Stone Destiny (Stone Passion #3) (38 page)

Armand’s heart was racing in his chest, mocking him for his stupidity and pride, as he desperately searched the ground for Ferris, knowing that he wasn’t going to find her. Even though he didn’t know where she had gone he took great comfort in the fact that she wasn’t splattered all over the sidewalk. But where was she?

She could be in an infinite number of worlds, each with an infinite number of parallel realms, in an infinite amount of time. And if, by chance, he found her he couldn’t be sure that the Ferris he found was the Ferris he lost. As he numbly stood there, he knew that he'd be a fool if he tried to search for her through all of space and time.

Fuck that
. He was a fool and he would find a way to get her back. He wasn’t going to lose her now, not after it took him so long to finally see what was right in front of him all along. He would go through Hell to find her.

A chuckle from behind him had Armand spinning around, his chest tight. Apollo stood there in all of his blinding magnificence, a tired smile on his face. “You just might have to go that far.”

Armand’s fingers curled into fists and it took every ounce of will power to keep from crossing the distance between them and punch his father in his perfect face. But Apollo knew where Ferris was and for that alone Armand would keep his fists from connecting with Apollo’s jaw. Through clenched teeth, he ground out, “Where is she?”

“Did you really think it would be so easy?” Apollo
tsk
ed, shaking his head in mock disappointment as he walked over and swung a leg over the ledge before he sat down, his vibrant robes swirling around him in a way that was not at all natural. Staring out across the city, his hazel eyes ancient and fathomless, Apollo murmured, “Sit, son, there is much we must discuss.”

Stiffly, Armand sat down with his back to the city and the space where Ferris disappeared. The uncontrolled bouncing of his left leg was the only indication that he was anxious to get started on his search for his beloved. Pressing a fist into his thigh, he willed the leg to stop
twitching. “Do you know where she is?”

Apollo smiled slightly but instead of answering the question, he said, “It’s a beautiful night. I forget how beautiful the night can be, especially since
I so hate the dark, but this? It’s beautiful.”

Armand clo
sed his eyes and inhaled deeply. His father would only become increasingly more annoying the more Armand wanted something. It was just unfortunate that he had never wanted anything as badly as he wanted Ferris back and Apollo knew that. Of course his father was going to torture him for as long as he could. Grinding his teeth together, he muttered, “Yes, it’s lovely.”

“I’ve never been a very attentive father,” Apollo murmured unexpectedly. Armand’s head jerked around at that admission but Apollo was still staring out over the city, that vague half-smile still curving his lips. “It might surprise you to know that I spent more time with you and your brothers than I did with any of my other children, with any of the other gargoyles.”

Apollo did turn his head at that, arching an eyebrow as he murmured softly, “You should thank Ferris for that.”

Armand scowled
. He wasn’t able to thank Ferris for anything because she. Was. Missing. Besides, how could Ferris be responsible for Apollo being less of an asshole father unless…. His heart punched his ribs, “Did she come to you and tell you she’s given up on me? Is she… is she yours now?”

“She was never mine, Armand, even when I held her in my arms and fell in love with her.” Sorrow and lingering heartache darkened Apollo’s face and Armand actually pitied the man because he knew what it was like to love Ferris.

“I was coming after her,” Armand admitted softly. “As soon as she said goodbye, I realized I couldn’t live without her, and that was before I saw her paintings of me. She’s in my blood, father. Have you ever needed someone so desperately that you couldn't breathe without her?”

“Yes,
twice: your mother and a girl I met once. Ferris,” Apollo laughed, turning his attention back to the oh-so-fascinating cityscape. His wry smile softened to a genuine smile and his eyes warmed as he murmured, “She brought me back to life, Armand. For a long time I simply existed on Mount Olympus, watching my power gradually fade away until only a pocketful of humans worshipped me. My only joy in life was the handful of years I was allowed to spend with your mother, with Medusa. Gods, I loved that woman but every moment I spent with her I lost a little bit more of myself. After you and your brothers were born I fell into the deepest, darkest despair I had ever known and I knew that my time was coming to an end.”

Strangely, it hurt listening to his father talk but, just as strange, Armand wanted to hear everything. Lost in his memories, unaware of the stiffness easing from Armand’s body, Apollo continued, “But suddenly this beautiful girl stormed through the walls I had built up and demanded my presence.” He chuckled to himself, “It was shortly after you were born, maybe fifty or sixty years? She never knew how close she came to being squashed like the bug I first believed her to be. Thank the stars I refrained from killing her before I actually listened to her.”

The stiffness returned with a vengeance at Apollo’s words, to the point Armand was sure his muscles were just going to break if he so much as blinked. Apollo must have heard the low growl that came from the back of his throat because his father abruptly stopped speaking and looked at Armand with wide, guileless eyes. “I didn’t kill her, son, I just said that it was my first impulse to do so, just the same for any other human demanding an audience with me.”

“Why didn’t you… kill her?” Armand asked in spite of his better judgment.

“She called for me by a name known only to a handful of people,” Apollo said with an easy shrug. “It was the name I used when I introduced myself to your mother all of those millennia ago, the name that is secret.”

“I… see,” Armand reluctantly conceded with a wry smile, imagining Ferris boldly and bravely facing a god.
Only Ferris.

“She willingly shared her blood with me,” Apollo murmured, the awe still in his voice after all of this time. “It… changed me somehow, made me appreciative of the world around me.
I mean, she was a goddess that retained her human sweetness and it was extraordinary. Plus, it renewed my hope of finally having a human.”

At that, Armand swung and punched his father in the face, taking no satisfaction in the look of shock Apollo gave him as his fist connected with Apollo’s chin. With a shrug, Armand shook out his hand, and muttered, “Go on.”

Working his jaw back and forth, Apollo eyed Armand warily before he scooted a few inches further down the ledge. Apollo’s eyes narrowed in thought for a moment before he straightened his spine and casually asked, “Do you ever wish things could have been different? That Katrina accepted your gift all of those years ago?”

Armand expected the dull ache that he associated with Katrina to fill his chest but there was no pain, only a quiet certainty that Katrina was not the woman meant for him. “I used to but I don’t anymore. I think I would have made her life miserable.”

Apollo’s smile was wide and knowing and Armand should have been weary but he was so tired of keeping everything to himself. Relaxing his shoulders, Armand softly admitted, “I think it was necessary for Ferris to come into my life as a child because she was a threat I never saw coming so I had no chance to guard my heart against her.”

“I think it would have been better for me, however, if she had waited until she was an adult,” Apollo said. At Armand’s scalding look, Apollo chuckled, “Of course, if that were the case then everything would be different and you would be stuck with a gargoyle mate more in love with your brother than with you.”

Armand arched an eyebrow and waited for an explanation but Apollo didn’t offer one. Apollo’s mercurial moods shifted once again as he became melancholy, “She really is something, isn’t she?”

“She’s everything,” Armand said passionately, his heart in his words. In the silence, he replayed their conversation in his head and realized what had been unspoken. Glancing at Apollo from the corner of his eye, his question came out as a statement, “Ferris went back in time.”

Apollo nodded once, “Yes.”

“You knew about her all of this time,” he said, stunned by the revelation. At Apollo’s second nod, he asked, “You acted as if you didn’t know Melanie
and you were surprised that the potion you gave her didn’t kill her.”

Apollo gave a rueful shrug, “In some time lines it does
kill her. But that’s not for you to worry about because in this time line it worked.”

“Where is Ferris now?” Armand asked, hoping his father couldn’t hear the doubts creeping into his voice.

“Perhaps the more appropriate question would be ‘
When
is she?’” Apollo’s smile was wicked as he glanced past Armand’s shoulders for a moment before he turned back to Armand. If possible, his grin became even more wicked.

Armand’s entire body flinched as he gaped at Apollo. “What? She’s still back there? Alone?”

“She went back in time to see what made you tick,” Apollo explained slowly, as if to an idiot. Armand’s heart staggered painfully in his chest as he glared at his father in silent accusation. Apollo chuckled, “I’m not the one who sent her back, son. Her little dragon is responsible for that all on his own.”

Armand shook his head in disbelief, “Fray isn’t strong enough….”

“He bonded with her when he was barely five,” Apollo gently reminded him with an arch of his arrogant eyebrow. “He spent twenty years in the land of Faerie, bonded to a girl that has the blood of gods running through her veins. He’s strong enough to take on time.”

The rest of Apollo’s words registered and Armand staggered backward from the implications, “What do you mean she went back to see what made me tick? What has she done?”

Apollo’s hazel eyes sparkled with mischief and Armand knew he wasn’t going to like the answer. “She’s the one you fell in love with when you were fool enough to believe you were in love with Katrina.”

His answer took all of the oxygen out of the room because Armand knew Ferris, knew her generous if foolish heart. He could feel the color drain from his face and he had to force the words past his dry lips, “She’ll change the past.”

Apollo gave a negligent shrug, “It’s a strong possibility.”

“Send me back,” Armand growled, desperate to get to her before she did something
so selfless and stupid as to accept his gift on Katrina’s behalf. “Now.”

“There’s a cost to be paid, son.” Apollo swallowed thickly before meeting Armand’s eyes. With a slight curve of his lips, he asked, “What would you do to get her back?”

Anticipation burned in his veins as his pulse kicked up a notch. “Anything.”

“Even live through her time with me?” Apollo asked with that damnable half-smile, turmoil swirled in the depths of his hazel eyes.

Armand’s entire body rebelled at the thought of seeing Ferris with anyone else and it wanted to commit seppuku at the possibility of seeing her with his father. After several times of trying to reply only to find his vocal chords didn’t want to give the correct answer to the question, he rasped, “If that is what it takes.”

Apollo grinned in approval, and perhaps a smidge of pity, as he stood up and wiped the dust from his robes. When Armand just sat there, unable to get his body to obey his command to stand the fuck up, Apollo laughed. In mock sympathy, he asked, “Do you need a moment to prepare yourself for what you’re about to witness?”

“Now is fine,” he ground out. He’d never be prepared but he wanted Ferris back, no matter what. He figured it was like ripping his own arm off, best to get it over with all at once instead of trying to tear it off bit by bit. Armand’s molars were going to be ground to the bloody pulp before he got through this.

Apollo gave him a look of disbelief, arching his eyebrow but not saying anything. Armand glared back, wondering what his father was waiting for when he just wanted to get through this ordeal and have Ferris back in his arms. “What?”

“You’re going to have to stand up,” Apollo smirked.

Scowling, Armand tried to push himself to his feet but discovered
he was numb from the neck down and his body absolutely refused to cooperate. Gritting his teeth together in determination, he pushed his rebellious body to its feet. His legs tried to buckle but he kept his knees locked in place. He remained standing through sheer force of will. “Now what?”