Guardian of the Abyss

by Shannon Phoenix

  He rolled over onto his back, bringing her with him so that she was cradled against his side. She touched powerful muscles, noting that despite having just made love, his penis lay on his stomach, still hard. In fact, he hadn't become soft and slipped out, but had remained hard inside her even after. For a moment, she wondered if he had even reached orgasm, but dismissed the thought immediately. It would seem that he was just especially randy.

  His voice rumbled as he said, "I understand how and why I feel that way, but not why you do. I was not very considerate of you." His voice was laced with regret.

  "Contrary to popular belief, not every sexual experience requires hours of foreplay."

  He shifted slightly, resting his head on his free arm, cradling her with the other one. "This place looks strange. I can't see the energy in the life around us."

  "It's the way it looked to me as a human. It's my dream, so it looks the way I remember it." She ran her hand down his abdomen. It was anything but flat, with muscular definition that only the most dedicated of body builders could hope to approach. "Can I ask you a question?"

  "Of course," he replied. "I think little is too personal now, don't you?" Clearly, he had understood the deeper request behind the question.

  "Why don't you have wings? I've seen gargoyles on TV, and they all have wings." She thought he'd had wings at times, but she'd never seen them while conscious and fully aware.

  "I don't understand what 'TV' means, but I do have wings. Most likely, you do, too. But we can't open them underwater."

  "Why not?"

  "The currents will harm them terribly. When I was first dropped into the sea, I opened them without thinking as my anger overtook my good sense. The result was terrific agony, and it took years for them to regrow and heal. Water is our greatest weakness."

  "Strange. As a human, it's necessary for life." She felt her desire for him returning with a vengeance. Trying to distract herself, she asked him, "Why is water so bad?"

  "Well," he looked thoughtful, his hairless face looking surprisingly normal to her now as she studied him while he answered, "we can shift underwater, but we can't disappear. If we try to disappear under water, the water invades our bodies and turns us into dust. Mud, really. We can't heal our injuries while underwater. It also cuts us off from one another."

  "Why don't you have hair?" she asked him. She'd seen other gargoyles who had hair. It was always the same color as them, but they had hair.

  He rolled over and leaned his head on his hand, supporting it with a bent arm. His leg wrapped around hers and she felt herself snuggled against his body as his hand ran up her back. His erection pressed against her and it took all of her focus to even hear what he was saying as he answered, distracted as she was by her hyper-awareness of his body against hers.

  "Not all of us can form hair. It takes a very fine focus to form our skin into what others perceive as hair. There are two different types of gargoyles. There are the smaller kind, which are the water spouts. Outside of us two, I have only seen wachter vogels--watcher birds--as water spout gargoyles. Then there are the grotesques--"

  She raised her eyebrows. "Grotesques? That's a little harsh, don't you think?"

  He shrugged. "Humans named us. Grotesques are the ones who are statues. Technically, to call them gargoyles is inaccurate. Gargoyle means gargle... and statues don't gargle unless they have water running through them as water spouts do. The others are called grotesques because their forms are always of distorted demon-like humanoids, chimeras, or distorted animals."

  "So what's a chimera?"

  "True chimeras are creatures that are a mix of animals. A griffon is a chimera, for example, because it's a lion and a bird. A centaur is a chimera because it mixes a human with an animal." His hand had found a sensitive spot on her naked back right above her tailbone.

  If she could have purred, she would have. Instead, she pulled his head down for another kiss. He groaned at first, but pulled away.

  "I shouldn't--"

  She put her finger on his lips. "Before you speak," she warned him, "you should consider whether or not you're absolutely certain that you want to tell a woman you just had sex with, that you regret it." She narrowed her eyes when he began to speak again.

  He stared at her for a moment, then his lips quirked as if in amusement. Taking her hand, he tucked it against his chest. "No," he growled, "I don't suppose that would be a good idea."

  "Not if you ever want to do it again," she agreed with him.

  A heart-wrenching moment of vulnerability slipped across his face, then it was gone. "After that poor performance, I can't imagine why you'd let me," he said in a voice so soft and low that she barely heard him, "but I definitely want to do it again." He kissed her lightly before she could say anything. "And again," his lips touched hers once more, "and again," with another kiss. Then he was deepening the kiss and pulling her more tightly against his body.

  She wrapped a leg around his thigh and arched against him. Her body was crying out for him again already, with an intensity that almost frightened her. But as he pulled away and began to change their positions, she saw them over his shoulder...

  "Really?" she demanded, unconsciously unfurling a wing to wrap it over herself and Abaddon to cover their nakedness. "You have to do this right now? Can't you see that I'm getting laid?"

  Startled, Abaddon turned to look where she was looking. "What is it?" he asked.

  "You can't see them?"

  "Who?" he answered, clearly puzzled.

  She focused, wondering if she could just show him. "My multitude of delusions," she informed him, waving her hand at the army of gargoyles who now stood on the plain of grass of the park they were at in her dream. "I can't seem to block them out for long."

  Chapter 11

  Abaddon had forgotten he was in a dreamworld with Sarah. Nor did he remember from the distant past when he'd been a human, how easily a person could be wrenched from a dream. So it was that, when he saw his last living son, he wailed with grief when the field of green was gone and only a dank, wet cave remained.

  He cried out, seeking with his mind, only to meet the impenetrable wall of water all around them. "Thanatos!" he bellowed, calling for what could never be, what would never be, and what should never have been.

  His last living son had been in the group of gargoyles that had shown up at the end of the dream. A shudder passed through his body as he thought of his son. Thanatos had rejected him when he was told by the sorcerers that created Abaddon that Thanatos' mother had been forced to have sex with Abaddon.

  Naturally, they had left out who had done the forcing, and the atrocities they had committed in doing that forcing. They'd left him believing that Abaddon was the one who had forced the encounter.

  Nothing could be further from the truth. Abaddon had been severely injured and brutally punished for fighting back against the sorcerers. They had taken the woman's family hostage; her two little children and her husband. First her husband had been tortured gruesomely in front of Abaddon and her. When that didn't get them to comply, they had started on the children.

  Finally, sobbing, she had begged him to end their misery. He had agreed, but the family's piteous cries echoed in his mind even now. He had tried to save them. He'd tried every time. But in the end, it was always futile.

  They had used potions on him and the women they brought for him to impregnate, so that while his mind screamed in horror, his body obeyed. His final act against them had cost every one of them their lives... and a small comfort it had been as he sank to the ocean floor at great speed... their mangled ship and their drowning bodies swirling around him in the water as he fell.

  In an act of nothing more or less than revenge, Abaddon had cast a spell that sundered their ship. In their arrogance, they had forgotten that although he was a gargoyle, he was also a sorcerer like them. He had carefully let them believe his powers were dwindling, waiting for the chance to end their atrocities. Waiting, always waiting, for the r
ight moment... when their guard was down and they had forgotten. He had escaped from them and taken his sons with him... and the sorcerers had made a bargain with the Rakshasa to get him back. A choice that had cost them their lives.

  When the Rakshasa had attacked the village the gargoyles were protecting, they had captured him instead of killing him. They had handed him over to the sorcerers for nothing more than a few gold pieces.

  It was another shame in a long life of mistakes. He should have died that day, not been captured. He had believed he was dying... but he'd lived in the miserable dark of the ocean after the sorcerers dumped him there, dying in the process. Then he'd been alone with his shame and his pain.

  "You have nothing to be ashamed of." The soft mental voice made him suddenly aware that Sarah was standing beside him, her hand on his arm.

  "You don't know what you're talking about."

  "Why are you dwelling on this now?" she asked him.

  "I had a dream." He tried to get the tension out of his shoulders.

  "We had a dream," she gently corrected him. He looked at her to find her face filled with tender understanding.

  He ignored the broader implication for a moment, needing to know the truth. "Did you see them?"

  She didn't pretend not to know what he meant. "They're my delusion," she said, shrugging. "I've been imagining them since you made me a gargoyle."

  Another black mark on his soul--as if he needed more.

  "It's not a black mark on your soul," she said, her lips unmoving as always when they spoke through the gargoyle link that shouldn't have worked so incredibly well while they were in humanoid form. "I'm not angry. It would be like being angry at the doctor for setting a broken bone. You saved my life."

  Uncomfortable with her ready forgiveness, he told her, "They're not a delusion." He looked down at the perfect, delicate hand on his arm.

  Her perfectly rendered eyebrows rose. "What makes you think they're not?"

  "I saw men I recognized." He lifted his gaze to tangle with hers. "My son was among them. They are gargoyles, connected somehow to your mind despite you being underwater."

  She blinked. "But they can't hear me. They just keep asking me who I am, what I am, and other questions. They can't hear me reply to them like you can."

  "That would be the water, I presume," he answered. "It seems it can block your sending, but not your receiving." He ran a hand over his head. "Not much use to us, unfortunately."

  Then he knew he had to face the more immediate reality of what had happened between them. He sat down and she gracefully lowered herself to sit beside him. She was incredibly beautiful, and unlike in the beginning of the dream, still naked. He tried not to think about it or look at her naked elegance.

  "I dreamed that we--"

  "I know," she cut him off. "I did, too." There was something in her voice that made him look up at her. To his utter shock, she was grinning. "Can I tell you a secret?" she had lowered her mental voice as if in fear of being overheard. Perhaps she feared the sharks might be offended, he fancied.

  "I guess," he managed, uncertain. She wasn't taking the matter very seriously. He frowned.

  "I think we need practice. Like, in real life." To his shock, she climbed onto his lap, her legs around his waist.

  She leaned forward to kiss him, but he pressed his hand over her mouth. "This is serious, Sarah. I behaved badly and I'm trying--"

  She scowled at him and pulled his hand down. "You're too serious. You're convinced that you jumped on me and I just laid there like a dead fish." She leaned towards him again, dodging around his hand and saying against his lips, "I can do better, I promise."

  She kissed him and reached down between their bodies, tugging on the skin he had formed into a loincloth. He pushed her away, abashed at how badly he wanted to throw all morals out the window and just plunge into her again.

  This time, though, it was no dream, and there would be very real consequences.

  "Take this off," she demanded. "Or poof it... whatever it is that makes it go away."

  "No." He held her hands at bay in his own.

  She scowled again, before a gleam entered her eyes that he wasn't sure he was going to like. It turned out that he liked it far too much. She gave up trying to pull it off and rubbed the length of his cock with her hand, twisting it away from him.

  He pulled her hand away, sucking in a deep gout of air to try and calm himself. "Stop, Sarah. I can't. This isn't right."

  She leaned back, looking at him with a narrowed, angry gaze. "Why the hell not?" That one, she said out loud, and the overlap of gibberish and sense was disorienting.

  "We're not married," he reminded her.

  "Antiquated concept."

  He took another breath. It seemed to be becoming a habit when dealing with this woman. "That doesn't make it wrong."

  "So we'll take vows and marry each other," she announced. "If you can deal with the fact that I'm dying--"

  "What if you don't, Sarah? I don't believe in divorce. I don't think I could let you go."

  Her hand ran down his chest. "The possibility of not dying makes me want to marry you more, Abaddon, not less."

  He shook his head. "You don't even know me."

  "I know you better than you know me. You have no real idea of how stubborn I can be." Her jaw set rigidly. "I lowered your inhibitions in that dream on purpose because I knew you would never give in otherwise."

  "You don't know me," he argued. "You think you do, but you don't. How could you possibly?"

  Her face closed. There was no other way to describe it. She retreated, to the point that she got up off of his lap and went to stand staring into the slightly glowing water. Their communication cut off as she stepped away.

  He walked over after a few minutes and gently ran his hands up and down her upper arms. Gently, not wanting to spook her, he asked, "How do you know me, Sarah?"

  Chapter 12

  Sarah wanted to lean back and feel Abaddon's arms around her. She wanted to jump into the water and run away and never come back, too, though. It wasn't really fair since she'd already seen so much. She just as well let him see some of her vulnerabilities, too. But it was surprisingly hard to state the truth.

  "When I was young," she began, "I had an unusual talent. An ability, really. When I met people, I could see the past lives they were most struggling with in this one."

  She felt him tense behind her. She dreaded that he would say something and she wouldn't be able to continue. But he said nothing, just standing behind her, his hands returning to their caressing motion on her arms. "Go on."

  Screwing up her courage, she did. "I didn't know better at the time, so I shared it with them. As Catholics, my parents thought I was possessed. They took me in to be exorcised. When I was too stupid to shut up after that, they had it done again. It really terrified me." She took a deep breath, even though intellectually she knew she didn't need it anymore. "I finally quit talking about it, but it never went away."

  She turned to face him. Meeting the black pools of his eyes with her own, she finished, "I did the same thing with you, except that I saw all of your current life and none of your past ones. It was all just sort of downloaded into my mind at once. I've seen the way the sorcerers tortured you and forced you to be with those women. I saw the way Lilith treated you. I saw it all." She dropped her head onto his chest and stepped against him, wrapping her arms around him as he enclosed her. "I know you because I saw you. I saw your struggles, your sorrows, your regrets. And I saw that you are a genuinely noble person." She felt tears well in her eyes and was surprised that she could still cry since becoming a gargoyle. "You deserve better than me, but I'm too selfish to wish you find her."

  He had to bend forward to lay his cheek on her head. "You undervalue yourself."

  She looked up at him. His golden skin glowed with life, leaving a halo all around him. It fit the true nobility of his soul. "That's a thousand times truer of you than it will ever be of me."
r />   "Sarah, even my son refuses to speak to me." Sorrow lined his face and bled into their connection, overwhelming her.

  "He doesn't know the truth. He doesn't understand what really happened. And he was wrong not to let you tell him."

  He shook his head. "He was right. I did terrible things."

  "You chose the lesser of two evils and did your best to make things as good as possible for what remained of the lives of those families. What happened to them was not your fault, it was the fault of the men who did this to them and to you." She took a deep breath, knowing he wasn't going to like what she said next, "They served their purpose, though they would be enraged to find out that they were serving the world, not winning against it."

  He snorted. "What purpose? They forced me to mate with married women in order to save their families." He looked up, away from her. "And I was too selfish to save my sons from this world."

  "You don't understand the bigger picture, but I do."

  "What bigger picture?" he demanded, angry. "Because I was too weak to listen to the suffering cries of a few people, many more have suffered."

  "And even more have been saved." When she felt a response boiling up in him, she shook her head. "No. Don't speak, don't argue, just listen." She sat down and patted the ground. He sat beside her, and she took his hand in hers. "I see the entire picture from a less biased point of view. So let me tell you how I see these events."

  She gathered her thoughts for a time. "Thanatos blames you for his mother's suffering, but not for his own. You regret bringing him into the world to suffer, but he doesn't. And the world is better off because the gargoyles are in it." He made to speak again and she squeezed his hand. "Wait, I'm not finished. Who would protect the werewolves while they are gone each month? Who would keep their wives safe? And without the werewolves, the second strongest force against the serpents would be gone."