Sorceress Rising (A Gargoyle and Sorceress Tale Book 2) (17 page)

Gregory rumbled
in appreciation, shifting his body enough to reach the soft, delicate skin of
her throat. Lillian freed her leg from under him and sat on her haunches.

Leaning forward,
she pressed her forehead to his and their horns clicked against one and other.
She nuzzled him in a heartfelt apology and then brought to bear a palm-sized
river stone from where it lined the border between the manicured grass and the
stream’s edge.

The impact
against the side of Gregory’s head made a dull thud, which turned her stomach.
He keeled over sideways with a little push from her, but he caught himself on
his arms and braced himself as he shook his head.

Lillian darted
forward, placed a kiss on the abrasion she’d just created, whispered another
apology, and then launched away from him.

Her leap landed
her a good ten feet from where she’d started. She didn’t slow or look behind
like instinct clamored for her to do. The knowledge that Gregory would follow
was equally instinctive.

He had always
been her Hunting Shadow. It didn’t matter what spells or enchantment might have
been cast, he would always follow.

She might not
know what had befallen Gran and the unicorn, but once she freed Gregory from
the siren’s influence, they would return together to face Tethys and learn the
fate of their friends.

With an easing
of the despair, which had gripped her earlier, she raced into the depths of her
maze with a lighter heart.

Lillian made it
clear of her maze, and quickly left the garden, cottage, and spa grounds far
behind as she made her way deeper into the forest. The darkness under the trees
didn’t hinder her gargoyle eyesight, and she barely slackened her pace. The
only times she slowed was to maneuver around patches of underbrush too thick to
go straight through. More often, she was forced to hurdle over a group of
sleeping Fae or human soldiers.

But the latter
became fewer the deeper into the forest she fled. She didn’t really have a
destination in mind, as her plan didn’t go much beyond running for her life and
hoping Gregory followed. Once they were far enough away, she held a small,
naïve hope he might shake off the siren’s spell if he wasn’t within range of
her song.

Part one of her
plan had worked far better than she’d ever dared hope. Her hearing was mostly
recovered and she had only to twitch an ear to her back trail to easily hear
Gregory following even over the whistle of the wind in her ears. He wasn’t
bothering to be subtle, which also told her he was still firmly under the
siren’s sway. Had Gregory been in sole command of his wits, he’d never have
made so much noise.

Refusing to be
disappointed, she continued doggedly northward, her gargoyle body not even
winded after running for the better part of an hour.

****

It had to be
close to midnight. Two hours of running had worn away her earlier exuberance,
but still she ran. Her muscles burned and her strides grew shorter even as she
ordered her body to run faster. As if sensing victory, Gregory put on a burst
of speed until his nose was even with the tip of her tail. She could feel the
heat of his breath.

One lunge would
spell disaster. She had no doubt if he caught her this time, he would take her
back to the siren, and she wouldn’t get a second chance at escape. Jumping over
a fallen tree, she used the momentary cover it provided to veer sharply to the
left.

Gregory leaped
over the trunk and changed course in the air, flapping his wings and shooting
ahead of her to drop down almost directly in her path.

She dropped to
the ground, kicking up a wave of loam and leaf litter in front of her and then
kept rolling, right under Gregory’s out stretched arm. She felt his fingers
graze her hip as she slid by. But then she was off and running again faster
than he could catch up.

Blood surging in
her veins, she wanted to shout that she was still free.

For the moment.

But she didn’t
fool herself into thinking there would be many more moments of freedom. Her
body was tiring, it was only a matter of time before it failed her. She was
fast running out of options.

Gregory showed
no signs of returning to himself, and she had no other tricks up her sleeve.

There was only
the medallion bumping against her breast as she ran. Gran had given it to her,
and Lillian had never doubted her grandmother’s wisdom before, but as she ran
and mulled over who else there was to offer aid, her mind kept going to one
logical conclusion no matter how her heart shied away from the answer.

Gran had given
her the medallion, knowing what could happen. But did she dare to use it?

Was Tethys worse
than what aid the medallion might bring?

Lillian feared
she was, but also feared Gregory would not agree.

But presently,
he was a mindless tool of the siren’s making, and Lillian wasn’t feeling too
confident in allowing the siren to continue unchecked.

Oh, please,
let this work and not backfire in my face.

With a prayer,
she skidded to a halt and brought one talon to her palm and sliced a small line
in the fleshy base of her thumb. Three beads of blood welled up as she hastily
smeared it across the medallion’s surface.

She half
expected the medallion to absorb the blood, or for the metal to flare up with
bright fire in her hand. Even a slight glow? Something to show the magic
worked.

A whole lot of
bloody nothing was what she got for her trouble.

Useless
medallion and overrated magic.

Was she doing
something wrong?

A full body-bruising
weight slammed into Lillian’s back. It drove her to her knees and then flat to
the ground with her muzzle half-buried in the forest loam. Breath rushed out of
her lungs in a pained whoosh. She grunted and dragged in a new breath of air;
it hurt worse going in than it had coming out.
Jolly.
Her mane covered
her eyes so she couldn’t see a thing, but she did feel an earthworm wiggling
between two front teeth.

She snarled and
spat, trying and failing to get her limbs back under her so she could lever the
dead weight from her back.

A rumbling purr
was the only response to her struggles.

“Gregory, get
off me.”

A warm, wet
tongue stroked a path between the joints of her wings. She debated boxing his
ears with them but decided he might take it as an invitation to play. Another
happy rumble emanated from just behind her head. She supposed she should be
glad it wasn’t one of the darker sides of his personality dominating him at the
moment.

A half ton of
happy, wiggly Gregory seemed a whole lot less dangerous than an eight-foot
winged killing machine.

“Mmm, Gregory, I
love you, but get your big ass off me before you break some part of me I’m
really fond of, like my spine.”

With one last
lick, Gregory shifted his weight.

Well, well,
he actually listened,
she noted with growing
interest.
What other commands might he obey?

With an over
exaggerated slowness, she got up and brushed off the specks of loam and leaf
mould covering her body. Her stalling tactic gave her a moment to think. A
quick glance down confirmed the medallion still hadn’t reacted to her blood in
any discernible way.

She was out of
options, but at least she’d managed to lure Gregory away from the siren.
Frowning, she rolled her eyes in his direction where he quivered at attention
like a dog at point, his barely contained exuberance palpable in the air around
him.

Lillian amended
her earlier thought. She’d managed to extract him physically, but in spirit,
the essential Gregory was still missing, or more likely, buried under layers of
enchantment.

It seemed
fundamentally wrong that someone as powerful as her protector could be
compromised so quickly and thoroughly by a song.

“Oh, Gregory, I
know you’re still in there somewhere. I hope you can hear me and understand.
I’m not sure how I’m going to free you from that over-evolved fish, but I
will.”

She’d stick with
her earlier plan to try and keep him away from the siren as long as possible.
Her mad run had bought them a little time. It would take them a good couple
hours to run back the way they’d come, longer if Gregory was content to walk.

She was certain
his order would have been to bring her back, but perhaps she could even stall
for more time.

Sweat glistened
on her body, her muscles were certainly feeling the exercise, but she could
manage a trot. There was, however, a growing hollowness in her middle. Maybe
she could convince Gregory into hunting, thereby creating more time before he
forced her back to the siren.

Sadly, she had
no way to know how long it would take Gregory to overcome the siren’s power on
his own, if he even could, which, with every hour that crept by, she was
beginning to believe might not even be possible.

“Any chance a
girl could stop and get a bite to eat?”

In answer he
flicked an ear at her.

Could he even
understand what she was saying? She began to doubt he could reason even that
much on his own. His actions were by rote, like a sleepwalker’s.

“Oh, please
fight it, Gregory. I need you.” Shamed to hear her voice shake, she squared her
shoulders and said in a stronger voice, “We all need you.”

She was unaware
she’d been crying until Gregory brushed away the evidence with one large thumb.
Pressing her cheek into his palm, she started to cry harder. Then before she
knew what he was doing, he scooped her up. Her world tilted strangely, and she
suddenly found herself upside down over his shoulder, one of his steel-like
arms clamped across her thighs, preventing her from kicking free.
Simultaneously, his mobile tail curled around her shoulders, pinning her wings
to her back before she’d thought to use them in some way to free herself.

She was working
herself up to deliver a solid bite to Gregory’s vulnerable side when she felt
the coldly familiar chill of his magic flowing across her skin.

“Oh, for the
love of dog.” Lillian cursed under her breath. “Now what?”

From her
inverted vantage point, she could only peer around Gregory’s muscular hip to
see him weaving magic into something. Her lack of knowledge reared up and bit
her in the ass again.

Whatever spell
he wove rose up out of the ground, pale and ethereal, for all the world looking
like thick fog. It spiraled around two tree trunks, climbing them until the
silvery fog was above head height and then the two spires shot delicate filaments
toward each other, forming a web before Lillian’s bewildered eyes.

“Gregory, what
is that? What are you doing?”

No answer,
though he did pat the back of her leg, which may have been an attempt at
reassurance. Lillian perked up. That was a reaction to her question.

“Gregory.”
Lillian called softly, then changed tactics. “Durnathyane, My Hunting Shadow.
You don’t have to do this, you don’t have to listen to Tethys.”

Lillian hoped
calling him by his name from his last life would jog some rationality back into
his head. He did pause his spell work and twisted his neck to meet her gaze at
the awkward angle and Lillian’s heart jumped with hope, but then he shook his
head with a snort and returned to his spell.

Following the
direction of his gaze, she saw the spell was now a vaguely door-shaped object.
Her fears were confirmed a moment later as the entire construction flashed a
blinding white. Still blinking grey spots from her vision, her other senses
came to the fore to fill in the details.

The scent of cedar
reached her nose. More telling, though, was the distinctive fragrance of
tropical water lilies Gran had planted in the small stream that flowed past
Lillian’s hamadryad.

Her vision
cleared, confirming what her nose and ears had already told her.

Gregory’s spell
was some kind of doorway, and on the other side, the siren waited patiently.

“Don’t do this.
Tethys is dangerous.”

“Yes.”

Lillian froze,
surprised Gregory answered her.

“But not to us,”
he continued as he walked toward the strange spell-woven door hovering in the
air. “She has offered to help us fight our enemies. She will stand with us
against the Lady of Battles.”

“She lies to
gain control over your power.”

Gregory sighed
and then shifted her off his shoulder and set her down so she was facing him,
her back to the flickering door.

“I have always
been able to detect lies. The siren has spoken only the truth to me. She will
aid your hamadryad in destroying the demon seed within it, and then you will be
free to take up the mantle of Mother’s Sorceress once more. All will be as it
should.”

It was the same
promise the siren had given Lillian, and perhaps there wasn’t a lie in the
offer. And it was the one thing in all the Realms which would tempt Gregory.

He placed his
hands on her shoulders and guided her toward the doorway. If it came to a
contest of physical or magical strength, Gregory would win.

That only left
her with cold, logical reason. “Please listen. I know what she offers is what
we ultimately want, but why did you wait to agree until after you awoke from
stone? By what she told me, you had already turned down her offer while you
still rested in stone. Why was that? What was it about her offer that gave you
pause? It’s important.”

Gregory halted
his advance toward the doorway, a frown line forming between his brows and his
ears swung forward in question.

She met his gaze
and saw a hint of the old Gregory there.

He blinked.

“Gregory, bring
your beloved to me where she will be safe from the Riven.” The siren’s voice
floated through the doorway and slid across Lillian’s senses like a mother’s
soothing caress. Her earlier worries seemed unimportant.

Distantly, with
only a mild concern, she saw lines of power crawl across Gregory’s skin.

He snarled. “I
am not yours to command, siren.”

His angry words
slid past the warmth cocooning Lillian and she blinked as if waking from sleep.

What? Lillian
gave herself a shake.