What was she doing?
Still, her gaze lingered a moment longer,
until she forced her head up and looked off to one side. She cleared her
throat. “I should . . . go towel dry my hair. You . . . can finish up in here.”
The long-absent blush returned with a vengeance and she bolted from the shower.
She tripped in her rush, but caught herself against the sink. The door of the
vanity slipped out of her hand with a bang. She tore it open again. When she
tried to get a towel, the stupid thing pulled several of its friends along with
it. She left the mess on the floor and scooped up two before she fled to her
bedroom.
* * *
By the time Gregory exited the bathroom,
Lillian was clothed in a floor-length nightgown and housecoat, her hair dry,
with the blow dryer cooling on her nightstand, but she still didn’t have her
emotions under control. They were an unruly riot she didn’t know how to sort
out. While she brushed her tangle-free hair, she watched him out of the corner
of her eye. When he hesitated, she gestured for him to come closer. He still
didn’t move.
“Gregory, come and sit. We need to talk.”
Without a word, he came to stand before
her, head bowed.
She cleared her throat. “About earlier, I
owe you an—”
“I did not mean to frighten you,” he cut in.
“You didn’t frighten me.”
“You ran.”
“I wasn’t afraid.”
He furled his brow. “Yet you ran away.”
Lillian sighed. Damn, he was like a
bloodhound with a scent. “Yes, I did. And I’m sorry. I was surprised and
handled it badly. I’m an idiot. Give me an honest threat, and I’m game for
battle, but toss me into an embarrassing situation and I turn tail and run,
every time. Not something I’m proud of, and I’m sorry.” She reached for his
hand and pulled him down to sit on the bed next to her.
“I’m glad you were not afraid,” he rumbled.
With a smile, she began to pull the brush
through his mane. He turned to give her better access. In the end she sat on
her haunches behind him. She was working up the nerve to ask him one question that
burned brighter than the rest when he turned and looked at her with dark eyes
full of knowledge. She was touching him. Of course he already knew what she was
going to ask. She folded her hands in her lap and prayed for composure. The
question lodged in her throat and didn’t want to come free. After three more
tries, she got her voice working.
“Do you want . . . I mean . . . clearly
you’re mature . . . with needs.” Lillian winced at her word choice and had a
sudden urge to whack her head against a wall.
“What occurred earlier isn’t something I’d
normally let happen. My control is usually better, but after all that’s ensued
tonight, the power of the dance riding us, then you and the other dryads
feeding me blood—both acts are very similar to courtship, and I reacted.”
Lillian sobered at his words, her reaction
far closer to disappointment than relief. He wasn’t actually interested in her.
She was just a warm, willing body, and she’d been all over him—literally. What
a mess. She scrambled for something to say to him, something to throw him off
track so he wouldn’t know how his words hurt.
“What I’m trying to say is . . . if you
want to spend time with one of the dryads, go ahead. You seem to think you need
to guard me every waking moment, but you should take some personal time too.”
“Personal time?”
She didn’t dare look up at him. “If you
want to take one of the dryads as your lover, you should.”
Another long silence followed. She started
to worry at her robe tie.
“There is one I want.” He said the words
like they were dragged from his soul.
“Then go to her and find what solace you
can. You have my blessing.” The lie tasted bitter on her tongue, but it was
better than shackling him with the truth. He was so loyal; he’d forgo his own
needs if he thought it would make her unhappy. In this case, a small lie served
the greater good—even if it was gnawing at her heart hard enough to dampen her
eyes. “Go, be with your chosen one.”
“I am.” He shifted and the bed rocked as he
moved. Coffee-dark eyes bored into hers a second before he embraced her, drawing
her against his chest. He hid his muzzle in her hair and drew on power. Eyes
closed, she shivered at the delicious sensation. There was a moment of great
heat and the world shifted around her. When she opened her eyes, she was lying
on her back with him hunched over her.
Gregory, now in human form, leaned toward
her, a look of tenderness on his face. She turned her head at the last moment
and he landed a kiss on her jaw instead of the lips. His miss didn’t seem to
upset him and he nuzzled her neck, inhaling her scent. Warm fingers stroked her
breastbone. “You are the one thing that both calms and arouses me, my greatest
and most forbidden desire.”
Panic beat her heart against her ribcage.
He had said ‘forbidden,’ hadn’t he? She needed some answers. It was hard to
think with him nuzzling his way along her neck and his nimble fingers working
loose the tiny row of buttons running down the front of her nightgown. He was
entirely too distracting, but she gathered her thoughts. “What’s forbidden, and
why?”
He jerked like her words were a bucket of
cold water. “This.” His expression turned sober. A moment later he jumped from
the bed and began to pace around the room. “I . . .” He let the sentence die as
shadows thickened, hiding him.
“No. Don’t go. Please answer my question.
What’s forbidden?”
“My love for you, my desire, it is
forbidden.” His disembodied voice floated to her from a different corner of the
room. Even invisible, he still paced back and forth.
Times like this made her wish she could go
invisible, too. “Go on, I’m listening.”
“I haven’t told you everything. I should
have, but I was afraid.” His voice shook and she could hear the torment within
his rumbling tones.
“Gregory, I know you withheld information
when you said we shared one spirit.” Lillian stood and walked in the direction
of his voice. “And I’m not so naive that I don’t see how much it hurts you to
keep things from me. Talk to me. I promise I’ll try to understand, and even if
I don’t understand it all, I’ll still accept it and you.”
He continued to pace, his feet padding
softly against the carpet. His voice now came to her from near the bathroom
door. “We are the Avatars of the Divine Ones.”
He’d said it like those eight words
explained everything. A smile tugged at her lips. At least she’d pinpointed
where he stood. “Explain what that means, my love.”
“As their Avatars, we wield a portion of
their power. That same power always wishes to reunite and create, but we are
forbidden to join outside of the Spirit Realm, for it is too dangerous. Any child
we birthed would be more god than flesh.”
“I can see how that could be a problem.”
The scent of gargoyle was stronger in the Northeast corner of the room.
“Duty was enough for us in the beginning.
But over time we craved a closer link, like what we share in the Spirit Realm.
More so than we had any right, we encouraged each other to deeper love. While
the Divine Ones forbid us to mate with each other, we sometimes found orphaned
younglings to raise. Or one of us would seek a mate elsewhere and bring the
child back. Over the last few lifetimes we couldn’t even do that because
something had changed.” He paused.
With her hand outstretched before her, she
encountered his warm skin before she could see him. After a moment, the shadows
hiding him receded and she found him still in human form, standing with his
back braced against the wall, eyes staring unseeing at the floor. The need to
hold him, to comfort him in whatever way she could, had her moving closer. She
embraced him before he could bolt again. Then with an arm around his waist, she
urged him back toward the foot of the bed. “Talk to me.”
He took a great, sighing breath and pulled
her against his side as they sat on the end of the bed. “Six lifetimes ago, I
had chosen a gryphon mate and was guarding the young when you came and
dramatically claimed all of them as yours. And then, five lifetimes ago, I
nearly killed your mate. You were a dragon, as was your mate. If he’d been of a
more fragile nature, he wouldn’t have survived.”
“I was a dragon?” Lillian interrupted.
While she
did
want to learn about her past, she was more interested in
distracting Gregory from his melancholy. “Guess that would make me bigger and
stronger than you,” she said with a lopsided grin.
“Superior size didn’t offer your dragon mate
much protection from my wrath.”
Lillian’s smile wilted. So much for a
lighter mood. “We chose mates in an attempt to resist the deep love growing
between us, didn’t we? But it didn’t work, because jealousy got in the way.”
“Yes, and after those two disastrous events
we wisely never tried again. We could do nothing but endure. If we weakened,
even for a moment, and came together as lovers, it would lead to our deaths.
The Divine Ones would have no option but to hunt us down. And there would be no
rebirth this time.”
She rested her elbows against her knees.
“I’m so sorry Gregory. If I’d known, I’d have . . .” She paused when she
realized she didn’t know what she’d have done differently. He was in pain, and
she wanted to help, but if what he said was true, and she had no reason to
doubt him, he could never be with the one he loved. She couldn’t make the leap
to picture herself as the Sorceress, his beloved. “I’m sorry.”
“Why? You couldn’t have changed anything.”
“No, but if I was your Sorceress, then
she’d understand and share in your pain. You wouldn’t be so alone.” Her throat
tightened. Gregory was the noblest man she knew. If anyone deserved a bit of
happiness, it was him. She wasn’t the Sorceress he remembered, but perhaps she
could still give him something he craved. Her fingers traced a line over the
curve of his shoulder, down his arm and along the inside of his forearm.
“If I understand the restrictions
correctly, it isn’t that we must remain chaste, instead we must ensure we never
have a child together.” She caressed his side, and he shivered at her touch.
The contrast of warm, soft skin over hard muscle stirred a great many longings.
If there was any justice in the world, she would be
free to give him what she sensed he most wanted—the love of his Sorceress and a
child by her. But if that was forever denied him, perhaps she could give him
something more than a few forbidden kisses. And if she was honest with herself,
she’d wanted him since she’d first sensed the tenderness within his soul,
wanted to kiss and stroke him, hold him within the protection of her arms while
he was vulnerable.
He rumbled something unintelligible in her
ear and then sat stiffly beside her. Oh, he had picked up on her train of
thoughts. Her cheeks warmed.
“Gregory, I’m not familiar with the world
you came from, but in my world there are things I can do to insure I don’t get
pregnant. There are protections we can use . . . or ways to share pleasure
without the risk of a child. I care for you and want to see you happy.” She
paused and glanced up to his face.
“Protection?”
In
human form, his astonishment was all too easy to read by the way one eyebrow arched
nearly to his hairline. His expression made her blush hotter. Unable to
maintain his gaze, she ducked her head.
“Yes,” she cleared her throat, “Please
don’t make me show you the visuals. Remember about embarrassing conversations—I
might bolt.”
“I doubt whatever your world has invented
will work in this situation. We are Avatars, and as such we carry the potential
of creation within us. The two sides of our power yearn to be together and
create.”
He stroked the side of her jaw and on down
the column of her throat to rest his palm between the swell of her breasts. His
fingers feathered lightly against her skin. Her lids fluttered shut at the heat
his touch aroused in her. Warm breath caressed her face a moment before his
rumbling voice broke over her.
“If we tried to come together as lovers our
magic would assure fertility—we must never allow this to happen.” He got up and
began pacing again. Between one stride and the next, his human form vanished
and he was all gargoyle again.
Mortification burned hot in her soul. She
plucked at her robe as she smoothed out the wrinkles, welcoming a distraction
so she wouldn’t have to look up at him until she had her hormones under
control. She’d just tried to seduce her gargoyle—again.
Another thought occurred to her, and anger
awoke. “How could the Divine Ones be so cruel?” She folded her arms across her
chest. “And their rules are pure bullshit. We’re not allowed to have a child
because the child would be too powerful. Yet we’re so fertile that birth
control won’t work. If we’re not allowed to reproduce, why the hell not make us
infertile? Or disinterested in sex? I don’t understand why these Divine Ones
would do this. Is our loyalty being tested or some shit like that? ’Cause if
they reward their loyal servants with that kind of shit. . . .”
“It’s not like that,” Gregory replied as he
came to stand in front of her. “The Divine Ones only ask us to endure what they
themselves endure. All of creation stretches out between them, and if they were
to reunite, it would unmake all they have made. As a way to overcome this
problem, the great God and Goddess use our mortal bodies to bear their
children. They imbibe us with their power and spirit, then in a moment of fire
and ecstasy, we die as the Divine Ones birth their newest child into the
Realms.”