by Jaymin Eve
Indira rushes to finish the story for him. “Only to watch this wild elf dive right past me, arrow and all, and rip the jaws off the shadow panther. Right before it would have made a meal of me.”
He taps his upper arm. “I used to have the scar to prove it.”
Indira gives Baelen another hopeful smile. “A mistake for which I hope I’m forgiven.”
“Perhaps. Is that the panther’s skin?”
Her fist flies to the skin she wears draped across her wings. Her eyes narrow into a challenge. “You can claim clan rights as loudly as you want, Baelen Rath. I’m not giving you this coat.”
He laughs out loud. “I wouldn’t dare ask for it.”
She stares him down for another moment before becoming serious. “Speaking of shadow panthers, there’s something that’s bothering me about your encounter with one, Marbella.”
It’s my turn to challenge her. “It really did happen if that’s what you’re questioning.”
“Not at all. My concern is more about the location. I’m assuming you weren’t in the wastelands at that time.”
“It was on Scepter peak—that’s on the border between Rath and Bounty land in Erawind.”
Indira considers this information. “The problem is that shadow panthers only inhabit the wastelands. They venture onto Mount Grievous because it is closer to the wastelands than any other mountain. Our mountain allows the panthers to hide in the shadows and feed off animals in the forest.”
I see where she’s going with this. “So it would be unusual for a shadow panther to find its way into the heart of Erawind.”
She inclines her head. “Very.”
Baelen is grim beside me. “There were more panthers there that night on Scepter peak. I saw a couple in the distance, prowling the mountain range.”
“How did they get there?” Indira asks. “Do you think Howl set them loose.”
I chew my lip, my thoughts churning. “The Elven Command promised Howl that they would kill all of the escaping gargoyles. They couldn’t send in troops—although they did try that in the end. What if they sent in panthers instead?”
Baelen gives an unhappy nod. “Panthers crave gargoyle blood so the animals would seek out hidden gargoyles for the kill. And leave pure-blooded elves alone.”
Indira is equally concerned. “In which case we need to know: to what extent does the Elven Command control the predators around us?”
I shudder and reach for Baelen’s hand.
Indira grimaces, but when she spots Erit waiting for her outside the Royal Residence in the distance, her focus changes. “On that happy note, if you’ll excuse me, I need to meet the other clan leaders. Stuffy old males.” She strides away from us but throws a final word back to Baelen. “You look better without the beard.”
Baelen’s humor died with the first mention of the Elven Command. “Grayson Glory possessed a talon crow to attack you, Marbella. It’s possible they’ve been using shadow panthers even longer than that. Maybe for years.”
I survey our surroundings. “Why does it feel like the night has eyes?”
He’s grim. “Because it might. From now on, we only talk in places we know are safe.”
I sigh. “I wish Elise was here.” She used to drop us into sound bubbles so nobody could hear our conversations. But something even worse occurs to me. “Llion and Liliana went to the border to get their children. What if there are more shadow panthers there?”
Baelen tries to reassure me. “They are both skilled warriors and they have Talia to protect them.”
“I don’t know… Llion was worried about the Elven Command’s sorcery before he left. He wasn’t certain that Talia’s power could defeat it. After what I saw today with the talon crow—”
Something tugs at my back. It’s quick and sharp, a pull so strong I stumble backward, losing my footing. Baelen is fast to react, his hand tightening on mine and his other arm swooping around me, keeping me on my feet.
“Marbella? What just happened?”
A quick check behind me tells me there’s nothing there. But I definitely felt something attached to my back. My frightened eyes meet Baelen’s. “I don’t know—”
My heartstones shriek a warning in my ears.
The powerful force tugs again, but this time, the pull is so strong that I fly backward, my feet wrenched out from under me, yanked right out of Baelen’s arms. My stomach lurches and my surroundings blur with the speed of movement. I’m flying through the air before I know it.
Lightning shoots through Baelen as he harnesses his power in my defense, leaping after me, arms stretching, but he’s already far away.
“Marbella—!” His alarmed shout cuts off.
Darkness closes around me and everything goes black.
14
I hit the ground on hands and knees, thrown out of the force that transported me. It feels like my insides have been rearranged, everything moved so fast. I gasp air into my lungs as my surroundings become clear. I’m not outside the Residence anymore.
I’m lying on a cliff—a very familiar cliff. Two soaring cliff faces obscure a walkway that is only visible from an angle. This is where Llion’s children were hidden: all the way across the border. Somehow I’ve travelled hundreds of miles in seconds.
A voice beside me smirks. “Every time we meet, you’re on your hands and knees.”
I scramble to my feet, twisting to face the speaker. A male elf towers over me only two paces away. He has platinum blond hair that is shaved short around the back and sides but is longer on top with a jagged fringe ending above his pale olive eyes. His face is almost angelic: perfect cheekbones, perfectly full lips, and a strong jaw to match. He stands naked to the waist, his sculpted chest tattooed with golden runes to enhance his power.
“Well met, Storm Princess. Or should I use the gargoyle salutation and say ‘Greetings, Lady Storm?’”
I narrow my eyes at him. Only the gargoyles call me ‘Lady Storm’ and it worries me that he knows that. How many days or even weeks has he been spying on Erador through the eyes of predators?
He rests one hand on the scruff of a shadow panther. The beast is pure white, crumbling into dust as I watch. He must have drained the life out of it to bring me here. Three more shadow panthers sit obediently a step away, their silver eyes vacant of any natural instinct. I shudder as I realize that he has complete control over them.
“You’re Grayson Glory.” He’s a lot more solidly built than Gideon was. Males in the House of Glory tend to be tall, slender, and lethal without the brute force of other houses like Valor and Bounty. Grayson is tall but he’s surprisingly bulky and well-muscled. Baelen and Jasper are the only other elves I’ve met with broad enough chests to rival a gargoyle’s but Grayson’s comes close.
I demand, “How did you bring me here?”
“The Mercy Heartstone knows you, Marbella, and now it obeys me. I can drag you to me whenever I want.”
Oh, great. He thinks I’m his puppet. Well, he may have taken me by surprise this time, but I’m determined that it won’t happen again. He must have access to the Mercy Heartstone right now or he wouldn’t be able to use that sort of power on me. But where is it? The bastard is half naked. He’s certainly not wearing the heartstone in plain sight like Howl always did.
I retort, “Like hell you will.”
“Why are you so unhappy, little—”
“Do not call me ‘doll!’” So far he’s called me ‘Lady Storm’ like my friends and now ‘little doll’ like Howl used to talk to me. I take a step closer to Grayson, daring him to touch me. I may not be able to kill him or stop him toying with my location, but I sure as anything can make his life miserable. And once he uses up the three panther lives, he’ll be all out of death to sustain his sorcery.
I fill every angle of my body with threat as I say, “I killed the last male who called me that name. Come to think of it… feel free to call me whatever you want. I will kill you regardless.”
At the same time
as I step forward, I angle slightly to scan my surroundings. The cavity where Talia and the babies lived yawns empty on our left; the side of their home is nothing more than a jagged opening that looks like it was blasted apart. The rest of the cliff is shadowed and difficult to see. The moon definitely doesn’t glow as brightly in Erawind as it does in gargoyle country.
At least my friends aren’t here. I hope they were long gone before Grayson arrived.
My voice glides into the narrow space between us. “How about you send me back to Erador before I kill you?”
He tilts his head to the side, wipes the dust from the dead panther across his muscled thigh, and pins me in his frosty-calm gaze.
“You don’t think that you can break.” It’s his turn to narrow the gap between us, taking a step toward me. “Everyone has a breaking point. I will find yours.”
I let his threat wash off me, edging nearer to him. His arrogance has allowed me this close. I just need to be a little closer. I drop my voice to a gentle whisper. “Why don’t I find yours first.”
He doesn’t step away, standing his ground instead, a smile tugging at his mouth. “Feel free to try. You will fail like all the others.”
His confidence is unsettling. So is his comment about others trying to break him. But I’m not letting this opportunity pass. He’s too far away from the shadow panthers to draw on their lives to give him power to sustain his sorcery. Only his forced tether to the Mercy Heartstone will protect him now and it’s time to see how strong that protection is.
My palm shoots out and connects with his chest. My power slams through it and I pour all my destructive thoughts into the contact. If there’s a time that I want to destroy something, it’s now.
Grayson jolts as the force shoots through him, burning light crackling across his shoulders, racing down his arms and legs. The runes on his chest light up golden, glaring brightly in the darkness. I pray for him to fall, collapse, die, anything. I remember Howl: how he’d screamed and burned and shattered. But Grayson remains standing.
His hand closes over mine, pressing it flat against his chest, imprisoning it there. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want the contact to end. His eyelids lower as he tugs me closer, chest-to-chest, only our arms between us. His other arm slips around my waist, palm resting lightly against my lower back as my power fades. “I think I’ll call you Marbella. That suits you best.”
I grit my teeth. His touch against my lower back presses and releases, his hand finding a spot to rest where his thumb can graze back and forth against the curve at the top of my hip: Baelen’s favorite spot. I try to calm myself, pushing back against the strong desire to unleash everything I have against this male.
Since he seems happy to explain things to me, I ask, “Tell me how you’re still standing right now.”
Please don’t tell me the Mercy Heartstone is this strong…
For the very first time, his expression loses its chill. A hint of anger glints in his eyes and his perfect lips transform as he growls, “Most elves need to kill a living creature to use sorcery. But I was born into death. It’s in my bones. I’ve had this power from the day of my birth. Both my mother and twin sister died that day.”
My Virtuous Heartstone flares in empathy but I shut it down. There will be no pity party for this elf.
He continues. “It was her own fault. She wasn’t built to carry twins. She should have known better than to have an affair with a gargoyle.”
My eyes widen. “You’re part gargoyle?”
That would definitely explain his larger physique.
He says, “Except that unlike others, my mother didn’t keep it a secret. I’m told she was proud of her love.” He lowers his eyes to mine, his lips so close to me that his breath tickles my cheek. “You can imagine how I was treated growing up as a known half-caste.”
Jasper is part-gargoyle too, but nobody knew about it and his grandmother never shared her secret. Senturi was right when he said that elves and gargoyles don’t look kindly on gargoyles and elves falling in love with each other. Not every female elf who falls pregnant to a gargoyle will have twins—Jasper’s grandmother didn’t. Mixed race children take after their mother so it’s easy to hide their heritage. Grayson’s mother obviously didn’t take advantage of that fact—maybe she didn’t know and thought the truth would be revealed as soon as her children were born. Or maybe she didn’t want to hide it. Either way, I can imagine growing up being mistreated. Every elven child in a minor House knows how it feels.
I say, “I’m surprised the Elven Command appointed you.”
“I’m the second natural sorcerer ever born in our history. I convinced them I was their best chance at controlling you.”
“Controlling?” I narrow my eyes. “Not killing?”
“Not yet.”
I frown, because something’s not adding up. “But you killed the talon crow today and the panther just now. If you’re a natural-born sorcerer, why did you have to do that?”
“The talon crow was a vessel—a means of speaking with you. It died because of its contact with my sorcery. And it’s true: every death gives me more power. But the panther, on the other hand… I touched it to stop it from killing something else.”
He steps back, positioning himself at my side, his arm remaining around my waist, a light touch that suddenly feels like a dead weight. The darkness lifts across the cliff. I’m horrified to discover that the shadows weren’t natural after all, that it was a trick of the light—Grayson’s trick.
Three translucent spheres float above the ground. They resemble giant, pearly globes. Two of them contain female gargoyles: one is Talia, lying on her side, unconscious. The other is Liliana, holding her babies close, her wings tucked around the little boy and girl while tears track down her cheeks. She sees me, gasps, calls out, but I can’t hear her. The final sphere contains Llion who is a ball of rage. He slams his wing daggers against the sphere. They cut through and for a moment I think he’s going to charge out of there, golden eyes blazing, but the sphere seals up as fast as he can cut it. His shout makes it out for a split second as he slits the sphere with both wing daggers and slams his fists against the side.
“Lady Storm! Run!”
Llion telling me to run is more frightening than Grayson’s constant stroking of my hip or the suddenly growling shadow panthers.
“I’m told panthers crave gargoyle blood,” Grayson murmurs. “That female is bleeding.”
Talia’s forehead oozes. She must have fought back against Grayson while Llion protected Liliana. Talia’s deep magic can only be used in the protection of others; then she is incredibly powerful. But if my heartstone power can’t defeat him, not even her deep magic could protect the others. Grayson would have taken her out first, then Llion, and last of all Liliana.
Fear churns through me. “You told me I had a month.”
“I said I’d give you a month before I started killing elves. I never said anything about gargoyles.”
I try to wrench out of Grayson’s hold. “You will not kill them!”
He smiles a challenge. His arm tightens around my waist, pulling me closer than before. “What will you do to protect them?”
“This, for starters.” I spin, step behind him, and blast my power at the panthers.
Grayson jolts, surprising me by leaping away from me. He can’t be afraid of my power because it did nothing to him before. Then why the sudden reaction? As my power blazes across the clearing he whirls so that he’s facing me again.
Suddenly, it’s clear that it’s not the dying panthers or my power that worries him. The glimpse I caught of his back when I stepped out behind him tells me where the Mercy Heartstone is: broken into pieces and embedded in his skin all the way down the left side of his spine. What’s worse, the Rath Heartstone has met the same fate—broken into pieces and embedded in a line down the other side of his spine.
The panthers’ silver eyes and claws light up moments before my power strikes them and they crumbl
e to dust. As the final beast dies, I snarl at Grayson. “If you didn’t want me to see the stones, you should have worn a shirt.”
His lips compress. He assesses the distance between us and doesn’t seem to like it. For the moment, he seems to have forgotten my friends and I’ll do anything to keep him distracted. Now that I know where the heartstones are, I need that golden knife to cut the tether Grayson has with them. If I have to slash the stones right out of his back, I will.
But first I need to get my friends away from Grayson as fast as I can. Then we can regroup, make the knife, and after that… we will become the hunters.
His jaw clenches. “I can’t wear anything next to the stones. They burn whatever they touch.”
I’m surprised. But maybe I shouldn’t be. Baelen bound himself to me with the Rath Heartstone. My Mercy Heartstone was connected to me and the Storm. Together, they must burn like ice, scorched earth, and acid rain combined.
I can’t help it. I laugh out loud. “Then how do you sleep?”
He growls in response: an unhappy sound. It’s the same sound that gargoyles make deep in their throats when they’re upset about something.
I say, “I hear the gargoyle in you, Grayson Glory. You aren’t part of the elven world. You are a gargoyle. Which means you answer to me.”
He crouches a little, a defensive gesture. If he had wings, he would tuck them around himself in a protective gesture right now. My assertion that I control him was a stab in the dark, a desperate call to the gargoyle inside of him, but it looks like I might have hit a nerve.
Again, he assesses the distance between us, taking a step to close it. His gaze darts to my hip and it suddenly dawns on me that I still have Cassian’s bone lash. I never asked what the tip was made out of, but Roar once told me that the lash was strong enough to take a gargoyle’s head off. I’ve never used one—I don’t know how—but I wonder if it could be strong enough to shatter the pieces of the heartstones in Grayson’s back and break the tether. I unhook it but I don’t unravel it yet, watching for his reaction to determine whether he’s worried about it. To my disappointment he ignores the lash, his focus traveling from my hip to my neck in one burning sweep.