Sorceress Awakening (30 page)
“Explains what, exactly?” she asked, though
she wasn’t certain she actually wanted to know. His answer might destroy the
pleasure she took in his petting. He switched to running his hands along her
hair, before trailing his fingers down her back.
Resisting the urge to arch her back in
cat-like fashion, she instead lifted her head to meet his eyes. He wasn’t
looking at her. His focus was for her hamadryad. By the curve of his smile,
which showed a generous amount of fang, he was pleased with what he saw.
“Gregory?”
“It’s easier if I show you.” He rolled her
off to the side, then sat up. When he’d gained his feet, he reached down and
pulled her up after.
Now that she was standing, looking down at
herself, she no longer felt sexy—not covered in tree sap and bits of grass,
dirt and other plant materials. “Clothing would be nice,” she mumbled to
herself.
With a slight motion, Gregory stirred the
air with one hand. Shadows, flecks of sunlight and bits of soft moss came to
his hand. While she watched in silence, he wove a skirt and vest from the
materials. It wasn’t as sophisticated as what the other dryads had made for
her, but she was twice as happy. “Thank you.”
After she donned her new clothing, Lillian
let herself be led back to her hamadryad. She even managed to swallow back the
numerous questions floating through her thoughts.
“You said you felt empty.”
“Yes, nothing happened when I tried to call
my magic. I thought you were dead and a part of me had died as well . . . but
you weren’t . . . and you heard me even though I had no magic left.”
“I’ll always feel your joy and your pain;
any powerful emotion will touch me. You don’t need magic for that.”
“I’m glad.” Her words couldn’t convey the
slightest drop of what she felt for him, but her throat tightened and blocked
any more words from escaping.
He reached for her hand. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course.” Now she could add feeling
perplexed to the riot of emotions bubbling up inside.
“The demon is gone from you. In part, that
is why you feel empty.”
“How? You said you couldn’t remove it
without killing me.”
“I couldn’t. Your hamadryad did what I
couldn’t. Feel.” He took her hand and pressed it against the rough bark of the
trunk. “I didn’t expect this.”
At first she felt nothing except the tree,
then Gregory put his hand overtop hers and called power. It washed into her.
“There is no danger,” he whispered above her, “not while I’m here with you.”
His mind touched hers, then his thoughts flowed away into the hamadryad. He
tugged Lillian along after him.
“Do you feel it?”
Just as she was going to say no, she heard
the distant echo of another mind; its enraged thoughts broadcasting its
loathing. She sent her consciousness in the direction of the disturbance. Her
hamadryad’s mind surrounded hers. It was strangely comforting and Lillian forgot
what she’d been doing until Gregory mentally nudged her.
“Come. You need to see this so you’ll no
longer doubt yourself.”
Another tortured, infuriated scream
reverberated throughout the internal world of the hamadryad. It was so full of
hatred Lillian shivered at the sound.
“That’s my demon, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Your hamadryad has trapped it.”
The demon howled again.
Lillian continued to follow Gregory’s
spirit until she sensed they were deep in the hamadryad’s wooden heart. Ahead
of them, golden power coiled and twisted around something of darkness. The two
forces were joined in a fierce battle beyond Lillian’s understanding. What she
saw wasn’t fought in the physical world; this was a battle between two spirits.
Somehow Gregory was using his power to show her what was going on inside the
hamadryad.
Gregory drew back from the fight and urged
her along with him. Lillian swayed and found herself back in her body, staring
at the trunk of her redwood.
“I don’t understand. How can my hamadryad
trap the demon soul? Wasn’t the demon . . . part of me?”
“The demon was grafted onto your soul—the
ancient essence of the Sorceress. You feel empty because you are no longer the
Mother’s Avatar. That power now belongs to your hamadryad. In essence, she is
now the Sorceress.”
“Gregory”—she held up her hand—“you’re
giving me facts, not an explanation.”
“Sorry.” He had the grace to look
embarrassed. “I’ve been telling you half-truths for so long…” He sighed and
bowed his head. “While the hamadryad was healing you, she saw a way to strike
at the demon. One I hadn’t thought of. Apparently, the demon hadn’t, either. To
heal you, your tree needed to call power from the Spirit Realm. Something both
you and the demon were too weak to do, so the hamadryad called your shared soul
to her. The tree became the Sorceress. Seeing no other way for its host to be
healed, the demon allowed this, but it had to go with the soul, into the
hamadryad.”
“The hamadryad took my soul?”
Gregory curled a wing around her shoulders
and guided her away from the tree. The warmth of his body pressing against hers
triggered an answering heat in her belly. As if he read her thoughts, he bowed
his head and nuzzled her shoulder.
“Stop that.” She slapped his nose away.
“You’re trying to distract me. Did you just say I’m soulless?”
“Of course not. Your hamadryad is a part of
you. It doesn’t matter to me which vessel the other half of my soul inhabits.
In my eyes you are one being.”
“Good for you. Why don’t you send the redwood
chocolates?”
Focus Lil. It’s not Gregory’s fault you’re scared shitless.
Suck it up.
“I’m sorry. It’s just been one hell of a week.” She scowled in
the direction of the hamadryad. “So my tree has trapped the demon.”
“Yes. The demon is tied to the Sorceress’s
soul and can’t escape. A hamadryad is different than her dryad. A demon must
prey on emotions of jealousy, greed, rage, and fear to overwhelm its host’s
mind and take command of the body. Unlike a normal host, a hamadryad lacks the
type of emotions a demon can manipulate. The demon is rendered impotent.”
“I don’t trust the demon. She’s a cunning
bitch. She’ll find a way to hurt or corrupt my hamadryad.”
“The demon can’t hurt your tree. Your
hamadryad is doing more than passively trapping the demon.” Gregory pointed at
the redwood, then made a sweeping motion to indicate the far distant forest.
“What do all trees do?”
Lillian didn’t think Gregory wanted a
scientific answer, so she waited.
“A normal tree can purify the soil and
water. A hamadryad does much more.”
Lillian looked back to her hamadryad with
renewed interest. “My redwood is purifying the demon?”
“Yes. Killing its evil. But hamadryads work
slowly.”
A new concern wormed its way into Lillian’s
mind. “How long will this process take?”
“Two or three seasons,” Gregory answered.
“So I can’t reclaim the powers of the
Sorceress until then. That’s going to be a problem.”
Gregory nodded. “I fear so. The Lady of
Battles will send her minions before the hamadryad has killed the demon. You
can’t merge with your tree at all until the demon is dead or it will migrate
back to you with your soul. And it isn’t stupid enough to be tricked a second
time.”
“What can I do?”
“We’ll unite all the Clan and the Coven and
create a force to battle the Lady herself. And I still am the Father’s Avatar;
I’m far from helpless. As long as the hamadryad holds the demon trapped, it can’t
reach me through you.”
“I’m glad you’re safe from the demon, but
we’ve just traded one problem for another. Without magic, I’m useless. I’ll be
a liability when the Lady of Battles comes calling.”
“That Lady can’t actually come to this
Realm. We’ll just have to deal with her underlings.” A glint of humor sparked
in Gregory’s eyes. “I don’t think you’re half as helpless as you think. The
demon is gone, and your hamadryad has blocked you from touching your dryad
magic, and that of the Sorceress. But if I am not mistaken, you still have one
formidable talent.”
“What? Polishing swords?”
He looked baffled for a moment then
chuckled. “It does have to do with weapons. Natural weapons.” Gregory flared
his wings and gave them a little shake.
Lillian’s mouth dropped open. He didn’t
mean? Surely not.
“The power to shapeshift into a female
gargoyle is a power that has nothing to do with your power as the Avatar. Up
until now, there were no female gargoyles but because of the Lady of Battles’ .
. .” Gregory paused, seeming to search for the correct words, “because of her
breeding program, you are now the first female gargoyle. You are equal parts
dryad and gargoyle. Where the other female dryad children sired by gargoyles
carried the potential, none of them had the ability to take that next step and
become gargoyles themselves.”
“You’re talking about the genetic
code—recessive and dominant genes.”
Gregory looked uncertain.
“Never mind.” She grinned from ear to ear.
“So I can be a gargoyle if I choose?”
“You’ll need rest and then training first,
but yes, my lady, you are still gargoyle.” He reached for her hand, his
engulfed hers.
She squeezed his hand. After what the demon
had forced her to do, Lillian wasn’t sure what Gregory wanted. Yes, he loved
her. He’d always loved his Sorceress. But she was no longer the Sorceress. She
didn’t even have a soul.
“I love you regardless if you’re dryad,
gargoyle, or demon possessed.” He tapped his fingers on the back of her hand.
Of course, they were touching. He could
read her every thought and emotion. Heat mounted her cheeks and she stared at
the ground.
A finger under her jaw tilted her head up.
She was just wrapping her arms around his neck as the sound of hooves on gravel
intruded.
Gregory sighed, then rested his chin
against her hair. “It’s probably that one-horned fool.”
She chuckled as she curled her arm around
his waist. “If he’s here, Gran can’t be far behind. She always knows what I’m
thinking before I do—she probably knew down to the hour when my hamadryad was
going to go into labor.” As Gregory had predicted, it was a white blur that
bolted from the nearest maze entrance. The unicorn galloped toward them, grass
and clumps of dirt flying in his wake. “Bet Gran has a feast laid out for us.”
“I hope so.”
Lillian took note of her gargoyle’s
eagerness at the mention of food. “Come on, let’s go greet the unicorn and then
eat.”
“Mmm, roasted unicorn meat.”
She swatted Gregory in the arm, then took
his hand as they walked out from under the canopy of her redwood. Once again
her maze felt like home, her life complete, the void of missing memories no
longer important. Some things she could live without. Gregory wasn’t one of
them.
Afterward
Thanks for giving
Sorceress
Awakening
a try. If you enjoyed the read, you may also like Sorceress
Rising, book two of my Gargoyle and Sorceress series.
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Other books
by
Lisa Blackwood
Gargoyle and Sorceress (was the Avatars series)
Sorceress Found (A prequel short story)
Sorceress Awakening (was Stone’s Kiss)
Sorceress Rising (was Stone’s Song)
Sorceress Hunting (was Stone’s Divide)
Sorceress at War (Forthcoming Fall 2016)
In Deception’s Shadow
Betrayal’s Price
Herd Mistress
Maiden’s Wolf
Death’s Queen
City of Burning Water (Forthcoming Fall 2017)
Ishtar’s Chosen
Ishtar’s Blade
Blade’s Honor (forthcoming)
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:
