“Well, fine,” she mumbled to herself. “No
more procrastinating.”
As she exited the bathroom, the sword
caught her eye. It sat propped where she’d left it next to the door. Since she
wasn’t going to kill him with it, the sword was pointless. Besides, the mere
thought of doing him harm sickened her. She needed answers. Something to explain
away the strange link of kinship she felt with the gargoyle—if that was really
what he was.
The bedroom door creaked loudly enough to
shatter glass. She winced at the noise, but continued her march down the length
of the hall and back to the stairs, which she stomped down with a heavy tread.
She couldn’t say how she knew where he was, but like a bird aligning its
migration flight to the Earth’s magnetic field, she set her mind seeking his,
and followed where that tug led.
She found him in the kitchen. He paced
around the island table, his bath towels slapping at his thighs as he walked.
Seeing her, he stopped. Once again she was reminded of stone, he held himself
so still. The spell broke a minute later as his jackal-like ears swiveled
toward her. When she stayed rooted to the ground, he took measured steps in her
direction. Slow and cautious, like he would woo a bird or get closer to a
skittish horse, he reached out a clawed hand. She didn’t spook that easily, and
held her ground.
He approached with a gentle caution, but
all his muscles were tensed, like he was ready for a fight. Her throat
tightened and her heart felt like a weight in her chest. With his hand
outstretched before him, he inched nearer until only a few feet separated them.
She took a half step toward him, and another.
He leapt forward, tackling her. His wings
enveloped her a moment before his strong arms crushed her to his chest. She
squeezed her eyes shut, and she couldn’t even scream since fear and surprise
held her jaws locked. Her heart pulsed strangely, fluttering like it didn’t
know how to beat. Then it remembered and took off with a vengeance.
Slowly, the dark world behind her closed
eyes expanded. The mellow fragrance of soap registered on her senses. The feel
of warm skin over hard muscle. The echo of his heart. The pulse of his blood.
Forest scent and male.
Her gargoyle was real.
Without reason or logic, joy engulfed her
soul and the remnants of panic melted away. She locked her arms around as much
of his waist as she could reach.
He nuzzled her hair, blowing into it with
great puffs of breath. His muzzle dipped lower, his tongue laving at her face
in wide damp sweeps. Stilling, he inhaled deeply before resting his muzzle on
top of her head, just holding her to him as if he feared she would vanish.
Obviously, he considered her natural smell
to be an improvement over dried blood and gore.
“You’re certainly friendly,” she mumbled
into his chest. Mumbling was all she was able to do with his arms locked around
her; his chest may as well have been made of stone. She should have been
screaming and fighting, driven by panic. But she wasn’t. She trusted him
without question.
He shifted her in his arms as he folded his
wings against his back. Then he unbalanced her more, reaching for something on the
table behind her.
“You could let me go. I can stand on my
own. I won’t even run away. Promise.” Her words went unanswered.
A loaf of bread appeared an inch in front
of her face.
“Okay. A little room, please.” She shoved
at his chest. After the third time, he seemed to get the point and allowed her
to put a little space between them. She was still locked in the circle of his
arms, but at least now she could take a deep breath without cracking a rib. He
gestured with the bread again.
“Persistent fella, aren’t you.” She could
stand there all night with a loaf of bread bombarding her face, or she could
take the food.
With a sigh, she accepted the loaf and tore
a chunk off, cave-woman style.
When she dutifully started to chew, he
gestured for her to eat more. She swallowed and took another bite. He nodded
his head and released her. Somehow it didn’t surprise her he’d be pleased by
her compliance.
When she finished her chunk, he tried to
get her to eat more. “Sorry, no.” She shook her head and hoped he would understand.
He gestured again.
“Not unless you plan to force feed me.” She
crossed her arms and glared at him. “I have questions. To start, what’s your
name?” She pointed to him and he grasped her hand. His head tilted to one side
and his ears flicked forward and then back.
Lillian sighed.
This is going to be a
long day.
She tugged on her hand until he released
her. While pretending to brush at crumbs, she stepped out of his personal
space. He didn’t follow her, so she walked over to the sink and filled the tea
kettle with water—all the while fighting the urge to turn around. After she
placed the kettle on the stove, she glanced out the window. Her breath caught.
Bodies slumped near the maze. How had she forgotten about them?
Seeing them again, the horror rushed back.
But unlike the first time, her mind was sharper, and now a greater concern
wormed its way into her consciousness. Her family would be home soon, and there
could be more of those monsters outside somewhere. A spike of dread lanced her
insides.
Her back muscles clenched into knots,
winding tighter by the minute, and her jaw ached with the need to do something.
If she called her family and told them to stay away, they would only rush home
faster.
“Lillian.”
That voice again, lulling as the night breeze.
His arms enclosed her from behind and her moment of panic dissipated. Of course
he had killed all the monsters. Her gargoyle would never let them hurt her
family.
Interesting. If she was in physical contact
with him, calmness engulfed her, but when he was away, something rose within
her . . . fear or panic, she wasn’t sure which, but either reaction was
concerning.
Was he controlling her thoughts, her
emotions?
Doubts grew and she again stepped away
from him to think. He let her go.
The kettle’s sudden, shrill whistle spurred
the gargoyle into action. He swept her up into his arms and spun in a circle,
seeking the source of the noise, his talons poised to rend his enemies.
“Easy,” she soothed. “Whoa. It’s okay.” She
placed her hands flat against his muzzle, and eased them up to his temple.
The room swam, blurring with motion. When
her vision cleared, the ground was a greater distance away, the room smaller,
claustrophobic.
Impossible as it was, she was somehow
seeing and feeling the world around them from his point of view—and, yes, she
was presently feeling her horns rasp against the ceiling unpleasantly.
Her tail lashing in agitation at the shrill
sound hurting her ears, she looked to the small object causing the noise and
backhanded it. It sailed across the room and landed with a clatter, but at
least the horrid noise bouncing around the room died off.
“What on earth!” Lillian jerked her hand
away from where it rested against his temple and the vision and stream of
sensations coming from the gargoyle stopped. “What the hell was that?”
She twisted in his arms and pushed at his
chest in an attempt to slip free. When that failed, she slumped against him. He
still didn’t release her, but at least the strange parade of foreign sensations
stopped.
“Okay,” she said, more to calm herself than
him. “We need ground rules. No more of the mind-merging crap. I don’t want to
ever know what it feels like for my horns to scrape the ceiling ever again, nor
do I want to discover anything else deeply personal about you either by
accident or intention on your part. Hands off until you can keep that under
wraps.”
A soft whine issued from his throat as he
bumped his muzzle under her hand a second time. Warmth and contentment, like a
deep radiating sense of peace she’d never known before, surrounded her. Then it
was shattered. Accompanying the new sensation was the image of the whistling
teakettle. Foolishness. Embarrassment. Regret.
After a moment, she understood he was using
touch to communicate, trying to apologize for his rash behavior. He’d been
caught off guard by the shrill teakettle. He’d thought it was an attack. She
might have found it funny if it hadn’t unfolded in her kitchen.
By way of apology, the gargoyle retrieved
the teakettle and refilled it with water and placed it back over the element.
Then he returned to her side and watched in his silent way.
His ears flicked forward, and back—like a
horse listening for reassurance in his rider’s voice.
A gargoyle with
insecurity issues?
“I’m sorry,” she said in a calmer voice. “I
get pissy when I’m scared. And I’ve been more scared today than any time in my
life.” She took one of his larger hands into both of hers, hoping he could pick
up on her emotions like she had his, and concentrated on projecting her
feelings of gratitude and the lessening of her fear. “You saved my life, healed
me. I can’t even begin to figure out how or why, but I’m alive and you seem
genuinely interested in keeping me that way. The least I can do is hear you
out.”
Now, her day would improve if she could
find a way to communicate in complex sentences. His touchy-feely voodoo gave
her an idea and she intertwined her fingers with his. She felt like a child.
His one hand could engulf both of hers without difficulty and his claws . . .
the term ‘huge’ didn’t do them justice. But for all his massive strength and
formidable weaponry, he hadn’t harmed her. She patted his hand, and then tugged
him in the direction of the cupboard over the kitchen sink. Pulling out a
package of English Breakfast tea, she held it out to him. He blinked at her,
but dutifully sniffed at the packaging. “Tea,” she said, giving it a little
shake.
She took a teabag and dropped it in the
teapot, then poured the boiling water in after. Next, she showed him how the
stove worked.
He absorbed knowledge with an unreasonable
quickness, and she wondered if his magic was aiding him in some way, or if he
was able to pick the meaning of her words from her mind directly. Whatever the
case, in less than a half hour he was pointing at random objects in the kitchen
and saying the words and demonstrating how they worked. From the kitchen, they
moved to the living room and then to the other parts of the house. The TV and
stereo he didn’t understand, but at least he didn’t try to ‘kill’ the
television like he had the teakettle.
* * *
After an hour, the gargoyle could recite a
couple hundred words. She was mildly envious of his ability to learn so
quickly. Sentences were still beyond him, but that was probably her lack of
skill as a teacher. She didn’t know how to teach him something she couldn’t
show or demonstrate.
Since she had grown tired of simply
thinking of him as ‘the gargoyle,’ earlier she had tried to persuade him into
revealing his name, without any luck. Frustrated, she tried again, slapping her
hand against her chest. “Lillian.” Then she pointed at him.
He blinked at her, and nodded, giving her a
flash of teeth.
He found it funny. He was laughing at her. Great.
The tip of his tail flicked like a cat’s,
and he leaned down and licked her across the cheek. She sputtered and swore.
His grin stretched further, showing white, curving teeth. His tongue darted out
again, catching her across the ear. “Lillian,” he rumbled.
“I know my name, Sherlock.” She pointed at
him again. “Do you have one?”
“Yours,” he said, his expression turning
serious. He bowed until his horns touched the ground and his wings pooled
around him like a silk cloak. “I am yours.”
End of Sample
*
* *
If you enjoyed these
sample chapters, you can continue Lillian and Gregory’s story in
Sorceress
Awakening
, and then follow their continuing story in Sorceress
Rising, Sorceress Hunting and Sorceress at War (Forthcoming Fall 2016).
Thanks for
reading. If you enjoyed the read, you may also like some of my other fantasy series.
For news about
them and other information about future projects, sales, freebies, review copy
giveaways, contests and more, you can visit my website
http://www.lisablackwood.com/
or sign up for my newsletter
HERE
.
Lisa Blackwood grudgingly lives in a small town
in Southern Ontario, though she would much rather live deep in a dark forest,
surrounded by majestic old-growth trees. Since she cannot live her fantasy, she
decided to write fantasy instead. An abundance of pets, named after various
Viking gods, helps to keep the creativity flowing. Freya, her ever faithful and
beloved hellhound, ensures Lisa takes a break from the computer so they can rid
the garden of cats with delusions of conquest.
To find out more about me and what I'm up to
come visit my website.
And my blog:
http://www.blackwoodsforest.wordpress.com/