We’d grown up together since primary school. Stone was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, with long black-hair, and eyes greener than a thousand blades of new grass. We had become friends instantly because I made it so. I never flirted with her or played games that insulted her intelligence or femininity, no, I behaved like the best friend she could’ve ever wanted. Although there were others in our circle of friends, she was never far from me, that was until fucking Harley joined our group. He’d transferred to our school when we were twelve. By then, my want to be more than friends with Stone was growing increasingly, and the thought never crossed my mind, that she didn’t like me back until she and Harley started dating in high school.
It hurt, like a boxer going rounds on my heart, over and over. I started to put distance between her and I, even though it tore me up inside and my wolf was angered by my decision and growled at me constantly like a nagging mother.
But I knew I had to bide my time and wait for Harley to screw up. And did he ever. He was like me it turned out, a lover of women and sex, but the difference was, that I would give up every woman on earth for Stone, if she were mine. Every. Fucking. Woman.
I’d already fucked up though. Not that she knew but that was beside the point. I could’ve kicked myself.
King said it would’ve happened eventually; that the fault was not mine. But that didn’t ease the rotting guilt inside me. If something happened to her, it was on me. So, it had to be me that stepped up and protected her.
Guilt was only one of the reasons I’d moved into the twelve-storey apartment building. Requesting an apartment low down, between the lobby and the sixth floor, no one was getting to her.
The other reason had me scared, and my big fierce wolf never got scared of anything.
“There’s a party tomorrow night, she’ll be going,” I said.
“Good. Make sure she does. I’ll send in Dassies and Cai, along with a couple others. It will be a good distraction for them, and handy if the demon decides to strike. And Jamie, keep your eyes on her at all times.”
I agreed knowing full well my eyes wouldn’t be anywhere else but on Stone.
6
Late the next day I stood atop the cathedral. The stone beast loomed over me, with its sculpted face, curved horns and protruding bottom lip. It appeared right at home in this stony windswept area between steep slates.
Muscular arms were folded across its chest. Long claws tipped its strong-looking fingers. Huge wings were tucked behind its back. Half-lidden eyes stared out over the city of Estermoor, impervious to the beat of the sun, and the bluster of a wind.
“Do you need me to stay?” the priest asked.
My entire body stiffened, and I leapt a few paces. Beneath my ribs, a ping-pong ball replaced my heart, bouncing all over the place. I had forgotten that the priest accompanied me to the rooftop and was standing behind me.
“No, sorry, I won’t be long.”
The priest, dressed in a long black vestment, disappeared through the rooftop doorway. His footsteps clanked one after the other as he climbed down the bell tower’s narrow metal staircase.
Returning my gaze, another statue on the opposing corner caught my attention. It was even bigger than the first one. Each step I took closer, it grew in size.
This stone giant had wings almost eight feet high. Its body was dark grey, with large powerful limbs, and feet that were twice the size of its clawed hands.
Every curve on its face had been carved in great detail, starting with two small horns that protruded from the top of its head. Beneath its large prominent eyebrows, a pair of green painted stone eyes stared out into the sky. That was a first. I’d seen countless photos of gargoyles like this during researching them but never had I seen one with painted eyes, or with its hands and chin resting atop a medieval sword.
The sword’s blade was wide and short, the detail looked Celtic, but I couldn’t be sure. I reached into my pocket, grabbing my phone, and snapped a photo to research later.
Placing my hand on the statue’s stone arm, a shiver jolted through me. Closing my eyes to gather my courage, I took a deep breath, and reopened them. It was now or never.
“Hi, I’m Danielle Stone. I don’t know if you can hear me, or if you are even real, or not. It could be that I’m a crazy lady talking to a statue on a rooftop,” I said, feeling a fool, but a hopeful one. “Almost sixty years ago, my grandmother, Claire, and her sister, Ruth, were at the cemetery on Ninth Street, and believe they saw one of you alive, then the next night Ruth disappeared. My gran believes that you’re real.” Here came the scary part. “If you are in fact real and wish me no harm, please find me. I want to find out what happened to Ruth, to give my grandmother peace before her time passes in this world.”
I caught my breath. Please let it be real.
The sun, low in the sky, pierced through the pink and purple clouds. I lifted my forearm as a shield to protect my eyes from the sudden blinding glints. It was beautiful. It made me hopeful. I let out a deep exhale.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, I reached in and pulled it out. It was a text message from Mac.
“Hey girl, you coming to Kyle’s party at Scarecrows tonight?”
I rolled my eyes. Kyle’s party. Yeah, I knew it was tonight, but I hadn’t given it much thought at all because I had no intention of going.
Kyle was the richest person I knew. Jay and I had gone to school with him, and he had been in our group of friends. His father, a regular crooked businessman, had brought him Scarecrows for his twenty-first birthday. It was the hippest night club in the city. Six years later, he still owned it and was still throwing annual parties for his birthday. I had lost touch with Kyle, well not in the sense that we never spoke, it was more the case that our daily lives didn’t cross paths with one another.
A glance at the top of my phone screen told me it was time to head home.
Small dust clouds flicked up as I walked across the rooftop to the door. I glanced back over my shoulder at the gargoyles before pulling the rickety wooden door closed behind me.
The stairs spiralled down the cathedral’s bell tower. Above me the wind whistled, and the bell groaned. In the chapel, I followed the curved aisle in the apse, down through the middle of the pews where the tall old figurative clerestory windows loomed over the nave on both sides.
The muffled sound of voices drew my attention to the priest who was standing near the exit. He appeared to be engaged in an intense conversation with a grim looking man with scruffy grey hair. The man stood straight with his arms folded. As I got closer, they stopped mid-conversation.
“Nice to meet you dear,” the priest said, smiling. “Please come and see me again soon.”
I nodded.
The other man didn’t say a word. I narrowed my gaze at him. There was something familiar about him. His cold grey-blue eyes glowered at me. I dropped my eyes to the floor and hurried past them.
Across the road, I peered up at the cathedral. The flying buttresses and looming spires interwove in the naves between the west and north facing rooftops. The gargoyles surrounded by iron roof girders, appeared smaller than they were. If only. The possibility rendered a flutter in my stomach.
7
The smell of the fresh pot of coffee wafted through my apartment. Glancing out the window, waiting for my laptop to start up, I sighed. The sun had set but its glow lingered. I automatically drew the curtains closed. It was habit.
Returning to my desk, I sat down on the leather office chair and placed a cup of coffee on the dark wood desktop. I ignored the manuscript I should’ve been editing and instead studied the photo of the gargoyle and focused on the sword. The blade was interesting. Shorter than a sword, and longer than a dagger, and it was wide. The detailing on the blade, the curving interwoven lines looked Celtic. Using two fingers I zoomed in, and there on the blade was an inscription. My eyes narrowed. It wasn’t letters like those of any ancient runes I knew of. They were a series of symbols I didn’t recognis
e.
I jumped up from my desk. Last year I’d edited a manuscript on ancient languages and symbolism, and there had been an entire section on reoccurring symbols. I plucked the published copy from the shelf. Flicking through the pages, nothing corresponded with those on the blade. I double checked, looking slower, more in depth this time, but nothing matched.
I gave up with the book and returned my focus to the photo.
Above the blade, the cross guard was wide as well. Engraved, it looked like the head of a bird, one each side of the blade and each curved down into a sharp tip of a beak. The eyes on the bird’s faces had been painted black, they were odd, almost out of place with the rest of the stone sword. But then this was the gargoyle who had green painted eyes.
The eruption of a Notorious B.I.G. song blaring from my phone gave my heart quite the jumpstart. I looked at the lit-up screen and rolled my eyes.
“What do you want?” I asked answering it, annoyed to be interrupted from my work.
“Stone, did I catch you in the middle of something? Perhaps dreaming of me again? You know, that vibrator of yours is nothing in comparison to how I could rock your world.”
For fucks sake. My cheeks flushed with a slight warmth. I don’t know why. “What do you want, Jay?” The hostility in my voice clear.
“Don’t be so rude. You know I would, so stop denying yourself the pleasure and jump onboard the Jay express.” His laughter roared through the speaker.
“Oh, fucking hell. I’m hanging up now.”
“No, wait, wait,” he gasped trying to stop laughing. “Are you coming to Kyle’s tonight?”
I winced. Shit. Mac - I had forgotten to text her back.
“Hello…? So, are you coming or what?” he asked.
“I haven’t decided yet, but no, probably not.”
“Aw, come on. I have it on good authority that Tiffany and Mackenzie are going. Some mates and I are going. You should come, it’ll be fun.”
“I thought I was your only friend,” I said mockingly.
“You wish. Come on, I’ll even buy first drink.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
I started typing a message to Mac. It was no secret she had a crush on Jamie, and he knew it too. Every time she was around him, he would flirt with her like crazy. I wasn’t sure whether it was sincere, or he was playing on it like he does with me just to annoy me, but either way, it induced vomiting notions.
My phone vibrated interrupting my typing. It was a text from Tiffany.
“Hey, you coming out tonight?”
I hadn’t been out for ages, but it made me a little apprehensive to go out and have a few drinks, if someone was following me. But if I didn’t go Mac would never let me hear the end of it. Jay would be there, that part was comforting.
I sighed and picked up my phone.
8
Tiff, Mac, and I stood on the pavement as our taxi sped away. The sequins on my little black dress glittered in the streetlights, and our heels clacked as we walked across the road, the flashing lights and music drawing us like moths to a flame.
Taking a place at the back of the line waiting to enter, I glanced up. The world went silent as the beauty of the big bright moon lit up the sky, and the stars were like dazzling dots across a blackened canvas.
My thoughts returned to the gargoyles atop the cathedral. A chill crossed my skin, raising every hair on my body to attention. The green painted eyes flashed across my mind. It was like I was standing beside it again, trapped in its hypnotic gaze. Those eyes holding me in place, seeing into my soul.
“Are you okay?” Tiff asked.
The image disappeared. Mac and Tiff were both studying me.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I waved off the question with my hand. Neither of them knew about Gran, nor would I tell them. Jay knew and that was enough.
A prickling energy danced across my bare shoulders. Jay. I rolled my eyes but knowing my pain in the arse best friend was close settled my nerves.
“Don’t look now. But Jamie’s here,” Mac said, with a slight squeal.
“Ladies,” he said, casting that devilish smile at each one of us as he approached.
I glared at him.
“Well, what have we here. So, you decided to come out tonight after all, Stone.”
Dick. “Are you sure you aren’t following me?”
Jamie burst into laughter. “Yeah right, in your dreams,” he said and winked.
I scoffed internally.
Tiff flicked her hair over her shoulder. “Hey Jamie,” she said with a flirty grin.
He leant forward and gave her a hug. “Tiff, looking good babe.”
“You know it.”
His eyes fixed on Mac, like a predator that had located its prey for the night, but it always posed curious to me that he never looked at her with the intensity I felt when he focused those baby blues on me. “Wow, gorgeous,” he said, kissing Mac on the cheek.
I had known him long enough to know that he loved teasing and flirting. But then again, he had never acted on those flirtations with Mac, well not yet anyway, so maybe it all was just a game. Mind you, he wasn’t one for holding back.
“Hey Jay,” she said, her cheeks matching the red of her dress.
“Ladies, Stone, are you coming in or what?”
“Ha, ha, very funny. Am I not a lady?”
He paused looking me up and down, then shook his head. “You really try hard, but not quite.”
“What?” I spat. I wanted to smack that grin off his face.
Dressed in a mini black sequin dress that hugged my curves, and black high heels, I knew I looked good. I don’t know why I cared what he thought, but it annoyed me.
“Would you two cut it out already,” Tiff said.
“Jamie,” a gravelly voice called from behind him.
Four striking men walked over and stood beside Jay. They were all tall like him with muscular physiques. Each one was handsome in their own way; but my eyes searched and settled on one. Biting my lower lip, warmth spread to my cheeks. Dark olive skin, long deep brown curly hair, bright emerald eyes, full pouting lips bordered by a moustache and a trim beard. I had never seen such rugged perfection in a man. A scar ran up his left cheek, over his eye lid and through his eyebrow onto his forehead. His presence filled more space than the others but nowhere near the hum of Jay’s. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from examining every morsel of him, even his facial scar didn’t detract from his beauty. He lifted one side of his mouth up and smiled at me. Shit.
Shifting my attention, the guy next to him was nice to look at, but he paled in comparison. With long blonde hair, and eyes the brightest blue, almost glacial, he was edgy, and his black ‘v’ neck tee did nothing at hiding his right arm that was covered in tattoos.
“Jamie,” Tiffany said. “Do your friends have names?”
“Oh, right. This is Dassies, Cai, Bayley, Vee, and of course, you already know me.”
Dassies had deep, rich, cocoa skin that glistened with every flex of his muscles. His shaved head look strong, smooth, sensual. There was something God-like about him when he smiled with slight dimples.
Mac, Tiff, and I waved in unison. “Hi.” It sure was our pleasure to meet them.
“Right, shall we?” Jamie gestured.
“Ahem,” I said. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“No.” He winked. “Guys, this is Tiffany, Mackenzie, and Stone.”
I shot him a death stare.
“Uh, I mean, Danielle.”
Geez how hard was it for him to call me by my first name?
“Are you coming or what?” Jamie asked, gesturing towards the front.
Tiff, Mac, and I looked at each other.
“Come on Mac, I got you.” Jamie took her hand in his and led her towards the entrance. We followed in suit, along with his friends.
The bouncer greeted Jamie with a handshake and pulled open the grand glass door. Tiff and I held hands, steadying each other through the darkened door
way. A mixture of cologne and perfumes swirled around me, tempting even my most resistant senses.
The club was packed. As we walked across the room towards the bar, heads turned to stare, and I knew damn well what they were staring at, and it wasn’t Mac, Tiff, or me.
When we got to the bar, I whispered to Tiff, “bathroom?”
She nodded.
I almost jumped when a strong hand slid around my back. Jay’s dreadlocks skimmed my shoulders with a scratchy tingle. His smooth silky voice dripped into my ear with the whisps of hot breaths. “What do you want to drink?” he asked.
My head snapped in his direction. Those intense baby blues studied me hard but I brushed it off, only casting him a glance. “We’re going to say hi to someone, we’ll be right back,” I said, trying to not let him notice that his contact had my pulse racing.
Jamie looked at me with one eyebrow raised. I ignored him. I needed space away from him and all of his friends.
9
Damn, Stone’s butt looked good as she walked away from me in that tiny dress, hugging each curve dangerously close. It wasn’t intentional, the way her hips swayed from side to side, her thighs rubbing together, pressing against her. Fuck. A fury of heat coursed through me, threatening to expose my secret. Everything about her was edible. The other unmated wolves had noticed too. Especially Velkan. He held rank over me, by virtue of birth, and if Velkan wanted to, he could claim her in an instant. My lips wanted to curl back and bare my incisors with warning, but I resisted. She would never be his mate, she was mine. Both my wolf and I knew it.
It wasn’t the right time to make my move, not yet anyways. I was working on building our friendship so that I could tell her. I was back in her life and had integrated myself in a way that she wouldn’t want me to leave, and I had no intention of letting her slip through my fingers. The only thing stopping me from pouncing on her immediately was that I didn’t know how she felt about me, and rejection wasn’t an option. It would be worse than death to me. I’d waited long enough, a few more weeks or months wouldn’t make any difference as long as I didn’t make any more fucking mistakes.
Curse of Stone Page 2