Embrace (The Gryphon Series) (24 page)

She jerked her head to the side in bird-like
confusion.  “How?  What are you going to do?”

“What I have to.”  I answered
, and then locked my gaze on Kendall.  “Be ready.”

Her
lashes fanned out as her eyes widened.  “Be ready?  For
what
?!”

“You’ll see.”   

Gabe seemed to clue in on my intentions.  “He’s a demon, Cee.”  He practically growled.  “Don’t do this.”

I
grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him close.  Our foreheads almost touched.  “You once told me you believed I was chosen because I was the strongest.  Do you still believe that?”

“Of course I do.  But…”

“No buts.  I need you to trust me.”

He ground his teeth
together, and gave a reluctant nod.

“Whatever happens, promise me you’ll keep them safe.
”  As I spoke, coarse fur sprouted up under my hand.  His features widened.  In seconds I was peering into the topaz eyes of a jungle cat.

“Ppprrrrooommmmmsssss
.”  He rumbled.

The lone twin
tugged at the sleeve of my sweatshirt.  “Please don’t do this.”  His pleading eyes were magnified by his thick lenses.  “You don’t know what he’s capable of.  Your life is so valuable and you’re going to throw it away.”

“
I’m not throwing anything away.”  I pried his hand off and gave it a quick squeeze.  “He’s trapped and I know how to free him.  If I knew how to do the same for any of you, I would.”

I didn’t give myself
—or them—any more time to think.  I took a deep breath and darted out from behind the demolished fountain, directly into the line of fire. 

“Hey Casanova!”  I hollered. 
“Your beef is with me, so how about you quit shooting at my family?” 

Clearly
he had other ideas.  He brought his palms together in a prayer pose, then unleashed a barrage of flaming balls of solid ice directed at yours truly.   

I flipped and turned to avoid each strike, but kept talking.  “I mean I was the job, right?
”  Side spin.  “The one you were supposed to seduce and kill?”  Duck and weave.  “And let me just say you did a bang up job.”  Tuck jump.  “Because even now in your bumpy, veiny, scary state I still find you sexy in a way that makes me judge myself more than a little bit.”

Caleb dropped his fire spewing hands to his sides and rotated his jaw. 
The quiet night made it possible for me to hear the sickening pop as it unhinged from its sockets.  His lower jaw swung slack to his chest as a swirling vortex of wind tunneled up from deep in his throat.  (FYI ladies, that’s a trick you
never
want to see the guy you’re crushin’ on do.)

The same
torrential winds that whipped and tossed me around the woods lashed out at me.  My feet skittered across the gravel as I was violently blown backward.  The cement teeth from a stone lion’s head dug into my back as I slammed into the fountain.  Tears streamed down my face.  But I couldn’t give up.  I leaned into the powerful gusts and struggled to pull even one foot forward.  

             
“You and I both know there was more here than some assignment for you.”  I shouted over the winds that roared like a freight train.  I managed to drag one foot forward.  Then another. “But if you want to throw that away and go back to being the Countess’s lapdog for the rest of eternity, that choice is yours.”  I planted my feet despite the tornado-like winds that ravaged against me.  Even I didn’t understand what kept me rooted to that spot.  Sheer force of will perhaps.  “It’s now or never, Caleb.  Break away from the Countess once and for all, or kill me.  Right here, right now.  What’s it gonna be?” 

C
onfusion, strain, and regret played across his mutated face.  I had gotten through to the human Caleb, at least a little.  My heart gave a victorious flutter as the winds stopped and his slack jaw drew up and locked back into place.  The moment was fleeting.  With a sinister sneer he pressed his palms together, and then hurled a softball-sized flaming ball of ice at me.  Night’s navy cloak brightened to a brilliant blue against the red and orange flames.  It would’ve been beautiful, if I didn’t know what came next.  

With a
mixture of joy and disappointment I realized his aim was off.  If I wanted this over there was only one way to make that happen.  I said a silent prayer, then flicked my middle finger.  That small movement corrected its path. Scorching heat and skin searing iciness bore through my stomach.  The damage was so quick and severe that I felt no pain, no fear—nothing. Coppery warmth bubbled up my throat and trickled down my chin.  My legs crumpled and I folded to the ground. 

             
Darkness enveloped me in its warm, constricting arms as it claimed me as its own.  The last thing I heard before I allowed it to carry me away was a familiar velvety brogue.  “Celeste, lovey, forgive me! What’ve I done?”

CHAPTER33

              Blackness all around me.  But not like the Great Beyond.  More like the expansive hollowness of a warehouse with all its lights off. 

A voice I had
longed to hear for almost two years echoed all around me.  “When the time comes, Cee-Cee, you have to give it away.”

             
“Daddy?”  My own voice bounced off the walls, as I turned in a circle in hopes of catching a glimpse of him.  “Where are you?  Give
what
away?”

             
This time his voice came in a whisper right behind me.  The familiar spiciness of his cologne tickled my nose.  “Just wait. You’ll know.”

             
I spun around.  A blindingly bright light and pulsating warmth exploded around me.

CHAPTER
34

              A high pitched screech welcomed me back to reality.  My heavy lids struggled to open.  Chaos surrounded me. Coherence seemed like a wise idea. 

             
“Alaina!  Get her out of here now!”  An agitated Irishman hollered. 

             
When I finally pried my eyes open I found it was Alaina and not Keni who had healed me.  Flooded with concern, I tried to sit up.  Intense pain stabbed into my guts and slammed me back down to the ground.  “Where’s Kendall?”  I rasped as black spots danced before my eyes.  My throat felt like it had been scorched.

             
Alaina put her hand on my back and eased me up to a seated position.  “Kendall is indisposed at the moment.” 

             
I grimaced and nearly hurled at the waves of pain that ravaged me, but quickly learned why Alaina rushed me.  All around us a battle raged.  Gabe-lion rolled on the ground, locked in a ferocious struggle with a bulldozer-sized lizard with two-heads and a wingspan like a B-52 Bomber.  Long, slender necks curled and snaked around him.  Their reptilian faces gouged bloody holes in his flesh with their jagged beaks.  Gabe growled, slashed and tore holes in their scaly hide with his teeth and claws.  Bloodlust had him oblivious to his own injuries.  The lizard flapped its wings to gain some distance from the vicious lion, but with one leap in the air Gabe put a quick stop to that.  He threaded his claws through their leathery wings and pinned the creature to himself in a violent embrace.  Both of the lizard’s heads arced back and emitted angry screeches into the night sky. Gabe body slammed the enormous lizard to the ground.  Together they rolled and tumbled in the dirt, any exposed flesh got pierced by a claw or a fang.  

             
A few yards away Kendall had cocooned herself in her impenetrable wings, while a hulking orange beast—clad only in what appeared to be an adult diaper—repeatedly slammed his meaty fist against her fortress of feathers. He had to be at least eight feet tall and was all kinds of ugly.  Rolls of orange lumpy skin undulated with each move.  There wasn’t a hair on his head, but tufts of black curly hair sprouted up all over his chest and back.  A third eye bulged from his forehead.   A career in male modeling was
not
in the cards him. 

             
As long as Kendall kept her wings up, she should be okay. 

             
In the center of it all Caleb—now restored to his magnificent self—fought two demons instead of celebrating his newfound freedom.  One had the basic shape of a human, but a body made entirely of fire.  It belched flames at Caleb.  He extinguished them with a stream of ice that sprayed from his palm.  Someone else beside Flame Dude whipped wooden darts at Caleb.  I couldn’t make out who or what they were, but my demon beau easily thwarted their attack by setting each dart ablaze with spurts of fire that pulsed from his fingertips.  The combination of his fire and ice abilities created blue flames that licked and danced just below the surface of Caleb’s skin. Despite the dire situation I still marveled at the beauty of it. Black hair bobbed as the mysterious person took a step forward, and shot a dart out of the inside of his up-turned wrist. 

             
My head whipped in Alaina’s direction as fast as my injured state would allow.  “Is that Eddie?!” 

             
Alaina’s rosy lips pursed as she weaved an arm around my waist and hoisted me off the ground.  I buckled from the pain as all the air left my lungs in a labored gasp.  Alaina held me steady and allowed me a brief moment to catch my breath.  “Yes, it is.  And the one made of flames is the former red-head.  The orange Henchman is the young man with the unfortunate skin condition, and the Lamusango lizard demon is the one that claimed his twin brother had been killed.  Seems he wasn’t dead at all, but could be regrown as a second head at any time.” 

             
My mouth opened and shut in utter confusion.  “What?  How is that possible?  They were our friends!  Our allies!”

             
“Not as much as one would hope.”  Alaina spun me from the fight and began to hobble me away.  “It seems they were here tonight just to stop us from freeing Caleb.  They’ve been acting on the Countess’s orders this whole time. Seriously, Celeste, you’re an empathe, how did you not see this coming?”

             
I was getting really tired of people asking me that, “They admitted they were evil and sent here to kill me! Doesn’t get much more brutally honest than that. I didn’t think there was any reason to dig deeper!”  

             
“Clearly there was,” Her head tipped down toward mine.  “Will you be okay to fly?”

             
“Yeah, I think so. Although it still hurts like hell.”

             
Alaina frowned as she rolled her shoulders and released her wings.  “It should.  You had a wound through your middle the size of a bowling ball.  I have seen your spleen, Celeste.  And it was
not
pretty.  No doubt you’ll be sore for a while.”

             
I turned my back to Alaina to allow her to hook her arms under my armpits.  I fought back a scream at the ripping, tearing pain my dangling legs inflicted on my injured core as we lifted off the ground.  “But it worked.”  I muttered through gritted teeth. 

             
“Why are ya still here?” Caleb screamed up at his sister.  “Get her out of here
now
!” 

             
Alaina said nothing, but flapped her wings that much faster.  Her golden feathers beat against the air in a rhythmic
Womp! Womp! Womp!

             
Just as we peaked over the treetops, and the skyline of Nashville loomed out before as a far off beacon of hope and safety, Alaina yelped. We spun back toward the ground in a whipping, churning, freefall.  All the air pushed out of my lungs as I slammed to the ground with all of Alaina’s weight on top of me.  Shrieking, she rolled off of me.  My head lulled to the side, and I eagerly sucked in air to fill my painfully empty lungs.  In the middle of regulating my breathing, I caught a glimpse of Alaina’s silhouette.  My eyes bulged and my jaw fell slack.  A small wooden dart protruded from Alaina’s neck.  As I watched her feathers and wings melt away.  Vanishing without a trace.  She became—
human
. 

             
She gaped down at her exposed, and very human, body.  Panic boiled in her voice. “Oh!  Oh!  Oh!  My…my…wings!” Her eyes, now green like Caleb’s, widened with terror as she scoured my face for an answer.  “Where are my wings?!”

             
I bit back a pained scream as I sat up to shrug off my zip-up sweatshirt and toss it to her. My T-shirt was shredded from the rib area down, but I was still way more covered than she was.  “Uh, Caleb?  We’ve got a problem!” 

             
In between blasts of fire and ice, he glanced back over his shoulder.  Strands of black hair stuck to his sweaty forehead.  “Why are ya still—oh, blimey.”  His shoulder’s sagged, but only for a moment.  “Reversal Demon.”  He shouted and turned his attentions to the fire demon that loomed closer.  “His darts temporarily remove the powers of supernatural beings.  Get ‘er in the truck and
get out of here
!”