by A C Warneke
As he twitched, she pressed the finger just past the tight opening. His entire body went rigid as his back arched off the ground and he cried out, coming with such force it overfilled her mouth. As his body trembled back to earth, she licked him clean, lapping up the musky ambrosia and wishing she had forever.
“My gods, woman,” he breathed, his chest heaving as if he had just run a hundred miles. Sweat glistened on his skin and little aftershocks of pleasure continued to work their way through his body. “Where did you learn such tricks?”
She smiled smugly, delighted to have given him so much pleasure. Her joy was only tempered by the thought that it could all end at any moment and she didn’t know if she would have any more time with him or if this was it, if this stolen hour was going to be the last time she saw him.
God, she didn’t want to think about it and she sure as shit didn’t want to think about her last moments with him back in the real world. She just wanted to immerse herself in Armand so she didn’t have to think at all. Arching an eyebrow at his indolent smile, his half-closed eyes, she asked, “So, are you ready for the next round?”
He chuckled and let out a satisfied breath. “Minx. You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”
She violently shook her head no, not even allowing him to joke about something so awful. “Never.”
After a moment of silence, the laughter fading from his eyes, he murmured, “It’s strange. My brothers – my older brothers – wanted to kill me for bringing you into our world but I am finding that I have no regrets.”
At first his words made no sense until Katrina’s memories filtered into Ferris’s consciousness. Armand had defied his older brothers and brought her to the estate shortly after she had given him her virginity. He had told them that he was going to give up his nights for her, ignoring their vocal objections. Because he promised to marry her, her family had let her go, grateful to have one less daughter to marry off. Katrina knew he didn’t love her but she didn’t care because she had enough love in her heart for both of them.
She remembered her first meeting with his brothers, the three that ignored her and the two that welcomed her with open arms. Vaughn and Rhys. She remembered Rhys because he commented on the similarity of their eyes, the rich brown color that was a sign of high intelligence and a witty sense of humor.
Why did Katrina abandon him? How could she abandon him? She shook her head to clear her head of Katrina's memories since they didn't show the future.
His thumb brushed over her lower lip and on instinct she kissed the pad. His smile was warm as he murmured, "I think this will work out very nicely.”
Not wanting to consider the implications of his words, she grinned teasingly, slinking up his body until she straddled his hips, his semi-hard penis between her legs. “So, does that mean you’re good to go?”
“You speak so strangely at times,” he laughed, putting his hands on her thighs and absently running his palms over the smooth skin of her legs, making her body quicken in anticipation.
“You’re stalling,” she countered, circling her hips and watching his eyes glaze over as he felt the damp heat of her sex right against his penis. His surprisingly fully erect penis. Her lips parted in elated amazement and she raised her body up just enough to get his erection in exactly the right spot.
Holding his glorious eyes, she slowly lowered herself onto him, feeling him stretch her, feeling him touch her soul. It was her body now, hers completely, and she was making love with Armand one last time. A wealth of emotion played across his face, in the depth of his green eyes, from lust to astonishment to something deeper, something almost tangible. As she sat impaled on him, barely moving, simply enjoying the feel of him in her body, she rejoiced in the moment.
Almost reverently, he reached up and cupped her breasts in his large, warm hands, his thumbs grazing her nipples. She placed her hands over his, holding him against her. If she only held on tight enough he would never leave. Undulating her hips, she lost herself in his eyes, drowning in a sea of green glass and praying the glass didn’t shatter until she was safely on shore, knowing the glass had shattered long ago, scarring her for eternity.
“You have the most extraordinary eyes,” he breathed in awe, his hips matching her slow, soul-searing rhythm. “Like the color of the sea after a storm, when everything is clean and pure. I could drown in your eyes.”
How could she resist? Leaning forward, she took his words into her mouth, kissing him with all of the love in her heart, showing him the fathomless depths of her devotion. She pressed her tongue into his mouth, needing to taste him, to drink of him. As long as she had this moment the world could go on without her because she had all eternity with this one kiss.
Lost in his kisses, the feel of his lips against her cheek, her jaw, she almost missed his awe-struck words, “Gods, you smell good, like sunshine and freedom.”
Pushing herself up, barely noticing the blue of her nails, she smiled down at him, “Sunshine and freedom?”
A hint of color stained his cheeks but he grinned roguishly up at her. Wrapping his arms around her, he flipped them until she was on her back and he loomed over her, asserting his dominance. “Yes, pet, sunshine and freedom.”
“Do you love me?” she asked recklessly.
“I could,” he said, covering her lips with his own once again and she was lost to the world.
Chapter 18
The Truth is Cruel
Ferris lay in the bed in the bedroom at the estate of the gargoyles, smiling up at the ceiling. She was insanely happy, even though she knew it wouldn’t last, that it couldn’t last, because it wasn’t her life. She didn’t belong in the Elizabethan age, no matter how interesting it was to live without electricity and fast food and her MP3 player and a gazillion other conveniences of the modern world. The fashions were complicated and fussy and half of the time she feared the pins holding her elaborate costume together would fall out and she would find herself naked.
A frown marred her forehead because since she had taken over Katrina’s body, Ferris had only really worn her chemise and light weight kirtle, or overdress. It was as if her memories were being melded together with Katrina’s, which was awkward. Ignoring the implications of her memories becoming tainted, she relived the afternoon she had just spend with her beloved Armand.
After their erotic escapades in the forest, she had been allowed to stay with him in Katrina's body and they had talked. Oh, they didn’t talk about anything deep, just light hearted flirting, but she had enjoyed spending time with him being young and silly. Armand was funny and teasing and witty and so flirtatious. She hadn’t laughed so hard in ages and it felt good. It felt really good. No matter what happened next she had no regrets because she got to see a side of Armand that no longer existed, had ceased to exist the moment Katrina refused her gift, something Ferris still didn’t understand.
The longer she stayed with him the stronger her conviction became about what she had to do.
She felt her dragon’s presence at her side and she rolled over to face the golden pocket dragon, a large smile curving her lips, “Thank you, Fray.”
He nodded his head in acknowledgment but he didn’t reply with words. Instead, he curled into a ball and settled in against her stomach, prepared to go to sleep. But Ferris was too wired with the events of the day, her plans for the night, to sleep. “Fray, I’m going to accept his gift.”
The dragon sucked in a breath through his teeth, making a hissing sound. Taking it as an objection, Ferris turned her head and looked at him, “What’s wrong?”
He looked at her with his jeweled eyes for a moment, almost as if he expected her to figure out why he would have any reservations. She stared back, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of hearing her say why it was a stupid idea. Ignoring the rumblings of unease in her belly, she arched an eyebrow and waited. Finally, he let out the breath and sighed, “It’s not your life, Ferris, you’re not the one who would get to live as a gargoyle by his side
.”
“I know,” she admitted, lowering her lashes to hide the unexpected pain from him. Licking her lips, she tried to speak but her voice was rough and it took a moment before she said, “I just want him to be happy.” With a slight smile, she looked back to the ceiling, “I mean I’ve never seen him so happy, so relaxed, as he was today. How can I take that away from him?”
“So you martyr your own happiness?” Fray asked softly.
She let out a painful laugh, “What happiness, Fray? My heart has been bleeding practically non-stop for thirty years. I have nothing left to bleed, Fray. I’m simply out of blood. If Katrina accepts his gift – if I accept his gift on her behalf – then maybe neither of us will suffer so much in the future.”
Fray was silent for a long, long time and Ferris turned back to her ruminations, going over the plans. Tomorrow was the new moon and with it the completion of the spell. They would be able to complete the spell at any time after the sun went down but before it came back up the next morning. By that time, she would have accepted his gift and she would join him on the roof as a gargoyle.
No, Katrina would be joining him on the roof. Ferris wasn’t sure what was going to happen to her. Maybe she would return to her present and watch Armand from afar, all the while learning how to live without her heart. It would be strange seeing him, remembering a history that never was.
God, that was too deep. Shaking her head of the complicated thoughts, she let out a sigh; he was going to get the girl and cease being encased in ice. With a voice thick with emotion and tears, she spoke into the silence, “He deserves this joy, Fray, and I don’t want to take it away from him.”
“Do you want to see their future?” Fray asked, his deep voice interrupting her thoughts and bringing her crashing back to the moment. “Do you want to see what happens if Katrina accepts his nights?’
Slowly, she sat up and looked at the dragon in disbelief with a huge dose of anticipation and an itty-bitty dash of dread. “You’ll let me see?”
“Because it is a probably future you will just be an observer this time,” he warned, standing and stretching his wings out. At her eager nod, he smiled sadly, “I must warn you: if you accept his gift on Katrina's behalf, this will be my last act, my last gift, as your dragon.”
“What? No!” Ferris shrieked, reaching for her beloved Fray but she was already hurtling through space, a million miles away. Her body felt like it was being pressed flat by the speed with which she travelled. It was as if she was two dimensional and if someone were to view her from the side there would be nothing there.
Holding her hand up in front of her face, her movement slow and deliberate, she twisted her arm to the side to see if she was, in fact, two dimensional. Her brain felt like it was a blob of gelatin and so her thoughts were sluggish, telling her that if she were 2D then she wouldn’t be able to distinguish a third dimension.
She was a 2D girl living in a 3D world.
Her odd thoughts combined with the horror of losing Fray made her giggle, the sound tinny in the vortex of her strange journey. It hadn’t been like this when she went back in time. Why was going forward in time so much… weirder? Abruptly, she slammed into a wall, her 2D body clinging to the curves and the corners of a three dimensional form, a patina of Ferris over a frozen statue.
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 touchi
ng 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.