughts, for which she was grateful.
She was confident Gregory would be able to answer her questions. Now, if he’d finish up with his shower and get his big gargoyle backside down to the kitchen, she’d start asking those questions.
Warm amusement brushed against her mind, and she choked back a gasp of surprise at the intimate contact. Apparently, she had been more distracted than she knew.
“Easy, beloved.” Gregory’s calming influence washed over her mind and flowed out to every corner of her body. “I am with you always. We will get through this new complication together.”
“What’s happening to me? My skull feels like it is being inflated by an air compres
sor.”
There was a long pause, which usually meant Gregory was hung up on a modern term. He rumbled to himself and then answered. “I believe your gargoyle father’s bloodline is asserting itself over your dryad mother’s.”
“Am I about to sprout a pair of leathery wings?”
“Yes. If you don’t get your cascading magic under control, you will shift.”
The pounding in her head made it difficult to think. Lillian fought for focus to make sense of Gregory’s words and the warning behind them. She’d shifted once before, back when the demon soul had full control of her. It was how she knew she possessed the ability. Thanks to the strength of her hamadryad, she was now free of the demon’s dark menace.
Oh, but during that time, she’d been all instinct, base urges, and raw emotions. She’d blamed it on the demon soul, but what if that was what being a gargoyle was? Gregory hadn’t alluded to such, but she hadn’t asked him either. Cold uncertainty dispelled some of the heady magic rising up within her. Her skin still felt too tight and her body overly hot, feverish to the point she wouldn’t be surprised to see steam curling up from her body.
She clutched the edge of the table and told herself she wouldn’t shift. There was no more demon soul to coerce or control her. “I’m in control. Of myself, my magic, and my fate,” she mumbled under her breath.
It helped a little. Then the scent of forest, male, and what she’d come to think of as the distinct scent of warm stone surrounded her, seeping into her lungs, the pores of her skin and maybe even her soul. A moment later, the warm weight of large hands settled on her shoulders. Eyes still closed, she turned her head and inhaled a deep breath of Gregory’s scent. It calmed her as it always did, and the pounding in her head subsided enough she could think.
The Avatars Series: Books 1-3 Page 27