Stone Guardian (20 page)

Satisfied with what she saw, Fallon turned to the three of them sitting on the wall. “And that is how you do it! You may bow before me now peons.”

To Aislynn and Larissa, Laire said, “And then she opens her mouth, and all wonderment vanishes.”

Aislynn nodded in agreement.

“Are you ashamed that you’re with me?”

They were in her home now, and these were the first words Larissa had spoken since the end of battle. After their enemy had been defeated, Terak gathered her close and flew away, not giving the Guild members time to respond. She said nothing and cuddled close, burying herself in his arms.

“What?” Why would she ever think that?

She shrugged, the movement jerky, her shoulder half-hunched inwards. “I’m useless. I sit on a wall surrounded by a magic barrier while Aislynn fires an arrow a second and Fallon slices through an army.”

He despised the beaten note that threaded her voice. “I would never be ashamed to be at your side. And you must stop comparing yourself to them. The world needs its warriors and it needs its peacemakers. You have experienced too much war these last weeks. It has you questioning your worth.” Why did the one woman he wished to keep far away from the brutal reality of this world find herself always buried in yet another battle?

Larissa unfurled her body and looked at him. Instead of fear or loathing clouding her gaze, he saw warmth.

Thankfulness.

Admiration.

“I know your right. No one can be all things.” She shrugged, her mouth flattening in a self-deprecating line. “I never cared about fighting or… any of that. When I was a kid, I never wanted to play cops and robbers, though it was the only game my brothers
would
play. Too violent and I didn’t like all the fighting. I just wanted to read.”

“So you didn’t play with your siblings?” That didn’t seem to fit with the closeness he had witnessed between the siblings.

“Oh no, they forced me to play. They always made me the robber and would cuff me, though dad said never to play with his cuffs. Joke was on them though.” She lifted her arm until her hand was in his line of vision and rotated her wrists. “Double-jointed. No matter how tight they made the cuffs, I could get out. Made them so mad.”

Her fondness for her siblings banished the last lingering traces of any self-doubt. Her eyes were now alight with memory and glee before she banked both, her eyes now holding a question. “Back to tonight. You called Fallon
Dragon Slayer
. What did you mean by that?”

“Her sword, Tenro, is a sacred weapon and known as the Slayer of Dragons.”

“But I thought dragons didn’t exist – never existed – even in the Magic Realm.” His face must have betrayed his feelings because Larissa’s own eyebrows drew together and she asked in a hesitant voice, “Did they?”

“I have never seen any true record of their existence,” he conceded, letting the full weight of his misgivings play into his tone.

Her face still held the same hesitance. “But…?”

“But I cannot forget something my father once said. He said with all the terrible creatures we have that are real, why would anyone create the myth of the dragon? And if dragons are even half as powerful as they are portrayed, would it be any true test for them to disappear without a trace if they so wished?” Though he could only hope his father was wrong, and that dragons never existed, or if they did, they would stay far gone.

“What are the Seven Houses?”

It took a beat of time to follow the change in topic. “Where did you hear that?”

“When Fallon started threatening you. She asked if she should let the Seven Houses sort it out.”

“Ah.” Now he remembered. “They are connected to the New Realms.”

Larissa’s gaze went unfocused. “I remember when I was little and first heard the term New Realms. I thought that to get to such places, you needed to go through some magical door. For a long time, I opened every closet door in every house I entered.” Her gaze sharpened again as she came back to the present. “How disappointed I was when I found out it was just a term for the governments and lands of the different races. What’s the importance of the Seven Houses? I’m positive I’ve never heard that name before.”

“They are a shadow council who wield much power in the New Realms. They deal with matters outside the purview of any single race.”

“Any humans on this council?”

“Yes, one, though I do not know her name or status within the human world. The leader of the Guild is another member.”

“The Guild have their hands in lots of places, don’t they?” Larissa asked, though from her tone made clear the question was rhetorical. She continued with barely a pause. “Why have this council? I thought the various races all kept their own ways of government, just as the human governments remained as they were from before the Great Collision.”

“The Seven Houses have always existed. When you have a threat such as the necromancers, you must have a governing body that can answer that threat”

“And the gods? The Oracle? Where do they fit into this?”

“They are all powerful beings outside of all. They have their own agendas, would that we knew them. Never doubt that there are always deeper powers and deeper secrets at play.”

She wrinkled her nose, and he stifled the urge to lean down and nuzzle it with his own. “Have I ever mentioned I hate cloak-and-dagger stuff? I don’t even watch spy movies on TV.”

“I am sorry this has been brought into your life.”

She looked at him again, and to his surprise a large, brilliant smile dominated her face. “Have I ever told you that our dates have been some of the most exciting and eventful of my life?”

“Dates?” he asked. While not a custom gargoyles engaged in, he did know the meaning of the word. What she meant by that phrase interested him.

When hearing the word repeated to her, Larissa’s cheeks went scarlet. Ducking her head, she said, “I was kidding, being humorous. Trying to lighten things up.”

She was curled against him in her attempt to not be seen, her soft warmth a balm after the fierce battle. He could offer her nothing less and met her attempts at normality with his own. “Humorous? And I was thinking on how our next date could go. Maybe we should fight a cave troll.”

She looked up at him. Her face was still red, but her eyes shone with laughter. “Only a cave troll? I demand that we go to the top and meet a necromancer.”

Terak shook his head. “I am afraid that is too advanced for you. I’m willing to show you a wraith, but no more than that.”

She was smiling, and… Terak stopped.

He was smiling.

He was smiling and laughing and teasing the woman in his arms.

What’s more, he hadn’t put her down. They had been in her apartment for fully five minutes, and never had he the desire to let her go.

“Terak, what’s wrong?”

What could he say?

I would give everything to you if you always look at me with those eyes.

A
thwup
sounded on the balcony, and Terak turned to face their intruder. Valry stood there, her gaze fastened on where he cradled Larissa against him.

Anger surged through him, anger at the interruption, and anger at the reminder of his responsibilities. “Valry, what is the meaning of this?”

She strolled in, undaunted and unstoppable in her path. “We were alerted to the battle tonight. When I heard of it, I had to make sure you were unhurt.”

“You were told never to come here.”

“My need to know my Intended was safe overrode all other concerns.”

“Intended?” Larissa’s voice cut through the words Terak was about to speak. He looked down at her, still cradled in his arms. Her eyebrows drew close together, and there was a shadowing, a hesitancy in her eyes that he had not seen since the first night they had met. “What does that mean, Intended?”

Valry’s voice was quick, malicious. “I believe you humans call it an engagement. Lord Terak and I are to be mated.”

Larissa’s eyes were wide and round and hurt. “You’re going to marry her?”

Terak’s head began to shake in involuntary negation, and it took force of will to stop the movement. .

Larissa started to look around. “I feel much better now. You can let me down.”

In reaction to her words his fingers gripped her harder, disobeying the command from his brain to follow her order. He forced them to peel themselves from her, forced them to let her go.

Larissa continued, not meeting his eyes. “Once again I seem to owe you my life. Thank you for saving me. But I’m very tired right now. Would you please excuse me?” She turned and walked into her bedroom, closing the door behind her without a backwards glance.

Terak left, leaving Valry to follow him. He did not wish to bring her to the perch he had spent so many nights watching over Larissa, so instead he brought her to another, further away but still with a view of his little human’s abode.

He wasted no time after they had landed. “Why did you say such a thing?”

“Why would I not? She asked a question and I answered it honest. Why are you upset she knows you are promised to another?”

“Part of protection is having her comfortable with me. I do not wish her to feel uncomfortable.”

Valry studied him, a hard look in her eyes. “Why would she care about our customs?”

She would not bate him. “It matters not. You have defied my wishes, the wishes of your
Mennak
.”

Her claws ripped through the air in fury, her mouth in a snarl. “I am talking to my future mate! Why is she allowed more liberty with you than the female who will bear your young?”

“I am your Lord first, you mate second, always.”

“And would you say the same to your human, Terak?” Her tone was disgusted, filled with her contempt of anything that was not gargoyle.

…which of these goals is your priority?

My priority will forever be her.

A human who his Clan would never accept.

He must bring the Clan together. They were too fractured now, stresses from both within and without crushing them.

To be a leader meant sacrifice. His sacrifice was staring at him with hard eyes.

No, his sacrifice lay on soft blue sheets within blue walls with a halo of gold always surrounding her.

The anger left him. Weariness, bone-deep and aging, settled in. He looked at Valry, and whatever she saw had her reeling back. “We will be mated, Valry. You will bear my young and stand by my side. But never forget this – I mate you only out of duty. You knew this from the first as I never hid my motives, and you accepted them. So do not now or ever pretend to be an injured party, and never ask again which has the most importance to me. The answer will always be the Clan. Now, do you wish to be released from our Intention?”

She shook her head, mute before him.

“Return to the keep. Never come here again.”

She left without a word, and once she was out of sight Terak flew to his usual spot. As he watched over his little human he allowed himself one brief moment never to be repeated, a moment to imagine a life without sacrifice.

Why was she so shocked that Terak was engaged?

Larissa rolled over onto her side. Though only moments before she willed her eyes not to look at the time, the little buggers betrayed her.
2:43.

Terak was going to be married.

Larissa flung the covers aside and sat up. Screw this. If she was going to be up, she was going to watch a movie and eat some ice cream.

She strode into the living room and picked up the remote.

Click.

And then she remembered her television was on the fritz.

The remote fell from her hand and she collapsed back in the couch with a heavy sigh. With all the commotion the last few weeks, getting a wizard out here to recalibrate it had been nowhere on her list of priorities.

Now she had no television and no ice cream. Sure, she could go to the refrigerator and eat the ice cream, but then she wouldn’t be a woman who was eating ice cream because she wanted a snack with her late time viewing.

No, she would then be a woman who was eating ice cream after hearing a guy she knew had a girlfriend.

No, make that an Intended.

Larissa rubbed the back of her neck, trying to ease the tense muscles she found there.

Why the hell would she be upset over this?

She took a deep breath, a slow and forceful inhalation to expand her lungs and clear out the cobwebs.

Okay, she had gotten used to having Terak around and had some proprietary feelings where he was concerned. He’d saved her several times over, so understandable and natural. Anybody would react the same.

And tonight, he had stood between her and an army, a warrior who demons bowed before, and said
mine
.

The shiver raced up her spine at the memory. It was said on a harsh growl, claws and blood entwined in his promise. Only death awaited anyone who challenged him.

Mine.

She owed him her life. She owed him so much.

Mine.

That was it. It was gratitude mixed with shock and the closeness you can only feel with someone when you have faced death with them.

There was nothing else to this insomnia.

She’d feel better tomorrow.

And she’d call the repairman.

The ringing phone awoke Larissa. Even as she reached for the phone she looked at the time.
4:59.
If someone wasn’t dead, they were going to be. “Hello?”

“Sweetie,” Olivia’s voice was soft on the other end. “You have to wake up.”

“Says who? What’s going on Olivia?”

“The person who I said might help? He wants to see you, and he wants to do it now. I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes.”

Olivia’s words wound through Larissa’s mind three times before she realized the implication. “I’ll be ready – wait, Olivia,” she said before the other woman could hang up.