She followed where he pointed. The shower? Shrugging, she pointed at it and said, “Shower.”
He nodded his head, pleased. “Lillian, shower.” Then he ducked under the doorframe and marched away, leaving her in the steam-filled room with the shower still running.
Too shocked to follow, she stood gaping like an idiot. Her first conversation with her gargoyle. Something she’d dreamed about as a child. It finally had happened. Two words. He’d told her she reeked in two words.
Chapter 5
Freshly showered and now dressed in a clean T-shirt and jeans, Lillian stood over the pile of her discarded clothes and frowned at the evidence that proved she hadn’t imagined the last few hours. She poked the bloodied and shredded clothes with a bare toe. No hope of ever getting them clean enough to warrant mending. The mess of ruined fabric landed in the garbage with a wet sound. She washed her hands again.
Hopefully, she smelled better to a gargoyle’s delicate nose.
During her bath, she’d washed away the remainder of her fear. How could she fear anyone who looked as ridiculous as he had, jammed into the shower with wings and tail jutting out, horns scraping the ceiling? Besides, she was still alive. If he’d wanted her dead, he’d had plenty of opportunity. Instead he’d told her she reeked and fled the room as fast as he could.
“Well, fine,” she mumbled to herself. “No more procrastinating.”
As she exited the bathroom, the sword caught her eye. It sat propped where she’d left it next to the door. Since she wasn’t going to kill him with it, the sword was pointless. Besides, the mere thought of doing him harm sickened her. She needed answers. Something to explain away the strange link of kinship she felt with the gargoyle—if that was really what he was.
The bedroom door creaked loudly enough to shatter glass. She winced at the noise, but continued her march down the length of the hall and back to the stairs, which she stomped down with a heavy tread. She couldn’t say how she knew where he was, but like a bird aligning its migration flight to the Earth’s magnetic field, she set her mind seeking his, and followed where that tug led.
She found him in the kitchen. He paced around the island table, his bath towels slapping at his thighs as he walked. Seeing her, he stopped. Once again she was reminded of stone, he held himself so still. The spell broke a minute later as his jackal-like ears swiveled toward her. When she stayed rooted to the ground, he took measured steps in her direction. Slow and cautious, like he would woo a bird or get closer to a skittish horse, he reached out a clawed hand. She didn’t spook that easily, and held her ground.
He approached with a gentle caution, but all his muscles were tensed, like he was ready for a fight. Her throat tightened and her heart felt like a weight in her chest. With his hand outstretched before him, he inched nearer until only a few feet separated them. She took a half step toward him, and another.
He leapt forward, tackling her. His wings enveloped her a moment before his strong arms crushed her to his chest. She squeezed her eyes shut, and she couldn’t even scream since fear and surprise held her jaws locked. Her heart pulsed strangely, fluttering like it didn’t know how to beat. Then it remembered and took off with a vengeance.
Slowly, the dark world behind her closed eyes expanded. The mellow fragrance of soap registered on her senses. The feel of warm skin over hard muscle. The echo of his heart. The pulse of his blood. Forest scent and male.
Her gargoyle was real.
Without reason or logic, joy engulfed her soul and the remnants of panic melted away. She locked her arms around as much of his waist as she could reach.
He nuzzled her hair, blowing into it with great puffs of breath. His muzzle dipped lower, his tongue laving at her face in wide damp sweeps. Stilling, he inhaled deeply before resting his muzzle on top of her head, just holding her to him as if he feared she would vanish.
Obviously, he considered her natural smell to be an improvement over dried blood and gore.
“You’re certainly friendly,” she mumbled into his chest. Mumbling was all she was able to do with his arms locked around her; his chest may as well have been made of stone. She should have been screaming and fighting, driven by panic. But she wasn’t. She trusted him without question.
He shifted her in his arms as he folded his wings against his back. Then he unbalanced her more, reaching for something on the table behind her.
“You could let me go. I can stand on my own. I won’t even run away. Promise.” Her words went unanswered.
A loaf of bread appeared an inch in front of her face.
“Okay. A little room, please.” She shoved at his chest. After the third time, he seemed to get the point and allowed her to put a little space between them. She was still locked in the circle of his arms, but at least now she could take a deep breath without cracking a rib. He gestured with the bread again.
“Persistent fella, aren’t you.” She could stand there all night with a loaf of bread bombarding her face, or she could take the food.
With a sigh, she accepted the loaf and tore a chunk off, cave-woman style.
When she dutifully started to chew, he gestured for her to eat more. She swallowed and took another bite. He nodded his head and released her. Somehow it didn’t surprise her he’d be pleased by her compliance.
When she finished her chunk, he tried to get her to eat more. “Sorry, no.” She shook her head and hoped he would understand.
He gestured again.
“Not unless you plan to force feed me.” She crossed her arms and glared at him. “I have questions. To start, what’s your name?” She pointed to him and he grasped her hand. His head tilted to one side and his ears flicked forward and then back.
Lillian sighed. This is going to be a long day.
She tugged on her hand until he released her. While pretending to brush at crumbs, she stepped out of his personal space. He didn’t follow her, so she walked over to the sink and filled the tea kettle with water—all the while fighting the urge to turn around. After she placed the kettle on the stove, she glanced out the window. Her breath caught. Bodies slumped near the maze. How had she forgotten about them?
Seeing them again, the horror rushed back. But unlike the first time, her mind was sharper, and now a greater concern wormed its way into her consciousness. Her family would be home soon, and there could be more of those monsters outside somewhere. A spike of dread lanced her insides.
Her back muscles clenched into knots, winding tighter by the minute, and her jaw ached with the need to do something. If she called her family and told them to stay away, they would only rush home faster.
“Lillian.”
That voice again, lulling as the night breeze. His arms enclosed her from behind and her moment of panic dissipated. Of course he had killed all the monsters. Her gargoyle would never let them hurt her family.
Interesting. If she was in physical contact with him, calmness engulfed her, but when he was away, something rose within her … fear or panic, she wasn’t sure which, but either reaction was concerning.
Was he controlling her thoughts, her emotions? Doubts grew and she again stepped away from him to think. He let her go.
The kettle’s sudden, shrill whistle spurred the gargoyle into action. He swept her up into his arms and spun in a circle, seeking the source of the noise, his talons poised to rend his enemies.
“Easy,” she soothed. “Whoa. It’s okay.” She placed her hands flat against his muzzle, and eased them up to his temple.
The room swam, blurring with motion. When her vision cleared, the ground was a greater distance away, the room smaller, claustrophobic.
Impossible as it was, she was somehow seeing and feeling the world around them from his point of view—and, yes, she was presently feeling her horns rasp against the ceiling unpleasantly.
Her tail lashing in agitation at the shrill sound hurting her ears, she looked to the small object causing the noise and backhanded it. It sailed across the room and landed with
a clatter, but at least the horrid noise bouncing around the room died off.
“What on earth!” Lillian jerked her hand away from where it rested against his temple and the vision and stream of sensations coming from the gargoyle stopped. “What the hell was that?”
She twisted in his arms and pushed at his chest in an attempt to slip free. When that failed, she slumped against him. He still didn’t release her, but at least the strange parade of foreign sensations stopped.
“Okay,” she said, more to calm herself than him. “We need ground rules. No more of the mind-merging crap. I don’t want to ever know what it feels like for my horns to scrape the ceiling ever again, nor do I want to discover anything else deeply personal about you either by accident or intention on your part. Hands off until you can keep that under wraps.”
A soft whine issued from his throat as he bumped his muzzle under her hand a second time. Warmth and contentment, like a deep radiating sense of peace she’d never known before, surrounded her. Then it was shattered. Accompanying the new sensation was the image of the whistling teakettle. Foolishness. Embarrassment. Regret.
After a moment, she understood he was using touch to communicate, trying to apologize for his rash behavior. He’d been caught off guard by the shrill teakettle. He’d thought it was an attack. She might have found it funny if it hadn’t unfolded in her kitchen.
By way of apology, the gargoyle retrieved the teakettle and refilled it with water and placed it back over the element. Then he returned to her side and watched in his silent way.
His ears flicked forward, and back—like a horse listening for reassurance in his rider’s voice. A gargoyle with insecurity issues?
“I’m sorry,” she said in a calmer voice. “I get pissy when I’m scared. And I’ve been more scared today than any time in my life.” She took one of his larger hands into both of hers, hoping he could pick up on her emotions like she had his, and concentrated on projecting her feelings of gratitude and the lessening of her fear. “You saved my life, healed me. I can’t even begin to figure out how or why, but I’m alive and you seem genuinely interested in keeping me that way. The least I can do is hear you out.”
Now, her day would improve if she could find a way to communicate in complex sentences. His touchy-feely voodoo gave her an idea and she intertwined her fingers with his. She felt like a child. His one hand could engulf both of hers without difficulty and his claws … the term ‘huge’ didn’t do them justice. But for all his massive strength and formidable weaponry, he hadn’t harmed her. She patted his hand, and then tugged him in the direction of the cupboard over the kitchen sink. Pulling out a package of English Breakfast tea, she held it out to him. He blinked at her, but dutifully sniffed at the packaging. “Tea,” she said, giving it a little shake.
She took a teabag and dropped it in the teapot, then poured the boiling water in after. Next, she showed him how the stove worked.
He absorbed knowledge with an unreasonable quickness, and she wondered if his magic was aiding him in some way, or if he was able to pick the meaning of her words from her mind directly. Whatever the case, in less than a half hour he was pointing at random objects in the kitchen and saying the words and demonstrating how they worked. From the kitchen, they moved to the living room and then to the other parts of the house. The TV and stereo he didn’t understand, but at least he didn’t try to ‘kill’ the television like he had the teakettle.
*
After an hour, the gargoyle could recite a couple hundred words. She was mildly envious of his ability to learn so quickly. Sentences were still beyond him, but that was probably her lack of skill as a teacher. She didn’t know how to teach him something she couldn’t show or demonstrate.
Since she had grown tired of simply thinking of him as ‘the gargoyle,’ earlier she had tried to persuade him into revealing his name, without any luck. Frustrated, she tried again, slapping her hand against her chest. “Lillian.” Then she pointed at him.
He blinked at her, and nodded, giving her a flash of teeth. He found it funny. He was laughing at her. Great.
The tip of his tail flicked like a cat’s, and he leaned down and licked her across the cheek. She sputtered and swore. His grin stretched further, showing white, curving teeth. His tongue darted out again, catching her across the ear. “Lillian,” he rumbled.
“I know my name, Sherlock.” She pointed at him again. “Do you have one?”
“Yours,” he said, his expression turning serious. He bowed until his horns touched the ground and his wings pooled around him like a silk cloak. “I am yours.”
Chapter 6
A deep laugh rumbled in his chest at his lady’s expression. When he laid a finger under her chin and closed her mouth, her teeth came together with a soft click. The sound must have galvanized her, for she snapped out of her stupor.
“Yours? As in mine—like you belong to me? I … I don’t … Wait one minute. You can speak perfect English.” She folded her arms under her breasts and stood there, attempting to stare him down. “You’ve been holding out on me. After that info bomb, you can’t stand there all silent and stoic.”
He’d come to understand she’d wanted to know his name a while ago, and after the second time she’d touched her mind to his, he’d been able to read her thoughts. Her memories were his now. He understood her language as well as she did. The word games weren’t necessary, but they gave him a chance to study her, and since she thought she needed to touch him so he could pick up her thoughts, she’d held his hand for the majority of the time. He found he craved contact after years locked in stone.
“I am your protector. It’s your right to give me my name. What would you have of me, my Mistress?” he asked.
“Mistress?” She sucked in a breath, held it a moment, and then expelled it through her teeth, her expression thoughtful. “Okay, you’re really going to have to explain the mistress thing to me, and answer some questions.”
Remaining silent, he tried and failed to come up with words to erase his drastic tactical error. He should have known she’d have questions; ones to which she wasn’t ready to hear the answers. Lillian as the Mother’s Sorceress was an avatar to the Goddess—an avatar without knowledge of her past or what she was capable of made for a very dangerous situation.
She cleared her throat. “First question—you saved me. Why? Who am I, and what am I to you? Those creatures, why did they attack me? What do you … ?” She let the sentence die as her eyes widened. “You know something about my childhood. Please, if you have knowledge … I need to know. It’s all a blank void to me. Please.” Her voice softened on the last ‘please.’
Blinded by his joy at saving her, he hadn’t fully thought out the dangers. While he no longer detected the scent of corruption on her, he couldn’t forget where he’d found her. Eight years she’d been raised by the Lady of Battles. There was no telling the long-term damage the Battle Goddess had inflicted upon her. Stripping Lillian’s memories had not undone the dark goddess’s work. At best, it had bought him a little time, long enough for Lillian to mature.
Lillian’s expression of desperate yearning changed to a frown when she realized he wasn’t going to say anything more. “Oh, don’t think you can play ‘mute beast’ now. I heard full sentences come out of that muzzle of yours.”
He recalled she’d said she got ‘pissy’ when she was scared or things didn’t go her way. He was unfamiliar with the term, but it was a good word for the way she stood with her hands fisted at her sides and her narrowed eyes tracking him like an enraged bear’s.
Now was not a good time to explain. She was already under enough stress.
“Talk.” She hissed something else under her breath which sounded like no more handholding and paced away from him.
She was adapting too quickly, her agile mind thinking up too many questions. It would make hiding the truth harder, and he didn’t actually want there to be falsehoods between them, but he needed more time to understand what had be
en done to her as a child. There were too many unknowns. And for every uncertainty, new dangers could arise.
She exhaled a deep sigh. “Okay. Trust goes two ways, and I gather you’re not comfortable talking about everything yet.” He heard her heart rate slow as she calmed. “Fine, we’ll take it slow. No pressure. What would you like to talk about?”
“My name,” he replied.
“Wasn’t that what I was doing before you blurted the ‘mistress’ thing?” She sighed out another long, frustrated sound.
He couldn’t prevent the corners of his lips from curling away from his teeth so he dipped his head down in a bow, hiding his expression.
“The Sorceress has always named her Gargoyle Protector.” He figured it was safe to tell her that much about their relationship.
“Right, so what? She was negligent?”
He tilted his head to the side, puzzling over her words. Once he gathered the meaning from her thoughts, he grinned and tapped her gently on one shoulder. “Yes, my lady is very forgetful in this lifetime.”
Again her expression reflected an unpleasant surprise but she recovered faster this time and snapped her teeth together a moment later. “Well, you must have been smoking that same stuff as the other guy blathering about my magic. I’m neither a sorceress, nor your mistress.”
Her words were spoken in a strong tone, but there was an underlying doubt coloring them as well.
“I’m very certain. You are my Sorceress and I am your gargoyle, your protector. It’s your right to name me.” He’d intentionally not referred to them by their full titles for fear those names might nudge her memory.
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” she hissed more to herself than him. But she merely sighed and closed her eyes. After a moment the wrinkles on her forehead smoothing out and her expression turned deceptively peaceful. “Fine. You win.”
“You will name me?”
“Yep.” She flashed him a mischievous grin.
He waited with ears poised forward, tail flicking gently.
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