Grateman’s brow ridges shot up. “I’m not here to ask any questions,” he replied. “Well, unless you need something.” Seeing Quinn’s disbelieving look, he offered a small smile. “My name is Grateman, and I’m here to answer questions, actually.”
Easing into the room, Grateman kept his distance from the bed. He leaned against a nearly empty side table. Other than the lamp, only the water pitcher and cups were there.
“When can I leave?”
Grateman sighed. “I don’t have an answer to that. You hunt, capture, and kill paranormals,” he pointed out. “For now, you should consider yourself our guest indeterminately.”
Quinn snorted. “You mean prisoner.”
“Gotta admit,” Grateman stated, waving his hand. “This is a hell of a lot nicer cell than what you give paranormals.”
“That’s because you’re monsters. You kill humans.”
Nodding slowly, Grateman realized that he’d had it easy. This should have been the response Jeremiah had given him. Never had he felt so grateful that it wasn’t.
“I admit I’ve killed a few humans,” Grateman admitted. “Mercenaries and hunters have come to my clutch’s home with guns, threatening to kill us, and I and my clutch-mates have killed to protect our families.” He shrugged. “I would expect you to do the same for your family.”
“I tried,” Quinn snarled. “But what chance does an unsuspecting human have against vampires? None!” He curled his lip and glared. “That’s why hunters are needed. To stop creatures like vampires and you and shifters from killing innocent families!”
Grateman sighed. Yep. This guy was angry.
“You’re right,” Grateman agreed, probably shocking him, judging by his wide-eyed expression. “But would it surprise you to know that if we find out a paranormal has done that, we stop them? We don’t let them continue to do that.” He cocked his head and admitted, “Just like your police does everything they can to stop human killers, we paranormals have enforcers that do the exact same thing.”
Quinn sneered. “Well, they’re not doing a very good job.”
“I’d love to know where you think we are failing,” Grateman offered. “Tell me how you know we’ve failed, so we can fix it. We don’t want humans hurt any more than you do.”
For half a second, Grateman thought Quinn would answer. How hunters found their victims would definitely be useful. Instead, he snapped his jaw shut and glared.
Grateman nodded. “Give it some thought. Please,” he added. “I also wasn’t certain if anyone had told you that your friend Jeremiah is here, too.”
“What?” Quinn straightened where he sat, then grimaced and eased back on the bed’s pillows. “Where?”
“In the next room over,” Grateman revealed. “He was in a bike accident while fleeing the building, so we brought him here to be healed.” Not wanting to get into the other reasons Jeremiah was there, he pointed at the cabinet, then crossed to it. “Do you want to watch TV?” he asked, opening the door and sliding them into the case and out of the way. He picked up a remote. “Sitting doing nothing can get a little boring.” He rested the remote on the edge of the bed near Quinn’s calf. “Or if you’d prefer a book or a Kindle or something just say so. We can set you up with a dummy account.”
Quinn’s brows furrowed, then he grimaced as if he’d pulled his stitches. “Why are you being so nice?”
Grateman shrugged. “We’re not the enemy. I’m just trying to help you see that.” He nodded toward Quinn’s face. “If you want pain meds or food, something other than what your guard brings you, feel free to ask.” He backed away, waving at the space. “This isn’t about holding you against your will, it’s about finding common ground.”
With those parting words, Grateman slipped from the room. He made a mental note to ask Raymond about getting the man an e-reader. He felt certain the techie gargoyle would know of one they could give him where they’d be able to monitor activity. That would give the human a little bit of freedom.
Chapter Seven
Jeremiah swam back to wakefulness. Damn. Whatever was in those pills totally kicked his ass. “Ow,” he muttered, lifting his right hand to his temple.
“I apologize,” a stranger’s voice came from his right. “I think someone forgot to tell Grateman that you were only supposed to have one of those pills, but when I started my shift, I noticed they were both gone. Here,” he continued. “Drink some water.”
Feeling someone slide a hand under his head, Jeremiah muttered, “Thanks.” Water would definitely be welcome. When the edge of a cup touched his bottom lip, he clamped onto it gratefully.
“Okay,” the man said. “Ease off, now. Don’t worry. You’ll get more in a sec.”
Jeremiah did as he was told. The stranger eased him back to the bed. After a few deep breaths, he struggled to open his eyes. Once he could focus, Jeremiah stiffened.
“Holy shit!”
“Easy, Jeremiah,” the man—gargoyle—soothed. “You’re okay. My name is Cosmo. I’m a doctor-in-training under Perseus.”
Evidently, Jeremiah didn’t respond fast enough, although he did nod. He even managed to whisper, “You’re blue.” The gargoyle was, too. He was pale blue with black wings and claws and white hair.
Crazy!
“Damn,” Cosmo murmured. “I didn’t mean to freak you out. Maybe you’ll relax if I take my human form.”
As Cosmo spoke, he... changed. His hide smoothed to reveal lightly tanned human skin. The man’s claws disappeared. His wings seemed to retract into his back. In just a few seconds, a lean, toned, white-haired guy wearing a loincloth stood where the gargoyle once had.
“Holy, fucking, mother-of-God!” Jeremiah screamed, doing his best to scramble backward. Within seconds, the bed fell away and for the second time in as many days, Jeremiah realized he was about to fall.
Once again, someone caught him.
“Stop moving, Jeremiah,” a deep voice ordered. “No one will hurt you. You are safe.”
Jeremiah froze in response to the male’s words. With the light scrape of claws on his arms and the roughness of the guy’s hands, he could guess at what held him. A gargoyle. Slowly, struggling to obey, he turned his head to look.
Gaping once more, Jeremiah peered up at a midnight blue creature with black wings. He met the male’s piercing gray eyes as he struggled to keep moving oxygen in and out of his lungs. The male offered him a kind smile.
Huh. That’s nice.
Then, the blue gargoyle helped him slide back onto the bed. Feeling the warm sheets on his skin, Jeremiah remembered his nakedness. He grabbed for the blanket and pulled it up over his waist. So much for a pair of shorts after his shower. He had no idea how he’d forgotten.
“My name is Maelgwn,” the dark blue gargoyle stated. “I am the chieftain of this clutch. I suppose Grateman didn’t discuss roosting, bonding, or molting with you.”
Swallowing hard, Jeremiah glanced over at the once again pale blue gargoyle. The male actually wore kind of a sheepish expression on his face. Leaning in the doorway was a deep green gargoyle that seemed almost as large as the dark blue one.
“Uh, n-no,” Jeremiah murmured. Then he frowned. “Wait. Bonding, yes,” he admitted, feeling his face heat. Damn fair skin. Sometimes he hated having auburn hair, no matter how much the ladies always complimented him on it. Clearing his throat, Jeremiah continued, “The others, uh, r-roosting or—”
“Molting,” the green gargoyle in the doorway supplied.
Jeremiah nodded. “Right. Molting. No idea. What is it?” He knew he babbled, but these were supposed to be gargoyles not shifters. He pointed at Cosmo. “And th-th-that. Uh, is it, uh, he, is he a sh-shifter?”
Why Jeremiah found himself comfortable with the big creatures that looked like demons and called themselves gargoyles, but not with men that shared bodies with animals... he couldn’t explain. Maybe he’d just had one too many shocks.
Clearing his t
hroat, Maelgwn redrew Jeremiah’s attention. “Okay, let’s start with roosting, then,” he stated. “Just like in myths, gargoyles sleep during the day as a living stone statue,” he explained. “Then, we wake at night, able to move, think, reason... exist just as you do.”
“Stone?” Jeremiah couldn’t help gasping the word. “You turn into stone?”
“Consider it our version of sleep,” Maelgwn explained. “We just happen to develop stone armor during that time.”
“And we can’t wake up during the day until after molting,” the green gargoyle told him. “Which we do after bonding.” He smirked. “Bonding you know about.”
Jeremiah felt his face flame with heat. Clearing his throat, he glanced around at the men. “So, what is molting then?”
Maelgwn chuckled as he leaned back against the wall. Crossing his arms over his chest, he replied, “When we find our mate, we bond with him or her.” He smirked and winked. “The morning after we complete our bond, gargoyles go through molt. It’s a fairly painful process where our body transforms into a human form for the first time.”
“You gain a human form?” Jeremiah whispered. “But why?”
Cosmo actually snickered. “Can you imagine going into town for groceries looking like this?” he asked, holding his arms away from his sides. “Besides, if we’re sleeping through the daylight hours, how are we supposed to protect and care for our mate?”
“You have a mate?” Jeremiah whispered inanely.
Nodding, Cosmo grinned. “Yep. Kamille is a stunning, black-haired beauty. We’ve been mated almost three hundred years now. Had three eggs together.” He dug into a pouch on a belt around his waist. “Want to see pictures?”
“O-Okay,” Jeremiah whispered. “Sure.”
Eggs? Three hundred years? Holy shit!
“Before you start showing off baby pictures,” Maelgwn stated, halting Cosmo’s movements. “Will you give him a quick check-up, Cos? I think we overloaded his brain and he needs a minute to think.”
Jeremiah would never admit how grateful he felt at the gargoyle’s suggestion.
Ten minutes later, Cosmo gave Jeremiah an encouraging smile and left the room. The green gargoyle, whose name he’d learned was Tobias, closed the door and leaned against the wall. Maelgwn eased onto the chair beside his bed.
“Okay, Hunter,” Maelgwn rumbled. “We know that in the past you went after shifters who you thought had already targeted humans.” He cocked his head and folded his hands over his abdominals. “Do you mind telling us why that changed?”
Jeremiah sighed. It seemed now was the time for the interrogation. Thinking quickly, he wondered where Grateman was. He missed the gargoyle.
“I’ll answer your questions if you’ll answer mine,” Jeremiah offered.
Maelgwn’s brow ridges shot up. Just as quickly, a smirk curved his lips. “Very well. I’ll even let you ask me a question first, Jeremiah. What do you wish to know?”
“Where’s Grateman?” Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to ask with his free pass, but it came out anyway.
Maelgwn’s smile actually looked pleased. “The time is not quite half past two o’clock PM,” he replied. “Grateman is sleeping, roosting, on the parapets.”
“Parapets?” Jeremiah whispered. “Am I in a castle?” He shook his head and held up his hand. “Wait. That’s not what I want answered.”
Holding out a hand, palm up as if to say proceed, Maelgwn waited.
Damn. What do I want to know?
“Do you really hatch from eggs?”
Maelgwn’s eyes narrowed. “We do,” he confirmed.
“Your eggs hatch into gargoyles? How does that work?”
This time, Maelgwn exchanged a look with Tobias. After a long moment, he returned his focus to Jeremiah. The gargoyle’s serious expression caused trepidation to trickle down Jeremiah’s spine.
“All gargoyles are male,” Maelgwn revealed. “Whether we mate with a woman or a man, we have the ability to impregnate them with our egg. That egg will always hatch a male gargoyle.” He cocked his head as he added, “A gargoyle with a female mate has a fifty-fifty shot at having a female child. When that happens, they’re born as a human and live their life with enhanced senses. If the child is male, he will start as an egg and hatch as a male gargoyle, subject to the laws of our kind.” He smirked. “Male mates always lay eggs. Always.”
A conversation Jeremiah had overheard flashed through his mind. Paris had been speaking with Roger. The stranger had claimed to know where to find demon eggs. Roger hadn’t believed him, but what if the man actually did know? Eggs were evidently the gargoyle’s young. How horrible would that be?
Then, something else suddenly became more important. “Wait a minute,” Jeremiah cried. “Ya’ll can get men pregnant?”
“We can.” It was Tobias who answered. “But don’t worry too much, Jeremiah,” he urged. “Birth control is easy enough for our kind. As long as you eat a bit of cinnamon each day, it renders our sperm... sterile, for lack of a better word.”
Jeremiah barked a laugh, unable to stop himself. Of course, that instantly hurt, too. Still, he’d survive. “Men having kids,” he whispered. “Holy shit!”
Maelgwn chuckled softly. “Now, then,” he rumbled. “If you could answer my original question, and a few others, please.”
Nodding, Jeremiah realized that was only fair. The interrogation had been pretty one-sided so far. The gargoyles had been more than patient.
“I almost quit after I got these,” Jeremiah told them, running a hand over the massive scarring on his stomach, side, and back. “I realized sometimes I had misinformation, like why an attack occurred.”
Jeremiah grimaced, then admitted, “Plus, I didn’t have the resources, but while in the hospital healing, I was approached by Roger. He and his wife, Bethany, lost both their kids to a pack of coyote shifters... and they’re rich, so...” He paused and shrugged. “Anyway, I thought with their resources, I could really do some good in the world.” Sighing, he shook his head. “It took me almost a year, because it’s not like they trust new recruits right away,” he added dryly. “But I’m sorry to say that they were not very selective in who they went after.”
Guilt flooded Jeremiah, remembering the shifters he’d occasionally seen brought in... or had helped catch. They hadn’t deserved what had happened to them. He’d tried to rationalize his actions by remembering the evil shifters he’d tracked down. It had worked for a while, but now he realized how much of a mistake he’d made.
Seeing the scowl on Tobias’ face and the way Maelgwn clenched his jaw, Jeremiah knew he was in hot water.
Maybe, though, I can make amends?
“I’ll tell you everything about their organization,” Jeremiah whispered. “Just... just know that most of the men who joined thought they were helping save lives. They’ve been, well, brain-washed—” Was there any other word for it? “To believe that all paranormals are evil. It’s on you to prove otherwise.”
“On us,” Maelgwn corrected, leaning close, a serious expression on his features. “If you expect me to start taking prisoners left and right and trying to correct their views, then you are going to be helping, Jeremiah.”
Jeremiah’s eyes widened. They wanted his help? “How can you trust me to do that?”
Tobias shrugged. “Let’s begin small. Tell us everything you know about a guy named Paris.”
Letting out a slow breath, Jeremiah nodded. “He and a couple of other guys arrived at the facility just last week. They said they were demon hunters. I overheard a meeting they had with Roger about—” He paused, glancing between the gargoyles uneasily. “Well, about finding demon eggs and using them as leverage,” he whispered. Upon hearing both Maelgwn and Tobias growl, Jeremiah cringed. “I know where they’re regrouping. Maybe you can catch them?”
No one should steal another’s kids, human or gargoyle.
“Tell us everything,” Maelgwn ordered.
> Jeremiah nodded. After accepting a cup of water from Tobias, he started talking.
Jerking awake at the sound of the scream, Jeremiah hissed as pain exploded through his chest. He breathed deeply and realized his head still felt really fuzzy. From that, he guessed he’d only taken the meds a couple of hours ago and he must not have been sleeping all that long.
As Jeremiah lay there, the sound of voices filtered through his door. Evidently, there were a number of men in the waiting room. Some voices were louder than others.
“Ah, fuck!” a man cried. “I have so much more respect for women now. Shit!”
Jeremiah frowned, especially when he heard Cosmo say, “I’ve called for Doctor Perseus, Matthew. Just breathe deep for me.”
“I am breathing!” the first man snarled. That must have been Matthew. “You better be happy with one, Vane. Cause there’s no way I’m doing this again!”
A deep voice rumbled a response, but it was too low for Jeremiah to make out... or too far away. In seconds, the only thing he heard was the hush of men speaking far away. He wondered what was going on, but didn’t have the energy to get up, go to the door, and ask. Jeremiah wasn’t even certain anyone would tell him. Sighing, he closed his eyes and willed sleep to take him.
Jeremiah had just begun to doze when a hand on his shoulder roused him. He hissed when it pressed too close to the stab wound on his arm. Immediately, the hand moved to his chest. That wasn’t much better.
Snapping his eyes open, Jeremiah turned and saw Quinn standing beside his bed. He gaped for an instant, first at the bandages covering his face and neck, then because he was surprised to see the man. Getting hold of himself, he grabbed Quinn’s wrist and slid it up and off of his healing torso.
“Hey,” Jeremiah greeted roughly. “What are you doing here?”
Quinn grinned. “I’m getting us the hell out of here.” His smile faded just as quickly. “Did you know that these monsters can implant eggs into a human host? How freaky is that? One is giving birth right now.” He curved his fingers in air quotes even as he shuddered. “Disgusting!”
Claiming the Hunter Page 6