No, not a statue… a gargoyle; a shy and timid rabbit or possibly a hamster.
At first the feelings were so faint that she hadn’t even been aware of them. Gradually, the sense of disillusionment and resentment started to creep deeper into her psyche until all she felt was the overwhelming weight of a sorrow too heavy to carry anymore. Desperately, she searched for the source of the bitterness, afraid that if she didn’t find it soon the owner of such despair would do something foolish. Suddenly, she realized that the hopelessness was coming from the gargoyle she was plastered against, a gargoyle that had never been comfortable stuck in stone during the day.
She could only pray that it wasn’t Armand.
But, no, of course it wasn’t Armand. He was a strong and powerful griffin, not a tiny rabbit. It took another heartbeat or two to realize that the gargoyle was Katrina and the girl was miserable with the choice Ferris had made for her. The love she had harbored in her heart for Armand had turned to frigid apathy. There just wasn’t enough energy to hate him any longer. Katrina didn’t blame him… well, not too much anyway. It wasn’t his fault she couldn’t live up to the impossible expectations he had of her.
As soon as the sun set, Katrina shifted into her human form, no longer uncomfortable with being naked in front of the Nostuntres brothers, a little saddened that that should be. Vaughn and Rhys looked at her with pity as they left her alone on the roof with Armand, with the man who gave her immortality but not his heart.
“I want out,” she said without preamble, unable to look directly at the beautiful man. Out of the corner of his eye she watched as he gazed out across the city.
“I know,” he said on a sigh, not surprised by the words she had been holding in for almost four hundred years. For the first fifty or sixty years it had been exciting and wonderful and new and if she had any misgivings or saw Armand look at her as if she weren’t the girl he offered his nights to she ignored them. They were living in new and uncharted land, watching the world change before their eyes and there was no time to regret her choice.
But then her family’s letters stopped coming because her siblings had all passed on until she was the only one left. She hadn’t expected the difficulties and guilt she experienced after her last sister died. It seemed that all at once she was slapped in the face with reality and it was harsh and cold and she wanted to take it back; she no longer wanted to be a gargoyle.
She desperately wanted Armand to comfort her, to tell her that everything would be all right, and he tried – God, how he tried – but his heart was never in it. At some point a shadow had fallen over him and he no longer looked at her hoping to see something that wasn’t there. She almost wished he did because then he might still care for her, even a little bit.
For a while she had hated him for not loving her but after a hundred years she found it was too exhausting to hate someone who felt little more than regret. She tried to incite his jealousy, taking lovers and making damned sure he was aware of her actions. But he simply smiled at her and kissed her on the forehead like some unwanted child, telling her to be careful. Of course, Saint Armand never broke his vow to her, sharing her bed when she asked and never sleeping with any other woman. Eventually, the meaningless sex made her feel even more hollow inside.
And then the twentieth century hit and she was completely out of her element, a sixteenth century woman who could only watch in astonishment as women embraced their independence. Had she been like the modern women would Armand have loved her? She saw the way he looked at them sometimes, the yearning in his green eyes as a girl threw her head back and laughed in abandon, as another spoke boldly and freely, a devilish glint in her eyes.
He lived vicariously through his brothers as they gorged themselves on the willing flesh of the twentieth century. The three of them spent their nights at the bars and the clubs, the wildly popular places where supernatural creatures who liked to prey upon unwary humans liked to hang out. While the three gargoyles protected the stupid fools they also attracted a lot of female attention, the feminine stench clinging to Vaughn and Rhys when they returned in the morning.
Armand would always ask if she would care to join them but it was no longer her world and she wanted no part of it. She just couldn’t do this anymore. She didn’t want to be a gargoyle and she certainly didn’t want to be bound to Armand. With tears in her eyes, she finally looked at him, his beauty mocking her for everything she never had. With a sniff, she said in a shaky voice, “I just want to go home.”
His eyes filled with pity and understanding as he crossed the distance between them and took her into his arms. It was a struggle to remain motionless when she wanted to scratch his eyes out for touching her, even if it was only to offer comfort. “I know, Katrina. We’ll break the bond.”
She stepped back and looked at him with liquid brown eyes, “Really?”
He pressed his lips together in a grim line but he nodded his head nonetheless. “Yes. But I have to warn you, it is going to hurt.”
“I don’t care,” she said, her lips curling into a tremulous smile. A seed of hope exploded in her chest at his words and she didn’t care how much pain she had to go through to be free just so long as she was finally free by the end of it. Letting out a giddy giggle, she stepped back and grinned up at him, “When can it be done?”
“The next new moon,” he said. Looking out over the city, he let out a long sigh, “At least that is what father told me.”
She gasped, horrified that the gorgeous Apollo knew anything about their relationship, or what was left of it. “You told him?”
“I knew you were miserable,” he said by way of explanation. “I asked him to see what could be done to help and he finally told me.”
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion at his words, “How long ago did you talk to him about it?”
Slowly, he turned his head and looked at her and she suddenly didn’t want to hear the answer. Stepping out of the reach of his arms, she stared at him in horror, “You asked him as soon as you realized I wasn’t the girl you thought I was.” Letting out a hysterical laugh, tears coursing down her cheeks at the inexplicable pain, she continued, “How long did you wait? A day? A week?”
Letting out a tired sigh, he said, “I gave it twenty years. I’m so sorry, Katrina.”
Pain exploded over every inch of Ferris’s skin and it felt as if she were being skinned alive. A piercing scream echoed throughout her head and she didn’t know if she was screaming or if it was someone else.
“Just hold on, Katrina,” Armand’s voice murmured, soothing over Ferris’s skin, offering comfort she desperately needed. Only, it was Katrina being torn apart and the silly girl didn’t want Armand’s comfort.
Katrina squeezed her eyes open and saw the green of Armand’s eyes boring into her soul. Sweat beaded on his forehead and she knew that he was experiencing the same ripping and tearing sensation that she was going through but he looked a hell of a lot better going through it. Not only were they breaking the bond but the gargoyle was separating itself from her soul, leaving her human once more. “Go. Away.”
Ferris blinked and suddenly she was looking at the world from several inches higher than her usual height. Joy, lightness, and a little residue of guilt filled her and she almost smiled. She walked with a confident swagger, as if there was a heavy weight between her legs that needed….
Oh, shit, she was Armand. Holy shit! She was Armand! She was inside of Armand and it wasn’t nearly as creepy as it sounded since he wasn’t even aware of her presence. He was different than the Armand she had fallen in love with a million lifetimes ago. He was also different than he had been when she had fallen in love with him as Katrina. He wasn’t dark and brooding or light and teasing. Instead he was subdued but intense with a healthy amount of swagger.
He was enjoying his new life as a single man even though the final bond had only barely just been broken. There was a world of beautiful women willing and eager to share his bed. Yet, in spite of the lack of
partners he had had, he was still a discerning lover, preferring intelligence to empty beauty. Even after all of this time there was that elusive ideal that stayed just out of his reach, a dream he once had of a girl with blue-ish eyes, dark brown hair, and a smile that reached into his very guts and pulled out his soul.
“How does it feel to be free?” his brother Etienne asked, his blond hair gleaming in the low lights of the smoky nightclub, his yellow eyes glowing. The jaguar was a kindred spirit and one of Armand’s favorite brothers outside of his pod. Etienne’s pod brothers were there as well, Francois and Jean Baptiste, but they were already tracking their prey for that night's bed sport.
“It feels good,” Armand grinned, ignoring the little fingers of guilt that liked to stroke along his spine when he talked about poor Katrina, who was happily living in an alternate reality where it was the early sixteen hundreds. “This past year was hell for the both of us and I’m glad she has finally found some peace.”
Etienne shook his head in sympathy, “Father was a bastard for keeping the details of the separation spell to himself until after you started.”
“No,” Armand disagreed with a slight smile. “Apollo knew it wouldn’t have made any difference. I would have willingly walked over broken glass to free her from me so feeling everything that she went through was a small price to pay. I never should have given her my….”
His words trailed off as he spotted a luscious beauty across the intimate space, a face he had dreamed about for five hundred years. Softly, his breath barely passing his lips, he rasped, “It’s the girl I thought I fell in love with.”
Ferris could only watch in horror as Armand saw her aunt from across the smoky room, his heart pounding in his chest as he approached the beautiful Melanie. She wanted to scream that he once again had the wrong girl but she had no voice. She wanted to grab him by the arm, trip him, anything to get him to stop, but she had no body.
Seeing everything in a nightmare of Technicolor detail, Ferris watched her aunt’s summer sky blue eyes widen in appreciation as Armand stalked closer to her, as he took her hand in his and brought it up to his lips. Ferris saw Melanie's pulse race in her throat as Armand breathed, “Good evening.”
A becoming blush spread across Melanie’s face as she succumbed to the allure of Armand. The two of them spent the night squirreled away in a dark corner talking and laughing, getting to know one another on an entirely too intimate level for Ferris’s taste. They talked about living in Saint Paul, about Armand being a guardian and Melanie being a highly sought after pastry chef, about his brothers, about her sister and her niece Lanie and nephew J.J., about their hopes for the future, about their love of chocolate.
Ferris felt the cold weight of lead fill her stomach. What did Aunt Melanie mean by a niece Lanie and a nephew J.J.? Where was she? Despite not having a body, Ferris could feel her heart racing and shattering in her chest because in this reality she didn’t exist. Her mother was married to someone not Rhys and she didn’t exist.
Ferris could only watch the whirlwind romance in numb disbelief, barely screaming at all when Armand once again gave up his nights to a woman barely a month after knowing her. What the hell was wrong with the man that he was so eager to give his nights to women who were very wrong for him but he refused to even consider giving his nights to her? In that moment, Ferris was furious with the brilliantly foolish man. Why was he so stupid?
It killed her seeing him madly in love with her aunt but as long as he was happy she could have lived with it. Except she couldn’t because in this reality she didn’t freaking exist.
On the cusp of begging Fray to get her out of Armand’s head, knowing she would probably disappear, or whatever people did if they were never born, agony ripped through her lover’s heart. Tearing herself out of her own self-imposed isolation she looked through his eyes and saw her aunt entwined with Vaughn, both very naked and very much in love with one another. The pair stared in defiance and guilt at Armand and Ferris wanted to rage at them for hurting the man she loved.
She wanted to rage at Armand for being such a hopeless romantic and giving his heart too easily to women not meant for him, for not giving his heart to her. But then she felt his despair and utter loneliness and she wanted to rage at the world.
Ice wrapped itself around his beautiful heart, freezing him from the inside out, killing every ounce of love in his soul, killing Armand. The world became bleak and desolate as his sorrow spilled outwards, drowning everything in its path until all of the colors were muted and gray. He no longer dwelled in the land of the living and he was forever doomed to walk the barren land of hopelessness.
Finding herself in the white cloud, Fray staring at her with his jeweled eyes, Ferris let out a long, low wail. She pressed her flat hand against her mouth to try to stop the horrid sound but she couldn’t because she had destroyed so many lives with her actions. Oh, God! She had to take it back. “I only wanted him to be happy.”
“He was happy,” Fray told her with quiet certainty. “With you, always you.”
She threw her arms around the small dragon, burying her face in the slender curve of his golden neck, “Please, Fray, please take me away from here before I do any more damage.”
“No, Dragon-Mate,” Fray denied her request solemnly. “You have to say goodbye to him.”
“I can’t,” she choked out, misery gnawing on her innards until she was sure she had no intestines left.
“He fell in love with you, Dragon-Mate, not Katrina,” Fray said gently but firmly. “If you leave she will accept his gift and everything will happen all over. You must tell him goodbye.”
“Please don’t make me,” she pleaded irrationally, cruelly, not wanting to ever say good-bye knowing that she had no choice. “It nearly killed me the last time I said it.”
“Ferris,” Fray murmured, his voice growing distant as she fell back into Katrina’s life on the last day she had with Armand. “You have to be strong. If you love him you’ll do this for him.”
She bit back the cry because she was standing in front of Armand, staring up into his laughing green eyes. Her smile faltered as she drank in the sight of him one last time, from his thick black hair to his full, sensuous lips. His smile faded away as he stared at her with growing concern. Cupping her cheek in his warm, broad palm, he asked, “What is it?”
As she pressed her cheek into his hand, she tried to smile but her lips wouldn’t lie. Instead, tears filled her eyes as she brokenly whispered, “I love you, Armand. I love you so damn much but I can’t do this.”
His head cocked to the side and she wanted to melt at how adorable he looked but she couldn’t because as soon as she did what she had to do he was never going to look so trusting again. “What do you mean?”
Unable to resist, she kissed his palm, taking a moment to breathe in the heady scent of Armand. With a shudder, she released her breath and forced herself to meet his eyes, hating the concern that lingered there. “I can’t complete the ritual.”
Thunderclouds gathered in his green eyes but he held himself very still as he turned and gazed out across the setting sun. Finally, he looked at her, trying to conceal the bewilderment that swirled in his expressive eyes. “May I ask why?”
“You can ask,” she said with a watery smile. “But I can’t tell you. You just have to know that it’s the right thing for both of us.”
“I don’t believe you.” Oh, he was so stubborn! And, gods, she loved him for it even if he was making an already impossible situation even worse.
“I know and I’m sorry about that,” she mumbled, glancing as the sun sank lower. “Trust me when I tell you it’s for the best.”
“I love you.” His words were a dagger to her heart, said so simply, so honestly.
“Oh, god.” The tears that were welling in her eyes spilled down her cheeks and she felt her resolve weaken even more. Had she not seen the future, had she not felt the pain and misery, she would have given in. “Please believe me when I say thi
s is killing me.”
“I don’t understand,” he growled. “Even if I wanted to let you go, which I don’t, my brothers will be furious because you know too much.”
“Let them erase my memories,” she said, begging him to make her forget. Of course, she wasn’t going to be the one who forgot. However, those words seemed to be able to do what her pleading hadn’t: he let her go and stepped back, his face ashen with shock. “I’m sorry.”
With that, she turned and fled, unable to take even a final glimpse of him because her will was too weak. Blindly, she ran through the house, over the grounds of the estate, running until pain lanced up her sides and made breathing all but impossible, running until her legs felt like they were on fire, running until she could escape her sins.
Collapsing in the middle of a dense forest, tears and sweat and snot covering her face, she buried her head in her arms, oblivious to the loamy ground, the insects and the crawling things. Apparently she was destined for Armand but their timing was never right.
“Fray,” she managed to choke out between broken sobs. The little dragon lay on the ground next to her, his body completely boneless in exhaustion. Reaching out, she ran her fingers along his scales, his wings, before resting her hand over his chest and feeling his heart beat beneath her palm, feeling his lungs rise and fall with each breath he took. “Fray?”
Lethargically, he turned his head and opened one glazed eyed, “Yes, Dragon-Mate?”
“You’re still mine, aren’t you?” she asked, unable to lose him, too. At his arched brow, she continued, “We’re still bound, aren’t we?”
A sleepy smile curved his lips as his eyes slid shut, “Of course! You didn't accept his gift so you didn’t change the future. The past. Whatever.”
Despite feeling battered and bruised, she smiled at his incoherency because he was so very rarely incoherent. Keeping her hand on him, she let him rest as she closed her eyes and tried to figure out her next move. Hopefully she would come up with something that didn’t include having her heart ripped out of her chest and getting it stomped on. She was tired of falling in love with Armand and having it fall apart.
Stone Destiny (Stone Passion #3) Page 24