“Yes, that’s one way to look at it.”
“I’m so sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine what you went through.”
“It’s okay, it was a long time ago,” he said.
“How did you escape?”
“My mother sent my cousin, Casmir, to find me. And he did.”
“What happened to the Sui?”
“Casmir is a skilled tracker and fighter. He took care of the men that kidnapped me. But there are others, still out there, but not around here.”
“He took care of them. Did he kill them?”
“The punishment they got, fit the crime. Let’s just say they are no longer a threat.”
I knew exactly what he was saying. Casmir killed them. The pain he must’ve felt, being kidnapped, prisoned, and tortured. “Why would anyone want to hurt you?”
I looked deep into his eyes; his pain ran deep. He caressed my cheek with his hand. He leant towards me, and our lips met with a lustful strength.
Jay, Jay, and fucking Jay, my mind screamed at me. A coldness filled me. Guilt permeated through me. I pulled back, and a soft gasp left his mouth. Not able to stare into his eyes, I lifted my finger, and traced his scar, from his forehead, over his eye, cheek, and finished beneath his chin. His warm, strong hands slid up my body, and pulled me closer.
Mentally pushing my thoughts of Jay to the back of my mind, I grasped the bottom of his shirt, lifted it over his head, and threw it to the floor.
There was a symbol, bordered with a box, deeply burnt into the side of his ribs. It was long healed, but forever marked.
The palms of my hands tingled, as I ran them down Vee’s bare chest. His bronzed body tight in all the right places. Not as ripped as Jay’s but still… Fuck.
Our eyes met. A sickness was eating at my insides. My lips held firm together. What the fuck was wrong with me? First our date and now this. I must be going fucking crazy. Jay on my brain, all the damn time. Beginning to perspire, I paused. “Whiskey?”
Just as Vee’s mouth opened to answer, his phone rang.
He stepped away, walking towards the window near my bed as he answered it. Vee was silent, just listening, with the odd ‘okay’ and ‘yep’.
I headed into the kitchen. What a fucking day. I sighed. Jay’s baby blue eyes filled with fire and dancing light, lit up my mind. Argh. I screamed internally. Grabbing the whiskey bottle from the cupboard, I poured a glass, and pressed the tumbler to my lips. Pausing before downing it. The harshness burnt my throat. My vision cleared for a moment before all thoughts flooded back.
Velkan, Jay, Ruth, Radu – I was going to explode with information. I needed to tell Jay, but how? I played out the conversation in my head, but no ending I could foresee, ended well. I rolled my eyes. It was an impossible situation, to tell Jay all I knew without him getting mad for hiding it – because he would be angry. That bothered me. Why did I care if he was mad at me? We’d had plenty of disagreements and arguments over the years, and never once had I cared if I pissed him off.
Fuck.
I poured another whiskey, trying not to acknowledge the thought that flashed across my mind.
Nope. It wasn’t possible. I did not like Jamie. No fucking way.
I guzzled back my drink, and poured another, downing that just the same.
The truth smacked me. Yes, I did.
My eyes darted to Velkan. He wasn’t on the phone anymore, but he stood unmoved staring out the window.
Pouring another whiskey, I carried my tumbler and slumped down on the couch. Annoyed that he hadn’t come straight back to me when his call had ended. What a fucking mess. I let out a small laugh. A deep heaviness set under my eyes, pulling them downwards with the strain of today’s events.
Leaning my head back, I rested my neck over the top of the couch, looking up at the ceiling. I closed my eyes. Footsteps moved towards me.
“You okay?” his voice rasped.
I took my time, parting my eyelids slowly. Taking a moment to refocus my vision. He stared down at me. A hardness filled his face, his eyebrows pulled together.
Bringing my head back upright, eyed him curiously. “Yep,” I said and swished back the whiskey in my hand.
Velkan walked around the couch, my gaze following his every move, noticing that his shirt was back on, as he sat down beside me. Waiting for him to explain the late call, I cast a sideways glance at him. But he didn’t say anything, so I decided to.
“Is everything alright?” I asked.
His chest heaved before he spoke. “Yes, everything is fine. Nothing for you to worry about.” He leant forward, grabbed the television remote, and turned to me. “Movie?”
A cold dread turned in my stomach, spreading to my limbs. I shivered as it raced up my spine. “Sure.”
My eyes narrowed at him. He turned back towards the television, turning it on. His body stiffened. He was uncomfortable, or something was up. Who the fuck was that on the phone? Jay? Of fucking course. Jay. It had to be. But why had Velkan become a cardboard version of himself after one phone call?
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked.
“It’s nothing, I’m fine.” His words were as unconvincing as his short, sharp tone.
Fuck.
42
Stone’s apartment door opened. Velkan, who was slightly shorter than me, and leaner, stood in front of me fully clothed. He pressed his finger to his lips, gesturing me to be quiet, and ushered me inside.
The lights were off, apart from one, in the kitchen. It was so luminescent that it spread a dim light across the entire apartment.
Seeing him here, in her apartment… My muscles tensed. My wolf growled. It wanted blood, Velkan’s blood. No one touched my mate. Tempting as it was to tear strips off him here and now, if Stone woke up and saw us, she would flip out. That wouldn’t be good at all.
“What is it?” I whispered, biting back a growl.
Over his shoulder, Stone lay like an angel in her bed, fast asleep.
“I’m not sure. She keeps muttering in her sleep. Like she’s having a nightmare, but she remains still.”
I raised an eyebrow, had he seriously just got me out of bed at four in the fucking morning for this? “So?”
“There something you should know.” He paused. “She mentioned Radu.”
“Radu? From the stories your mother used to tell us?”
“Yes.”
“But those were just legends, tales from another time.”
“I know, but—” Velkan glanced over his shoulder at Stone. “If I am right—” His eyes darkened, shaking his head. “I don’t want to be right.”
I knew the tales his mother, the Chief, had told us when we were little, but I’d never paid much attention. They sounded like ghost stories, fables, from another time. Never once did I believe them to be real.
Radu. He was a spirit, an entity of the devil, known as the devil’s star. My heart sunk deep into the dark crevasse in my chest. How the hell did Stone know that name?
Is that what she was fucking hiding from me?
If the devil’s star was already lingering in her dreams, according to the tales, it meant he was coming. But if he comes, how would we know? As heavy as my heart already was, at the sheer possibility of this, it sunk deeper, like a led weight. If he comes, that means…she is…and if she is…they will come, and if they come… Oh, fuck, no.
The skin around my ribs tightened. This wasn’t good news, it wasn’t even bad news, it was the worst fucking thing that could ever happen, news.
“I must go, I have to see my mother,” Vee said, then headed for the door, picking up his car keys on the way. “Oh, and Jay, until you mark her, she is fair game.” Vee closed the door behind him.
Fair fucking game?
His words incensed me. My lips curled back; incisors bared. Heat filled me with a searing tingle. White filled my vision. Feet cemented to the floor. Fists clenched so hard the pain fuelled my rage.
She. Was. Mine.
He
knew that. A growl reverberated inside me at the thought of his name. He was a good friend, like a brother, but he just crossed a line, and me.
Stone rolled over in her bed. My blood ran cold. If she woke and saw me standing here in this kind of mood – that would be unbelievably bad, for me. My fury melted at the sight of her. So peaceful. My wolf wanted to curl up beside her on the bed, let her stroke him. But I denied him. We were so close.
Just before I slipped out the door, I paused, and glanced back. The devil’s star. Stone, what the hell have you done?
43
“What?” A hard-flat line drew across Santini’s face, cold as ice. “Where did you hear that name?”
He was the only person I knew that could potentially answer the questions I had, as he’d done yesterday.
I’d woken early and gotten the hell out of my apartment. Grabbed a coffee in town, before catching the bus. I had too many thoughts to wait around in my apartment. Most were complicated. Jay. Velkan. I didn’t want to deal with them today.
Ruth. Radu. Gargoyles. Werewolves. I could deal with even though it was a lot. Otherwise, my mind was going to implode.
“A homeless lady said it to me.”
“Really? I find that hard to believe.” He paused, angered. “It is very rare indeed that any person should know that name.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because he is the devil’s star,” Santini uttered in a low tone. His eyes deep in thought, raised to me.
My mind numbed. Colder than a block of ice. A shiver rippled through me. “A star?”
“Yes. He is the most elusive of all the devil’s minions. The most unknown. He is not mentioned in any written script, or text, not even ones that talk of the devil and his disciples.” Santini’s eyes glimmered.
“How do you know about him?” I asked. Intrigued but frightened by the coldness radiating from his eyes.
“I was hiking in Romania, high up in the Carpathian Mountains, when I came across a small village built deep into the hills. I stayed there to rest for a couple of nights. Late one night an old woman approached me, she asked me what I was doing so far from anywhere. I told her I had heard a whisper of an ancient folklore about the devil’s star, a demonic man, not of human form, but like the wind. The old woman described him as the one who flies. She said he was betrayed by his lover, and vowed revenge on her descendants. But none alive had seen him, and it seemed to me that the legend was as ancient as the land beneath them.”
“And you actually spoke to a woman who knew of him?”
“Yes. She did warn me not to seek him out.”
“Why?’
“She did not say. But I find this curious that you should know this name, when only yesterday you did not. And yet you asked about gargoyles.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
The coldness remained in Santini’s face as it lit up with a sinister grin. “Don’t you see. Gargoyles protect this world and humans from evil, and the devil’s star, is a disciple of evil. They are linked because gargoyles would hunt him in order to banish him from the earths plane.”
“But are they real?” My eyebrows furrowed. Hope a seed buried inside me.
“They are no more real than the tales they will tell of you and me in thousands of years. Whether there is truth to any of it, it is not my place to say. I can only tell you what I know. But for what it’s worth, yes, I believe it’s possible that there are things in this world, that cannot be explained by science or logic. If I didn’t, then my job would be mute.”
True.
“Have you met one?”
“One what?”
“You know, a gargoyle?”
He laughed. My cheeks flooded with heat. It was an idiotic question.
When his laughter finally ceased, he tapped the skin under his glassy eyes. “That was a good one.”
It was time to leave. Feeling stupid, I thanked him and went to leave. But before I did, I stopped. My mind adding up all the facts: Jay had the name of the great she-wolf tattooed across his chest; the incident between Jamie and Velkan last night, ending with Jay bowing, was weird – perhaps a wolf domination thing; his sense of smell was ridiculous – better than anyone I knew; and he was big, strong, fierce, and could run like the wind; and he growled a lot.
“Hey why did you tell me to ask Jamie about Werewolves?” I asked.
Santini’s eyes flashed. One blue, one green shone to the surface. “We all have secrets. Appearances can be deceiving. It just depends on if we are allowed to see behind the mask they wear.”
44
Later that day, as I rounded the street corner, the cathedral came into view. I stopped and stared up at it. Santini’s voice rang in my ears.
‘During the daylight hours, they are cast to stone, but are protected on holy ground. At night they protect the city, and humans from all manners of evil beings, and creatures of darkness’.
If that was true, it could’ve been a gargoyle Gran had seen, and as evil as it looked to her, it wasn’t. If it didn’t attack her, that made sense, because they were supposed to protect humans, but then…oh god. What was it hunting? Radu?
Standing curb side, waiting for the pedestrian walk light to flash green, a gust of wind brushed across the back of my neck. I shuddered. It settled on my shoulders with a cool dampness. My nerves tingled. An air of caution surrounded me, choking me, it roused my internal alarm bells. Shallow breaths contrasted against my racing heart. I scanned to my left, and then to my right, but I couldn’t see through the sea of heads. Adrenaline coursed through me, hyping my body, preparing its defences. My gut knew it was a warning. But from what or who? I scanned the streets again but didn’t see any threat.
A jolt from behind snapped me from my hyper-intense state.
“Come on, move,” a man said behind me.
The crosswalk lights had turned green, and I was holding up those people behind me. Moving with the herd, I stepped out onto the road, the white and grey stripes beneath my feet guiding us. Once across the road, I weaved out of the flock of pedestrians and walked up the concrete steps to the wooden doors.
I pulled the door open, slipped inside, and walked towards the aisle that ran up the side of the cathedral. A handful of patrons sat in the pews, quiet in prayer. Walking past them, I slipped through the door to the side of the altar. There, down a short hallway, was the priest’s office.
The door was open, but as I approached, I stopped and knocked.
“Come in,” he said.
The priest was sitting at his desk, nose deep in the pages of a large book. He looked up, his glasses riding the tip of his nose. “Ah, I wondered when I would see you again. Please come, sit.”
I didn’t want to. A shiver shook my spine. His office smelt like stale pages of rotted books and a pungent dampness. It wasn’t as warm or welcoming as I’d imagined. There was no reason to linger here one moment longer than needed.
“I’m sorry for the intrusion, but I was wondering if I could see the gargoyles on the roof again.”
His eyes narrowed at me. “Do you have something on your mind, that I could help you with?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“It is my experience that those who return to marvel at the wonderous creatures atop this cathedral, have many things on their minds that if divulged to another person may sound peculiar. They are wonderful listeners.”
“Yes, I suppose they are.”
“Very few have ever asked to see them, even fewer return.”
“Why is that?”
“They were created by the devil, and it was God who gave them refuge. Those who stare into the eyes of the beast, are either scared beyond measure, or bewildered and drawn to them. I think you are the latter; would I be correct in my assumption?”
“Yes. Are you saying they are real?”
“No. I am saying that this cathedral was built more than one hundred and fifty years ago, and the stonemason who carved them was never record
ed in the archives. It seems they may have been beyond the realm of the church.”
“What does that mean?”
“Possessed by evil himself to have fashioned such monstrous creatures.”
“Possession like the exorcist?” Everyone knew that movie, and it was based on a true story.
“But surely any person possessed by evil can be saved, according to the legends around the act of exorcising demons?” I asked.
“Not always,” he said. His hands clapped together, then he stood. “That’s enough on that subject. It does not bode well to discuss such things in length.” He rounded his desk. “Come now, I will take you to the roof. I’m sure they would like a visitor.”
This priest knew more than he was saying and was bound by his duty to not divulge it. I doubted I could coax it out of him, and he wouldn’t take a bribe. He was a servant of God himself; did that mean he knew they were real?
As I followed the priest, a million questions compressed in my mind.
“What did you mean when you said I’m sure they would like a visitor?” I asked.
The priest stopped on the metal staircase, and turned, looking down at me. He studied me, then turned back around, and kept walking.
“It is merely a figure of speech. They are marvellous listeners because they cannot interrupt nor pose any threat to exposing your secrets or thoughts.”
“That is true.” If they are stone, and not real. “I heard that they are one of the three defences against evil, is that right?”
“Yes, they protect this holy place and all those who seek refuge within from a greater evil.”
“You said they were crafted one hundred and fifty years ago, but did other cathedrals at the time have gargoyles on them, or was this the first?”
“You misheard me. I said this cathedral was built one hundred and fifty years ago. All records at the time of building never mentioned a stonemason. The addition of the gargoyles was never recorded. And yes, there were other cathedrals built around that time, some older. I am unsure if gargoyles were crafted on those at that time, but there are others today, that do have such creatures guarding them.”
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