Beauty's Beasts

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Very soon the confrontation between her control and his ego would come. But for now, he was content to let her keep control. His tongue brushed her upper lip and lifted away. “Don’t feel inadequate with us two,” he told her.

  She smiled up at him. “I won’t.”

  Damian jerked his head up, like he’d heard a loud noise, or been alerted by something. “Nicholas,” he said, his hand falling away from Riley’s face.

  Riley turned in Damian’s arm.

  Nicholas was three or four paces beyond the roof entrance door, a grocery bag in one hand that glowed ghostly white in the gloaming. He was standing very still, where he had come to a halt on the rooftop. He had moved almost silently, so that only Damian had heard him.

  Nicholas’ face was painted with shock, the blue eyes wide. As soon as Riley turned and saw him, though, Nicholas shook himself and strode forward, swinging the grocery bag in her direction. “Food for the weak one,” he said, dropping it at her feet.

  Riley pulled away from Damian, even though his arm stayed around her. He was not hiding from Nicholas in any way. She stepped away from Damian, letting his arm drop.

  “You two reek of sex,” Nicholas said sharply. “Couldn’t you have at least showered instead of assaulting me with the stench all night?”

  Riley sucked in her breath, shocked.

  Damian shook his head. “That’s a cheap shot, Nick, and you know it. Feel better now you’ve hurt Riley and no one else?”

  Nicholas shrugged. “I couldn’t give a tinker’s damn if the truth hurts,” he told Damian, heading for the edge of the rooftop. He was completely indifferent. “Riley isn’t here to be coddled. She can deal with it.” He leaned over the edge to peer down at the top of the gallery and the skylights below, where the lights from the gallery were radiating pure light in three big square white panels up into the night. “That’s it?”

  Riley, leaning over the wide concrete lip on Damian’s other side, and saw Nick glance at her. He was not as indifferent as he wanted her to think. Was it her he was aiming his barbs at? Or Damian?

  She pushed back from the edge and straightened up, her heart thundering. Games within games. Was she going to get hurt here because she wasn’t playing her own game? Because she didn’t have an agenda? She was the only short-lived creature on the playing field, caught between two centuries-old vampires who’d learned the art of strategy from fighting actual war campaigns that she’d only read about in books. Damian had already confessed he could see farther ahead than her. What if she was the pawn in this? The piece that could be easily sacrificed in order to promote another, stronger player?

  She had to be smarter than this, didn’t she? Or should she just trust that love would win out?

  No, don’t be stupid, Riley. Love is what romance heroines rely on. This is the real world.

  In the real world, life wasn’t fair, the underdog didn’t always win, you got kicked when you were down, justice didn’t always rule and in no way, shape or form was it impartial. Above all, if she didn’t watch out for herself, no one else was going to.

  Riley leaned over the ledge once more, copying the two vampires, to make it look like she was relaxed and hadn’t just had her teeth mentally kicked in for her.

  She had to figure out what she wanted from these two, then plan how to go and get it. Damian was going to have to learn to live with disappointment, because she wasn’t going to give up control for him in the near future. No way. Not if this was the way they were going to play the game with her.

  “There,” Damian murmured. “And there.”

  “I see it,” Nicholas replied.

  Both of them leaned motionless, watching the skylights.

  Riley swallowed her fury and watched. Shadows were fluttering around the rim of the skylights. Large ones. Her heart began to pump hard.

  Then large shadows stepped into the light below the panes, blocking it. She couldn’t see detail, because the light pouring from the skylight was the only illumination source nearby and night had fallen suddenly as they had waited on the roof.

  The skylights lifted back on hinges almost soundlessly and six large shapes eased out. From having studied him so long that afternoon, Riley was able to pick out Lirgon from the shape of his wings and head. Seeing him move was fascinating, but she recalled Damian’s warning. These creatures had been the most deadly foe her parents had faced. Lirgon had killed both her parents in the end. She could not underestimate the creature no matter what he looked like, or how he moved.

  The six hunched shapes paused around the edges of the skylights and closed them again. The wings—ugly, hooked, leathery things—unfurled and stretched out to dozens of feet across and flapped experimentally. Hisses and snarls floated up in the air. The whisper of language, but not words that Riley understood. Then the wings began to beat in earnest.

  Damian’s hand caught her jacket and pulled her down into a crouch on the tarmac coating the rooftop, hugging the wall, just as he and Nicholas were doing.

  The gargoyles rose in lazy flight into the air, wings lifting them in heavy, silent sweeps into the night air, almost vertically up over the rooftops as they searched the terrain with their excellent vision and even better sense of smell and hearing. Then, with a small circle in the air, they glided off toward mid-town Manhattan and Central Park. Where the hunting would be more congenial, Riley presumed.

  Nicholas spread his long legs out on the tarmac. “Saint Peter on a fucking pony,” he said, resting his head back against the wall. “All six of them.”

  Damian sighed. “This really is starting to get a little old.”

  “If this is the same as last time. We’ll confirm it, then deal with it. Once and for all.”

  “It’s unlikely to be anything else, Nick, you know that.” Damian sat up. “Why court a disaster just to be sure?”

  Riley stood up and faced them both. “What the hell are you talking about? Either of you?”

  Nicholas answered without hesitation. “The six gargoyles that just rose are the original six from the Stonebrood clan. The last six, which I and twelve demon hunters spent two weeks hunting and exterminating in 1873. In the end it cost us eight lives, but we did it because we knew if we did not, the rogue clan would continue to go on slaughtering humans for the joy of it for decades to come, for gargoyles are virtually immortal if their stone-sleep is secure enough. We accounted for every last gargoyle in the clan. That was the last clan, we thought. Gargoyles were wiped from existence and taken from the hunters’ lists.”

  “Until 1977. Until my mother met my father,” Riley prompted.

  “The only reason they returned to life was through supernatural means,” Damian told her. He lifted his arms to his knees and let his hands hang between them. “The demon Azazel that Nick had been hunting brought rock likenesses of the gargoyles to life—he channeled their life-force into the carvings using summoning charms. Azazel had more powers than Nick was aware of and we’ve always wondered if he really disintegrated the day Tally dealt with him, or merely departed and bided his time. Your mother hedged her bets. She made us swear to protect you if Azazel ever raised the clan again. She knew he would come after her offspring if he knew of you, for she was the one who transfigured him, the last time. He’ll be looking for vengeance, this time.”

  Riley crossed her arms. “So despite seeing the six rise again, you still feel it is necessary to confirm that Azazel is behind this? Or is this some fancy form of procrastination?”

  Nicholas’ eyes widened slightly.

  Damian just laughed. “She’s Tally all over again, and then her father for good measure.” He laughed again, silently this time.

  “Glad you find it amusing,” Riley told him.

  “I’m not sure I could stand it, having Carson in the mix. I always found him irritating at the best of times,” Nicholas said, looking up at her.

  “Only because he was fucking Tally and you wanted her yourself,” Damian said, his tone casual, as if he were discussi
ng the latest football scores.

  Riley jumped a little. Nicholas grew still, his gaze still on Riley.

  Damian picked up the small plastic bag of food and held it up to Riley. “You should eat.”

  Riley took it. She realized that she was starving to the point of nausea and suddenly didn’t care what was in the bag at all. She was going to eat every last morsel. She backed up to one of the air conditioning hubs, sat on the lid and tore into the deli sandwich with huge bites.

  “We should still visit the sculptor, anyway,” Damian said, getting to his feet. “Riley isn’t ready to face Lirgon yet. How long until she will be, Nick?”

  Nicholas shook himself, clearly trying to dismiss Damian’s shocking statement. He pushed himself to his feet. She felt his gaze on her, assessing. “Three days. Maybe two, but only if you were there, too.” He seemed to be struggling with inner thoughts. It made his words come slowly. “It would be risky, even then. Tally had years of training and Lirgon still…” He stopped and pressed his fingertips to his temples. “I can’t do this, Damian. I can’t.”

  Riley put the sandwich down, shocked.

  Damian, standing a little behind Nick, didn’t look surprised at this sudden confession. “You have to,” he said simply.

  Nicholas dropped his hands and pointed at Riley. “Look at her! She had no idea who she is, her heritage, the traditions, any of it. We have to give it all to her and she’ll never absorb enough to appreciate even a fraction of it. Tally at least grew up in our world.”

  Damian didn’t move. “You’re going to hate Riley because she isn’t in awe of you? That’s bigoted of you.”

  Nick whirled to face him. “She has no idea what she’s dealing with!” he railed.

  “I’m right here,” Riley reminded him. The food she had eaten was sitting at the bottom of her stomach now, like a cold rock. She felt sick.

  He strode over to her. He was angry. Lines were drawn beside his mouth and his eyes were very blue. “You fucked him,” he said, pointing to Damian, “but you have no idea who he really is.”

  “And you do, of course,” she said softly, suddenly grasping the shape of his anger.

  “No, of course not! Damian is nearly three thousand years old. Even I have trouble trying to hold the concept of that amount of time in my mind, and I’ve lived for nine hundred years longer than you.” He gripped his hands together, like he was trying to hold his temper in. “You literally fell into our world last night, Riley. How can you possibly appreciate…?” He hesitated.

  “You want to make sure I appreciate the right things and hate the things that should be hated,” she finished. “You want me to soak up a lifetime of prejudices and learning in a day, so that I will genuflect at the right moment, will be scared when I should be, and will laugh at the same things as you two.”

  Nicholas straightened up. His anger faded.

  Riley shrugged. “I’m sorry, Nick. That can’t happen. Not in the real world. If you wanted me to be another Tally, then you shouldn’t have abandoned me as a baby and left me for the foster system to take care of.”

  He sucked in a sharp breath.

  “That’s not how it happened, Riley,” Damian added.

  “No?” She brushed her clean hands of invisible crumbs to hide their trembling. “I wasn’t exactly in a position to argue at the time.”

  “You were born in 1983, on the same day your father was killed. By 1983 record-keeping and social services were much more effective and regimented than they were when Nicholas and I helped raise your mother. Even so, we helped your mother for the next year or so hunt down Lirgon and look after you. But when Lirgon and your mother died, it was bloody, brutal and close to public. The authorities got involved. Your mother’s body was found and when they realized who she was, they put you into the foster system.” Damian shrugged. “We were not next of kin, Riley. In 1984 we could barely produce identity papers saying we were alive.” He grimaced. “We’ve not been so unprepared since.”

  “You left me in the system. Alone. You didn’t try to find me.” Riley wished the plaintive note wasn’t there in her voice, but there it was.

  “We couldn’t find you,” Nicholas said simply. “We tried.”

  Damian lifted a hand. “He’s lying just a bit. Once you emerged from the foster system, he had your St. Louis location within twelve months.”

  She looked at Nick. His gaze cut away from her.

  “But you still didn’t contact me. Why?” she demanded.

  Damian answered again. “We could see you were building your own life. We didn’t want to dismantle it just because we selfishly wanted to bring you back into ours.”

  Her eyes pricked with hot, hard tears. “It didn’t occur to you I might like to have the choice?”

  Nicholas’ blue-eyed gaze speared her. “There’s no choice when we’re in your life. The underworld is destructive and seductive, and it takes over your life until there’s nothing left but this—the hunt, the chase, the constant thrill of your next target and the bizarre bohemian shadow world that normal humans have no idea exists right under their elbows and behind their ears.”

  She shuddered. His eyes seemed to grow larger, until all she could see was the summer blue of his gaze. Staring directly at a vampire is a challenge. Damian’s words echoed in her mind.

  “Let me go,” she whispered.

  Nick blinked and turned away.

  Riley drew in a breath. Then another. Her heart was thundering and her clitoris was swollen and pulsing. Her breasts were aching and heavy, the tips pushing at the soft material of the singlet. She licked her lips. She was powerfully aroused—Nicholas had been forcing her to it with his stare. She wiped her sweaty palm on her jeans, trying hard not to look at Damian, for she knew he would be able to sense her aroused state. At least here on the rooftop the open air would sweep some of her telling pheromones away.

  When she thought it was safe, she let her gaze lift up from her lap. Right into Damian’s eyes. He clearly had been waiting for her to look up. He had returned to his deceptively indolent lean against the edge of the roof, both arms spread against the ledge. Now that she was looking at him, he spoke. “Riley has a psychological need to stay in control, no matter what. She probably acquired it from her turn in the foster system.”

  Riley bit back the moan of betrayal. How dare he speak of it aloud? And to Nicholas?

  Nicholas turned to look at Damian, then her, quickly. Her expression must have given him all the confirmation he needed. He glanced at Damian again. Something passed between them, a silent communication.

  Riley wrapped her arms around her middle and squeezed. “Shouldn’t we go and see the sculptor or something?”

  Nicholas considered her again. “It’s the dinner hour. It would be uncivilized to interrupt a human during their mealtime.” He spoke absently, his gaze on her face. “The foster system did more damage than I thought.”

  “Just shut the fuck up,” she snapped.

  Damian straightened up from his lean and strolled toward her. “She has such a need to control, in fact, that she will not let go, not even in my arms.”

  Riley jumped to her feet, her face burning hot. “God, you had to tell him even that?”

  Damian lifted his shoulders. A shrug. “You’re a liability. He has to know.”

  Her breath deserted her, just as it had earlier that evening. The impact seemed somehow worse this time. Damian stopped barely a foot away from her, his eyes drilling into her with chilled mercilessness.

  She found her voice. It was nearly bodiless. “All that talk this afternoon. The things we did. And the whole time you were just…assessing me for Nick. Sizing me up. Seeing if I were fit for duty.” The words tasted like ashes in her mouth.

  “It’s a tough world out there. We have no use for a gentle maiden and a delicate sensibility that would get slaughtered in the first pass.”

  “A test? This was a test?”

  “You can call it that if you want.” Again, the dis
interested shrug.

  Fury ripped through her. She had been moved around the chessboard like the pawn she had been determined not to become. She had been utterly blind to the fact that she was being manipulated all along. How stupid was she? She had been completely unaware of when an agenda was being worked around her.

  “Go back to your training room, little girl,” Damian added, jerking his head toward Nick, who stood just to one side, watching this all go down with perfect stillness.

  Afterward, she was never able to reconstruct the reasoning that made her act. There was none. There was simply hurt and fury and the need to strike back—and a subconscious knowledge that nothing she did could possibly hurt Damian, who was so much faster and stronger than she was. He would stop her long before she could do anything to him and probably damage her in retribution…and she would deserve it.

  She whipped out the carbon knife from inside her coat and gripped it hard in her hand. An ugly cry burst from her lips as she grabbed the front of Damian’s coat for purchase, took a perfect lunge forward with her lead foot and thrust with the knife, straight into his stomach.

  The knife buried deep—it was incredibly sharp and she had thrust hard. She felt something give, deep inside him. There was a soft sighing sound and blood gushed over her hand as she stared down at it.

  She pulled out the knife. “Oh god, oh god! No, no, Damian!” She looked up at him as he staggered sideways, his eyes closing. His hand came to his stomach. The sideways stagger ripped the knife from her grip and it dropped to the rooftop.

  Nicholas was suddenly there behind Damian, holding him, lowering him to the ground.

  Damian coughed and blood trickled from the corners of his mouth.

  Blood was everywhere, all over his coat, all over his hands as he pressed them against his stomach.

  Riley dropped to her knees next to him, Nicholas beside her. “Damian, why didn’t you stop me? Dammit to hell, why did you do this? What do I do now?”