Stone Solitude (10 page)

Everything slowed to a halt, his body, his heartbeat, and he stared at her, his face once more in the shadows of his hood. He remained silent as he just stood there, waiting for her to speak but she didn’t know what to say. With a forced smile and tears filling her eyes, she murmured, “You’re quite hideous, aren’t you?”

The silence was deafening and time stretched out into infinity before his chest heaved and a rusty laugh rumbled past his lips. The next thing she knew, her cheek was pressed against his chest as he wrapped her in his arms and pulled her against his hard body. “You never do or say what I expect.”

Her heart was racing as she tried to jump start her brain but the image of Roman filled her head. It had been such a shock to her system, she was certain it was going to take a few days to recover her wits completely. It was going to take just as long to come to terms with his… uniqueness. There were creatures that were so ugly they were almost cute; unfortunately, Roman was not amongst them. For one thing, he was too masculine to ever be something so paltry as ‘cute.’ For another, he really was hideous looking.

But, god, it felt good being in his arms, pressed against his warm, stone chest and as long as she didn’t see his face she could almost pretend everything was the same. Almost hesitantly, she slid her arms around his waist and returned his impromptu hug, closing her eyes as the scent of him filled her head and started erasing her doubts. Slowly, she slid her right hand up his spine until she felt the place where his wing met his body. She wanted to see them but after the shock of seeing his face, perhaps it was better to wait a while longer. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t touch them.

The wing beneath her palm was smooth and warm as she swept her hand along the curved edge. It trembled beneath her touch and she wondered how sensitive his wings were compared to the rest of his body. Were they as deliciously responsive as his erection had been? The wing expanded past her reach, and she couldn’t feel the bottom of it, unless she wanted to squat down and press her face into his groin.

It bothered her how much the idea appealed to her.

Ignoring her instinct to fall to her knees, to maybe nuzzle his cock, she reversed the direction she was stroking and moved upwards over the skin that spanned the wing’s spines. It wasn’t rubbery like bat wings but hard like stone, like the rest of his hard body. Softly, determined not to think about his face, she asked, “Can you fly?”

She felt his smile as he murmured, “Yes.”

“How?” The question was out of her mouth before she could stop it but she didn’t see how such a thing was possible. His wings were made out of granite or marble so how could he possibly be able to fly?

“Do you want to see?” he asked in a low, sexy grumble so at odds with his face.

His face….

His
eyes
.

Her heart just about leapt out of her chest in delayed terror. Prying her arms away from his hard body, she took a step backwards, out of his hold. Forcing her lips upwards into some semblance of a smile, she shook her head, “I’m pretty comfortable on the ground but thank you for asking.”

“So polite,” he murmured, reaching out and brushing his finger along her jaw. Without meaning to, she flinched and she sensed his hurt a moment before he stiffened and dropped his hand. Acting as if she hadn’t just flinched from his touch, he asked in an almost normal voice, “Are you afraid of flying in general or afraid of flying with me?”

A nervous laugh slipped out as she ran her hand through her hair, over the front of her t-shirt before clutching her bag in a death grip to hide her nerves. “Um, a little bit of both?” Helplessly, she looked at him, wishing she could see his face, grateful that she couldn’t, and suddenly everything hit her all at once. At a loss, she swallowed thickly and said, “You’re made of rock, Roman. I don’t see how you can possibly fly. I have to go.”

“Daisy.” Her name came out as a husky growl, reminding her once again that he was her mate and he was a beast. He didn’t stop her as she turned around and fled, returning to her car rather than her dorm room. As her blood rushed through her veins, making her flushed and light headed, she opened the car door and threw her bag into the backseat before sliding behind the wheel. She had to take a moment to let the shaking in her hands subside enough to start the car and then she took another moment to determine whether or not she was in any shape to drive.

She wanted to scream and she wasn’t even sure why. Yes, Roman had a scary face but he was a good man, a lonely man. He had nothing and she kept pushing and pushing until he gave her everything and she had freaked out. Pushing the scream down, she lifted her head and looked at the place where they had been standing only to find that he was no longer there and in that moment she was disgusted with herself.

Pushing the car into gear, she drove home with extra caution, knowing her mind wasn’t in the right place to be operating any kind of vehicle. What if she had pushed him away for good? How would she know one way or the other since she didn’t have the first idea where he lived? Once the shock wore off, she was certain she’d want to see him again but how was she going to find him? If her wolf cooperated she could use the bitch to track him down.

That was probably not the way to convince her wolf to bond with her. Besides, who’s to say her wolf wanted a gargoyle for a mate? She doubted Roman could even become a wolf since he was stone and teeth, neither human nor wolf, could bite into stone. Even if she could bite him she had no idea what wolf venom would do to a gargoyle, if he would even survive without the massive doses of antibiotics that helped her mom and both of her uncles make the transition. Would antibiotics even work on a gargoyle?

Of course, it hardly mattered because her wolf was latent and might never bond, no matter if she smelled her mom’s pregnancy before they told her. That could have been a fluke or maybe her wolf was just taunting her with what she would never have, that connection with her family as a wolf. She had moved into the dorms because she couldn’t shift and that fact had been driven home when her twelve-year-old sister shifted on her birthday and everyone celebrated. All Daisy could do was smile and tell Roxie how proud she was for her, which she was. But then a few days later, Roxie and her wolf bonded fully and Daisy was left reeling with the fact that she might never shift.

Her sister was twelve years old and already bonded with her wolf.

Dashing a tear from her eye, Daisy let out a humorless laugh, lamenting over her pathetic-ness. She had the mating instinct of a wolf but the awkwardness of finding herself mated to a gargoyle.

After tossing and turning for most of the night, Daisy didn’t realize she had finally fallen asleep until she was startled awake by someone shaking her shoulders. With a gasp, almost expecting Roman to be there staring at her with his vacant eyes, she pried her eyes open. She released the breath she had been holding when it was just her mom sitting on the edge of the bed, smoothing her hair. Wiping the sleep from her gritty eyes, Daisy rasped, “Mom? What are you doing in here?”

“You were whimpering in your sleep, sweetie,” her mom murmured, still stroking her hair as she used to do when Daisy was a child. Her eyes were full of love and concern when she asked, “What were you dreaming about?”

Images filled her head, from her dream, from reality, and shame colored her face. Looking away, not able to meet her mom’s eyes, she painfully admitted, “About my gargoyle. I saw his face, momma.”

Bending her head, Lexi gave Daisy a soft kiss on the forehead. “Was it truly so awful?”

Squeezing her eyes shut, breathing in her mom’s familiar scent, Daisy admitted in a small voice, “Yes. But I was even worse. I ran, momma. It was too much and I ran.”

“Sweetie,” her mom murmured just as the light flicked on and both Daisy and Lexi raised their hands to shelter their eyes from the blinding glare. Even without being able to see, Daisy knew that it was Dominic.

“What’s wrong?” he asked in a sleep-rough voice, making Daisy smile in spite of her misery. It was obvious he was still half asleep but he had dragged himself out of bed anyway. That was their bond, the bond of twins. Scrubbing his hands over his whiskered face, he murmured, “Daisy?”

“It’s nothing Dominic,” she managed but he ignored her words. He also ignored their mom as he crossed the room and pulled Daisy from her rumpled bed. “Dominic!”

“We’re going for a run,” he growled, pulling her behind him, unconcerned that she was only wearing a t-shirt. Of course it didn’t matter to him because he was going to strip down to his skin to shift. But it was night and it was cold and Daisy was going to freeze.

“Mom!” she cried out with a laugh, knowing her mother was watching with a smile on her face and love in her eyes. “Save me from your demon child!”

“I think I’ll wake the others and we can all run,” her mom said instead, the traitor. Standing, she tightened the belt around her still trim waist and smiled at her oldest children with genuine affection, “I’m sure your dad wouldn’t mind a little pre-dawn romp through the woods.”

“Please tell me that romp isn’t code word for sex,” Dominic growled, dragging Daisy along the hallway towards the stairs, pounding on the doors of their siblings along the way. From behind, Daisy heard the doors opening and her sisters and brothers grumbling. Despite the complaints, all of them followed, the excitement of a run too much to pass up. Even the little ones who hadn’t yet reached puberty were waking up. Her dad appeared and scooped up the littlest, three-year-old Lila, and crooned to the little moppet as she fell back asleep with her thumb in her mouth.

This was why she loved her family; they were insane and wonderful. Amazingly, Dominic’s plan was working: Daisy wasn’t dwelling on Roman or how she had betrayed him at his most vulnerable. Maybe she could ask Dominic to track him down for her… only she didn’t have anything of his for Dominic to scent.

As they spilled out onto the lawns, the older Tremain children stripped off their nightclothes and shifted immediately, including Dominic. The younger kids went chasing after the wolves, leaving Daisy standing in her t-shirt with her parents and Lila. Her dad’s free hand was at the small of her mom’s back and he was looking at Lexi as if the sun rose and fell at her whim and he would do anything to ensure the sun never disappeared. Carefully, Daisy extracted Lila from his arms and whispered, “I’ve got her. Why don’t the two of you go run.”

With a brief smile of appreciation, her parents stripped down and shifted, too, her dad a beautiful black wolf and her mom a gorgeous, petite brown wolf. The black wolf nipped at the brown wolf and Daisy knew they wouldn’t be joining the others for a while.

With a smile, Daisy sat on one of the chaise lounges, pulling her legs up onto the lounger as she settled Lila more comfortably on her lap. As well-intentioned as her brother was, he enjoyed running as a wolf too much to fret over Daisy, which she was okay with; it was the way it ought to be. But watching her family running made the ache of not being able to shift pulse in her chest. Pressing a kiss against Lila’s sweet smelling curls, she ignored the familiar pain and settled back to watch the kids and wolves playing.

Maybe she should have just gone to her dorm room after running away from Roman but then again she hadn’t been thinking at all. In the end, she had been unbearably cruel to him and she didn’t know how he was ever going to be able to forgive her, if she ever saw him again.

No, she knew she’d see him again. After all, he was her mate and she was almost certain she’d grow used to his face if she had the chance to see it every day. God, she wanted that chance because beneath that hideous exterior was a beautiful, beautiful man and she had been drawn to him from the very beginning. With him, she didn’t feel so out of place, the lone latent wolf in the entire pack, a Siren who wasn’t allowed to sing.

Maybe he wouldn’t mind if she sang to him. Maybe that could be her apology when she found him again. She’d sing to make him take off his hood so she could prove to him that she wasn’t really that stupid, shallow girl who had run away from him, that she loved him just as he was. She’d find him, damn it. If necessary, she’d take Dominic and explore all of the abandoned buildings in the city. Of course, she knew that there were a lot of possibilities and taking on such an endeavor carried its own risks, even if she dragged Dominic with her. Maybe she could talk some of her cousins into helping out as well without giving away too many of Roman’s secrets.

Now that she had a plan, she didn’t feel so wretched.

This was Roman’s least favorite part of his life, when the last moments of night were slipping away and the dawn was just about on him. He could feel the life draining from his body as he returned to his statue form, a gargoyle with the face most closely resembling a wolf. It was almost amusing that Daisy was a wolf who couldn’t shift and he was a wolf who wasn’t living, at least not until the curse was broken. But thoughts of Daisy filled him with anguish and rage as he kept picturing her face as she fled. It was a painful reminder that he wasn’t destined to find love or happiness until he broke this fucking curse. And he wasn’t going to break the curse until he found love.

“Do you wish for me to keep an eye on your pet?” Xerec asked softly from the foot of the bed, aware of Roman’s foul mood.

Nodding his head, feeling his flesh hardening, Roman grunted, “Always.”

“I was just checking.”

“Yeah,” Roman muttered. “I need a few days to… recover. Just… tell me if she meets anyone new.”

“Like a guy.”

At his grim nod, Roman finished, “Just don’t tell me anything else.”

“Perhaps you should have kept your hood on,” Xerec offered oh-so-helpfully. Roman just glared as his vision dimmed and the little fucker wisely left the room.

When she had first offered him that sweet smile and said that he was quite hideous, hope had flooded his gut, more fool him. The joy he had felt was overwhelming and he had taken her into his arms, vowing to give up his plans of vengeance. As long as he had Daisy, he didn’t need anyone else, including his brothers. But just as he was thanking the fates for giving him his beautiful Daisy, she had retreated and he knew it was because of his gruesome face. Oh, they may have been talking about flying but he knew the truth, he had seen it in those silver eyes of hers.

As the sun rose, he was once again frozen in stone, alone with his memories as the world spun around him. For two millennia, he had existed in this almost dream-like state, aware of the changing world and yet unable to interact with it. In his dreams were the images of
her
, the bitch who did this to him. Through all of his years imprisoned in stone he had been aware of her, horrifically aware of every one of her triumphs. With every piece of Osiris that she found, he fell deeper into despair for once she found the last piece he would cease to exist altogether, even in the hellish existence of a stone statue.

Hundreds of years after he was cursed, he had been moved and left to languish away in a moldering, old castle in the middle of Europe somewhere. But then, in the 1800’s an eccentric American decided to have the place transported to the New World brick by brick, including all of the trinkets and treasures that had been inside. And then he got to languish away in the moldering, old castle in the middle of America until Daisy came along and touched him when she was ten. 

He had learned numerous languages through the centuries though they had proven more difficult to speak than he would have thought. Even though he had spent hundreds of years hearing it spoken around him, it had taken him nearly a year to learn to speak in English properly. The way the words rolled off his tongue was utterly alien and he had had no one to practice upon, not until Xerec. And now his own language was as dead to him as it was to the rest of the world.

When the little girl had touched him, she had brought him back to life but everything had changed and it had been difficult to adapt. Daisy had treated him as a person and not a monster and he had been beginning to doubt his plan.

The guilt that was nibbling at him disappeared the moment Daisy had looked at him with horror in her eyes. He’d give her a few days and then he would renew his efforts to seduce her, only he would be sure to keep his face hidden. Once her virgin’s blood had been spilled and he was returned to his original form, he’d take Daisy to the goddess and present his trade. The bitch would enjoy Daisy’s sweetness, hopefully enough to return him to his family.

It no longer mattered to him what happened to Daisy. The silly little girl could be torn to pieces by a flock of vultures and he wouldn’t bat an eye. She could be ravaged by the god Anubis and he wouldn’t shed a tear. He would be free, he’d have his brothers, and he’d have a million women to choose from for bed sport.

She held his gaze as she hovered over his large, gargoyle body. Her legs were straddling his hard thighs and her pussy was hovering just over his hard cock. In another moment or two, the sun would go down and she would impale herself on him and the spell would begin. In a month, she would accept the gift and become a gargoyle.

“No, my dear,” she purred as the sun disappeared and she slid onto his cock. Swiping the golden hair from his face, she smiled down at him with those lush lips of hers, those black eyes. “I’ll never be a gargoyle.”

He stared up at her in confusion because she had said he was hers and yet she didn’t want to be a gargoyle?

“I am a goddess,” she said in her husky voice, the sound twisting up his insides in pleasure. Drawing her finger along his jaw, she smiled down at him, “You’re so young and beautiful and I have waited an eternity for you. It is almost a pity that we will only fuck this one time.”

Her voice was so seductive, he almost missed her words. As soon as they sunk in, he panicked, grabbing her hips and trying to push her off his body but she was so much stronger than him. A force of nature unto herself.

A goddess.

“I want my lover back,” she continued, the slow undulation of her hips making her breasts sway and torturing him in the best way possible. “If that means I have to go to the ends of the earth to find the rest of him, I will. And you will bide your time until I return, until I have use of you once more.” There was more but it was starting to get a little fuzzy, until she started chanting and drew a dagger from out of thin air. Her words once again became clear as she droned, “Blood blinds them, makes them forget. Blood remains hidden in time and in spirit. You are mine and mine alone, forgotten, forsaken, turned to stone. Until the world ends and begins again, until you no longer exist.”