The Wondrous and the Wicked (25 page)

“I’ll have to search for things to burn,” he said as he straightened his legs and came toward the sofa. He stopped in front of her. The firelight revealed furrowed brows and an expression of concern.

“Get up,” he said. Ingrid shot to her feet, panicking for a moment that they weren’t alone. That they would have to start running again. But Luc only grabbed the arm of the sofa and dragged it closer to the fireplace.

“There. You’ll be warmer.”

She ignored the sofa and buried herself in his arms instead. He held her, his breath fanning out over her scalp as he let out a long sigh.

“What if you need to return to your territory?” she asked. If a human sought shelter from this madness at gargoyle common grounds, Luc would have to go.

“People won’t hide away in a drafty, run-down building,” he answered. “They’ll want shuttered, intact windows and doors that lock.”

It made sense, and she supposed it was at least one blessing. Still, if he had to leave, then he had to leave. There wasn’t anything either of them could do to stop the force of an angel’s order. Ingrid pulled back at the thought.

“Irindi,” she said. Luc peered down at her.

“What about her?”

“We need help.” She slid from his hold as an idea took her. “We need help stopping Axia, and Axia is part angel. What if Irindi and the other angels could stop her again? Banish her, like they did the first time?”

Luc didn’t react. He stayed still as a statue. Contemplating the merits of her idea, she hoped.

“Irindi and the other angels of the Order don’t concern themselves with human problems,” he finally said.

“But this isn’t just a human problem! It involves one of their own.”

Luc turned toward the growing fire.

“I’ve never summoned her,” he said into the flames. The light played off his bright eyes, turning them into glittering gems.

He would try. Ingrid didn’t need to ask him to do so, and he didn’t need to say that he would. He drew her back to his chest, tucking the crown of her head under his chin. The fire was already warming her legs, and she’d stopped shivering.

“I know it was difficult,” he whispered. “Leaving Grayson back there. And the Seer.”

He said the last bit quickly, spitting out the word as he might a chunk of gristle.

“He loves you,” Luc added, even more quickly.

Vander, he meant, not her brother. Ingrid raised her eyes, though she couldn’t see Luc’s expression from where she was, underneath his jaw.

“I think you love him, too,” he went on.

She gathered her breath. He didn’t say it angrily or pose it as a question. He’d simply stated it.

“You could have a life with him, Ingrid. A real life, and I think you want the things he could give you. Things like a family.”

A family? She already had one, and she wasn’t ready for anything more than that, not yet. She wasn’t even eighteen. Luc was older. Much, much older. He’d had plenty of time to consider all the things he wasn’t capable of having.

Silence yawned before them. She knew he wanted some sort of reaction. He would know a lie if she attempted one, and she would only end up disappointing him with anything less than the truth.

“I do love Vander,” she whispered into Luc’s shoulder. She felt his intake of air, the way it inflated and hardened his chest. She forced her way out of his hold so she could look up at him.

“But what I feel for you burns brighter. I may eventually want things you can’t give me,” she continued. “And I know I’ll grow old and you might stop loving me—”

He shook his head and growled, “No. This is not about how you look, Ingrid.”

“But right now,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Right now I choose
you.
I give myself to you.”

She didn’t have a moment to take a breath before his lips had crushed against hers. He wound his arms around her waist and sealed her body flush against his. She felt him everywhere, their bodies joined from ankles to lips, all soft curves and hard muscle. He formed himself around her, reaching in to take what he could before he inevitably had to stop. Before he transformed into something Ingrid couldn’t kiss. Couldn’t touch, not the way her hands were touching him now, gliding up the soft skin of his neck and into his hair.

Luc peeled her hands from where they were, lost in his short curls, and with a long, husky groan, moved her quickly, though
gently, away from him. He held her at arm’s length before letting go of her hands completely, then stepped from the fireplace and turned his back on her.

Ingrid stayed quiet, her pulse loud, her lips throbbing. She knew what was happening to his body, and she slid farther back to give him more room. The bunching and heaving of muscles underneath the borrowed dove-gray linen shirt was more than a trick of the firelight, as were the broadening of his shoulders and the shortening of his hair as it started to pull back into his scalp.

But in the next moment, it all stopped. Luc stood still for another minute before he faced her again, looking faintly uncomfortable.

“Is that all?” she asked, amazed. He had stopped the shift. He’d actually fought it off.

He cleared his throat, his eyes only flashing to hers for a split second. “That was my fault. I lost control. Next time, if we go slowly … I might be able to last longer.”

Ingrid flushed and found it difficult to breathe.

Luc backed out of the room, saying he was going to search for more firewood. He closed the door behind him and Ingrid sank down onto the shabby sofa. She could still feel his hands on her skin, his lips against hers.
Next time.

In this small sitting room, closed behind heavy, light-blocking drapes, with only an old sofa and a few other pieces of unloved furniture left behind by Marco’s former human charges, it was easy to believe that she and Luc were safe. It wouldn’t last. Ingrid wasn’t a fool. She knew that the fire would go out and the sun would rise and that at any moment, the demons could come crashing through the windows. She would take this reprieve from reality, however, and happily. A part of her knew she would not be offered another one.

T
he fire had grown cold again. Luc had torn apart a Biedermeier desk and chair, a wooden table from the kitchen, the frames of a few portraits left hanging in the dining room, and stacks of slatted crates hauled up from the cellar, and yet the fire continued to crumble. Ingrid was freezing. It had been over a day since they’d arrived at Marco’s old territory, and this was their second night in the sitting room, the sofa pulled as close to the weak flames as was safe.

Luc reclined lengthwise on the sofa, one leg on the floor, the other propped against the cushioned backrest. Ingrid lay half on top of him, half beside him, sleeping fitfully. He stroked her hair, hanging loose and gorgeous down her back.

Though Luc had left earlier to find something for Ingrid to eat and to discover the state of things outside, he’d wound up returning within minutes. The demons hadn’t left. They were still stinking up the streets, and to Luc’s unease, corvites were
everywhere. They lined the roofs of buildings, sat atop lampposts, curbs, benches, and balcony railings. They perched on the sinewy bones of ravaged horses and dogs and, Luc had noted with a roll of his stomach, even a human carcass splayed out in the street.

They watched. Corvites were annoying that way. Luc had waited until he was sure no corvite was paying him any attention before slipping back to the town home. The other unsettling thing was that he hadn’t heard or felt the presence of another gargoyle in more than twenty-four hours. Not knowing what was happening out there made him tense.

Not that time alone with Ingrid was something to wish away. She’d chosen him. Given herself to him, and even though he couldn’t claim her in the human way, she was still his. Passing the day and night in the quiet town home was giving him a taste of his fantasy, sweet as meringue and just as easily dissolved.

Luc hadn’t been successful summoning Irindi earlier that morning. Never in the last three centuries had he called the angel to him—her presence was not something a gargoyle would actually request. He’d gone to the kitchen, out of Ingrid’s view and earshot, and whispered Irindi’s name. He’d closed his eyes and asked her to come to him. But the kitchen had remained cold and dark. It hadn’t surprised him—the angels held no love for humans or gargoyles—though he did regret having to tell Ingrid it hadn’t worked. He’d said he’d try again, but the pull of her corn-silk brows told him she’d already given up hope.

Ingrid’s arm, tucked against Luc’s ribs, twitched. A small whine preceded a more violent shudder, this one seizing her whole body. Luc shushed her, bringing her higher onto his chest, but she was already awake, gaping at the fireplace and marble mantel with bewilderment.

“It’s just me, Ingrid. You’re with me.”

She blinked up at him, lips parted. “I—I saw flames. I heard
screaming, and Grayson, he was … he was somewhere dark and cold,” she choked out, trying to lift herself up, off Luc. He held her firmly, not wanting her to go anywhere.

“A nightmare,” he said. “That’s all.”

Ingrid allowed him to guide her back to his side. She lifted her hand from his chest and flexed her fingers once, twice.

“Is it back?” he asked.

He didn’t want to leave her here alone, but if he had to fly to rue de Berri for more of Vander’s mersian blood, he’d do it. He’d do whatever was needed to keep Ingrid from falling under Axia’s spell again—if and when another one befell the Dusters.

Ingrid put her hand on Luc’s stomach and fiddled with one of the metal buttons on his shirt. “No. I haven’t felt a single spark since we left Hôtel Bastian.”

Her chin rubbed into his pectoral muscle as she looked up at him. “Luc, we can’t stay here much longer. My mother must be mad with worry, and Marco—”

“He knows where you are, and he’s being smart to stay away. Those corvites are Axia’s eyes, and I get the feeling she wants to know where to find you.”

“I’m just another Duster now.”

Though he disagreed, Luc didn’t argue. “Your mother is safe with Marco.”

“Still, we can’t stay here forever,” she said as her fingers accidentally popped open the button she’d been playing with. She apologized bashfully and started to button it again. Luc stilled her hand.

“I wish we could,” he heard himself saying.

After a moment’s hesitation, Ingrid slipped her fingers through the gap of his shirt. Her cool touch met his hot skin. His abdominal muscles hardened in reaction.

“Wishes aren’t practical,” she replied.

He smiled. “Says the voice of reason.”

The base of Luc’s skull throbbed to life, pulsing out the signal
of another gargoyle’s presence. He tightened his grip on Ingrid’s wrist and sat up.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Gargoyle.”

She craned her neck to see into the dark corner of the room. The door was shut, insulating them from the rest of the cold house.

“Marco?” she guessed.

“Possibly.” Luc stood and tucked the tails of his shirt into his trouser waist. “Just in case it isn’t, stay here. And stay quiet.”

Luc left the weak firelight and let his night vision take over. The hallway and stairwell were bright shades of gray and white as he walked toward the kitchen, his whole body on alert. He was certain the intruding gargoyle would be in there, and it was. Only it wasn’t Marco.

“Gaston,” Luc said, as he entered the kitchen and saw the familiar grayed features of Constantine’s valet. Night vision didn’t allow much detail, but Gaston’s receding hairline and wiry build were unmistakable.

“We’ve been looking for you,” Gaston said. Luc heard the frustration in his voice and swallowed a pang of guilt.

“I haven’t wanted to be found.”

Gaston paid Luc’s reply no regard. “It’s Vincent. Something has to be done about him.”

“I agree.” Luc glanced around the kitchen impatiently. The cupboard doors. He could use them as firewood.

“During yesterday’s disorder he and his supporters killed a dozen Dusters, perhaps more.”

That didn’t sound anything out of the ordinary. It was Vincent, after all, and he abhorred the Dusters.

“They’ve flown by day,” Gaston continued. “Coalescing within sight of humans, causing the Dispossessed to appear as nothing more than another kind of demon that the humans now desire to kill.”

Luc had done the same during the attacks, though he hadn’t acted as Vincent and his Chimeras seemed to have done.

He approached one of the tall cupboards and, with a fast jerk, ripped the wooden door from its hinges.

“You believe it’s time to stop him,” Luc said, reaching for another cupboard door.

“It’s time for you to stop him,” Gaston corrected him. “I’ve spent the last day bringing together the Wolves, Dogs, and Snakes, and we’re ready. We can strike en masse and end this.”

Luc wrenched down the second cupboard door and set it on top of the other. “You’re the leader here, Gaston, not me.”

What Luc wanted was to go back upstairs and throw the cupboard doors on the fire so Ingrid could stay warm. So her fingers wouldn’t be so cold.

“They want you, Luc,” Gaston said. “They want you
because
of the reasons you don’t want the role of elder.”

Luc turned from the next tall cupboard and looked at Gaston. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Despite his next blasphemous words, Gaston’s expression stayed just as wooden as it always was. “You want to be human. Believe it or not, many of us do. You’re the only one who’s been brave enough to show it openly, and to do so without shame or fear. You’ve brought about a change, Luc. And to everyone’s wonder—my wonder, even—it’s a change we’re ready for.”

Luc forgot the cabinets. He forgot the cold and his swirling night vision. “That’s impossible.”

“Lennier changed our world hundreds of years ago, but he never let go of the old ways and the old rules. The next elder has every right to change what he sees fit. Vincent would take us in one direction, and you in another. Claim the role of elder and no one will question you. We’ll gladly follow.”

Luc felt as though he’d been backed up to the edge of a cliff and, with one touch, sent over. What Gaston was saying—if it was true, if it was how the Wolves and Dogs and Snakes he’d
banded with really felt—could alter the Dispossessed entirely. The line between feeling human and being a gargoyle was thin, and difficult to tread. However, if Gaston could be trusted—and yes, Luc did trust him—there were many Dispossessed willing to follow Luc along that thin line.