Stone-Cold Lover (4 page)

“Relationship?” she squeaked, disbelief burning her face. “I never
once
led you to believe there could be anything more than—”

“What?” he snarled. “A week of unbelievable pleasure, a taste of what I craved for a lifetime.” He didn’t wait for a reply. His hard stare swept the area, clearly seeking further evidence of her apparent crime. “Where’s your lover? Who is it this time?”

Her teeth clenched. “That’s none of your business.”

The air vibrated with tension as he choked out a brittle laugh. “Let me guess—you don’t know
his
name, either?”

His contempt scraped her nerves dry. “You needn’t worry. I’ve known him for the longest time.”
And had wanted him from the start.

Hostility darkened his expression. Suddenly he lunged toward her. His hand curled like a vise around her arm and her breath hissed from the pain that speared all the way to her fingertips.

His face contorted with rage, bitterness lacing his voice. “He must have been good. You couldn’t even wait to get inside before getting your gear off.”

A chill shot down her spine. Dear Lord,
no
. She’d known deep down that he wasn’t a gentleman, but this? He’d become an unrecognizable stranger.

She struggled against his hold but his fingers bit harder into the soft flesh of her upper arm. “Let me go, you
bastard
.”

He hauled her down the steps. She stumbled, gasping alarm as he jerked her upright, past the gargoyle and toward his vehicle.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said, his voice now eerily calm.

Shit.
She cast a frantic look over her shoulder to where her guardian remained immobile. Cray couldn’t assist her now. And she couldn’t help but wonder if the farther this lunatic took her, the less likely he’d be able to track her down.

“You’ll never get away with this.” But her avowal was undermined by the high-pitched quaver stealing her voice. “Where do you think you’re taking me?”

Ignoring her, he manhandled her along the dirt driveway toward his SUV.

Why hadn’t she listened to Cray’s repeated warnings? The gargoyle’s face blurred, tears of shame mingling with fear as Max thrust open the door and pushed her into the vehicle with more strength than she knew he possessed.

He snapped the seat belt across her torso and between her breasts, the wet dress almost transparent. When it clicked into place, she felt like some helpless, disobedient child. He straightened and she flinched as he lifted a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Escape is futile.” He cocked his head to the side. “I’m taking care of you now.”

Over my dead body.

She shivered and something told her not to give in to the urge to make a run for it. If he caught her, she really
would
pay with her life. Of that, she was utterly certain.

She didn’t respond. Not yet. She had no doubt he’d gone right over the edge. But she wasn’t about to simply fade into the background. She’d never been some shy, retiring wallflower and Max understood that more than most.

She waited until he climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition. “Look, if it’s money you want, my dad—”

He cut her off with an upraised hand. “Don’t dare debase what I feel,” he said disgustedly. Reversing with a spin of tires, he then ground the stick into first gear and sent them hurtling forward.

She twisted around in her seat, watching numbly while her gargoyle became a distant speck then disappeared altogether as the car took a corner.

She turned to the front. Oh God. Would Cray try to follow and rescue her out of a sense of duty, or would it be something personal this time?

Let it be the latter. Please God, let it be the latter.

Max turned to her with a look of cold amusement. “You were always mine,” he said. “I’ve waited so patiently for you, even while you defiled yourself, sullied yourself,
became
a
slut
.”

He dragged in a breath and let it out slowly, his soulless eyes raising the hairs on the back of her arms.

“I gave you a chance, my love, but even I can only take so much. This time you’ve pushed me too far. The only way I can help you now is to set you free.”

He looked ahead as he changed gears, a glacial cruelty revealed in every line of his profile. The vehicle lurched along the potholed road. Ahead she could see the ground on one side of the road give way to empty air.

“Max, slow down.”
Please.

His lips thinned into a hard white line. “I’m no longer your employee.” His eyes sparked with menace and the engine whined as he pushed it even harder.

Icy dread crept through her, momentarily stealing her breath and making her shiver.

He threw her an annoyed look. With a disgusted snort, he motioned toward the backseat. “There’s a jacket in the back. Cover yourself before you catch your death with cold.”

Yes, I should be cozy and healthy when you kill me.

She forced her uncooperative limbs to move. Perversely, her mind worked furiously as she noted the embankments on either side of the road. She reached over and grabbed the fleecy overcoat which was laden with his cloying scent of mint aftershave.

She swallowed back the bile rising in her throat. This was her chance to increase the odds of survival to better than nil.

Bunching the jacket in her fist, she hurled it at his head. He grabbed at it, and she seized the steering wheel, jerking it toward the rocky hillside strewn with stunted gum trees.

Max jammed his foot onto the brake pedal. Wrestling back the steering wheel, he slammed the car back onto the road, stones spraying from its wheels.

He spun to face her. Adrenaline had clearly unhinged him further, his face manic with rage. Eyes shooting fanatical wrath, he swung back an arm and raised a bunched fist.
“You crazy bitch!”

* * * * *

Cray scanned the valley far below, his gargoyle vision detecting every shift and nuance of movement below as thoughts consumed him.

For so long he’d been an outcast. Ever since the curse he’d been unwanted.
An intruder.

Only with Loretta did he feel differently. She didn’t hide her passion and feelings behind a coy smile and shy come-on looks. She was genuine.
And so very precious.

He’d been young, foolish, arrogant and still human when he’d given in to his desire for the beautiful and very married Elizabeth
Ardell
. She’d lusted after him every bit as much as he had her. Until her husband had discovered them in bed.

Perhaps if he’d believed the dark whispers concerning Elizabeth’s husband, he’d have thought twice before sating his lust. But he’d never believed in mage
craft, particularly that
which was said to rival Merlin’s.

It had been a hard lesson to learn.

His daily entombment in stone had given him plenty of time to rue the day he’d yielded to the temptation of Elizabeth’s peachy mouth and sultry bedroom eyes.

All his hopes and dreams for his life would never become a reality. And a family, children?
Never.
In his human form he’d shot his seed into enough women to know he couldn’t reproduce. Perhaps it was a good thing. His gargoyle DNA wouldn’t be passed along to another victim of his own making.

Loretta…I’m so sorry. I can’t ever give you what you want.

Faraway branches swayed, leaves shivering in the twilight breeze. A colony of gray-headed flying foxes winged through the air, searching for nectar, pollen and fruit.

He paid little heed. His focus centered on one thing—Loretta.

He breathed in, long and deep.
Thank God.
He’d caught a drift of her scent, vague and abstract, but nevertheless within radius of his gargoyle senses. He needn’t rely solely on his radar instincts. Max had a huge head start and Cray’s internal antennae told him the madman wasn’t taking Loretta back to the city. He was heading even farther into the mountains.

He’d felt helpless, impotent, when he’d watched Max kidnap Loretta. Fury and fear like none before had burned within and grown with every passing minute of his frozen imprisonment.

Damn
his inability to move and his curse with its weight of obligations that seemed heavier with each passing day.

Somehow he contained the burning rage, forced a deep calm the moment he unlocked from stone. His rationale would
not
be compromised, not at the expense of Loretta’s life. Even so, his pulse lurched at the constraint. Some undeniable sixth sense prickled his senses.

Time
was
of the essence.

He unfurled his wings. Stretching them wide, he leapt from the post and rail security fence and into the sheer drop on its other side. An updraft snatched him skyward. He wheeled to the right and dropped his wings to counterbalance, soaring high.

Stars whitewashed the horizon, the air fresh, crisp and unpolluted by the smog of the city, some three hours’ drive east.

From this vantage point, the road’s descent cut through the green foliage like a rust-colored vein. Wattle and huge gum trees at times yielded on one side to a jagged cliff face.

Twice, his weight and thinning air currents forced him to ground. Scrambling and climbing his way back up the nearest summit, he dove off its cliff face, once again able to soar through the sky and steadily gain on his prey.

A tightness in his belly receded as he pinpointed a faraway, thinning plume of dust. Airborne, it would take just minutes for him to catch them.

He smiled when he spied them far ahead, where Max’s SUV hurtled down the twisting, steep road.

Headfirst, arms back and wings tucked by his sides, he dropped from the sky like a stone missile. Wind whistled past, disabling any ability to scent, to hear breath or heartbeat—to know if Loretta was safe and sound—alive or, God forbid, dead.

With a sudden shift of motion, he snapped his wings out and lifted them back. The force jerked him upright, and pivoted his legs beneath him just a millisecond before he landed on the hood of the moving car.

Blood trickled from Loretta’s nose. One eye was puffed closed and throbbed like hell, but suddenly she didn’t much care.

Cray had found her.

She peered through her good eye and watched in awe as Cray settled onto the front of the SUV. Max shrieked in horror, curses tumbling from his mouth.

With wings outstretched for balance, Cray looked like some glorious, avenging angel. Her throat dried. He looked up. When he saw her bloodied face his head jerked back. His stare narrowed, and then turned crystalline cold.

Wild-eyed and disbelieving, Max swerved the vehicle left and right. Cray didn’t budge. “Tell me that
thing
isn’t real.”

“No can do.” She swiped blood from her face. “Say hello to my guardian, Cray Diamond.”

He gaped, his gaze glued to the gargoyle on the hood who had murder in his eyes. His breath wheezed.
“
Cray?
”

“Yes.” She grabbed the jacket from where it’d tumbled onto the floor. Unsnapping her seat belt, she thrust her arms into the jacket’s sleeves and pulled its edges tight around her then clipped her seat belt back on. She turned to Max. “The one and same you’ve met at countless dinner parties.”
And felt intimidated by.

“Oh dear god.”
Max rubbed a shaky hand over his sickly green face. He shot her a look of disgust. “It’s him, isn’t it? He’s the one you fucked at the cabin.”

He made it sound so dirty, so vile. How could he get it so wrong? She raised her chin while she watched Cray inch forward in the peripheral vision of her good eye. “Yes.”

Max curled a lip and shook his head. “How could you sink so low?”

“That’s rich, coming from a man who hits women.” She took a steadying breath as his mouth tightened defensively. She didn’t need to hear his excuses. “Being with Cray…” she paused, her voice softening as she recalled their intimacy. “It was
the
most beautiful experience of my life.”

Something between a howl and a snarl burst from Max’s compressed mouth, followed as suddenly by a wild laugh. “Isn’t that sweet? I just hope you enjoy taking that memory with you to your grave!”

He jammed his foot on the accelerator and spun the steering wheel toward the cliff face. The vehicle skidded sideways and bounced across ruts, before pitching, smooth as silk, through the air.

She cried out, but no words sounded. Breath hitched in her throat as Cray surged forward on the tilting hood, the heel of his hand shattering the windshield.

Time seemed to slow as she flicked Max a look. Why had he done this? What had happened to the man she thought she knew? Impossible to believe they’d both die like this.

She turned back to Cray. God, regrets, so many of them, flashed through her head in that instant. She couldn’t lose him. Not now.

The vehicle careened into some part of the hard cliff face. Breath whooshed from deep in her chest. Her left shoulder slammed against the doorframe and she let out an agonized cry before her head struck the side window with a sharp crack.

She closed her eyes against a flood of scalding tears. Metal crunched, more glass shattered, and then silence. Her eyes flew open. Out the side window, the world righted itself as the SUV again arced through the air.

This was it, then.

Her eyes caught and held Cray’s.
I love you.

His stare widened and glittered bright and sharp as diamonds scattered beneath the sun.

Max took hold of her hand and gave it a squeeze. His fingers slipped away as Cray unbuckled her and grasped her upper arms.

Cray’s muscles bunched and flexed as he lifted her close. She gripped his shoulders and he abruptly vaulted through the broken windshield. A vacuum of air greedily sucked, then his wings snapped out and halted their freefall and they drifted gently on the breeze.

A heavy thud sounded, followed by an awful screech of metal. A bright flash lit up the night sky as a sharp explosion shook the ground and impacted the updraft that carried them.

Cray tucked her head under his chin, shielding her from the acrid smoke. His lips brushed her hair, and he said gently, “Close your eyes.”