Sorceress Rising (A Gargoyle and Sorceress Tale Book 2) (21 page)

The second
collar remained on the ground, untouched.

She ran her
fingers over the unmistakable shape of the collar around her own throat. This was
wrong. She knew it was, and yet what choice did she have?

If Tethys
remained in control of Gregory, it would only be a matter of time before
Lillian became a slave as well; and were that to happen, there would be no one
left to save the millions of innocent humans from the siren’s vengeance.

She took up the
other collar. It was heavy and still her hands shook uncontrollably. With
agonizing slowness, she inched the collar closer to Gregory. He merely watched
her in silence.

He trusted her,
she realized in a moment of absolute self-loathing.

No matter how
many ways she tried to justify it, she’d still be betraying Gregory by
enslaving him, and it didn’t matter if the collar was a better choice than the
siren, Lillian still couldn’t bring herself to collar Gregory.

“I can’t,” she
said as sobs choked her.

“Yes, you can.
For me,” Gregory said, almost pleading.

“No,” she
repeated, her voice growing stronger. “I won’t. I will not make you my slave.”

With a desperate
decision, she attempted to whip the offensive magical device as far from her as
she could, but Gregory caught her wrist, preventing her. As she watched
helpless to stop him, he gently pried the collar from her clutched fingers. He
turned it over in his hands, and she felt him call magic as he studied it with
a sense more acute than sight. He sniffed it, huffing softly to himself as he
continued his study. Then as she watched frozen in horror and denial, he placed
it around his own neck.

Golden light,
bright enough to force her to blink and shield her eyes, twisted among the
jewels imbedded in the collar. Her own grew warm around her neck in answer to
the magic triggered in his. The heat intensified, warming the metal and her
skin. She reached up, intent on prying loose the one around Gregory’s neck, but
two powerful hands locked around her wrists, preventing her.

Magic boiled up
from deep within his spirit, she felt it wash over her body. Then with a snap,
it severed the ties that had bound Gregory to the siren. Waves of magic
continued to roll out across the meadow, making the grasses sway violently.

She was still
gasping in shock at the force of the magic swirling through her when Gregory
shifted enough to free himself from his loincloth and then tore hers away as
well.

“Yours,” he
rumbled, “I am yours now and forever.”

Oh dear, no.
“We’re forbidden!”

“My beloved,” he
said. With those words he pressed between her thighs, jerked forward and slid
home in one thrust. He tossed his head back and groaned, his wings jerking open
and flapping once, twice, and then a third time before folding down around them
both. Magic continued to flare wildly for a moment, rippling over them both and
then the light vanished, taking the weight of the collars with it.

Lillian gasped
and jerked at the first flush of pain at Gregory’s sudden invasion, but within
moments, her traitorous body was adapting, welcoming him home. He bowed his
head down to bury his muzzle in her hair as he continued to move against her
with his powerful strokes. Soon, he drove any thoughts of the collars and what
they’d done out of her mind.

He gentled after
a few strokes, murmuring words of love to her in an unending stream, sometimes
aloud and other times only in her mind. It was so clear, just there for her to
see, that no matter how forbidden it was, he needed her, needed this moment
more than the next breath.

Belatedly,
Lillian wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She told him of her love with
everything that she was. “My heart, I’m here. Take what you need. I offer it
freely, and I promise we will get through the coming days together.” Shifting
slightly, she wrapped her legs around his hips, crossing her ankles under his
tail for better leverage.

Her actions
drove him right to the edge and on over.

“Lillian,” he
roared and arched his back. After a few short, urgent strokes a great spasm
shook his wings as his entire body quaked with his release. He slumped against
her, and just panted while he tried to catch his breath.

Gradually the
waves of magic emanating from Gregory’s body grew smaller and smaller until the
power was a shimmering, knee high mist swirling around the meadow grasses.

Exhaustion stole
over her body and she allowed her head to slump back onto the ground, but she
continued to gently stroke his back and wings in a soothing manner. Her eyelids
drooped. Even though she hadn’t found her own release, her body felt heavy and
sated, rather like she had shared Gregory’s and now she was drifting at the
edge of sleep.

She may have
indeed slept then, for when her senses sharpened once more, everything came
rushing back in horrible detail. In contrast, Gregory was still a warm, heavy
weight draped across her body, his wings cocooning them from the chill of night
and his scent soothing to her.

But they’d just
done the one thing that they weren’t supposed to.

The Big Rule.

Shattered to
little tiny bits.

It was all her
fault. She should never have let the collars within a thousand kilometers of
him. No matter that she’d thought her parents were acting in good faith or that
Gregory had looked them over, it was she who had accepted the gift and
presented it to her poor beloved.

She’d gambled
and lost.

Her mistake was
still there, glowing ever so slightly in the moonlight. This mistake didn’t
look like it could be easily fixed. Encircling his neck, where the collar had
been but a short time before, was a gold tattoo-like brand. It twisted in
elegant whorls all the way around his throat. When she ran a finger over it,
the skin felt slightly raised, but otherwise unharmed. She fingered her neck
and felt the same raised pattern circling it. With a heavy heart, she turned
her gaze back to Gregory.

As if the focus
of her thoughts caught his attention, he stirred from his lethargy.

“Lillian?” he
asked and cracked an eye open, his voice sounding a touch confused and groggy
with sleep. He didn’t bother to lift his head from her shoulder. “Where am I? I
feel strange.”

“Rest my love,
all is well and we are safe for the time being.” Though that was probably a
lie, she thought as she looked at what the collar had wrought.

He huffed out a
contented snort and slumped farther to the side. Enough that only a little push
was required to get him to roll off her and onto his side. She disentangled
their limbs and slowly sat up, taking a quick inventory as she did.

She ached in a
few interesting places, and that wasn’t really a surprise. However, the faint
streaks of blood on her thighs made her glad Gregory wasn’t awake to see. He
never handled the sight of her blood very well, and somehow, she was certain he
would blame himself for every little drop.

He would never
forgive himself for this, she knew. She worried this event might actually kill
a small part of him. He held duty and loyalty in such reverence, she knew he’d
see what happened as a personal failure on his part. Then an even more
troubling thought surfaced. Would he believe he’d just raped his Sorceress?

She replayed
what had happened in her mind. Was it rape? Gregory might think so. She knew
him well enough to know that he’d blame himself for centuries. This night would
certainly haunt her for many nights to come, but did she see it as rape?
Perhaps, but not as herself as the sole victim. Gregory was compromised by the
siren’s enchantment through no fault of his own, and if she’d just allowed him
to take her back to the siren, none of this would have happened. She’d known
the stakes and the risks if things went badly. Oh, and they had. But she might
still be able to avert complete disaster if she acted quickly.

“Gregory,” she
called gently. His one ear swung around to listen, but he didn’t open his eyes
or otherwise move. She touched the tattoo encircling her own throat and loathed
herself. It was quickly becoming a familiar feeling. “It is important that when
you wake you don’t remember anything that happened here in this meadow with any
clarity, nor will you remember that we became mates.”

Gregory made a
worried little growl at her demands. Lillian was quick to stroke his mane to
sooth him.

“It won’t change
the fact that I am your mate, and I love you more than life, but this is to
protect you, to keep you strong so that you may better protect me in turn. I
need you strong and undivided in your convictions. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he
breathed out on a sigh and drifted into what appeared to be a deep, restful
sleep.

She and Gregory
had promised to tell each other everything, to abstain from telling lies. Would
omissions count as lies?

Yes. But just
this once more she would omit something. Oh, he might figure it out. His
heightened senses might scent the truth or he might read the emotions on her
face, but in the end the risk justified the means. They both needed Gregory
strong and his faith intact if they hoped to defeat the Lady of Battles in the
coming months.

She rested a
hand on her bare stomach. And if something more became of this than another one
of her mistakes, well, she’d just deal with the consequences.

Surely she
wouldn’t conceive just from this one time? The odds were against it. The only
thing that kept complete and total panic at bay was that presently she wasn’t
the Sorceress. Her hamadryad tree had that honor. She was merely Lillian, not
an Avatar capable of birthing a monster with god-like powers. And besides, in
the past Gregory had broken his celibacy on a few rare occasions to beget a
child on another. He’d even said that she’d done the same thing at least once.

And those times
had never brought down the wrath of the Divine Ones. Surely this time would be
no different if the worst did happen?

Lillian shook
herself out of her reverie. What was she doing? There was probably almost no
chance of her getting pregnant. She had greater concerns to deal with at the
moment. Like what to do about the collar tattoos, Tethys, her parents, and the
Riven. Oh and there was the small problem about what to do with the naked
gargoyle asleep next to her.

Somehow she had
to keep him from finding out the extent of her mistake.

Well, to start,
she’d just have to hide the evidence. She’d already done what she could to keep
him from remembering. Though she didn’t know if that would be enough. Gregory
was good at ferreting out the truth. And there was no hiding the collars.

Then again, he
might be so angry over the collars, that he’d completely overlook the foggy,
dream-like events that led up to the collaring, and never think to find out
what other events might have occurred afterward.

But he certainly
wouldn’t mistake it for a dream if she didn’t get them cleaned up and the
evidence washed away quickly. She untied her scarf-like top and dropped it next
to her discarded loincloth. A glance at Gregory showed him still sleeping. She
didn’t dare go far, or as past situations had shown, he would wake if she
strayed too far from his side.

Lifting her
muzzle into the air, she scented the surrounding meadow, this time looking for
a water source. The only water within the needed radius was a small, brackish
little pool, home to a few bog plants and an assortment of amphibians. The
boggy smell was enough to make her eyes water, and when she stalked through the
muddy edges into deeper water, the muck proved to be worse than the water
alone.

She splashed
herself with liberal amounts of the pond water. To call it a bath would be a
gross injustice as she came out far dirtier than she went in. However, the pond
water, and the mud now sticking to her lower extremities, certainly performed
the function she wished.

It was doubtful
that she’d be able to smell anything other than the little pond for days, no
matter how many times she showered. Jaws gaping, she breathed through her mouth
in a desperate effort to defuse the retched stench, only to snap her jaws back
together after the first breath. She could smell it and taste it combining on
the back of her tongue in a glorious combination that might just fell her
enemies.

She gave herself
a shake, sending drops of water and pond muck flying, and then walked back to
Gregory and her discarded clothing. She donned her beaded loincloth; one of the
right-side sashes was now shorter than the other, but she rigged it so it would
hold together. Then she tackled the scarf-like top, which hooked on one of her
horns. Flicking her mane out of the way, she settled it behind her head and
twisted the fabric around front to crisscross it over her breasts and then back
around to tie under the base of her wings.

It wasn’t until
she had her own tail, with a matching set of wings and horns, that Lillian had
truly come to understand Gregory’s hardy dislike of clothing.

That done, she
couldn’t ignore it any more. “Oh gods, that smell.” She almost felt sorry for
what she was going to do next. With a delicate shudder, she returned to the
pond’s edge and scooped up generous handfuls of the muck, then returned to
where Gregory still rested. After another half-hearted apology, she proceeded
to smear his lower extremities with the mud in such a way it would look like
he’d chased her through a bog.